Today’s D Brief: New Natsec Strategy; Boat-strike video shows survivors; Russia’s worrisome template; Ukraine’s tech support to the US; And a bit more.
National Security Strategy, released
The second Trump administration posted its National Security Strategy to the White House site late Thursday. Read the 33-page document, which is required by Congress but does not necessarily bind future decisions, here.
As expected, it puts unprecedented focus on the Americas and immigrants. A section titled “What Do We Want In and From the World?” [formatting in the original] begins: “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States.” Later, it adds that “border security is the primary element of national security”—an assertion it calls part of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.
Europe comes in for much criticism. The report chides European leaders for a lack of “self-confidence,” particularly in their dealings with Russia, which—lest we forget—has for three years been waging a war of conquest on European soil. “European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons. As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states,” the report says.
Efforts to contain Russia—explicit in the strategies of the Biden, first Trump, and earlier administrations—are only obliquely mentioned in the new one: e.g., “reestablishing conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia.”
European officials are chided for “unrealistic expectations for the war” in Ukraine—an interesting charge by Trump, who repeatedly promised to end the war within 24 hours of taking office.
The greater threat to Europe, the report avers, is “civilizational erasure” brought on by “activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”
Washington Post: “The strategy was likely to unsettle European leaders who were already struggling to find a way to match Trump administration priorities with their own. Now the White House is officially embracing the far-right nationalist parties that have vowed to take down centrist leaders, often alongside plans to embrace a more pro-Russian line.”
As for China: it must be deterred from “predatory” industrial and trade practices by protectionist U.S. policies and military might, the report says. U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific must be induced to share more of the burden. Deterring “a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.”
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Bradley Peniston with Meghann Myers. 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 1945, five Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared, giving rise to theories about supernatural phenomena in the Bermuda Triangle.
Ukraine
Russia’s seizure of the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk has created a worrisome template, writes George Barros, who leads the Russia team at the Institute for the Study of War, in a multimedia explainer for the Washington Post. After Ukrainian drones chewed up five Russian tank divisions in the assault on Avdiivka, Russian forces switched to “small unit infantry infiltration missions” that make “advances at literal footpace and at high losses.” But, Barros writes, the fall of Pokrovsk validates “a newly developed operational template for seizing Ukrainian towns: First, systematically degrade Ukraine’s logistics lines with drones, then send in infantry assault and infiltration groups to overwhelm the beleaguered defenders.” Read on, with maps and timelines and graphs, here.
Ukraine is helping the US catch up with modern warfare—for now, reports Defense One’s Patrick Tucker off a recent trip to Europe and conversations with U.S. and foreign officials. “Even as the Pentagon designs new tactics and tech based on lessons from Ukraine—like the new attack drones it is testing—some say the United States is still undervaluing its relationship with Kyiv,” he writes. “Observers say broader cooperation could help both sides, if the Trump administration allows it.” Read on, here.
Boat-strike hearing
Video shows strike on survivors clinging to overturned boat. Lawmakers watched a video at Thursday’s closed-door Hill briefing by the commander in charge of the Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea. New York Times: The video showed the first strike, “a fiery explosion that destroyed most of a boat in the Caribbean Sea. A black plume filled the air.
“When the smoke finally cleared about 30 minutes later, the front portion of the boat was overturned but still afloat, according to lawmakers and congressional staff who viewed the video or were briefed on it. Two survivors, shirtless, clung to the hull, tried unsuccessfully to flip it back over, then climbed on it and slipped off into the water, over and over.
“Then Adm. Frank M. Bradley, commander of the operation, gave an order for a follow-up strike. Three flashes of light filled the video screen. And the men were gone.” Read on, here.
The hearing didn’t change the minds of legal experts speaking later in the day at the Center For A New American Security, who “said the administration has failed to make a case using domestic, military, and international law that would support the continued targeting of boats in the Caribbean Sea,” Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reported.
Read a timeline of Trump administration’s shifting statements on the boat strikes, by the Post, here.
Signalgate
SecDef Hegseth’s claim of “TOTAL exoneration” ignores the DOD inspector general’s finding that he violated department policy “for transmitting information that could have put service members in danger—in this case, the Navy pilots who were flying the March 15 mission to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen—by taking sensitive details about time, place and manner and sharing them on an unapproved messaging platform via his personal cell phone,” Defense One’s Meghann Myers reported Thursday after the report was posted online.
Washington Post: “Hegseth’s falsehoods about the report’s conclusions underscore the extent to which he and his top aides have worked to downplay the seriousness of his actions. Former top military officials and other national security experts have argued since the scandal surfaced earlier this year that such handling of highly sensitive information almost certainly put American lives at risk — a point the inspector general’s team emphasized in its findings,” the Post’s Dan Lamothe wrote.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.: Hegseth’s “refusal to take responsibility at any stage of this investigation shows a complete lack of accountability that should be unacceptable for anyone in uniform, let alone the Secretary of Defense,” the Marine Corps veteran said in a statement.
Reminder: Hegseth was criticizing his department’s IG office as early as September. During his Quantico speech to flag officers, he asserted that the independent office had somehow been “weaponized.” “I call it the ‘No-more-walking-on-eggshells policy,’ ” Hegseth told the auditorium full of senior leaders. “We are liberating commanders and NCOs. We are liberating you. We are overhauling an inspector general process, the IG that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver's seat.”
His subsequent guidance to the service secretaries included tightening the threshold for opening IG investigations, requiring frequent written updates, and creating a system for tracking “serial complainants”—a problematic step because IG hotlines are anonymous. Faith Williams, who directs the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight, to Myers: “I'm not saying IGs are above reproach, but that memo just really dripped with hostility toward whistleblowers, and it does beg the question, ‘why?’” Read that, here.
Etc.
The Trump administration can continue to keep National Guard troops in DC streets while another appeals court ponders its decision, a panel of judges said Thursday. Washington Post: “Last month, that U.S. District Court judge handed D.C. a preliminary legal win in its lawsuit over the deployment, writing in an opinion that it was illegal and ordering the administration to pause it while litigation proceeds.” But now the U.S. Court of Appeals panel has ruled that the troops may stay past a Dec. 11 deadline while the appeals court considers its decision. Read on, here.
Additional reading:
“Navy deployment marred by friendly fire, lost jets, collision at sea,” reports the Washington Post’s Tara Copp. “The U.S. Navy on Thursday released its findings from four investigations scrutinizing the significant challenges encountered by one of its aircraft carrier groups over nine months in the Middle East, where several major accidents occurred as the ships battled Yemeni militants.”