SitRep: New SecDef Reassures NATO; China Angered by WH Statement; Moscow’s Military Cashes in After Sanctions
On the job, reassuring NATO. New Defense Secretary James Mattis made his first calls as secretary on Monday — and notably, all three calls were to NATO allies. Mattis dialed his counterparts in Canada and the U.K. as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, where he talked Canada’s contribution to the anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq with Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan, followed by a call to British Defense Minister Michael Fallon, emphasizing the “key role NATO plays in transatlantic security,” the Pentagon’s official readout notes. That NATO praise — combined with the SecDef’s call to Stoltenberg on his first day — mark a notably warmer attitude towards the Atlantic alliance than President Trump himself has struck.
With Russia, or not? The White House opened the door for more military cooperation with Russia in the fight against the Islamic State on Monday, just hours after the Pentagon dismissed reports that such coordination was already happening.
In his first press conference as press secretary, Sean Spicer told reporters that “if there’s a way that we can combat ISIS with any country, whether it’s Russia or anyone else, and we have a shared national interest in that, sure, we’ll take it.” The remarks came just after Pentagon officials quickly brushed aside reports from Moscow that Russian planes coordinated airstrikes near the ISIS stronghold of al-Bab in Syria with the U.S.-led coalition. “The Department of Defense is not coordinating air strikes with the Russian military in Syria,” Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
al-Bab. It’s unclear what exactly happened in the crowded skies over Syria, but the Russian ministry of defense said it received coordinates “from the U.S. side via hotline,” on Sunday, after which two aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition joined Russian jets in hitting targets on the ground. It’s not like the Russians and Americans don’t talk to one another about their operations in Syria, however: both sides maintain a “hotline” where the they communicate on a daily basis to ensure their aircraft avoid one another over Syria.
In al-Bab, Turkish-backed rebels are pushing on the city from the north, and forces supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are just south of the city, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said Monday. And U.S. aircraft have hit ISIS positions at least nine times over the past several days southeast of the city. Those strikes aren’t in support of the pro-government forces though, officials are quick to point out.
It’s the law. The Los Angeles Times’ W.J. Hennigan makes the point that for all of the talk from the Trump administration about working more closely with Moscow in Syria, “a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act first passed by Congress late in 2014 and renewed since then strictly limits the Pentagon’s ability to work with Russia. The law was passed in response to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its continued involvement in the Ukrainian civil war.”
Warning shot aimed at Beijing. Sean Spicer also told reporters Monday that Washington is prepared to take action to prevent China from building more islands in the South China Sea and claiming the territory as its own. “It’s a question of if those islands are in fact in international waters,” he said, “and not part of China proper, then yeah, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying shot back on Tuesday that China’s sovereignty over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea was “irrefutable,” adding, “we urge the United States to respect the facts, speak and act cautiously to avoid harming the peace and stability of the South China Sea,” Hua said. “China’s resolve to protect its sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea will not change.”
Pompeo in. With his approval by the Senate, Trump nominee to head the CIA, Mike Pompeo, will take over an agency that the president compared to “Nazi Germany.” Many Democratic Senators are concerned about Pompeo’s comments about possibly bringing back torture, and his previous comments about expanding domestic surveillance.
“In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee,” FP’s Elias Groll writes, “Pompeo had pledged that as CIA director he would not allow the use of torture in interrogations. But in subsequent written questions he appeared to backtrack on that commitment and others, alarming Senate civil rights advocates. Trump himself, on the campaign trail, proposed bringing back torture.” Additionally, “in a questionnaire released last week, Pompeo said he would consult with CIA experts on whether national-security imperatives required restrictions on the use of torture to be loosened.”
Russia’s sanction workarounds. In the wake of sanctions slapped on Moscow after its 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin faced some hard choices. “The economic sanctions placed the country’s military modernization program in jeopardy,” FP’s Paul McLeary reports, “cutting Russia off from high-end European-made military sensors, software, ship engines, and other gear that were critical to dragging the once-moribund Russian war machine from its rusting post-Soviet morass.”
But “Moscow has managed to come up with some creative — and likely permanent — workarounds that might make the Kremlin’s military more adaptable in the long run, and has made Moscow some money in the process.”
Russia wants to be U.N. anti-terror Czar. Moscow “is seeking a leading role in shaping the United Nations’ global counterterrorism strategy, lobbying Secretary-General António Guterres to appoint a Russian national to serve in a newly envisioned post as counterterrorism czar, according to several senior U.N. diplomats,” FP’s Colum Lynch reports from New York.
“The move comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has stressed his desire to work in partnership with Russia to combat the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. But the development has raised concern among human rights advocates and other observers, who fear the former rival powers, now joined more closely together under a Trump administration, may move the U.N. further from its role as a defender of human rights and civil liberties.”
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That was quick
The first day of the Russian and Turkish-organized Syrian peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan got off to a rocky start, with both the Assad regime and rebels shouting at each other and trading insults, the New York Times reports. Previous rounds of negotiations between the two sides have all come to nothing and few were betting that the latest iteration would end much differently. Nonetheless, the shift to a Russian-organized peace process signals a change in the center of gravity for the conflict towards Moscow.
Trident
The British parliament greenlit the renewal of Trident, the country’s nuclear submarine-launched ballistic missile, without learning that it had failed a June 2016 demonstration and shakedown test off the coast of Florida, CNN reports. The missile and its funding have proven politically controversial in the U.K. and British Prime Minister Theresa May has faced intense criticism for the failure to disclose the failure before a vote on the program, which would cost roughly $50 billion to buy four new submarines capable of firing the weapon. Nonetheless, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon is sticking by the system, expressing full confidence in it.
European hiccup for U.S. Army
The much-anticipated deployment of 4,000 U.S. troops along with hundreds of tanks and heavy vehicles to Eastern Europe has hit a few snags over the past two weeks, with tanks arriving from the States with dead batteries and empty tanks that soldiers forgot to check before shipping off. “It is stuff we used to know” how to do during the Cold War, head of U.S. Army Europe Gen. Ben Hodges told the Wall Street Journal. Several of the larger vehicles also bumped their heads on low bridges while driving from Germany into Poland, causing convoys to slow down. But it’s all part of the process of mapping the former Soviet Union so American troops better understand how and where to deploy in case of war, Hodges said.
Hiring freeze
White House spokesman Sean Spicer announced on Monday that the Trump administration will institute a federal hiring freeze. The freeze, Spicer said, was intended to combat a “dramatic expansion” in the size of the government’s workforce — an assertion that just might be untrue. It’s unclear how the freeze will affect the Defense Department as the text of the statement announcing it claims that the military will be exempt as will other positions related to national security and public safety responsibilities. Thus far, there’s no guidance as to how agencies will interpret those exemptions.
Europe
The European Union (EU) is pouring more money into countering Russian propaganda, the Guardian reports. The EU’s East Stratcom taskforce will receive around $860,000 in additional funding as fears of an uptick in Russian information operations in Europe follow reports of Russian hackers’ interference in the U.S. election. Stratcom staff are focused outwardly, rather than at EU publics, charged with countering myths about the organization circulating in the former Soviet Union.
Drones
The U.S. military has another drone killer in service, but where it is or who has it is still a mystery. Jane’s reports that the U.S. bought the British made Anti-UAV Defence System (AUDS). The system combines a radar array designed to find small quadcopters and hobby drones like the kind the Islamic State has been using to drop grenades at distances of up to 10 kilometers. Once its radar detects a drone, operators can use the system to jam communications links with the aircraft’s operator.
Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
