SHOW OF FORCE: As promised, the U.S. dispatched a pair of B-1B bombers from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam to conduct a low-level flight in the vicinity of Osan, South Korea, in response to the recent nuclear test by North Korea. The American conventional bombers were joined by Japanese F-2s, South Korean F-15s and U.S. F-16s in what was billed as “fighter interceptor training … to enhance operational capabilities and tactical skills.” U.S. Pacific Commander Adm. Harry Harris said the flights showed “the solidarity between South Korea, the United States and Japan to defend against North Korea’s provocative and destabilizing actions.” Harris condemned Pyongyang’s recent provocations, adding “North Korea continues to blatantly violate its international obligations, threatening the region through an accelerating program of nuclear tests and unprecedented ballistic missile launches that no nation should tolerate.” There is no sign that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was impressed.
A spokesman for Air Force Global Strike Command takes issue with media descriptions of the B-1 as “nuclear-capable,” saying that the nuclear mission of the supersonic, but non-stealthy, bomber ended by treaty agreement in the 1990s. So while technically the B-1B is still capable of dropping nuclear bombs or carrying nuclear-tipped air-launched cruise missiles, the spokesman says under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the B-1s are now limited to a conventional role.
SYRIA’S SHAKY CEASE-FIRE: Reports from Aleppo this morning indicate while there has been some artillery fire and sporadic fighting, the U.S.-Russian backed cease-fire that went into effect at sundown yesterday survived the night. There was also a report that the Syrian government violated the agreement in the first hour by dropping barrel bombs on one Aleppo neighborhood. Joel Gehrke writes that Secretary of State John Kerry said that’s to be expected, and it’s better than nothing. “There will undoubtedly be reports of a violation here and there, I’m confident, but that is the nature of a beginning of a cease-fire, almost always,” Kerry told reporters at the State Department.
Things got confusing as the day went on. First, State Department spokesman John Kirby, in describing the U.S.-Russia Joint Implementation Center, said attacks by Syria’s government would be approved on a “case-by-case basis.” Kirby later clarified, saying neither the U.S. nor Russia is approving Assad’s airstrikes. “To clarify: the arrangement announced last week makes no provision whatsoever for the U.S. and Russian to approve strikes by the Syrian regime, and this is not something we could ever envision doing,” Kirby told reporters in a statement released after the press briefing.
Meanwhile Israel is denying a Syrian claim that an Israeli plane was shot down by Syria near the border with the Golan heights. Israel says it plane was fired upon, but not hit.
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GITMO VOTE: The House is expected to vote this week on a bill from Rep. Jackie Walorski that would prevent the president from transferring any more detainees out of Guantanamo Bay until either the defense appropriations bill becomes law or Jan. 1, whichever comes first. There are 61 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay, and the bill — if it passes both chambers and survives a likely presidential veto — would essentially end any hope Obama has of closing the detention center during his tenure as commander in chief.
The House this week will also mark up a bill from Rep. Ed Royce that would prohibit future “ransom” payments to Iran. The bill is scheduled to be marked up on Wednesday in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
WISHFUL THINKING?: Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he is “planning to try to have this thing [the National Defense Authorization Act] done by next week.” He met Monday night with Rep. Mac Thornberry, Rep. Adam Smith and Sen. Jack Reed for the second “big four” negotiation. Asked how conversations to iron out differences between the House and Senate bills were going, he said “there’s still a number of issues.” Smith told reporters after the meeting that lawmakers were able to “make progress” on differences in acquisition reform, Defense News reported.
Sen. Ben Sasse sent a letter on Monday to the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees asking them not to include language in the final draft that would require women to sign up for the Selective Service. “We should not hinder the brave men and women of our armed forces by entrapping them in unnecessary cultural issues. Our all-volunteer military is the best military the world has ever seen, and women who wish to serve in this military are free to do so. The provision of the FY17 NDAA requiring women to register for the Selective Service should be removed,” said the letter, which was signed by 16 other GOP senators.
STOP THAT BUS: Speaker Paul Ryan, in a White House meeting yesterday, told President Obama and other leaders that he’s opposed to passing a large omnibus spending measure at the end of the year, Susan Ferrechio writes. In the meeting, Ryan called for an effort to normalize the appropriations process, in particular defense spending, which is negatively impacted by stop-gap spending.
CONFIRMED KILL: Two weeks after it got in a propaganda war with Russia over conflicting claims of who killed the ISIS mouthpiece Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Pentagon quietly confirmed yesterday that yes, its drone strike on Aug. 30 killed the key ISIS leader while he was traveling in a vehicle near al-Bab, Syria. Russia claimed it killed Adnani in a strike on a group of ISIS militants miles away, a claim the Pentagon dismissed as fanciful. In a statement, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said the strike “removes from the battlefield ISIL’s chief propagandist, recruiter and architect of external terrorist operations.”
CARTER IN SAN FRAN: Defense Secretary Ash Carter is in San Francisco today, where he is speaking to the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016 conference. His remarks will be live-streamed at 1:25 p.m. on www.defense.gov. Carter is highlighting his pet project the “Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental,” or DIUx, which is aimed at “putting commercial innovation into the hands of America’s men and women in uniform.” Tomorrow, Carter will be in Austin, Texas, to deliver remarks on “innovation” at the Capital Factory technology incubator.
COST OF WAR: The price tag on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria, as well as money spent on U.S. homeland security, is $4.79 trillion, according to a report from Brown University. That includes more than $3.6 trillion that has already been spent, as well as what the administration has requested for fiscal 2017 war spending at the State Department and Pentagon and the budget request for homeland security protection.
