| | | | | |  | | By Andrew Desiderio, Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey | Presented by Lockheed Martin | | 
Bob Menendez speaks during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, in Washington. | Alex Brandon, Pool/AP Photo | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint While we were away (and while you were probably sleeping), the Senate struck an agreement in the wee hours of Dec. 18 allowing dozens of President JOE BIDEN's ambassador picks to be unanimously confirmed by the chamber. And thanks to Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Texas) playing hardball with Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER, senators also will vote by Jan. 14 on the Texas Republican's legislation to sanction the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The vote carries obvious political risks for Democrats, many of whom have spoken out against Biden's decision last year to waive sanctions on the Russia-to-Germany natural gas channel. And the project, which is nearly complete and awaiting certification, adds an extra element of complexity and drama to Russia's possible invasion of Ukraine. Cruz's legislation requires sanctions on the pipeline to be imposed within 15 days of passage and allows Congress to vote to reimpose the penalties if the president waives them, according to the text obtained by POLITICO. The bill needs 60 votes to pass, and Cruz and other Republicans are confident they'll reach that mark if it's the only measure on offer. "We'll win that vote overwhelmingly," a senior Republican aide told NatSec Daily. But Democrats could avoid that embarrassing scenario for Biden's team with some in-the-weeds maneuvering. Senate Foreign Relations Chair BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) has a bill that would impose harsh penalties on Moscow, including biting sanctions on Nord Stream 2 — but only after an invasion of Ukraine by Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN. Senate Democratic leaders could, in theory, do what's called a "side-by-side" and vote on Menendez's bill alongside Cruz's. For those not familiar with Senate procedure, a "side-by-side" allows the majority party to introduce an alternative amendment on the issue at hand and, crucially, it gets a vote first. The minority party's effort — in this case, Cruz's bill — would get a vote second. Putting Menendez's bill on the floor alongside Cruz's would give Democrats political cover for what will be a difficult vote for them. Nearly all senators previously supported a similar sanctions regime prescribed in Cruz's bill; but Biden has since waived those punishments, and backing Cruz's legislation would put Democrats at odds with their party's leader. Menendez, for his part, was already pushing for a "side-by-side" vote on his legislation while Cruz and Schumer were negotiating. "We want people to have real options at the end of the day," Menendez said on Dec. 17. There are major complications to getting a "side-by-side" — first and foremost that the deal struck between Cruz and Schumer doesn't allow for one. But that's still not stopping Republicans in the Senate (and House) from worrying about such a scenario. Some Democrats conveyed that the timing of the vote –– and the form it will take –– hasn't been finalized. "I don't think that has been settled," said a senior Democratic aide. (A spokesperson for Schumer's office didn't respond to a request for comment.) There are other roadblocks to full passage. Monday's snow day in the capital, the Omicron variant, the late Sen. HARRY REID's funeral and other legislative priorities make getting a Nord Stream 2 vote challenging in the coming days. (Cruz's agreement to lift his holds on dozens of ambassador nominees was contingent on the Senate voting on Nord Stream 2 sanctions by Jan. 14.) And should Cruz's measure pass, there's no guarantee the bill would be put on the House floor for a vote. Cruz did say he'd lift even more holds on nominees if Speaker NANCY PELOSI allowed for a vote, though. House Republicans want a chance to weigh in. "Nord Stream 2 must be stopped immediately –– not only if Russia launches a further invasion of Ukraine," Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told NatSec Daily. "Waiting, as this administration and some of my colleagues have proposed, seriously risks handing Putin another geopolitical weapon to wield over Ukraine and our European allies and partners." | | | | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we've got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don't miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | SECDEF TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID: In a Sunday night statement, Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN confirmed that he tested positive for Covid-19. He reported having mild symptoms and said he plans to quarantine for five days, per CDC guidelines, though he will still attend meetings virtually. Austin noted that he hasn't been around the commander in chief in days: "My last meeting with President Biden occurred on Tuesday, December 21st, more than a week before I began to experience symptoms. I tested negative that very morning. I have not been in the Pentagon since Thursday, where I met briefly — and only — with a few members of my staff. We were properly masked and socially distanced throughout." Austin is the latest Pentagon official to test positive for coronavirus. Last month, National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. DAN HOKANSON tested positive. 