THORNBERRY’S MARK: Reporters are set to get a closer look today at Rep. Mac Thornberry’s $705 billion defense budget proposal, called the “chairman’s mark” version of the National Defense Authorization Act. House Armed Services staff are slated to provide a briefing on exactly how the big spending increase — $640 billion for base national defense needs and $65 billion for overseas operations — would be used as the massive policy bill heads to a full committee hearing on Wednesday. Base national defense lashes together the Defense Department and nuclear-related funding for the Energy Department. The topline figure announced last week is far above the $639 billion total defense budget put forth by President Trump and about $9 billion above a max topline figure being considered by House budget hawks.
Thornberry’s defense increase faces a likely fight in the House, but do not expect pushback from Sen. John McCain and his Armed Services Committee. Thornberry and McCain have been in lockstep this year pushing for $640 billion in baseline defense spending in 2018. McCain’s committee begins crafting its version of the NDAA this afternoon behind closed doors with a flurry of five subcommittee hearings in a row: Strategic Forces, Seapower, Airland, Readiness and newly created Cybersecurity. Two more subcommittee hearings are scheduled early Tuesday morning and then the full Senate Armed Services Committee begins its work, which will also occur in secret. It aims to complete its NDAA markup by Thursday or Friday.
THE ACTUAL SPENDING BILL: As Sen. Al Franken succinctly put it in his latest book “An authorization bill doesn’t actually fund anything. It just authorizes stuff. Hence the name.” Yes, as anyone who follows Congress knows, appropriations is where the rubber meets the road. And last night, the House Appropriations Committee took the wraps off an early version of its 2018 defense spending plan, which also calls for a boost in ships and aircraft over what Trump has proposed.
The draft appropriations bill to be considered by a subcommittee today (and which can be read in full here) provides $658 billion for the Defense Department, including $74 billion for overseas military operations such as the wars Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Trump has proposed a total of $639 billion for the Defense Department (including OCO) but defense hawks in the House are pushing for more. “This bill reflects what our military leaders have recommended in countless meetings and briefings and demonstrates our commitment to restoring military readiness, force modernization efforts, and maintaining technological superiority on the battlefield,” Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, the House Appropriations chairman, said in a released statement.
Here’s some of what the House Appropriations bill does with the money:
-Nearly $22 billion for 11 Navy ships including a carrier replacement, two guided-missile destroyers, two Virginia-class submarines, and three littoral combat ships, which is at least two more than what Trump has requested
– $9.5 billion for 84 Lockheed Martin F-35s, instead of the 70 in the president’s budget
– $1.8 billion for 24 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft, up from 14 requested by the White House
-$2.4 billion for 15 Boeing KC-46 tanker aircraft
-$1.05 billion for 56 Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters
-$1.2 billion for seven Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft
QATAR QUANDARY: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is calling for some of Qatar’s antagonists to back off and talk more. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the U.A.E. have issued a list of demands to the gulf state, which they accuse of supporting terrorism, but which also hosts the largest concentration of U.S military forces in the region, some 11,000 U.S. troops at the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha. While Trump initially expressed support for the squeeze play on Qatar, the State Department has been trying to lower the temperature, and Tillerson has labeled some of the demands, including shutting down its al Jazeera news network, as unreasonable.
In a statement issued yesterday, Tillerson diplomatically calls the demands, “a series of requests,” and says while “some of the elements will be very difficult for Qatar to meet,” others may “provide a basis for ongoing dialogue leading to resolution.” Tillerson suggests “a productive next step would be for each of the countries to sit together and continue this conversation,” adding, “A lowering of rhetoric would also help ease the tension.”
Good Monday 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.
TRAVEL BAN IN BALANCE: The Supreme Court, which is about break for a long summer recess, could act on the Trump administration’s travel ban as soon as today. At issue is whether to allow the administration to immediately implement a 90-day ban on visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries. Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee to the high court, could play a deciding role. While there’s no deadline for the court to decide, a ruling on the ban is considered likely this week.
HAPPENING TODAY: Trump meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today in what’s being described as a low-key business meeting that will be high on circumstance and low on pomp. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also meets with Modi today, away from the cameras, before he takes off later today for a three-day trip to Germany and Belgium, where on Thursday NATO defense ministers gather in Brussels. It will be Mattis’ last meeting with his NATO counterparts before he presents his Afghanistan strategy to Trump for approval, along with his decisions on how many more U.S. troops will be needed carry it out.
