The D Brief: US seizes tanker; House passes $901B NDAA; US pushes business-centered ‘peace plan’; Chipping away at US AI edge; And a bit more.

Dozens of U.S. troops seized a tanker ship allegedly transiting oil to Iran from Venezuela, President Trump announced Wednesday. “We've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening,” the president said. Asked what will happen next, he replied, “We keep it, I guess.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi later shared a video of the seizure on social media. “For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” Bondi said. 

Venezuelan officials called it “an act of international piracy” and “blatant theft,” while Iranian officials called it a “grave violation of international laws and norms,” Reuters reports. The vessel—reportedly known as “Skipper”—was falsely flying a flag from Guyana, that country’s maritime officials said afterward. 

Analyst reax: “Seizing this tanker further inflames…supply concerns but also doesn't immediately change the situation fundamentally because these barrels were already going to be floating around for a while,” Rory Johnston of Commodity Context said, according to Reuters. 

Context: U.S. forces in the region have amassed their largest troop and naval buildup since the Cuban missile crisis as the Trump administration attacks alleged drug-trafficking boats off the Latin American coast—and White House officials apply pressure on Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro to step down. The boat strikes have so far killed more than 80 people in a naval campaign that eschews due process, causing critics to warn at least some of the attacks could constitute war crimes.  

Additional reading: 

• Just Security published a new “Expert Backgrounder: Law on Targeting Shipwrecked Traffickers,” via former Naval Academy law professor Mark Nevitt; 
• And the New York Times sifted through history to unpack “‘Voodoo Rituals’ and Banana Wars: U.S. Military Action in Latin America,” in an explainer published Tuesday. 

Welcome to this Thursday 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 1972, Apollo 17 became the sixth and last time humans landed on the Moon.

On the Hill

Update: House passes $901 billion NDAA, 312-112. “Fiscal hawks were also not happy that the bill had a top line of about $8 billion more than the $892.6 billion that President Trump requested in May,” but the bill still advanced through the lower chamber on Wednesday, The Hill reports. The Senate is expected to pass the bill sometime next week. 

Second opinion: While the bill contains provisions for “military construction projects that will improve quality-of-life infrastructure—barracks, housing, and Child Development Centers, including one at Travis Air Force Base,” the NDAA “does not do enough to reinforce Congress’s role as a co-equal branch responsible for matters of war and peace,” Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., and member of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, said in a statement. However, “this Administration is dangerously close to dragging us into a disastrous and unauthorized war” in Venezuela, “eroding our military’s readiness while advancing their authoritarian ambitions,” he warned. 

“Meanwhile, Congress hasn’t held a public hearing since July and most Americans haven’t seen the videotape of the double-tap strike in Venezuela. And when we have demanded oversight, the Republican majority and Trump’s Pentagon have delayed and obstructed it,” he continued. “Congress can fix this. Sadly, this bill does not rise to the moment.” 

And: Trump officials allegedly took more than $2 billion earmarked for the U.S. military and diverted it to immigration-related actions. These include flights to Guantanamo Bay and Djibouti, as well as National Guard deployments to Illinois and Oregon that judges later deemed illegal, 13 Democratic lawmakers said in a new report (PDF).  

Those costs could rise, the lawmakers warn. “The exact cost of these operations remains unclear, including the actual cost of mobilizing and deploying National Guard troops to American cities, the total cost of deporting and transporting noncitizen detainees on military aircrafts, the cost of detaining individuals on U.S. military installations, and more,” according to the report, which notes “the vast majority of these funds have not been reimbursed by the Department of Homeland Security.” 

“The diversion of DoD resources is adversely impacting military readiness and servicemembers’ quality of life, while simultaneously diminishing the National Guard’s capacity to respond to disasters and other emergencies in their home states,” including funds diverted from “training programs, barracks repairs, and even repairs for elementary schools.” Read more, here. 

Troops in US cities

NORTHCOM’s Gen. Gregory Guillot is testifying on Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in multiple U.S. cities. Guillot is joined by Defense Department counsel Charles Young and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs Mark Ditlevson. 

All three witnesses appear to have submitted the same joint statement (PDF) for their pre-hearing witness testimony. “Unfortunately, the President and his Administration inherited a troubling state of lawlessness at home and are fully committed to ensuring the American people are safe and secure,” the three men say in that document. 

“Confronted with an intolerable risk of harm to Federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of Federal law” when the administration launched its immigration crackdowns across the country—starting in Los Angeles—last spring, “the President invoked power delegated to his office by Congress to utilize the National Guard to safeguard Federal personnel, property, and functions on June 7, 2025,” Guillot, Young and Ditlevson write. “Since that time, the National Guard has been mobilized in California, Illinois, and Oregon under title 10 authorities.” 

