Pentagon sends more Syrians into battle; US, Russia open talks; Marines ask to keep women out of some jobs; Move over McCain, here comes Joni Ernst; And a bit more.
Syrian rebels: Russia’s involvement will prolong and deepen the war. “Rebels who have inflicted big losses on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad say Russia’s intervention in support of its ally will only lead to an escalation of the war and may encourage the rebels’ Gulf Arab backers to pour in more military aid,” report Reuters’ Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Tom Perry. Already, Assad’s forces are putting up a stiffer fight, the rebels tell Reuters, notably in “the coastal heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect.”
“Some see an opportunity in the Russian deployment, predicting more military aid from states such as Saudi Arabia. That signals one of the risks of Russian involvement: a spiral of deepening foreign interference in a conflict already complicated by a regional struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”
Evoking the Soviet failure in Afghanistan, the rebels, who painted Russia as an occupier, “say this means the war, already in its fifth year, will go on even longer” than Moscow’s tussle with the mujahideen. Read the full report, here.
Let’s talk. After insisting for days the U.S. and Russian military were not, and would not be, in contact to deconflict the skies over Syria, the U.S. shifted policy Friday, reported Defense One Politics Reporter Molly O’Toole. Defense Secretary Ash Carter rang up his Russian counterpart—his first call to Moscow and the first communication between the two countries since the U.S. broke off military relations over Ukraine.
Interesting timing: though the Pentagon has continued to argue there’s nothing to deconflict, officials confirmed hours after the Carter call that Moscow had sent fighter jets to its forward operating base in Syria. Read O’Toole’s full report, here.
USMC vs. SECNAV: it’s on: Firing back at Ray Mabus just a few days after the Navy secretary said he wouldn’t request any Navy or Marine Corps job remain closed to women, Marine Commandant—and soon-to-be Joint Chiefs Chairman—Gen. Joe Dunford said: not so fast. On Thursday, the commandant submitted the Corps’s recommendation on gender integration to Mabus. “Pentagon officials said the corps was expected to request an exemption for at least some front-line combat units,” reported The New York Times’ Dave Philipps.
Philipps put it this way: “The Marine Corps and its civilian leadership at the Pentagon are squaring off in an unusually public dispute over whether integrating women into the corps’s all-male combat units will undermine the units’ effectiveness, or whether the male-dominated Marine leadership is cherry-picking justifications to keep women out.”
By the way: “Officials in the Army, Navy and Air Force have suggested they are not likely to seek exemptions on integration.” Read Philipps’ full report, and stay tuned.
Meanwhile, the Army is preparing to broaden its ranks to more women by focusing on refining—or in some cases, creating—standards for each of its jobs. “Surprisingly, when I was here in the Maneuver Center, we didn’t have a valid standard for each [military occupational specialty],” said Lt. Gen. Bob Brown, responsible for Army leadership development, told Chuck Williams of the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Inquirer. “We kind of had good ol’ boy ‘it’s a road march at this speed.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, we don’t know.’ Now, we have a valid standard.”
“A lot of research went into those standards,” said Gen. David Perkins, who leads Training and Doctrine Command. “What we did for two years is we exhaustively went out to every MOS [military occupational specialty] closed to women and came up with all the operational tasks you have to do in combat.”
Outgoing Army Secretary John McHugh is reportedly poised to send his recommendations to Carter next week, just a few days ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline. Read Williams’ full report, here.
About that U.S.-trained moderate Syrian rebel force: Did we say “4 or 5”? We meant nine. On Friday, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command provided updated numbers from the U.S. effort to train and equip Syrian fighters, just days after CENTCOM shocked senators by reporting that only a handful of Syrians remained in the fight. Col. Pat Ryder told reporters that of the first class of 54 to graduate the U.S. program, “exactly nine are currently fighting in Syria, while 11 more members of the New Syrian Force—the Pentagon’s name for the group it hoped would become an effective anti-ISIS unit—are waiting outside the border to join the fight,” O’Toole reported.
“Fourteen have left the NSF to join some other moderate opposition group, while 18 more are somewhere in Syria, but missing. One has been reported killed, and one has been confirmed as kidnapped by Al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate,” O’Toole writes.
Then on Sunday: “75 U.S.-Trained Rebels Enter Syria From Turkey” was the headline from Agence France-Presse. “The Pentagon added [on Friday] that some 100-120 fighters would soon graduate the program, but wouldn't say when or where. This weekend, news reports trickled out as many as 75 may have reentered Syria to follow their beleaguered predecessors.”
DoD declined to confirm the report, but Hassan Mustafa, spokesman for the U.S.-backed Division 30 unit to which some of the rebels were deployed, said, “Their training in Turkey lasted two months and they went directly to the front lines with Daesh.” Read AFP’s full story, here.
Is Joni Ernst the next John McCain? The freshman Iowa senator and Iraq vet is making her way into the GOP’s national-security leadership, writes Defense One’s O’Toole, who tailed the farmer-turned-soldier-turned-lawmaker from Capitol Hill to the dung-spotted roads at the Iowa State Fair.
