| | | | | |  | | By Bryan Bender | Presented by Northrop Grumman | With Jacqueline Feldscher and Connor O'Brien Editor's Note: Morning Defense is a free version of POLITICO Pro Defense's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. | | | — Speedy troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq are in motion despite a bipartisan outcry. — Final NDAA negotiations start today and the standoff over Confederate names looms large. — How President Joe Biden can pull the rug out from Donald Trump's foreign arms deals. HAPPY WEDNESDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we're always on the lookout for tips, pitches and feedback. Email us at bbender@politico.com, and follow on Twitter @bryandbender, @morningdefense and @politicopro. | | | | A message from Northrop Grumman: We provide powerful, scalable networks and integrated capabilities that ensure warfighters and the systems they depend on can act as one joint force across every domain, service and mission. Learn more | | | | | | FINAL NDAA TALKS BEGIN: Formal talks to reconcile competing versions of the National Defense Authorization will begin today, our colleague Connor O'Brien reports. Members of a conference committee tasked with hammering out a compromise defense bill will meet this morning and air their priorities with the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Later today, the House will vote to formally go to conference with the Senate on the NDAA. There is no shortage of disagreements. Leaders will need to reconcile similar provisions that force the Pentagon to rename installations that honor Confederate leaders but that President Donald Trump has threatened to veto. Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is backing Trump and wants the provision out of a final bill. Both bills passed with veto-proof margins but it's unclear if Congress could muster a two-thirds majority to override. President-elect Joe Biden has expressed support for renaming the bases and lawes could leave the task until next year. "The incoming Biden administration is going to deal with the base naming issues anyway," Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. "So really what we're down to is whether it has to be in this bill just this way and whether that would provoke a veto." Negotiators will also have to decide whether to include provisions that restrict Trump from rapidly withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. WHAT THE EXPERTS THINK: George Mason University's National Security Institute teamed up with consulting firm Duco to ask 100 national security experts to analyze the House and Senate versions of the defense policy bill and weigh in on a host of other topics. Among the takeaways from the survey: "There is near consensus that the United States' military advantage is shrinking relative to key adversaries and one of the means of addressing this trend is by making it easier to procure domestic commercial technologies." Read up: "The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Can It Compete In The Next Century?" Related: Appropriators aim for agreement on government funding totals by week's end, via POLITICO's Caitlin Emma. A NEW ERA IN NUKES? Several nuclear skeptics in Congress will speak today at the Ploughshares Fund's 2020 nuclear policy forum exploring what a Biden presidency could mean for nuclear weapons. Speakers include House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. | | | MILLER'S FIRST TRIP: Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller hits the road for a visit to Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., then hops aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford off the coast of Virginia, before making other stops in the Virginia Beach area. | | | DRAWDOWN SHOWDOWN: Top Trump administration officials on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump's decision to reduce the U.S. troop presence to 2,500 in both Afghanistan and Iraq by Jan. 15 in the face of a bipartisan backlash. "I celebrate this day as we continue the president's consistent progress in completing the mission we began nearly two decades ago," Miller told reporters at the Pentagon. National security adviser Robert O'Brien also said at the White House "that this policy is not new. This has been the president's policy since he took office." He added: "By May, it is President Trump's hope that they will all come home safely and in their entirety." An administration official described the troop levels as "a responsible middle ground" after O'Brien and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley argued against the president's initial desire to bring all troops home by January. "The president understands that a complete withdrawal on this shortened timeline isn't practical," the official explained. "If DoD hadn't obstructed him for four years we'd be in a different place, but this is where we are." The issue appears far from settled given resistance in both parties and new warnings on Tuesday from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "The Taliban is a serious force and this could easily lead to a Taliban takeover," Sen. Angus King , a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, told Morning D. "ISIS and al Qaeda aren't out of business in Afghanistan and there has to be a number of troops that provide airlift, [medical evacuation], security and all of the related pieces that enable the counterterrorism mission." Bipartisan push for a plan: Reps. Seth Moulton and Adam Kinzinger are pushing Miller and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for details on how reductions in troops and diplomats in Afghanistan and Iraq will affect the security situation. They cautioned in a letter shared with POLITICO against withdrawals "without a clear plan to counter the multitude of security challenges we face in the region." "We believe that there is strong bipartisan support from Congress and the Administration for both Iraq and Afghanistan," the pair wrote. "Any premature drawdown without thoughtful consideration of the real-world conditions on the ground would be ill-advised." Meanwhile, Rep. Stephen Lynch, House Oversight National Security subcommittee chair, also demanded documents from the State Department and Pentagon on what the panel called the "politically-motivated decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan." "The administration should come to Congress and say 'this is what our plan is, and this is what we think the consequences should be, and this is why we're doing this,'" King added. But the collection of transpartisan think tanks and antiwar groups that have been pressing for a full withdrawal for years were optimistic it may finally happen, though some of them also cautioned that it should be orderly. "Occupying distant lands in service of dominating local politics is almost always a misuse of U.S. resources and lives," the think Defense Priorities said in a new monograph. Related: It's time to withdraw from Afghanistan, an op-ed by Will Ruger, nominee to