AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY IN LIMBO: Despite the widespread perception that President Trump has delegated war strategy to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the Pentagon is making clear that the White House is driving the train when it comes to what to do next in Afghanistan. Mattis drew up plans to send roughly 4,000 additional trainers to Afghanistan, and secured commitments from several NATO allies to also dispatch additional troops. But the long-awaited strategy, promised for mid-July, now languishes at the White House. Other options are being mulled, including sending contractors instead of troops, and even throwing in the towel and pulling out. “We’re contributing to the process that’s being led by the White House,” said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “It is looking across our instruments of national power, not just military, but diplomatic, financial, intelligence and information as well.”
Mattis has blamed the delay in deciding what to do on the fact that “strategy is hard,” and has pushed back on the idea that Trump has given him carte blanche to do what he thinks best. “What he delegated was a tactical decision about what forces to send,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon last month. “Not one bit of the strategy was delegated. That is his and his alone.” Asked when the strategy might be unveiled, Davis said, “That’s a White House-led effort, so I’d refer you to them.”
McCAIN’S THREAT: When Mattis last testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he admitted the U.S. is not winning in Afghanistan got an earful from an extremely exasperated Sen. John McCain who was furious that months into the new administration there was no strategy to change course. McCain is back in Arizona to begin radiation and chemotherapy for brain cancer, but says he is ready to follow through on a threat he made in June to write his own strategy and impose it on the Pentagon by incorporating it into the NDAA. “When the Senate takes up the National Defense Authorization Act in September, I will offer an amendment based on the advice of some our best military leaders that will provide a strategy for success in achieving America’s national interests in Afghanistan,” McCain said is a statement yesterday. “Eight years of a ‘don’t lose’ strategy has cost us lives and treasure in Afghanistan. Our troops deserve better.”
WHICH GENERALS ARE THOSE AGAIN? A week after Trump tweeted that he was banning transgender troops from U.S. military service “after consultation with my Generals and military experts,” the Pentagon is at a loss to point to one general or expert who was consulted. It continues to deflect questions by insisting all communication between the president and his military leaders are private and confidential. Mattis, who is back from vacation and could be seen at the president’s Cabinet meeting yesterday, has been notably silent, not even issuing a statement. When pressed yesterday, the Pentagon could not say whether Mattis was consulted or merely informed of the surprise decision.
“Given that there was no discussion in this building and publicly and no discussion on Capitol Hill of any sort of ban on transgender troops, can you say with any certainty that the secretary was consulted and had a chance to provide his advice before the president made his announcement?” the Washington Examiner asked spokesman Davis yesterday. “The secretary has lots of interactions with the president,” Davis replied. “Those are private; I’m not at liberty to read those out to you.” Mattis will make his first public appearance at the Pentagon since returning from R&R when he takes part in a Hall of Heroes induction ceremony for former Army Spec. 5 James McCloughan, a combat medic in Vietnam who was presented the Medal of Honor at the White House yesterday. Mattis and Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan are scheduled to participate in the 11 a.m. ceremony in the Pentagon auditorium.
IS A TWEET AN ORDER? Davis yesterday characterized the president’s transgender tweets as an announcement, not an order, and said the Pentagon would do nothing to discharge troops until they get guidance on paper. “Orders and announcements are different things, and we are awaiting an order from the commander in chief to proceed,” Davis said.
That raises an interesting question: Can a tweet be an order? We consulted Eugene Fidell, an attorney who teaches military law at Yale. His answer: A tweet from the president can in fact be a binding order requiring immediate compliance, if it is specific enough. Noting that Abraham Lincoln sent orders to his generals via telegraph, Fidell says the means of transmission is irrelevant. “The new policy could have been written on a napkin,” Fidell said. The attorney, who is also defending Staff Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, says he thinks Trump’s tweets qualify more as a broad statement of policy, not a specific order, and therefore he argues military leaders are not being insubordinate in reasonably waiting for more detailed guidance before taking action. And Fidell says he finds debate about whether the military might be slow-rolling the transgender ban to be encouraging, because it shows Americans are aware of the bedrock principle of civilian control of the military.
Good Tuesday 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.
