TRUMP CLAIMS ‘TREMENDOUS SUCCESS’: In what was billed as a “major announcement’ after his 12-day, five-nation Asia tour, President Trump pronounced his trip a “tremendous success,” which restored respect for the U.S. and united the world against the North Korean nuclear threat. “My fellow citizens, America is back. And the future has never looked brighter,” Trump said in remarks at the White House.
“I called on every nation, including China and Russia, to unite in isolating the North Korean regime, cutting off all ties of trade and commerce until it stops its dangerous provocations on — and this is the whole key to what we’re doing — on denuclearization. We have to denuclearize North Korea,” Trump said.
Trump singled out China, and its president Xi Jinping, in particular for pledging “to faithfully implement” U.N. resolutions on North Korea and “to use his great economic influence over the regime” to achieve the goal of a denuclearization. “President Xi recognizes that a nuclear North Korea is a grave threat to China, and we agreed that we would not accept a so-called ‘freeze for freeze’ agreement, like those that have consistently failed in the past. We made that time is running out, and we made it clear. And all options remain on the table,” Trump said.
CHINA CONTRADICTS TRUMP: No sooner had Thursday dawned in China, than a Foreign Ministry spokesman was contradicting Trump on his rejection of the “freeze for freeze” proposal, which China refers to as “dual suspension.” The idea is for the U.S. to agree to halt major military exercises in the region, in return for North Korea stopping ballistic missile and nuclear tests as a way to get talks going.
“We believe that the ‘dual suspension’ proposal is the most feasible, fair and sensible plan in the present situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a daily briefing in Beijing, according to Reuters. “Not only can it relieve the present tense situation, it can also resolve all parties most pressing security concerns, and provide an opportunity and create conditions to resume talks, and find a breakthrough point to get out of trouble,” Geng added.
The United States has consistently rejected any suggestion it give up the routine annual exercise that the U.S. says is defensive in nature and designed to keep the U.S. and its allies prepared to respond to any threat from the North.
AS IF ON CUE: The U.S. 7th Fleet announced the beginning of another major exercise with Japan, which will involve approximately 14,000 U.S. military personnel as well as the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. The annual exercise — aptly named “Annual Exercise” — is described as the premier training event between U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces. It begins today and runs for 10 days in the waters surrounding Okinawa. The maneuvers are designed to “increase the defensive readiness and interoperability of Japanese and American forces through training in air and sea operations,” according to a 7th Fleet statement.
CARTER ON KOREA: Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on CNN yesterday that Trump is right to be pressing China and pursuing diplomacy to resolve the North Korea crisis. “With respect to North Korea, we’ve been urging China for decades to take action with respect to North Korea and to use the leverage that it has over North Korea to get them to step back.” As for Trump’s claims of making great progress on getting China to do more, Carter reserved judgment. “Well, we’ll see what China does,” carter told host Chris Cuomo. “Trips with Chinese leaders tend to be largely ceremonial and symbolic so we’ll have to see where the trip overall leads.”
CHINA DISPATCHES ENVOY: China is sending a high-level special envoy to North Korea on Friday to report back to Xi about the national congress that was held last month, according to a report Wednesday. Song Tao is the head of China’s ruling Communist Party’s International Department, and is scheduled to travel to Pyongyang. The trip marks the first time a ministerial-level Chinese official has visited Kim Jong Un’s country since October 2015.
THE ARMY’S NOT-SO MEA CULPA: Tuesday the Army vigorously disputed a story in USA Today published Sunday that reported the Army was allowing people with a history of self-mutilation, bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse to seek waivers to join the service under an unannounced policy enacted in August. An Army statement called any suggestion the Army had changed its recruiting standards “inaccurate,” and said a “simple, administrative change” had been “substantially misinterpreted” by the paper.
Yesterday, the chief of staff of the Army had another version. The document that USA Today had based its story on was “unauthorized,” said Gen. Mark Milley, and had been rescinded as result of USA Today’s reporting and the firestorm it ignited on Capitol Hill when Sens. John McCain and Jack Reed read the account. Milley, meeting with reporters yesterday at the Pentagon, thanked USA Today reporter Tom Vanden Brook for bringing the matter to the Army’s attention, but insisted that because the memo outlining a change in policy for seeking waivers was never authorized, there was, in fact, no actual change of policy. “There cannot be a change in policy by someone who doesn’t have the authority to change policy,” Milley said in response to a question from the Washington Examiner.
Milley’s argument is essentially that because the memo written by a lowly lieutenant colonel was rescinded, it’s as if it never happened. “It was written. I looked at it. He had no authority to change that because, that in fact changes policy,” Milley said. Asked by Vanden Brook why the the memo was rescinded Tuesday, night, Milley admitted, “Because of your article.”
