TRUMP’S DAY 1 PLAN: In his five-minute recorded video address, President-elect Trump had one line that addressed national security. “I will ask the Department of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America’s vital infrastructure from cyberattacks and all other form of attacks,” Trump said. One has to believe that with all planning that goes on routinely at the Pentagon, there is already a plan for that, but as always the question is can the plan be improved (always) and what will it cost (depends)?
BETWEEN THE LINES: The end-of-the day readouts issued by the Trump transition team seem to hint at which jobs various candidates are being interviewed for. For instance, Trump’s first two meetings of the day were with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Sen. Scott Brown, and the discussions included “approaches to fix the VA,” and “the significant challenges facing service members returning from active duty overseas, receiving quality and timely healthcare and mental health support.” Brown has already announced he’d be “the best person” to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, but it also sounds like Gabbard is being considered as well. More on her meeting with Trump below.
Discussions with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry centered on “homeland security, border control, and illegal immigration. Their conversation also included the bureaucratic challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security and Defense, ISIS, and America’s place in the world.” Sounds like DHS could be in Perry’s future.
Rudy Giuliani’s name is being floated for yet another Cabinet position, Daniel Chaitin writes. The longtime Trump loyalist is now under consideration for director of national intelligence, according to NBC News on Monday. Giuliani, who met with Trump in New Jersey on Sunday, had also been in the running for attorney general and secretary of state.
Meanwhile Chris Christie seems to have dropped out of the running for a Cabinet post. The New Jersey governor was asked about it during a monthly “Ask the Governor” radio segment, and he said “I intend to be governor until Jan. 18 of 2018.” He added, “that’s what I want to do, and that’s what I intend to do.”
Good Tuesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Jacqueline Klimas (@jacqklimas) 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.
Want to learn more about Daily on Defense? See our introductory video here.
HE’S A MAD DOG FAN: Sen. John McCain said he is pleased that Trump appears to be favoring the selection of retired Marine Gen. James Mattis for defense secretary, calling him “one of the finest military officers of his generation,” Susan Crabtree writes. “General Mattis is … a leader who inspires a rare and special admiration of his troops,” McCain said. “He is a forthright strategic thinker. His integrity is unshakable and unquestionable.”
MATTIS VS. TRUMP: Based on a speech he gave at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in April, Mattis is not quite on the same page as Trump on some major national securities issues. Mattis, for instance, thinks the Iran deal is flawed, but has some advantages, and suggested it’s too late to tear it up and start again. “I don’t think that we can take advantage of some new president, Republican or Democrat, and say we’re not going to live up to our word on this agreement,” Mattis said seven months ago. “I believe we would be alone if we did, and unilateral economic sanctions from us would not have anywhere near the impact of an allied approach to this.” Back then, Mattis also bristled at President Obama’s characterization of some U.S. allies as “freeloaders.” In what might seem impolitic now, Mattis said he thought it was something Trump would say, not Obama. “I would just say that for a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.” Mattis argued the U.S. needs all the allies it can get, and must reassure them America won’t desert them in their time of need. “Worth more than 10 battleships or five armored divisions is the sense of American political resolve,” Mattis said.
Meanwhile the Washington Post reports there’s a faction inside the Trump transition team that’s still pushing for former Sen. Jim Talent for defense secretary. Talent met with Trump last week, and is said to be favored by incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and other insiders who think a civilian, not a retired general, should lead the Pentagon.
LAME DUCK WARNING: McCain also on Monday urged Defense Secretary Ash Carter not to try to push any social reforms through in the lame duck session. “Many of the department’s recent actions in this regard have been questionable and misguided, and any effort to continue in that direction during a presidential transition and lame-duck session of Congress would be inappropriate,” his letter said.
RECESS CAN WAIT: Twenty-two Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee told House Speaker Paul Ryan on Monday that they didn’t want to head home for the December holidays until lawmakers had passed the National Defense Authorization Act for the 55th year in a row. The letter, led by Rep. Joe Wilson, was signed by all of the subcommittee heads and says the must-pass bill should be dealt with this year because of the reforms it would make to military healthcare as well as the pay raise it would give to troops.
And even though Congress is already starting work on a continuing resolution to last through March, two researchers at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments write that the Pentagon needs an appropriations bill now. Katherine Blakeley and Maureen Smolskis list the 10 reasons.
ARMING RECRUITERS: In response to deadly shootings over the last several years, the Pentagon is issuing new rules that will relax restrictions on U.S. military service members’ ability to carry concealed handguns for protection at government facilities, the Military Times reports. The new directive, which went into effect Nov. 18, says service members, including military recruiters, can now request to carry their privately-owned firearms. The policy follows deadly shooting incidents over the past seven years, including one last year at a Chattanooga, Tenn., recruiting center where five service members were shot and killed.
