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NDAA SIGNED INTO LAW: With a Humvee and an attack helicopter as a backdrop, President Trump signed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act on Monday at Fort Drum, N.Y., and delivered the massive policy bill into law at the earliest point in decades. “With this new authorization, we will increase the size and strength of our military by adding thousands of new recruits to active duty, Reserve and National Guard units, including 4,000 new active-duty soldiers. And we will replace aging tanks, aging planes and ships with the most advanced and lethal technology ever developed. And hopefully, we’ll be so strong, we’ll never have to use it, but if we ever did, nobody has a chance,” Trump said to the audience of 10th Mountain Division troops, Pentagon officials and Capitol Hill lawmakers. The NDAA authorizes new equipment for the military and is part of the second installment of a two-year budget deal by Congress to hike defense spending. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the House Armed Services chairman, said the bill “continues to rebuild and repair our military,” but stressed that Congress has yet to fund the NDAA initiatives with a 2019 defense spending bill. “It is now essential that we follow this bill with matching appropriations before the beginning of the fiscal year,” Thornberry said. The House passed its defense appropriations bill; the Senate is still working to bring one to a floor vote by the Oct. 1 deadline. TURKEY F-35 SALES SUSPENDED: While new equipment must still be funded, many of the new policies in the NDAA kicked in immediately yesterday. That includes suspension of F-35 joint strike fighter sales to Turkey until Defense Secretary Jim Mattis turns over a report to Congress on relations and weapons sales to Ankara. The Pentagon has 90 days and the clock is now ticking. But it remains unclear what effects the NDAA policy may have. In June, Turkey received its first two F-35s from maker Lockheed Martin. Now, Turkish personnel are being trained on both at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. “The training of Turkish F-35 personnel at Luke Air Force Base will continue until the NDAA-required secretary of defense F-35 report has been submitted to Congress for their decision on the way forward,” Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, a Pentagon spokesman, said. Lockheed was mostly mum on Monday. “Legislation related to the relationship between the United States and Turkey is a government-to-government matter and the Department of Defense is best placed to answer questions,” a spokesman said. “We’ll provide information if requested to the Pentagon as they complete their report and will comply with any resulting official U.S. government guidance.” Turkey wants to buy 100 of the aircraft. Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal Group, said Ankara has so far ordered 32. It was expected to take delivery of about 10 per year over a decade or more, so the three-month deadline for the Pentagon report might not be particularly disruptive. BIG, BEAUTIFUL HARDWARE: Trump highlighted the NDAA’s “beautiful” M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. “Nobody makes them like we do, and very, very far distant in this case. Jobs are very important in all cases, but in this case, military might is more important than even jobs. But all of this equipment is made right here in the USA, and it’s the best equipment on Earth. Nobody makes it like we do,” Trump said. Here is a rundown of some of the other aircraft, ship and troop numbers included in the bill:
SNUBBING McCAIN: At Fort Drum, Trump praised or mentioned three House Armed Services members and two congressmen, even briefly giving the young subcommittee chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik the microphone. “She’s an incredible representative,” Trump said of Stefanik, whose district includes Fort Drum. He called Rep. Martha McSally “terrific.” But the president never mentioned Sen. John McCain, the Senate Armed Services chairman after whom the 2019 NDAA is named. Instead, Trump took the credit for what he called “the most significant investment in our military, and our warfighters in modern history,” asserting that once he got involved, securing the funding was easy. “I am very proud to be a big, big part of it. It was not very hard,” Trump said. “You know, I went to Congress, I said let’s do it, we got to do it. We’re going to strengthen our military like never, ever before and that’s what we did.” McCain worked on the bill as he received treatment for brain cancer at his home in Arizona, and spearheaded the largest two-year defense spending hike in about 15 years. “I’m so proud of Sen. John McCain and his work on NDAA. Incredibly humbled at the naming of this after my husband,” tweeted his wife Cindy McCain. BAD BLOOD: Trump has had a long-running feud with McCain, who he dismissed during the campaign as not a real hero because he was captured after his plane was shot down. And Trump is still smarting from the fact that McCain cast the decisive vote preventing the repeal of Obamacare, which Trump mentioned in remarks later in the day. “I would have gotten rid of everything, but as you know, one of our senators said thumbs down at 2 in the morning,” Trump said in Utica, N.Y. McCain has been Trump’s most acerbic critic. After Trump’s appearance with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month, McCain called it “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” And the New York Times reported in May that McCain’s friends have informed the White House that Trump is not welcome at McCain’s funeral, planned for the Washington Cathedral. IT IS THE NAME OF THE BILL: Trump didn’t have to thank McCain, or praise him. All he had to do was refer to the bill just once by its official name: H.R. 