READINESS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: Today the House Armed Services Committee turns its attention to the readiness problems that may have contributed to the two deadly at-sea collisions that killed 17 sailors aboard the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain this summer. The investigation of both accidents continues, but members of the committee are looking for answers about the broader issue of how declines in readiness overall may be jeopardizing the lives and safety of service members across the military.
“We’ve seen a troubling trend too with air crashes, and I think it goes to the fundamental question, has the sequester had an effect? Has the efforts in funding readiness had an effect?” said Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman. “I think all those things are pertinent questions.” A release from the HASC noted that over the summer, 42 service members have died in accidents. Besides the 17 who perished aboard the Fitzgerald and McCain, other accidents claimed the lives of 19 Marines and six soldiers. “I’m afraid that not only the Navy accident rates, the other accident rates we see going up, are but one reflection of the cost that is taking its toll,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Armed Services chairman, said yesterday.
Wittman, who also chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower and projection forces, was speaking on Bearing Drift podcast, and said he expects today’s testimony to center on a wide array of potential factors that contributed to the eerily similar Fitzgerald and McCain collisions, both of which should have been avoidable. “There is no excuse for this,” Wittman said. “I don’t see that there is a single cause for this. I see this as an additive effect, in other words whether it’s deployment cycles, whether it’s training, whether it’s the maintenance on board ships, I think if you look at all of those things you can see little bits and pieces of this that probably add up to where we are.”
The 2 p.m. hearing will feature testimony from Adm. Bill Moran, vice chief of naval operations, Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall, director of Navy surface warfare, and John Pendleton, director of defense force structure and readiness issues at the GAO.
OVERWORKED, UNDERTRAINED, POORLY MAINTAINED: The GAO’s Pendleton will underscore the many failings of the Navy, especially in operating its forward-deployed ships that have homeports overseas. In an updated version of it highly-critical 2015 report, a copy of which has been obtained by the Washington Examiner, Pendleton outlines how problems identified two years ago have only gotten worse.
Among the problems identified since 2015, which have not improved, is the lack of dedicated training periods built into the operational schedules of the cruisers and destroyers based in Japan. “Based on updated data, GAO found that, as of June 2017, 37 percent of the warfare certifications for cruiser and destroyer crews based in Japan — including certifications for seamanship — had expired,” the report said. “This represents more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of expired warfare certifications for these ships since GAO’s May 2015 report.”
The GAO also found that the Navy was still having difficulty completing maintenance on time, and that its crews were undertrained and overworked, at times working 100 hours a week.
STILL NO BUDGET: Despite the alarm bells ringing about the deadly consequences of failing to fully fund the Pentagon’s readiness accounts, Congress is on track to once again fail to pass a budget in time for the start of the fiscal year, Oct. 1. And Thornberry is repeating his warning that it’s a mistake for lawmakers to simply pass another stopgap budget. “I cannot hide the fact that I am disheartened and unhappy at this state of affairs,” Thornberry said during a keynote address at the Defense News Conference in Pentagon City.
As the military grapples with the rise in deadly mishaps, Thornberry’s committee and the House passed a $696 billion defense authorization bill that offers a big boost to military spending. But for now Congress appears certain to pass a continuing budget resolution at the end of the month that will lock in current spending — and put off passage of any defense hike — until at least December. “We’re going to be doing the same thing we’ve been doing, the same thing that got us into this mess,” Thornberry said.
BEEN THERE, OVERCAME THAT: Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said he hopes to learn from oil giant BP’s experience as his service struggles with questions over its training and readiness after the McCain and Fitzgerald collisions. “We have reached out to industry who have gone through various different meaningful events and come out the other side,” Spencer said at the conference Wednesday. The outreach is part of a Navy-wide strategic review Spencer ordered last week in addition to a fleet safety and operations review already underway. Few organizations have disaster experience like BP. A 2010 explosion on its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed workers, caused the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history and wound up costing billions.
The Navy is also linking up with Boeing, the shipping container company Maersk, the contractor-run research facility Sandia National Laboratories, and Crowley Marine, a shipping company, Spencer said. “We’re going to approach this as a best practices for people who come out the other side, and we really do expect this to be a learning experience and a reset to go forward,” he said.
Spencer, by the way, will be ceremonially sworn in on the steps of the Pentagon at 10 this morning by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Both Mattis and Spencer are scheduled to make remarks after Mattis administers the oath of office.
