REPUBLICANS VS. TRUMP ON DEFENSE: President Trump’s proposed 5 percent cut to defense is triggering an unlikely struggle between Republicans in Congress and Trump’s Republican White House. Nearly 70 House lawmakers, virtually all members of the GOP, are now urging the president to abandon his order to reduce planned spending from $733 billion to $700 billion.

HAPPENING TODAY: Sen. Mark Warner D-Va. is giving what his office bills as “a major policy speech” today to call for new U.S. cyber doctrine. Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and co-founder of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, will be speaking at 10:30 a.m. at the Center for a New American Security. Warner will call for a “whole-of-society” doctrine to respond to the cyber and misinformation threats facing our nation, according to a release from his office.

“Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, relying on a hybrid strategy of conventional cyber-theft, weaponized leaks, and wide-scale social media disinformation, marked a turning point in how we understand the threat landscape. And these active measures have continued well past the 2016 election, illustrating the pressing need for the United States to develop a clear and explicit plan for responding to any future attacks.”

NAUERT TO GET THE NOD: Multiple news organizations are reporting that State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, a former Fox News host, will be named this morning by President Trump as his pick to replace Nikki Haley to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Like Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, Nauert would begin the job with a notable lack of foreign policy experience, but Trump is said to have been impressed with her performance articulating U.S. diplomatic goals at State.

The announcement could come this morning on Twitter, so keep an eye on Trump’s feed.

F-35 HITS ANOTHER MILESTONE: The F-35 Joint Program Office announced that the nation’s primary future fighter jet is ready for its close-up, with the start of the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation phases, known in Pentagonese as “IOT&E.” This is where the F-35 will have to show it can perform as advertised when it comes to effectiveness, suitability, lethality, survivability and overall mission capability its weapons system.

“From now and continuing through late summer 2019 all three F-35 Air System variants (A/B/C) will be field tested, under realistic combat conditions, for the purposes of determining the weapons systems’ operational effectiveness and operational suitability for combat,” said Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Joint Program Office.

“The start of formal operational testing is a milestone more than 18 years in the making,” said Vice Adm. Mat Winter, executive officer of the F-35 program, in a statement. “It is the culmination of years of hard work and dedication from the joint government and industry team who completed the most comprehensive, rigorous and the safest developmental flight test program in aviation history.”

“By law, F-35 must undergo full combat testing to demonstrate that its “operationally effective and suitable” against the most sophisticated aviation and air defense threats before Pentagon can buy the bulk of a planned 2,456 aircraft,” reports Bloomberg, which notes that more than 320 F-35s are already operating from 15 bases worldwide and that successful testing “would result in first full-rate production contract of as many as 168 jets, up from 141 in a just-completed award.”

NOT JUST ONE INF VIOLATION: Russia has deployed “multiple battalions” of land-based intermediate-range cruise missiles for “offensive purposes” in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a senior State Department official told reporters yesterday.

“Moscow has fielded multiple battalions of SSC-8, and all of them are positioned for offensive purposes,” State Department Undersecretary Andrea Thompson, using the formal U.S. name for the missile, said during a media call. “If we want credible arms control deterrent, we’ve got to demonstrate that our treaties are worth the paper they’re written on.” The U.S. has given Russia 60 days to come into compliance with the landmark 1987 treaty, or the U.S. will withdraw.

At a forum sponsored by The Washington Post, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said yesterday the U.S. had little choice but to call Putin on his blatant violations.

“This is a message that has been delivered fairly consistently now over a couple of years. We’ve been public about it. We’ve been public with our allies about the concerns,” Dunford said. “In a perfect world, what I would say is that it’d be best if Russia would comply with the INF, which would set the conditions for a broader conversation about other arms control agreements to include the extension of START.”

“I will not obviously make this decision. I’ll make recommendations,” Dunford said. “But it’s very difficult for me to envision a progress in extending START II as an example if the foundation of that is noncompliance with the INF treaty.”

GOT A BETTER IDEA? In answer to critics who say it’s time for the U.S. to consider withdrawing from Afghanistan because of the lack of progress, Dunford said, “If someone has a better idea than we have right now, which is continuing to support the Afghans and continue to put pressure on those terrorist groups in the region, I’m certainly open to a dialogue on that.”

But Dunford said it would be a mistake to give up on the strategy that is designed to compel the Taliban to make a peace deal. “I have not recommended that we leave Afghanistan because, again, in my judgment, leaving Afghanistan not only would create instability in South Asia, but in my judgment would give a terrorist groups to the space within which to plan and conduct operations against the American people, the homeland, and our allies,” he said. “That really is the problem we’re trying to solve it now.”

MATTIS HEDGES ON ‘SMOKING GUN’: In remarks to reporters yesterday, Defense Secretary Mattis insisted he has made no final determination on a direct linkage between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And that his “no smoking gun” comment was a reflection of his caution in reaching conclusions before all the evidence is in.

Mattis was on the defensive after being accused by some senators of both parties of misleading Congress about the conclusion of the CIA, which has assessed with high confidence MBS was behind the killing from the start.

“We are continuing to review. I am quite satisfied we will find more evidence of what happened,” Mattis said, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday. “I just don’t know yet what it’s going to be or who’s going to be implicated, but we will follow it as far as we can,” he said. Mattis insisted he was just being careful. “If I say something, I need the evidence,” he said.

