Elbridge Colby, the architect of the 2026 National Defense Strategy, has named the "potential for simultaneity" as the central military problem the United States must solve - the scenario in which America's adversaries launch operations on multiple fronts at roughly the same time. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 4, Colby called it "the most stressing scenario" and the one the US military must be prepared for precisely because it represents "the best approach from potential opponents."
As reported by "Hvylya", citing Colby's remarks at the CFR, Colby took a direct shot at the previous administration for allowing this threat to materialize. He quoted former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who said at the end of the Biden presidency that "our adversaries were aligned to an unprecedented degree." Colby's verdict was sharp: "If you'd asked Henry Kissinger, that would have been the standard of unsuccessful American diplomacy."
The strategy to counter simultaneity rests on three pillars. First, diplomacy designed to prevent adversary alignment - Colby noted that President Trump "is prepared to talk to potential opponents" and pointed to the White House's openness to dialogue with North Korea "without preconditions," engagement with China, and the earlier willingness to talk to Iran's leadership. Second, a military posture that shifts conventional defense burdens to allies - NATO 3.0 in Europe, enhanced allied roles in the Indo-Pacific. Third, a massively expanded defense industrial base capable of sustaining operations across multiple theaters simultaneously.
Colby connected the Iran campaign directly to this framework. When asked whether Operation Epic Fury against Iran was part of a grand strategy to cut off China's oil supplies, squeeze Russia's drone supply chain, and gain leverage ahead of US-China summits, Colby declined to confirm the broader design. But he acknowledged that "substantially and materially degrading the military capabilities of the Islamic Republic will have a range of beneficial secondary and tertiary effects."
The strategy also explains the administration's approach to allies. By pushing Europe to handle its own conventional defense, Japan and South Korea to expand their military roles, and Australia to accelerate AUKUS, the Pentagon aims to create a global defense perimeter that does not depend on American forces being everywhere at once. Colby described the vision as "a more well-equipped defense perimeter around our alliances, with a much healthier industrial base, not only here but in our allies' countries as well" - paired with diplomacy that keeps channels open to all potential adversaries.
"If you go back to the Cold War, under presidents of both Republican and Democratic parties, that was considered sort of common-sense, normal," Colby said. "And that's, I think, where we're headed, and we'll be in a good position for sustained and decent peace."
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