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: Late this afternoon, Mattis will welcome Kuwait’s deputy prime minister and minister of defense to the Pentagon. The 5 p.m. meeting will begin with what’s called “an enhanced honor cordon,” which means a small military band will play as Mattis greets Sheikh Muhammad al-Khaled al-Hamad al-Sabah, and walks him up the steps to his third floor office.
ALSO TODAY: Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, is scheduled to brief Pentagon reporters live from Baghdad on counter-Islamic State operations in Iraq and Syria. Dillon says he’ll have an update on operations in Iraq (post-Tal Afar), progress in Raqqa, and on the Lebanese Hezbollah-ISIS convoy in eastern Syria. Dillon has a new boss, Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, who took over this week as commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. At the change of command ceremony Monday, Funk said ISIS is on the run. “The very existence of ISIS poses a threat to the civilized world and our way of life. We must defeat them, and our collective effort WILL defeat them,” Funk said.
HONORÉ ON IRMA: Speaking on CNN this morning, retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, the former Task Force Katrina commander and current CNN contributor, had praise for the proactive mobilization of U.S. military assets as the historically powerful hurricane Irma takes aim at Florida. Honoré, who was sharply critical of the failure of U.S. Northern Command to preposition more troops and equipment in Texas in advance of Harvey, said he was glad to see the military was “leaning forward” ahead of Irma’s expected landfall in Florida this weekend.
NORTHCOM announced yesterday it’s surging troops, supplies, and equipment to the affected region. The Navy has dispatched the amphibious ships USS Kearsarge and USS Oak Hill, along with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to be in the position to respond, if requested. The ships were originally headed to assist in relief operations in Texas after Hurricane Harvey, but will now stay off the east coast of Florida, awaiting orders. In addition, the locations have been designated as “incident support bases” to support response and recovery operations. They are: Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J.; and Warner Robbins Air Force Base, Ga.
The Washington Post reports that the Navy also is preparing to dispatch two more amphibious ships, the USS Iwo Jima and the USS New York. The ships have reportedly left Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., to be loaded with disaster-relief equipment in Norfolk, Va.
DON’T CALL IT A SLUSH FUND: The chairwoman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Kay Granger, says her proposal to give the Pentagon a new $28.6 billion fund that could be used at the discretion of Mattis is all about flexibility to rebuild the armed forces. “We wanted to have flexibility because there are so many things that come up that we don’t know, so we let it be that flexible, but we also put very strong oversight,” Granger told reporter Joe Gould during a “fireside chat” at the Defense News Conference. The fund is already part of the House-passed $658 billion defense spending bill for 2018 and would allow Mattis to spend on more troops, equipment and war operations as he sees fit, following approval of any expenditures by the House Appropriations Committee.
Congress holds the military purse strings and typically determines where and when money is spent in its annual defense budgets, but Granger’s proposal would give the Pentagon greater autonomy over a significant portion of the budget. Another fund that exists outside of budget norms, Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO, supplies money for the war effort — $62 billion for 2017 — but has long been criticized as a slush fund. Rep. Nita Lowey, the House Appropriations Committee ranking member, lobbed some of the same criticism at Granger’s fund over the summer, saying it should not be included in the defense spending bill. “There are seven National Defense Restoration Funds totaling $28.6 billion in what amounts to slush funds for a department that would receive $28 billion more than it requested,” Lowey said.
LOCKED AND LOADED: All signs point to another North Korean ICBM launch, perhaps as soon as this weekend to coincide with the country’s “Founder’s Day.” CNN quotes South Korea’s Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon as saying he expects the launch on Sept. 9. “The situation is very grave. It doesn’t seem much time is left before North Korea achieves its complete nuclear armament,” the prime minister told a meeting of defense ministers in Seoul Thursday.
Meanwhile the deployment of four additional Terminal High Altitude Air Defense anti-missile launchers was met with local opposition from residents of the village of Seongju, south of Seoul. The deployment had been held up by local fears that the launchers, which are designed to defend the South, would make the village a target. According to South Korean media reports, 38 people, including six police officers, were injured in the protests as the additional THAAD launchers were moved to a golf course in the village. South Korea’s defense ministry announced today that the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system is now complete.
NEW SANCTIONS: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said yesterday that he has an executive order ready to go that would slap unilateral sanctions on allies who conduct trade with North Korea. Mnuchin told reporters on Air Force One, heading back to Washington from North Dakota, that the situation in North Korea is “not acceptable” and that the U.S. is ready to act if the United Nations fails to authorize additional sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons and missile program.
