TRUMP’S BARK: A North Korean official has finally responded to President Trump’s threat on Tuesday to “totally destroy” North Korea if the U.S. or its allies are in danger. “If he was thinking he could scare us with the sound of a dog barking, that’s really a dog dream,” said North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, according to Yonhap News Agency. Yonhap said Ri was referring to a North Korean proverb that processions continue on even if they’re interrupted by dogs barking. In Korean, “dog dreams” refers to something that’s nonsensical.
Ri was also asked to respond to “Rocket Man,” Trump’s nickname for Kim Jong Un. “I feel sorry for his aides,” Ri said. The minister was speaking to reporters in front of his hotel in New York last Wednesday night. He arrived there yesterday and is scheduled to address the United Nations tomorrow.
GAS SHORTAGES: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday confirmed Trump’s tweet that the country was suffering with “long gas lines” as a result of international sanctions passed this month. “We have some indications that there are beginning to appear evidence of fuel shortages,” Tillerson told reporters during a Wednesday evening press briefing.
Trump’s team led a push to crimp North Korea’s access to oil as part of a sanctions package that passed through the United Nations Security Council on Sept. 11. The oil sanctions fell short of the United States original call for a full oil embargo due to Russian and Chinese opposition. A subsequent North Korean missile test renewed concern that the sanctions would not deter the regime, but Tillerson expressed optimism.
“We knew that these sanctions are going to take some time to be felt because we knew that the North Koreans, based on information that the Chinese had shared with us and others had shared with us, had basically stockpiled a lot of inventory early in the year when they saw the administration coming in, in anticipation of things perhaps changing,” Tillerson said.
Tillerson said he hopes the sanctions will induce North Korea to begin talks that would lead to a dismantling of the regime’s nuclear program. “I think what we’re seeing is a combined effect of these inventories are now being exhausted and the supply coming in is being reduced,” he said. “But there are indications that there are shortages of fuel in particular and I think we will see latent evidence of the impact of the other sanctions that have been put in place.”
WE’LL SHOW YOU THE RESULTS … AFTER THE BREAK: Trump teased reporters Wednesday during a bilateral meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, telling them he has made up his mind on whether to scrap the Iran nuclear deal but declined to reveal his decision. “I have decided,” Trump mouthed in response to a shouted question on the 2015 agreement that he described as a “major embarrassment” a day earlier. “I’ll let you know.”
The White House is expected to make an announcement next month on whether Trump will certify that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement next month.
Later in the day, Tillerson emerged from a meeting with European leaders, said they had had productive discussions about the Iranian threat, but also declined to say what Trump would do. “We had a very open and candid exchange with all of the parties to the agreement,” Tillerson told reporters in New York. “We clearly have significant issues with the agreement.”
Tillerson confirmed that Trump has reached a decision on recertifying Iran’s compliance with the agreement, though, like the president, he declined to disclose the details of it. He noted that Trump’s chief concern is a provision known as the “sunset clause” that removes certain restrictions on Iran within 10 to 15 years, potentially allowing the country to resume the production of nuclear weapons.
“I think that we’ve had sufficient time to get our own kind of understanding of this agreement and how it functioned,” Tillerson said, adding that “the time has come for a decision to be made and it is the president that has to make that decision.”
ONE GENERAL’S TAKE: Air Force Gen. John Hyten, head of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees America’s nuclear arsenal, said Iran is in compliance with the deal from where he sits.
“The facts are that Iran is operating under the agreements that we signed up for under the [deal],” he said at an event yesterday at the Hudson Institute. “But at the same time, they’re rapidly, rapidly deploying and developing a whole series of ballistic missiles and testing ballistic missiles at all ranges that provide significant concerns to not just the United States, but our allies.”
EUROPE’S TAKE: Tillerson briefed the media hours after French President Emmanuel Macron said the Obama-era deal is “no longer a sufficient safeguard against the growing power that Tehran welds in its region.” Signaling his agreement, Tillerson said the world has “seen anything but a more peaceful region” in the two years since the deal was brokered.