TOO TEMPERAMENTAL? Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said Monday that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser-designate, had the temperament to serve in the White House role when he knew him several years ago, but was unsure if his behavior on the campaign trail showed he was still capable. “When I knew him, he clearly had the temperament. If it’s the ‘lock her up’ temperament, that’s not who I’d want to advise me from a national security perspective,” Mullen said at the Aspen Institute.
ADVOCATES SPEAK OUT: Protect Our Defenders, an organization that advocates for survivors of military sexual assault, said on Monday that it had heard from many of its members have raised “grave concerns” about Trump serving in the White House following some lewd remarks made on the campaign trail. “While we have been concerned by President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence‘s troubling statements regarding sexual assault and the role of women in the military, during the campaign, President-elect Trump also acknowledged that sexual assault in the military remains a serious problem, and recognized the need to reform the military justice process,” the statement said. The group, headed by former Air Force lawyer retired Col. Don Christensen, will reach out to the administration “in the coming weeks.”
THAT MEETING WITH GABBARD: The Hawaii congresswoman and Army National Guard major says she and Trump discussed Syria and the fight against the Islamic State when they met Monday, during which she implored him to avoid escalating the Syrian conflict, Sarah Westwood writes. “I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government — a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families,” Gabbard said in a statement. “While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives.”
SYRIA CONDEMNATIONS: The State Department declared Russian and Syrian unwillingness to allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians afflicted by the country’s civil war “an abomination” in the wake of escalated attacks on hospitals last week, Joel Gehrke writes. “It’s an abomination that no aid has gotten into Aleppo now for well over a month, I think, was the last time, while shelling and bombing not only continues but seems to be intensifying,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power on Monday, meanwhile, chronicled acts of “Russian terror” in Syria, escalating U.S. condemnation of President Vladimir Putin’s government by taking aim at his claim that the Russians are fighting jihadists in the country. “Attacks on civilians fuel terrorism; they don’t defeat terrorism,” Power said Monday during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. “The perpetrators must also know that, like their ignominious predecessors through history, they will face judgment for their crimes.”
ON THE OTHER HAND: Sens Lindsey Graham and McCain laid the blame for the humanitarian disaster squarely on the failed policies of the Obama administration. “After an exchange of pleasantries with Vladimir Putin in Peru this weekend, Obama’s answer to the carnage unfolding in Aleppo was to note the need for Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian foreign minister to continue pursuing initiatives ‘to diminish the violence and alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people.’ The two senators dismissed that as a delusion that “is nothing short of stunning.
“After hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed in a merciless campaign of inhuman slaughter aided and abetted by Russia, what could possibly give President Obama or any thinking person the impression that Vladimir Putin has any interest in alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people?” the senators said in a statement.
HIT US WITH YOUR BEST SHOT: The Pentagon is expanding its invitation to good-guy hackers to help find vulnerabilities in the DoD’s “public facing” websites. One new initiative is called “Vulnerability Disclosure Policy,” and is basically a way for outsiders to legally find and disclose vulnerabilities in unclassified public sites. And a second initiative, called “Hack the Army,” is modeled after the “Hack the Pentagon” pilot program that found 138 “bugs” in June. Registration for “Hack the Army” begins today.
THE RUNDOWN
Washington Post: Investigators: Killing of 3 U.S. soldiers in Jordan appears to have been deliberate
Defense News: Operational F-35As Grounded by Faulty Insulation Return to Flight Status
UPI: U.S. Navy reaches milestone with F-35B weapons load testing
Defense One: How Much Does a Cyber Weapon Cost? Nobody Knows
USNI News: PEO LCS Looks To Take Ownership Of ACTUV Surface Vehicle in 2018
Task and Purpose: Here’s What Mattis Actually Needs In Order To Be SecDef
Marine Corps Times: Impostor claims to be Gen. Mattis on Twitter
Breaking Defense: Fix Rules Of Engagement For Afghanistan Fight: Rep. Joe Wilson
Reuters: Iran’s Guards using Trump victory to claw back power
Defense News: US Lawmakers Balk at Trump’s Russian Reset
Military.com: Russia Deploys New Missiles to the Baltic Sea Region
Military Times: Forward-operating feast: Turkey, and the fixings, deployed for the troops
Calendar
TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 22
11 a.m. 10 First St. SE. Library of Congress. Army Secretary Eric Fanning is interviewed on topics ranging from the importance of diversity, budget stability, and innovation. loc.gov
MONDAY | NOVEMBER 28
6 p.m. 1777 F St. NW. Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations about domestic security and the Islamic State. cfr.org
TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 29
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. The Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing titled “Department of Defense Actions Concerning Voluntary Education Programs.” armed-services.senate.gov
9:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. A panel of experts discusses how to handle Russia’s increasing involvement in the Middle East. atlanticcouncil.org
11 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft provides remarks at the Brookings Institution. brookings.edu
