Pentagon official asks Asian allies to invest more in defense to deter aggression

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Pentagon official on Monday asked allies in Asia to invest more in their defense and help deter aggression in the region and said the United States remains committed to do the same with “partners, not protectorates.”

Elbridge Colby, an undersecretary of defense, made the remarks at a forum in the Philippines, his first stop in Southeast Asia, where he will also visit Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. He renewed Washington’s assurances that the U.S. is not backing away from Asia despite its current preoccupation with the Iran war and the Middle East.

“America is definitely not disengaging from Asia — to the contrary. Our vital national interests dictate our enduring presence here,” Colby told an audience that included foreign diplomats, generals, business executives and journalists.

“We are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in, to ensure a favorable balance of power where it matters most,” the Pentagon’s top policy adviser said. “We see Asia as of paramount importance.”

Colby stayed away from the usual U.S. tirade against China’s growing aggression in the region, including in the disputed South China Sea. Washington has often expressed alarm over Beijing’s increasingly hostile actions against Philippine coast guard and naval forces in recent years.

Washington has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in territorial standoffs in the disputed waters, a key global trade route, for decades. Beijing virtually claims the entire waterway and has rejected a 2016 ruling in an arbitration case initiated by the Philippines that invalidated its expansive claims.

Colby repeated a vow by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a speech at the Shangri-La defense conference in Singapore in May that the U.S. will build and sustain a strong defense in the Western Pacific “that ensures aggression is infeasible, escalation unattractive and war deemed irrational.”

Colby said the U.S. is committed to ensuring “we can sustain combat-credible power where it matters most. Yet this defense architecture cannot rest on American shoulders alone. It must be upheld by a network of highly capable, sovereign nations that have modernized their own forces and stepped up to secure their own territory — transforming our relationships into true partnerships of equals.”

He added: “When we ask our allies and partners to step up, to invest more in their own defense and to take responsibility for their own sovereign security, we are not signaling abandonment. We are looking for partners, not protectorates.”

Colby praised efforts by the Philippines, which holds large-scale combat exercises with U.S. forces each year, to strengthen its defense capabilities and cited similar efforts by Thailand, Indonesia and other security allies in Southeast Asia.