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TURKEY THREAT: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is once again at odds with the U.S. over a lingering unresolved issue: Some Kurdish forces fighting ISIS backed by the U.S. are members of a group that Turkey considers a terrorist organization. The U.S. military has set up observation posts along the northern border region in an attempt reassure the recalcitrant NATO ally that the Kurds in question pose no threat to Turkey’s security. But yesterday Erdogan escalated his threats to launch a military attack on members of the YPG faction, who are in a U.S.-controlled part of northeastern Syria. “The United States and Turkey are continuing to actively coordinate on all issues affecting the Turkish situation along the northeast border,” a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Rob Manning, said yesterday. He noted the observation posts were intended to specifically address Turkey’s security concerns. Manning also denied that the U.S. has moved more troops into the region to deter any attack by Turkey. “I have seen reports about a major military movement of U.S. forces and that is categorically not true,” he said. “We’ve got nothing more than what’s required to continue our mission at those OPs [Observation Posts].” Last week, the Pentagon said in a statement that “unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as U.S. personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern. We would find any such actions unacceptable.” Asked yesterday if he stood by that statement, Manning said, “Yes.” BORDER DRAWDOWN: With its mission of “hardening the border” largely complete, the Pentagon has reduced the number of active-duty troops along the southwest border from 5,200 to 3,150, sending 2,050 troops home in time for Christmas. “The department will continue to assess force requirements to meet CBP, Customs and Border Protection needs,” Manning said at yesterday’s off-camera briefing. The troops were deployed to the border on the orders of President Trump in response to a caravan of South and Central American asylum-seekers he described as an attempted invasion. Their mission consisted largely of reinforcing dozens of border crossing points with concrete barriers and laying miles of razor wire fencing. SHUTDOWN MORE LIKELY BY THE DAY: There’s still no sign of any deal that would break the impasse between President Trump and congressional Democrats over funding for a new wall along the Mexico border. Trump is demanding $5 billion for the wall, but without Democrats, the votes are not there. Democrats are offering to continue funding at current levels, $1.3 billion, not for the wall but for “border security.” Both sides have dug in, and that makes the prospect of a partial government shutdown by the end of the week increasingly likely. While it would only affect about one-quarter of the federal workforce, it would still mean that roughly 400,000 government workers would be furloughed, and another 400,000 would have to work without pay until the government is fully funded and they are paid retroactively. In the past, furloughed workers have also been paid for the hours they didn’t work. While Congress has to authorize that, it’s not guaranteed. The exact impact of a shutdown is hard to gauge because the Office of Management and Budget has yet to publish a shutdown plan, which it typically does in the lead-up to a government funding lapse to provide a blueprint for what to expect. Good Tuesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten). 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: Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn is set for sentencing today for lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition in early 2017. Yesterday special counsel Robert Mueller released interview notes written by the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017 at the White House after Federal District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the memo be made public. In a court filing last week, Flynn’s attorneys portrayed their client as a victim of entrapment by FBI agents who tricked him into lying. The notes, known as a “302,” detail the two lies Flynn told the FBI agents, who had the benefit of a transcript of Flynn’s intercepted calls with Kislyak, and show that agents gave Flynn many chances to correct his inaccurate account. TRUMP’S GOLSTEYN EFFECT: Trump’s tweet announcing that he will review the ongoing case of an Army Green Beret charged with the premeditated murder of a Taliban bomb maker in Afghanistan could be a boon for Maj. Mathew Golsteyn and his defense attorneys. “In a case like this, defense counsel should be happy with this because this clearly indicates that the president may intervene in a way that could be beneficial to his client. So, if I was defense counsel, I’d kind of see where this goes and how this plays out,” said Greg Rinckey, a founding member of the Tully Rinckey law firm and a former U.S. Army JAG Corps attorney. Rinckey said it could also “absolutely” make the job of Army prosecutors more difficult. “I think they’re looking over their shoulder to say, as this case proceeds, ‘Is the president either going to pardon this guy or is he going to intercede at some point and pull it from our authority?'” Rinckey said. NBC INTERVIEW: Meanwhile in an interview with NBC News, Golsteyn says that he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong, and he’s being unfairly targeted because of comments he made in a television interview more than two years ago. Golsteyn admitted he killed the Afghan man, during his 2016 appearance on Fox News to talk about military