Daily on Defense — May 6, 2016 — North Korea watch

ATTACKS THWARTED: The Pentagon is claiming success in taking out an Islamic State “external attack planner,” along with his wife, and an Australian national. They were all said to be involved in plotting attacks against the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

WE HAVE A SITUATION HERE, IT’S CALLED “COMBAT” The U.S. military is still struggling to explain the difference between U.S. troops who are in combat, as opposed to finding themselves in “a combat situation.” The latest to try was a one-star general in Afghanistan, where the U.S. military is technically not at war with the Taliban they are helping the Afghan forces kill.

The independent Military Times newspaper group is out with an editorial saying what many active-duty service members likely feel. “When U.S. and allied troops are on Islamic State turf with the mission of wiping it from existence, they are on a combat mission. Calling it anything else is wrong.”

POISONED? The Washington Post’s front page describes the “plausible, if not provable” belief the CIA’s station chief in Pakistan was poisoned in a feud that followed to 2011 raid that killed Osama bin laden.

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RHODES’ EXPLOSIVE ADMISSION: Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, told the New York Times that Congress was so incapable of reasonable debate, it affected how the administration dealt with Congress over the Iran nuclear deal, Joel Gehrke reports. “I mean, I’d prefer a sober, reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take a vote,” he said. “But that’s impossible.”

From the story: “That assessment was part of a profile of Rhodes that explained how he crafted an ‘actively misleading’ story about the deal to the American public.

T. Becket Adams has more on Rhodes’ low opinion of the press, and how he took advantage of young reporters and media organizations that didn’t have the resources to back up or knock down the administration’s claims.

“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

Rhodes also said the administration tried to downplay the news of Iran’s capture of 10 U.S. sailors in February because it happened right before the president’s State of the Union address, Nicole Duran writes. ”Obama spokesman Josh Earnest indicated the White House was trying to downplay the news, but only because having it come out makes it harder to get a positive outcome quickly.”

“’It is easier to resolve situations like this when they aren’t subject to intense media scrutiny.’ Earnest said. Obama officials usually won’t discuss specific cases of detainment because they have learned over the last seven years that it ‘is not conducive to their prompt and safe release. I am sure that was a factor in this situation.’”

Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the top critics of the Iran deal, told Gehrke in response to the Rhodes story that “Ben Rhodes started out as a fiction writer and it’s clear he never stopped.”

“It’s cute when kids play make-believe. It’s dangerous when the president and his advisers do.”

Sen. John McCain, up for reelection this fall, says having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket may give him “the race of my life” due to the GOP presidential front runner’s unpopularity among Hispanics, Joel Gehrke reports. Trump ‘s presumptive nomination could put Armed Services Chairman McCain in a tricky spot, trying to court both Hispanic voters and Republicans who believe the Arizona Republican is too moderate.

McCAIN HAD A POINT: You may recall that McCain raked Defense Secretary Ash Carter over the hibachi last week when Carter refused to confirm what was supposedly a very public and visible show of U.S. airpower in the South China Sea. McCain fumed, and Carter fumbled the answer, unsure if he was asked to reveal classified operations. Yesterday the Pentagon admitted the information McCain was seeking was not classified, and in fact has been posted on the Pacific Command website days before. Carter’s staff needs to make sure he’s ready to answer questions on McCain’s favorite subjects.

ANOTHER TLA: “AMA” The U.S. military’s most quotable and least filtered spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, will be engaging both conventional and non-conventional media at 1 p.m. in an “AMA” q-and-a on the social media site Reddit, which boasts more than 243 million unique visitors from 200 countries. The TLA “AMA” stands for “ask me anything.” You can follow the chat at this site, but if you want to take part, you have to sign up for a free account and log in. The AMA feature has 10 million subscribers. Recent notable AMA participants include President Obama, Bill Gates, and Stan Lee. Oh, and as any Pentagon veteran knows, “TLA” stands for “three-letter acronym.”

Warren, who formerly was the director of press operations at the Pentagon, is known for his unvarnished view of war, including blunt descriptions of the U.S. mission overseas, like “the United States military will hunt them and we will kill them” when talking about terrorists. Another recent Warren gem? “The mission of the quick reaction force is to quickly react with force.”

The Pentagon released its annual report on sexual assault on Thursday and said it is making “progress” in eliminating sexual violence from the military, though it said more needs to be done. The military received more than 6,000 reports of sexual assault in fiscal 2015, the report found, though low reporting rates mean the real number of incidents is likely higher. The number is a 1 percent decrease from the previous year’s report.

Advocates for survivors of military sexual assault said that some of the numbers in the Pentagon’s report were misrepresentations meant to make it look as if the problem is improving more than it really is. “The Pentagon is once again manipulating the data,” retired Col. Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders, said in a statement. “As sexual assault reporting rates have stalled, they are attempting to redefine retaliation to hide the scope of the problem.”

DON’T UNDERSTAND THE CEASEFIRE? JUST GET BASHAR ON HORN: “The State Department admitted on Thursday that there’s no agreement about the details of this week’s Syria ceasefire, and suggested that reporters should ask the Syrian government if they want to confirm details about the fuzzy agreement,” Pete Kasperowicz writes. “The Obama administration says the new ceasefire detail started on Wednesday and is open-ended, but the Syrian government said it started Thursday and will only last 48 hours.

“When pressed for an explanation about the confusion, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said he had none. ‘You are right to note a little bit of a discrepancy there in terms of the start time,’ he said. ‘Look, we stand by our statement that it went into effect May 4 at 12:01 local time in Syria.’”

HACKER’S CLAIM COULD SPELL TROUBLE FOR CLINTON: A former Justice Department official tells Rudy Takala that the claim coming from hacker “Guccifer” could mean the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony charge for Hillary Clinton. “’The fact that Guccifer apparently hacked into her computer is a valuable piece of evidence for the FBI to use,’ said Joseph DiGenova, who served under President Reagan as a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. ‘It wouldn’t be crime, but it would be evidence used to prove that classified information was improperly maintained.’”

SHIPBUILDING EARNINGS: Huntington Ingalls Industries had a first quarter of 2016 that exceeded expectations, according to a report released Thursday by Guggenheim Partners.

The shipbuilder reported $1.68 billion in revenue in the first three months of the year. “The direction of performance at Ingalls was not surprising to us (although it was better than we expected) because we believe it should be able to build its current workload very effectively. Performance at Newport News is an area of concern,” the report says.

WHAT AIR SUPERIORITY LOOKS LIKE: This map shows how many more military aircraft the US has than every other country on earth.  In absolute numbers, the U.S. is far and away the world’s dominant aerial power.

Yes but could today’s airmen deal with a real air war? David Barno and Nora Bensahel argue the U.S. Air Force is suffering from “catastrophic success.” Writing in WarOnTheRocks.com: “The Air Force no longer has any substantive experience in how to fight and win in a highly contested environment, and its current airmen have never experienced serious losses of people and machines in air combat.”

F-35 vs A-10 FLY OFF:  Here another take on the value of a head-to-head competition between the venerable A-10 Thunderbolt and the vilified F-35 Lightning II to determine the World Close Air Support champion, from Defense News.

CURSE YOU, RED BARON! Which reminds us of this classic Duffelblog posting from last year that perfectly captures the way any F-35 failure can be explained away with aviation blather. “We intend it to be a first-rate mulitrole attack aircraft, and to excel at long-range fighting, what we call BVR, or ‘Beyond Visual Range’ air combat. Not to worry about some Hun who’s been dead a hundred years. Frankly, the two aircraft involved in this battle represent two different philosophies of air combat.”

TRUMP’S VISION: A Pew poll says 57 percent of Americans are in favor of Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, which involves solving this country’s problems before worrying about foreign ones, Paul Bedard writes. “The public’s wariness toward global engagement extends to U.S. participation in the global economy. Nearly half of Americans (49 percent) say U.S. involvement in the global economy is a bad thing because it lowers wages and costs jobs; fewer (44 percent) see this as a good thing because it provides the U.S. with new markets and opportunities for growth.”

