MOON ECLIPSES TRUMP: South Korean president Moon Jae-in is promising his people there will be no war with the North. In a nationally televised news conference marking his first 100 days in office, Moon said, “I can confidently say there will not be war again on the Korean Peninsula.” While Moon again suggested he’s willing to negotiate with Pyongyang, the South Korean president warned that unless Kim Jong Un stops nuclear missile tests, he will pay an even higher price, economically. “If North Korea launches another provocation, it will face even stronger sanctions and it will not be able to survive them,” Moon said. “I would like to warn North Korea to end its dangerous gamble.”
Moon’s statement essentially ruling out military force undercuts the “fire and fury” threats from President Trump because under the current U.S.-Republic of Korea treaty, any unilateral military action has to be approved by both presidents, and Moon is clearly not on board with a second Korean war.
ENTER STEVE BANNON, “THEY GOT US”: Trump was also undercut by his chief strategist Steve Bannon, who on Tuesday thought it was a good idea to call Robert Kuttner, editor of the liberal American Prospect Magazine (whose first two issues after Trump’s election were “Resisting Trump” and “Containing Trump”) to discuss China trade policy. The resulting column quoted Bannon as dismissing Trump’s tough talk about military solutions being “locked and loaded.”
“There’s no military solution, forget it,” Bannon told Kuttner. “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.” As for China solving the problem for us, Bannon was equally dismissive. “We’re at economic war with China,” he said, adding, “On Korea, they’re just tapping us along. It’s just a sideshow.”
ANOTHER GROUND RULE MIX-UP: There is some question as to whether Bannon thought he was doing an on-the-record interview, or just calling a reporter to compliment him and pick his brain on the China issue. Short-tenured White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci was famously fired shortly after his profanity-laced tirade with the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, after claiming his unvarnished rant was intended to be off-the-record. Bannon, who by all accounts is on shaky ground in his post as chief strategist, was reportedly unaware his remarks would published.
Kuttner said he was “a little stunned” to get an email from Bannon’s assistant, which led to the phone conversation, considering the Brandeis professor, who is a co-founder of the liberal site, had just published a column in which he suggested Trump was an arrogant fool. “In Kim, Trump has met his match,” he wrote. “The risk of two arrogant fools blundering into a nuclear exchange is more serious than at any time since October 1962.”
“The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up,” Kuttner said. “This is also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the press. He’s probably the most media-savvy person in America.”
PRO TIP: When you are talking to a reporter, everything is on the record, unless you secure an agreement ahead of time to keep things off the record, which is generally defined as “not for reporting in any form.” Set the ground rules before you talk.
DUNFORD DIPLOMACY: Meanwhile, the effort to denuclearize North Korea through diplomatic and economic pressure is being spearheaded by America’s top military officer. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, who has been in China the past two days meeting with his military counterpart, is stopping in Japan before returning to the U.S. “My message in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo has been the time to have some initial conversations about what a contingency on the Korean Peninsula would look like is before the contingency occurs,” according to the Pentagon’s official news summary. Dunford told the Chinese that his job as chairman is to ensure Trump has credible military options should diplomatic and economic pressure fail.
But Dunford also said a military solution would be “absolutely horrific … no question about it,” while adding, “what’s unimaginable is allowing KJU [Kim Jong Un] to develop ballistic missiles with a nuclear warhead that can threaten the United States and continue to threaten the region.” The remarks echoed comments Dunford made last month at the Aspen Security Forum.
TRUMP TAKES CREDIT: Trump says North Korea made the right call when it shelved, at least for now, a plan to fire missiles toward Guam, the U.S. island territory in the Pacific Ocean that is home to Air Force and Navy bases. “Kim Jong Un of North Korea made a very wise and well reasoned decision. The alternative would have been both catastrophic and unacceptable!” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. After making a big show of reviewing the plan, Kim declined to order it be carried out, saying he would watch the “stupid, foolish Yankees,” a bit longer.
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, 2+2: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will host Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera in Washington for the first security consultative committee meeting with Japan since Trump took office. “The meeting is long-scheduled, and it will focus on how the United States and Japan can strengthen their bilateral security and defense cooperation, as well as coordinate their response to the evolving regional security environment,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert. “The participants will also review the continued realignment of U.S. armed forces in Japan.” She called the “two plus two” format the “premier forum for discussing issues related to the U.S.-Japan mutual cooperation and security treaty.”