“If we don’t get these additional sanctions at the U.N., as I mentioned over the weekend, I have an executive order prepared, that’s ready to go to the president that will authorize to stop doing trade and put sanctions on anybody that does trade with North Korea,” Mnuchin said Wednesday to reporters.
NO TALKING: President Trump told British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday he is not interested in diplomatic discussions with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a White House statement issued yesterday “President Trump reiterated that now is not the time to talk to North Korea, and made clear that all options remain open to defend the United States and its allies against North Korean aggression,” the White House said in a statement about the call.
Armed Services Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham, who insists there is a military option to deal with North Korea if all else fails, weighed in yesterday, too. “There are a lot of things we can do short of war, but I hope the president won’t capitulate to North Korea’s demands,” Graham said. “I don’t mind sitting down with North Korea. I just don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon to hit America.”
PROTECTING THE OIL: Russia opposes international efforts to restrict North Korea’s access to oil, President Vladimir Putin announced yesterday. Putin’s declaration could close off a major avenue for cracking down on North Korea’s economy, which U.S. officials believe is necessary to starve the regime of funding for its nuclear weapons program. Western leaders are expected to push for new sanctions at the United Nations Security Council next week. But Russia and China wield veto power and have provided economic lifelines to the regime in recent years.
Putin rooted his defense of North Korea’s oil sector in humanitarian goals. “We too are opposing and denouncing North Korea’s nuclear development,” Putin said Wednesday, per Yonhap News Agency, following a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. “However, I am concerned cutting off the oil supply to North Korea may cause damage to people in hospitals or other ordinary citizens.”
TURNING TO THE WORM: Retired basketball star Dennis Rodman has offered to play mediator between the U.S. and North Korea amid a nuclear standoff. Rodman has visited North Korea several times to meet with Kim. “For me to go over there and see [Kim] as much as I have, I basically hang out with him all the time. We laugh, we sing karaoke, we do a lot of cool things together. We ride horses, we hang out, we go skiing, we hardly ever talk politics, and that’s the good thing,” Rodman told British TV show “Good Morning Britain.”
“I don’t love [Kim]. I just want to try to straighten things out for everyone to get along together,” Rodman continued. The former NBA star said Trump could be “a little bit crazy sometimes.” Rodman was last in North Korea in June.
MATTIS TRAVEL POLICY: Our report yesterday that the Pentagon was breaking with the decades old policy of inviting all major wire services on overseas travel with the defense secretary, drew a lot of tweets and retweets by the Pentagon press corps. “In an unprecedented move that will limit transparency, the Pentagon will not be inviting all three major wire services on Mattis’ trips,” tweeted Idrees Ali, the Reuters correspondent. “Almost every newspaper in the world either subscribes to @Reuters @AFP @AP. Decision will affect oversight for people all over the world.”
The Pentagon is scaling back the number of media seats on Mattis’ plane, but not ending the practice of taking journalists along. The smaller contingent will include at least one wire service, and radio and television pool reporters.
“We are committed to providing access to the media so that through them the public can understand issues important to the defense of our nation,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White told the Washington Examiner. “The secretary regularly takes press with him when he travels, and engages with the press frequently whether traveling or not,” White said in an emailed statement. “The number and composition of the press invited to travel with the secretary varies based upon the destination and type of events scheduled, and rotates among outlets in order to allow diversity in reporting.”
THE RUNDOWN
Washington Post: 3,500 more U.S. troops headed to Afghanistan, officials say
Defense & Aerospace Report: Rogers: USAF split would put space, air dominance on equal footing
AP: US Cautiously Welcomes Russia’s Call For UN Force In Ukraine
UPI: Navy to issue order for heavy lift of the USS John S. McCain
USA Today: Putin: Cutting off North Korea’s oil supplies not solution to crisis
Defense Tech: Russian hackers suspected of targeting U.S. utilities, nuclear plants
War on the Rocks: The Trump administration has a model in Andrew Jackson’s Navy
New York Times: U.S. Seeks Power To Interdict North Korean Ships
Wall Street Journal: Behind North Korea’s nuclear advance: Scientists who bring technology home
Washington Post: Proof Sanctions On N. Korea Work? ‘We Are Not At War,’ U.S. Admiral Says.
