The D Brief: Shutdown nears end; Allies limit intel-sharing over boat strikes; Price tag for US occupations; Marines want multiple prototypes; And a bit more.
After nearly two months away from their jobs, House lawmakers are returning to vote on a deal to end the 43-day government shutdown, which is the longest in U.S. history. That vote is expected sometime this evening.
The deal, which advanced through the Senate Monday evening, would use a continuing resolution (PDF) to fund the Defense Department until Jan. 30. It will also unwind the more than 4,000 layoffs the Trump administration issued during the shutdown. Those reductions in force are currently paused by a federal court, Eric Katz of Government Executive reports.
Bigger picture: “[A]s the possibility of an end to the shutdown draws near, almost no one will be satisfied. Democrats didn’t get the health insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday morning. “And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.”
ICYMI: Leaders from four of the military’s professional advocacy groups united to ask Congress to re-open the government, provide backpay to civilians who are looking at another missed paycheck, and pass legislation so that in the event of another shutdown, Defense Department civilians won’t be forced to work without pay, Defense One’s Meghann Myers reported Monday.
Despite House preparations to vote this evening, the services are looking at a long road to recovery. That’s in large part because the prospect of another CR to patch over a shut down means the services will have to pick and choose which missions to prioritize even more than usual. Read more, here.
Squeezed into that deal to end the shutdown: Funding for the Air Force’s new E-7 Wedgetail radar jet—despite the fact that the service wants to gut the program, Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reported Monday.
Background: The E-7 was pitched as a replacement for the service’s aging E-3 Sentry aircraft. Boeing and the Air Force reached an agreement last year for two test planes, to be delivered in 2028 for a substantial $2.6 billion. Those costs have risen by $884 million, according to a June Government Accountability Office report.
However, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told appropriators this summer that the E-7 was an example of a platform that was “not survivable in the modern battlefield or they don't give us an advantage in a future fight.” Additionally, defense officials this summer said the program was going to be cut “due to significant delays with cost increases.”
Expert reax: “If it passes, this is a big win for Boeing, and it shows that many in Congress still have doubts about how quickly the Space Force can deploy the AMTI system it funded in the reconciliation bill a few months ago,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert with the American Enterprise Institute think tank. “This is Congress hedging its bets on the airborne warning mission.” Continue reading, here.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1969, journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
Around the Defense Department
New: The British military has paused intelligence-sharing with the Pentagon regarding alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean region “because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal,” CNN reported Tuesday. The halt in sharing began “over a month ago,” British officials told Natasha Bertrand.
Notable: “Several boats hit by the US have either been stationary or were turning around when they were attacked, CNN has reported, undermining the [Trump] administration’s claim that they posed an imminent threat that could not be dealt with through interdiction and arrest.”
Not just the Brits: Canada “has made clear to the US that it does not want its intelligence being used to help target boats for deadly strikes, the sources told CNN.”
And Colombia said it would stop sharing intel with the U.S. over the strikes, President Gustavo Petro announced Tuesday on social media. “Such a measure will be maintained as long as the missile attack on boats in the Caribbean persists. The fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people,” he wrote.
Britain’s MI5 is also annoyed with FBI chief Kash Patel, who reportedly went back on a pledge to keep a key liaison officer in London, the New York Times reported Monday. The report raised eyebrows among longtime intelligence watchers, who noted that disputes between the countries’ intel communities rarely emerge in public.
On Sunday, the U.S. military attacked and destroyed two more alleged drug trafficking boats in the waters off Latin America, SecDef Hegseth announced on social media the following morning. “Both strikes were conducted in international waters and 3 male narco-terrorists were aboard each vessel. All 6 were killed,” he said. “These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific,” Hegseth claimed.
Updated death toll: According to Hegseth and Trump, the U.S. military has killed at least 76 people in almost two dozen strikes since Sept. 2. The New York Times and Military Times are both maintaining a running log of these strikes (though the NYT is typically more up to date).
