MAKING THE CASE: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford appear before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense this morning to make the case for the $30 billion fiscal 2017 supplemental funding bill to address immediate readiness concerns this year. Mattis will argue the infusion of cash is needed to maintain the combat effectiveness of frontline units, and will address maintenance backlogs with aircraft back home, a shortage of flying hours, and depleted ammunition stocks. The Trump administration requested $5 billion in the overseas contingency operations account and $25 billion in base funding that would require an increase in the spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act, commonly referred to as sequestration. You can also expect discussion of the $54 billion the Pentagon is requesting for fiscal 2018 as well, although specifics of that spending plan are still being worked out. The hearing will be live streamed at 10:30 a.m. here.
ANTI-ISIS SUMMIT: Following his Senate testimony, Mattis will hotfoot it over to the State Department for a meeting of Global Coalition working to defeat ISIS. Foreign ministers and senior leaders from 68 countries are attending the ministerial, the first meeting of the full coalition since December 2014. The event is hosted by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose remarks to the plenary session will be live streamed by the State Department at 10 a.m. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will also address the group. Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the discussions will be “looking specifically at ways to intensify the current campaign, which is in line with what is already been presented in terms of strategy to the White House,” but Pentagon officials say don’t expect any unveiling of the new Trump administration strategy to defeat ISIS, which remains a work in progress. “We also of course look forward to hearing additional ideas from the members of the coalition who’ll be present,” Toner said.
ABOUT THAT NATO MEETING: The State Department is now saying Tillerson might attend an upcoming NATO meeting in Brussels after all, as department officials are working with conference planners to see about rescheduling next month’s ministerial. NATO planners previously offered to change the dates of the meeting to accommodate Tillerson’s schedule, but that offer was declined, a spokesman acknowledged. Yesterday, the State Department confirmed that Tillerson was skipping the April meeting in Brussels in order to meet with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, with plans to fly to Moscow days later.
But after criticism that skipping the NATO meeting while making time for China and Russia sent the wrong signal to allies, the State Department backtracked and offered some alternative dates. “That was done this morning,” Toner told reporters.
New York Rep. Eliot Engel said it was a “grave disgrace” to skip the meeting. “If that’s the case, it’s an absolute disgrace and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the United States from going down this path,” Engel, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said late Monday. “If it’s not the case, Secretary Tillerson needs to explain why he arrived at this troubling decision. I cannot fathom why the administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy’s most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin,” Engel said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in an interview with NPR, said it was not a big deal and that the schedule would be adjusted so that the United States, the most important member of NATO, could be represented by its top diplomat in Brussels. “We have scheduling problem,” Stoltenberg told NPR, “Maybe we will find another date. There are ways to solve that problem.” Stoltenberg say he also is expecting President Trump will attend the NATO summit in May. “That will be a strong message of Transatlantic unity, the U.S. commitment to NATO.” The White House announced last night that Trump will be coming.
The NATO chief also met for two hours with Mattis at the Pentagon yesterday and said Mattis also expressed strong support for NATO. As for Trump’s berating of NATO members for not spending enough on their own defense, Stoltenberg said Trump has a point. “His very clear message helps me when I am traveling around telling allies that they have to increase defense spending, but I am also underlining that we are not doing this to please America,” Stoltenberg said.
Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Jacqueline Klimas (@jacqklimas) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll be sure to add you to our list.
NORTH KOREA MISSILE FAILS: U.S. Pacific Command reports this morning that North Korea’s latest missile test has failed. This time the launch was from North Korea’s east coast in the vicinity of Kalma. “A missile appears to have exploded within seconds of launch,” said a statement from Pacific Command. “We are working with our interagency partners on a more detailed assessment.” The test comes as tensions are high on the Korean peninsula and in the middle of large scale U.S. and South Korean exercises known as Foal Eagle. As part of that exercise, the U.S. sent a B-1B supersonic bomber flying over the South as a show of force.
LOCKHEED MEDIA DAY ROUND-UP: Lockheed Martin hosted reporters at its Crystal City headquarters yesterday for its annual media day, where CEO Marillyn Hewson said the company is looking to expand its overseas sales, largely driven by the sale of the F-35 to international partners.
Hewson also fielded questions about her conversations with Trump and was asked about criticism that Trump took credit for cost savings he didn’t help achieve with the F-35. But Hewson insisted Trump’s personal involvement “absolutely” sped up negotiations on Lot 10 and gave her confidence that the company and the government will reach an agreement on Lot 11 this year.
The company is also in the middle of competing to build the Air Force’s next trainer jet. Rob Weiss, the executive vice president and general manager of aeronautics advanced development programs, said that its T-50A offering with Korea Aerospace Industries could be delivered to the Air Force in 2022, two years ahead of the military’s requested initial operating capability.
EASE UP ON THE WAR TALK, PLEASE: Public officials should be careful about accusing Russia of committing an “act of war” against the United States, according to the nation’s top Army general, Joel Gehrke writes. “Just this morning on the news, I forget who it was, but there was someone who said that the Russian efforts in the U.S. election was an ‘act of war,’ Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said during New America’s Future of War Conference Tuesday morning. “That’s pretty strong language, and, if it’s an act of war, then you’ve got to start thinking of your response to that sort of thing. So, I would caution people about use of the term ‘war’ and make sure that we’re clear-eyed about what war is and what it isn’t.”
Milley didn’t mention any names, but he made the comments one day after the House Permanent Select Committee Intelligence hearing on Russia’s cyberattacks against the Democratic Party during the 2016 election cycle. Some Democratic panelists equated that interference with an act of war. Milley, who had defined war moments earlier as “imposing your political will on a human opponent through the use of organized violence,” emphasized that not all adversarial actions are tantamount to war.