Still, one of Trump’s biggest fans in the media isn’t so hot on the candidate right now. At least until he changes his opinion on banning Muslims from entering the country, Gabby Morrongiello writes. “I’ve got to say, I was surprised and disappointed … that yesterday, he stuck by the Muslim ban,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said Thursday morning. “That’s a loser. It’s a loser with the majority of Americans. And you’ve got Republicans like me. I just, I’m not going to vote for a guy like that.”

So when do the front-runners start getting their intel briefings? It’s up to intel officials, the White House said yesterday, Nicole Duran reports. “Questions have arisen over whether some of Donald Trump’s comments should preclude him from having access, or whether the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of sensitive information while serving as secretary of state should give pause to granting her access if they become their parties’ presidential nominees. Earnest said intelligence officials will make the call as to who sees what, and when.”

“’The decision about how and whether and when to brief to the presidential nominees is a decision that will be made by our intelligence professionals. The White House will not be interfering in the intelligence community decision … in any way.”

AS SEEN ON TV:  Lower third headline seen on CNN yesterday: “World reacts with shock to Trump as nominee.”

IT’S NOT CHAMPAGNE, UNLESS IT’S FROM FRANCE: The Navy says New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen will break a bottle of “sparkling wine” across the bow of its newest  Independence-class littoral combat ship, USS Manchester. The christening ceremony is tomorrow in Mobile, Alabama.

COOK TIMER: The Pentagon’s notoriously tardy press secretary Peter Cook showed up 11 minutes late for his scheduled 1 p.m. Thursday news briefing. The former TV reporter had been improving his on-time performance lately, but the problem is that he still suffers by comparison to the preternaturally punctual Capt. Jeff Davis, the press ops director whose 11:30 a.m. off-camera briefings typically start at 11:30 a.m., give or take a minute.

THE RUNDOWN

Daily Beast: Spies Worry Candidate Trump Will Spill Secrets

Popular Mechanics: A U.S. Navy Carrier Group Is Sailing on Beef Fat

Time: President Obama’s Legacy Is Endless War

USNI News: Austal USA Awarded Long Lead Contract for 12th EPF

Washington Post: After presiding over bin Laden raid, CIA chief in Pakistan came home convinced he was poisoned by ISI

Defense One: Petty Officer Keating Died 2 Miles From the Syrian Front. How Far Are You?

Washington Examiner: Letterman, Stewart sing happy birthday to USO with Obamas

Calendar

FRIDAY | MAY 6

9 a.m. 1150 17th St. NW. Scholars from the Army War College discuss how to make the Army organizational structure less bloated and more efficient. aei.org

MONDAY | MAY 9

2:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. The airland subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee holds a closed mark up of its portion of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov

TUESDAY | MAY 10

9:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. The Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee holds a closed mark up for the fiscal 2017 NDAA. armed-services.senate.gov

10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, talks about the state of defense acquisition. csis.org

11 a.m. Dirksen G-50. The SASC Personnel Subcommittee holds an open mark up for its piece of the fiscal 2017 defense policy bill. armed-services.senate.gov

2 p.m. Dirksen G-50. The SASC Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support holds an open mark up for its piece of the fiscal 2017 NDAA. armed-services.senate.gov

3:30 p.m. Dirksen G-50. The SASC Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities holds an open mark up on the fiscal 2017 defense policy bill. armed-services.senate.gov

5:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. The SASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee holds a closed mark up on its piece of the NDAA. armed-services.senate.gov

5:30 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Bob Schieffer hosts an event with State Department officials on how to break the Islamic State’s brand. csis.org

WEDNESDAY | MAY 11

All day. Pentagon courtyard. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency holds a demo day at the Pentagon’s outdoor courtyard where some of its latest technology will be on display. defense.gov

9:30 a.m. Russell 222. The Senate Armed Services Committee begins three days of 12-hour closed mark ups that will wrap up on Friday on the fiscal 2017 defense policy bill. armed-services.senate.gov

FRIDAY | MAY 13

8:30 a.m. Kennedy Caucus Room, 325 Russell. Aerospace Industries Association hosts a “Rockets on the Hill” event with 50 teams from Team America Rocketry Challenge. aia-aerospace.org