Elbridge Colby

Elbridge Colby is co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative on great power competition for the United States. From 2017 to 2018, he was deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy and force development and the lead official in the U.S. Defense Department’s 2018 National Defense Strategy. Colby has served in various U.S. government roles working on strategic forces, arms control, and intelligence reform. A senior advisor to American Global Strategies, he previously advised the strategic advisory firm WestExec Advisors and held positions at the Center for a New American Security. Colby authored The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies, he received the Defense Department’s Distinguished and Exceptional Public Service Awards and the State Department’s Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards.