‘THE DAYS OF COZYING UP TO DICTATORS IS OVER’: In his nomination acceptance speech on the closing night of the Democrats’ virtual convention, former Vice President Joe Biden promised to take a harder line with America’s enemies.
“I’ll be a president that will stand with our allies and friends and make it clear to our adversaries the days of cozying up to dictators is over,” Biden said, invoking the memory of his late son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015 from brain cancer. “While he’s no longer with us, Beau inspires me every day. Beau served our nation in uniform. A year in Iraq, a decorated Iraqi War veteran,” Biden said.
“I take very personally, and I have the profound responsibility of serving as commander in chief,” he said. “Under President Biden, America will not turn a blind eye to Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers, nor will I put up with foreign interference in our most sacred democratic exercise, voting.”
‘IT’S LIKE CHESS MASTERS’: While Biden was preparing to speak from Delaware, President Trump appeared by phone on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox, suggesting Biden was simply not up to the task of dealing with wily adversaries.
“He never leaves his home state. … For a long time, he hasn’t answered a reporter’s question, and he hasn’t answered a real question from before that. So I don’t know what’s going on. Something is going on,” Trump said. “It’s very strange.”
“When you deal with President Xi of China, which I do all the time, and with President [Vladimir] Putin, and with [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, and you’re dealing with all of these people, Kim Jong Un. … They’re very sharp. They’re at the top of their game. And if you’re not at the top of your game, it’s not going to be a pretty picture,” Trump said.
“It’s like chess masters, and if you’re not a great chess master, you’re going to have a problem. And we don’t think he is,” he told Hannity.
‘YOUR HEAD WOULD SPIN’: At a media availability at the White House earlier in the day, Trump again disputed that the United States has any solid intelligence suggesting that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
“You obviously don’t know very much about it,” Trump responded to a reporter’s question. “But if we found out,” he said, “we would hit them so hard your head would spin.”
The question of responding to Putin was also raised on Thursday in the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose supporters believe he was poisoned by Kremlin agents on orders of the Russian president. The 44-year-old Putin critic remains in a coma in a Siberian hospital intensive care unit after mysteriously falling in on a flight to Moscow.
On Fox, national security adviser Robert O’Brien said the U.S. doesn’t yet know if Navalny’s case is like that of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence agent who was poisoned along with his daughter in London in 2018.
“We’ll have to wait and see how this develops, and we’ll have to get evidence as to what happened. But it’s extraordinarily concerning,” O’Brien told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum. “If the Russians were behind this as they were with Skripal or other incidents of the like — and there have been more than that in continental Europe — it’s something that we’re going to factor into how we deal with the Russians going forward.”
OBAMA AND BIDEN WEAK ON IRAN: Both O’Brien and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Trump’s decision to demand snapback sanctions on Iran as evidence that the U.S. remains the sole bulwark against Iran’s export of terrorism and nuclear ambitions.
On Fox, O’Brien disputed former Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion in his convention speech Tuesday night that during the Obama-Biden administration, “we eliminated the threat of an Iran with a nuclear weapon. We built a 68-nation coalition to destroy ISIS.”
“Secretary Kerry’s comments were ironic in that ISIS was running a caliphate the size of Great Britain across Syria and Iraq when he left office. The Iran deal contributed to that,” O’Brien said.
“With respect to Iran, John Kerry and the [Iran nuclear deal] gave Iran $150 billion in sanctions relief. … They spent it on terrorist activities in Lebanon and Syria and Iraq and Yemen,” O’Brien said, calling the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement “the worst diplomatic deal since the Munich Appeasement in 1938.”
‘THEY CHOSE TO SIDE WITH AYATOLLAHS’: Pompeo was in New York on Thursday to make the case for extending the arms embargo against Tehran and claimed that America’s allies privately supported the move.
“Our friends in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom — the E3 — all told me privately that they don’t want the arms embargo lifted either,” Pompeo told reporters. “And yet today, in the end, they provided no alternatives, no options. No country but the United States had the courage and conviction to put forward a resolution. Instead, they chose to side with ayatollahs.”
Noting that the nuclear deal was not a treaty but merely an agreement among leaders, Pompeo said, “Our message is very, very simple: The United States will never allow the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles, and other kinds of conventional weapons.”
COWARD IN CHIEF? Meanwhile, back at the Democrats’ virtual convention, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, one of Trump’s chief antagonists, hurled barbs at the president while standing beside her wheelchair with the Capitol as a backdrop.
Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who lost her legs in combat during the Iraq War, called Trump “coward in chief” and accused him of acting as a puppet to Putin.
“As president, Joe Biden would never let tyrants manipulate him like a puppet,” Duckworth said. “He would never pervert our military to stroke his own ego. … He would never turn his back on our troops or threaten them against Americans peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.”
Good Friday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Tyler Van Dyke. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Defense Secretary Mark Esper travels to Nevada to visit the Nellis Air Force Base test and training range and meet with U.S. Air Force personnel.
Next week, Esper will fly out to Hawaii, Palau, and Guam. “On this trip, he will conduct meetings with military leaders, local officials and foreign partners; visit with our forces deployed through the region; and participate in commemorative events marking the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War II,” the Pentagon said in an announcement.
Japanese press reports said Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono would meet Esper in Guam, with China and North Korea expected to be high on their agenda, according to Stars and Stripes.
‘WE’LL BE LEAVING SHORTLY’: At Thursday’s joint appearance with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi, Trump again said he’s ready to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq but gave no firm departure date.
“We were there, and now, we’re getting out. We’ll be leaving shortly,” Trump said, calling the relationship with Iraq’s new government “very good.”
“We’re going to be leaving, and hopefully, we’re going to be leaving a country that can defend itself,” he said. “We’re making very big oil deals. Our oil companies are making massive deals. And that’s basically the story. … We’re doing military purchases by them, where they’re spending a lot of money on purchasing equipment and they’re building up their military rapidly, and we like to see that.”
To which, Kadhimi replied, “Iraq is open for American business and investment and for a better future for Iraq and Iraqi people.”
Pressed for a time frame for a complete withdrawal from Iraq, Trump turned to Pompeo, seated nearby, for an answer.
“As soon as we can complete the mission,” Pompeo said. “The president has made very clear he wants to get our forces down to the lowest level as quickly as we possibly can. That’s the mission he’s given us, and we’re working with Iraqis to achieve that.
BUDGET WOES AHEAD: The Center for Strategic and International Studies has published a comprehensive analysis of the Pentagon’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, and it forecasts flat budgets for the next few years, with increases in line with inflation but little more.
In a Zoom briefing for reporters on Thursday, the report’s authors, Todd Harrison and Seamus Daniels, warned that there could be a reckoning in the near future — in which pressure will increase to make big cuts in defense spending.
“History tells us that if we’re running record-setting deficits, that give it two or three years, and policymakers in Congress will look for how they can cut spending, and defense will likely be part of that,” Harrison said. But, he added, it’s not so much who’s in the White House as it is who controls the Senate, especially if Democrats win the White House.
“For the last almost 10 years, since 2011, we’ve been under the Budget Control Act: To make any real change in the defense budget, you had to modify the budget caps, and to modify the budget caps, you had to have at least 60 votes in the Senate. Starting in FY 22, with this new administration, we don’t have budget caps anymore, so if you want to change the defense budget, you don’t need 60 votes in the Senate. You just need a simple majority,” Harrison said. “I think what people ought to be watching is, does the Senate flip to Democrat?”
LORD SAYS F-35 WILL MAKE DEADLINE: At a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said that despite testing delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Lockheed Martin F-35 is on track to meet the threshold date for full production.
“I am confident that we are going to meet the March date. We have the entire government industry team focused on that,” Lord said in response to a Bloomberg report that a phase of rigorous combat testing has slipped five more months.
“There have been setbacks,” Lord admitted. “It is a very close working environment. The team, very quickly, moved out to follow all CDC guidelines to make sure we had a safe working environment. They readjusted. We have operations there at least six days a week, if not seven days a week, and almost 24 hours, so COVID has been significant,” she said.
SLIPSHOD SHIPYARDS: A new GAO report on Navy shipyards has found “substantial and persistent maintenance delays” at the Navy’s four shipyards.
“Specifically, 75 percent of planned maintenance periods were completed late for aircraft carriers and submarines in fiscal years 2015 through 2019, with an average delay of 113 days for aircraft carriers and 225 days for submarines,” the report said, blaming a workforce shortage and an “excessive use of overtime” to try to make up for “unplanned work that is identified after maintenance planning is finished.”
CAN THE PRESIDENT DECLARE MARTIAL LAW? A new report from the Brennan Center argues that the president does not have the authority to declare martial law, generally defined as the displacement of civilian authorities by the military, but that Congress may have that power.
Citing what he calls a “complex and unsettled part of the law,” the report’s author, Joseph Nunn, fellow in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, says the question of congressional power to authorize martial law “has not been conclusively decided by the courts.”
On the other hand, states have the power to declare martial law under state law, so long as the declaration abides by the Constitution and would still be subject to review in federal court. What Nunn says is clear is that the president does have the ability to deploy troops to assist civilian law enforcement.
