# Southeast Asia Isn't Buying Washington's Reassurance Tour

> Elbridge Colby spent a week telling the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia that the US is 'digging in,' even as Washington redirected a carrier to the Middle East and gutted drills with South Korea the same week.

- Source: Foreign Time
- Canonical URL: https://foreigntime.com/article/southeast-asia-colby-flexible-realism-tour
- Author: Foreign Time Newsroom
- Section: Alliances
- Published: 2026-08-21T23:24:49.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-21T23:24:49.000Z
- Tags: Alliances, Southeast Asia, United States, China, Elbridge Colby

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U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby just finished a weeklong tour of the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia meant to reassure allies that Washington remains committed to Southeast Asia. But the Trump administration's own actions kept undercutting that message in real time, Foreign Policy contributors argue. In a speech to Manila's Stratbase Institute, Colby dismissed talk of U.S. disengagement from the region and insisted Washington was "digging in." The same week, the administration redirected the aircraft carrier USS George Washington from the Pacific to the Middle East to support operations against Iran and moved THAAD missile defense systems out of South Korea to protect more exposed U.S. bases in the Gulf.

Trump also ordered the Defense Department to scale back military exercises with South Korea that same week, calling them "hostile" to North Korea and citing his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un, a move the analysis says will only deepen doubts about U.S. staying power in Asia, not least in Beijing, where it is likely to be read as confirmation that Washington is pulling back. Colby framed U.S. alliances as built on "mutual respect," saying Washington wants "partners, not protectorates," language the piece argues is hard to square with Trump's own public jabs at U.S. partners like Greenland.

In Jakarta, Colby met Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, pledging a relationship "grounded in respect for Indonesia's sovereignty, traditions, and history," even as Washington pressed Jakarta for overflight access for U.S. military aircraft and floated turning Indonesia into a maintenance hub for C-130 Hercules planes, which could invite a larger U.S. rotational presence. The piece argues this transactional approach, extracting maximum concessions from junior partners while dismissing the resentment it creates, echoes the worst instincts of Cold War-era U.S. policy in the region, when Washington backed rightwing dictators in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand and ignored declared neutrality in Cambodia and Laos.

Colby's repeated invocation of "pragmatism," "realism," and "common sense," set against what he called past administrations' "rigid adherence to liberal dogma," is described in the analysis as a rhetorical sleight of hand: the Trump administration's sweeping unilateral tariffs and its push for allies to shoulder more of their own defense spending are themselves rooted in a protectionist, inward-looking worldview reminiscent of the pre-WTO 19th and early 20th centuries. That worldview rests on the same assumption Colby criticizes in others, that some interpretation of the world is neutral and value-free, when in practice less economic interdependence and less immigration tend to erode the trust that keeps great-power competition from tipping into war.

The piece's bottom line is blunt: trust and credibility rest on consistency between what Washington says and what it does, not on military assets alone, and Colby can blame the "liberal commentariat" for misreading his message all he likes, but the growing regional anxiety about U.S. reliability traces back to Washington's own choices, a strong hand in Southeast Asia played poorly while a costly, strategically muddled war consumes U.S. attention in the Middle East.

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Originally published by Foreign Time. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://foreigntime.com/article/southeast-asia-colby-flexible-realism-tour.