1 IN 3 AMERICANS SAY VIOLENCE AGAINST USG JUSTIFIED: A new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 34 percent of Americans say that citizens can justify taking violent action against their government. That number is markedly higher than the 23 percent who agreed with the sentiment in 2015 and the 16 percent who agreed in 2011. Importantly, though, a majority of Americans — 62 percent — say that violent action against the U.S. government is "never justified." But the attitude shift hits harder just days before the one-year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. One such person who says violence is justified is ANTHEA WARD, a Republican mother of two from Michigan who fears Biden will force her family to get vaccinated. "I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but sometimes it feels like a movie. It's no longer a war against Democrats and Republicans. It's a war between good and evil," she told the Post's MERYL KORNFIELD and MARIANA ALFARO. P5 SAY 'NUCLEAR WAR CANNOT BE WON': For the first time ever, all five nuclear weapon-wielding states that are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty affirmed that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." In a joint statement Monday, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia said that nuclear weapons today "should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war" — adding that "the further spread of such weapons must be prevented." A State Department spokesperson told NatSec Daily that the statement aligns with the administration's nuclear stance: "We do not retain nuclear weapons to fight and win wars; we have them to preserve peace and stability in a world where others may try to use force, or at least the threat of it, especially threats of nuclear attack, to undermine the values, security, and sovereignty of the United States, and its allies and partners." All this is worth noting ahead of the administration's release of the nuclear posture review, which could come this month. Expectations in early 2021 were that Biden's team was aiming to restrain America's nuclear stance by affirming a "no-first use" policy. But a growing arms race with China and Russia might stall those plans. | | A message from Lockheed Martin: Who builds the unrivaled F-35? The unrivaled, high-tech American workforce.
The F-35 provides unrivaled air combat superiority to the warfighter and supports high-paying, high-quality jobs for American workers in the innovation economy. More than half of U.S. based F-35 suppliers are small businesses. Learn More | | | IT'S MONDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at award@politico.com and qforgey@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @QuintForgey. While you're at it, follow the rest of POLITICO's national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson and @AndrewDesiderio. | | | SUDAN'S PM STEPS DOWN: Only six weeks after brokering an agreement with his country's armed forces following a military takeover, Sudanese Prime Minister ABDALLA HAMDOK is resigning — having failed to name a Cabinet and restore stability to the northeast African nation, per Reuters. Hamdok, an economist and former United Nations official, had been reinstated as prime minister in November after being ousted in October amid the coup. He was first appointed to head a government in 2019, after the Sudanese army overthrew longtime leader OMAR AL-BASHIR. In a tweet after Hamdok's resignation announcement, the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs urged Sudanese leaders to "set aside differences, find consensus, and ensure continued civilian rule." The department also called for an end to violence against protesters and said the United States "continues to stand with the people of Sudan as they push for democracy." Foreign Policy's ROBBIE GRAMER noticed one word was missing from State's response: "coup." HONG KONG NEWS SITE SHUTTERED: Hong Kong news outlet Citizen News will stop publishing Tuesday, its founders said, becoming the latest pro-democracy media organization to halt operations in the semi-autonomous Chinese city, per The Associated Press' HUIZHONG WU and ZEN SOO. Citizen News' announcement follows the closures in recent months of Stand News, an online news outlet, and Apple Daily, Hong Kong's last pro-democracy print newspaper. Press freedoms in the city have been curtailed significantly under the Beijing-backed national security law, enacted in 2020. In addition to the arrests of journalists and activists, "new laws have changed how Hong Kongers vote for their representatives," Wu and Soo write — "including a requirement that any who seek office must be 'patriots,' effectively bringing the body under Beijing's control." A group of pro-Beijing lawmakers were sworn in to Hong Kong's legislature Monday after being elected without opposition. | | | U.S. DETAINS RUSSIAN WITH POSSIBLE 2016 HACKING INFO: VLADISLAV KLYUSHIN, a Russian tech leader in U.S. custody on insider trading charges, could provide American officials with greater insight into the Kremlin's 2016 election interference operations. "Russian intelligence has concluded that Klyushin, 41, has access to documents relating to a Russian campaign to hack Democratic Party servers during the 2016 U.S. election," Bloomberg News' HENRY MEYER, IRINA REZNIK and HUGO MILLER report. "Such a cache would provide the U.S. for the first time with detailed documentary evidence of the alleged Russian efforts to influence the election." What's more, three sources tell Bloomberg "they believe that Klyushin has access to secret records of other high-level GRU operations abroad." The Russian was extradited to the U.S. by Switzerland in December, after American officials accused him of making millions of dollars from hacked privileged corporate earnings intel. But Klyushin, really, is "the highest-level Kremlin insider handed to U.S. law enforcement in recent memory." | | | |   | | | CYBER DIRECTOR OFFICE FILLING OUT: Our own SAM SABIN notes that National Cyber Director CHRIS INGLIS is hard at work populating his team, especially since the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law last week allows him to accept detailees from other agencies. "Inglis has said he hopes to have roughly 75 full-time employees on board by the fall," Sabin reported — all at work with a $20 million budget.
