Louisiana wants the National Guard, not VIPs; Trump’s “dangerous” view of intel; Twitter deletes ISIS; Putin in Crimea; And a bit more.
Massive Nat’l Guard response at Louisiana flood. Nearly 3,700 Louisiana National Guardsmen are helping recovery efforts for the worst U.S. disaster since Hurricane Sandy after more than 31 inches of rain fell in just 15 hours—turning more than 20 parishes into declared disaster areas, CNN reports. While volunteers have unofficially formed what’s been called the “Cajun navy,” NG troops’ have been busy with rescue work, too: saving more than 11,085 citizens and 1,400 pets; distributing more than 32,255 meals ready-to-eat, 359,615 bottles of water, 465 tarps and 784,000 sandbags, 2,200 cots and 1,700 blankets for shelter support—all while traveling in the flooded streets via some 257 high-water vehicles, 55 boats, 11 bridge erection boats and nine helicopters, according to the Defense Department on Thursday.
Louisiana’s Governor John Edwards said while he appreciates the attention that would come along with a visit from someone like, say, President Barack Obama—he’d rather VIP visits like POTUS wait a few weeks. “We have to take hundreds of local first responders, police officers, sheriffs, deputies and state troopers to provide security for that type of visit. I would just as soon have those people engaged in the response than trying to secure the president,” he told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “So I’d ask him to wait, if he would, another couple weeks. But he’s certainly welcome to visit anytime he wants to.”
But GOP presidential contender Donald Trump isn’t waiting. He’s headed there today, riding a wave of right-wing criticism arguing Obama is getting a pass for remaining on vacation while President George W. Bush was ripped for his tardy visit the Gulf after Katrina. Ah, the politics of disaster response. CBS News has a little bit more on that planned visit, here.
In Syria’s northeast, Kurdish forces have expanded their territory in the city of Hasakah after the first day of clashes with the Assad regime since the war broke out in 2011. A pitched street battle (footage here) broke out this week and by late Thursday had killed more than a dozen Kurdish residents, Reuters reports, breaking a calm that had largely held for years between the regime and the nearly autonomous Kurdish YPG militia and associated Asayish security forces in Hasakah. AP reports this morning that some residents are taking advantage of pockets of calm to flee the city.
Fighting reportedly broke out between the two sides “after pro-government militiamen detained Kurdish youths, a step that had followed advances by Kurdish security forces toward government-held areas,” according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The U.S. and Russia are due to negotiate again over Syria’s war in Geneva next Friday, AP reports. “At the meeting, officials said, the sides will try to secure a cease-fire between Syria's government and rebels and a new U.S.-Russian arrangement to share intelligence and coordinate military to defeat the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.” This news follows word that Russia would permit a 48-hour weekly ceasefire in Aleppo to allow food and medical supplies into the country. More on Russia below the fold.
From Defense One
Twitter suspends another 235,000 accounts for promoting terrorism—bringing the total number since mid-2015 to 360,000. Tech Editor Patrick Tucker has the latest on the digital Whac-A-Mole front, here.
Trump is wrong about the intelligence community, argues Jane Harmon, former congresswoman and ranking member of Intelligence Committee, now director, president, and CEO of the Wilson Center, writing in Defense One. Statements that the next president should not trust or use the IC are not just counter-productive and reckless, they are “downright dangerous,” she writes. More here.
This microbe could one day be wiring the military’s nanotechnology and sensing toxic chemicals from unmanned vehicles. It’s called Geobacter, and it’s found everywhere from the muddy bottom of the Potomac River to soil hundreds of meters into the earth. That’s not all it can do. Defense One’s Caroline Houck has the story.
The Global Business Brief, by Marcus Weisgerber. In this week’s edition, SOCOM’s new Soviet-based missile; Deep learning supercomputers; Defense spending boost predicted; and some more from our business editor, here. (Get the GBB in your inbox every Thursday; subscribe here.)
Welcome to Friday’s edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Kevin Baron. On this day in 2003, al-Qaeda in Iraq detonated a car bomb outside the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, killing nearly two-dozen people and wounding 100 others (many of whom were UN workers) in one of the first signs of the insurgency that would give rise to the Islamic State group. (Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Crimea, Ukraine, today to mark 25 years since an attempted coup failed to unseat Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Meanwhile, Russian “naval and land forces” are exercising today just off the Crimean coast. And Russian paratroopers are drilling about 15 miles from the Estonian border, according to Russian news outlets here and here.
Speaking of Estonia, the country’s Defense Minister Hannes Hanso penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday with the unmistakable headline: “NATO Is America’s Greatest Strategic Advantage.”
And “Russia is preparing to hold major annual military exercises, called Kavkaz 2016, near the Ukrainian border in September. The exercises are the first aimed at integrating Crimea and the peninsula’s defense into Russian military plans,” WSJ reports this morning in a wider look at “a new military strategy the Kremlin says is meant to counter perceived threats from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
For what it’s worth: “Russia has carried out more than 300 training exercises and war games in the Western Military District since the winter.” More here.
In case you were wondering, German Chancellor Angela Merkel says there is no end to sanctions on Russia anytime soon. That, here.
Russia tested a mobile ballistic missile in Siberia, claiming it traveled 186 miles to make a “direct hit” on a “simulated enemy’s command post.” That via Reuters, here.
China says it’s working on putting artificial intelligence on its cruise missiles, allowing “commanders to control them in real time manner, or to use a fire-and-forget mode, or even to add more tasks to in-flight missiles,” Wang Changqing of the China Aerospace and Industry Corp told the state-run China Daily newspaper. Adds Reuters: “China is already a global leader in the field of using artificial intelligence in missiles, Wang added, without elaborating.” That, here.
The WSJ editorial board is not impressed with Beijing's diplomatic responses since Hague ruling over competing claims in the South China Sea. While noting progress on regional talks to establish a code of conduct for the SCS, the Journal notes that it’s anything but final. And, in any event, “It would do nothing to stop China’s longstanding strategy of talk-and-take—engaging in endless negotiations while gradually conquering the sea.” Read their take in full, here.
Elsewhere in the region, Japan wants to build its own “fighter drone” as it looks to sharply escalate defense spending. “The military technology plan calls for first developing an unmanned surveillance aircraft in the next decade and then an unmanned fighter jet 10 years later… The plan will be announced this month when the Defense Ministry also unveils its request for a record budget of 5.16 trillion yen ($51 billion) for fiscal 2017, as tension rises in the East China Sea and North Korea steps up its missile threat.” More here.
And the U.S. military is training to mobilize with the new-look Japanese defense forces, Stars and Stripes reports. Background: “The air and sea freight operations follow changes to rules governing the Japan Self-Defense Force that were approved by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet last year. The changes give the Japanese military more freedom to act in support of U.S. forces in an emergency and remove geographical limits on their areas of operation.” More here.
That didn't take long. Less than a week after the Pentagon said Boeing's KC-46 tanker has met the parameters to enter production, the Air Force late Thursday awarded Boeing a $2.8 billion deal for 19 planes. More here.
Lastly this week: Some weekend reading all about your best friend in the whole world, should you find yourself wounded behind enemy lines. It comes to us via National Geographic’s Mark Synnott, who interviewed Air Force Pararescueman Master Sgt. Ivan Ruiz—who shares something in common with Osama bin Laden (if OBL’s account is to be believed): a grenade landed next to him but never exploded. Stay safe, everyone. And have a great weekend!