New: The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier is now in the Caribbean region after it was diverted out of the Mediterranean Sea and closer to Venezuela, U.S. Naval Institute News reported Tuesday. Ship spotters located it off the coast of Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
By the way: “Ford’s escorts include guided-missile destroyers USS Bainbridge (DDG-96), USS Mahan (DDG-72) and USS Winston Churchill (DDG-81),” USNI writes. There are already at least eight U.S. warships, a nuclear submarine and F-35 aircraft operating in the Caribbean region, Reuters reminds readers.
Related reading: “Venezuelan military preparing guerrilla response in case of US attack,” Reuters reported separately on Tuesday.
Update: Trump’s military occupations of U.S. cities have cost nearly half a billion dollars so far, the Intercept reported Tuesday, citing estimates from the National Priorities Project and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
The total includes “$172 million spent in Los Angeles, where troops arrived in June; almost $270 million for the occupation of Washington, D.C., which began in August; nearly $15 million for Portland, Oregon, which was announced in September; and more than $3 million for Memphis, Tennessee, and almost $13 million for Chicago, which both began last month,” Nick Turse writes.
Those costs could rise, too, considering Trump “has specifically threatened to surge troops into Baltimore, New York City, Oakland, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle to put down supposed rebellions and to aid law enforcement agencies, despite falling crime numbers and pushback by local officials. Troops are also expected to be deployed to New Orleans later this month.” Read more, here.
Related: “Trump Administration Plans to Send Border Patrol to Charlotte and New Orleans,” the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Meanwhile in the Pacific region, just one prototype won’t cut it anymore, Marine Corps Forces Pacific commander Lt. Gen. Jim Glynn said during a keynote speech at the recent AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific conference in Hawaii.
Glynn: “What we need is: when you come with it, don’t come with one with the intention to take it home with you, and all the data that was collected while we conducted an exercise together. Come with five. Take one or two home and leave three with us, and we’ll continue to work with it. We’ll give you access to all the data that’s coming off of it, and we’ll do everything we can to break it, with the goal of making it better.”
He cited the Joint Fires Network as an example, saying that it has evolved over the past five years from “the amalgamation of some prototypes” to a formal program. Defense One’s Jennifer Hlad has more from Honolulu, here.
Additional reading:
- “Hegseth’s policies are pushing qualified women out of the military,” CNN reported Tuesday (paywall);
- “Defense industry heaps praise on Hegseth's weapons-buying reformation,” Axios reported Wednesday;
- “BAE Systems says strong demand underpins profit outlook,” Reuters reported Tuesday;
- And in emerging tech, “Scientists Created a Bulletproof Material 3 Times Stronger Than Kevlar—It’s Already Breaking Records,” Popular Mechanics reported Tuesday.
Middle East
U.S., Saudi officials rush to finalize defense pact before MBS visits White House. The pact may include the sale of weapons, including F-35 jets, promised as part of a giant package in May. It might also include a U.S. security guarantee of the sort Trump extended to Qatar last month, though “would fall short of a legally binding defense treaty, which would be nearly impossible to pass through the Senate,” Axios wrote. U.S. and Saudi officials have also discussed Riyadh’s desire to normalize relations with Israel, but only if Jerusalem ends its opposition to a deadline for creating a Palestinian state. More, here.
Next week’s visit will be the first to the U.S. by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since the 2018 murder and dismembering of journalist Adnan Khashoggi, a killing that MBS has called a “mistake” and which U.S. intelligence sources say he directed.
The negotiations include Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who in 2020 launched a private equity firm with a reported $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund controlled by MBS. Kushner has denied this represents a conflict of interest.
Trump welcomed al-Qaeda leader-turned-Syrian president to the White House on Monday. New York Times: “The Syrian leader has been discreetly cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and Al Qaeda since he took control of a slice of rebel-held territory in northwestern Syria in 2016, according to Syrian officials and Western diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol.” Read on, here.