Top US Defence Official Dismisses 'Middle Powers' Alliance Australia Is Courting

By Caleb Reed · 2026-07-16

What Colby said and where

Elbridge Colby, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, posted a pointed thread on X on 14 July 2026 that left little room for diplomatic ambiguity. "There is a great deal of hubbub about a collective 'middle powers' strategy these days," Colby wrote. "At DoD, we are not concerned that this is a serious possibility. Rather, we are more concerned that a few allies and partners will think it is and waste valuable time, money, and political capital on a distraction."^[1]

Colby went further on the intellectual underpinning of such a bloc. "From our point of view, a collective middle powers strategy is based on a faulty understanding of international relations," he said. "We are flexible realists. So, we view the international scene through the prism of interest, geography, economics, military power, etc. 'Middle powers' don't have a coherent basis for alignment."^[1]

The thread was brief, direct and unhedged. Coming from the official responsible for overseeing US defence strategy, it amounted to a public veto on a concept that had been gaining traction in capitals from Ottawa to Canberra.

The 2026 National Defense Strategy: homeland first, China second, allies third

The 2026 National Defense Strategy outlines four Lines of Effort: defend the US homeland; deter China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation; increase burden-sharing with allies and partners; and supercharge the US defence industrial base.verifiedVerified Source: media.defense.gov^[2] The ordering is deliberate. Allies rank third.

Concrete homeland priorities include securing America's borders, countering unmanned aerial threats, and actively defending US interests throughout the Western Hemisphere under a modern "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine."^[2] The Indo-Pacific focus is real, but it is framed as deterrence through strength rather than coalition-building for its own sake.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed Colby to develop the strategy in alignment with President Trump's America First agenda, as confirmed in a Pentagon statement in May 2025.^[3] The strategy's architecture reflects that mandate: sovereign capability and bilateral leverage, not multilateral solidarity.

Colby's record on AUKUS and allied scepticism

Colby's dismissal of middle power groupings fits a pattern. At his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on 4 March 2025, Colby gave a characteristically hedged assessment of AUKUS. "AUKUS, in principle, it is a great idea, but I have been very skeptical in practice," Colby told senators. "I remain skeptical, agnostic, as I put it, but more inclined based on new information I have gleaned. It would be crazy to have fewer SSNs Virginia-class in the right place and time."verifiedVerified Source: govinfo.gov^[4]

That testimony flagged a practical concern as much as a strategic one. Virginia-class submarine production has faced persistent industrial constraints, and Colby's caution centred on whether the US could deliver hulls to Australia without degrading its own undersea force posture. His 14 July remarks broaden that individual-programme scepticism into a structural critique of the entire middle-power alignment thesis.

What it means for Australia's AUKUS submarine deal

Colby told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 4 March 2025 that he was "skeptical, agnostic" on AUKUS in practice, while conceding it "would be crazy to have fewer SSNs Virginia-class in the right place and time."verifiedVerified Source: govinfo.gov^[4] That conditional framing, support tied to industrial delivery, has not shifted.

The 14 July thread adds a second layer of pressure. Colby and the Pentagon view middle-power groupings as strategically incoherent, so any Australian diplomatic positioning that leans on a collective middle-power identity risks being read in Washington as precisely the distraction Colby described. Canberra's leverage on AUKUS has always depended on being seen as a serious bilateral partner rather than one node in a diffuse bloc.

Australia's 2025 defence posture has worked to reinforce that bilateral framing, but the middle powers coalition concept has been championed loudly by figures including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and discussed in forums ranging from the Quad to the G20. Each public endorsement of that concept by an Australian voice now carries a Washington read-back risk.

Australia's middle-power diplomacy and where it goes from here

The middle powers alliance concept has attracted genuine momentum among countries seeking strategic autonomy in a period of great-power volatility. Proponents argue such a bloc could balance against instability from both Washington and Beijing. Colby's rebuttal is that the category itself lacks coherence: interest, geography, economics and military power do not align neatly along a "middle power" axis.^[1]

That is a realist argument, not an ideological one, and it is the lens through which the 2026 National Defense Strategy was written. The strategy's burden-sharing line of effort asks allies to invest more in their own defence, but within a framework Washington defines, not through autonomous coalition architecture that sidelines US leadership.^[2]

AUKUS remains the centrepiece of Australian defence investment and the most concrete expression of the US alliance. Colby's scepticism toward the arrangement has not hardened into outright opposition, but his 14 July post signals that Australian diplomatic energy directed toward building middle-power blocs will be viewed from the Pentagon as time and money not spent on the bilateral deliverables he actually cares about.

Caleb Reed

Caleb Reed covers breaking news and sport for Bushletter. Fast and verb-led, he writes with a news-wire cadence and no patience for PR spin.