A DEMANDING STANDOFF: The tension with North Korea over its missile tests and nuclear program has degenerated into a cycle of provocation, demands and defiance. Wash, rinse, repeat. President Trump’s response to the Monday launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, was to issue a statement that “all options are on the table.” The Pentagon confirmed the initial reports out of South Korea that the missile overflew the territory of northern Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean approximately 500 nautical miles east of Japan, but gave few other details. The test sent a message, which the White House said the world has received “loud and clear.” “This regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior,” Trump’s statement said.
Later the United Nations Security Council weighed in with another strongly-worded statement on calling the latest test “outrageous” and demanding North Korea refrain from further testing. “The Security Council stresses that these DPRK actions are not just a threat to the region, but to all U.N. Member States,” the 15-member council said in a statement. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called the test “absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible,” noting that North Korea has violated “every single security council resolution we have had.”
NOT BACKING DOWN: The state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as calling the missile launch “a curtain-raiser of its resolute countermeasures against the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises being conducted by the U.S. and its stooges.” The annual military exercises, which this year was focused more on computer simulations and tabletop exercises, end tomorrow (today Washington time). The North Korean state media outlet also said the Monday launch was “the first step of the military operation of the KPA in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam.” Rough translation: “What part of ‘We’re not giving up our missiles and nukes,’ don’t you understand?”
US TESTS ITS RESPONSE: The Missile Defense agency reports this morning that for the second time, the U.S. ship-based Aegis ballistic missile defense system successfully shot down a medium-range target missile over the Pacific. The guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones “detected and tracked a target missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar, and onboard SM-6 missiles executed the intercept,” according to the statement from the MDA. “This was a key milestone in giving our Aegis BMD ships an enhanced capability to defeat ballistic missiles in their terminal phase,” said MDA Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves.
In a release this morning, missile maker Raytheon said it rushed enhanced software to the MDA based on a request. “Earlier this year, our customer requested an enhanced capability to deal with a sophisticated medium-range ballistic missile threat,” said Mike Campisi, Raytheon’s SM-6 senior program director. “We did all this – the analysis, coding and testing – in seven months; a process that normally takes one to two years.”
THREADING THE NEEDLE: North Korea’s in-your-face test seemed carefully calibrated to fly over Japan, without coming close enough to be shot down, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a private group that supports more spending on missile defenses. The fifth test of a Hwasong-12 missile this year soared to the height of about 340 miles before breaking up and falling into the Pacific Ocean beyond Japan. That was outside the operational range of U.S. and Japanese missile defense intercept systems, deployed in and around Japan, including the Aegis system on ships and Patriot missile batteries on land.
“All of these interceptors are designed and required to intercept in the terminal phase in lower space (Aegis) and in the earth’s atmosphere (Aegis/Patriot), they are not designed for midcourse space or boost phase and accent intercepts,” said an analysis from MDAA. “Longer range North Korean ballistic missiles, tested and deployed today, can flyover these systems and interceptors when they are not deployed near the location of the ballistic missile’s terminal phase of flight. Further, these Japanese and U.S. missile defense systems, with limited capacity, are designated to defend a limited amount of high value targets and the Japanese population. These high demand interceptors are in short supply, expensive, and it would be ill advised to waste them against North Korean test missiles that are landing in the ocean.”
TODAY — MATTIS MEETS SONG: In a meeting planned well before the latest test, South Korea’s Defense Minister Song Young-moo will be at the Pentagon today for face-to-face consultations with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
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 Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) 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 add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense.
SENATE COULD MOVE ON TRANSGENDER: The next crucial debate over Trump’s order to ban transgender military service could play out in the Senate when lawmakers return next week from summer recess. The chamber is set to consider its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that sets military policies. Two senators, Kirsten Gillibrand and Susan Collins, have already filed a proposed amendment that would bar the Pentagon from kicking out any transgender troops or rescinding their medical benefits until the military finishes a study on recruitment and reports back to Congress. Armed Services chairman Sen. John McCain, who will help decide which proposed NDAA amendments will be approved for a vote on the Senate floor, seemed to agree on Friday. “The Pentagon’s ongoing study on this issue should be completed before any decisions are made with regard to accession,” he said. More amendments could be filed when lawmakers return from summer recess on Tuesday.
HOUSE DEMS DECRY BAN: A group of 143 House lawmakers on Tuesday sent a letter to Trump urging him to back off his plans to curb transgender military service. The Democratic lawmakers, about one-third of the chamber, said there was no evidence for Trump’s earlier claim that transgender troops are costly and disruptive, and that barring their service based on their gender identity is unconstitutional. Trump on Friday formally ordered the Pentagon to abandon plans to recruit transgender troops and stop all funding of gender reassignment surgeries by March. “We urge you again to join us in honoring all those who protect our nation, to fully respect the rights of the citizens you serve, and reconsider the ill-advised and indefensible policy you have moved to implement,” the lawmakers wrote. The group included Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Rep. Adam Smith, ranking Armed Services Committee member, and Rep. Tim Walz, the ranking member on the Veterans Affairs Committee.
