As Biden visits the Pentagon, Topic A is Plan B for Afghanistan

But when Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris meet privately with Secretary Lloyd Austin, his newly confirmed deputy Kathleen Hicks, Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and the rest of the Joint Chiefs, the most urgent agenda item will be what to do about the looming deadline to pull all remaining troops out of Afghanistan in less than 12 weeks.

NATO NEEDS AN ANSWER: The decision is not just about whether the U.S. stays, leaving a force of 2,500 troops in the country to hunt al Qaeda and ISIS-K terrorists, but also whether NATO’s 5,000 troops advising and assisting Afghan security forces will stay too. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has made it clear that NATO went in with the U.S., and it will go out with the U.S.

With twice as many troops in the country, NATO and other partner nations need time to plan for an orderly withdrawal if the U.S. is really going to leave in less than three months. NATO defense ministers will convene by videoconference one week from today, and they will be anxiously listening for guidance from Austin.

THE TALIBAN HAVE THREATENED ATTACKS: Since the Feb. 29 withdrawal agreement negotiated by the previous administration, the Taliban have met one condition. They have refrained from attacks on U.S. and other foreign troops that are part of the NATO Resolute Support mission.

In fact, it’s been one year since any American troops have died in combat in Afghanistan. The last deaths occurred Feb. 8, 2020, when two soldiers were killed in an operation with Afghan forces in Nangarhar Province.

The Taliban say if the U.S. doesn’t withdraw as promised, it will again face Taliban attacks.

US SHOULD NOT HAND A VICTORY TO THE TALIBAN: The big problem is that the Taliban have not been holding up their part of the deal, which requires them to lower the level of violence and negotiate a power sharing agreement with the Afghan government in good faith.

“Thus far, the Taliban has been, to put it politely, reticent to their requirements,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby two weeks ago. “I would say this to the leaders of the Taliban. They make it that much more difficult for final decisions to be made about force presence by their reticence to commit to reasonable, sustainable, and credible negotiations at the table.”

The congressionally mandated Afghanistan Study Group, co-chaired by previous Joint Chiefs Chairman retired Gen. Joseph Dunford, has recommended the U.S. pursue “an immediate diplomatic effort” to extend the May withdrawal deadline, warning that leaving now could result in all-out civil war with a resulting loss of hard fought gains in human rights, education, and health, especially for Afghan women.

“The February 2020 Doha agreement and the subsequent troop reductions clearly demonstrated that the United States is prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan,” the report said. ‘It should not, however, simply hand a victory to the Taliban.”

Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Victor I. Nava. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. 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: Here’s the timeline for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s afternoon at the Pentagon. They are scheduled to arrive at 2 p.m. and proceed into a meeting, presumably in the secure conference room known as “the Tank,” with Austin, Hicks, and the chiefs. At 2:50 p.m., Biden will address Pentagon workers, and then at 3:30 p.m., Austin will take Biden and Harris on a tour of the Pentagon’s African Americans in Service corridor before departing sometime after 4 p.m.

WORLD’S MOST EXCLUSIVE MUSEUM AND PORTRAIT GALLERY: There are 17.5 miles of corridors in the Pentagon, which is the world’s largest government office building. But what many people who’ve never been in the Pentagon don’t know is that it’s also the country’s largest museum and art gallery, aside from actual museums and art galleries.

In many of the corridors, not all but many, especially in the inner A ring and the outer E ring, the walls are covered with museum quality displays telling the history of the U.S. military and warfare since the beginning of the republic. There are corridors recounting the history of major wars and battles, of the forming of alliances, the role of women, blacks, and other pioneers. There’s a corridor devoted to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Another corridor tells the story of how the Pentagon was built. Another honors prisoners of war.

And everywhere, the walls are lined with art — portraits of generals and admirals, secretaries, along with renderings of aircraft, ships, and battles. You could spend a week there taking it all in. If you could get in.

HICKS SWORN IN: One day after her confirmation by voice vote of the full senate, Kathleen Hicks reported for duty at the Pentagon and was promptly sworn in as deputy defense secretary by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The Biden Pentagon is quickly coming up to speed with more people being sworn in every day. Here’s the latest list.

