SHANAHAN AT NATO: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan arrives at NATO headquarters today, fresh off his inspection tours of Iraq and Afghanistan and anxious to build on the relationships established by his predecessor. Shanahan told reporters traveling with him that one of the first things he did when taking over from Jim Mattis January 1 was send a signal of continuity.

HAPPENING TODAY – MILITARY HOUSING CRISIS: The Senate Armed Services Committee will be putting the Pentagon’s Military Housing Privatization Initiative under the microscope this afternoon, following reports of deplorable housing conditions at military bases across the country.

“Military families will be among the witnesses called to testify about the dangerous living conditions in privatized military housing, which include black mold, rodents, mushrooms, lead paint, asbestos, gas leaks, and water contamination,” says the Military Family Advisory Network, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The Military Housing Privatization Initiative was enacted in 1996 to improve military housing and speed the construction of new projects through direct loans, loan guarantees, and equity investments.

But advocates says that privatized housing has left many military families living in substandard conditions, with little recourse. “Military families should not have to worry about their safety inside their own homes,” said MFAN’s executive director, Shannon Razsadin. “People need to know about the terrible conditions some military families are living in. After 18 years of war, there is a moral obligation to make this right.”

NO SHUTDOWN: While President Trump is being coy about whether he will sign the border deal hammered out by Democrats and Republicans in Congress this week, he made it pretty clear yesterday that he’s lost his appetite for another partial government shutdown.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a shutdown. I wouldn’t want to go to it, no. If you did have it, it’s the Democrats’ fault,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting session with reporters. “I accepted the first one and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, because people learned during that shutdown all about the problems coming in from the southern border. I accept — I’ve always accepted it. But this one, I would never accept it if it happens. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. But this would be totally on the Democrats, OK?”

STILL BUILDING ‘BEAUTIFUL, BIG, STRONG WALL’: While Trump says he’s “not happy” with the bipartisan compromise because it’s “not doing the trick,” he says he’s studying ways to add things to it. “Whatever I have to add, it’s all going to happen where we’re going to build a beautiful, big, strong wall that’s not going to let criminals and traffickers and drug dealers and drugs into our country.”

“The bottom line is on the wall, we’re building the wall and we’re using other methods other than this and in addition to this,” Trump said. “We have a lot of money in this country and we’re using some of that money, a small percentage of that money, to build the wall, which we desperately need.”

BIPARTISAN AGREEMENT, SIGN THE BILL: “The president should not make the same mistake he made a couple of months ago, when there was a bipartisan agreement and he wouldn’t sign it and caused the shutdown,” said Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Please, Mr. President, no one got everything they wanted in this bill, but sign it and don’t cause a shutdown.”

Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell agrees, with a caveat: “I told the president I thought he, as well as all of us, ought to wait until we’ve actually read the final deal. I have recommended that if it becomes what we think it is, I do recommend he sign it.” But McConnell said Trump can always find other ways to get more of his border wall built, without specifying what budget moves that would require. “I think he ought to feel free to use whatever tools he can legally use to enhance his effort to secure the border.”

A SLAP AT THE ‘TALK-SHOW RIGHT’: As Fox commentator Sean Hannity again trashed the compromise deal as “pathetic” last night, the Wall Street Journal took a swipe at what it called “the restrictionist talk-show right.”  

“These are the same critics who have coaxed Mr. Trump to crash into one immigration dead end after another,” writes the editorial board. “They seem to think Mr. Trump’s duty is to fail repeatedly in the service of the politically impossible. The next time they give good advice will be the first time.”

NO SIGN YET OF NORTH KOREA DE-NUKING: The good news from Korea is that tensions are way down; the bad news is that so far there is little sign that North Korea is making any moves to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, according to the U.S. and U.N. Korea commander, Gen. Robert Abrams.

“Today is day 440 since the last strategic provocation from the DPRK … since we’ve had a missile flight test or a nuclear weapons test,” Abrams told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. “The reduction in tension on the peninsula, it’s palpable,” he said, adding that the more relaxed climate has enabled confidence-building measures and decreased the chance of mistakes or miscalculation.

On the other hand, when asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-N.Y., whether there was any sign North Korea was making headway in the area of denuclearization, Abrams had to admit, “We have not observed activity that’s consistent with a full-court press on denuclearization.”

Pressed by Blumenthal if there was any verifiable progress, Abrams said, “I’d say the activity we see is inconsistent with that.”

CHINA’S LONG-TERM THREAT: At the same hearing, the top U.S. commander for the Indo-Pacific region warned that China represents the greatest long-term strategic threat to the United States.

“Those who believe this is reflective of an intensifying competition between an established power in the United States and a rising power in China are not seeing the whole picture,” said Adm. Philip Davidson. “Rather, I believe we are facing something even more serious: a fundamental divergence in values that leads to two incompatible visions of the future through fear and coercion.”

CHINA’S PROPAGANDA RAG: Have you seen that “China Daily” insert in your local newspaper? You can just toss it says Adm. Davidson.

“When we all used to read newspapers every Sunday, we used to get up and have a Parade magazine as a Sunday insert. Throughout the region there’s a China Daily insert, which is Chinese propaganda appearing in newspapers over more than half of the population of the globe; it’s quite pernicious,” he testified.