Still, several U.S. allies, including France, have cautioned Trump not to pull out of the agreement. “There is no need to renegotiate parts of the agreement because the agreement is concerning a nuclear program and as such is delivering,” European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters after the meeting with Tillerson and the other powers.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said earlier Wednesday that the Iran deal is “a very important agreement, and we are determined to continue implementing it.”
‘ROGUE NEWCOMERS’: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned United Nations members Wednesday the Trump administration is working to undo the progress he said has been made in his Middle Eastern country.
“It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics — the world will have lost a great opportunity,” Rouhani said in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly. “By violating its international commitments, the new U.S. administration only destroys its own credibility and undermines international confidence in negotiating with it.
“We are unmoved by threats and intimidation. We believe in dialogue and negotiation based on equal footing and mutual respect,” Rouhani added.
Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense. Jamie is on vacation this week and next, but don’t worry, National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24) have you covered. 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.
NEW THIS MORNING: The Associated Press is reporting that Iraqi forces launched an operation on Thursday to retake the town of Hawija — one of the last extremist strongholds in Iraq — from the Islamic State group, according to a statement from the Iraqi prime minister’s office. The operation began just two days after Iraqi forces began an offensive against ISIS holdouts in Iraq’s vast western Anbar province, said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, is one of the last pockets of territory held by the extremist group in the country. ISIS has been steadily losing ground and seeing its sprawling caliphate that in 2014 spanned a third of the territory of Iraq and also neighboring Syria crumbling fast.
OPS UPDATE: Today at 11 a.m., Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, briefs reporters live from Baghdad on the fight against ISIS. The briefing will be live-streamed here.
MAJOR MEETINGS TODAY: Trump’s schedule of meetings at the U.N. today covers just about every hot spot in the world. He begins with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, followed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Tucked into the packed schedule is a working lunch with Moon and Abe.
ALSO TODAY: Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, moderates a panel discussion on next generation warfare at the Modern Day Marine Military Expo at 1 p.m. at Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Va. Other members of the panel will be Lt. Gen. Daniel O’Donohue, Maj. Gen. Vincent Coglianese, Maj. Gen. Edward Banta and Brig. Gen. Dennis Crall.
MATTIS ON ALLIES: A day after Trump told the United Nations he will “always put America first,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis took to the stage at an Air Force conference in Maryland to underscore what he called an “absolutely critical” need for the U.S. military to shore up international alliances and to compromise with partner nations. “Not all good ideas come from the country with the most aircraft carriers,” Mattis said in the keynote address. “We must be willing to do more than to listen to our allies, we must be willing to be persuaded by them.” He also warned nations that do not forge strong allies stagnate and wither, and cited the 69 nations backing the U.S.-led effort to wipe out the Islamic State group and the 39-nation coalition in Afghanistan.
CLOSER TIES WITH INDUSTRY: Mattis also swung the Pentagon door wider open for the defense industry during his conference visit, urging the military services to forge closer relationships with contractors and companies. “Do not have imaginary legal restrictions on your leadership responsibility to find the best bang for the buck, to find the most far-reaching innovations that are out there,” Mattis said. Some of those relationships have dried up and Mattis said he was surprised by the reaction when he met with industry leaders soon after becoming defense secretary. “I became aware that some people thought, well, you can’t really do that and I said why not, they’re Americans aren’t they? Last time I checked they were on our side,” he said, drawing applause from the conference crowd. “I think the most important thing is we open the lines of communication in a way that consider American industry and allied industry, where it is appropriate, as partners in this effort.”
SHIP COLLISIONS REPAIR BILL: Congress may soon be handed the bill for the deadly USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald collisions, two incidents that lawmakers have called preventable. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said the Navy will soon need to request additional funding to cover an estimated $600 million in repairs. “We are going to have to go back up on the Hill because that is outside budget numbers,” he told reporters. “It’s going to have to be sooner rather than later.” The two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are needed back in the western Pacific as soon as possible and the Navy will most likely need the repair funding before next year’s defense budget, Spencer said. The two ships, along with the cruiser USS Antietam that ran aground this year, were among seven ships stationed in Japan as part of the military’s missile defense system. Now that they are out of service, the Navy is trying to fill the gap. “The ballistic missile defense system works well with what we have. The matrix is there,” Spencer said. “Needless to say, we need to get McCain and Fitz back out there as quickly as we can.”
