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EXERCISES ON HOLD AGAIN: Just hours after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said no decision had been made on the future of U.S. military exercises with South Korea amid faltering nuclear talks with North Korea, the White House released a statement yesterday that seemed to say the “war games” would be on hold indefinitely. Trump “believes that his relationship with Kim Jong Un is a very good and warm one, and there is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint U.S.-South Korea war games,” the statement said. That was the carrot. Then came the stick. “Besides, the President can instantly start the joint exercises again with South Korea, and Japan, if he so chooses,” the statement said. “If he does, they will be far bigger than ever before.” CHINA FIRST POLICY: The statement also made clear that anyone hopeful for a quick end to the nuclear standoff with North Korea this summer should check their optimism. The White House statement implied that solving the long-running U.S. trade imbalances with China may need to come first before any diplomatic breakthrough on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. The president “feels strongly that North Korea is under tremendous pressure from China because of our major trade disputes with the Chinese government. At the same time, we also know that China is providing North Korea with considerable aid, including money, fuel, fertilizer and various other commodities. This is not helpful!” the official statement said. “As for the U.S.-China trade disputes, and other differences, they will be resolved in time by President Trump and China’s great President Xi Jinping. Their relationship and bond remain very strong.” NO NEAR-TERM EXERCISES SCHEDULED: The decision on war games is unlikely to have any immediate effect on the U.S. military in South Korea. The scheduled summer exercise Ulchi Freedom Guardian, a $14 million computer-simulated exercise involving 17,500 U.S. troops, was canceled this month. Last December, the military held the bilateral exercise Vigilant Ace with 230 aircraft and the annual Foal Eagle exercise is scheduled for March. MATTIS CONTRADICTED AGAIN? The White House statement came just five hours after Mattis attempted to clarify that no decision had been made on the future of U.S. exercises in South Korea. “The Department of Defense suspended three individual military exercises in order to provide space for our diplomats to negotiate the verifiable, irreversible, and complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Mattis said in his midday statement. “Our military posture has not changed since the conclusion of the Singapore summit and no decisions have been made about suspending any future exercises.” It was just the latest in a series of incidents that paint the secretary as out of the loop with his boss. Also this month, Mattis told reporters the Pentagon had no cost estimate on Trump’s planned military parade, only to have the president tweet hours later that it was too expensive and would be canceled. The statement on the exercises seemed especially awkward. During a rare press conference on Tuesday, Mattis left reporters and the Pentagon’s own press service confused (they posted a story, then had to take it down) by giving the impression that exercises were resuming, only to backtrack and say no decision had been made. Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Jamie is out today and tomorrow. 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 — McCAIN’S ARIZONA GOODBYE: Five members of the Senate Armed Services Committee including ranking member Sen. Jack Reed will be among the senators and friends who pay tribute to John McCain at a memorial service in Arizona at 10 a.m. Former Vice President Joe Biden and prior Armed Services chairman retired Sen. Carl Levin will also be at the Phoenix Baptist Church. After the service, McCain will be taken to Goldwater Air National Guard Base for a transfer ceremony. The senator will then leave Arizona around noon for a final trip to Washington aboard a C-32 aircraft. He will lie in state at the Capitol on Friday. WAR COSTS: Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford said this week that he does not foresee an “enduring large military commitment” in Afghanistan. In the meantime, a new cost estimate shows what the U.S. will be paying to stay there. Operations ring in at an average of $2.9 billion per month, according to a new Pentagon report to Congress. The U.S. has paid a total of $134 billion on Afghanistan since combat operations officially ended in 2014. Where does the money go? Training, advice and assistance of the Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces, including help with their fledgling air force and intelligence operations, as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission. Counter-terrorism operations against Islamic State-Khorasan, the global terror group’s local affiliate, and al Qaeda are also included in the estimate to Congress. Here are some other cost figures in the report, which includes spending up until March:
