BIG WEEK, BIG PLANS: This is a big week for President Trump’s national security agenda. A draft plan to “obliterate” ISIS is due on his desk, and his initial budget guidance is going out to federal agencies with the goal of fulfilling his pledge rebuild the U.S. military with massive increases in defense spending.
The New York Times, quoting four unnamed senior administration officials, reported yesterday that Trump will send instructions to agencies today to begin drafting a budget for fiscal 2018 that includes “sharp increases in Defense Department spending and drastic enough cuts to domestic agencies that he can keep his promise to leave Social Security and Medicare alone.” The Times says “reductions of tens of billions of dollars are expected to come from the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department.”
Trump’s desire to pump billions more into the Pentagon is of course not surprise, given that it was a major plank in his campaign platform. But the question has always been: Where will the money come from considering another major plank was tax cuts for both the wealthy and the middle class? In an interview on Fox yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Trump’s No. 1 economic objective is tax reform for both individuals and corporations, but insisted there are no plans to “touch” entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
In a September speech in Philadelphia, one of his first on national security, Trump promised to pay for the massive military buildup with a series of “common sense reforms” that would “make government leaner and more responsive to the public.” That included a pledge to “eliminate government waste and budget gimmicks,” and “reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy through responsible workforce attrition.”
The military service chiefs, whose mission is to train and equip the nation’s armed forces, are anxious for Trump to deliver on his promise to ask Congress to “fully eliminate the defense sequester,” the congressionally mandated spending caps set into motion by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Trump will have a chance to explain it all when he addresses a joint session of Congress in a primetime speech tomorrow night. The president’s first such address is not considered a state of the union, since the president has been in office only a month, although White senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows two weeks ago, insisted “the president of the United States has accomplished more in just a few weeks than many presidents do in an entire administration.”
The chiefs are also anxious to see an end to the hiring freeze on most civilian workers in the federal government. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein complained last week that unless the freeze is lifted soon, he will be unable to address critical readiness shortfalls that are keeping many Air Force planes and pilots grounded. “I’m not going to have the flying hours to be able to get those things airborne, and I’m not going to be able to invest in the training, and I’m not going to have any relief,” Goldfein said. The hiring freeze is supposed to be temporary, to be replaced with a permanent plan to downsize the federal workforce due in about two months.
NEW ANTI-ISIS PLAN: This is also the week that the president gets the Pentagon’s first cut on how to supersize the effort to defeat ISIS, but don’t expect to hear any details, or get a definite indication that more U.S. troops will be dispatched to Iraq or Syria. Those options are on the table, but Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford described the process of briefing the president on a wide range of options as more like the beginning of a conversation than a decision memo. The toughest question is whether to arm the Kurds to retake Raqqa, the Islamic State’s putative capital in Syria, something that is bitterly opposed by NATO ally Turkey. Or to pull the rug out from under America’s most effective fighting partner on the ground in a bow to Turkey. Arming the Kurds, and providing the kind of air and ground support to enable them to move into Raqqa, would almost certainly require an infusion of U.S. combat power on the ground, including artillery support.
Good Monday 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.
Want to learn more about Daily on Defense? See our introductory video here.
ABANDONING SHIP: Trump’s choice for secretary of the Navy has withdrawn his name from consideration, the Pentagon confirmed Sunday. Philip Bilden, an international financier, said he withdrew his name from consideration due to his complicated financial situation. In a statement, Bilden said his extensive holdings in Hong Kong wouldn’t live up to government ethics standards. “I informed Secretary of Defense Mattis with regret that I respectfully withdraw from consideration as Nominee for the 76th Secretary of the Navy,” he said. “I fully support the President’s agenda and the Secretary’s leadership to modernize and rebuild our Navy and Marine Corps, and I will continue to support their efforts outside of the Department of the Navy.”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who reportedly lobbied Bilden not to drop out earlier in the month, also released a statement expressing his disappointment. “I understand and respect his decision, and know that he will continue to support our nation in other ways,” Mattis said. “In the coming days I will make a recommendation to President Trump for a leader who can guide our Navy and Marine Corps team as we execute the president’s vision to rebuild our military.”
Bilden joins Vincent Viola, who pulled his name from contention this month over a similar issue. This leave Heather Wilson, a former New Mexico congresswoman tapped to lead the Air Force, as the only nominee for service secretary.
