The D Brief: U.S. mil helps the Kurds fight in Kobani; Swedish sub search; Nat-sec could help the GOP win the Senate; What's the Ebola Bus?; "Tamer" Bugs out; and a bit more.

For the first time, U.S. drops weapons and ammo to Kurdish fighters in Kobani. Eric Schmitt for The New York Times: “In a sign of the growing symbolic and operational significance of the town to both sides, three United States C-130 transport planes for the first time dropped 27 bundles of supplies provided by Iraqi Kurdish authorities to help the Syrian Kurds… The aircraft flew without fighter escort, faced no hostile ground fire, and left the airdrop zone safely, American officials said. ‘There was an urgent need to resupply,’ a senior Obama administration official said in a hastily organized conference call Sunday night. ‘This was the quickest way to get the job done.’” More here.

More from WSJ’s Julian Barnes and Sam Dagher: “The mission marks a deeper U.S. involvement in the conflict and comes over the objections of U.S. ally Turkey, which strongly opposes arming the Syrian Kurds." More here.

Foreign fighters in Syria are flocking back to Europe—where porous borders and a lax legal system frustrate the security outlook. Noemie Bisserbe and Stacy Meichtry for the WSJ, here.

What does Turkey really want? Ibrahim Kalin for the WSJ, here.

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Politicians’ hawkishness over national security could net the GOP its six needed Senate seats in November’s elections. Defense One’s Molly O’Toole has the story: “Beyond Iowa (where tough-talking Republican candidate Joni Ernst is up against Democratic U.S.Rep. Bruce Braley for retiring Sen. Tom Harkin’s seat), the grim national security landscape is strengthening the bids of other Republican military veterans in close races in Arkansas, New Hampshire and Alaska… Among the handful of up-for-grab states that could flip the Senate, most lean red and went for GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. And an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Wednesday showed not only Obama’s lowest approval rating ever—40 percent—but also the weakest polling for the Democrats in 30 years, with more than half of Americans viewing the Democratic Party unfavorably.”

The Pentagon is adding a 30-person “medical SWAT team” to the stateside Ebola fight. Paul Kane and Amy Ellis Nutt on WaPo’s Page One: “Despite the apparent control health officials have over Ebola’s spread, military officials decided to take no chances and are now constructing the equivalent of a medial SWAT team. Five military doctors, five trainers and 20 nurses will begin training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio within the next week, according to Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman... Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the Pentagon’s Northern Command, which has a prime focus on protecting homeland security, to send this new team to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for high-level preparations to respond to any additional Ebola cases beyond the three confirmed in the country.” More here.

Our bad – We gave credit to Military Times' Jeff Schogol for a story we ran Friday on a Marine under quarantine for Ebola. It was actually written by Oriana Pawlyk and Patty Kime. Apologies. That story from last week, here.

Did you ever hear of an "Ebola Bus?" Friday at the Pentagon was a little nutty. As fears of Ebola spreading grew stronger, a woman climbed aboard a waiting bus in the Pentagon's South Parking lot, used its bathroom, only to depart the bus a short time later to vomit in the parking lot. It got stranger. Bus passengers, who were to be ferried to a "Passage of Command" ceremony for Marine Commandant Gen. Jim Amos on Capitol Hill, were soon told they couldn't go anywhere because the sick woman had apparently told medical personnel attending her that she had recently traveled to Africa. Suddenly there was real concern that the woman was legit sick and that the people in the bus could be caught in the Ebola crossfire. Ultimately, though, the bus riders were taken to the Marine Barracks, though missing the ceremony altogether.

For a few minutes, it got even stranger.  A few hours later, an individual using the men's room near the Pentagon's E-Ring where public affairs and press folks work, threw up all over the floor at the entrance to the bathroom, raising the possibility that there was a real Ebola thing happening, even if it seemed unlikely. But by Friday evening, a local hospital reported that the sick woman in the parking lot did not in fact have Ebola and that her "travel history" did not make it likely that she did anyway.

First day on the job with a cool title: The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction office's Director of Public Affairs, Phil LaVelle, starts today at the Customs and Border Protection agency to lead that office's pubic affairs apparatus – and he's now a new "Assistant Commissioner."

CNA Corporation’s Jerry Meyerle expands Defense One’s debate series about the implications of “Containment” for today’s foreign policy strategies here. Meyerle on the dreaded “boots on the ground” option to roll back ISIS: “Air strikes may weaken the Islamic State in some areas and provide cover for Iraqi forces, particularly in open areas in the desert. But in large cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for the United States or its allies to drop bombs on suspected insurgent positions given the high risk of civilian casualties… U.S. Central Commander Gen. Lloyd Austin said that the coalition is not nearly ready to make any attempt to reclaim Mosul, which he said would be the 'decisive' battle against ISIL.  Such a task may be far beyond the capabilities of Iraq’s increasingly fragile army without U.S. forces on the ground in a combat role.”

Carving out space in a tighter budget: The U.S. can save almost $70 billion in costly upgrades for its nuclear triad over the next decade. Tom Collina of Ploughshares writing in The Arms Control Association: “The United States currently plans to spend at least $355 billion to maintain and rebuild its Cold War-era nuclear arsenal over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office… The Navy wants to buy 12 new ballistic missile submarines with a total production cost of about $100 billion. The Air Force is seeking up to 100 new, nuclear-capable strategic bombers that would cost about $80 billion, as well as land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and new air-launched cruise missiles. The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is pursuing a $60 billion plan to upgrade five nuclear warhead types, including the B61 gravity bomb.” Read about the fix, and the entire report (pdf) here.

