“Caine hand-delivered memos to [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth and the Pentagon’s policy chief Elbridge Colby outlining his disagreements over the new National Defense Strategy that Colby’s office had drafted,” a source told CNN. 

Caine’s reported reservations over the NDS are surfacing amid parallel reports about his advice regarding possible U.S. military strikes against Iran. Axios, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times recently relayed reports of Caine’s concerns that a new war could be more prolonged and damaging than some Iran hawks in Washington are willing to publicly admit. 

Despite the president’s claims that last June’s strikes inside Iran “obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear program, the president’s envoy Steve Witkoff claimed on Saturday that Iran is now “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bombmaking material.” On Wednesday, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked Vice President JD Vance, “Can you explain to the American people why the United States would need to strike Iran to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon if the U.S ‘obliterated. their enrichment program last summer?” 

Vance declined to answer, and replied instead, “I'm not going to make any news on Iran today.” Meanwhile, the administration’s third round of informal U.S.-Iran talks continue today in Geneva, led by Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Axios has the latest, which at a reported midpoint is inconclusive so far, here. 

A 65-year-old former Air Force officer was arrested this month after allegedly spending more than two years training military pilots in China, according to the Department of Justice, which announced the charges Wednesday. His name is Gerald Brown, and he left active duty in 1996 as a major after 24 years of service. He was arrested Wednesday in Jeffersonville, Indiana, WDRB reports from Louisville, Ky.

While in the Air Force, he served as a fighter pilot instructor and simulator instructor on a variety of military aircraft, including the F-4 Phantom II, F-15, F-16, and A-10. He later worked for two U.S. defense contractors training U.S. military pilots on the A-10 and the F-35. But, allegedly, in August 2023, he began correspondence for the job that would ultimately lead to his arrest. He flew to China four months later, where he began training pilots in the Chinese military. He returned to the U.S. earlier this month, and was arrested shortly afterward.

If his case sounds familiar, “​​​​The charges against Brown follow similar charges filed against former U.S. Marine Corps pilot Daniel Edmund Duggan in the District of Columbia in September 2017,” the Justice Department said Wednesday. Duggan was later charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act and conspiring to engage in money laundering. 

Related: 

• “How China is masking drone flights in potential Taiwan rehearsal,” via Reuters, reporting Thursday from Hong Kong; 
• And “Taiwan should create drone swarm ‘asymmetric hellscape’ to blunt Chinese invasion: Report,” Breaking Defense reported Thursday off new analysis from the Center for a New American Security. 

The Air Force’s top mobility leader is pushing for decades-old air transports and tankers to be replaced sooner than the late 2030s, as currently planned, Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reported Wednesday from the Air and Space Forces Association's Warfare Symposium in Colorado. 

Background: A solicitation memo late last year detailed the service’s plans to keep the C-5 and C-17 flying until 2045 and 2075, respectively. A next-generation airlift is not expected to be fielded until at least 2038. “We must pay attention to that strategic capability,” Lt. Gen. Reba Sonkiss, the interim head of Air Mobility Command, told reporters on Tuesday. We're, again, woefully behind on the modernization front for our strategic air forces.”  

A particular platform of concern: KC-135s. “I cannot have a 90-year-old tanker refueling a B-21, and if you do the math, as we reach the end of programs for things, that’s the reality,” she said. Meanwhile, she praised the C-5 as a “critical tool” but recognized its longstanding problems. The aircraft, first fielded in the 1970s, achieved only a 48 percent mission-capable rate as of 2024. “It is an old airplane,” Sonkiss said. “We have to get after what next looks like, and we can't wait until we're shoveling it into the boneyard before we get to that discussion.” Read more, here. 

Technical update: U.S. defense startup Anduril flew its YFQ-44A collaborative combat aircraft with Shield AI's Hivemind autonomy software as well as its own, the company said Wednesday, marking another step in the Air Force's ongoing drone wingman competition. “The aircraft took off and autonomously approached a designated point where Shield AI’s mission autonomy software stack, Hivemind, was activated to complete a series of test cards,” Anduril said in a news release. “Following completion of Hivemind tests, Anduril was able to seamlessly switch to Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy stack to complete the same test points, before returning safely to land.”

Anduril announced the development on the last day of the ASFAW symposium. The startup’s YFQ-44A also began integrated weapons testing earlier this month, Novelly reported Monday.

Today on Capitol Hill, Trump’s top Pentagon official responsible for planning National Guard deployments to multiple U.S. cities is testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. That’s Mark Ditlevson, who has been nominated as the Pentagon’s next Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs. 

But the full scope of his responsibility in that post is much larger. It also includes all defense and security policy for Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Ranking member Jack Reed of Rhode Island reminded Ditlevson in his opening remarks that “Chairman [Roger] Wicker and I have repeatedly directed the Department to submit basic information—required by law—to the Committee regarding the ongoing boat strike campaign in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.” 