PLACATING McCAIN AND REED: Milley said the Army still owes Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Reed a written response, but said earlier in the day both he and then-acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy met with McCain and Reed Tuesday evening at a previously scheduled Twilight Tattoo in McCain’s honor. “We had a lengthy discussion … relating to them that there is no change and this was essentially a mischaracterization of the [Army recruiting] policy,” McCarthy said during a breakfast with defense reporters.
McCain had cited the article during a morning committee hearing and threatened to again hold up Trump Pentagon nominees until the Army explained, or he would pass legislation barring such waivers. “They just wanted us to send them back a note in writing … They will not hold the nominations,” McCarthy said of the meeting’s outcome.
Good Thursday 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.
HAPPENING TODAY — MORE NOMINEES: The Senate Armed Services Committee continues to relieve its backlog of Trump Pentagon nominees with a hearing this morning at 10 a.m. for John Rood to be undersecretary of defense for policy and Randall Schriver to be assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs. That makes confirmation hearings for 17 total nominees over the past two weeks. But at least four still parked at Armed Services have yet to testify. The Senate floor is now the main bottleneck for filling Trump’s Pentagon and only one nominee of the 17 reported by the committee in the last two weeks (see below) has so far received a final confirmation vote.
ARMY FINALLY HAS A SECRETARY: Nearly four months after his nomination was announced, Mark Esper has been confirmed by the Senate as Army secretary. The top Raytheon lobbyist and former Army infantry officer was Trump’s third pick to be civilian leader of the largest branch of the military after two previous nominees dropped out due to financial concerns and controversy. Now, his work begins. “Perhaps more than any other service, our Army is experiencing the strain of 16 years of continuous conflict, from our troops on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq to recent headlines about the tragic loss of four soldiers in Niger,” McCain said on the Senate floor. The Armed Services chairman said Esper will “call upon his experience in the private sector to bring a reform mindset to the many challenges facing our Army such as the readiness crisis and the urgent gaps in capabilities and modernization.”
PAY TO SLAY: A bipartisan panel of House lawmakers voted to threaten to defund the Palestinian Authority over support for terrorism, following the murder of an American man in Israel. The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Taylor Force Act unanimously on Wednesday, as lawmakers hope to force the Palestinian Authority to scrap support for terrorists. The bill is named for a former Army officer whose murderer was celebrated by Palestinian leaders. Congress hopes to crack down on those assaults by threatening to withdraw the $300 million in foreign aid to the Palestinian leadership.
“With this legislation, we are forcing the PA to choose between U.S. assistance and these morally reprehensible policies, and I am pleased to see this measure move forward in both chambers with so much support,” committee Chairman Ed Royce said Wednesday. Specifically, the legislation requires the end of a practice notorious on Capitol Hill as a “pay-to-slay” program. Under current law, the Palestinian Authority agrees to provide stipends to the families of individuals who are arrested or killed in Israel. Taylor Force’s parents have been working for months for Congress to coerce the Palestinian Authority into changing the policy.
NO FIRST USE: In the wake of Tuesday’s hearing on Trump’s sole and unchecked authority to launch a nuclear strike, Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, has introduced a bill to make it the policy of the United States never to use nuclear weapons first.
“The United States should not use nuclear arms in a first strike,” Smith said in a statement, arguing that nuclear weapons should serve as instruments of deterrence. “A declaratory policy of not using nuclear weapons first will increase strategic stability, particularly in a crisis, reducing the risk of miscalculation that could lead to an unintended all-out nuclear war.” Nuclear weapons should be reserved to “inflict devastating retaliation against any nuclear attack against the United States or its allies,” Smith said.
HOUSE MOVES ON FREEZE-DRIED PLASMA: The House has passed a bill that would give Defense Secretary Jim Mattis power to fast-track approval of freeze-dried plasma and other potentially life-saving battlefield medical products that are yet unapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The bill, passed by voice vote, is a compromise reached by the Defense Department and FDA after a decade-long struggle over getting French freeze-dried plasma to troops boiled over on Capitol Hill this month and threatened to hold up the National Defense Authorization Act.
MISSILES TO NORWAY: The State Department has OK’d a potential $170 million sale of AIM-120 C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, to Norway. The NATO ally requested to buy 60 Raytheon AMRAAMs and four guidance section spares, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The deal could also include missile containers, weapon system support, support equipment, spare and repair parts, and U.S. government and contractor support services.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN DIVIDEND: The board of directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation has declared a quarterly dividend of $1 per share on Northrop Grumman common stock, payable Dec. 20, 2017, to shareholders of record as of the close of business Dec. 4.
SENATE QUERIES MATTIS ON GUN-CHECK DATA: Three U.S. senators sent a letter to Mattis Wednesday asking that the Defense Department explain how it reports crimes that should preclude former service members such as the Texas church shooter from buying guns. As part of the request, Sens. Jeff Flake, Jeanne Shaheen and Martin Heinrich want to know the number of domestic violence convictions that the military has reported to the FBI through national databases. “We must all work together to prevent mass shootings from occurring again,” they wrote at the close of the letter.