Good ol' American red tape threatens drone sales in the Middle East. Defense One's Marcus Weisgerber has that story here: The painstakingly slow government process of selling weapons and drones to allies is hurting U.S. defense companies at a time when the industry is trying to compensate for lower Pentagon sales, says Ellen Lord, president and CEO of Textron Systems. Lord, to Weisgerber: “If we can sell F-35s to our allies, why can’t we sell [unmanned aircraft] and some small weapons on UAVs?” Lord said in an interview this week. “I just don’t understand that.”

Meantime, ICYMI: Nearly 70% of the Pentagon’s civilians are not happy with their long-term job prospects. Josh Hicks at The Washington Post, here.

The Air Force’s Top-Secret Space Drone Has Landed. Watch a short video of its arrival at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on Oct. 17 here. Catch up on what’s known about the “hush-hush” mission here.

Jim and the "First Lady of the Marine Corps" Bonnie Amos bid adieu Friday in a long ceremony with four, 19-gun salutes. The military ceremony is one of those things laden with tradition that can puzzle the outsider, and even some insiders. The marches, the hymns, the gun-salutes, the solemn readings of all the proclamations. Marine Commandant Gen. Jim Amos and his wife Bonnie presided over such in a "Passage of Command" ceremony as they left the Corps after 44 years and Gen. "Fighting Joe" Dunford assumed the office as the 36th Commandant with his wife, Ellen, alongside him. It was a full-on affair that was to begin at 10 a.m., but started about 20 minutes late and then lasted for a couple hours. By nearly 2 p.m., the receiving line for the Dunfords still snaked its way through the garden. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Marty Dempsey, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, other service chiefs and senior officers, D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier and hundreds of others attended.

Nearly an hour into the ceremony, there was no sign of any of the series of speeches scheduled for the event. The Opening Narration, Invocation, Drum and Bugle Corps Concert, Passage of Command, Introduction and Honors, and Award Presentation and Retirement segments all took that up. The four 19-gun salutes, one for Amos, another for Dunford, and the other two for Hagel and Mabus, added considerably to the ceremony time. Ultimately, Hagel spoke (7 minutes, 35 seconds); then Navy Secretary Ray Mabus (14:25) and then Dunford (4:18) and Amos, who could have used the time to touch on a number of accomplishments, came in at a short 3 minutes, 59 seconds. During the ceremony, two Marines standing in formation collapsed and were dragged through the bushes and replaced with stand-ins. A stream of folks skulked out early giving a variety of reasons for their early departures. Later, after a rendition of "Carolina on My Mind," Amos and his wife jumped in a VW Bug with the license plate "Tamer" – his fly name – and headed out.

Amos, a fighter pilot, never fully got credit for the Corps he inherited. For the tradition-bound Corps, many Marines could never get their head around having a pilot as Commandant and he had a number of detractors over the years. But unlike his predecessor, Gen. Jim Conway, who had the luxury of deep pockets and an opportunity to get Marines back into the fight in Afghanistan, Amos took over a Marine Corps that was downsizing and had fewer dollars. He had to take on a number of social issues – the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and women in combat, sequester. Despite a reputation for having a thin skin, clear-eyed Marines give Amos credit for holding the line on the size of the Corps and successfully working through a number of the issues he confronted.

New this morning: the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated robotics and autonomous systems could—counter intuitively—make war more deadly. This from Paul Scharre at CNAS: “While increased automation may have tactical benefits in allowing faster reaction times to enemy actions, it could also have strategic consequences if the speed of action on the battlefield eclipses the speed of decision-making for policymakers. Increased autonomy in the use of force raises the dangerous specter of ‘flash wars’ initiated by autonomous systems interacting on the battlefield in ways that may be unpredictable… Humans will still fight wars, but new technology will give combatants, as it always has, greater standoff from the enemy, survivability or lethality.” More here, or read the full report from last week that this was excerpted from here.

The U.S. Air Force says Boeing will have to absorb $1 billion in cost overruns and revise its delivery schedule for the KC-135 replacement. From Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio: “The Air Force and the U.S. Government Accountability Office have praised Boeing’s progress on the $51 billion program to build 179 of the planes, which is based on the company’s 767 jetliner and designated the KC-46. However, the service estimates that Boeing will have to absorb $1 billion in costs for exceeding a $4.9 billion ceiling to develop the first four planes…" More here.

Sweden’s military is combing its waters for ‘foreign underwater activity’—just don’t call it Russian. From the WSJ’s Kjetil Malkenes Hovland: "The Armed Forces observes that it’s likely that foreign underwater activity is going on in the Stockholm archipelago,” said Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad of the Royal Swedish Navy at a Stockholm news conference on Sunday… “We haven’t pointed at Russia,” Adm. Grenstad said, [adding] the activity could be a submarine, a mini-submarine or divers possibly with some kind of underwater vehicle. He said three credible observations had been made, two on Friday and one on Sunday." More here.

Italy’s military has rescued 139k in the Strait of Sicily over the last 12 months. Corriere della Sera Beppe Severgnini in a NYT op-ed (with some European humor added in) here.

Obama is eyeing an Iran nuke agreement that would cut Congress out of the sanctions relief decision. David Sanger for The New York Times, here.

BRAIN CRAMP: Our initial edition of Oct. 20's The D Brief listed Vandenberg Air Force Base as in Nebraska. The base is located in California. At 747 Nebraska Avenue. Please accept our apologies.