HAPPENING TOMORROW: Trump travels to Camp David to huddle with his national security team over their strategy for South Asia, the White House has announced. South Asia is the umbrella term for the strategy for Afghanistan, which Mattis insists must be seen in a larger context, involving other countries in the regions, particularly Pakistan. “I don’t think you can separate the two,” Mattis told reporters last week. Despite the delay, Mattis said the president is “very, very close” to making a decision about whether to send more troops, use more private security contractors, and begin to withdraw. And Mattis made clear Trump is calling the shots. “The president, as I told you before, has delegated a fair amount of tactical and operational decision making to me,” Mattis said. “He has not delegated one ounce of the strategic decision making, nor should he, nor would I expect that.”
ANOTHER U.S. DEATH: Meanwhile, U.S. troops are continuing to fight and die in Afghanistan. The latest death came during a partnered operation with U.S. and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan, where a U.S. soldier died as a result of wounds. An unspecified number of U.S and Afghan forces were wounded in the engagement. The soldier, who the Utah National Guard said was one of its own, and the other unidentified troops were on a mission with Afghan security forces against the Islamic State group’s affiliate in the country, ISIS-Khorasan, which has been active in the eastern part of the country along the Pakistan border. The incident is the eleventh U.S. military death in Afghanistan this year and comes after three troops were killed in separate bombings in Kabul and Kandahar this month.
DRUGGED AND STARVED: The fight agansit ISIS in Raqqa is not over by a long shot, but the outcome in Syria seems more inevitable by the day. Yesterday, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad painted a picture of an increasingly desperate enemy with no way out. “The few ISIS terrorists the SDF managed to capture alive, and the even fewer who have surrendered, show vividly their desperation,” said Col. Ryan Dillon. “They are malnourished, emaciated and, many of them, pocked with needle tracks from what is assessed as amphetamines they used to maintain their murderous fervor.”
WHO DID HE PISS OFF? Army Col. Steve Warren, one of the U.S. military’s most respected briefers, has been unceremoniously told his services will no longer be required. Warren, known for his deep knowledge and quotable quips, had submitted his military retirement papers with the expectation he would return to the Pentagon as a senior civilian in the public affairs shop. But last week he was told that the Pentagon would be “going in a different direction.”
In an email last night, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White blamed the White House for nixing the appointment of Warren, who was a darling of the Pentagon press corps. “Colonel Steve Warren departed OSD/PA [Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs] on terminal leave as part of his retirement process,” White said. “His name was put forth for consideration as a political appointee within OSD/PA once he retired. Unfortunately, the White House determined he was not a suitable candidate for the position.”
Foreign Policy, which was the first to report Warren was being forced out, had a different take, reporting that White “played a key role in Warren’s departure.”
ARE THE CHIEFS REVOLTING? Short answer: No. While all five service chiefs over the past two days tweeted statements disavowing racism, they carefully avoided any language that would put them at odds with the president. That’s important because not only is it a bedrock principle that uniformed military leaders are subservient to their civilian overseers, but military officers are barred by law from publicly chastising or criticizing the president or other elected officials. Under Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the use of “contemptuous words against the President” is subject to punishment by court-martial.
So when Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller tweeted “No place for racial hatred or extremism in @USMC,” it was prompted by reports of a former Marine who was being linked to an extremist organization, according to Marine Lt. Col Eric Dent, a spokesman for Neller. “It was not meant as a stab at the president, rather should serve as a reaffirmation of who we are and what we stand for,” Dent told the Washington Examiner. It also turns out the man accused of driving a vehicle into counter-protesters, killing one of them, washed out of Army basic training two years ago.
This morning, Dunford echoed the Joint Chiefs statements while traveling in China, saying “I can absolutely and unambiguously tell you that there is no place for racism and bigotry in the U.S. military or in the United States as a whole,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
POSOBIEC: NAVY SERVICE IS ‘NOTHING I’VE HID’: Right-wing provocateur and Twitter firebrand Jack Posobiec says he was not hiding his Navy service following a report Wednesday by NBC News revealing he is a reserve naval intelligence officer. “I’ve always been open about my military service … That’s nothing I’ve tried to hide,” Posobiec told the Washington Examiner. Posobiec — who describes himself online as a veteran, Trump supporter and political operative — has become a growing political presence on Twitter with 184,000 followers by pushing alt-right conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. He received a boost this week when the president retweeted his claim that the media is ignoring homicides in Chicago.
