House panel begins marking up its $696 billion defense bill

Both Thornberry and McCain will be depending on leaders in the House and Senate to strike a larger budget deal for any defense top line above $549 billion, which is the cap set for 2018 by the Budget Control Act. Thornberry confirmed Tuesday he was negotiating a deal in the House to raise that cap and increase defense spending by 5 percent annually for the next three years, according to committee staff. But it is far from assured and figures could still shift as talks continue.

MATTIS ON THE MOVE: As you read this with your Wednesday morning coffee, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has just left Garmisch, Germany, where he delivered a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, and has moved to Brussels where he’s attending his last meeting of NATO defense ministers before presenting the Mattis Plan for Afghanistan to President Trump. It is also, Mattis notes, the first meeting since Montenegro joined the alliance as a full-fledged member. “That’s kind of a big deal in NATO,” Mattis said. “There [were] only 28 nations, so, you know, it’s kind of a big deal when you build by one.”

Before departing Garmisch, Mattis reaffirmed America’s commitment to NATO’s mutual defense, declared the transatlantic bond between the U.S. and Germany intact, and directed a pointed message at Russia, who he accused of choosing to challenge “a secure and peaceful order.” “The United States seeks to engage with Russia. So does the NATO alliance,” Mattis said in his speech at the joint U.S.-German George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. “But Russia must know both what we stand for and, equally, what we will not tolerate: We stand for freedom and we will never surrender the freedom of our people or the values of our alliance that we hold dear.”

At NATO Headquarters today, Mattis will be briefed by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who he already consulted with by phone ahead of the face-to-face meeting. Stoltenberg will also be releasing a progress report today detailing how member nations have done in stepping up their efforts to meet the goal of increasing defense spending under pressure from the Trump administration. All NATO members have pledged to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024, but only five currently meet that standard (the U.S., U.K., Poland, Estonia and Greece).

As we’ve noted here before, this is not about money owed to NATO or to the US. There are no back dues to collect. This is about how much each member of the alliance spends annually to ensure its military is a capable partner that can meaningfully contribute to NATO missions. As important as how much money is spent, is what the money is spent on. Funds for things NATO doesn’t need, such as a bigger standing army, might help countries provide jobs for their citizens, but do nothing to boost NATO’s combat effectiveness.

GROWING CYBER MENACE: While the commitment of additional military trainers to Afghanistan is among the top agenda items, much of the ministerial will also focus on the latest cyber attack, and the threat cyber terrorism poses. “The problem of terrorism, cyber attack, everything. I’m sure they’ll all come up in the ministerial,” Mattis said yesterday. Ukraine was hit by a massive ransomware attack, a particularly pernicious form of cyber crime, in which a malicious code encrypts the user’s hard drive, and demands a ransom payment paid in bitcoin on the dark web. The malware began in Ukraine and then spread across Europe, even affecting some American companies. The Associated Press reports that researchers have found evidence its creators borrowed from leaked NSA code, “raising the possibility that the digital havoc had spread using U.S. taxpayer-funded tools.”

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.

NATO OVER THE WHOLE ARTICLE 5 THING: While Mattis made a point of including high high up in today’s speech an unambiguous statement that America’s U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee is “ironclad,” he said before arriving in Brussels that he didn’t expect to hear any much concern about it. Article 5 is the alliance’s bedrock principle that an attack on one is an attack on all.

“I think I go there with a lot of clarity,” Mattis said en route to Europe, pointing to Trump’s Rose Garden declaration this month affirming America’s commitment to the mutual defense provision. “He came right out and said what he, I think, tried to say with his presence in Brussels a few weeks before,” Mattis said, “that we’re with them 100 percent on the Article 5 security guarantee.”

Mattis pointed out that “our wonderfully contentious, argumentative Senate” voted 100 to 0 to approve a resolution of support for Article 5. “How often does that happen?” Mattis said. “So between the president saying something, 100 members of the Senate saying something, obviously that says a lot.” And yesterday, House lawmakers also passed, in a 432-4 vote, a resolution “solemnly reaffirming” the U.S. commitment to defend NATO members from attack. “The United States must remain the world’s leading force for good, but we cannot confront the challenges of the 21st century alone,” said Speaker Paul Ryan after the vote.

ASSAD, WE SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING: Mattis was tight-lipped yesterday about the not-so-veiled threat by the White House to punish Syria with another military strike after the U.S. detected preparations for a possible chemical weapons attack by Syrian leader Bashar Assad on his own people. Neither Mattis nor chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White, both traveling in Europe, would comment on what intelligence formed the basis for a warning issued late Monday by the White House that Syria would “pay a heavy price” if it crossed the red line.

