The purge begins: As deadlines pass, vaccine resisters are booted from the military

A provision of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which has yet to pass the Senate, would require that troops who are separated for vaccine issues be given an honorable or general discharge under honorable conditions.

“I can’t predict what the separation policies are going to lead to in terms of numbers,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. “The Air Force is the first to come out with a number. It’s important to keep that number in context; 27 out of more than 1,800 that were separated for other reasons. Administrative separations are not new, and we’re going to leave it to the services to manage this in the way that they deem most appropriate.”

MILITARY VACCINATION RATES CONTINUE TO RISE AS DISCHARGES COMMENCE

COMPLIANCE NOW AT 97%: The latest statistics on vaccination rates show the overwhelming majority of active-duty troops are rolling up their sleeves for the vaccine, which is just one of several required for military service.

As of yesterday, 97.2% of active-duty personnel have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and almost 91% are “fully vaccinated,” defined as two doses or one dose of the J&J vaccine. Numbers for the “full force,” which includes the National Guard and Reserves, who have more time to get their shots, are 89.5% have at least one done, and 75% are fully vaccinated.

“A vaccinated force is a more-ready force,” said Kirby at yesterday’s Pentagon briefing. “So when it comes to readiness, our interest is in making sure that we get as close to 100% vaccination as possible so that the force can be protected. That’s the concern.”

“The vast majority of our people, and this shouldn’t get lost, the vast majority are doing the right thing and did the right thing even before the vaccine was mandatory. But they’re getting the shot, and so I think it’s important to keep that perspective.”

AIR FORCE DISCHARGES 27 FOR REFUSAL TO GET COVID-19 VACCINE

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HAPPENING TODAY: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin welcomes Canadian Minister of National Defense Anita Anand to the Pentagon at 1 p.m. on the steps of the River Entrance.

ALSO TODAY: President Joe Biden travels to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which the Pentagon had offered up as a base of operations for relief operations in tornado-ravaged Kentucky. Biden will take a helicopter tour of the hard-hit community of Mayfield, get a briefing from local leaders, and then walk through a neighborhood in Dawson Springs, Kentucky.

The Pentagon said yesterday 500 personnel from the Kentucky National Guard are assisting with relief efforts, roughly 80 providing recovery support, another 50 assisting the Department of Forestry in debris clearance. In addition, there are about 90 military police and four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters on standby, if needed.

Last week’s killer tornadoes could end up being the deadliest in U.S. history, with the death toll at 88 and expected to rise.

NDAA POISED FOR FINAL PASSAGE: The Senate voted yesterday 86-13 to invoke cloture, thereby teeing up a final vote on the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act before the Senate takes a holiday recess.

Under Senate rules, once cloture ends the possibility of a filibuster, there can be up to 30 hours of debate before a vote on final passage. The “must-pass” $768 billion defense policy bill sailed through the House 363-70 after a bipartisan compromise version was hammered out by the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee.

The bill could get a vote as soon as tonight and be sent to President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign it into law. But the NDAA’s provisions will not fully take effect until and unless a full appropriation measure is passed next year and the restrictions of a stop-gap continuing resolution are lifted.

REPUBLICAN PRIORITIES PREVAIL IN COMPROMISE $768 BILLION DEFENSE POLICY BILL

REED TOUTS JUSTICE REFORM: In a statement, Democratic Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed of Rhode Island, touted provisions that would overhaul how the military investigates and prosecutes sexual assault and other offenses, including murder, manslaughter, and kidnapping.

“This bill is a major victory for all military sexual assault survivors and will lead to lasting changes in the military justice system to ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice within the armed forces,” said Reed, who credited the family of Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen, who was murdered in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2020, with providing the impetus for change. “I hope today’s vote and the reforms it brings about offer some measure of comfort to her family. They have suffered an unspeakable tragedy and used their voices to help others and deliver positive, lasting change.”

MEMORIAL HONORING SLAIN SOLDIER VANESSA GUILLEN UNVEILED AT FORT HOOD

GILLIBRAND MIFFED: Reed made no mention of New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who has championed military justice reform for years and won bipartisan filibuster-proof support for a stronger measure but was denied a vote on the Senate floor by Reed.

“House and Senate Armed Services leadership have gutted our bipartisan military justice reforms behind closed doors, doing a disservice to our service members and our democracy,” Gillibrand said in a Dec. 8 statement. “Committee leadership has ignored the will of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a majority of the House in order to do the bidding of the Pentagon.”

In his statement, Reed said the language that did make it into the final bill are “historic reforms,” and he said there is “no legislative silver bullet” to reform the military justice system. “Once the bill becomes law and is implemented, specialized, independent military prosecutors will decide which cases get prosecuted, rather than commanders. Also, for the first time, the NDAA will create a new punitive article criminalizing sexual harassment in the military as prejudicial to good order and discipline,” the statement said.

A fact sheet issued by House Democrats this week said victim rights advocates have rallied around the reforms after some initially expressed reservations about whether the reforms were watered down in conference committee.

