|
STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY? You would be forgiven if you were confused — just as most reporters seemed to be — about what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was saying about future military exercises with South Korea in the wake of North Korea’s failure to take concrete steps toward denuclearization, and the breakdown of negotiations. As yesterday’s rare on-camera Pentagon briefing unfolded, it seemed Mattis himself was a little confused about what message he wanted to send. EXERCISES WILL RESUME: At first it seemed clear. The Pentagon, completely blindsided by President Trump’s major concession to Kim Jong Un in June, was never in favor of canceling the annual U.S.-South Korean exercises, which it has argued for years are vital to maintaining the readiness of forces to defend the South against the North. Trump’s description of the defense drills as “provocative war games,” language employed in North Korean propaganda, along with labeling the exercises needlessly expensive, further rankled Pentagon officials, who don’t see military training as a waste of money when compared to the cost of going to war unprepared. Mattis had no choice but to support Trump in what was widely viewed within the building as a capricious and naive gamble designed to jump-start diplomatic efforts. But with the talks now faltering, Mattis seemed ready to bring the short-term experiment to an end. “As you know, we took the step to suspend several of the largest exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit,” Mattis said. “We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises.” That seemed pretty definitive. The U.S. would be resuming its regular schedule of major exercises that would normally begin in the spring. That’s the way the Pentagon’s own internal news service characterized it, in a story on the DoD website headlined, “Exercises to Resume on Korean Peninsula, Mattis Says.” The story posted at 1:15 p.m. was later taken down. NO DECISION ON EXERCISES: “We have no plans to suspend any more exercises,” was Mattis’ first word on the subject yesterday, but it wasn’t his last. As he returned to the subject several times during the briefing, Mattis seemed to be backtracking. Asked specifically whether next year’s Ulchi-Freedom Guardian and Foal Eagle exercises were now back on, Mattis said that was yet to be determined. “We have not made decisions on that at this time and we’ll do that in consultation with State.” Mattis insisted the Pentagon would do whatever would help Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he negotiates with Pyongyang. “What he needs done we will certainly do to reinforce his effort, but at this time, there is no discussion about further suspensions,” Mattis said, while a little later leaving the door open to another round of cancellations in the future. “I don’t have a crystal ball right now. Let’s see how the negotiations go. Even answering a question [in] that manner could influence the negotiations.” EXERCISES NEVER STOPPED: But the more Mattis explained, the more it began to appear that he had committed a minor version of the classic Washington of gaffe, joking defined as “accidentally telling the truth.” The Pentagon never really stopped the vital training, it just stripped the name off the big exercises, which then continued on a smaller scale under the guise of “routine training.” “We’re not turning them … back on. They’ve never been turned off,” Mattis admitted. “We suspended several of the largest exercises but we did not suspend the rest. So there are ongoing exercises all the time on the peninsula.” The clear implication was the Pentagon had once again finessed the president’s order to meet its military objectives, while fooling the North Koreans into thinking they had achieved one of their goals. “The reason you’ve not heard much about them is North Korea could not in any way misinterpret those as somehow breaking faith with the negotiation,” Mattis said. POMPEO COOLING HIS HEELS: At the State Department yesterday, spokeswoman Heather Nauert refused to confirm the latest round of talks was scuttled by a nasty-gram sent to Pompeo by chief North Korean negotiator Kim Yong Chol, as reported by the Washington Post. “I cannot confirm a letter, and I certainly can’t confirm the content of any diplomatic conversations,” Nauert said at yesterday’s briefing. She did confirm that the decision to pull the plug on Pompeo’s planned trip to Pyongyang was called off after he met in the White House with Trump, with national security adviser John Bolton on a secure phone line. “The entire national security team discussed this. In their judgment, they made the judgment that now is not the right time to travel. The president agreed with that, and that is when the president made the decision to send out some tweets announcing that decision,” Nauert said, and then read a statement from her boss. “Despite the decision to delay my trip to Pyongyang, America stands ready to engage when it is clear that Chairman Kim stands ready to deliver on the commitments that he made at the Singapore summit to President Trump to completely denuclearize North Korea,” his statement said. “The world is united behind the need for Chairman Kim to fulfill that commitment.” KIM’S COLD FEET? U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley suggested yesterday that Kim Jong Un might be having some second thoughts about his pledge to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. “Are they wishing or maybe changing their mind on denuclearization?” Haley told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It’s possible. But we’re not going to change our mind on the sanctions.” 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. |
