All eyes on Trump-Xi summit after North Korean missile launch

Pacific Command issued the official statement last night declaring the test of a single KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile landed harmlessly in the Sea of Japan off North Korea’s east coast. But the test itself was anything but harmless. It appeared to be repeat of a Feb. 11 test of an upgraded submarine-launched missile, which shows North Korea can now launch a missile with solid fuel from the back of a mobile launcher.

“February 11th was a very important date,” Hyten told the Senate Armed Service Committee yesterday. “That’s the date the North Koreans launched new solid [fuel] medium range ballistic missile off a new transporter erector launcher. They published pictures for the entire world to see out of a place we’d never seen before.” Hyten called it “very challenging technology,” and said it underscores the need for the U.S. to develop an anti-missile system that can be used in the boost phase, a capability the U.S. lacks. “I think Russia is the greatest threat,” Hyten told Congress, but he added, “What I’m concerned about most nights is North Korea.”

WHITE HOUSE WARNING: “We feel that the clock is very, very quickly running out,” an administration official told reporters yesterday before the latest launch. “We would have loved to see North Korea join the community of nations. They’ve been given that opportunity over the course of different dialogues and offers over the course of four administrations.” The senior White House official said, “The clock has now run out and all options are on the table for us.”

STATE’S UNUSUAL RESPONSE: Instead of the perfunctory condemnation and citing of relevant U.N. resolutions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled U.S. resolve by issuing a spare, but pointed statement. “North Korea launched yet another intermediate range ballistic missile,” Tillerson said. “The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.”

CHINA’S RESPONSE: China said today it sees no link between North Korea’s latest missile launch and tomorrow’s meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said China also urged all relevant parties “to practice restraint and to refrain from escalating the situation,” according to Reuters.

NO TIME FOR GOLF: President Trump, who has vowed to go it alone if China won’t rein in its nuclear neighbor, will host the Chinese leader at his Mar-a-Lago estate for about 24 hours. The White House said the meeting will begin tomorrow afternoon and wrap up Friday after lunch. “This is really an opportunity for the two leaders to exchange views on each other’s respective priorities and to chart a way forward for the U.S.-China bilateral relationship,” a senior White House official told reporters. “President Trump really views this meeting as a first step toward building a constructive and a results- oriented relationship that’s going to deliver benefits to both countries.”

SYRIA BLAME GAME: In the wake of heart-wrenching images coming out of Idlib, Syria, of victims killed and injured by chemical exposure, including women and children, the finger-pointing and blame assessment has begun. The death toll is now at least 70, with some reports as high as 100, including 25 children, and hundreds more suffering from the effects of the deadly, but so far unknown chemical agent.

The rebels and international aid groups blame Syria. They say about 6:30 a.m. local time, yesterday, Syrian warplanes dropped a chemical weapon on the neighborhood of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib, and hundreds of victims immediately exhibited the telltale foaming of the mouth and asphyxiation that comes from exposure to a highly-toxic nerve agent.

The Russians blames the rebels. The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement today claiming the Syrian air attack hit an ammunition depot where the rebel forces were allegedly making chemical weapons, and that’s what caused the deaths. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the Syrian planes were “targeting a major ammunition storage facility of terrorists and a cluster of military hardware,” according to Tass. The territory of this storage facility housed workshops to produce projectiles stuffed with toxic agents,” Konashenkov said.

Trump blames President Obama. “These heinous actions … are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution,” the president said in a statement. “President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a ‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing.”

Tillerson blames Russia and Iran’s support of Assad. “Anyone who uses chemical weapons to attack his own people shows a fundamental disregard for human decency and must be held accountable,” he said, blaming Russia and Iran for enabling Syrian President Bashar Assad. “It is also clear that this horrific conflict, now in its seventh year, demands a genuine ceasefire and the supporters of the armed combatants in the region need to ensure compliance.”

John McCain blames the Trump administration. “Just days after Secretary of State Tillerson said the Syrian people themselves would decide the future of their country, Syrian warplanes reportedly launched a chemical attack,” McCain said in a statement. “The recent statements by U.S. officials suggesting otherwise only serve to legitimize the actions of this war criminal in Damascus.”

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 be sure to add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense.

HAPPENING TODAY: This morning the House Armed Services Committee hears from the chiefs again on their recurring request for a full budget that will restore not just funding, but also put some predictability into the planning process. Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry told the Washington Examiner he hopes the service chiefs will be able to lay out a strong case for how a budget punt by Congress could damage defense. His committee will hear from Air Force Gen. David Goldfein, Army Gen. Mark Milley, Marine Gen. Robert Neller and Navy Adm. John Richardson, who are all expected to warn of halted operations, curtailed training and freezes on troop bonuses if another continuing resolution is passed when the current one expires April 28. “I see this as kind of a hearing to focus on what are the next steps or consequences of various actions that Congress could take,” Thornberry said.