CHECK THAT LAPTOP: No one is saying what exactly prompted the new U.S. rules forcing travelers flying to America from some foreign airports to put their laptops and other electronic devices bigger than a mobile phone in their checked baggage. But it’s no secret that U.S. intelligence agencies are increasingly concerned about efforts by al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to make undetectable bombs with non-metallic materials, in order to blow up a plane mid-flight. The Washington Post quotes unnamed U.S. officials as saying that as far back as 2014, “U.S. authorities were increasingly worried that suspected bombmaker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who was allegedly instrumental to al Qaeda’s Yemen branch in several bomb plots, might be helping terrorists in Syria develop new, harder-to-detect explosive devices.” Ten airports in eight countries are affected: Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
TWITTER TAKES ACTION: Twitter announced on Tuesday that it suspended 376,890 accounts for violations related to promoting terrorism in the final six months of 2016, Daniel Chaitin writes. The effort to crack down on these accounts seems to be ramping up, according to Twitter’s latest report. The latest figure during the period of July 1, 2016 through Dec. 31, 2016 is more than three times the 125,000 account-figure the social media platform said it cracked down on from mid-2015 to February 2016. All told, Twitter said it has suspended 636,280 accounts linked to terror promotion since Aug. 1, 2015.
WARNING FROM FORMER SACEUR: In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, former Supreme NATO Commander Philip Breedlove warned that Russia may have eyes on some of its former Soviet states.
“All three of our NATO allies in the Baltics — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are worried. And two of them, Estonia and Latvia, with their large ethnic Russian populations, are concerned that Russia might try to use them as an excuse. Moscow sent this message when it kidnapped an Estonian intelligence official from Estonia on the same day that the Wales NATO summit ended in September of 2014,” Breedlove said.
“We have a vital interest in stopping Moscow’s revanchist policies before they move to other countries, especially our NATO allies in the Baltics. Yes, we can conduct negotiations with Moscow on global issues, but we also need to continue to strengthen NATO’s presence along its eastern flank.”
EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL: For the second time in a week, the Pentagon has invited media coverage of the top of Mattis’ meeting with visiting foreign dignitaries, instituting an ad hoc pool system whereby a print, radio and TV crew are allowed to witness the beginning of the meetings and even shout a question. Last week it was the Saudi defense minister, yesterday it was the NATO SecGen and the Finnish defense minister. While the brief photo spray is not comparable to the joint news conferences that were often held in the past, it does beat the almost useless official readout of the meeting that the Pentagon provides hours after the fact. And it stands in contrast to the trend across the river at State, where the diplomatic press corps is increasingly feeling frozen out. We attempted to find out which of Mattis’ staff was behind the new pool arrangement, only to be told it was a “team effort.” An informal survey of Pentagon reporters found no one who could remember when a press pool was used in the same way.
WITH SADNESS, AND ADMIRATION: We say farewell and extend congratulations and best wishes to our colleague Jacqueline Klimas, whose last day at the Washington Examiner, and writing for Daily on Defense is today. Jacqueline begins a new chapter in her career at Politico, where she will continue covering defense. Because of the collaborative nature of newsletter writing you could not always tell how much of the work Jacqueline did each day, but suffice it to say her fingerprints were all over our daily effort to keep you informed. We will miss her deep knowledge of the defense policy in general, and her sources on Capitol Hill in particular, and we know she’ll be a worthy competitor in her new role. Best of luck, Jacqueline.
THE RUNDOWN
Wall Street Journal: Rebuild Our Defenses for the Information Age
Defense News: Democrats hammer Trump budget plan with DoD efficiency study
CNN: First on CNN: Generals come to State Department defense
Defense News: Uncertainty at State Department holding up new agreement on armed drones
Army Times: The makers of the Army’s gas mask are looking into beard-friendly options
UPI: U.S. Navy picks Austal for littoral combat ship services
Navy Times: Bush, Vinson support ISIS fight in Gulf, threaten Kim near North Korea
Stars and Stripes: Milley: Additional soldiers will fill gaps in the Army’s combat readiness
Task and Purpose: Army Vet Who Suffered Brain Injury Fighting in Afghanistan Faces Deportation
Military.com: Marines Investigating After Sgt. Maj. Died During Exercise
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 22
8:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The Center for Strategic and International Studies hosts a day-long conference on issues in space for the new administration. csis.org
10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. The House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing on the challenges of hybrid warfare. armedservices.house.gov
10:30 a.m. Dirksen 192. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford testify on Capitol Hill about the Pentagon’s budget. appropriations.senate.gov
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. A former CIA analyst discusses his new book, Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein. brookings.edu
11:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The lead negotiators of the Iran nuclear deal talk about opportunities in U.S.-Iran relations in the new administration. wilsoncenter.org
2 p.m. Rayburn 2118. Maj. Gen. Scott West, the director of operations for the U.S. Air Force, testifies about the state of the service. armedservices.house.gov
3:30 p.m. Russell 222. A panel of Army witnesses testifies about modernization. armed-services.senate.gov
THURSDAY | MARCH 23
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of U.S. European Command, testifies on U.S. strategy in Europe. armed-services.senate.gov
10:30 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Three acting government officials testify about the U.S. policy toward countering weapons of mass destruction in fiscal 2018. armedservices.house.gov
2 p.m. Hart 219. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence holds a closed briefing. intelligence.senate.gov
2:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. Former defense officials testify about reforming civilian personnel. armed-services.senate.gov
TUESDAY | MARCH 28
9:30 a.m. 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, Va. William Roper, the director of the strategic capabilities office at the Pentagon, speaks at a Mitchell Institute event. mitchellaerospacepower.org