BAD NEWS FOR THE BIG FIVE: The biggest defense contractors are losing their dominance in the research and development market, leaving room for small- and medium-sized businesses to gain a toehold in designing the Pentagon’s next generation technology. At the same time, businesses that haven’t worked with the Pentagon in the past are reluctant to jump in because of budget concerns, according to report released Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
OH RODRIGO: Philippines President Rodrigo “Obama is an SOB” Duterte was at it again yesterday, this time saying the U.S. special forces trainers who have deployed to his country “have to go.” That prompted the White House to remind him that he asked for the trainers in the first place. “What is true about the U.S. military presence in the Philippines is that this presence has been in the Philippines for a number of years at the request of leaders of that country,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily briefing Monday.
EMPOWER THE GENERALS: In remarks to the annual conference of the National Guard Association in Baltimore, Donald Trump promised to “empower” the generals in the U.S. military, the same group he described last week as being reduced to rubble under the leadership of Obama and Hillary Clinton. And Trump repeated his promise to embark on what he called a “major rebuilding of the entire military,” to equip it with the latest state-of-the-art weaponry and end the mandatory budget caps known as sequestration.
FLEET CRED: Trump nabbed a couple of national security wins yesterday, at least in the endorsement category. First, Clinton’s former CIA Director James Woolsey said he’s voting for The Donald, saying he “seems willing to keep a secret and not to blab everything to the public and our opponents when he comes up with something about national security that ought to be kept quiet.”
Then, the campaign announced that 14 Medal of Honor recipients were supporting Trump. “Their service spans 75 years, four conflicts, and four branches of the U.S. military,” the Trump campaign noted in a press release.
SEA STORIES: Well, that was unexpected. When the Navy posted video of the destroyer Zumwalt leaving Bath Iron Works in Maine, it included a little more insight than the service hoped. In the video, a man can be heard saying the shipbuilders “don’t have a clue” because the “college rookies” are book smart but don’t know how to build ships. Not surprisingly, the Navy yanked the video, but you can still see it on our site.
THE RUNDOWN
Reuters: U.S. agrees 10-year military aid deal with Israel worth at least $38 billion: sources
Defense News: Top 100 defense companies
UPI: South Korea considers buying 20 more F-35A stealth jets
Breaking Defense: ‘We’ve Got To Continue To Engage’ China: CNO Richardson
USNI News: China, Russia Kick Off Joint South China Sea Naval Exercise; Includes ‘Island Seizing’ Drill
Fox News: Iran threatened to shoot down US Navy spy planes in the Persian Gulf
New York Times: The View From Syria as a Cease-Fire Takes Effect
War on the Rocks: Defense reform in the next administration
Roll Call: Defense Secretary’s Tensions With GOP Could Lead Clinton Elsewhere
Defense One: Disjointed: Pentagon Isn’t Coordinating Efforts to Fix Readiness
UPI: U.S. Navy announces Littoral Combat Ship program overhaul
Air Force Times: It’s time for a national memorial for the Global War on Terror
Army Times: More than 140 women will begin training for infantry and armor jobs in 2017
Air Force Times: New Air Force chief to review squadron makeup, command and control
Calendar
TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 13
8 a.m. 1250 S. Hayes St., Arlington. Rear Adm. Bret Muilenburg, the commander of Navy Facilities and Engineering Command, speaks at a Navy League breakfast. navyleague.org
9:30 a.m. Hart 216. Marcel Lettre, the Defense Department’s undersecretary of intelligence, and Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, will testify at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on encryption and cyber matters. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The Brookings Institution hosts a panel to discuss how creating jobs in the Middle East could boost security. Brookings.edu
10:30 a.m. Pentagon Briefing Room. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, commander, U.S. Air Forces Central Command, briefs the media live via Skype on Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria. Live streamed www.defense.gov.
1 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Marcel Lettre, the Defense Department’s undersecretary of intelligence, will speak at the Atlantic Council about the role of transparency in strengthening defense intelligence. Atlanticcouncil.org
3:55 p.m. Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. Adm. Michael Rogers, commander, U.S. Cyber Command provides keynote remarks at the 7th Annual Billington CyberSecurity Summit.
WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 14
10 a.m. Rayburn 2172. The House Foreign Affairs Committee marks up a bill that would prohibit future “ransom” payments to Iran. foreignaffairs.house.gov
10 a.m. Cannon 311. The House Homeland Security Committee holds a hearing looking at the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to track and stop foreign fighters trying to enter the U.S. homeland.house.gov
12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Amber Smith, a former Army helicopter pilot, speaks at the Heritage Foundation about her new book on her service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heritage.org
2 p.m. Rayburn 2154. Think tank experts testify about radicalization and the rise of terrorism in the United States. oversight.house.gov
3:30 p.m. 2118 Rayburn. Four Air Force generals testify before the House Armed Services Committee on next-generation air space control. armedservices.house.gov
THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 15
9 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Stephen Welby, the assistance secretary of defense for research and engineering, talks about the state of research and development at the Pentagon. csis.org
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. The four service chiefs will testify at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on budgetary challenges facing the military. armed-services.senate.gov
12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Former Pentagon officials discuss what a no-first-use nuclear policy would mean for global security. heritage.org
5 p.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The American Enterprise Institute hosts an event in its new building on tension between the U.S. commitment to religious freedom and the tools the government has to stop terrorists. aei.org
FRIDAY | SEPTEMBER 16
9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. The Atlantic Council hosts an event on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new terrorism laws in Russia. atlanticcouncil.org
SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 17
7:30 a.m. National Harbor, Md. The Air Force Association’s two-day national convention begins. afa.org