They also note troops have been sent to Washington, D.C., which a judge deemed illegal but an appeals court stayed temporarily last week, as well as Memphis, Portland, and Chicago. Last month, a state judge in Tennessee temporarily blocked that deployment, which triggered an appeal by state officials. Guard deployments to Portland and Chicago were also deemed unconstitutional by district judges after state officials objected, describing the troops’ presence as unnecessary. Administration officials are also eyeing Guard deployments to New Orleans, though troops have not yet been sent there. 

And this week, a district judge ordered an end to the Guard deployment inside LA, excoriating the White House for what he described as an attempt to wield “unchecked power to control state troops [that] would wholly upend the federalism that is at the heart of our system of government.” 

“The founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances. Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one,” the judge wrote in his Wednesday ruling, which he put on hold until Monday as the White House is expected to appeal. 

Stay tuned for later reporting out of today’s Guard hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

Additional reading: 

• “Trump administration adds militarized zone in California along southern US border,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday, pointing to a zone that “extends nearly from the Arizona state line to the Otay Mountain Wilderness”; 
• “Split DC Circuit sides with Pentagon on transgender military ban,” Courthouse News reported Wednesday; 
• “Pentagon did not conduct routine investigation on whether Hegseth damaged national security by sharing strike plans on Signal,” CNN reported Thursday; 
• And “I asked the Pentagon about Pete Hegseth's mentor [Eric Geressy]. Then the threats started,” Dan Friedman of Mother Jones reported Thursday. 

Europe

The U.S. is pitching plans to boost investment in Russia. Europe isn’t having it. Late last month, the Wall Street Journal revealed how a Putin envoy pitched a Ukraine peace plan to Trump envoy Stephen Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner: end the war with Russian gains, then invest in projects in Russia. 

Now the Trump administration has handed European counterparts “a series of documents, each a single page,” proposing to end the war and touch off a broad re-opening of Russia to foreign business. “The clash at the negotiating table is now not just about borders but increasingly about business—and in a twist, pits not just Russia against Ukraine but the U.S. against its traditional allies in Europe.” the WSJ reported on Wednesday. 

European officials say this could give Russia the reprieve it needs “to rev up its economy and make itself militarily stronger. A new assessment by a Western intelligence agency, reviewed by the Journal, said that Russia has technically been in recession for six months and that the challenges of running its war economy while trying to control prices are presenting a systemic risk to its banking sector.” Read on, here.

Video explainer: “Why Russia Won’t Agree to Peace Without Ukraine’s ‘Fortress Belt’,” from the WSJ.

Danish intelligence report: U.S. is our closest ally…and possibly a threat. “If you’ve been following what has happened over the past few months, you can see why the Danes feel they have to recognize that something is changing,” said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the New York Times. Read on, here. 

NATO official pushes back on NSS. Countries looking to join NATO are still welcome to apply, a top alliance official said Wednesday in tacit repudiation of the Trump administration’s recent declaration that the group must not be a “perpetually expanding alliance.”’ Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports, here.

Trump 2.0

U.S. greenlights sale of advanced chips to China, neutralizing a key advantage in AI development. NYT on Tuesday: “President Trump’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell its chips to China has raised questions about whether he is prioritizing short-term economic gain over long-term American security interests.”

Additional reading:

• “Trump's Nvidia move could help China win the AI war, analysts say,” reports Quartz, adding: “Policy experts say Trump’s Nvidia plan weakens America’s only clear advantage in AI compute.”
• ICYMI: A year ago, Peter Singer and analysts from BluePath Labs explained why China remains dependent on Western chips for AI—and how that gives the United States leverage.

Back in the States: Elon Musk says DOGE was only “somewhat successful.” Would he do it again? “I don’t think so,” the world’s richest man told an interviewer. “Instead of doing DOGE, I would have, basically, built ... worked on my companies.” AP reports, here.

Related: OPM says 92% of fed departures this year were voluntary. Those who left disagree. That’s the headline from GovExec, reporting on reactions to a social-media thread from Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor. One former worker: “I ‘voluntarily’ chose to leave the most amazing job I could ever have as a scientist because of the toxic environment the administration made for us federal employees.” Read on, here.

ICYMI: DOD has said 60K civilians have left, but refused to give more details. Review that, here.

And introducing: The Defense Business Brief

The defense industry is booming, and Defense One has a new weekly newsletter to tell you what’s happening and what’s next. Learn something new each Wednesday with the Defense Business Brief. 

Produced by Business Editor Lauren C. Williams, DBB explores the makers, buyers, and sellers of defense technology, the money behind it and why it all matters. Read the first edition, here.