ONCE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, TROOPS TEND TO LEAVE: A new report from the RAND Corporation has found that troops who have experienced sexual assault are twice as likely to leave the military within 28 months. It also found that sexual harassment was associated with roughly 8% of all military separations, based on separation data from 2015 to 2016.

The report’s author estimates that sexual assaults were associated with 2,000 more separations than would normally be expected, and another 8,000 separations were associated with sexual harassment.

“It is likely that the actual numbers of military separations caused by sexual assault and sexual harassment are underestimated because this study only reflects a 28-month window of time and thus only a fraction of all the sexual assault and sexual harassment experiences during the careers of the service members included in the 2014 study,” the report says.

“If the physical and emotional health of our service members and their families wasn’t enough of a priority for military leadership to take action, then maybe the dramatic impact that sexual assault has on military readiness will open their eyes,” said retired Air Force Col. Don Christensen, president of the victims advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, in response to the report. “Sexual assault is literally forcing service members out of the military by the thousands — that is unacceptable, and the only way you solve it is to reform the system that allows it.”

LOOK, UP IN THE SKY: Lots of folks in Florida last night were tweeting photos and videos of a mysterious light in the eastern sky, some speculating it was a UFO. Turns out it was a test of a Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile, either from a U.S. or British submarine, according to The Drive.

The Rundown

Washington Examiner: ‘Jury’s still out’: State Department also skeptical of WHO’s Wuhan coronavirus investigation

Washington Examiner: Biden withdraws Trump rule on schools disclosing ties to Chinese state-run Confucius Institutes

Washington Examiner: Huawei sues to overturn national security threat designation

Washington Examiner: Iran threatens to build nuclear weapons, accusing US of backing it into a corner

Washington Examiner: ‘The brink of a huge humanitarian crisis’: 52 House Republicans tell Biden to take border crisis seriously

Washington Examiner: GOP calls for DOD investigation into Biden administration placing Michael Ellis on leave at NSA

Reuters: New hate symbols on U.S. warships including noose spark Navy condemnation

Washington Post: Military Struggles To Determine How Many Extremists Are In The Ranks

Stars and Stripes: Service Members In Several Minority Groups More Likely To Attempt Suicide, Report Finds

Politico: Lloyd Austin Takes First Steps To Repair A Battered Pentagon

Breaking Defense: Navy’s Gilday Signals Service ‘In Good Place’ For 2022 Budget

San Diego Union-Tribune: In Historic First, Women Begin Boot Camp At Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego

Marine Corps Times: Marine Mothers Are Now Exempt From Fitness Tests, Weight Standards For 1 Year After Giving Birth

Bloomberg: Air Force Cuts Back Exhibition Flights on New F-35 Engine Woes

Air Force Magazine: Boeing Delivers 44th KC-46, Completing Beddown of the New Tankers at Pease

Breaking Defense: Israeli Cabinet OKs $9B US Arms Deal; Boeing KC-46As Top List

Air Force Magazine: Northrop CEO Warden Predicts More Consolidation, More New Entrants

19fortyfive.com: Russia Has Big Plans To Upgrade Its Submarine Force

Reuters: ‘Merciless’ Russia May Face New Sanctions, EU Says

Stars and Stripes: Navy Admirals Reject Beijing’s Claim That Dual-Carrier Drills In South China Sea Were ‘Symbolic’

Task & Purpose: The Pentagon throws Navy Capt. Brett Crozier under the bus one last time

19fortyfive.com: LongShot: The DARPA Drone That Could Change Warfare

Washington Post: The feds say he’s an extremist leader who directed rioters. He also had top-secret clearance and worked for the FBI, attorney says.

