Today’s D Brief: WH end-runs Senate to install defense policy chief; ISIS claims deadly attack in Afghanistan; GPS alternative; TikTok, Trump, Microsoft & China; And a bit more.

What do you do if the Senate won't confirm your buddy as defense undersecretary for policy? You make him more like an acting deputy defense undersecretary for policy, as Defense Secretary Mark Esper has done with his controversial pal, retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata. The Senate Armed Services Committee cancelled Tata’s would-be confirmation hearing on Thursday at the last minute because he did not have enough support to pass a SASC vote. Defense One’s Katie Bo Williams covered those dramatics, here.

Here are a few of the things that sank Tata’s prospects last week, via Reuters: “In addition to falsely calling Obama a Muslim and a terrorist, Tata has also called Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an African American, a ‘race-baiting racist,’ according to now-deleted Twitter posts seen by Reuters.”

Tata’s new official title, such as it is, is quite lengthy: "the official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy reporting to the Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Dr. James Anderson," according to a statement from the Pentagon. CNN calls it “essentially the deputy of the role he had been nominated for.”

Says Army vet Jim Golby: "This step makes a farce of our Constitutional processes. Secretary Esper should refuse to comply with it and members of Congress from both parties should use all available means to block Executive attempts to circumvent legitimate Congressional authority."

Says former Army Ranger Andrew Exum: "Hard to read this as anything more than a middle finger to the SASC, but I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope, so if the SASC doesn’t care, there’s nothing the rest of us can do. Not the first time I’ve wondered how John McCain would have reacted to something, though."

Added Steve Vladeck, national security law professor at the University of Texas: "It’s a pretty messed-up system when the guy who the Senate was about to nix can effectively end up with the same job anyway… if Senate Republicans were *actually* troubled by this clear abuse of the Senate’s prerogative, they have plenty of ways to push back *now.* They’ve just *chosen* not to."

BTW: DHS’s Brian Murphy, the acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, has been reassigned after compiling “intelligence reports” on journalists and protesters, the Washington Post reported Saturday.  

From Defense One

The Air Force’s Latest GPS Alternative: Earth’s Magnetic Fields // Patrick Tucker: Officials just launched a public challenge to help create the artificial intelligence needed to turn the planet’s magnetic fields into readable maps.

EU’s First Cyber Sanctions Target Russian, North Koreans, Chinese Attackers // Patrick Tucker: The EU singled out perpetrators that attacked British hospitals, Ukranian infrastructure, and the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Where the System May Break // David Frum, The Atlantic: A war-game exercise simulating the 2020 election unmasked some key vulnerabilities.

How ISIS Made Money on Facebook // Jenna Scatena, The Atlantic: The Islamic State turned the social platform into a global marketplace for looted artifacts—until a group of vigilante archaeologists took matters into their own hands.

Why America Is Afraid of TikTok // Michael Schuman, The Atlantic: The company’s founder says in an interview that he wants it to be “a window” on the world. A Republican senator says it is a “Trojan horse.”

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Send us tips from your community right here. And if you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day just last year, 23 people were killed and 23 others were injured when a 21-year-old white supremacist opened fire in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart at about 10:40 a.m. in the morning. That attack was part of a growing trend, and especially in 2019, in which the world witnessed a “sharp increase in the lethality of terrorist attacks that were racially or ethnically motivated,” as University of Maryland researchers described it in their most recent annual report on terrorism trends. You can hear a discussion with the lead researcher on our latest Defense One Radio podcast episode, here.

An ISIS-claimed attack on an Afghan prison has left 29 dead in the eastern city of Jalalabad. By the afternoon, Afghanistan special forces had retaken control of the facility, which “is believed to be holding hundreds of IS members,” the Associated Press reports. Fifty others were wounded in the attack, which began when a suicide bomber detonated his truck at the prison’s gate, according to al-Jazeera.
More than two dozen prisoners escaped, the Wall Street Journal reports, and 1,025 inmates were recaptured after fleeing the compound. At least eight apparent attackers were eventually killed (AP reports 10) by the time Afghan security forces regained control of the situation.
Reuters reports 300 of the prisoners are still at large, according to a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province.
For what it’s worth, the Journal reports that the attack “came a day after Afghan intelligence said government forces killed one of the group’s senior commanders near Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, where the militants are based.”
And in case you’re curious, the Taliban claim to have had nothing to do with the attack — which killed two Taliban prisoners there in the facility — especially since the group is still trying to negotiate the final tranche of prisoners it wants released by authorities in Kabul as a trust-building measure ahead of so-called intra-Afghan peace talks with President Ashraf Ghani’s office. More from AP, here.

Israel’s military killed four men who appeared to be emplacing roadside bombs on the country’s border with Syria in the Golan Heights. “The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Monday said its sources told it that the four men likely belonged to the Syrian Resistance for the Liberation of the Golan—a group it says was founded by Samir Kuntar, a senior Hezbollah officer killed by Israel in 2016,” the Wall Street Journal reports today. “Since a Hezbollah member was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Syria in mid-July, the Israeli military has maintained an increased presence on its northern border as it braced for retaliation.” A bit more, here.

After President Trump’s threat to ban TikTok in the U.S., Microsoft’s CEO called up Trump on Sunday to discuss possibly acquiring “the video app’s operations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” the Wall Street Journal reports. More on this story that’s not behind a paywall, via AP, here.

How can the U.S. fix its Navy? The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, reasonably enough, traces many of the sea service’s recent woes to the Fat Leonard bribery scandal, which led to dozens of guilty pleas by Navy officers, sailors, employees, and others — and slowed or fatally undermined the careers of hundreds more, including many who had been on fast tracks to top jobs. (The years-long investigation into contract fraud in the Pacific “took in a huge percentage of flag officers, and it really hamstrung the Navy in terms of promotions, in terms of positions,” then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told USNI News in 2018.)
This shaped the selection of the past two Chiefs of Naval Operations, including Adm. Michael Gilday, who was just a three-star when he was picked for the Navy’s top job a year ago. In an hour-long interview, the CNO told Ignatius that he believes his service’s problems stem from a decline in professional competency and a rise in character lapses. “Gilday says he wants to reboot the Navy’s core culture, which begins with proficiency at sea. The Navy’s operations tempo has been so stretched over the past two decades that officers and sailors don’t have time to learn good seamanship and navigation. The sea is unforgiving; it magnifies the smallest mistakes. And sadly, in this stressed fleet, too many have cut ethical corners.” Read on, here.
VP Pence leaned on the Navy to welcome a disgraced former Navy SEAL back to service, McClatchy reports off documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. In 2017, Eric Greitens resigned after just 17 months as governor of Missouri, ahead of likely impeachment based on felony charges in two different events. The following year, documents show, Navy and SEAL officials were getting ready to deny Greitens the waiver that would allow him to return to service as a reservist — until Vice President Mike Pence passed word to approve them.
Why? McClatchy: “Greitens and Pence have political ties through Nick Ayers, a veteran GOP strategist that ran Greitens’ 2016 gubernatorial campaign and went on to serve as the vice president’s chief of staff for two years.” Read on, here.

“I still believe doing what’s right matters,” writes retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who penned an op-ed in the Washington Post this weekend. 

Lastly this morning: SecDef Esper hosts a change of command for the National Guard Bureau. Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel will pass the colors to Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Hokanson at Joint Base Myer-Henderson, just outside of Arlington National Cemetery. That’s scheduled for 11 a.m. ET, and can be streamed live on DVIDS, here.