PENTAGON’S NEW AI STRATEGY: As promised, the Pentagon released its new strategy for integrating artificial intelligence into almost every aspect of military and national security in the coming years.

“AI is poised to transform every industry, and is expected to impact every corner of the Department, spanning operations, training, sustainment, force protection, recruiting, healthcare, and many others,” said a Pentagon statement. “Key tenets of the strategy are accelerating the delivery and adoption of AI; establishing a common foundation for scaling AI’s impact across DOD and enabling decentralized development and experimentation; evolving partnerships with industry, academia, allies and partners; cultivating a leading AI workforce; and leading in military AI ethics and safety.”

AI refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence — for example, recognizing patterns, learning from experience, drawing conclusions, making predictions, or taking action — whether digitally or as the smart software behind autonomous physical systems.

BARNO AND BENSAHEL MYTHBUSTERS: The dynamic duo of retired Lt. Gen. David Barno and Nora Bensahel are at it again, this time debunking what they say are common myths about why the mission in Afghanistan has not turned out so well.

The two visiting professors of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies write that self-serving myths can “distort reality and dodge accountability.”

Here are the “myths” they “bust,” and to read their arguments, check out their essay in War on the Rocks.

1. “We did our job, but the civilians didn’t do theirs.”
2. “We were micromanaged, and fought with one hand tied behind our backs.”
3. “We should have ‘gone big’ early.”
4. “We should have kept the surge going in Afghanistan until we won.”
5. “We should have invaded Pakistan and cleaned out the Taliban sanctuaries.”
6. “We would have won in Afghanistan if we hadn’t invaded Iraq.”

RETURN TO ‘NORMAL ORDER’: Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan says he may revive the time-honored Pentagon tradition of on-camera briefings in the official briefing room.

Under Mattis, the semi-regular briefings were replaced by informal drop-bys in the Pentagon press area. But Shanahan, who held an off-camera briefing in his first formal engagement with the media last month, says he wants to meet the press more often.

“I really want to be able to try to answer all your questions. I’m not going to play cat and mouse, but we have to figure out a way to be able to talk,” he told reporters on his plane. “I’m hoping we’re going to get to the point where we actually get to do things on camera and kind of back to what I would call ‘normal order.’”

TIME TO PICK SIDES: European governments might have to choose between Beijing and Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned this week, as Chinese telecommunications companies pose an ever-greater threat to Western militaries in air and space — a threat other NATO countries acknowledge. Pompeo put a particular focus on Huawei and other telecom giants with connections to Chinese espionage services as he traveled through Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland Monday and Tuesday to relay U.S. concern over Beijing’s encroachment in the region.

Huawei, the world’s second-largest maker of smartphones, is racing to pioneer 5G, the fifth-generation wireless technology that promises to be exponentially faster than its predecessor and could provide a point-of-entry into America’s most sensitive technologies. Europe is currently the biggest foreign market for Huawei, whose equipment President Trump might soon ban by executive order from U.S. networks.

“With respect to Chinese infrastructure delivered via Huawei, we’ve done here in Poland what we’ve done all across the world: We’ve made known the risks that are associated with that, risks to the private information of the citizens of the country, risk that comes from having that technology installed in network and systems,” Pompeo said in Warsaw in response to a question from the Washington Examiner. “Individual countries then will make their own choices.”

He immediately added, “We’ve also made clear that if they make a certain set of decisions that it will be more difficult for the United States Department of Defense to work alongside of them — that is, we’ll never put our equipment in a place which would present risk to our technology from having Chinese technology collocated alongside of it that presents a risk.”

AIR FORCE OUSTS VIPER TEAM PILOT: The first woman to lead the Air Combat Command F-16 Viper demonstration team, Capt. Zoe Kotnik, was removed from her position Monday after two weeks on the job, according to the Air Force.

Col. Derek O’Malley, the 20th Fighter Wing commander at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, said that he “lost confidence” in Kotnik’s leadership but didn’t say what led to his decision.

A spokesperson for the 20th Fighter Wing said Kotnick’s removal means she will not perform with the team but will still serve in a “non-supervisory” capacity with the wing, according to the Air Force Times. Maj. John “Rain” Waters, who was the Viper demo pilot last year, will lead the Viper demo team now.

THE RUNDOWN

Breaking Defense: Trump Will Nominate SecDef: SASC Chair Inhofe

Military Times: Why is a top GOP senator skeptical of Trump’s acting defense secretary?

Washington Post: Shanahan Stresses Iraqi Sovereignty

Breaking Defense: Artificial Intelligence: Are We Losing The Race?

Wall Street Journal: Pentagon Drafts Artificial Intelligence to Fight Wildfires

Defense One: China, Russia, Building Attack Satellites And Space Lasers: Pentagon Report

USNI News: Future South China Sea FONOPS Will Include Allies, Partners

Washington Examiner: The Navy Is Pondering Its Future, And The Only Answer Is This: Build, Build, Build

Stars and Stripes: US fighter jets to join new British aircraft carrier’s first operational mission

Military.com: Top Senator Wants New Defense Secretary, But Misses Mattis

AP: Military judge airs concerns in Navy SEAL’s murder case