Forbes: Opinion: Biden Needs To Protect U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Industry, Or It May Soon Be Gone

Calendar

WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10

7 a.m. — International Quality and Productivity Center’s Defence iQ virtual 2020 International Armoured Vehicles Conference, with Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. https://www.defenceiq.com/events-iav-online/

8 a.m. — Henry L. Stimson Center webinar: “The Security Environment in Western Pacific Waters,” with Emma Chanlett-Avery, specialist in Asian affairs at the Congressional Research Service; Yurika Ishii, associate professor at the National Defense Academy of Japan; Susumu Takai, president of the Security Strategy Research Institute of Japan; and Kathleen Walsh, associate professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. https://www.stimson.org/event

9 a.m. — German Marshall Fund of the United States webinar: “EU-Turkey Relations: In Search for a Positive Agenda,”” with Angelina Eichhorst, managing director of the European External Action Service; Fuat Keyman, director of the Istanbul Policy Center; Guven Sak, managing director of the Economic Policy Research Foundation; Zeljana Zovko, member of the European Parliament; Kadri Tastan, senior fellow at GMFUS; and Ian Lesser, vice president and executive director of GMFUS. https://www.gmfus.org/events/eu-turkey-relations

1 p.m. — Center for a New American Security virtual fireside chat: “India, China, and the Quad: The Future of U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Pacific,” with Lisa Curtis, the inaugural CNAS Indo-Pacific Security Program director; Demetri Sevastopulo, U.S.-China Correspondent for the Financial Times; and CNAS CEO Richard Fontaine. https://www.cnas.org/events/virtual-fireside-chat

1 p.m. — Government Executive Media Group webinar: “Warfighter and Intelligence Mission Success,” with retired Lt. Gen. Karen Gibson, former deputy director of national intelligence for national security partnerships in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and Nand Mulchanandi, chief technology officer in the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. https://awsnatsecseries.com

1 p.m. — Association of Old Crows virtual discussion with Bruce Jette, former assistant Army secretary for acquisition, logistics, and technology, part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Leadership series. https://www.crows.org/general

1 p.m. — Center for Security Policy online discussion: “The Fate of Immigration and Border Security Under a Biden Administration,” with Todd Bensman, national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies; Lora Ries, senior research fellow for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation; and Kyle Shideler, CSP senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism https://register.gotowebinar.com/register

2 p.m. — President Biden and the Vice President Kamala Harris travel to the Pentagon, where they will meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior military and civilian leadership. At 2:50 they will deliver remarks to Pentagon personnel followed by a tour of the African Americans in Service corridor.

5 p.m. — Meridian International Center virtual discussion with former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on “U.S.-China-APAC (Asia-Pacific) policy.” https://www.meridian.org/announcement

THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 11

2 p.m. — Air Force Association Mitchell Institute “Aerospace Nation” virtual event with Lt. Gen. James Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command; and retired Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Invitation only. Video posted afterward at https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org

2 p.m. — Association of Old Crows webinar: “From Sarissa To Cyber Warfare,” with Peter Vincent Pry, executive director, EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security. https://www.crows.org/page/Sarissa-to-cyber

2 p.m. — National Taxpayers Union and R Street Institute webinar: “Pentagon Purse Strings Episode 2: What the Coming Budget Battles Mean for Defense,” with Brian Riedl, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute; Jonathan Bydlak, R Street Institute; Andrew Lautz, National Taxpayers Union, Mackenzie Eaglen, Resident Fellow at American Enterprise Institute. https://www.rstreet.org/event/pentagon-purse-strings

4 p.m. — George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs webinar: “The Biden Administration and the World: What to Expect,’ with David Shambaugh, director of the GWU China Policy Program; Kimberly Morgan, professor of political science and international affairs at GWU; Marc Lynch, director of the GWU Project on Middle East Political Science; and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker, fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. https://calendar.gwu.edu/biden-administration-and-world-what-expect

MONDAY | FEBRUARY 15 | PRESIDENTS’ DAY

Federal holiday — no Daily on Defense.

TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 16

7 a.m. — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefs reporters ahead of the meeting of the NATO defense ministers, which will be held via video conference on Wednesday and Thursday. Available live on the NATO website, as well as on Twitter and Facebook. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news

TBA — President Joe Biden will travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin

WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 17

11 a.m. — Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress virtual book discussion: “The Cyberweapons Arms Race,” with Nicole Perlroth, cybersecurity journalist for The New York Times, author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register