LCS GETS SOME LOVE: Spencer, with about 50 days on the job as secretary, spent nearly an hour with defense reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon and talked about his impressions of the Navy’s littoral combat ship, which has become a symbol of acquisition missteps and a target of reform hawks such as Sen. John McCain. “As bad a rap as the LCS seems to get, it’s getting some good feedback out in the fleet. They like it. They like operating on it,” Spencer said. “It is a different platform but there is some sunshine there.” But he also said the ship program is a “poster child” for poorly thought-out requirements and that the Navy was a bad partner to industry through the development. “The requirements were mushy,” Spencer said.
The Senate just passed a 2018 defense bill with an additional LCS, bringing the chamber’s proposal to two total for the service despite McCain’s long-time opposition. The Navy requested one LCS this year but quickly amended that to two ships under pressure from the White House (two ships is generally seen as the minimum needed to keep the two LCS variant shipyards in Mobile, Ala., and Marinette, Wisc., humming). Spencer said “you tell me” when asked if two ships is the magic number for 2018. “Two was the magic number last year and they [Congress] gave us a third,” he said. The House has indeed proposed the Navy buy three of the ships as part of its annual defense policy bill, which is heading to conference.
TRANSGENDER PATRIOTS: So far, Spencer said he has had no input in the Pentagon’s effort to implement Trump’s order curbing transgender military service, but that he still stands by an earlier statement. “My personal input would be, one, I truly do believe any patriot that wants to serve and meets the present day requirements that we have should be able to come serve in an environment of dignity and respect,” Spencer said. But it might not be that simple. “That being said … readiness is the most important part. This is not a social conversation. If in fact that person contributes to lethality and readiness we want that person on our team.” Will currently serving transgender sailors be able to stay? “I would hope that those that are contributing to readiness, we will be able to keep everybody together and on board,” he said.
GIVING IT HIS ALL: Trump said Wednesday he is prepared to pour his heart and soul into brokering a permanent peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, something his staff has been working intensely on for months.
“I certainly will devote everything within my heart and within my soul to get that deal made,” Trump said during a bilateral sit-down with Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. “From the time I was a little boy, I’ve been hearing about peace in the Middle East. We’re going to see what we can do.”
DEEP IMPACT: Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that actor Morgan Freeman has been “roped in” by the U.S. government in its latest effort to send out anti-Russia messages to the world. Russia says Freeman made a video “calling on the Americans to defend themselves from Russia.” But the video was a setup, they say.
“Morgan Freeman has been roped in, just like Colin Powell was,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook, according to a translation posted by state-run media. The headline of the story that appeared on the Tass website said that Zakharova “believes Morgan Freeman was ‘roped in’ to be weaponized in anti-Russia crusade.”
HOW THEY’LL GET KIM: North Korea has racked up sizable debt in parking tickets, according to a new investigative report. The country’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations racked up over 1,300 unpaid New York City parking tickets, dating back to the 1990s.
Under a 2002 memorandum of understanding between New York City and the State Department, the city has the authority to withhold diplomatic parking decals if a vehicle accumulates three or more unpaid tickets. However, a majority of North Korea’s parking debt occurred before 2002 when the nation’s diplomatic vehicles routinely accrued parking violations with no punishment.
MAD DOG VS. CHAOS: This has been reported before, but it’s still a good yarn. At the end of the Q&A session with Mattis yesterday at the Air Force Association conference, he was asked about his nickname “Mad Dog.” Go here to see his answer. Of note: While he blamed the nickname on “some press person who needed a little bit of a fantasy life fulfilled,” no one has popularized it more than the secretary’s boss.
