CRACKS IN PYONGYANG’S INTRANSIGENCE: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hopes to sit down someday with North Korea officials to try to find a way to convince Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons, short of war. Today, Tillerson is scheduled to address the United Nations Security Council to press for what he has called “peaceful pressure” on the North.
One diplomat who has had face-to-face meetings with members of the Kim regime is Jeffrey Feltman, the U.N.’s undersecretary-general for political affairs, who met with North Korean officials in Pyongyang last week. Feltman told CNN last night he felt like he was having a real conversation. “That’s actually what surprised me a bit, because it was a very interactive, serious exchange,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “I’m not saying that they were flexible on their positions per se because they had certain policy positions in which they were operating, but they wanted to hear us out. They gave us the time to present the concerns of the international community. They quizzed us on some of the points that we made. They asked for more information. I got the sense that they seriously wanted to understand why we were saying what we were saying and get more details, presumably to prepare reports for the broader leadership.”
Tillerson, who said Tuesday he was open to beginning talks without preconditions, is expected to call on the international community to keep up the economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Feltman said his sense was “an acceptance of that goal, as a long term aspirational goal,” but that North Korea sees it as something that might be years away. “I think that the timelines that Pyongyang were considering are far longer than what the security council has in mind,” Feltman said. “I don’t think we have that much time. I think that there’s a risk of an accidental conflict given the lack of trust, the lack of any kind of real ongoing diplomatic channels and the fact that there’s continued defiance of those security council resolutions.”
MORE REXIT TALK: Tillerson’s comments on North Korea this week have widened the rift with the White House and show his time at Foggy Bottom is running short, the Washington Post is reporting. “Tillerson, one White House official said, ‘had not learned his lesson from the last time,’ when Trump publicly rebuked his top diplomat on Twitter over the wisdom of talking to North Korea.
“Inside the White House, this person said, there are fairly regular conversations about who will replace Tillerson even as he remains in the job. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, for example, may no longer be the leading choice because it means he would not brief Trump every day, and the president likes him in that role, the official said.
“ ‘I think our allies know at this point he’s not really speaking for the administration,’ this Trump official said — a particularly sharp slap given that Tillerson has sought to be a buffer and interpreter for allies angry or bewildered by some of Trump’s actions.”
GRAHAM’S ODDS MAKING: South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham keeps telling anyone who will listen that he’s had a lot of heart-to-heart talks with President Trump, and he’s convinced that Trump will not shy away from war with North Korea if that’s what it takes to eliminate its nuclear threat. And now he’s putting odds on it. “I would say there’s a three in 10 chance we use the military option,” he told the Atlantic. But he said the odds go from 30 to 70 percent if North Korea conducts another nuclear test. “I don’t know how to say it any more direct: If nothing changes, Trump’s gonna have to use the military option, because time is running out,” Graham said, adding “We’re not to the tipping point yet [but] if they test another weapon, then all bets are off.”
TRUMP CALLS PUTIN: Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday, right after Putin praised Trump’s handling of the U.S. economy and the booming U.S. stock market during his annual year-end press conference in Moscow. A three-sentence White House statement said Trump thanked Putin for “acknowledging America’s strong economic performance” and that the “two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea.”
During his nationally broadcast Q-and-A with reporters, Putin again denied any collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and accused Trump critics of “incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him.” Putin said the controversy has crippled Trump’s efforts to put relations between Moscow and Washington back on a more even keel. “There are things that he would want to do but hasn’t been able to so far. … It’s clear that, even if he wanted to, he’s not in a condition to do that,” Putin said, expressing hope that relations will improve. “I don’t know if he still wants [to], or if it’s totally exhausted, but I hope he still does.”
WALKING ON EGGSHELLS: The Washington Post is out with a lengthy story describing how the president remains highly skeptical of the U.S. intelligence that concludes Russia interfered in the U.S. election last year. The article notes Trump has never convened a Cabinet-level meeting on Russian interference or what to do about it, and quotes unnamed officials as saying his daily intelligence update — known as the president’s daily brief, or PDB — is often structured to avoid upsetting him.
“Russia-related intelligence that might draw Trump’s ire is in some cases included only in the written assessment and not raised orally, said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the matter,” the paper reports “ In other cases, Trump’s main briefer – a veteran CIA analyst – adjusts the order of his presentation and text, aiming to soften the impact.”