Retired Col. Don Christensen, former chief prosecutor of the Air Force and president of Protect Our Defenders, who was an early critic, was quoted as saying, “The provisions included in this year’s NDAA are the most transformative military justice reforms in our nation’s history.”

GRADY’S VCJC NOM ADVANCES: In other action, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to send to the floor 10 pending military promotions in the Army, Navy, and Space Force, including the nomination of Adm. Christopher Grady, to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The post has been vacant since the retirement of Air Force Gen. John Hyten in mid-November. Grady is expected to be confirmed with little opposition.

BIPARTISAN SENSE OF URGENCY ON UKRAINE: A bipartisan congressional delegation is just back from a visit to Ukraine is urging a greater urgency in the U.S. response to Russia’s ominous buildup of troops and tanks on Ukraine’s eastern border.

“We made the people of Ukraine a promise in 1994 to provide defensive assurances in exchange for giving up their nuclear arsenal. Our credibility is on the line,” tweeted Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican and former Green Beret. “We cannot afford to lose a second democratic partner in a year. Just as Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement allowed Czechoslovakia, then Poland, then France to fall to Nazi Germany — leading to global conflict. Biden risks taking the world down the same slippery slope.”

Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Marine, told CNN that President Joe Biden needs to step on the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin before he acts, not after.

“I don’t know that we’re acting quickly enough. He’s moved very quickly to move these troops in the place. We need to respond even more quickly to show him the true costs of a potential invasion,” Moulton said.

In a memo to Biden summing up his impressions of the trip, Moulton wrote: “We need to be less concerned about provoking Putin and more concerned about deterring him. We need to make it clear not only to Putin, but to Russian people that a lot of Russian boys will die on day one.”

“I think fundamentally, he’s taking the right approach, but I don’t think he’s acting as aggressively as he could,” Moulton said. “What we need to do is get a real airtight sanctions regime in place with our allies that will go into place the second he invades. We need to make it clear that our weapons will make this very painful for Putin, not just over the course of a long occupation, but immediately upon crossing the border into Ukraine on day one.”

BIPARTISAN CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION RETURNS FROM UKRAINE TRIP SENSING ‘WILL TO FIGHT’

ISW: TALIBAN CONSOLIDATING POWER: The latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War concludes the Taliban is consolidating power within Afghanistan by asserting control over the judicial system, replacing civil servants with Taliban loyalists, and expelling some Taliban fighters.

“The Taliban government recently enacted changes to Afghanistan’s legal system that will enable it to exert greater control over the judicial process at the cost of depriving Afghans of their right to due process,” the analysis concludes.

The ISW also notes the Taliban has continued to crack down on rival Islamic State Khorasan Province or ISIS-K. “The Taliban deployed at least 1,300 additional troops to Nangarhar Province in November to support its ongoing campaign against [ISIS-K].”

FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: Budget maven Todd Harrison over at the Center for Strategic and International studies passes along this historical nugget.

“On December 5th one hundred years ago, President Warren Harding submitted the first annual budget request to Congress for the year FY 1923. It included $369.9 million for the War Department, $7.4 million in military funding to operate and maintain the Panama Canal, and $431.8 million for the Navy Department. How things have changed!”

Harrison also runs the “Bad Ideas Office” over at CSIS, where they solicit papers from CSIS and other think tanks to do the opposite of what they normally do. Instead of offering good ideas, we ask them to call out the bad ones.

More on that tomorrow.

FROM CNAS TO DOD: The Center for a New American Security congratulates one of its own, Ilan Goldenberg, senior fellow and director of its Middle East Security program, on his appointment as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

Goldenberg will serve as the deputy to the principal adviser to the undersecretary of defense for policy and the secretary of defense for U.S. defense policy toward Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The Rundown

Washington Examiner: Bipartisan congressional delegation returns from Ukraine trip sensing ‘will to fight’

Washington Examiner: Military vaccination rates continue to rise as discharges commence

Washington Examiner: House votes to hold former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress

Washington Examiner: White House pressed on higher number of Americans still in Afghanistan

Washington Examiner: Iran demands total sanctions removal as ‘last chance’ nuclear talks falter

Washington Examiner: ‘They want to become a superpower’: African port links could make Chinese access to Atlantic inevitable

Washington Examiner: Japan’s Shinzo Abe warns China: Invasion of Taiwan would be ‘suicidal’

Washington Examiner: Prosecution of Harvard professor with Chinese program ties could be bellwether case for DOJ

Breaking Defense: Pentagon Stops Implementing Vaccine Mandate For Defense Contractors

Reuters: NATO Rejects Russian Accusations On Missile Deployment

Reuters: Ukraine Allows Foreign Forces To Join Planned 2022 Military Drills

Defense News: U.S. Marine Commandant: Fund ‘Force Design 2030,’ Or Leave The Corps In A ‘Lurch’

AP: The AP Interview: Karzai ‘invited’ Taliban to stop chaos

Air Force Magazine: Air Force Releases First Doctrine Note on Agile Combat Employment

Air Force Magazine: UN Addresses Lethal Autonomous Weapons—aka ‘Killer Robots’—Amid Calls for a Treaty

Air Force Magazine: Lockheed to Offer ‘Competitive Pricing’ on T-50-Derived Advanced Fighter Trainer

Wall Street Journal: U.A.E. Threatens Multibillion-Dollar Deal for U.S. Arms

Talk Media News: Pentagon puzzle: What to do with the UAE?

