It’s “a shot across the bow,” said Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., chairman of the House Budget Committee.

THE OCO SHUFFLE: Congress traditionally rejects the president’s request and writes its own budget, but this year’s submission from the White House has two provisions in particular that will rankle Democrats, who now control the House.

The first is the use of Overseas Contingency Operations to get around spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act, the much-hated law that triggers an automatic “sequestration” of federal funds if no bipartisan budget agreement can be reached.

The OCO fund, meant to finance ongoing contingencies such as wars, has been used in recent years as a way to skirt the sequestration limits, but Trump’s plan to shift nearly $100 billion from the base budget into war funding is audacious in that it doesn’t even maintain the pretense that the money is for one-time expenses. And it more than doubles the amount of money in what Democrats have dubbed a “slush fund,” to show a fictional cut in the base budget from $617 billion to $545 billion.

When Vought first revealed the plans to use the OCO account as a means of increasing defense spending while cutting other programs in an op-ed last month, it was immediately denounced by the Democratic chairmen of both the House Budget and Armed Services committees as “a giant OCO gimmick” that “is nothing more than a blatant attempt to make a mockery of the federal budget process, obscure the true cost of military operations, and severely shortchange other investments vital to our national and economic security.”

WALL BATTLE, ROUND TWO: The second looming obstacle to any smooth path to bipartisan agreement is Trump’s request for $8.6 billion in emergency funds to build or replace barriers along 722 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border and $3.6 billion to replace the money he plans to reprogram from military construction funds to begin building new border barriers this year.

To say Democrats are incensed would be an understatement. “President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall, which he promised would be paid for by Mexico,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a joint statement. “Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson.”

BY THE NUMBERS: Talking about the defense budget can be confusing because of the breakdown among base budget, OCO, and other defense spending, such as the nuclear weapons programs in the Department of Energy. The most common number you hear is the biggest one, the total of all programs.

Here’s how FY 2019 defense spending breaks down:

• Base DoD Budget: $617 billion
• Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO): $69 billion
• Total DoD Military: $686 billion
• Other National Defense: $30 billion
• Total National Defense: $716 billion

Here’s how FY 2020 looks in round numbers, according to Defense News:

• Base DoD Budget: $545 billion
• Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO): $164 billion
• Total DoD Military: $709 billion
• Emergency Border Funding: $9 billion
• Subtotal: $718 billion
• Other National Defense: $30 billion (notional)
• Total National Defense: $748 billion

BUDGET CAPS ARE TRUMP’S FRIEND: In the past, mandatory budget caps and the pain they imposed forced Congress to find ways to at least partially lift them. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 provided a two-year respite from the threat of sequestration and was praised by virtually every military leader who appeared before Congress.

But Trump’s plan would leave the caps in place since he plans to cut spending at almost every federal agency, including a 23 percent cut at the State Department. The problem is Democrats will never go for that, so the president’s budget, like those of his predecessors, is dead on arrival.

Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance (@kjtorrance). 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 AND TOMORROW: The initial rollout of the president’s budget comes this morning at 11:30 by acting OMB director Vought. The document, titled “A Budget for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First,” will be available online at the OMB website.

Tomorrow, the Pentagon will fill in a lot of the blanks with a series of budget briefings beginning at noon, headlined by David Norquist, who is performing the duties of the deputy secretary of defense, and Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker, along with Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Ierardi from the joint staff.

Service-specific briefings will fill the afternoon. Some if not all of the briefings should be available for live viewing on the Pentagon’s website.

HAPPENING THIS WEEK: The Senate is scheduled to take up a measure that already passed the House, 245-188, which attempts to nullify President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southwest border. “I expect the Senate will follow the House and pass a resolution disapproving the president’s use of this emergency power. We’ll do it for several reasons,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., on CNN over the weekend.

“We could argue the merits of what the president is doing, we could argue the fact there is no emergency. This is a circumstance that’s been building for a long time. But the real reason is that this is usurping the power of Congress,” Cardin told CNN’s S.E. Cupp.

But Cardin conceded that even though some Republicans have joined Democrats in rebuking the president, there won’t be enough to overturn Trump’s promised veto. “I’m disappointed we don’t have the votes to override the veto. I think it’s a clear situation of abuse of executive power. I think the courts will weigh in. The courts, I believe, will rule that the president cannot do this.”

WHO’S IN THE CROSSHAIRS: Rick Berger, a research fellow on defense policy and budgets over at the American Enterprise Institute, has put together a nifty data visualization of the existing list of military construction projects vulnerable to having their funding redirected for the border wall as a result of the president’s emergency declaration.

“The big question now for lawmakers and the American public is, ‘Which projects are the most vulnerable to having their funding taken away?’ While we don’t know for sure, we have a pretty good idea of what’s on the table,” writes Berger.