POGO FLAGS F-35 DEFICIENCIES: A newly released investigation by the Project On Government Oversight claims the Pentagon is trying to paper over serious deficiencies with the F-35 joint strike fighter to ease it through a crucial development phase. “They want to be able to go up to Capitol Hill and say, ‘Nope, we don’t have any more Category 1 deficiencies,’” said Dan Grazier, a military fellow at POGO and long-time program watcher who authored the report. In June, the F-35 Deficiency Review Board downgraded 19 of the most serious deficiencies to a less severe classification without a plan for fixes, the watchdog found. The Category 1 deficiencies included an emergency alert system for when pilots eject and a system for bombing coordinates that could protect troops on the ground from friendly fire. The next big hurdle for the F-35 comes on Sept. 15, which is the deadline for initial test and evaluation of the aircraft, Grazier said. “We are obviously just three weeks away from that, so the big rush to kind of clear up these paperwork issues is to try to meet that deadline,” he said. “Having these deficiencies, it actually increases the likelihood that the program will not pass IOT&E.” CHINA IN AFGHANISTAN? A report from Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post claimed Wednesday that Beijing was ready to move troops into an outpost in Afghanistan to help fight terrorism. But Beijing and Kabul both moved quickly to deny there will be any boots on the ground. “We have checked on this report and it is not true,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. The newspaper later updated its story saying China had instead “funded and started building a training camp for Afghan troops in Afghanistan’s isolated Wakhan Corridor.” Kabul appeared to confirm the construction. But the Afghan embassy in Beijing cautioned that “there will be no Chinese military personnel of any kind on Afghan soil at any time.” Russia and China have discussed the possibility of taking a larger role in Afghanistan, citing the persistence of terrorist groups in the country. BEIJING SANCTIONS: The bipartisan and bicameral duo Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Chris Smith say Trump should impose sanctions on senior Chinese officials for human rights abuses of religious and ethnic minorities. “Given the gravity of the situation, and the severity and scope of the rights abuses being perpetrated, we urge you to apply global Magnitsky sanctions, and consider additional measures, against senior Chinese government and Communist Party officials who oversee these repressive policies, including XUAR Party Secretary Chen Quanguo,” Rubio and Smith wrote. NICE DIGS, DOD: Pentagon reporters have it pretty good, according to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert. “I wanted to mention yesterday I was at the Department of Defense, and saw your digs over there, or your colleagues’ digs. I saw your colleague, [Fox News reporter] Jennifer Griffin, Rich, and saw some CNN folks as well. If you’ve not been over there — boy, that’s nice. I mean, they really have a great setup over there. So your colleagues said don’t tell that to our State Department colleagues.” Nauert said during a daily briefing Wednesday. She noted the “nice, big” offices. “Do they have rats?” a reporter ventured. “I did not ask about rats, but it was very, very nice, and I want to thank my colleague [chief Pentagon spokesperson] Dana White for having me over there,” Nauert said. THE RUNDOWN Bloomberg: Secretary Mattis Urges DOD Auditors to Find Problems C4ISRNET: Northrop Grumman gets a start on next-gen missile warning satellites Defense News: US Army to bring new vehicle protection technologies to fleet as early as 2020 USNI News: Navy Making Room for Railguns in Next Warship, But No Extra Investments Foreign Policy: Washington Warns of Sanctioning India Over Russian Missile System Breaking Defense: AI Ethics: Silicon Valley Should Take A Seat At The DoD Table Washington Examiner: Rubio warns: China close to ‘destroying our alliances’ in Pacific Defense One: John McCain, Nuclear Disarmament, and What Might Have Been CNN: US Navy seizes hundreds of weapons from boat in Gulf of Aden Military.com: Maintenance Mistakes May Have Caused 2017 Navy Helicopter Crash off Guam Defense News: After nearly 2 decades in development, the US Navy is close to operating with its new stealth fighter New York Times: South Korean Leader Pushes Ahead on Plan to Meet Kim Jong-un New York Times: With Ships and Missiles, China Is Ready to Challenge U.S. Navy in Pacific Reuters: Iran accuses Washington of bullying even U.S. allies Associated Press: NATO reports Russian naval buildup amid Syria tensions Task & Purpose: US Troops Will Remain In Syria Until Peace Is At Hand |
CalendarTHURSDAY | AUG. 30 10 a.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy: Signaling Foreign Policy Restraint. stimson.org 12 noon. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Russia Goes After the Right: The Undermining of US Democracy. heritage.org WEDNESDAY | SEPT. 5 7 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd. AUSA Army Aviation Hot Topic Symposium. ausa.org 9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Outside-the-Box Sino-Indian and Indo-Russian Cooperation on Afghanistan. atlanticcouncil.org 10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Full Committee Hearing Assessing the Value of the NATO Alliance. foreign.senate.gov 10 a.m. 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The NSA and the Road to 9/11: Lessons Learned and Unlearned. cato.org 2 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. NATO in the Changing World Order: Strategic Lessons from Military Operations. stimson.org 5 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Chairman Mac Thornberry: 2018 Nunn Prize Recipient. csis.org THURSDAY | SEPT. 6 12 noon. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. War or Peace: The Struggle for World Power. heritage.org 3 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. India and the U.S.: An Evolving Strategic Partnership. hudson.org 4 p.m. 1152 15th St. NW. Discussion with Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. cnas.org |
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