|
HAPPENING TODAY — ESPER BREAKFAST: The Defense Writers Group is hosting a breakfast with Army Secretary Mark Esper at 8 this morning at the Fairmont Hotel. No doubt Esper will be happy to talk about the new Army Futures Command, whose headquarters was just activated this month in Austin, Texas. Expect Esper to also be asked about the progress of an Army review on the separations under the MAVNI program, which has come under fire from immigration advocates for allegedly unfairly discharging recruits who had been promised a path to citizenship in return for military service in hard-to-fill specialties, such as translators and medical personnel. MAVNI stands for Military Accessions Vital to National Interest. On July 20, the Army temporarily suspended actions related to its Delayed Entry and Delayed Training programs for soldiers recruited through the MAVNI program in order “to conduct a review of the administrative separation process.” IT’S ABOUT NATSEC: At yesterday’s briefing, Mattis defended the MAVNI program, which has brought about 6,000 people into the military between 2009 and its end in late 2017, insisting it is not targeting immigrants for discharge. “The issues with the program are not about immigration, they are about national security,” Mattis said. “We need and want every qualified patriot willing to serve and able to serve.” Mattis blamed the discharge of more than 2,000 of the original 10,000 applicants on more rigorous background checks required after a review by the Pentagon’s Inspector General, which he said “raised security concerns,” and resulted in the suspension of new applicants in 2016. “DOD has been working diligently to complete the screens that were directed by the IG investigation for those already in the pipeline,” Mattis said. “For the roughly 6,000 who have served, are currently serving, or have recently cleared the security process under MAVNI thus far, the U.S. military welcomes them as critical and valued members of our armed forces.” McSALLY WINS: Aviation pioneer and combat veteran Rep. Martha McSally won a convincing victory in yesterday’s Arizona Republican Senate primary, racking up more votes than her two rivals combined. McSally garnered 52.2 percent of the vote compared to former state Sen. Kelli Ward’s 28.3 percent and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 19.5 percent. McSally, who has endorsed Trump’s policies including his controversial border wall, faces a tough general election fight against Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, winner of the Democratic primary, who holds an edge in the latest head-to-head polls. Trump weighed in before going to bed last night, tweeting, “Martha, a great U.S. Military fighter jet pilot and highly respected member of Congress, WINS BIG. Congratulations, and on to November!” And the president couldn’t resist taking a swipe at one of his critics, saying McSally “was endorsed by rejected Senator Jeff Flake….and turned it down – a first!” McSally has the distinction of being the first female U.S. fighter pilot to fly in combat, and now whoever wins in the fall will make more history, becoming Arizona’s first woman senator. DOD OVERSIGHT AFTER McCAIN: Following an emotional floor speech about John McCain Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters he had promised the late senator to carry on tough oversight of the military. “When it came to the Pentagon, he was a ferocious reformer and he loved nothing more than getting into the bowels of the budget and finding waste,” Graham said. “So we’re going to have to take that up. That is one of my promises to him. We talked about a month ago, he said, ‘Boy, you have to keep it going.’ I said well I’ll do my part.” The big question for the Senate has been who can replace McCain’s passion and searing public scrutiny of Pentagon programs. “That is one area where we need to get a group of people. [Sen.] Dan Sullivan has been good and a few others, [Sen.] James Lankford, and really make sure that the Pentagon knows that we appreciate what they do but we are watching them,” Graham said. “I think the worst thing in the world for somebody at the Pentagon was to come up here and testify in front of John if they didn’t know what they were doing.” STAYING THE COURSE IN AFGHANISTAN: Graham, who was McCain’s closest friend in the Senate, also vowed to channel the foreign policy of the late Senate Armed Services chairman. That includes trying to convince Trump to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Graham said. “I’m going to make sure that the Congress keeps asking the hard questions and try to persuade President Trump, if you leave Afghanistan, it will blow up in your face, that hoping Syria gets better without a strategy won’t work, and do it in a Lindsey way,” he said. The Graham approach, which has included publicly praising