YEMEN INQUIRY: Two U.S. senators are asking Mattis to look into reports that U.S. military interrogators worked with United Arab Emirates forces accused of torturing detainees in Yemen. Sens. John McCain and Jack Reed said the reports were “deeply disturbing,” according to the Associated Press. The wire service released an investigation Thursday that detailed a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates or Yemeni forces trained by the Gulf nation.
TRANSGENDER DELAY WEIGHED: Military chiefs are seeking a six-month delay before letting new transgender recruits enlist in their services, officials said Friday. After meetings last week, the uniformed leaders hammered out an agreement that rejected Army and Air Force requests for a two-year wait and reflected broader concerns that a longer delay would trigger criticism on Capitol Hill, officials familiar with the talks told The Associated Press.
While not confirming the AP report, chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said “No decision has been made.” The chiefs of all four services met with Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work last Thursday. “The Services have provided their recommendation to the Deputy Secretary of Defense,” White told the Washington Examiner Friday. “[Work] has not yet made a recommendation to Secretary Mattis.”
Transgender servicemembers have been able to serve openly in the military since last year, when former Defense Secretary Ash Carter ended the ban. Since Oct. 1, transgender troops have been able to receive medical care and start formally changing their gender identifications in the Pentagon’s personnel system. But Carter also gave the services until July 1 to develop policies to allow people already identifying as transgender to join the military, if they meet physical, medical and other standards, and have been stable in their identified genders for 18 months.
ARE OUR NUKES SAFE IN TURKEY? The U.S. doesn’t, as a matter of policy, say where it stores or forward deploys nuclear weapons, but it’s an open secret that about 50 B-61 nuclear gravity bombs are locked in vaults at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. But with political instability in Turkey, rising tensions with some of its NATO allies, and a new tilt toward Russia and Iran, some arms control advocates are suggesting maybe it’s time to relocate the nuclear weapons caches to a more friendly ground, maybe in NATO country that’s not so close to a war zone. Read in our magazine this week: Should the US pull its nuclear weapons out of Turkey?
SECRET RESCUE OP: In the early days of the Trump administration, the CIA set up a backchannel to secure the release of Austin Tice, an American journalist and former Marine believed to be held hostage by the Syrian government. According to a report Friday by the New York Times, the operation to save Tice, which has been unsuccessful to date, was set back after the Syrian government’s nerve gas attack on civilians in April that led Trump to approve missile strikes against a Syrian air base.
The talks elevated to the highest levels of the CIA when the agency’s director, Mike Pompeo, spoke on the phone in February with Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau intelligence service. The call was the highest-level contact between the two governments in years, the Times reports. Syria has been engulfed in civil war over the last six years, and many have blamed the brutal tactics of Syrian President Bashar Assad for hastening the rise of the Islamic State in the region. Tice disappeared while working as a freelance journalist in the country nearly five years ago. The U.S. believes the Syrian government is holding Tice hostage, but Syria insists it doesn’t know what happened to him.
SO LONG SERGEI: Russia has recalled its ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, according to a report. The decision to send Kislyak back to Russia comes amid multiple investigations into the ambassador’s ties to Trump’s top aides during the 2016 presidential campaign, BuzzFeed reported.
Trump’s top aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former national security adviser Mike Flynn all had meetings with Kislyak that have since come under scrutiny as the FBI and multiple congressional committees continue to investigate the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING RUSSIA SAYS: The U.S. military pushed back on two separate statements from the Russian Defense Ministry last week. First, the U.S. says despite public threats, the U.S. and Russia are still using their hotline to sort out air operations over Syria, and to avoid miscalculations on the ground. And second, the U.S. says it has no reason to believe Russia’s claim that in killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike last month.
RUSSIAN INTERCEPT: Published reports say it was five feet, but the Pentagon told the Washington Examiner it wasn’t that close. Now you can judge for yourself, after U.S. European Command released photos of the Russian Su-27 flying dangerously closed (while very much armed) to a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea a week ago today.