In the most danger are projects first approved for this year because many have not yet begun: The further along a project is, the greater the effect of delaying it. Berger identified 40 projects worth $2 billion for which the contract award is not scheduled to occur until May or later.

The low-hanging fruit includes overseas education facilities (such as school structures for the children of troops overseas), minor infrastructure improvements (such as new parking lot construction or warehouse expansion), and incremental upgrades to Special Operations Command training bases and Navy facilities. See the full list here.

SAVE THE DIPLOMATS: It seems every other day there is another letter signed by former national security officials or retired military officers objecting to some aspect of President Trump’s foreign policy, but the letter released yesterday is particularly “stellar” in that all signatories are former four-star combatant commanders.

They’re objecting to proposed deep cuts in the State Department, USAID, and other U.S. development agencies. “Diplomacy and development are essential to combating threats before they reach our shores,” says the joint statement.

Among the signatories are former NATO commanders Adm. James Stavridis and Gen. Wes Clark, former Central Command heads Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. William Fallon, and former Pacific Command leaders Adms. Samuel Locklear and Tom Fargo.

FINAL FINAL ASSAULT ON ISIS: The effort by U.S.-backed Syrian forces to deliver the coup de grâce against the last ISIS holdouts is grinding in a small patch of territory in Syria. Dramatic footage from the front lines that aired overnight on CNN showed correspondent Ben Wedeman and his cameraman Scott McWhinnie in helmets and body armor poking a camera around a corner to show an ISIS sniper who was waiting to pick them off.

Appearing on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures yesterday, national security adviser John Bolton denied a Wall Street Journal story suggesting the United States was having trouble getting European allies to sign up for a future security force to keep ISIS from resurging.

“I think the Journal may be a little bit behind the curve on that,” Bolton told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo. “I can tell you I have spoken to my British and French counterparts this past week. I think they are looking to try and participate. We haven’t formalized it yet. A lot of work remains to be done.”

“Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford and his colleagues at the Pentagon have been really moving heaven and earth to try and get this accomplished,” Bolton added. “We’re still optimistic we can do it. So it may have taken a little bit longer time, but it’s still moving in the right direction.”

BOLTON ON NORTH KOREAN MISSILE THREAT: Bolton over the weekend also played down reports based on commercial satellite imagery that outside experts say shows North Korea appears to be getting ready for a missile launch of some kind from a faculty it pledged to dismantle.

“We don’t have to rely on commercial satellite imagery. We’ve seen a lot in North Korea. We watch it constantly,” said Bolton on ABC. “There’s a lot of activity all the time in North Korea, but I’m not going to speculate on what that particular commercial satellite picture shows.”

“We see exactly what they’re doing now. We see it unblinkingly, and we don’t have any illusions about what their capabilities are,” said Bolton, who meets with his South Korean counterpart today.

“The president … is determined to avoid the mistakes prior presidents have made, and one of those mistakes is falling for the North Korean action-for-action ploy,” Bolton told ABC’s Martha Raddatz.

WHY IS WILSON BAILING?: On Friday came the surprising news that Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, widely seen as one of the most capable service secretaries in recent memory, plans to resign in May and become president of the University of Texas at El Paso, pending final approval by the school’s board of regents.

The announcement prompted a lot of speculation. Was she on the outs with Trump because of her initial opposition to Space Force? Was the pick of former defense secretary Jim Mattis not enthusiastic about working for Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan? Did Wilson jump? Or was she pushed?

The answer appears to be simply that she got a better job. A much better job, near her home state of New Mexico.

I think Loren Thompson, COO of the Lexington Institute, put it best.

“No political appointee has ever been more qualified to lead the Air Force than Heather Wilson. Among other things, she is an instrument-rated pilot; a former Air Force officer who served on the staff of the National Security Council; a five-term Member of the House of Representatives from New Mexico who served on both the armed services and intelligence committees; and a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in international relations from Oxford. She was also one of the very first women to graduate from the Air Force Academy.” Thompson wrote in Forbes.

“Wilson repeatedly found herself crosswise with the White House on matters of policy,” said Thompson. “It seems that professional credentials and relevant experience don’t count for much unless you support the president no matter what he says. There isn’t much room for dissent or diversity of ideas.”

“She probably just decided she’d had enough of a very stressful work environment. Let’s hope other key people don’t come to the same conclusion,” he closed.

McSALLY’S SUBTEXT?: The Air Force confirmed Friday that it won’t be investigating Sen. Martha McSally’s rape allegations unless she wants to pursue the case against an unnamed superior officer.

“The Air Force takes every allegation of sexual assault seriously, no matter when the allegation is made, and thoroughly considers the right way to proceed,” Ann Stefanek, chief of Air Force media operations, said in a statement Friday. “Given the Senator’s desire to not participate in an investigation, the Air Force will remain ready to investigate further if the Senator’s desire changes or other information is presented.”