So it was left to one of White’s deputies back at the Pentagon, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, to reveal to reporters that the U.S. had observed activity at Shayrat airfield that indicated “active preparations for chemical weapons use.”

That’s the same airfield the U.S. hit with 59 cruise missiles April 7, a few days after determining that a Syrian jet that took off from Shayrat and dropped chemical munitions on Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s Idlib province. That attack killed or injured hundreds of Syrian civilians, including women and children.

While some questioned whether the evidence of chemical weapons activity at Shayrat was a sign the April 7 strike was ineffective, Pentagon briefers at the time noted the suspected chemical weapons storage site at the base was intentionally not targeted, to prevent the dispersal of what was believed to be deadly sarin nerve gas.

“If they’re able to store chemical weapons at this base, though, now, to possibly launch another chemical attack from it less than three months later, did that strike fail?” CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president, yesterday. “Not at all, because it was more than just a kinetic measure,” Gorka replied. “People have to look beyond the kinetic aspects of the theater that we’re engaged in. This is as much about statecraft and strategic communications. And the president was sending a very clear message. Under this administration of Donald J. Trump, red lines mean red lines.”

AND YES, WE COORDINATED: The Trump administration is rejecting reports that officials at the State Department, Pentagon and CIA were caught off-guard by Monday night’s White House statement. A White House official insisted that everyone who needed to know was informed ahead of time.

“In response to several inquiries regarding the Syria statement issued last night, we want to clarify that all relevant agencies — including State, [Department of Defense], CIA and [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] — were involved in the process from the beginning,” the official said. “Anonymous leaks to the contrary are false.”

A COMMON RESPONSE: Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to pursue a “common response” to the Assad regime in Syria in the event of another chemical weapons attack, the French government said Tuesday after the two leaders spoke. “The purpose of the meeting was to prepare for the bilateral meeting of the two presidents during the G20 meeting in Hamburg on 7 and 8 July,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement about the phone call between Trump and Macron.

“They also took stock of the Syrian issue and the need to work towards a common response to a chemical attack in Syria,” the statement continued. “The two presidents spoke about the situation in the Gulf and the need to avoid any escalation in the region. Both stressed that the fight against terrorism and its financing is a common challenge for all the countries of the region.”

IRAN DEAL BREACH: A prominent Iranian lawmaker has denounced the Supreme Court’s partial reinstatement of Trump’s travel ban, claiming that it’s an “obvious breach” of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, including the United States, the AP reported. Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, spokesman of the parliament’s committee on national security and foreign policy, said the ban’s reinstatement is “a new restriction in the post-nuclear-deal era that is considered an obvious breach of the deal.”

Hosseini claimed that under the nuclear deal, countries that signed it are prohibited from imposing new restrictions or sanctions on Iranians. But he did not explain how that is connected or relevant to the travel ban.

HAWAII’S KIM JONG UN PROBLEM: Amid growing concerns that North Korea’s ballistic missile program threatens Hawaii, U.S. Pacific Commander Adm. Harry Harris, whose headquarters is in Honolulu, suggested interceptors might be needed there. So now the House Armed Services wants to see a plan to protect the 50th state and has proposed using $42 million to prod military leaders in its version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. The money could be used to develop and test discrimination radar for homeland missile defense but only after Pacific Command and the Missile Defense Agency provides Congress “both a certification and a plan concerning the use of existing ballistic defense assets for the defense of Hawaii.”

Use of the money in the House bill would also be tied to development of the Raytheon Standard Missile-3 block IIA interceptor, or SM-3, which is being developed by the Missile Defense Agency. Last week, the interceptor failed to shoot down a medium-range ballistic missile target fired from Hawaii, though an earlier test in February was successful. No more than 90 percent of the funding in the House bill could be spent until the agency certifies to the armed services committees that the SM-3 can defeat a single intercontinental ballistic missile as well as a complex ICBM attack that could be waged by North Korea.

TILLERSON’S REBUKE: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Russia and China of paying the North Korean government to provide slave labor, providing “illicit sources of revenue” to a pariah state developing long-range nuclear weapons. “The North Korean regime receives hundreds of millions of dollars per year from the fruits of forced labor,” Tillerson said Tuesday during the presentation of the State Department’s annual report on human trafficking.