“There are sincere, studious people who are drawing different conclusions. We are doing everything we can to go down every rabbit hole to find what’s there,” he added. “So just bear with us. When we speak, it’ll be with the authority and I will not speculate or draw premature conclusions, but we are leaving no stone unturned.”

HALEY: ‘THE SAUDI GOVERNMENT DOESN’T GET A PASS’: In an exit interview with The Atlantic out this morning, Nikki Haley weighs in on the Khashoggi affair. Here’s an excerpt from the full transcript:

“Everything’s not black and white. That’s the hard part. But the way we have to look at that is, we have worked very closely with Saudi Arabia on Yemen, really pushing them to allow humanitarian access — to move faster, to give more. That’s been a lot of our focus at the Security Council on what happened. The whole situation with Khashoggi is, we can’t give them a pass. We can’t. And the reason is, you have Saudi government officials that did this in a Saudi consulate. The Saudi government doesn’t get a pass. We can’t condone it, we can’t ever say it’s okay, we can’t ever support thuggish behavior, and we have to say that. I think that the main thing is: No, we don’t condone this; no, we’re not going to continue to be your partners if you continue to use thuggish behavior. But you know what? That country is our complete partner when it comes to fighting Iran, and our only real partner when it comes to fighting Iran, so it’s a balancing act, but you have to do both.”

FEWER BORDER TROOPS ON BORDER: Mattis also indicated while he has, at the request of DHS, extended the deployment of active-duty troops to the Southwest border until the end of next month, some of the troops will be coming home. And some fresh troop will be rotated in.

“On the federal troops, you will see a reduction in the number of federal troops,” Mattis said, who noted that the troops are still limited to logical support, and most of what they have been asked to do has been done. “The missions that are done, they’re coming home. So that will leave a modicum of engineers out there. You don’t need many to move the last Jersey barriers or barbed wire barricades into position.”

Mattis said some of the troops who missed Thanksgiving with their families will be home for Christmas. “For those who are there, we will be rotating those … We don’t leave the same unit on the border all the time. So, as they rotate off the border, they go back to regular duty, another unit’s down there.”

HERE WE GO AGAIN: Meanwhile, President Trump is warning that immigrants may rush the border in Arizona. “Arizona, together with our Military and Border Patrol, is bracing for a massive surge at a NON-WALLED area. WE WILL NOT LET THEM THROUGH. Big danger. Nancy and Chuck must approve Boarder Security and the Wall!,” Trump tweeted last night.

Mattis, though indicated all the “engineering tasks” are complete in both Arizona and Texas, and yesterday presumptive House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi said there would be no deal for more border wall funding. The California Democrat instead called for a year-long continuing resolution that would freeze DHS spending at this year’s level. Pelosi called the wall “immoral, ineffective and expensive.”

“The president said he promised it. He also promised Mexico would pay for it. So even if they did, it’s immoral still, and then they’re not going to pay for it,” she said.

STILL SEARCHING: The Marine Corps confirmed that one of the two Marines rescued after a collision off the coast of Japan on Wednesday did not survive after being plucked from the ocean, as search and rescue operations continue for the remaining five Marines.

The crash involved two aircraft — a KC-130 refueling tanker and an F/A-18 fighter jet. The Marine Corps said the aircraft took off from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan as part of standard training, but they collided off the coast at approximately 2 a.m.

OPEN SKIES SYMBOLISM: The U.S. has conducted an overflight of Ukraine, under the terms of a 16-year-old arms control treaty, aimed at sending a symbolic message to Moscow, the Pentagon said yesterday. “The United States and Allies conducted an extraordinary flight under the Open Skies Treaty,” said a statement, released on the Pentagon’s website. “The timing of this flight is intended to reaffirm U.S. commitment to Ukraine and other partner nations.”

The description of the flight as “extraordinary” refers to the fact it was not previously scheduled or announced, an official said. The plane, a U.S. Air Force OC-135 observation plane, did not fly over Crimea or any contested or Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, the official confirmed. On board were observers from the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Romania, and Ukraine.

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Examiner: State Department deflects calls to expel Saudi prince from US

Washington Post: Marine Corps aviation disaster that killed 16 renews questions about U.S. military aircraft safety

The Atlantic: Nikki Haley Is Emerging From the Trump Administration Unscathed

Business Insider: Nancy Pelosi says funding for Trump’s ‘immoral, ineffective, expensive’ border wall is off the table

Bloomberg: Air Force’s Repeated Errors Let Texas Shooter Buy Firearms, Report Says

Bloomberg: F-35 Combat Testing Phase Begins After 15-Month Delay: Pentagon

Military Times: Russia asked to joint operate a US base in Syria. Coalition says hard pass.

New York Times: Afghan Election Dispute Brews as U.S. Pushes for Peace Talks

Roll Call: Congress Passes Two-Week Funding Extension to Avert Shutdown

Defense One: The F-35 Is About to Get A Lot Smarter

Foreign Policy: Trump’s Push to Boost Lethal Drone Exports Reaps Few Rewards

Military.com: SecNav Voices Support for Space Agency, Offensive Cyber Ops

Bloomberg: Air Force’s Repeated Errors Let Texas Shooter Buy Firearms, Report Says

Washington Post: INF Treaty walked superpowers back from a Cold War nuclear showdown

Defense News: The Air Force may scale back the responsibilities of its international affairs office

Air Force Magazine: Kelly: Parts are Key to Mattis’ Readiness Order

Wall Street Journal: Senior Huawei Executive’s Arrest Steps Up U.S.-China Confrontation