In her surprise statement at last week’s Armed Services Committee hearing on sexual assault, McSally took a key position in the debate about how such charges should be handled. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has long advocated for a change in the Uniform Code of Military Justice so that victims of assault, who like McSally often don’t trust the system, would have their cases handled by outside prosecutors instead of senior officers in the chain of command.

But McSally, even as she expressed “disgust of the failures of the military system and many commanders,” argued those commanders must “stay at the center of the solution and live up to the moral and legal responsibilities.”

That puts her at odds with Gillibrand and positions her to take up the case of former senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who argued for keeping commanders in charge of adjudicating rape and sexual assault cases.

TURKEY RISKS LOSING ITS F-35s: The Pentagon is threatening “grave consequences” if NATO ally Turkey completes a deal to acquire Russian S-400 air defenses. “I can tell you that if Turkey it takes the S-400s there would be grave consequences in terms of our military relationship with them,” said Charles Summers, acting chief spokesman for the Pentagon, at an informal briefing. “If they take the S-400s, they would not get the F-35s and Patriots.”

The Pentagon has offered to sell the Patriot missile system to augment Turkish air defenses in an effort to dissuade President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from buying the Russian air defense system, which is incompatible with NATO systems.

The threat came the same week NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, told Congress he would advise against allowing Turkey to have F-35s, which he called “one of our most advanced technological capabilities,” if the country is using Russian systems designed to shoot them down.

As one of eight international partners who help build the F-35, Turkey has already taken ownership of two F-35s, but they remain at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where Turkish pilots have been training to fly the high-tech fighter jets.

TRANSGENDER TROOPS CAN STAY: Now that the last temporary injunction has been lifted barring the military from implementing President Trump’s ban on transgender troops, the Pentagon has clarified its policy while the legal battles continue.

The interim policy will allow current service members who have transitioned to a different gender to continue to serve, while new recruits and troops who have not transitioned may serve so long as they do so in the gender they were assigned at birth and do not seek medical treatment to change their gender.

“Transgender service members that are currently serving will continue to serve, and those individuals with gender dysphoria who’ve had medical treatment will not be allowed to serve,” said spokesman Summers Friday.

The Rundown

Bloomberg: Trump Seeks Huge Premium From Allies Hosting U.S. Troops

Bloomberg: Rep. Cheney blasts Trump proposal that allies pay more for U.S. troops

Real Clear Defense: It’s Time to Phase Out the Pentagon’s Slush Fund

Wall Street Journal: How A Russian Gas Pipeline Is Driving A Wedge Between The U.S. And Its Allies

Military Times: Taking personnel funds to help build Trump’s border wall won’t hit military paychecks, but could cause budget woes

McClatchy: U.S. Presses Latin American Allies To Turn China Against Maduro

Stars and Stripes: Mastermind Of Deadly ISIS Attack In Eastern Afghanistan Killed

AP: Vietnam Says Fishing Boat Rammed And Sunk By Chinese Ship

Washington Post: Chelsea Manning sent to jail for refusing to testify in WikiLeaks case

New York Times: U.S. Airstrikes Kill Hundreds in Somalia as Shadowy Conflict Ramps Up

The Albany Herald: Sen. Isakson receives VFW Congressional Award

Calendar

MONDAY | MARCH 11

7 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference. www.carnegieendowment.org

10:45 a.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. “China’s Hypersonic Missile Advances and U.S. Defense Responses.” Among the panelist scheduled: Austin Long, Joint Staff nuclear policy adviser. www.hudson.org

11:30 a.m. White House Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russ Vought will release the president’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal. The document will be available online at the same time this morning.

1 p.m. 2301 Constitution Avenue N.W. “How Pakistan Navigates the Saudi Arabia-Iran Rivalry.” www.usip.org

TUESDAY | MARCH 12

7 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference (Day 2). www.carnegieendowment.org

9 a.m. 6715 Commerce St. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville delivers a keynote address on the “The Future of the Army” at the AFCEA Army Signal Conference, Waterford at Springfield. www.afcea.org

Noon. Pentagon Briefing Room. Briefing by Under Secretary David Norquist, who is “performing the duties of the deputy secretary of defense,” Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker, and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Ierardi of the joint staff on the FY 2020 DoD budget submission to Congress. www.defense.gov/Watch/Live-Events.

Army budget briefing follows at 12:50 p.m, Navy Marine Corps at 1:40 p.m., Air Force at 2:30 p.m., and the Missile Defense Agency at 3:20 p.m.