5515, The “John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019,” to give a gracious nod to his political adversary, a man respected by both parties. McCain later issued a statement, saying he was “humbled” to have his name on the bill and that his time as armed services chairman has been one of the greatest honors of his life. “I’m proud that throughout my tenure, the committee has led with a spirit of comity and cooperation to provide for America’s Armed Forces. There is no higher calling than to serve a cause greater than self-interest. Through the committee’s work, I’ve been privileged to support our men and women in uniform who have dedicated their lives to that noble cause,” McCain said. TWITTER REACTS: Former Secretary of State John Kerry was among the many McCain admirers who took offense. “Disgraceful — but nothing will erase for an instant the legacy John McCain has written and is still writing every day,” Kerry tweeted. But the most vitriolic response came from close McCain associate and former chief of staff Mark Salter, who tweeted, “For those asking did I expect Trump to be an asshole today. No more than I expected it to be Monday.” 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 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. |
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HAPPENING TODAY: The news from Afghanistan this morning is that the Taliban remain on the offensive less than 100 miles southwest of Kabul, and have even taken over an army base killing 17 Afghan soldiers according to the AP, and control some rural districts outside the provincial capital of Ghazni. The Afghan government has dispatched reinforcements to Ghazni to counter the massive Taliban attack that is now in its fifth day. Hundreds have fled the fighting, which so far has killed about 100 Afghan troops and at least 20 civilians. The U.S. claims to have killed 220 Taliban fighters in airstrikes since Aug. 10. THE U.S. VIEW: Here’s the latest battlefield assessment from Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, the chief spokesman for U.S. Forces Afghanistan, as of 6 a.m. Washington time: “As we stated yesterday, Ghazni City remains under Afghan government control. No reported enemy activity has occurred thus far today. The Afghan National Army’s 203rd Corps, the Afghan National Police’s 303rd Zone and Afghan Special Security Forces continue to conduct clearing operations to root out remnants of the Taliban within the city. “What we observed as these Afghan-led operations drove a large portion of Taliban from the city over the last day or so, was the retreating Taliban attacking the more vulnerable surrounding districts, which Afghan forces are reinforcing. “That said, some Taliban forces remain in the city. These insurgent forces do not pose a threat to the city’s collapse. However, the Taliban who have hidden themselves amongst the Afghan populace do pose a threat to the civilian population, who were terrorized and harassed.” HOPE IS THE STRATEGY: The fierce fighting in and around Ghazni is the latest sign that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s olive branch to the Taliban this year is being ignored. In this week’s Washington Examiner magazine, I write about the tenuous path to ending the war in Afghanistan as it approaches the 17-year mark. At the Pentagon they are fond of saying, “Hope is not a strategy,” but with little to show in the way of tangible battlefield results, the prospects for peace hinge on two big hopes: that the Taliban are ready for reconciliation, and that an impatient Trump won’t pull the plug. Read more here. THE LATEST DEATH: The fifth U.S. service member to die in combat in Afghanistan this year was announced by the Pentagon yesterday. Staff Sgt. Reymund Rarogal Transfiguracion died Sunday from wounds he received from an improvised explosive device as he was carrying out combat patrol operations in Helmand Province. So far in 2018, the Pentagon has announced the deaths of 20 U.S. service members worldwide, including six under non-combat circumstances. LOSING BY WINNING: “The new Taliban offensives in Afghanistan are yet another warning of the fact that the U.S. is involved in a war of attrition that it has no guarantee of winning at the military level, and where it has no apparent strategy for dealing with Afghanistan’s lack of political unity, leadership, and failure to give its people economic progress and freedom from corruption,” writes Anthony Cordesman in his latest assessment for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The U.S. has now reached the point where the third Administration in a row is fighting wars where the U.S. often scores serious tactical victories and makes claims that it is moving toward some broader form of victory but cannot announce any clear strategy for actually ending any given war or bringing a stable peace.” TURKEY IN TURMOIL: Turkey’s economy is now “under siege,” the NATO ally’s authoritarian president said in response to the Trump administration’s recent decision to double the tariffs it will impose on steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. “Turkey’s economic dynamics are solid, strong and intact, and they will continue to be intact,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an assembly of Turkish ambassadors, according to the Daily Sabah. “Turkey is under siege in the economy, as in other areas.” Economists say Turkey’s main problem is Erdogan’s unconventional economic policy in which he opposes interest rate hikes, along with the fact that Ankara borrowed heavily when dollars were cheap and now can’t make the payments on the soaring debt. The Turkish lira hit a new low Monday, and keeping interest rates low fuels inflation. The country is now in a recession. Erdogan blames the sanctions imposed by Trump last week to pressure him to release American pastor Andrew Brunson for making things worse, and at Turkey’s request national security adviser John Bolton met with Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kilic at White House yesterday to discuss Turkey’s continued detention of Brunson and the state of the U.S.