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ACTION ON APPROPRIATIONS: It was a whirlwind week for the defense budget on Capitol Hill. The appropriations side of the budget is coming into focus after the House passed its version of the 2019 spending bill on Thursday and the Senate simultaneously finished its committee markup. Both chambers are proposing $675 billion for the Pentagon, including $68 billion for overseas contingency operations. It will be the second installment of a two-year budget deal struck by Congress to rebuild the military after years of caps and stopgap budget measures. On the policy side, the House and Senate are gearing up for a conference on the 2019 defense authorization bill. The House voted to start the process and name conferees on Wednesday. The usual delays and political wrangling of past years have yet to snag the process and lawmakers are optimistic about completing the budget on time for a change. “Having passed three of our funding bills in the Senate this week, it appears the machinery of regular order is beginning to turn,” Sen. Richard Shelby, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, said in a statement. NOT SO FAST: Now, lawmakers will escape the oppressive D.C. heat and return to their states and districts for the week of July 4. When they return, the Senate will be faced with passing its version of the appropriations bill and the two chambers will have to roll up their sleeves and iron out the differences in the legislation. Here is where the two spending bills stand on some key issues: JSTARS: The Air Force wants to abandon plans to replace its fleet of Gulf War-era E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft, or JSTARS. Instead, it wants to pursue a new battlefield surveillance system called Advanced Battle Management System.
F-35: The Pentagon requested 77 of the Lockheed Martin joint strike fighters for 2019, and both armed services committees generally went along with the request. In the 2018 omnibus bill passed this year, the military got 90 of the advanced fighters.
LCS: The Navy insisted that it needed just a single littoral combat ship in the coming year. But the commercial shipyards in Wisconsin and Alabama that build the ships for Lockheed and Austal USA warned of layoffs unless more are purchased. Lawmakers are also concerned about keeping the yards humming and ready to build a future Navy frigate.
SUB PROPOSAL SUNK: After the Pentagon intervened in a brief but intense political fight, the House bill will not include any measure to ramp up the Navy’s purchases of Virginia-class attack submarines. Leaders of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee led the charge on the chamber floor Wednesday and it was defeated by a roll call vote on Thursday. Reps. Rob Wittman and Joe Courtney rallied 20 other co-sponsors behind the proposal to shift $1 billion in the budget to add the purchase of a third sub in 2022. They argue the Navy sub fleet will shrink over the next decade and be outpaced by China. But Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan sent a heartburn letter of opposition to the Hill this week saying the amendment would saddle the military with additional costs. That helped Rep. Kay Granger, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, defeat it. The floor vote on the amendment was 267-144. “What this all had to do with from our perspective is really a last-minute amendment that this year would be over a billion dollars. Well, we don’t have a billion dollars left over, so it means we would have to go through and cut over a billion dollars worth of projects and programs … to pay for that,” Granger told the Washington Examiner. Good Friday 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: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is due back in Washington today, wrapping up his week spent mostly in China with stops in Alaska, South Korea and Japan. In a meeting with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera in Tokyo, Mattis delivered a message similar to the one he delivered in South Korea, that the U.S. “stands firm” in its commitment to defend Japan. While the U.S. has some 28,500 troops in South Korea, it has more than 50,000 military personnel based in Japan, including a carrier strike group. “We’re in the midst of very unprecedented negotiations right now with North Korea. But in this dynamic time, the longstanding alliance between Japan and the United States stands firm,” Mattis said as he stood next to Onodera. Earlier in Seoul, Mattis also sought to reassure South Korea that the U.S. has no plans to lessen its treaty obligation to defend the South. “The U.S. commitment to the Republic of Korea remains ironclad, and the U.S. will continue to use the full range of diplomatic and military capabilities to uphold these commitments,” Mattis said. “This includes maintaining the current U.S. force levels on the Korean Peninsula.” The Pentagon continues to portray the suspension of major joint exercises with the South as a short-term step to “create space” to encourage North Korea to make good on its promises to dismantle its nuclear program. “The recent decision to suspend the Freedom Guardian exercise creates increased opportunity for our diplomats to negotiate, increasing prospects for a peaceful solution on the peninsula,” Mattis said. “At the same time, the U.S. and [South Korean] forces remain united, vigilant and ready to defend against any challenge.” Pentagon officials privately confirm that so far there has been no sign that North Korea has taken any action toward denuclearization or to repatriate any remains from the 1950-53 Korean War. POMPEO TO PYONGYANG: Those will be the big issues when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels to North Korea, which according to the Financial Times will happen next week. Pompeo reportedly canceled a meeting planned with his Indian counterpart for July 6 so he could fly to Pyongyang for his first visit since President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met this month in Singapore. In Senate testimony this week, Pompeo refused to show his hand. “I think it would be inappropriate and frankly counterproductive to achieving the end state that we’re hoping to achieve,” he testified. “The North Koreans understand the scope of the request that we’re making with respect to denuclearization and the elements that would be required and one of those elements.” SENATE MOVES AFGHANISTAN COMMANDER: The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson, has a replacement on the way. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to advance the nomination of Lt. Gen. Scott Miller to be commander of the NATO Resolute Support mission. That tees up a final Senate floor vote on Miller, who now heads U.S. Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. He could take over operations in Afghanistan about one year after Trump announced his new strategy that aims to build up the Afghans and force the Taliban into peace talks. HARRIS CONFIRMED: Retired Adm. Harry Harris, the former head of U.S. Pacific Command, has been confirmed by the Senate to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea. NO PENTAGON PRIDE FOR PRIDE MONTH? House Armed Services Democrats are blasting the Pentagon for what they charge was a low-key handling of LGBTQ Pride Month. Rep. Anthony Brown and seven other lawmakers wrote a letter to Mattis saying the Pentagon broke precedent by not releasing memos to commemorate the occasion or providing any high-level officials for a building ceremony. “The absence of demonstrative support from DOD leadership at events like these can have the effect of isolating our LGBT service members and employees,” they wrote. They point out that the office in charge of the Pride Month memos is run by Robert Wilkie, who is nominated to be VA secretary. As we reported in this newsletter, the Pentagon held its 7th Annual LGBT Pride Month Celebration in the Pentagon’s Center Courtyard on June 11. But the event does appear to be getting more low-key, especially after Trump moved to ban service by transgender troops and Mattis affirmed the decision with a new proposed policy excluding many. CLARIFICATION ON MIGRANT CAMPS: Shortly after we pushed send on yesterday’s newsletter, the Pentagon clarified that the request it has received from the Department of Homeland Security for up to 12,000 beds for migrant families at three U.S. military bases is, for now, the only formal request to provide temporary housing. A separate request from the Department of Health and Human Services for up to 20,000 beds for unaccompanied minors is still in the “assessment phase,” according to a Pentagon spokesman, who says the Department of Defense is advising HHS on its ability to build facilities at two bases in Texas. So far there has not been a formal request to proceed at the two bases, Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base. LIGHT ATTACK ON HOLD: As you would expect, the Air Force Light Attack Experiment has been put on hold in the wake of last week’s fatal crash of an A-29 Super Tucano, which took the life of a Navy aviator. A Navy release identified the pilot as Lt. Christopher Carey Short, whose A-29 crashed while on a mission over the Red Rio Bombing Range, part of White Sands Missile Range, north of Holloman Air Force Base. Flying operations have been suspended while the crash investigation continues, Gen. Mike Holmes, commander of Air Combat Command, told reporters at a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday morning, according to Defense News. The Air Force’s Light Attack Experiment pits two turboprop planes in a competition to fill the need for a cheaper, more versatile plane to perform routine missions in a permissive air environment, such as air interdiction, close-air support, armed overwatch, and combat search and rescue. The A-29 Super Tucano is built in Jacksonville, Fla., by a joint venture between Sierra Nevada Corporation and Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer, and the Beechcraft AT-6B Wolverine is a modified trainer built by Textron Aviation. MASS DELETIONS: The National Security Agency said Thursday it collected more domestic call records than allowed, and as a result has been mass-deleting call records across a three-year period. The NSA said in a statement that on May 23 it “began deleting all call detail records (CDRs) acquired since 2015 under Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.” Weeks before the deletions began, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that the NSA acquired more than 534 million domestic call records in 2017, triple the amount collected in 2016. HOSTAGES MURDERED: The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is “strongly condemning” the murder of hostages kidnapped by Islamic State militants this week. After an intense search by Iraqi forces, the remains of eight hostages were found Wednesday on the Kirkuk-Diyala road in Iraq. “We join our Iraqi partners in mourning the brutal and senseless murder of these men, and together we remain steadfast in our commitment to destroy the remnants of Daesh,” Army Lt. Gen. Paul Funk said in a statement. “We will continue to work with our Iraqi partners to achieve the enduring defeat of the evil criminal organization for the innocent civilians of Iraq, our nations, and all mankind.” ABADI ORDERS REVENGE: In response the murders, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered the immediate execution of all ISIS members on Iraq’s death row, according to a statement issued from his office. Various reports say as many as 300 people, including 100 foreign nationals, could be put to death. The statement said Abadi “ordered the immediate execution of terrorists condemned to death whose sentences have passed the decisive stage.” HITTING HOME: The U.S. Naval Academy noted in a tweet yesterday that the deadly shotgun assault on the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis really hit home. “The Capital Gazette is our local newspaper and is often the first to tell our story. We are grieving with their staff and loved ones after the tragic events that occurred today,” the academy tweeted on its official account. Five members of the newspaper’s staff were gunned down, in what was the deadliest day for U.S. journalists since Sept. 11. THE RUNDOWN Washington Examiner: Russia: ‘Not legitimate’ for investigators to say who used chemical weapons Washington Examiner: Another US diplomat suffers mystery ‘health attack’ in Cuba Reuters: First Trump-Putin summit has Cold War backdrop, U.S. allies nervous New York Times: In Meeting With Putin, Experts Fear Trump Will Give More Than He Gets Bloomberg: EU Pledges Greater Defense Cooperation as Trump Concern Looms Washington Post: Cease-fire in southwestern Syria nears collapse as U.S. and Russia trade blame USNI News: Boeing Awarded $1.5B Contract for 28 Kuwait Super Hornets Bloomberg: Discounted U.S. Weapons Sales Under Scrutiny by Key Lawmakers Stars and Stripes: RIMPAC Begins Without China But Adds Army And Air Force Firepower Defense News: Generals warn of ‘vintage’ depots and WWII-era logistics techniques Foreign Policy: Mattis’s Last Stand Is Iran War on the Rocks: Don’t Fear The Audit! Calculated Risk And Agile Accountability In The Sea Services Task and Purpose: This Is Not How ‘Skynet’ Begins, Air Force Says of Artificial Intelligence Efforts DoD Buzz: The Air Force Needs Army’s Help to Best Russia’s S-400 Missile Battery Defense One: Trump Backs Russia on Election Interference Ahead of NATO Summit New York Times: Britain Abetted U.S. Torture of Terrorism Suspects, Parliament Finds |
Calendar10 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. National Guard Interests in the Arctic: Arctic and Extreme Cold Weather Capability with Major Gen. Laurie Hummel, the Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard, and Major Gen. Douglas Farnham, the Adjutant General of the Maine National Guard. wilsoncenter.org
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