Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 12 From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism In the US Department of Defense led by Peter Hegseth, the undersecretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, is in charge of revising the Pentagon’s defensive posture, which includes a different deployment of American troops and military resources abroad. It was Colby who stopped sending arms to Ukraine at the beginning of July, who put pressure on Japan to increase military spending, and who cast doubt on the commitment to supply Australia with the nuclear submarines, which is the primary feature of AUKUS – the defence and security partnership with the UK and Australia. His aim could be to pressure Tokyo and Canberra into playing a front-line role vis-à-vis China , as well as increasing their financial contribution to Washington. Many laughed at Donald Trump when he put television personalities in charge of important departments. The conservati...