The letter also pointed to a previous study saying transgender-related medical costs would not be more than $8.4 million. “This is less than one-hundredth of one percent of the military’s nearly $50 billion health care budget,” the lawmakers wrote. “Or, for comparison, roughly equal to the cost to taxpayers of four of your weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago resort.”
MEANWHILE NOTHING CHANGES: The Pentagon announced Tuesday night that no policies will change while a panel of experts considers the best way to implement the president’s transgender ban. “As directed, we will develop a study and implementation plan, which will contain the steps that will promote military readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion, with due regard for budgetary constraints and consistent with applicable law,” Mattis said in a statement last night. “The implementation plan will address accessions of transgender individuals and transgender individuals currently serving in the United States military.”
Mattis left open the possibility that once the six-month review is over, he could recommend something short of Trump’s tweeted total ban on transgender troops serving “in any capacity” in the U.S. military. “Once the panel reports its recommendations and following my consultation with the secretary of Homeland Security, I will provide my advice to the president concerning of his policy direction,” Mattis said. “In the interim, current policy with respect to currently serving members will remain in place.”
GUARD SET FOR HARVEY SURGE: The National Guard said Tuesday it is preparing to deploy 20,000 to 30,000 of its troops to aid in the response and recovery after historic Texas flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. The troops had not yet been requested by Gov. Greg Abbott, but the Guard began preparing for the massive deployment due to the extent of the disaster and its anticipation of a prolonged recovery effort, said Maj. Gen. James Witham, the National Guard Bureau director of domestic operations. “I would like to emphasize that our response to this hurricane has been different to anything we’ve experienced before and we expect it to be much longer in terms of the response phase in terms of what we could normally see with a hurricane,” Witham said.
Texas was expected to have about 4,000 of its state National Guard troops deployed by today, among a total of about 12,000 available. Witham said it was “debatable” whether local authorities in Texas had been too slow to request assistance by the National Guard as the scope of the disaster was becoming more apparent. “In many cases, the request for assistance not only for the National Guard but federal forces may not have been anticipated quick enough but we are providing everything we can as quickly as the state asks for it,” Witham said. The chief of the National Guard Bureau, Gen. Joseph Lengyel, used his own authority to prepare for the potential massive deployment of troops over the coming days and weeks.
FINLAND CORRECTS TRUMP ON F/A-18s: The president of Finland didn’t want to contradict Trump publicly at their joint news conference Monday, but after Sauli Niinisto got back to Helsinki, he said his country had no plans to purchase more F/A-18 fighter jets from defense giant Boeing. Niinisto suggested Trump may have simply been confused about Finland’s plans to replace its aging fleet of F/A-18 Hornets with new aircraft by 2025. The country is eyeing various aviation contractors to provide the replacement jets, including Boeing, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. “It seems that on the sale side, past decisions and hopes about future decisions have mixed … The purchase is just starting, and that is very clear here,” Niinisto said.
Trump touted the F/A-18 sales in Monday’s news conference at the White House. “One of the things that is happening is you’re purchasing large amounts of our great F-18 aircraft from Boeing, and it’s one of the great planes, one of the great fighter jets, and you’re purchasing lots of other military equipment, and, I think, purchasing very wisely,” Trump said. Of note: A $156 million U.S. military sale to Finland to upgrade its existing F/A-18s was approved by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in December.
MOSCOW ON AFGHANISTAN: Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy has “obvious shortcomings,” according to Russian officials who want to know more about U.S. military plans in the country. Russia’s foreign ministry condemned Trump’s plan and expressed “justified concern” that U.S. military deployments might undermine their interests in the region. The critique is consistent with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s opposition to the U.S. in other hotspots. It may be another blow to Trump’s stated desire to improve relations with Russia, though the statement held out the possibility of “interaction” between the two sides in Afghanistan.
“The Russian side focused on the lack of transparency in the U.S. military actions, something that evoked justified concern in Russia and other regional partners,” the Russian Foreign Ministry announced following a high-level meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft. “It was stressed that Moscow did not share Washington’s selective pressure policy directed at certain states in the region, and is calling for equitable interaction and coordination of approaches to the Afghan settlement with regard for the interests of all states in the region without exception.”
GORKA HINTS AT COVERT ACTION: Former White House national security aide Sebastian Gorka hinted yesterday that the U.S. government has taken “covert” action to interfere with North Korea’s missile launches, causing some of them to fail. “Missile defense is a topic that, of course, came up with the government of South Korea,” Gorka told Fox News. “You have seen a lot of missile tests fail. Most tests actually fail. Sometimes there may be reasons beyond just the incompetence of North Korea for those missile tests.”
