Skeptical senators grill White House pick to lead Indo-Pacific policy. Led by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a bipartisan slice of the Senate Armed Services Committee took turns on Tuesday expressing concerns about the Trump administration’s
inward shift in national-security focus and its
alienation of key allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific region.
Wicker: “The Chinese Communist Party, along with the nuclear-armed Russia and North Korea, pose a significant threat to the United States. The scale and scope of that threat put a premium on our alliances. In light of that, I'm disappointed with some of the decisions the department has made with respect to our allies in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan. A few of these choices have left me scratching my head.”
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.: “There are some rumors, I guess, circulating that the new national defense strategy is going to shift priority away from the PRC and away from the Indo-Pacific, and instead focus on the Western Hemisphere. We'll see what happens when that comes out,” Kelly said. “If that's true…this shift is alarming, because most of what is briefed to this committee focuses on ‘how are we going to deter China’.”
The senators spoke during the confirmation hearing for John Noh, the Trump administration’s pick to be assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs. Noh, who is currently ASD for East Asia, responded that China is “an enormous concern of mine.” But he waffled when Wicker asked about the Trump administration’s decision to cancel $400 million in military aid to Taiwan, and cited President Donald Trump’s stance that the island’s government should up its defense spending to about 10 percent of its GDP.
Wicker worried that “DOD may be using the Ukraine playbook with Taiwan by taking defense items procured with presidential drawdown authority and returning it to the defense stockpile” which misaligns with “congressional intent, and would require Taiwan to purchase these items that have already been authorized as PDA.” Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams has more from the hearing, here.
The U.S. military in Syria says it killed a militant planner in an unspecified strike Thursday last week. The militant’s name was Muhammad ’Abd-al-Wahhab al-Ahmad, and U.S. Central Command officials claim he was an “attack planner” with Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group. Tiny bit more, here.
Additional reading: “Hegseth announces ‘barracks task force’ during speech to new recruits,” The Hill reported Tuesday.
Welcome to this Wednesday 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 1918, U.S. Army Cpl. Alvin York killed 28 German soldiers and captured 132 others, which eventually won him the Medal of Honor.
Militarizing America’s streets
President Trump said Wednesday morning he thinks Chicago’s mayor and the state’s governor should be jailed. Writing on social media, Trump said Wednesday shortly after 8 a.m. ET, “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!
Reuters notes: “Neither Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson nor Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has been accused of criminal wrongdoing,” though “Johnson signed an executive order on Monday creating an ‘ICE Free Zone’ that prohibits federal immigration agents from using city property in their operations.”
Governor JB Pritzker wrote in reply: “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”
Chicago’s Mayor Johnson responded: “This is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested. I'm not going anywhere.”
By the way: 58% of Americans “think the president should send armed troops only to face external threats,” according to new polling published Wednesday by Reuters/Ipsos. That includes 51% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats. But when asked if the president should be able to send troops even if a governor objects, there’s a sharp split with 70% of Republicans saying yes but just 13% of Democrats saying they feel similarly.
“I think it’s a bad precedent,” North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said Tuesday of President Trump’s order to deploy out-of-state National Guard troops to Chicago. “I worry about someday a Democrat president sending troops or National Guard from New York, California, Oregon, Washington state to North Carolina.”
“I don’t see how you can argue that this comports with any sort of conservative view of states’ rights,” he added.
Tillis wasn’t the only Republican dissenting this week. “This is not the role of our military,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Tuesday as well. “It’s one thing if governors ask and they say, ‘Hey, I need help.’ That’s the way we’ve handled it before,” she said. “I am very apprehensive about the use of our military for policing and more the politicization that we’re seeing within the military…We’re seeing these orders, we’re seeing a directive that is unprecedented and it should make us all concerned,” Murkowski said.
“I think [Trump is] just poking his finger in [Portland’s] eye,” one anonymous senator told The Hill. “I don’t know it’s the best way to solve the issue, but it looks like in Portland, the place is on fire, but that could be isolated reports,” said the Republican, who requested anonymity.
But that’s largely where the Republican dissent ends for sending Texas soldiers to Illinois without the consent of the latter’s governor. Read more at The Hill.
The six senators from Illinois, Oregon, and California warned Tuesday that Trump is “moving us closer to authoritarianism” with his troop deployments against governors’ wishes. “Whether in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Portland, the Trump Administration continues fabricating claims of chaos and crime on American streets to justify his false assertions that there is a ‘need’ to deploy troops into our cities—all while literally defunding our police by cutting funding that helps local law enforcement,” Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, and California’s Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff.
“None of our states asked for this. None of our states need this. And none of our National Guard Troops—who are our friends and neighbors—signed up to intimidate their fellow Americans in their own communities or to be used as political pawns by a vindictive President,” the senators said, and called for Trump to “immediately reverse course and end these un-American deployments.”
Army veteran Tammy Duckworth: “We know deploying the military is not about protecting [Homeland Security] officials, because these same officials are escalating their tactics every day to provoke a manufactured crisis to justify sending in the military,” the retired lieutenant colonel said on the senate floor Tuesday. “We know it’s not about crime, because Trump literally defunded the police by slashing $800 million in public safety programs. This is about Trump’s desire to crush dissent and erode our constitutional rights.”
“The President wants to use our military as his personal police force that goes into American cities, detains civilians on our bases and intimidates people who disagree with him,” Duckworth said. “Who wins in that scenario? Not the American people. Not our servicemembers. Only Donald Trump, along with our enemies who will exploit our distraction.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune: “If there are federal personnel who are being threatened, then I think the president has a right to protect them,” the Republican from South Dakota said Monday, calling Trump’s decision to send out-of-state troops to Illinois “a justifiable use of executive branch authority.”
Commentary: “The greatest crisis of American civil-military relations in modern history is now under way,” argues Tom Nichols, former Naval War College professor, writing in the Atlantic on Tuesday. “Despite the firing of several top officers—and Trump’s threat to fire more—the U.S. armed forces are still led by generals and admirals whose oath is to the Constitution, not the commander in chief. But for how long?” he asked while emphasizing, “I write these words with great trepidation.”
Nichols reminds us that Trump has already “declared war on Chicago; called Portland, Oregon, a ‘war zone’; and referred to his political opponents as ‘the enemy from within.’ Trump clearly wants to use military power to exert more control over the American people, and soon, top U.S.-military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief.”
“The Democrats are too timid, and the Republicans are too compromised. Only by standing together can the senior military officials warn Trump away from leading America into a full-blown civil-military confrontation,” Nichols writes. Read the rest (gift link), here.
Additional reading: “Chicago journalists, protesters sue Trump administration, alleging ‘extreme brutality,’” Politico reported Tuesday.
Shutdown shenanigans
Republican leaders in Congress are at odds over emergency legislation to pay troops during the government shutdown, Politico reported Tuesday afternoon. The tensions pit Speaker Mike Johnson, who is in favor of the legislation, against Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who told reporters, “Honestly, you don’t need that.”
Update: Trump is threatening mass layoffs during the ongoing shutdown, but that may be illegal, the New York Times reported Tuesday. What’s more, “Budget experts said that the White House had also incorrectly presented layoffs as a fiscal necessity, something no other president in the modern era has done. Not even during the longest federal stoppage on record—a five-week closure in Mr. Trump’s first term—did the government shed workers so that it could finance the few operations that are allowed to continue.”
In still more confusing messaging from the White House, on Tuesday, the Trump admin said furloughed feds were not guaranteed back pay. On Wednesday, it sent notices saying they were, Eric Katz of Government Executive reports.
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