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SO LONG INF: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, is heading to the proverbial scrapheap of history. The Trump administration believes the landmark Cold War-era treaty has outlived its usefulness, considering Russia is violating it and China is not a party to it. An announcement that the U.S. is withdrawing from the treaty is expected from the White House today. For three decades the INF treaty has been a cornerstone of European security, the first arms control measure to ban an entire class of weapons: land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range between 310 miles and 3,100 miles. Tomorrow is the deadline for Moscow to return to compliance, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is adamant that his newest ground-launched cruise missile does not violate the treaty. Once the U.S. formally withdraws tomorrow, the INF will technically remain in effect for six more months, until it dies Aug. 2, 2019. “Russia has violated the INF treaty for at least ten years. In that time, presidents of both parties have urged them to return to compliance, Congress has admonished them, the United States has imposed sanctions against them, and the president has threatened to withdraw from the treaty,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry R-Texas, ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, in a statement yesterday. “None of these actions has convinced Russia to return to compliance. Instead, they have spent a decade developing a capability to which we cannot respond. Other adversaries, like China, are developing similar weapons to capitalize on America’s one-sided disadvantage.” ARMS CONTROL ADVOCATES LAMENT IT PASSING: “The only ones applauding the decision to tear up the INF Treaty are the nuclear weapons manufacturers, eagerly anticipating the kickoff of Cold War II,” said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “Trump last week began building new nuclear missiles, and Putin has said he will do the same, so we now have a six-month window before the treaty officially dies.” “If this administration doesn’t want Russia to build INF-banned weapons, it’s hard to imagine a worse approach than suspending the agreement. At best, the White House has let Russia off the hook and shifted blame for the diplomatic breakdown to the United States; at worst, they’re running headlong into an avoidable arms race that nobody wants or can afford,” said Derek Johnson, executive director of Global Zero, another group working to eliminate nuclear weapons. “Negotiations should continue and any reasonable solution that eliminates Russia’s alleged violations should be acceptable. The alternative is untenable,” Johnson argued. “One round of failed talks is not enough: our diplomats need to get back in the room and exhaust every opportunity to resolve this dispute.” NOT SO FAST: In what appears to be a rebuke to President Trump’s plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, the Senate voted 68-to-23 to back Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s amendment that declares al-Qaeda and ISIS a global threat and warns against the withdrawal of forces in the ongoing fight. “I believe the threats remain. ISIS and al-Qaeda have yet to be defeated, and American national security interests require continued commitment to our mission there,” McConnell, R-Ky., said before the vote. A majority of Republicans voted for the measure, which does not have the force of law but puts the Senate on record as opposing Trump’s pullout plans. IT’S ALL GOOD, MAN: After excoriating his intelligence chiefs for their unvarnished testimony before the Senate Tuesday, President Trump tweeted out a photo of Director of National Security Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel in his office. The president insisted after confronting them face to face it was all a misunderstanding based on misreporting and “fake news.” “Just concluded a great meeting with my Intel team in the Oval Office who told me that what they said on Tuesday at the Senate Hearing was mischaracterized by the media – and we are very much in agreement on Iran, ISIS, North Korea, etc. Their testimony was distorted press… Trump tweeted. “I would suggest you read the COMPLETE testimony from Tuesday. A false narrative is so bad for our Country. I value our intelligence community. Happily, we had a very good meeting, and we are all on the same page!” With no sense of irony, Trump admitted to reporters yesterday that he hadn’t actually read the report on worldwide threats, produced by the intelligence community. “I didn’t see the report from the intelligence,” Trump said before his Oval Office meeting. “When you read it, it’s a lot different than it was, covered on — in the news.” After the meeting, Trump said Coats and Haspel told him he had the wrong idea from watching the media coverage. “They said that they were totally misquoted and they were totally — it was taken out of context,” Trump said. “They said it was fake news, so — which, frankly, didn’t surprise me.” ONE SENATOR’S REBUTTAL: “This reminds me of the old country song,” said Sen. Angus King I-Maine, on MSNBC. “Who you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?” “I mean, the testimony is there. I was there. I asked Gina Haspel very directly, is Iran in compliance with the nuclear agreement and she hemmed around a little bit but then she said, ‘Yes it is,’” King said. “As far as North Korea,” King added “You don’t have to read the transcript. They filed a 42-page report as part of their testimony, and it says, ‘We continue to assess that North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.’” King added, “And what bothered me, was the president coming after them and today he says, ‘Well, they didn’t say that.’ Well, maybe he should have figured that out before he issued a tweet telling him the whole intelligence community should go back to school.” BAD AT MATH: President Trump continues to add a year to America’s longest war. Yesterday he did it again, saying “We’re going into close to 19 years in being in Afghanistan.” For the record, the U.S. entered Afghanistan in October 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks. Last October was the 17-year mark, and next October, if U.S troops are still there it will be 18 years, with the beginning of the 19th. Good Friday 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 David Mark (@DavidMarkDC). 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: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is scheduled to meet with Pentagon reporters 10:45 this morning to discuss his recent travels to Japan, Bahrain, and the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis. The briefing is off-camera, but on-the-record, which seems to be the Pentagon’s preferred format for media engagements these days. HEADING TOWARD AN EMERGENCY: President Trump told the New York Times yesterday that, with the Democrats offering more money, but none for his wall, (and he’s back to calling it a wall), he sees little prospect for an unacceptable deal. “Based on everything I hear. Now they’ll probably be overly generous with things that you don’t need in terms of money. They’ll give you more money than you need for things that won’t help very much. And they’ll give you money for good things, too. But based on what I hear and based on what I read, they don’t want to give money for the wall.” But Trump says he’ll wait until the Feb. 15 deadline to invoke a declaration of national emergency to get around Congress. “I’ve set the table. I’ve set the stage for doing what I’m going to do,” he told the Times “I’m going to wait until the 15th,” he said, calling the current negotiations “a waste of time.” SMITH FUMING: House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., upbraided the Pentagon yesterday for failure to be fully transparent in Tuesday’s testimony before the panel regarding the Pentagon’s plans to provide additional support to the southern border. John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, failed to mention the DoD plans to send thousands of more troops to the border, even though that was the whole point of the hearing. “The Members of the Committee would have been extremely interested in discussing what the 3,500 troops going to the border in response to DHS’s latest request will be doing there,” said Smith after sending a sharply worded letter to Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan. This is a violation of the executive branch’s obligation to be transparent with Congress, which oversees, authorizes, and funds its operations. It also raises questions about whether the Department thinks the policy of sending additional troops to the border is so unjustified that they cannot defend an increase in public. Just before the hearing gaveled the order Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon that “several thousand” troops would be deployed to the southern border, in response to the latest order from the Department of Homeland Security. “This is a violation of the executive branch’s obligation to be transparent with Congress, which oversees, authorizes, and funds its operations,” Smith said in a statement. “It also raises questions about whether the Department thinks the policy of sending additional troops to the border is so unjustified that they cannot defend an increase in public.” Smith has been one of the loudest critics of sending active-duty troops to the southern border. DON’T FORGET ISIS: Republican lawmakers are worried President Trump’s tentative deal with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan War is ignoring the new danger posed by an Islamic State offshoot group that’s on the rise, known as ISIS-Khorasan Province. “Everybody’s talking about the wrong thing,” a Republican congressman who recently traveled to Afghanistan told the Washington Examiner. “They’re talking about the Taliban. They need to be talking about ISIS.” As the U.S. negotiates a deal with the Taliban that includes the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a separate GOP lawmaker said the move would be welcomed by the offshoot group as they seek to overthrow the central government in Kabul. DRONE THREAT TO US: Last week a pro-ISIS media outlet distributed a poster on a private messaging service suggesting weaponized drones could be used to attack major U.S. cities. The poster depicts a small quadcopter drone delivering a box labeled “Private Mailbox” in New York City, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a group that monitors terrorist propaganda. The text on the poster reads: “Sender: The Islamic State.” It’s not the first time Al-Abd Al-Faqir Foundation has released posters threatening the West and in particular New York City. ISIS has used weaponized drones in the battlefields of Syria and Iraq and has on several occasions recommended the use of drones in attacks in the West, MEMRI notes The drone featured in the poster is an off-the-shelf DJI Phantom, the drone ISIS has used most frequently to carry grenades. FIRST VETO? A bipartisan group of lawmakers including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, unveiled legislation in the House and the Senate this week that would stop the U.S. from providing Saudi Arabia with U.S. military assistance for its war in Yemen. Constitutional conservatives like Lee have opposed the legislation because the Obama and Trump administrations did not receive congressional approval to aid the Saudis. The lawmakers are pushing for the legislation, which has the backing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to receive a vote in February. But it’s not expected that the Trump administration will get on board with the measure, given that the White House warned it would veto the Senate measure in the last Congress. If Trump vetoed the measure, it would mark the first time in his presidency that he has done so. SEXUAL ASSAULT INCREASES: The Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office revealed yesterday that 747 cadets and midshipmen out of the 12,000 that attend the three military