“ ‘If you talk about Russia, meddling, interference — that takes the PDB off the rails,’ ” a second former senior U.S. intelligence official told the paper.
MADE IN IRAN: “The evidence is undeniable. The weapons might as well have had ‘made in Iran’ stickers all over it,” said Nikki Haley yesterday addressing reporters in an unheated hangar in Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. was standing in front of reconstituted missile parts she said proved beyond any doubt that Iran was supplying arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen in defiance of U.N. resolutions.
“In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region. Behind me is an example of one of these attacks. These are the recovered pieces of a missile fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia,” Haley said.
“We do not often declassify this type of military equipment recovered from these attacks, but today we are taking the extraordinary step of presenting it here in an open setting,” she added. “We did this for a single urgent purpose: because the Iranian regime cannot be allowed to engage in its lawless behavior any longer. International peace and security depends on us working together against the Iranian regime’s hostile actions.” The U.S. also released footage making its case, which you can see here.
BUT IRAN DENIES IT: Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif compared Haley’s presentation to Colin Powell’s infamous testimony to the U.N. to justify the Iraq invasion in 2003. “When I was based at the UN, I saw this show and what it begat…” he tweeted, adding photos from both presentations. A follow-up tweet said “While #Iran has been calling for ceasefire, aid and dialogue in #Yemen from day 1, US has sold weapons enabling its allies to kill civilians and impose famine. No amount of alternative facts or alternative evidence covers up US complicity in war crimes.”
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.
HAPPENING TODAY: Trump plans to spend some quality time with the FBI and Marines this afternoon. The president is scheduled to participate in the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony in Quantico, Va., and then stop at the Marine Corps Air Facility there, where he will visit Marine Helicopter Squadron 1, the unit that ferries him around on Marine One. The president is then set to spend the weekend at Camp David.
SPENDING FIGHT NEXT WEEK: Disputes over defense and healthcare spending are threatening to hold up a spending bill that has to be passed next week in order to avoid a partial government shutdown, the same week Republicans are hoping to finish a major tax reform bill, Susan Ferrechio writes. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is threatening to block a House proposal to fund the government through Jan. 19. Schumer opposes the plan because it includes full-year funding for the Department of Defense that exceeds federal spending caps, but doesn’t include any such language for domestic spending.
Democrats want parity for domestic spending, but Republicans are hoping to get to it next year. Democrats aren’t happy with that. “Lifting those spending caps in equal measure has been the basis of successful budget agreements going back several years,” Schumer argued on the Senate floor Thursday. “It has been parity between defense and nondefense for the three last budget negotiations and that is how it ought to stay. That is what brought us to good agreements, that’s what averted shutdowns.”
Schumer called the House proposal “a dead-end strategy” and pledged the measure “will quickly fail in the Senate.” Republicans can pass what they want in the House, but Democrats still have the power to block legislation in the upper chamber, so getting some kind of agreement will be needed to overcome that hurdle.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: In what he said will be his last address at the Aerospace Industries Association annual media luncheon, President and CEO David Melcher presented some findings from a new study on the impact of congressionally-imposed spending caps on the defense industrial base. “The report’s findings are stark,” Melcher said. “Clearly, the decade-long defense drawdown has resulted in lost suppliers, changes in competition and market structure, and further industrial base turmoil.” The report, which be released in full next month, was produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and commissioned by AIA.
“The study found that during the recent defense-drawdown the number of vendors doing business with DoD declined by 17,000 or almost 20 percent,” Melcher said. “The land vehicles sector in particular suffered a serious decline during the drawdown, losing almost a third of its vendors. Other industry sectors such as military aviation suffered a whipsaw effect in which solid business growth suddenly switched to share decline, then back to growth.”
You can read Melcher’s full remarks here.
THE WAR IS NOT OVER: While Russia has declared victory over ISIS in Syria and announced plans to begin pulling its forces out, the U.S. says there are still an estimated 2,000 Islamic State remnants in Syria, and the war is not over. Yesterday, U.S. Central Command accused Russia of continuing to allow Islamic State fighters to move freely through parts of Syria controlled by the regime of Bashar Assad, but said U.S.-backed forces were able to intercept an ISIS convoy anyway, and killed more than 20 ISIS fighters.
“The [ISIS] terrorists freely moved through an area controlled by pro-Syrian regime forces,” the statement said. “This is the second time in less than a month that convoys of [ISIS] terrorists, fleeing the middle Euphrates River valley, transited through regime-controlled territory,” a CENTCOM statement said.