-Turkey relationship, according to a White House statement. WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG: One of the Pentagon’s more colorful and plainspoken officials is Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. He spoke at last week’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., and in typical Griffin style laid out the problems of acquisition in clear language that leaves you scratching your head wondering, “how did it get this bad?” Here are some excerpts of Griffin’s Aug. 8 remarks courtesy of our friends over at the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. Griffin questions why it takes an average of 16.5 years to get from “stating a need” to “initial operational capability,” for defense and space programs that don’t get canceled first: “This is a country that dropped the first atom bomb in the three years after the people were first told to start on it, designed not just one but two kinds with three different methods of uranium and plutonium extraction. This is a country that went to the moon in eight years and two months after JFK said to do so and at the time we did it some people in this room participated in that, and many of us have older colleagues that participated in it. At the time JFK laid down that challenge, we had 15 minutes of human space flight under our belt. “Right now, the branch of the Washington Metro that goes from Dulles to the Vienna airport has been under construction for nine years. I am not done. They project they will finish it in another seven. This is to build a train track. It is a good thing that we are a rich country because poorer countries could just not afford to waste this kind of money.” NO TENT CITIES YET, MAYBE NEVER: Remember all the hubbub over the prospect that thousands of unaccompanied minors and immigrant families were going to be held in tent cities on U.S. military bases as soon as last month? Well pretty much all the paperwork is done: the site surveys, the environmental impact assessments, the memoranda of understanding. But nothing is actually happening. Turns out the Department of Health and Human service doesn’t yet need the “semi-separate, soft-sided camp facilities” it asked the Pentagon to get ready to build within 45 days. The Pentagon settled on Goodfellow Air Force Base and Fort Bliss in Texas, but no ground is being broken at either base. “No decision has been made to use any of these properties at this time,” said Mark Weber, a spokesman for HHS. “If HHS does decide that one of these properties might be necessary, we will work through the appropriate Cabinet agencies to ensure state and local officials as well as the public is informed.” Privately, Pentagon officials suggest the whole idea turned out to be more complicated than initially envisioned, and that the idea of a separate camp for unaccompanied children was likely to be scrapped. The problem of housing single adult males along with families with children also proved to be more challenging. WORD OF THE DAY, ‘PARALIPSIS’: (parə’ lipsis) Noun. The rhetorical device of giving emphasis by professing to say little or nothing about a subject, as in: “I’m so proud of myself; I didn’t call them the ‘fake-news media.’ I didn’t call them. I said to myself, I will not today, in front of our great armed forces, call them fake news. We know the real truth, but we won’t say it today,” Trump said at Fort Drum. THE RUNDOWN New York Times: As Taliban Fight for Ghazni City in Afghanistan, Nearby Districts Fall Defense News: For IT companies, the secret to success in defense is all about big growth Washington Post: Pentagon aims to shield weapons from foreign sabotage Marine Corps Times: The very few, the immensely proud: 100 years of women in the Marine Corps Bloomberg: Trump Uses Sanctions to Spark Painful Market Moves for Adversaries AP: Turkey Tries to Contain Currency Crisis Daily Beast: It’s Trump-Taliban Decision Time in Afghanistan: How To End America’s Longest War UPI: HII contracted for overhaul of aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis Defense One: Russian Military Spy Software is on Hundreds of Thousands of Home Routers DoD Buzz: Mattis OKs Returning War Trophy ‘Balangiga Bells’ to Philippines USNI News: Panel: Japan Still Needs U.S. Protection from North Korean, Chinese Aggression |
CalendarTUESDAY | AUG. 14 7 a.m. 5701 Marinelli Rd. Global Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Symposium and Exhibition with Keynote by Lt. Gen. Reynold Hoover, Deputy Commander, U.S. Northern Command. ndia.org 11 a.m. Pentagon Briefing Room. British Army Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney, deputy commander, strategy and support, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve and Army Col. Sean Ryan, CJTF-OIR spokesman, brief the media by video. Streamed live on www.defense.gov/live. 6 p.m. 529 14th St. NW. “Austin Tice: Children of Syria” photo exhibit. press.org WEDNESDAY | AUG. 15 11 a.m. 46870 Tate Rd. NDIA Patuxent River Speaker Series with Col. David Walsh, Program manager for the Marine Corps Light/Attack Helicopter Program. ndia.org 12 noon. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Iran: Protests, Sanctions, and Regime Viability. hudson.org TUESDAY | AUG. 21 7 a.m. 801 Mt. Vernon Pl. NW. Army Science and Technology Symposium and Showcase. ndia.org
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ADVERTISEMENT: NDIA invites you to attend the Army Science and Technology Symposium and Showcase August twenty first through twenty third at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in DC. Register today at http://www.ndia.org/ArmyScience |