The New York Times reported in March that President Barack Obama asked the Defense Department in 2014 to boost its cyber and electronic efforts to combat Pyongyang’s missile program. Not long after Obama’s request, some missile tests from North Korea began to fail, with rockets exploding, moving off course or falling into the ocean.
GORKA NON GRATA: The White House warned staff and the Secret Service not to allow Gorka on the White House grounds just before news of Gorka’s exit from the administration broke Friday, according to a report on MSNBC. The network obtained two emails sent Friday evening to the Secret Service Joint Operations Center and to White House staff notifying them that Gorka cannot be admitted.
“Please notify officers of the following staff DNA [do not admit]: Sebastian L. Gorka (EOP-Blue Pass Holder). He has been made a DNA in WAVES and his pass has been deactivated (DNA),” an email sent to the Secret Service Joint Operations Center at 6:45 p.m. said. WAVES is the White House’s entry system, and EOP is the Executive Office of the President.
A second email was sent at 7:14 p.m., with a message flagged for staff telling them not to admit Gorka to the White House grounds. “Mr. Gorka is more than likely still in possession of his PIV and the WH Pass, as his DNA status was performed without him being on Complex,” the email read. Former White House staff members told MSNBC that such messages are highly irregular.
HARRIS TO CANBERRA? The Trump administration is considering appointing Adm. Harry Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Command, as the next ambassador to Australia, according to a report. Harris, America’s top military leader in the Asia-Pacific, was former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s preferred candidate for the position given Harris’ desire for a heavier U.S. presence in the region to counteract China’s maritime aggressions, officials told the Washington Post. The move could placate uneasiness felt by Australian officials about the state of U.S.-Australian relations in the fallout over Trump’s first telephone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull becoming public.
THE RUNDOWN
Reuters: Exclusive: Japan seeks new U.S. missile radar as North Korea threat grows – sources
Washington Post: ‘Formal plans will come later’: Texas Guard troops scramble to rescue civilians in the wake of Hurricane Harvey
Navy Times: Navy and Marines prepare to deploy to help Hurricane Harvey victims
San Diego Union-Tribune: Navy Secretary Tours San Diego, Pledges To Fix Destroyer Crash Problems
New York Times: Iran building weapons factories in Lebanon and Syria, Israel says
CNN: US troops exchange fire with Turkish-backed rebels in Syria
Reuters: ‘Gates Of Hell’: Iraqi Army Says Fighting Near Tal Afar Worse Than Mosul
Wall Street Journal: Russia says war games are ‘purely defensive’
AP: Afghan officials said to talk nearly every day with Taliban
Washington Post: Trump’s new Afghanistan policy has Pakistan angry and alarmed
DoD Buzz: Boeing, Bombardier lose challenge to Air Force’s Compass Call decision
UPI: Black Construction wins Guam contract
Military Times: Trump hints he won’t fill many top federal posts
Wall Street Journal: Philippines Prepares ‘Big Battle’ To Liberate City Held By Islamic State-Linked Militants
USNI News: USS George Washington begins midlife refueling, overhaul with benefit of lessons from 5 previous aircraft carriers
Foreign Policy: Despite risks, Trump administration moves forward with Afghanistan mining plan
Defense One: As independence vote nears, Iraqi Kurds play a risky game of chicken
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | AUG. 30
10 a.m. Pentagon River Entrance. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis welcomes his South Korean counterpart, Defense Minister Song Young-moo to the Pentagon.
12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Iran’s nuclear, regional and proxy challenges. heritage.org
THURSDAY | AUG. 31
11 a.m. 46870 Tate Road. C4ISR August luncheon with Capt. Jason Lopez, the program manager of the Naval Aviation Training Systems Program Office. ndia.org
TUESDAY | SEPT. 5
9:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Republic of Korea and U.S. strategic forum 2017: Now and the future of the alliance with Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, and Mark Lippert, former U.S. ambassador to Korea. csis.org
10:30 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. A discussion on BRAC and responsibly adjusting DoD’s infrastructure to meet current and future needs with Lucian Niemeyer, assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment. heritage.org
WEDNESDAY | SEPT. 6
7 a.m. 1250 S Hayes St. Defense News conference on defining the military agenda with Rep. Mac Thornberry, Rep. Kay Granger, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, and DOD Comptroller David Norquist. defensenews.com
8:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. How to organize military space with Rep. Mike Rogers and former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. csis.org
10 a.m. 529 14th St. NW. Headliners newsmaker: CIA analysis of Soviet navy. press.org
3 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Launch of the State Department reform report with Rep. Ed Royce. atlanticcouncil.org