Any budget solution remains a huge question mark on the Hill, with a two-week spring recess just days away. Thornberry said the service chiefs’ testimony could shake lawmakers and the public out of any apathy over a stopgap budget measure, which could again lock in last year’s spending levels. “We have had so many CRs over the past several years that I think many of us have kind of gotten used to it and assumed that everything would be OK,” he told us. McCain, Thornberry’s counterpart in the upper chamber, has also come out strongly against a CR for the military, saying he would rather shut down the federal government. Now, the two have to convince the rest of Congress.

STATE OF THE CORPS: In the afternoon, the committee hears from a trio of three-stars on the readiness woes of the Marine Corps. Testifying at 2 p.m. are: Lt. Gen. Ronald Bailey, deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations, Lt. Gen. Michael Dana, deputy commandant for installations and logistics, and Lt. Gen. Jon M. Davis, deputy commandant for aviation.

BIG THAW: The Navy’s top oceanographer yesterday connected the dots on climate change and evacuations that cut short the Navy’s recent Arctic exercises. Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet told an audience at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Maryland that the spring ice in the far north (off Prudhoe Bay, Alaska) literally broke up under sailors’ feet in evidence of the dramatic environmental changes taking place there. He said the submarine skippers who accompanied about 200 personnel on the excursion said they had never seen such unstable ice conditions after operating in the region for decades. Gallaudet said the Navy has already spent years putting together a strategy roadmap for the open water, shipping lanes and natural resources that could be opened up by thawing over the next decade.

CHATTERING CLASSES: Also at Navy League, a former commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific took a swipe Tuesday at the Washington elite and its apparent pessimism about China’s rise in the western Pacific. Retired Adm. Dennis Blair said think tanks are amplifying mistaken perceptions inside the Pentagon that the People’s Liberation Army Navy could defeat the American fleet in a clash over territory, or at least bloody its nose enough to cause a retreat. Blair said that is not yet the case, but warned the Navy must develop new ways of operating and new capabilities or risk it in the future. “Recess is over,” Blair declared.

RICE’S DENIAL: Former national security adviser Susan Rice on Tuesday denied leaking any information about associates of Trump who were caught up in incidental surveillance of legitimate targets, and said there was no political motivation behind requests for their identities. In an interview on MSNBC, Rice said no one in Obama’s administration used intelligence information for political purposes. “The allegation is that somehow Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. That’s absolutely false,” Rice said

Rice said she would occasionally receive reports that referred to “U.S. persons” caught up in legal surveillance of foreign targets. Occasionally, she would make a request to the intelligence community for the identities of those people in order to get more context and determine if that person was a danger to national security. “I received those reports, as did each of those other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which a U.S. person was referred to. Name not provided, just a U.S. person. And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance of the report, and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out, or request the information, as to who the U.S. official was,” Rice said, insisting it was just part of her job.

RUSSIA MUST BE CONFRONTED: The Trump administration is still weighing its options in response to Russia’s blatant violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement, but Hyten told Congress the U.S. needs to push back soon. “I think every step that Russia takes has to be responded to,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Hyten testified the deployment of the single land-based cruise missile is not much of a threat by itself, but if Russian President Vladimir Putin is emboldened to deploy hundreds of the missile systems, they would pose a very serious threat to Europe and NATO. “We have no defense for it, especially in defense of our European allies. That system can range and threaten most of the continent of Europe depending on where it is deployed,” Hyten said. “It is a concern and we’re going to have to figure out how deal with it as a nation.”

JAIL THREAT: House Intelligence Committee member Joaquin Castro said he believes some people will “end up in jail,” when it comes to the investigation of ties between the Trump administration and Russia. Speaking on CNN, Castro was responding in part to a new report that claims former Trump adviser Carter Page met with a Russian spy in 2013 and may have been targeted for recruitment. “I wouldn’t be surprised after all of this is said and done that some people end up in jail,” he said. “What you see with Trump’s campaign is this constant picking up of more and more people who have all these strong Russia connections.”

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, later told MSNBC that Page is “certainly a person of interest, and I think at the appropriate time, we are going to want him to come before the committee.”

EL-SISSI TO THE PENTAGON: After his warm welcome to the White House, the Pentagon rolls out the red carpet and strikes the band today to greet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi for an early afternoon meeting with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Mattis also meets this morning with Singapore’s minister of defense, Ng Eng Hen.

WHAT’S SO HARD ABOUT BUYING A HELICOPTER? “We’ve been building combat helicopters for a long time in this country, I don’t understand why the heck it is so hard to buy a helicopter,” Hyten fumed during his testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The U.S. strategic commander was visibly frustrated by the broken acquisition process that has failed for more than a decade to replace the aging UH-1N Huey helicopters assigned to protect America’s nuclear bases. “I can’t even describe how upset I get about the helicopter replacement program. It’s just – it’s a helicopter for gosh sakes,” Hyten said. “We ought to be able to go out and buy a helicopter and put it in the hands of the people that need it. And we should be able to do that quickly.” Hyten noted that he wrote the requirements document for that helicopter in 2007. “And now it’s 2017. Ten years later and we’re still arguing about a helicopter,” Hyten said.