The Air Force has acknowledged it did not properly alert federal authorities that Devin Kelley, who killed 25 people Nov. 5 at a Sutherland Springs church service, had been discharged from the service for abusing his wife and stepchild, a record that should have barred him under federal law from buying the gun used in the massacre. The department’s inspector general is investigating. “We would like the department to clarify how it identifies cases of domestic violence,” the senators wrote to Mattis. “Moreover, how does the department ensure those cases are properly reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, including any and all of its databases.”
ARMY FINDS SAME PROBLEM: During his media availability with reporters yesterday, Army Chief Milley revealed that the preliminary data he has seen indicates that as many as 10 to 20 percent of criminal convictions and dishonorable discharges have not been entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database in recent years. “It’s not just an Air Force problem. It’s a problem across all the services,” said Milley, who called the omissions “significant.”
“There are gaps and failures on our part to report into the FBI, Milley said, “and it clearly tells us we need to tighten up as well.”
RUSSIAN REVENGE: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s team vowed to impose “tit-for-tat” pressure on American media outlets, following the forced registration of a Kremlin-run outlet as a foreign agent in the U.S. “Any encroachment on the freedom of Russian media abroad is not and won’t be left without a strong condemnation and a tit-for-tat response of Moscow,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday, according to state-run media.
Peskov’s threat follows the registration of a company that manages RT, formerly known as Russia Today, pursuant to Justice Department demands. Russian officials are responding by passing legislation that would allow the government to force Western-based media outlets to register as foreign agents or face steep fines. “The approved bill will make it possible to express our reaction in due time,” Peskov said after the Russian parliament’s lower chamber passed a bill that would give Putin that authority.
NON-COMBAT DEATH: The Pentagon has announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. Sgt. 1st Class Hughton Brown, 43, died Nov. 14 in Kuwait, as a result of a “non-combat related incident.” The incident is under investigation.
THE RUNDOWN
USA Today: Two months without a North Korean missile test is a record for this year: Cause for hope?
Reuters: South Korean Says U.S. Must Not Strike North Korea Without Seoul’s Consent
NPR: Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Is Hopeful For U.S. War Strategy
Defense One: U.S. airstrikes soar in Somalia
The Diplomat: Japan To Delay Development Of New Stealth Fighter
Wall Street Journal: U.K. reports Russian hacking across industries
Reuters: Lebanon’s Hariri to fly to Paris within 48 hours: source close to Hariri
USNI News: Former SECNAV Lehman: Russian cyber forces stealing U.S. technological edge
Task and Purpose: This elite police force is Afghanistan’s secret weapon against violent extremists
Stars and Stripes: McCaskill: What’s being done to address potential $400M failures in Afghanistan?
Roll Call: Corker, Cardin see little ‘firm’ in latest Trump North Korea shift
Foreign Policy: What’s going on with the alleged murder of a Special Forces soldier by two SEALs?
Calendar
THURSDAY | NOV. 16
8 a.m. 201 Waterfront St. Logistics Officer Association Symposium 2017. logisticsymposium.org
8:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Sixth Annual Transatlantic Forum on Russia. csis.org
9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Nuclear strategy and security in the second nuclear age conference. atlanticcouncil.org
9:30 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Strengthening military readiness: The role of military families in 21st century defense with Anthony Kurta, performing the duties of under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. brookings.edu
10 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Nomination hearing for John Rood to be under secretary of defense for policy and Randall Schriver to be assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. Senate Visitor Center 217. Closed hearing on new counter-terrorism guidance with Maj. Gen. Albert Elton, Joint Staff deputy director for special operations and counterterrorism. foreign.senate.gov
10:15 a.m. Rayburn 2168. F-35 joint strike fighter cockpit demonstrator flights with a discussion of the Lockheed Martin weapons program and its capabilities. f35.com
5 p.m. 1957 E St. NW. Opportunities and challenges of a complex future: NATO ACT report launch with Gen. Denis Mercier, NATO supreme allied commander for transformation. atlanticcouncil.org
FRIDAY | NOV. 17
8 a.m. 201 Waterfront St. Logistics Officer Association Symposium 2017 with a keynote speech by Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. logisticsymposium.org
8 a.m. 3301 Massachusetts Ave. NW. U.S.-Finland Defense and Security Industry Seminar. ndia.org
3 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. A book talk with author Serhii Plokhy about “Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation.” csis.org
MONDAY | NOV. 20
12 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Is Lebanon Saudi Arabia’s new zone of confrontation with Iran? hudson.org
TUESDAY | NOV. 21
2:30 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Kings and presidents: Whither the special relationship with Saudi Arabia? brookings.edu