the president and occasionally pushing back, may have a better chance with Trump, who has been publicly skeptical of a long-term commitment in Afghanistan. McCain had a deeply strained relationship with the president. Before his death, McCain told Graham to help Trump “where you can, just don’t get sucked into all this bullshit. I said, ‘roger,’ ” the South Carolina senator said. HOW ENDURING A PRESENCE? At yesterday’s briefing, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford addressed the question of how long the U.S. will have to keep troops in Afghanistan to prop up the Afghan military. “There’ll be permanent diplomatic presence across South Asia, but I certainly don’t expect that the current forces that we have in Afghanistan represents an enduring large military commitment,” he said, without indicating the size or shape of that continuing commitment. “We have permanent interests in South Asia, diplomatic interests and security interests, and we’re going to maintain a presence to have influence in that region,” Dunford said. “The diplomatic presence, the security presence, and the form of that presence is going to change over time.” Dunford noted a few years ago the U.S. had more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and today there are 14,000 to 15,000 as part of the NATO Resolute Support and U.S. counterterrorism missions. STICK A FORK IN IT: In an interview with Reuters, Trump has already said he’s not considering Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s proposal to replace U.S. troops in Afghanistan with private contractors. And yesterday Mattis put the final nail in the coffin. “When Americans put their nation’s credibility on the line privatizing it is probably not a wise idea,” he said. DANA WHITE WATCH: Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White has not held a formal briefing since May 31, and it’s becoming a bit of a parlor game to speculate when she might make another on-camera appearance in the briefing room, especially since her briefing buddy, Lt. Gen. Frank McKenzie, is leaving the Pentagon to head up U.S. Central Command. I caught up with White in the Pentagon hallway and asked when she might brief again. She confirmed she has no briefings on her schedule at least in the short term. She cited her heavy travel schedule with Mattis as the primary reason, and laughed off a suggestion it might have something to do with the ongoing Inspector General investigation into allegations she misused her staff and retaliated against complainers. PENTAGON VS. EPA: The Pentagon has weighed in against a controversial Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would block the agency from using scientific studies that do not make public the raw data used in research. “While we agree that public access to information is very important, we do not believe that failure of the agency to obtain a publication’s underlying data from an author external to the agency should negate its use,” Patricia Underwood, a senior Pentagon official in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, wrote in recent formal public comments on the EPA proposal, which were first reported Tuesday by E&E News. Washington Examiner: State Department: No aid money to Assad territory Military Times: DoD: Afghanistan operations could hit 22 years ― but don’t call it a permanent presence Defense One: Mattis: US Troops Can’t Leave Syria Until UN Peace Talks Advance Roll Call: No Price Tag Yet for Trump’s Space Force, Pentagon Says Daily Beast: ‘John McCain the Diplomat’ Will Be Irreplaceable, Senate Colleagues Say Defense Tech: F-35 Helmet Bug Means Only Expert Pilots Can Do Night Carrier Landings New York Times: Russia Hated John McCain, and Will Miss Him Dearly War on the Rocks: Strategy by Solarium: From Eisenhower to Cyber Navy Times: ‘Midway’ blockbuster starring Woody Harrelson to begin filming next month on Oahu |
CalendarWEDNESDAY | AUG. 29 7:30 a.m. 5000 Seminary Rd. iFest 2018. ndia.org 8 a.m. 2401 M St. NW. Defense Writers Group Breakfast with Army Secretary Mark Esper. 10 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The U.S.-India 2+2: A Conversation with Randall Schriver, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. carnegieendowment.org 12 noon. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Syria: Obstacles to Reconstruction and Stability. hudson.org THURSDAY | AUG. 30 10 a.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy: Signaling Foreign Policy Restraint. stimson.org WEDNESDAY | SEPT. 5 7 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd. AUSA Army Aviation Hot Topic Symposium. ausa.org 9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Outside-the-Box Sino-Indian and Indo-Russian Cooperation on Afghanistan. atlanticcouncil.org 10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Full Committee Hearing Assessing the Value of the NATO Alliance. foreign.senate.gov 10 a.m. 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The NSA and the Road to 9/11: Lessons Learned and Unlearned. cato.org 2 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. NATO in the Changing World Order: Strategic Lessons from Military Operations. stimson.org 5 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Chairman Mac Thornberry: 2018 Nunn Prize Recipient. csis.org |
|