THE RUNDOWN
New York Times: Pakistan’s leader says military has routed Taliban from Afghan border
Washington Post: As Trump presses for a border wall, there’s a new Coast Guard record for drug seizures at sea
USNI News: SECNAV Spencer: Oliver Hazard Perry frigates could be low-cost drug interdiction platforms
Daily Beast: Russians appear to use Facebook to push Trump rallies in 17 U.S. cities
Wall Street Journal: There’s actual war, and then there’s @Ukraine vs. @Russia
UPI: ATHENA laser testbed system successfully shoots down drones
Defense One: The Russians just test-fired an ICBM
Reuters: Islamists lure youngsters in the Philippines with payments, promise of paradise
Task and Purpose: Navy SEAL pleads guilty to molesting young girl on camera
Stars and Stripes: Tankers’ move to Ramstein Air Base delayed by two years
Calendar
THURSDAY | SEPT. 21
8 a.m. Marine Corps Base Quantico. Modern Day Marine conference. marinemilitaryexpos.com
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Lessons from developing Afghanistan’s security forces with John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. csis.org
3:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Book talk on “Melting the Ice Curtain: The Extraordinary Story of Citizen Diplomacy on the Russia-Alaska Frontier” with author David Ramseur. wilsoncenter.org
FRIDAY | SEPT. 22
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Meeting U.S. deterrence requirements with Madelyn R. Creedon, former principal deputy administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Walter Slocombe, former undersecretary of defense for policy. brookings.edu
10 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. A debate on whether the U.S. should arm Ukraine. atlanticcouncil.org
3:30 p.m. 1777 F St. NW. A perspective from the League of Arab States on restoring stability in a turbulent Middle East with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Arab League secretary general. cfr.org
MONDAY | SEPT. 25
10 a.m. 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW. National security oversight: Congressional case studies and reform prospects. cato.org
12 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. How Europe and Iran’s neighbors view the nuclear deal future with French ambassador Gérard Araud, British ambassador Sir Kim Darroch, European Union ambassador David O’Sullivan, and German ambassador Peter Wittig. atlanticcouncil.org
3:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Consequences of the German election for the European Union and transatlantic relations. wilsoncenter.org
TUESDAY | SEPT. 26
9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Transatlantic forum on strategic communications and digital disinformation with Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Andrea Thompson, national security adviser to the vice president, and Ambassador Tacan Ildem, assistant secretary general at NATO. atlanticcouncil.org
10 a.m. Hart 216. Hearing on the reappointment of Gen. Joseph Dunford to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. Rayburn 2172. Redesign of the State Department with John Sullivan, deputy secretary of state. foreignaffairs.house.gov
10:30 a.m. Dirksen 419. Managing security assistance to support foreign policy with Tina Kaidanow, acting assistant secretary of state; Thomas Harvey III, acting assistant defense secretary; and Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. foreign.senate.gov
4 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Book discussion on “Why Wilson Matters: The Origin of American Liberal Internationalism and Its Crisis Today” with author Tony Smith. wilsoncenter.org
WEDNESDAY | SEPT. 27
8:15 a.m. 1127 Connecticut Ave. NW. 2017 Women in Defense National Conference with Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson; Gen. Lori Robinson, head of U.S. Northern Command; Leda Chong, senior vice president at Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.; and Sharon Dunbar, vice president at General Dynamics Mission Systems. womenindefense.net
9 a.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Europe’s pressure points. aei.org
10 a.m. Dirksen 342. Full committee hearing on threats to the homeland. hsgac.senate.gov
2 p.m. Rayburn 2212. Hearing on the strategy for modernizing the Army’s tactical network with Lt Gen. Bruce Crawford, Army deputy chief of staff; Maj. Gen. James Mingus, director of the Mission Command Center of Excellence at the Army Combined Arms Center; and Gary Martin, program executive officer for Army Control and Communications-Tactical. armedservices.house.gov
4:30 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Debate on the future of the INF treaty. csis.org
THURSDAY | SEPT. 28
10 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Assessing the defense industrial base with Jerry McGinn, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense. heritage.org