But NBC also revealed Posobiec, a lieutenant junior grade, had his Navy security clearance suspended. He confirmed that, saying it was placed under review in February and that the review might be due to his activity on Twitter. “If I had to guess it would be that, but I have no idea,” he wrote in a text message. “I have never posted or discussed classified info anywhere outside of a [sensitive compartmented information facility].”
LAWSUIT AGAINST ISIS WAR: A federal appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for later this year on a soldier’s lawsuit that claims the war against ISIS is illegal, Steven Nelson writes. The lawsuit seeks to blaze a path for judicial review of presidential war-making where many previous efforts have failed, and the granting of oral arguments was not guaranteed.
Courts historically have been reluctant to rule on the legality of military campaigns, but attorneys for Army Capt. Nathan Michael Smith believe that as a member of the military he can establish standing, a major hurdle, and the facts are on his side. “A decision in Smith’s favor would re-establish that war power cases are appropriate issues for the courts,” said Louis Fisher, a Constitution Project scholar and former senior specialist in separation of powers at the Library of Congress.
GUILTY PLEA FOR AIDING ISIS: A Virginia man has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges for his efforts to provide material support to the Islamic State, according to the Department of Justice. Lionel Williams, 27, of Suffolk, Va., attempted to send money on two separate occasions to an individual he believed was an ISIS financier, according to a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement. The individual was actually an undercover FBI employee, who told Williams his donation had assisted purchasing a rocket-propelled grenade. In response to this news, Williams said, “Praise be to Allah, and Allah is the Greatest.”
BLACK HAWK DOWN: The search continues for five soldiers after their Army Black Hawk helicopter went down Tuesday night in the ocean two miles off the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Debris was spotted in the water by both the Coast Guard and Army, and a variety of aircraft and ships searched the area in vain through the night and day for the missing crew. The Coast Guard said it received a call at about 10 p.m. Tuesday from Wheeler Army Airfield at Schofield Barracks that personnel lost communications with the Black Hawk, which was conducting night training with another Army helicopter along the island’s northwestern coast. The soldiers are with the Army’s 25th Infantry Division combat aviation brigade, said Dennis Drake, a spokesman for U.S. Army Hawaii.
BOEING, LOCKHEED OFF THE HOOK: Trump yesterday disbanded his American Manufacturing Council, taking the pressure off of the business executives who were facing questions over whether they would leave the board amid the uproar over Trump’s Charlottesville comments. Boeing previously told the Washington Examiner that its CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, would stay on the council. Lockheed Martin had declined to comment on what CEO Marillyn Hewson would do. A handful of executives resigned this week before Trump pulled the plug.
THE RUNDOWN
UPI: Lockheed Martin to hire 1,000 more workers for F-35 production in Fort Worth
New York Times: China’s crackdown on North Korea over U.N. sanctions starts to pinch
DoD Buzz: Air Force awards nearly $1B to upgrade landing gear on older aircraft
USNI News: Navy to commission Middle East-based expeditionary sea base Lewis B. Puller as a warship
Wall Street Journal: Top U.S. general builds closer ties to Chinese military during visit
Military Times: Navy official: Ship name honoring Confederate victory unlikely to change
Foreign Policy: Targeting American diplomats, Cuba is up to its dirty old tricks
Defense News: Netherlands, Australia selected to house F-35 parts
Defense One: Why North Korea walked back its threat on Guam
Calendar
MONDAY | AUG. 21
1 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Options and ways to respond to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. atlanticcouncil.org
WEDNESDAY | AUG. 23
12:30 p.m. 1152 15th St. NW. Reddit ‘ask me anything’ on artificial intelligence and global security. cnas.org
THURSDAY | AUG. 24
1:30 p.m. 1300 Wilson Blvd. PSA Captains of Industry roundtable lunch with Rear Adm. David Hahn, chief of naval research and director of innovation, technology requirements, and test and evaluation. ndia.org
