The Pentagon said Wednesday that Elbridge Colby has been appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development. Colby has been working as a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank focusing on U.S. national security policy.
Colby’s role in the Senior Executive Service will involve advising the deputy undersecretary of defense for strategy, plans, and forces on the development of strategy toward key countries and defense planning scenarios for conflicts worldwide. The position does not require Senate approval.
At CNAS Colby consulted with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Navy, Air Force, Strategic Command, and the State Department on defense, nuclear deterrence, and arms control issues, the Defense Department said in a statement.
Colby also previously served as a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses’ Strategic Initiatives Group; policy adviser to the defense secretary’s representative for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; adviser to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States; and staff member to the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Colby, in a Foreign Policy article published last August, highlighted the value of nuclear weapons for deterrence and argued against U.S. declaration of a no-first-use posture, saying such a pledge “is not the kind of commitment a nation can turn on and off without damage to its credibility and reputation.”
A new international Nuclear Crisis Group was launched on May 5 in Vienna, Austria, with the aim of preventing an escalation of tensions between nuclear weapon states, the Global Zero movement for worldwide nuclear disarmament announced.
The group, which was formed during the first Preparatory Commission to the 2020 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference currently underway, held its first meeting on Saturday. It will serve as a “shadow security council on nuclear flashpoints” by monitoring potential nuclear conflict worldwide and providing governments with de-escalation recommendations, Global Zero said.
These flashpoints include the North Korean nuclear threat, NATO-Russian tensions, the India-Pakistan conflict, U.S.-China tensions, and cyber vulnerabilities in nuclear command and control systems worldwide.
The group is led by former Ambassador Richard Burt, Global Zero chairman and lead negotiator for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; retired Gen. James Cartwright, former head of U.S. Strategic Command; and Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former undersecretary of state for political affairs. Its 18 other members include Thomas Countryman, former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation; Igor Ivanov, former Russian minister of foreign affairs; and Chun Yungwoo, former South Korean national security adviser.
“We’re here to help decision-makers back way from the brink — by focusing attention on these dangers and by putting forward workable ideas from a group of the world’s most experienced diplomats, military commanders and national security experts that transcends partisan divides and national borders,” Derek Johnson, executive director of Global Zero, said in a statement.
The U.S. Air Force said it has delivered Humvees to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, home to U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, to “bolster the 39th Security Forces Squadron’s capabilities on the flightline.”
The squadron is responsible for securing the base and its largest weapons storage area.
The United States keeps an estimated 180 B61 nuclear gravity bombs at military installations throughout Europe as part of its military commitment to NATO. Approximately 50 of those are thought to be stored at the Incirlik base. The Humvees were delivered by the Air Force’s C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft on April 26.