be the next ambassador to Afghanistan. And: Trump demands Afghan withdrawal and Washington panics. But it's time to leave now, via Responsible Statecraft. | | | THE NOMINEE IS...: The White House on Tuesday announced Trump's intent to nominate Scott O'Grady, the former Air Force F-16 pilot who was shot down over Bosnia in 1995 and survived in hostile territory for nearly a week, to be assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. The White House cited as his qualifications a 12-year military career and master's degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, along with an honorary degree in public service from the University of Portland, for a post the Pentagon describes as the "principal advisor" to the secretary of defense for "international security strategy and policy on issues of DoD interest that relate to the nations and international organizations of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, their governments and defense establishments; and for oversight of security cooperation programs and foreign military sales programs in these regions." | | | |   | | | | | | 'DRAMATIC EXPANSION': The Missile Defense Agency on Tuesday hailed a test off the coast of Hawaii in which the destroyer USS John Finn "intercepted and destroyed a threat-representative intercontinental ballistic missile target with a Standard Missile-3." "This was an incredible accomplishment and critical milestone," MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said in a statement. But Laura Grego, a senior scientist in the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, contended in a string of tweets that demonstrating how a regional missile defense system can also destroy a long-range ICBM is risky. "The dramatic expansion of strategic defense cannot escape the notice of Russia and China," she wrote. "It is likely to have a crushing effect on prospects for new nuclear arms control agreements and will also provide motivation (or justification) for Russia and China to diversify and grow their nuclear weapons arsenals." | | | 'ONLY MARGINAL': The hawkish Heritage Foundation on Tuesday painted a grim picture of the military's ability to carry out the National Defense Strategy. "The common theme across the services and the U.S. nuclear enterprise is one of force degradation," it said in its latest report card on military strength, blaming "many years of underinvestment, poor execution of modernization programs, and the negative effects of budget sequestration." Tom Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general and director of Heritage's Center for National Defense, told Morning D that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks "we focused almost completely on these counterinsurgencies and revamped our modernization programs for them as well. … We developed a lot of low-intensity capabilities that were needed and essential in Iraq and Afghanistan but now are much less useful against a China or a Russia." | | | | JOIN TODAY - CONFRONTING INEQUALITY TOWN HALL "BRIDGING THE ECONOMIC DIVIDE": Although pandemic job losses have been widespread, the economic blow has been especially devastating to Black workers and Black-owned businesses. POLITICO's third "Confronting Inequality in America" town hall will convene economists, scholars, private sector and city leaders to explore policies and strategies to deal with the disproportionate economic impact of the pandemic and the broader factors contributing to the persistent racial wealth and income gaps. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | 'MORE SOPHISTICATED'? While Trump championed foreign military sales as a way to boost industry's bottom line, Biden is more likely to take into account human rights concerns and how arms transfers fit into America's broader diplomatic goals, experts told our colleague Jacqueline Feldscher. "The most controversial arms transfers will probably be much more limited," said Dan Mahanty, director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict's U.S. Program. "I think there will be a much greater and more sophisticated understanding of arms sales. … You want the arms sales regime to reflect foreign policy priorities rather than seeing this as a matter of commercial interest." That could delay the proposed $23 billion sale to the United Arab Emirates of Reaper drones, F-35 fighter jets and missiles. The president has "a lot of policy latitude to reverse course," Mahanty said, adding that canceling the deal could come with "discomfort or diplomatic issues." | | | | A message from Northrop Grumman: In modern missions, communication and coordination is always a challenge – and getting it right can mean the difference between mission success and failure. At Northrop Grumman, we've been taking on this challenge for decades and the result is a scalable, adaptable suite of joint all-domain command and control networks and capabilities. Our products ensure the entire joint force, from troops to weapons systems can act as one across every mission and military service. Because tomorrow's mission success depends on acting as one. Learn more about how we're enabling the joint force. | | | | | | From POLITICO's Transition Playbook: Biden held a virtual meeting with national security advisers on Tuesday, including retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin; Nicholas Burns of Harvard; Antony Blinken, a longtime Biden foreign policy aide; David Cohen, a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Avril Haines, another former CIA deputy director; Kathleen Hicks, who's heading Biden's agency review team for the Pentagon; Stanley McChrystal, the retired Army general who Obama fired in 2010 and who endorsed Biden last month; retired Adm. William McRaven; Carmen Middleton, who's on Biden's agency review team for the intelligence community; Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Vince Stewart, one of the team leads for Biden's intelligence community review team; Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who's heading up Biden's State Department agency review team; and Robert Work, a former deputy Defense secretary. | | | — The Air Force chief's top modernization priorities aren't what you think they are: Defense News — Four steps Biden must take to reset the nuclear agenda: Defense News — Top Democrats ask Pentagon watchdog to investigate NSA general counsel appointment: POLITICO Pro — How to build on recent progress in the Middle East: Newsweek — A history of targeted killings by the Mossad: via Long War Journal — Alleged creep claims he used steaks and ponies to spy on North Korea: The Daily Beast | | | | 2020 HALIFAX INTERNATIONAL SECURITY FORUM: Tune in as international security leaders from democracies around the world discuss key challenges at the 12th annual Halifax International Security Forum . As an official media partner, POLITICO will livestream conversation beginning at 11:30 a.m. on November 20. | | | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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