The report calls on Congress and state legislatures to enact stricter and clearer limits on the president’s ability to order domestic troop deployments short of martial law, specifically to clarify the president’s powers under the Insurrection Act and Title 32.
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Coronavirus disrupts terrorists, but they lurk awaiting comeback
Washington Examiner: Iran reveals new missiles named after Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader killed in US drone strike
Washington Examiner: UAE: Israel pact should clear path to F-35 arms deal
Wall Street Journal: Possible F-35 Jet Sale To U.A.E. Puts Israel In Bind
Washington Examiner: White House language about China shifts to downgrade ‘President’ Xi Jinping
New York Times: Xi Raises Stakes On Loyalty In Communist Party Purge
Asia Times: U.S., China Sea Tensions Hot And Getting Hotter
Forbes: This Map Explains How Chinese Bombers And Missiles Control The South China Sea
Stars and Stripes: Military On Guam Enters Health Condition ‘Charlie’ As Island’s Coronavirus Cases Surge
Washington Examiner: ‘Everyone has gone crazy’: Navy SEAL who killed bin Laden contests Delta mask row
Space News: As He Welcomes New Space Commander, Esper Warns Of Threats To U.S. Satellites
Air Force Magazine: Van Ovost Sworn in as AMC Boss, Becoming Military’s Only Female Four Star
Air Force Magazine: Artificial Intelligence Easily Beats Human Fighter Pilot in DARPA Trial
Washington Examiner: ‘Dangerous lunacy’: Liz Cheney says QAnon theories should have ‘no place’ in US politics
AP: Russian doctors say Navalny wasn’t poisoned, refuse transfer
Forbers: At Russia’s Rusty Northern Shipyard, A Giant Battlecruiser Emerges
CNN: Navy Memo Flags ‘Problematic’ State Department Request For Pompeo To Get House On Military Base
AP: Former Sailor Details Misconduct By SEALs Pulled From Iraq
AP: Prosecutors seek prison for ex-soldier they say is Satanist
Washington Examiner: Opinion: Conservatives rightly say Trump endangers national security
Washington Examiner: Opinion: Don’t buy into UN fearmongering on the Iran deal
Forbers: The Logic Of ICBMs, And Why A President Biden Is Certain To Agree
Calendar
FRIDAY | AUGUST 21
11 a.m. — National Defense Industrial Association virtual “Space Warfighting Industry” forum, with Army Lt. Gen. James Dickinson, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, speaking at 2 p.m. https://www.ndia.org/events
MONDAY | AUGUST 24
9:30 a.m. — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo takes part in a virtual conversation on his recent trip to Europe and how European nations are awakening to the China challenge with Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe. Streamed live on www.state.gov.
12 p.m. — Association of the U.S. Army Noon Report webcast with senior leaders to discuss women and their service in the Army, with Kathleen Miller, administrative assistant to the secretary of the Army; Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, commanding general of U.S. Army North; Lt. Gen. Jody Daniels, chief of the Army Reserve; and Command Sgt. Maj. Lynice Thorpe-Noel, the senior enlisted leader for Army Human Resources Command. https://info.ausa.org
TUESDAY | AUGUST 25
12 p.m. — Center for the National Interest online discussion “Belarus: Eye of a New Geopolitical Storm in Europe?” Nikolas Gvosdev, U.S. Naval War College; Michael Kofman, Center for Naval Analysis; Fyodor Lukyanov, presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy; and David Marple, University of Alberta. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register
1 p.m. — National Security Institute at George Mason University virtual fireside chat: “China’s Rise: Confronting China’s Challenge to the World Order,” with Randall Schriver, former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, and Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, China reporter at Axios. https://nationalsecurity.gmu.edu
2:30 p.m. — Assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics Will Roper hosts an “Ask Me Anything” event about the Advanced Battle Management System moderated by Air Force Chief Architect Preston Dunlap. https://www.af.mil
FRIDAY | AUGUST 28
4 p.m. — Gen. James C. McConville, Army chief of staff addresses the National Guard Association of the United States two-day General Conference streamed live from Washington, D.C. Saturday speakers include: Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, the new chief of the National Guard Bureau at 1 p.m.; Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Air Force chief of staff at 2 p.m.; Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, the Space Force’s first chief of space operations at 2:30 p.m.; Lt. Gen. Jon A. Jensen, the new director of the Army National Guard at 3:40 p.m.; and Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh, the new director of the Air National Guard at 4:10 p.m. www.ngaus.org/events/142nd-general-conference
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s like chess masters, and if you’re not a great chess master, you’re going to have a problem.”
President Trump, telling Sean Hannity of Fox what it’s like dealing with world leaders like Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