service academies claimed they received unwanted sexual contact during the 2017-2018 academic school year — a 47 percent jump from the 507 cadets and midshipmen during the 2015-2016 academic school year. The numbers were part of an anonymous biennial survey sent to the military academies and reflected unwanted sexual contact including groping and rape. West Point saw the widest reported increase, with 16.5 percent of women and 3.4 percent of men reporting they experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2018, in comparison with 10.2 percent of women and 1.4 percent of men in 2016. BODY COUNTS ARE BACK: The U.S. Africa Command has rethought its policy to stop providing an assessment of how many al-Shabaab militants are killed in airstrikes in Somalia. Yesterday AFRICOM reported that that latest strike on Wednesday, the ninth of the year was believed to have killed two-dozen enemy fighters. Just last week the Stuttgart-based command announced that it would “no longer discuss battle damage assessments resulting from our airstrikes. That policy is no longer operative. “We may not always lead with casualty numbers in releases,” said Maj. Karl Wiest, an AFRICOM spokesman in an email. “The reason for this is that we may be assessing the results of the strike and may not have complete information available to us before we publish the press release.” “In all cases, we strive for transparency and to increase understanding. Unless operational requirements prevent doing so, we acknowledge all strikes – either by press release or response to a query,” he said. So far this year the U.S. has conducted nine airstrikes in Somalia and killed an estimated 103 al-Shabaab militants. MISSING WOMAN FORMATION: The first ever all-female flyover will be conducted tomorrow to honor the memory of aviation pioneer Capt. Rosemary Mariner, the Navy’s first female fighter jet pilot. Mariner died Jan. 24 of ovarian cancer at age 65. Mariner was in the inaugural class of women who earned their Navy wings in 1973, and then became the first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet the following year, first in the A-4E/L “Skyhawk” and then flying the A-7E “Corsair II”. The “Missing [Wo]Man Flyover” features four aircraft flying above the funeral service in formation as one of the aircraft leaves the formation and climbs vertically into the heavens. It will be performed at her funeral tomorrow in Maynardville, Tenn.. The Navy has posted the photos of the female aviators who will honor Mariner’s memory on its Facebook page. THE RUNDOWN Washington Post: These Marines were falsely accused of war crimes. Twelve years later, they have vindication NBC News: ISIS could reclaim territory in months without military pressure, warns Pentagon in draft report USNI News: Experts Say Aligning FY2020 Budget With Defense Strategy Could Result In Navy Cuts Wall Street Journal: Russian Ships Face Penalties, U.S. Says Defense One: Expect A Missile Race After The INF Demise New York Times: U.S. Appears To Soften Timing For List Of North Korea’s Nuclear Assets Foreign Policy: As U.S. Mulls Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Russia Wants Back In Air Force Magazine: DOD Needs $395.6M More to Fix, Replace Hurricane-Ravaged Caribbean Facilities USNI News: Navy Awards 2-Carrier Contract To Newport News Shipbuilding |
CalendarFRIDAY | FEBRUARY 1 1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. “The 2019 Missile Defense Review: What’s Next?” www.csis.org TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 5 10 a.m. Dirksen 226. Senate Judiciary Committee Nominations Hearing. www.judiciary.senate.gov 10 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. “Book Launch: On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War.” www.wilsoncenter.org 10 a.m. 30th Annual SO/LIC Symposium & Exhibition. Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport. http://www.ndia.org 12 p.m. 1800 M Street N.W., Suite 800. By invitation only — “Preparing for a cyber-enabled economic warfare attack.” www.fdd.org 2:30 p.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “Rep. Eliot Engel on the Foreign Policy Priorities of the New Democratic Majority.” carnegieendowment.org WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 6 7 a.m. 30th Annual SO/LIC Symposium & Exhibition. Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport. http://www.ndia.org 9 a.m. 1030 15th Street N.W. “Maintaining Maritime Superiority: Discussion With the Chief of Naval Operations.” www.atlanticcouncil.org 9:45 a.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 400. “The 2019 U.S. Missile Defense Review: A Conversation with Under Secretary John C. Rood.” www.hudson.org 10 a.m. 1789 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “A conversation with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on the Senate’s role in foreign policy.” www.aei.org 10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. House Armed Services Committee hearing: Evaluation of the Department of Defense’s Counterterrorism Approach. armedservices.house.gov 10 a.m. Dirksen 342. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: Business Meeting. www.hsgac.senate.gov 10:15 a.m. Hart 216. Senate Armed Services Committee: Worldwide Threats. www.armed-services.senate.gov 4:30 p.m. 1717 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “Peace-Building on the Korean Peninsula: Does Multilateralism Matter?” www.sais-jhu.edu THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 7 8 a.m. 30th Annual SO/LIC Symposium & Exhibition. Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport. http://www.ndia.org 11:30 a.m. 1667 K Street, NW. “Regaining the High Ground at Sea: Transforming the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Air Wing for Great Power Competition” https://csbaonline.org SUNDAY | MARCH 3 10:30 a.m. Breakfast discussion with rocket scientist behind Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, Dr. Ari Sacher. 8900 Little River Turnpike, Fairfax. www.jnf.org |
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