2 p.m. 2212 Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel hearing on “Outside Perspectives on Military Personnel Policy. Witnesses: Todd Harrison, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Peter Levine, Institute for Defense Analyses; Beth Asch, RAND Corporation. armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2:30 p.m. SR-232A Russell. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing on artificial intelligence initiatives within the Department of Defense. Witnesses: Peter Highnam, deputy director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; Michael Brown, director of DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit; and Air Force Lt. Gen. John Shanahan, director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. www.armed-services.senate.gov

WEDNESDAY | MARCH 13

7 a.m. 1513 K St. N.W. McAleese/Credit Suisse 10th Annual FY2020 “Defense Programs” Conference. All-day speaker list includes: Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations; Gen. Robert Neller, Marine Corps commandant; Ryan McCarthy, under secretary of the Army; Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., Armed Services Committee chairman; Rep. Joseph Courtney, D-Conn; Rep. Robert Wittman, R-Va.; Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio; and many others. Email [email protected] to register.

8:15 a.m. 6715 Commerce St. Day two of 2019 AFCEA Army Signal Conference, Springfield, Va. Air Force Lt. Gen. Bradford Shwedo delivers opening keynote, and at 4:15 pm Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command delivers closing keynote address. Waterford at Springfield. www.afcea.org

10 a.m. 2118 Rayburn. U.S. European and Supreme NATO Commander Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti and Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, testify before the House Armed Services Committee. armedservices.house.gov/hearings

10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid delivers remarks about challenges facing Europe and Estonia’s evolving role in the trans-Atlantic community at Brookings and then discusses the topic with Brookings President John Allen. Brookings Institution Falk Auditorium. www.brookings.edu

11:30 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. “The Indo-Pacific after INF.” Keynote remarks by Sen. Tom Cotton. www.heritage.org

2 p.m. 2212 Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness hearing on “Ensuring resiliency of military installations and operations in response to climate changes.” Witnesses: retired Rear. Adm. David Titley, Pennsylvania State University; Sharon Burke, International Security Program and Resource Security Program; and Nicolas Loris, Center for Free Markets and Regulatory Reform. armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2 p.m. Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing on U.S. Cyber Command and operations in cyberspace. Witnesses: U.S. Cyber Commander Army Gen. Paul Nakasone and Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security. armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2:30 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. “The Future of U.S.-Afghanistan Relations: A View from Afghanistan.” www.hudson.org

4 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. “Putin’s World.” www.brookings.edu

THURSDAY | MARCH 14

9:30 a.m. SD-G50, Dirksen. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, and Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker testify before the Senate Armed Services on the Fiscal Year 2020 DoD Budget. www.armed-services.senate.gov

9:30 a.m. 1501 Lee Highway. Air Force Maj. Gen. David Krumm, director of strategic plans, speaks at AFA Mitchell Hour. www.mitchellaerospacepower.org/mitchell-hour

10 a.m 2212 Rayburn House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces hearing on “Department of the Air Force Fiscal Year 2020 budget request for seapower and projection forces.” Witnesses: William Roper, assistant secretary of Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics; Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Fay, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “The future of the Army in an era of great power competition.” www.brookings.edu

3:30 p.m. 1717 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “The Price of Kindness: Lebanon and Syria’s Refugees.” www.sais-jhu.edu

5:30 p.m. 2425 Wilson Boulevard. Gus Perna, commanding general, Army Materiel Command, speaks at the Association of the U.S. Army Institute of Land Warfare Rogers Strategic Issues Forum. Reception and networking begin at 5:30 p.m., and the program begins at 6:00 p.m. www.ausa.org

FRIDAY | MARCH 15

9 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. CSIS Implementing Innovation Series: A Perspective from Will Roper, Air Force Acquisition Executive. www.csis.org

9:30 a.m. 1800 M Street N.W. Breakfast discussion on “America’s Missile Strategy, Countering and Defending Against Threats from Iran and North Korea,” sponsored by Foundation for Defense of Democracies, featuring Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow at Hudson Institute; David Maxwell, senior fellow at FDD; and Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at FDD. Invitation-only event open to government officials, Hill staff, foreign policy professionals, members of the diplomatic corps, the think tank and foreign policy communities, and credentialed press. Advance registration and confirmation is required.

TUESDAY | MARCH 19

8 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “Religious Authority in the Middle East: Implications for U.S. Policy.” www.carnegieendowment.org

9:30 a.m. 2301 Constitution Avenue N.W. “Crimea after Five Years of Russian Occupation.” www.usip.org

10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “Defense spending in the 50 states.” www.brookings.edu

10:30 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “Tokyo’s Views on the Growing U.S.-China Rivalry.” www.carnegieendowment.org

FRIDAY | MARCH 22

10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “The end of an era? The INF Treaty, New START, and the future of strategic stability.” www.brookings.edu