THE RUNDOWN
Washington Post: Defense firms see more disappointment with Trump’s budget
AP: Trump eager for big meeting with Putin; some advisers wary
Daily Beast: How Moscow’s spies keep duping America, over and over again
Reuters: New U.S. ambassador to China says North Korea a top priority
New York Times: White House pushes military might over humanitarian aid in Africa
Bloomberg: Missile Threats Are Surging Worldwide, U.S. Defense Study Finds
Wall Street Journal: Bungled attacks, small operations signal new phase in terror
USA Today: Airstrikes in Marawi as Philippines troops try to retake city
CNN: Bloodied and broken: The battle against ISIS in the Philippines
Defense News: Israel on alert after 2 days of cross-border fire with Syria
Politico: The other treaty on the chopping block
Reuters: Mosul celebrates first Eid without Islamic State in years
Defense One: One man, one job: Win the Pentagon’s next big contract
Task and Purpose: Watch an Israeli airstrike take out a Syrian machine gun and 2 tanks
Calendar
MONDAY | JUNE 26
10:30 a.m. The western Balkans: A delicate balance. wilsoncenter.org
12:30 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Rising Chinese FDI in Latin America and the implications for the United States. atlanticcouncil.org
2 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The Korean War, the “forgotten war,” remembered. wilsoncenter.org
3 p.m. Russell 232-A. Closed hearing by Subcommittee on Strategic Forces to markup the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
3:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. Closed hearing by Subcommittee on Seapower to markup the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
4 p.m. Russell 232-A. Closed hearing by Subcommittee on Airland to markup the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
4:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. Closed hearing by Subcommittee on Readiness to markup the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
5:30 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Foreign Service: Five decades on the frontlines of American diplomacy. brookings.edu
5:40 p.m. Russell 232-A. Closed hearing by Subcommittee on Cybersecurity to markup the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
7 p.m. House 140. Closed subcommittee markup of 2018 defense appropriations. appropriations.house.gov
TUESDAY | JUNE 27
6 :30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Closed hearing on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
7 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Closed hearing on Subcommittee on Personnel markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
7:30 a.m. Russell 222. Closed full committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
8 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Integrating Strike and Defense with Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, and former Rep. Randy Forbes. csis.org
8:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Big data and the Twenty-first Century arms race. atlanticcouncil.org
1 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. The future of Mosul and Iraq after the ISIS flag falls with Rep. Adam Kinzinger. heritage.org
2 p.m. Rayburn 2172. Allies under attack and the terrorist threat to Europe. foreignaffairs.house.gov
3 p.m. 529 14th St. NW. The Syrian conflict and regional security. press.org
3:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Book launch for Water, Security and U.S. Foreign Policy. wilsoncenter.org
WEDNESDAY | JUNE 28
7 a.m. Russell 222. Closed full committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
8 a.m. 1201 M St. SE. Systems engineering division meeting. ndia.org
9:30 a.m. 1127 Connecticut Ave. NW. 2017 Annual Conference: Navigating the Divide. cnas.org
10 a.m. Dirksen 342. Nominations of Claire M. Grady to be under secretary for management at the Department of Homeland Security and Henry Kerner to be special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel. hsgac.senate.gov
10 a.m. Hart 216. Open hearing on Russian intervention in European elections. intelligence.senate.gov
10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Closed full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. armedservices.house.gov
10 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Strategic cyber deterrence: The active cyber defense option with author Scott Jasper. heritage.org
10 a.m. Rayburn 2172. Advancing U.S. interests at the United Nations with Ambassador Nikki Haley. foreignaffairs.house.gov
10 a.m. Senate Visitor Center 212-10. Study release, Consolidating the Revolution: Optimizing the Potential of Remotely Piloted Aircraft, with author retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula. mitchellaerospacepower.org
11:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Rebalancing U.S. force posture in Europe and beyond. atlanticcouncil.org
1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Perspectives on the 2018 U.S. national security strategy with Christine Wormuth and Ambassador Tony Wayne. csis.org
THURSDAY | JUNE 29
7:30 a.m. Russell 222. Closed full committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
9 a.m. 1030 15th Street NW. Conference on the threat of Russian influence in Europe, the next frontier in digital disinformation, and how to strike back. atlanticcouncil.org
9:30 a.m. Russell 222. Closed full committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The power of the president to shape U.S. relations in the Middle East and North Africa. brookings.edu
10:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. India-Japan strategic cooperation and implications for Washington and Beijing. wilsoncenter.org
4:30 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Debate on U.S. nuclear weapon modernization. csis.org
FRIDAY | JUNE 30
9:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. South Sudan: When war and famine collide. csis.org