USNI News: Thornberry: Budget Control Act Limits On Defense Spending Could End Soon
Fox News: Navy sailor freed from jail seeks Trump pardon
Defense News: F-35 program office floats new ‘agile acquisition’ strategy
USNI News: Littoral combat ship program vastly different a year into major organizational, operational overhaul
New York Times: Bad news, world: China can’t solve the North Korea problem
Foreign Policy: U.N. commission calls out Syrian government for sarin attack
Calendar
THURSDAY | SEPT. 7
9:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Asia’s reckoning: China, Japan, and the fate of U.S. power in the Pacific century. wilsoncenter.org
10 a.m. 2172 Rayburn. The Fiscal Year 2018 budget for maintaining U.S. influence in South Asia with Alice G. Wells, acting assistant secretary of state. foreignaffairs.house.gov
10:30 a.m. 106 Dirksen. Full committee markup of the fiscal year 2018 state and foreign operations appropriations bill. appropriations.senate.gov
11 a.m. Pentagon Briefing Room. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve briefs live from Baghdad on counter-ISIS operations. Live streamed on www.defense.gov/live.
2 p.m. Rayburn 2118. Navy readiness and the underlying problems associated with the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain with John H. Pendleton, director of defense force structure and readiness issues at the Government Accountability Office, Adm. Bill Moran, vice chief of naval operations, and Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall, director of surface warfare. armedservices.house.gov
2 p.m. 2172 Rayburn. The fiscal year 2018 budget of the State Department’s counterterrorism bureau with Nathan Alexander Sales, the department coordinator for counterterrorism. foreignaffairs.house.gov
2 p.m. House Visitor Center 210. The challenges of recruiting and retaining a cybersecurity workforce. homeland.house.gov
2 p.m. House Visitor Center 210. Subcommittee hearing on the challenges of recruiting and retaining a cybersecurity workforce. homeland.house.gov
FRIDAY | SEPT. 8
9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Discussion with Rep. David Cicilline of whether Russia’s RT news network register as a foreign agent. atlanticcouncil.org
10:30 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. National security imperative of addressing foreign cyber interference in U.S. elections. brookings.edu
12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. The current state of Islamist terrorism 16 years after 9/11. heritage.org
3:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. A world history of the Cold War with author Odd Arne Westad. wilsoncenter.org
MONDAY | SEPT. 11
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. U.S.-Ukraine relations in the context of Euro-Atlantic security Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine vice prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. csis.org
1 p.m. 529 14th St. NW. A group of 9/11 family members and technical experts call on Congress to launch new World Trade Center investigation. press.org
TUESDAY | SEPT. 12
7:15 a.m. 1700 Army Navy Dr. Washington, D.C. chapter defense leaders forum with Gen. Glenn Walters, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps. ndia.org
10 a.m. 2172 Rayburn. Pressuring North Korea with sanctions, diplomacy and information with Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of state, and Marshall Billingslea, assistant treasury secretary. foreignaffairs.house.gov
12:30 p.m. 1777 F St. NW. The state of security in Africa with retired Gen. Carter Ham, former commander of U.S. Africa Command. cfr.org
5:30 p.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW. How cyber, robots and space weapons change the rules for war with John Yoo, former deputy assistant attorney general. aei.org
WEDNESDAY | SEPT. 13
9 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The United States, the Soviet Union, and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty of 1966-1968. wilsoncenter.org
9 a.m. 1152 15th St. NW. A conversation with Rep. Adam Smith on Russia, the military and emerging threats. cnas.org
9:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Asia disaster response and cybersecurity in a time of rising challenges and constrained resources. wilsoncenter.org
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Liberal democracy as the path to greater security with Brookings President Strobe Talbott. brookings.edu
11 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. A book discussion on James Reston, Jr.’s “A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial.” wilsoncenter.org
11 a.m. 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Intellectuals and a century of political hero worship from Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez. cato.org
12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. How political neglect is choking American seapower and what to do about it with Seth Cropsey, former deputy undersecretary of the Navy. heritage.org
3:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Why Iraq and Libya failed to build nuclear weapons. wilsoncenter.org
THURSDAY | SEPT. 14
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Cyber warfare in the maritime domain with Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare. csis.org
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The USS Baltimore incident of 1891 and how history informs present problems. csis.org
5 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Global threats, global perspectives and America’s role in the world. atlanticcouncil.org