HAPPENING TOMORROW: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis are set to appear at a closed-door session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to offer their views on the need for a new authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF. The Pentagon insists, just as it did under President Barack Obama, that it has the legal authority to wage war against the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. But it favors a new AUMF as “a signal of our national intent,” Davis said. “It demonstrates that and that gives us a little more surety that what we’re doing is, in fact, the reflection of the national will.”
ALSO TOMORROW: A “GLORY TRIP” That’s what they call it at U.S. Strategic Command when they pull out an old Cold War-era Boeing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile and fire it off to test both the missile and the prowess of the missileers who man some 450 underground silos spread across five states. The next “glory trip” is set for tomorrow morning between 12:01 a.m. and 6:01 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A spokesman for STRATCOM says these unarmed ICBM tests are scheduled more than a year ahead of time, and are not related to any “real world events,” (read that North Korea). “The purpose of the ICBM test launch program is to validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapon system,” according to Air Force Global Strike Command.
NOMINEES IN WAITING: The Senate yesterday confirmed Air Force Gen. Paul Selva to serve two more years as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it is unclear how soon a dozen more of Trump’s Pentagon nominees will win Senate confirmation. The 12 civilian nominees (see the full list here), including Trump’s pick for Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, remain among the Senate’s unfinished business as it begins what could be its final two weeks of work before an August recess. The tight timeline means Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer must come to an agreement to speed up the slow pace of confirmations in order to fill key Pentagon posts under the Trump administration before they leave town until September.
Democrats have been slow-rolling nominees with drawn-out floor procedures, but they may relent as the recess approaches and allow batch approvals, said Mark Harkins, a senior fellow with the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. Despite the holdups, Harkins said senators have an interest in getting the Trump appointees into place. “As we get deeper and deeper into the budget cycle, you are going to want people who are going to be able to answer your questions who you believe have some authority up the line,” he said.
HARD LANDING: A U.S. Army medevac helicopter was involved in a “hard landing” in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, overnight after suffering a mechanical issue. “Seven crew aboard. All are safe. Two have minor injuries,” emails Navy Capt. Bill Salvin from Kabul. “Taliban claims that all aboard were killed are, as usual, false,” Salvin said.
AFGHAN INTEL AUDIT: It was another bad Afghanistan audit for the Pentagon Monday. The Pentagon has shelled out $458 million to train Afghan intelligence officers since 2010, but a lack of oversight made it difficult to measure whether the effort led to any improvements in the country’s operations, according to a special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction report. “It is almost impossible to assess whether this assistance was worth the $457.7 million spent on these programs,” the report said. Many of the Afghans trained specifically to be government ministry trainers and instructors never completed all their course work, and more than half of the sites created for intelligence training and mentoring were not fully transferred to the Afghanistan government as planned. The release follows the announcement last week of a SIGAR criminal probe into the Pentagon’s flawed purchase of Afghan army uniforms.
“HANDLING” NORTH KOREA: Trump said yesterday that his administration will “handle” North Korea following the rogue regime’s second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile last week. “We’ll handle North Korea,” Trump told reporters at the start of his Monday Cabinet meeting. “We’re going to be able to handle North Korea. It will be handled. We handle everything.” The president did not provide additional details on how his administration plans to respond to North Korea.
SUB ACTIVITIES: The U.S. military has detected “highly unusual” North Korean submarine activity, according to CNN, which says the sub appeared to conduct an “ejection test” that examines a missile’s “cold-launch” system. The ejection test uses high-pressure steam to propel a missile out of the launch canister into the air before its engines ignite, preventing damage to the submarine launching the missile, according to CNN. This would be North Korea’s third ejection test this month, and demonstrates that Pyongyang is making progress in developing its submarine launch skills.
SOMALIA STRIKE: A U.S. airstrike killed a fighter belonging to the al-Shabaab Mogadishu Attack Network in Somalia on Saturday, in the latest use of expanded military authority approved by Trump. The strike, which was conducted near Tortoroow in southern Somalia, was based on “actionable intelligence” and no civilians were killed, according to a statement from U.S. Africa Command. “This strike was conducted under new authorities which were granted in March, which allow U.S. military forces to conduct lethal actions against al-Shabaab within a geographically defined area in Somalia in support of our partner forces,” the statement said.