“To date, the Department has failed to submit to Congress the Execute Orders and videos related to these operations, and it has refused to make public the legal justifications and intelligence underpinning the strikes,” Reed said. “Given that you were the Acting Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs during the build-up of U.S. military forces in the Caribbean, and you continued to hold that position after the Department of Defense launched its campaign of military strikes against alleged drug boats, I expect your commitment today to submit these legally required documents to Congress.”

Former Texas state Sen. Brian Birdwell is joining Ditlevson before SASC. Birdwell is a 20-year Army veteran who participated in the Gulf War and was later wounded during the 9/11 attack at the Pentagon. He’s been nominated as the next assistant secretary for sustainment. Catch a livestream of their testimony, here. 

Additional reading: 

• “U.S. must overhaul military readiness and tech metrics, report urges,” Axios reported Wednesday; 
• “New hypersonic missiles unveiled for fighter planes, ground systems,” Military Times reported Wednesday after a news release from Colorado-based Ursa Major; 
• And “Joint Staff director returning to Navy after only months on job,” Breaking Defense reported Wednesday. 

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Thomas Novelly. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to 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, American forces seized the Philippine island of Corregidor from the Japanese.

Latin American developments

The Cuban coast guard killed four people in a speedboat who had allegedly opened fire upon them Wednesday morning, the Cuban Embassy to the U.S. said in a statement on Twitter. 

The incident occurred roughly one nautical mile from the Cuban shore at Cayo Falcones, which is about 260 miles southeast of Key West. 

Narrative of the encounter: “When a surface unit of the Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior, carrying five service members, approached the vessel for identification, the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire on the Cuban personnel, resulting in the injury of the commander of the Cuban vessel,” the embassy said in its statement. “Four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six were injured. The injured individuals were evacuated and received medical assistance.”

While the boat was registered in Florida, Cuba was careful not to claim its occupants were American. And later Wednesday, the Cuban government said all 10 in the speedboat were “armed Cubans living in the U.S. who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism,” the Associated Press reports. 

Most of the 10 “have a known history of criminal and violent activity,” Cuban officials said. At least one of the four killed, Michel Ortega Casanova, “was a truck driver and an American citizen who lived for more than 20 years in the U.S.,” his brother told AP. He said his brother had become “obsessive and diabolical” in pursuit of freedom for Cuba. 

State Department reax: “We’re going to have our own information on this,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of a regional conference at a Marriott resort in the Caribbean. “We’re not going to base our conclusions on what they’ve told us,” he said of the account from Cuban officials. He also declined “to speculate about whose boat it was, what they were doing, why they were there, what actually happened.”

“Suffice it to say it is highly unusual to see shootouts on open sea like that,” Rubio said, and noted, “we do have constant contact with them at the Coast Guard level where they notify the U.S. Coast Guard on a variety of things, including migrants and so forth.” 

The U.S. has expanded Venezuela oil exports to Cuban businesses—just not to the Cuban government, the Treasury Department announced Wednesday. The change in licensing policy applies to Cuba’s “private sector (e.g., exports for commercial and humanitarian use in Cuba)” but does not extend to “the Cuban military, intelligence services, or other government institutions.” 

According to Rubio, “These would be sales to a very small private sector that exists in Cuba, and that’s always been legal,” he said Wednesday. “This would just expand to the numbers that could do it.”  However, he warned, “If we catch the private sector there playing games and diverting it to the regime or to the military company, if we find that they’re moving that stuff around in ways that violate the spirit and the scope of these permissions, those licenses will be canceled.” 

By the way: Back stateside, abducted Venezuelan President Maduro can't afford a lawyer for his trial in New York over alleged drug trafficking, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported after reviewing recent court documents made public Wednesday. 

Maduro is hoping to use Venezuelan government money to fund his defense, but U.S. authorities refuse, citing sanctions against the country. Maduro’s current lawyer argues the block is effectively “interfering with Maduro’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel in perhaps the highest-profile criminal prosecution in the country,” Cheney writes. 

Elsewhere in the region: Mexico is considering legal action against Elon Musk after he alleged Monday that the president is linked to drug cartels and “saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say.” Pursuing such a case in the U.S. would be a longshot, however, because President Claudia “Sheinbaum would need to prove Musk knowingly said something false about her or recklessly disregarded the truth when he said it,” Reuters reported Tuesday. 

Additional reading: 

• “The Fall of a Strongman: Inside Maduro’s Last Days in Power,” via the New York Times, reporting Wednesday from Venezuela and Washington; 
• And “Violent Militias Stand Between the U.S. and Venezuela’s Vast Mineral Riches,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.