FLARE-UP IN SYRIAN SKIES: A pair of U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters fired flares to chase two Russian Su-25 fighter jets out of restricted airspace over Syria on Wednesday, a Pentagon official confirmed. The aerial encounter occurred when the Russian jets strayed into airspace east of the Euphrates River, putting them on the wrong side of a “deconfliction zone” established between Moscow and Washington to avoid confrontation in the skies over Syria. The Russian jets immediately left the area after the intercept and warning flares from the F-22s, an official confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
CHINESE ISLANDS: “Tensions over China’s island-building in the South China Sea may have eased in the past year, but Beijing has kept busy,” the AP reports.
“New satellite imagery shows China has built infrastructure covering 72 acres (28 hectares) in the Spratly and Paracel islands during 2017 to equip its larger outposts to be air and naval bases. The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative closely tracks developments in the South China Sea, where China and several Asian governments have conflicting territorial claims. It said Thursday there has been construction of hangars, underground storage, missile shelters, radar arrays and other facilities.
“The activity comes as China joins what are likely to be protracted negotiations with Southeast Asian nations on a ‘code of conduct’ for South China Sea. Tensions with the U.S. on the issue have also eased, despite Washington’s criticism of Beijing’s conduct.”
PUTIN’S CONSPIRACY THEORY: Putin suspects that FBI officials “drugged” a key witness in the scandal that led to his country’s ban from the 2018 Winter Games, he told reporters at his Thursday news conference. “What are they doing with him?” Putin said of the FBI. “What drugs are they giving him to make him say what they want him to say? This is just ridiculous.”
The International Olympic Committee banned Russia from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea, a decision Putin has blamed repeatedly on western attempts to embarrass him in the run-up to the next election. The ban was based in large part on evidence provided by Grigory Rodchenkov, a former anti-doping official who provided evidence that Russian government officials were complicit in a broad effort to help national team athletes cheat in the run-up to the 2014 Sochi Games.
“I am sorry, but that is just nonsense,” Putin said. “Regarding him being protected by the FBI, this is not an advantage but rather a disadvantage for us, since this means that his actions are controlled by the U.S. intelligence services.”
THE RUNDOWN
Yonhap News Agency: U.S. Navy Chief Says Military Options On N. Korea Are Real
Reuters: China Says War Must Not Be Allowed On Korean Peninsula
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Navy: ‘Smaller Fleet With Fewer Sailors Is Straining To Meet’ Demands
Washington Post: ISIS stole U.S.-supplied rockets weeks after they arrived in Syria, report says
USNI News: Strategic Review: Navy Hasn’t Learned From Its Mistakes, Needs to Be Clear About Ship, Aircraft Readiness
Defense News: Four companies advance to build Army’s equipment transport ground robot
Foreign Policy: The Guerrilla Campaign Against McMaster Is Alive and Well
Defense One: Pentagon Delays Deadline For Military Suppliers to Meet Cybersecurity Rules
Air Force Times: Air Force turns to the Boneyard to train thousands of new maintainers
UPI: USS Little Rock set to be commissioned Saturday in Buffalo
Politico: Europe faces defense spending challenge
New York Times: ‘Golden Opportunity Missed’: Syria Peace Talks Falter, Again
Reuters: Homegrown attacks rising worry in U.S. as Islamic State weakens abroad
USA Today: New $1 billion U.S. Embassy in London is so safe it even has a ‘moat’
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Army Study Finds Flaws With Military’s Pivotal Assault on Mosul
Calendar
FRIDAY | DEC. 15
11 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Defeating terrorism in the age of Trump with Sebastian Gorka. heritage.org
12 p.m. 529 14th St. NW. Lockheed Martin/Aerion/GE press conference on a new civil supersonic jet. press.org
6:30 p.m. 1301 S. Joyce St. Military Reporters & Editors Association networking event with Brig. Gen. Seely, Marine Corps communications director. militaryreporters.org
TUESDAY | DEC. 19
9 a.m. 15th St. NW. Making Peace in Donbas? The Role of a Peacekeeping Mission with Ambassador Kurt Volker. atlanticcouncil.org
10 a.m. Dirksen 419. U.S. strategy for Syria after ISIS with Ambassador David Satterfield. foreign.senate.gov