rules of engagement. “I’m here right now because of that interview,” Golsteyn told NBC. He also accused the Army is falsely claiming he called the death an “assassination.” His wife, Julie Golsteyn also spoke to NBC. “He did not break the rules of engagement. We need someone, Army leadership, generals, the president, to step in and say, ‘Enough is enough.’” THE WAR IN SOMALIA: As we reported yesterday, U.S. airstrikes in Somalia over the weekend killed 62 people who the U.S. Africa Command identified as fighters for al-Shabaab. The airstrikes Saturday and Sunday bring to 45 the number of strikes this year in the war against the al Qaeda affiliate. The Somalia war gets little attention, except when an unusual number of militants are killed in a single day, or when there is a U.S. casualty, such as in June, when Staff Sgt. Alexander Conrad was killed by mortar fire. Most of what we know about the shadowy war comes from press releases issued by the U.S. Africa Command, based in Germany. A tally of releases over the past two months shows the U.S. claims to have killed 137 al Shabaab militants in November and December while assessing no civilians were harmed. SPACE FORCE WARM-UP: Trump is set to announce as soon as this week the creation of a U.S. space command within the military, CNN reported. The new combatant command has been planned for months by the Pentagon and would not be the full-blown Space Force that the president and Vice President Mike Pence have touted. That must still clear Congress next year. But the command is an important step toward a sixth branch as the Pentagon reorganizes its space operations to combat an array of growing threats. The announcement could coincide with Pence’s scheduled trip to Kennedy Space Center in Florida today and a planned visit to the Pentagon to talk about the Space Force, according to CNN. The military is reportedly finalizing its plans for the Space Force. It could end up being situated inside the Air Force and modeled more on the Marine Corps, which sits inside the Department of the Navy, rather than a full-fledged new service branch, with its own service secretary and member of the joint chiefs of staff. KOREA EXERCISES: It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that while North Korea pretends to denuclearize, the U.S. pretends to cancel “war games,” the joint semi-annual military exercises that Pyongyang has complained for years are a rehearsal for an invasion of the North. The U.S. made a show of canceling the major drills while continuing what it calls “routine training.” In reality, the two big exercises, spring’s Foal Eagle and fall’s Freedom Guardian, have simply been restructured as under-the-radar affairs. “It’s important to note that no decision has been made at this time regarding the spring exercises,” said Col. Rob Manning yesterday. “If a decision is made regarding the spring exercises, it will be made in order to modify it to allow maximum space for diplomats like we did for the spring exercises this year.” Manning said he has “not seen anything that, definitively changes to the scope of Foal Eagle as it stands right now.” He added, “Again, we are committed to making sure that we do all that we have to do to modify our exercises to allow our diplomats to be able to negotiate from a position of strength.” BEAR BUILDUP ON THE BORDER: Russia has amassed “significant military capacity” on Ukraine’s borders, a top U.S. diplomat confirmed yesterday amid fears Russia has its eyes on another piece of the country. “That is all true,” U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker told reporters, saying the buildup has been happening for years. “It’s not something that has happened in the last week or two… This is something that has happened over a period of years. Russia invaded Ukraine, it took Crimea, it is occupying the Donbas, and it has, within Russia, built up significant military capacity and also in Crimea built up significant military capacity over time.” THE RUNDOWN Washington Post: U.S. diplomats hold talks with Taliban on ending Afghanistan war Military Times: The military could save hundreds of billions — by capping pay, scrapping aircraft, slashing benefits, experts say Defense One: Pentagon Needs Better System to Track Fraudulent Spending New Yorker: Iraq’s Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge Washington Examiner: Russia will struggle to use its Caribbean bomber base to threaten America AP: China will ‘never seek hegemony,’ Xi says in reform speech New York Times: Nigeria Says Soldiers Who Killed Marchers Were Provoked. Video Shows Otherwise. Business Insider: 12 times Trump provoked a backlash with the US military and veterans in 2018 Task and Purpose: Inherent Resolve Spokesman Apologizes For Sharing Tweet Mentioning ‘Terrorist Turkish Army Snipers’ Wall Street Journal: North Korea Turns Coal Into Gas to Weather Sanctions USNI News: CNO Richardson Wants Aggressive Timelines for New Weapons, Operational Concepts in Updated Navy ‘Design’ Daily Beast: ‘Vice,’ the Dick Cheney Biopic, Might Be the Worst Movie of the Year |
CalendarTUESDAY | DEC. 18 9:30 a.m. 1501 Lee Hwy. Mitchell Hour AFWIC and Future Force Design with Maj. Gen. Michael Fantini, Director of Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability. mitchellaerospacepower.org 10:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. U.S. China 2018 Year in Review: A New Cold War? wilsoncenter.org 2:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Is There Any Hope for Yemen? wilsoncenter.org WEDNESDAY | DEC. 19 2 p.m. 529 14th St. NW. Human Rights in North Korea. press.org |
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