PENCE POUNCES ON RUSSIA: Vice President Mike Pence, in Estonia on the first stop on a three-nation tour of NATO allies, delivered a blistering attack on Russia yesterday, and reaffirmed that Trump will sign the tough sanctions bill passed by Congress. “The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable for its actions,” Pence said in an address to Estonian troops yesterday. “In a sign of our commitment, very soon, President Trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codify the United States’ sanctions against Russia.”
Pence said while the U.S. desires a constructive relationship with Russia based on cooperation on common interests, “The President and our Congress are unified in our message: A better relationship and the lifting of sanctions will require Russia to reverse the actions that caused sanctions to be imposed in the first place.”
Pence called Russia an “unpredictable neighbor to the east,” and said no threat looms larger in the Baltic states. “At this very moment, Russia continues to seek to redraw international borders by force, undermine the democracies of sovereign nations, and divide the free nations of Europe one against another,” Pence said.
TOO CHAOTIC TO COLLUDE: White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, is offering a version of the “incompetence defense” to rebut allegations the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Kushner says the Trump campaign was simply too disorganized to pull it off. It’s a classic argument used to shoot down conspiracy theories, essentially arguing, “we’re not that clever.”
“They [the Russians] thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices,” Kushner told congressional interns during a private meeting at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington on Monday afternoon. According to a transcript of the event obtained by Foreign Policy, Kushner said “we don’t know where it’s going” when asked about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia on interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS: The Pentagon says Mattis has made three more staff appointments: Raymond Horoho as the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, Joseph L’Etoile as the senior adviser to the assistant secretary of defense for readiness, and Michael Powers as the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for financial management and comptroller. None of the appointments requires congressional approval.
THE RUNDOWN
New York Times: Russia’s Military Drills Near NATO Border Raise Fears of Aggression
DoD Buzz: Another light attack jet offering joins Air Force’s OA-X fly-off
Defense News: Pentagon to unveil new acquisition structure on Aug. 1
Stars and Stripes: North Korean ICBM appears to have broken up during re-entry, think tank says
Defense One: The downsides of John Kelly’s ascension
Reuters: U.S. embassy in Moscow says locked out of diplomatic property
New York Times: News analysis: Putin’s bet on a Trump presidency backfires spectacularly
USA Today: China to Trump: Don’t blame us for North Korea, trade issues
UPI: Lockheed receives contract for 50 F-35s for foreign military sales
Roll Call: Podcast: Why the just passed minibus is going nowhere
USNI News: Nimitz carrier strike group starts operations against ISIS from the Persian Gulf
Foreign Policy: Marines on top: Defense Secretary James Mattis must be feeling good about this lineup
War on the Rocks: Marine Corps aviation: Let the “guardian angel” be your Moneyball and the VMUs your Oakland A’s
Washington Post: A soldier survived 48 hours of terror in Vietnam. Today, he received the Medal of Honor.
Calendar
TUESDAY | AUGUST 1
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The U.S. Coast Guard’s priorities for the future with the commandant, Adm. Paul Zukunft. csis.org
11 a.m. Pentagon Auditorium Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan participate in the Medal of Honor Hall of Heroes induction ceremony for former Army Spec. 5 James McCloughan. Live streamed on www.defense.gov/live.
6:30 p.m. 14750 Conference Center Dr. Peter B. Teets Award Dinner. ndia.org
6:30 p.m. 1700 Army Navy Dr. Reception and welcome dinner for Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. afa.org
WEDNESDAY | AUGUST 2
7 a.m. 4803 Stonecroft Blvd. National Security Space Policy and Architecture Symposium. ndia.org
9:30 a.m. Senate Visitors Center 212-10. Release of the study “Survivability in the Digital Age: The Imperative for Stealth” with opening remarks by Sen. Mike Rounds. mitchellaerospacepower.org
2 p.m. Senate Visitors Center 217. Closed top-secret meeting on the authorizations for the use of military force and the Trump administration perspective with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. foreign.state.gov
4 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Cyber Risk Wednesday: DEF CON to DC. atlanticcouncil.org
TUESDAY | AUGUST 8
8 .m. 5701 Marinelli Rd. Global explosive ordnance disposal symposium and exhibition. ndia.org
8 a.m. 11790 Sunrise Valley Dr. How Washington works workshop – Navigating the DOD. ndia.org
11 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Defending the homeland and the future of the U.S. countering violent extremism policy with Katharine Gorka, senior adviser for the Department of Homeland Security. heritage.org