F-35 DEPLOYMENTS: The Air Force’s F-35 joint strike fighter will soon fly over Europe, the Pacific and later the Middle East, according to a top general, Joel Gehrke writes. “The F35A, the Air Force version, we’re doing fantastic,” Air Force Gen. “Hawk” Carlisle told reporters in Washington Friday morning. “We are going to get that airplane out on the road. I would anticipate it moving and deploying in the spring and summertime. Europe is certainly a place that I think we would like to send that airplane so I can see that happening. We have plans to send it to the Pacific as well and we have plans to send it to the Middle East in the not too distant future as well.”
BERGDAHL CASE STILL ON: A military judge tossed out a motion made by the attorneys for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl that argued Trump’s statements about him during the election violated his due process rights. Bergdahl’s lawyers tried to get the charges dismissed because Trump repeatedly called Bergdahl a “traitor” on the campaign trail. His attorneys argued those statements meant Trump has already convicted Bergdahl — of a different, more serious crime than any of the ones with which he was charged.
However, on Friday an Army colonel presiding over the case wrote that Trump’s statements are troubling but not a due process violation. “The comments by Mr. Trump that might be considered pretrial publicity are not so pervasive and unfair as to saturate the community and prevent any trier of fact from being impartial,” wrote Army Col. Jeffery Nance, according to CNN.
SEAL’S FATHER DECLINED TO SEE TRUMP: The father of the Navy SEAL killed in the Yemen counterterror raid last month said he refused to meet with Trump when he came to pay respects at Dover Air Force Base. “I told them I didn’t want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn’t let me talk to him,” Bill Owens, the father of Senior Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, told the Miami Herald in an interview. The father also called for an investigation of the circumstances of his son’s death in the raid, which the White House and Pentagon said was a successful intelligence-gathering mission. On ABC yesterday, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said “I haven’t had the chance to speak with him directly about that, but I would imagine that he would be supportive of that,” Sanders said. Such investigations are routine in a mission where there is a loss of American life.
Owens died and four other Americans were wounded in the raid that killed at least 14 Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants, along with a number of civilians one week after Trump took office, marking the first combat death of the Trump administration. Trump and his daughter Ivanka went to Dover to witness the arrival of Owens’ body. His father told the Herald that when he was informed Trump was on his way, he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to see him … I told them I don’t want to meet the president.”
FROM THE MAGAZINE: Trump’s personal involvement negotiating contracts for the military could open the department up to legal problems if he’s not careful to understand and respect the intricacies of the acquisition process, which are designed to ensure a fair playing field. In doing so, he is jumping several rungs in the chain of command beyond the defense secretary, deputy defense secretary, undersecretary for acquisition and service secretary, down directly to the program manager level, said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“I just can’t recall a time when this has happened before,” Harrison said. “That’s something that DoD is going to have to come to grips with, because this is not how defense acquisition operates. I think it’s going to complicate things for program managers and senior civilian leadership.”
JUMPING THE GUN: Sen. Tom Cotton on Sunday said it was too soon to address whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions should appoint a special prosecutor to look into alleged contacts between Trump’s campaign team and Russian officials during the election.
“I think that’s way, way getting ahead of ourselves here, Chuck. There’s no allegations of any crime occurring and there’s not even indication that there’s criminal investigations underway by the FBI — as opposed to counterintelligence investigations, which the FBI conducts all the time as our main intelligence bureau,” Cotton told NBC “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd. “If we get down the road that’s a decision that Attorney General Sessions can make at the time.”
WATCH WHAT YOU SAY: Trump’s new national security adviser has broken with the president’s stated viewpoint on Islam, reportedly telling his staff Thursday that words matter in the fight against religious extremists. The New York Times reports Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster told the National Security Council that using the term “radical Islamic terrorism” is not helpful because terrorists are “un-Islamic.”
Trump accused both President Obama and Hillary Clinton of refusing to use the term during the presidential campaign and promised to use the label “radical Islamic terrorism” as much as possible. McMaster appears to be more in the camp that believes that using that specific language can be counterproductive in that calling terrorists Islamic justifies their belief that they are acting in accordance with their religion, instead of portraying them as outside agitators to Islam.
CHINA BUILDUP: China is preparing to spend significant new sums to expand its navy to counter what it sees as a challenge posed by Trump. Trump’s promise of an increase in military spending that will include a sizable number of new ships is “unnerving” Beijing, according to Reuters, as is his unpredictability with respect to Taiwan and the South and East China seas, leading China to respond with a naval buildup of its own. “It’s opportunity in crisis,” a Beijing-based Asian diplomat said of China’s recent naval moves. “China fears Trump will turn on them eventually as he’s so unpredictable and it’s getting ready.”