KLINGON CLOAKING DEVICE FOR THE AIR FORCE? Gen. Carlton Everhart, head of Air Mobility Command, told Bloomberg yesterday he’d like to have something out of an old Star Trek episode to protect his fleet from enemy threats. “I asked industry for a cloaking device and they all laughed — they said you’ve been watching too much science fiction,” Everhart told Bloomberg in an interview that it doesn’t do much good to have a stealthy plane if it has to be refueled in the air by a big fat target. “I’ve got first-generation tankers refueling fifth-gen fighters,” Everhart said. The enemy doesn’t have to look for the fighter – he just has to look for me.” The subject may come up this morning when Everhart has a private breakfast with defense reporters. One question: can you still fire your photon torpedoes while cloaked?

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Post: As Trump pursues ‘America first,’ China’s Xi sees opening for primacy in Asia

War on the Rocks: Tips for Mattis on navigating Swampland

Wall Street Journal: Kushner tells Iraqis that alliance should endure for ‘many generations’

USA Today: ‘Never think that war … is not a crime,’ and more defining WWI quotes

Task and Purpose: Meet ‘the most armed man in America’ and his insane arsenal

New York Times: Russian spies tried to recruit Carter Page before he advised Trump

Defense One: China’s information warriors are growing more disciplined, effective: US cyber leaders

Defense News: STRATCOM issues guidance for anti-drone measures near nuclear sites

Fox News: Navy instructor pilots refusing to fly over safety concerns; Pence’s son affected

Calendar

WEDNESDAY | APRIL 5

9 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. An in-depth discussion about foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria and the threats they pose. csis.org

10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Military service chiefs Air Force Gen. David Goldfein, Army Gen. Mark Milley, Marine Gen. Robert Neller and Navy Adm. John Richardson testify about the potential damage of a continuing budget resolution. armedservices.house.gov

10:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. The launch of a report and a discussion on the prospects for defense acquisition in the Trump administration. csis.org

Noon. Willard Intercontinental Hotel. A panel discussion with Michèle Flournoy about women in national security. cnas.org

1 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. N.W. Experts gather to discuss the policy options for dealing with the imminent threat of North Korea. stimson.org

2 p.m. Rayburn 2212. Deputy Marine commandants Lt. Gen. Ronald Bailey, Lt. Gen. Michael Dana and Lt. Gen. Jon Davis testify on the current state of the Marine Corps. armedservices.house.gov

2 p.m. Rayburn 2172. A hearing on challenges to democracy in Turkey. foreignaffairs.house.gov

2 p.m. Rayburn 2154. A hearing to assess the Iran nuclear deal. oversight.house.gov

THURSDAY | APRIL 6

9 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Sen. Chris Coons discusses whether we are headed for a crisis with Russia. brookings.edu

9 a.m. Rayburn 2212. An evaluation of the defense contract auditing process by Anita Bales, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, John Panetta, national secretary of Financial Executives International, and James Thomas, assistant vice president for the National Defense Industrial Association. armedservices.house.gov

9:15 a.m. 1777 F St. N.W. Sen. Ben Cardin discusses anti-corruption in U.S. foreign policy under the Trump administration. cfr.org

9:30 a.m. Dirksen G50. Adm. Kurt Tidd of U.S. Southern Command and Gen. Lori Robinson of U.S. Northern Command testify about the status of their responsibilities. armed-services.senate.gov

Noon. 1030 15th St. N.W. Vice Adm. Andreas Krause, chief of the German navy, and Rear Adm. Ulrich Reineke, chief of the German navy’s planning division, discuss the future of that nation’s fleet in a new European security environment. atlanticcouncil.org

Noon. 1777 F St. NW. A conversation with Sen. John McCain. cfr.org

1:15 p.m. 1777 F St. N.W. A panel on fighting corruption through U.S. foreign policy, what has worked and what has not. cfr.org

FRIDAY | APRIL 7

9 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. Missile Defense 2020 and the next steps for defending the homeland, with Sen. Dan Sullivan, Laura Grego, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and James Miller, president of Adaptive Strategies. csis.org

MONDAY | APRIL 10

12:30 p.m. 1777 F St. N.W. A Conversation with Sen. Chris Murphy, about U.S. security amid budget cuts. cfr.org

1 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. N.W. Trump, Xi, and US-China economic relations after the Mar-a-Lago meeting. stimson.org

TUESDAY | APRIL 11

8 a.m. 2101 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 700. The quarterly procurement division meeting with speakers and panelists on the defense industrial base, challenges to acquisition and procurement. ndia.org

11 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. A genealogy of Russophobia in America. wilsoncenter.org

WEDNESDAY | APRIL 12

9:30 a.m. 1501 Lee Highway. A Discussion with Lt. Gen. Mark Nowland, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Air Force, about the service and the future force. mitchellaerospacepower.org

6 p.m. 1777 F St. N.W. Perspectives on Russia from Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Alexander R. Vershbow, distinguished fellow with the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, and Rita Hauser, president of the Hauser Foundation. cfr.org