“Responsible nations simply cannot allow this to go on, and we continue to call on any nation that is hosting workers from North Korea in a forced labor arrangement to send those people home.” Russia and China are responsible for between 50,000 and 80,000 North Korean citizens employed as forced laborers, “many of them working 20 hours a day,” according to Tillerson. And their wages are sent to the government, which undercuts international efforts to starve North Korea of the money required to fund the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile system that could deliver a bomb to the United States.

NOMINATIONS AND APPOINTMENTS: The White House announced last night that Trump intends to nominate Ellen Lord to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Lord, the former president and CEO of Textron Systems, would then transition from the AT&L job to the newly created position of undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment on Feb. 1, based on a reorganization approved last year.

You can’t have civilian oversight of the military without civilians, and the Pentagon is slowly filling out the ranks of Senior Executive Service appointments, which do not require Senate approval. Just announced: Robert Catalanotti as senior adviser to the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Anthony DeMartino as the deputy chief of staff to the secretary of defense, Laura McAleer as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Senate affairs and Earl Matthews as the principal deputy general counsel for the Army.

THE RUNDOWN

AP: Iran says US travel ban is ‘racist’ and ‘unfair’

Defense News: Thornberry wins pledge to grow DOD budgets, but will it stick?

Washington Post: Mattis: After Raqqa, the Syrian battlefield will only get more complicated

Wall Street Journal: North Korea compares Trump to Hitler

Military Times: Senators’ decision to close defense debate worries watchdogs

New York Times: Global cyberattack: What we know and don’t know

CNN: House Russia investigators interview John Podesta

Foreign Policy: U.N. chief makes secret bid to win release of American detainee in Iran

Military Times: Marine Corps artillery support vital as the fight for Raqqa intensifies

USNI News: House Armed Services Committee interested in unmanned aviation, shipyard readiness, Pacific operations

Military.com: The F-22 in Syria: Deconflicting, not dog-fighting

Task and Purpose: Watch the USS Abraham Lincoln turn on a dime on the open seas

Calendar

WEDNESDAY | JUNE 28

7:30 a.m. 1777 F St. NW. Forum on protecting the integrity of national security supply chains. insaonline.org

8 a.m. 1201 M St. SE. Systems engineering division meeting. ndia.org

9 a.m. Russell 222. Closed full committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov

9:30 a.m. 1127 Connecticut Ave. NW. 2017 Annual conference: Navigating the divide. cnas.org

10 a.m. Dirksen 342. Nominations of Claire M. Grady to be undersecretary for management at the Department of Homeland Security and Henry Kerner to be special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel. hsgac.senate.gov

10 a.m. Hart 216. Open hearing on Russian intervention in European elections. intelligence.senate.gov

10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. armedservices.house.gov

10 a.m. Senate Visitor Center 217. Closed hearing on recent developments on North Korea with Ambassador Joseph Yun, deputy assistant secretary for Korea and Japan at the State Department. foreign.senate.gov

10 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Strategic cyber deterrence: The active cyber defense option with author Scott Jasper. heritage.org

10 a.m. Rayburn 2172. Advancing U.S. interests at the United Nations with Ambassador Nikki Haley. foreignaffairs.house.gov

10 a.m. Senate Visitor Center 212-10. Study release, “Consolidating the Revolution: Optimizing the Potential of Remotely Piloted Aircraft,” with author retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula. mitchellaerospacepower.org

11:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Rebalancing U.S. force posture in Europe and beyond. atlanticcouncil.org

1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Perspectives on the 2018 U.S. national security strategy with Christine Wormuth and Ambassador Tony Wayne. csis.org

2 p.m. Hart 216. Nomination of David Glawe to be undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. Intelligence.senate.gov

2:30 p.m. 138 Dirksen Army Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commanding general and chief of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, provides testimony on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers budget request for fiscal year 2018 to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.

THURSDAY | JUNE 29

7:30 a.m. Russell 222. Closed full committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov

9 a.m. 1030 15th Street NW. Conference on the threat of Russian influence in Europe, the next frontier in digital disinformation, and how to strike back. atlanticcouncil.org

10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The power of the president to shape U.S. relations in the Middle East and North Africa. brookings.edu

10:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. India-Japan strategic cooperation and implications for Washington and Beijing. wilsoncenter.org

4:30 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Debate on U.S. nuclear weapon modernization. csis.org

6:30 p.m. 529 14th St. NW. Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Peter Baker, discusses his new book Obama: The Call of History. press.org

FRIDAY | JUNE 30

9:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. South Sudan: When war and famine collide. csis.org

10 a.m. Rayburn 2359. Full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2018 defense appropriations bill. appropriations.house.gov