19fortyfive.com: Analysis: Russia’s Endgame In Ukraine: Bluff, Bombard Or Invasion?

19fortyfive.com: Opinion: A Peace Declaration to End the Korean War: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

Task & Purpose: Humor: 10 books for Marines who want to learn how to read good

Calendar

WEDNESDAY | DECEMBER 15

8 a.m. — Potomac Officers Club virtual Air Force Information Technology Modernization and Digital Transformation Forum, with Air Force Deputy CIO Winston Beauchamp delivers remarks https://potomacofficersclub.com/events/poc-af-it-modernization

11 a.m. 127 Connecticut Ave. N.W. — U.S. Representative Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran briefing: “Policy Options to Counter the Rising Iranian Threat: First 100 Days of Ebrahim Raisi,” with : former Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph, former special assistant to the president and senior director for proliferation strategy, counterproliferation and homeland defense; former Defense Intelligence Agency Acting Director David Shedd; Matthew Kroenig, professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and director of the Global Strategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council; Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America; and Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and author of The Iran Threat [email protected]

11:30 a.m. — National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations online discussion with Iraq Ambassador to the United States Fareed Yasseen. Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/watch

12 p.m. — Washington Space Business Roundtable virtual discussion: “The Second Year Anniversary of the Space Force: Progress to Date, Outstanding Challenges, and Role of Space Industry,” with Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, director of staff at U.S. Space Force https://www.wsbr.org/events/virtual-program-with-lt-gen-nina-m-armagno

1 p.m. — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin welcomes Canadian National Defense Minister Anita Anand to the Pentagon

2 p.m. — Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center forum: “The National Nuclear Security Administration: Deterring Nuclear Aggression and Preventing Nuclear Proliferation,” with retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, former undersecretary of energy for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration https://www.eventbrite.com/e/former-nnsa-administrator

2 p.m. — George Washington University Program on Extremism virtual discussion: “Six Months After the Countering Domestic Terrorism Strategy,” with John Cohen, senior official performing the duties of Homeland Security undersecretary in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis; Gina Ligon, director of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center; and Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the GWU Program on Extremism https://extremism.gwu.edu/events

THURSDAY | DECEMBER 16

10 a.m. — Carnegie Endowment for International Peace virtual discussion: “Is There a Future for Nuclear Arms Control?” with Anya Fink, research scientist at the CNA Russia Studies Program; Thomas MacDonald, fellow at the CEIP Nuclear Policy Program; and James Acton, co-director of the CEIP Nuclear Policy Program https://carnegieendowment.org/2021

11 a.m. — Heritage Foundation virtual discussion: “ Vaccine Mandates Will Hamstring the Defense Industrial Base,” with Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Wes Hallman, senior vice president for strategy and policy at the National Defense Industrial Association; and John Luddy, vice president of national security policy at the Aerospace Industries Association https://www.heritage.org/defense/event/vaccine-mandates

1:30 p.m. — CSIS Stephenson Ocean Security Project livestream event: “Ocean Security Forum 2021,” with Carlos Del Toro, secretary of the Navy; Adm. Karl Schultz, commandant, U.S. Coast Guard; Monica Medina, assistant secretary of state for oceans and international; Beth Lowell, vice president for U.S. campaigns, Oceana; Paul Woods, chief innovation officer, Global Fishing Watch; Duncan Copeland, executive director, Trygg Mat Tracking; Jared Dunnmon, technical director for AI and machine learning, DOD Defense Innovation Unit; Ian Ralby, CEO, I.R. Consilium; and Whit Saumweber, director, Stephenson Ocean Security Project https://www.csis.org/events/ocean-security-forum-2021

2 p.m. — Military Periscope and Government Business Council digital event: “DoD Looks to the Constellations.” https://event.on24.com

FRIDAY | DECEMBER 17

1 p.m. — Council on Foreign Relations conversation with national security adviser Jake Sullivan with Richard Haass, president, Council on Foreign Relations and author of The World: A Brief Introduction. Audio and video will be posted on the CFR website. https://www.cfr.org/cfr-presents

1 p.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual discussion: “China’s Sphere of Influence in the Indo-Pacific,” with former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell; and Graham Allison, professor of government at Harvard University https://www.csis.org/events/chinas-power-debate

3 p.m. — Mitchell Institute Spacepower Advantage Research Center virtual “Spacepower Forum: Delta Commander’s Perspectives,” with Col. Matthew Holston; Col. Miguel Cruz; Col. Robert Long, moderated by retired Gen. Kevin Chilton, explorer chair for space warfighting studies at MI-SPARC. https://go.afa.org https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register

SATURDAY | DECEMBER 18

Arlington National Cemetery — National Wreaths Across America Day to place wreaths on the more than 253,000 headstones at Arlington National Cemetery to honor of the nation’s fallen service members and their families. @ArlingtonNatl