WRITE IT ALL DOWN: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is under pressure to chronicle war crimes committed by Russia, Syria and Iran, from a bipartisan group of lawmakers that is pushing for “accountability” at the end of the Syrian civil war, Joel Gehrke writes. “We respectfully request that you work to ensure [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, Russia, and Iran are made to answer for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria,” Sen. Cory Gardner and 13 other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote to Tillerson on Friday.
The senators renewed their call for designating Assad as a war criminal in light of an Amnesty International report that said 5,000 to 13,000 people have been tortured and executed in a Syrian prison.
SEAL OF DISAPPROVAL: A retired admiral who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and who last week said Trump’s attacks on the media are the “greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime,” told journalism students, “We need you now more than ever.” Retired Adm. William McRaven, a Navy SEAL and head of U.S. Special Operations Command who is now the chancellor of the University of Texas System, wrote that Trump’s comments go beyond the barricade mentality of the government that tries to hide information from the public.
“I viewed it as perhaps the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime,” McRaven wrote in a blog post, reiterating the message he gave to a group of students and faculty at Moody College of Communication at UT Austin, his alma mater. He was responding to Trump’s tweet calling the “FAKE NEWS media” “the enemy of the American people.”
“In my sixty years, most of the serious threats to our nation have come from the outside: the Cold War, the Vietnam War, terrorism and the wars that followed. While at times, these external pressures encouraged some within our government to adopt a barricade mentality — hiding information from the public, acting secretly outside the bounds of the law, and encouraging behavior that had an extralegal feel to it — never has the government openly challenged the idea of a free press.”
THE OSCARS AND THE BAN: The president’s travel restrictions, even though technically on hold, impacted last night’s Motion Picture Academy Awards. Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, who won the best foreign film Oscar for “The Salesman,” did not attend in protest of the ban. An acceptance statement read on his behalf said, “I am sorry I am not with you tonight, my absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans immigrants to the U.S. Dividing the world into us and our enemies categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and war.”
And a some of the Syrians who worked on a Netflix documentary about brave volunteer rescue workers in Syria known as “The White Helmets,” were unable to navigate the travel restrictions to get to Hollywood. The film won Best Short Subject Documentary. The director, Orlando von Einsiedel, was there and read a statement from Raed Saleh, leader of the White Helmets. “I invite anyone here who hears me to work on the side of life, to stop the bloodshed in Syria and around the world,” the statement said. “It’s very easy for these guys to feel forgotten. This war has been going on for six years. If everyone could just stand up and remind them that we all care this war ends as quickly as possible.” The group claims to have saved the lives of more than 82,000 civilians over the course of the Syrian civil war.
THE RUNDOWN
Associated Press: Casualties mount as Iraqi troops advanced in IS-held Mosul
Fox News: Sailor shot, killed when hit-and-run investigation turns deadly
Associated Press: Pentagon Seeks to Expand Fight Against Extremists in Somalia
Reuters: China’s top diplomat to visit U.S. on Monday and Tuesday: Xinhua
Stars and Stripes: Maintenance needs limit availability of B-1 bomber fleet
Wall Street Journal: Islamic State Drones Terrorize Iraqi Forces as Mosul Battle Rages
Time: The Despotic Dynasty: A Family Tree of North Korea’s Kim Clan
Stars and Stripes: South Korea Clears Another Obstacle For THAAD Deployment
NBC: U.S. Flexes Its Military Muscle Off China
New York Times: General Says U.S. Wants To Resume Exercise With Egypt
Financial Times: Beijing confirms ‘joint counter-terrorism operations’ with Kabul
South China Morning Post: Hundreds of Chinese military veterans stage fresh protests over pensions
Calendar
TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 28
10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Two think tank experts testify on the state of Iraq once the battle to retake Mosul is over. foreign.senate.gov
2 p.m. Rayburn 2172. Witnesses from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute testify on China’s maritime push. Foreignaffairs.house.gov
3:30 p.m. Rayburn 2118. The House Armed Services Committee hears military witnesses on the DoD inspector general’s report relating to U.S. Central Command’s intelligence products. armedservices.house.gov
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 1
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Pentagon officials talk about the future of vertical lift platforms. Csis.org
3:30 p.m. Rayburn 2212. The House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing focusing on ground force capability in Eastern Europe. armedservices.house.gov
THURSDAY | MARCH 2
9 a.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Rep. Joe Wilson talks about the military readiness crisis. aei.org
2 p.m. Hart 219. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence holds a closed hearing. intelligence.senate.gov