| | | HOW RAYTHEON WON 2021: The pandemic and Biden's relatively tough-on-Saudi policy made it seem that Raytheon Technologies would struggle during 2021 and beyond. Instead, the major defense contractor thrived, and it's poised for continued gains in 2022 and beyond. "Raytheon's stock price has climbed 25 percent; the company has dodged congressional pressure to block billions in arms sales to Riyadh; and it has made seminal advances into new weapons technology that could become lucrative as Washington enters an arms race with China," The Boston Globe's PRANSHU VERMA reported. How did the Massachusetts-headquartered company do it? "Raytheon spent $12.7 million on federal lobbying in 2021, according to OpenSecrets … more than any other defense contractor. At the same time, the Government Accountability Office … found in September that Raytheon employed more former Defense Department officials — roughly 315 — than any other major defense contractor," Verma wrote.
| | | THE NEXT INSURRECTION: In an interview with our own KYLE CHENEY, Capitol Police Chief THOMAS MANGER — who took over the department in August after his predecessor's ouster following Jan. 6 — talked about the potential for another violent insurrection at the seat of American government. "The last thing that I want to do is say, 'this could never happen again' and have it sound like a challenge to those people," Manger said ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riots. "I'm not trying to be overconfident. We are much better prepared." Among those preparations, every Capitol Police officer now carries a department-issued phone that provides real-time emergency alerts, the department's riot control unit now has more diverse "non-lethal" gear to help with crowd control, and its intelligence analysts now regularly share threat assessments with rank-and-file officers. But Manger still wants more staffing to help investigate potential threats against members of Congress; he suspects the department will have investigated more than 9,000 such threats since Jan. 6 — a tenfold increase since 2016. | | A message from Lockheed Martin: Who builds the unrivaled F-35? The unrivaled, high-tech American workforce.
The F-35 program invests in American workers, creates the jobs of the future, and advances the digital enterprise. Learn More | | | | | | 'BLOOD ON MY HANDS': Five for Fighting's JOHN ONDRASIK has released a new "docu-music video" for his song "Blood on My Hands," ripping the administration for its handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. It features news clips and NSFW images of the chaotic scenes as U.S. troops left the war, including now infamous pictures of Afghans falling off a plane to their death. But it's the lyrics that are particularly pointed. "Winkin' Blinken, can't you look me in the eyes," he says of the secretary of State. "Willy Milley, when did you decide 'this sacred motto' now means never mind," he levels against the Joint Chiefs chair. But Ondrasik is harshest on the Defense secretary. "General Austin, is there no honor in shame?" he asks. NatSec Daily asked Ondrasik — who has friends working to help Afghans flee — why he felt the need to make such a statement. He told us: "I was really hoping that it would be a note to our vets and the folks in the [evacuation groups] that we've not forgotten Afghanistan, that we will continue to support your efforts. And we will continue to call for accountability where there has been none."
| | | — JOE CROCE is now senior budget adviser in the Office of the National Cyber Director at the White House. He most recently was deputy chief strategy officer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. — COURTNEY ALBON begins work next week as the space and emerging technology reporter at C4ISRNET. She most recently was at Inside Defense. — ALYSSA HARVIE is joining the International Republican Institute as a senior program associate. She was previously a program assistant in the Atlantic Council's Africa Center.
| | | — CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS, Foreign Affairs: "How Extremism Went Mainstream" — ZACK BEAUCHAMP, Vox: "How Does This End?" — JOEL ROSE and LIZ BAKER, NPR: "6 in 10 Americans say U.S. democracy is in crisis as 'The Big Lie' takes root" | | | — The Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11 a.m.: "Weimar Forever: How the World of Today Resembles the Weimar Republic — with ROBERT D. KAPLAN" — Washington Post Live, 1 p.m.: "Jan. 6: One Year Later — with AQUILINO GONELL and DONELL HARVIN" | | | | DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot us an email at award@politico.com or qforgey@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. And thanks to our editor, Ben Pauker, about whom we're writing our own protest song. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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