“As Ernst and her charge, named Elvis, waited to enter the pavilion, a massive black steer ahead of them broke loose, snorting as he spun around in a panic, weighing where to burst through the human ring that quickly formed around him. For a moment, a rampage seemed imminent. But as Ernst looked calmly on, a hand caught the rival steer’s harness and wrestled it back in line,” O’Toole writes. “On that August day, Ernst’s home turf seemed a long way from the shiny tables of the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington.”
“But that’s precisely why her party is calling on her: to secure the support of the Iowa caucus in the 2016 drive for the White House, and to draw two key constituencies toward the demographically disadvantaged GOP: women voters and veterans.” Read the whole thing, here.
From Defense One
Japan just authorized its most assertive military stance in decades. In a major shift for East Asian security, the Japanese defense forces will play a broader role in the region under a controversial new law, The Atlantic’s Matt Ford writes. “Seven decades after its surrender ended World War II, Japan took its most significant step away from the pacifist foreign policy that shaped 70 years of its post-war history.” Read more, here.
Should feds who click on phishing emails lose their security clearance? The Department of Homeland security’s chief information security officer is considering a tough-love approach after some senior officials repeatedly clicked on test emails designed to mimic phishing attempts, writes NextGov’s Jack Moore. “There are no repercussions to bad behavior,” Paul Beckman said. “There’s no punitive damage, so to speak. There’s really nothing to incentivize these people to be aware, to be diligent.” Read more, here.
While the U.S. Army sharpens its network defenses, the Navy faces the real deal right now, writes NextGov’s Aliya Sternstein. Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, commander of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, says she’s conducting “real-world operations because they’re there, and we don't have a choice”; meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, describes how his team is cautiously getting on its feet. Read Sternstein’s report, here.
Give troops the pay and benefits they deserve, says Norb Ryan, president and CEO of the Military Officers Association of America. “Unless the House’s position prevails in the ongoing conference with the Senate, military families will face a third straight year of pay caps,” Ryan writes in an op-ed at Defense One. “Military families have done their part with selfless service and sacrifice over a decade-plus of combat operations. They remain resilient, but with continued calls to erode pay and benefits, cracks are starting to show.” Read the retired U.S. Navy vice admiral’s full argument, here.
This Wednesday, September 23—join DOD acquisition head Frank Kendall as he keynotes Defense One LIVE’s “The State of Defense Acquisition” in Crystal City, Va. Catch the full agenda and register for your spot right here.
Welcome to Monday’s edition of The D Brief, from Brad Peniston and Defense One. Want to share The D Brief with a friend? Here’s our subscribe link. And please tell us what you like, don’t like, or want to drop on our radar right here at the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
First openly gay service secretary nominated. “President Obama, in a historic first for the Pentagon, has chosen to nominate Eric Fanning to lead the Army, a move that would make him the first openly gay civilian secretary of one of the military services,” reports The Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe.
“Fanning, 47, has been a specialist on national security issues for more than two decades and has played a key role overseeing some of the Pentagon’s biggest shipbuilding and fighter jet programs,” Jaffe writes. “Fanning’s nomination, which must go to the Senate for confirmation, reflects a major shift for the Pentagon, which only four years ago prevented openly gay troops from serving in the military. The policy didn’t extend to civilian leaders.”
Reaction from the troops? According to the redoubtable Doctrine Man!!, no one seems to care “except Mike Huckabee.”
Setting the tone. Read new Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley’s in-brief to his staff, via Tom Ricks at Foreign Policy.
More subs, fewer aircraft carriers. That’s what a new 430-page report from Rand Corp. says the Navy — and the nation — needs to stand up to China’s growing military might. “The United States should decrease its emphasis on large aircraft carriers in the Pacific and spend more on submarines, space capabilities and ways to make air bases and aircraft less vulnerable,” reports Wyatt Olson for Stars & Stripes. That story, here.
Back in the news: The thoroughly awful practice known as bacha bazi — the routinized sexual abuse of boys in Afghanistan. “American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records,” reports The New York Times’ Joseph Goldstein, who adds reporting on the blowback on U.S. troops allegedly punished for pushing back. Full story, here.
It’s hardly the first time this practice has made the Western news: The Guardian, 2009; PBS, 2010). Human Terrain Team report highlighted it as a thorny cultural divide problem back in at least late 2009; Wikileaks cables shined light on it back in 2010.
Preliminary hearing in Bowe Bergdahl’s court-martial. The soldier rescued from captivity and now on trial for desertion “knew that the region was crawling with insurgents, but he had ‘outsize impressions of his own capabilities,’ according to an investigating officer, and was determined to create enough chaos to get the attention of senior commanders,” reports The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe from the courtroom at Joint Base San Antonio. “The case against Bergdahl, who is charged with desertion and misbehaving before the enemy, is the most closely scrutinized desertion prosecution in the military in decades — perhaps since that of Pvt. Eddie Slovik, a soldier who became the only American executed for desertion since the Civil War.” Read Lamothe’s full story, here.
Finally: “14 ridiculous things” you only know if you’ve worked at the Pentagon. “5. The Escher-like hallways. Walk the same way every day and at some point you will find your corridor blocked with a temporary wall because of construction.” Does this Military.com list even scratch the surface? Let us know @defenseone, and have a good Monday.