The D Brief: Exploiting the opportunity with Saudi, where the terrorism threat grows; Hagel this ayem on “non-stop war”; McCain: more BOG; Dunford shakes it up; James in Antarctica; And a bit more.

Odd and breaking: The Secret Service is investigating a small drone device found on White House grounds that doesn’t appear to be a threat, but still… A very little bit here as the story develops… or not.

Meantime, as a new king is installed in Saudi Arabia, where President Barack Obama visits tomorrow, the terrorism threat there grows. The WaPo’s Kevin Sullivan in Arar, Saudi Arabia: “…except for Syria and Iraq, where the Islamic State controls territory, no country is more directly threatened by Islamist militants than Saudi Arabia, which the extremists regard as a traitor to Islam for Riyadh’s close associations with the United States and the West.

“No king of Saudi Arabia has ascended to the throne amid more regional turmoil than King Salman, who was crowned Friday upon the death of his brother King Abdullah.

“With war raging in Syria and tensions with Iran increasing, Saudi Arabia is threatened by a disintegration of the national government in Yemen across its southern border and by the Islamic State militants who are dominating the Iraqi desert just over its northern border.”

“Saudi officials are anticipating more attacks, either by some of the 2,200 or so Saudi citizens they say have gone to fight with the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq, or by others who infiltrate Saudi Arabia’s borders, especially the nearly 600-mile frontier with Iraq, which runs mainly through empty desert.

With Obama cutting his India trip short to meet the new monarch tomorrow, now is the best chance for the U.S. to consider imposing real conditions on its counterterrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia, writes the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Sarah Chayes for Defense One: “[A] long with actively promoting Wahhabi ideology, its rulers helped spawn violent extremism by way of their autocratic practices, as a glance at al-Qaeda statements over the years makes plain. Indeed, some might say that allying with the Kingdom in the fight against violent extremism plays right into the hands of al-Qaeda and ISIS propagandists… U.S. officials are proud of the Arab participation in their anti-ISIS effort. Saudi Arabia is the coalition’s crown jewel.

But too often, Washington rewards counterterrorism cooperation with a blank check. One reason it should cease doing so is that counterterrorism alone is not the answer to extremism... The suggestion here is not that Washington brand Saudi Arabia a pariah nation. It is that a close and substantive partnership does not mean an unconditional one…” Again, here’s the link to read that bit here.

Don’t look for U.S.-Saudi defense ties to weaken now that the departed king’s half-brother and former defense minister has assumed the throne, our own Marcus Weisgerber writes in his forecast of Washington-Riyadh military relations.

Saudis expand their regional power even as others falter. The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick on Page One with a story of how the Saudis are backing neighbors “with a flow of cash:” “…The Saudis are propping up the Kingdom of Bahrain, and are fighting alongside the United States to support the government in Baghdad. Billions of dollars from Saudi coffers are sustaining friendly governments in Egypt and Jordan. Saudi-backed militias are fighting in Libya, and Saudi-owned news media provide critical support for the monarchy’s favored factions in Tunisia and elsewhere.” More here.

And Germany reportedly is halting its arms shipments to Riyadh, citing regional instability. AFP, here.

Welcome to Monday’s not-yet-snowy edition of The D Brief, Defense One's new, first-read national security newsletter. If you’d like to subscribe to The D Brief, reply to this email and let us know, subscribe here or send us a holler at glubold@defenseone.com. Please send us your tips, your tidbits, your scoops and stories, your think tank reports and best of all your candy, but send it to us early for maximum tease. And whatever you do, we hope you'll follow us @glubold and @natsecwatson.

Surging American troops to Yemen is the wrong way to react to the current power vacuum in Sanaa, President Obama said Sunday. America's drone/airstrike-heavy counterterrorism approach, he said, "is not neat and it is not simple, but it is the best option we have."

Obama: "The alternative would be massive U.S. deployments in perpetuity, which would create its own blowback and cause probably more problems than it would potentially solve." AP’s Julie Pace and Anne Flaherty from New Delhi, here.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain on CBS’ “Face the Nation”: “We need more boots on the ground…I know that's a tough thing to say, and a tough thing for Americans to swallow. But it doesn't mean the 82nd Airborne. It means forward air controllers. It means special forces, it means intelligence, and it means other capabilities."

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein “agreed that more special operations forces are necessary [and] while Americans ‘don't want another war,’ she believes it is time ‘to look more deeply and broadly into what we're doing and how we're going it.’” Full FTN transcript, here.

The U.N. Security Council is holding emergency meetings today on Yemen and Ukraine. And CFR’s Patrick Stewart just penned an excellent roll-up of ways U.N. members are hoping to one day work around security council vetoes to stop mass atrocities. 

With relics of the Russian defense industry on full display at India's Republic Day celebration Sunday, Obama and Indian Prime Minister Modi renewed a 10-year defense pact, vowing to keep better tabs on New Delhi's nuclear material and they agreed to collaborate on aircraft carrier, jet engine and drone technology. NYTs Peter Baker and Ellen Barry, here.

Who's doing what today? Navy Secretary Ray Mabus departs for meetings with Central and South American leaders and U.S. Sailors and Marines there. Up first on his trip: Belize... Air Force Secretary Debbie Lee James is avoiding the east coast winter storm with a visit at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, where the New York Air National Guard keep a fleet of ski-equipped LC-130s. For a little more about the Air Force's logistics mission near McMurdo, the National Science Foundation lays out the context, here.

NPR just this morning ran an interview with Chuck Hagel in which the outgoing SecDef said the stress of “non-stop war” is pushing good people out of the military.

Hagel to Steve Inskeep on Yemen: "I think until we get a better understanding of how the Yemenis want to go forward in governing, then that will determine the future relationships…But we want to continue to have that relationship, which has been important, with the government," he says of the country that has simultaneously given rise to some of the world's most hardened jihadis and worked closely with the U.S. to eliminate the threat.”

Hagel on Syria: "This is going to require ... a political change, a shift [in Syria] … There is a military dynamic to it, but the military dynamic cannot lead and will not lead." Audio for that story just posted, here.

Hagel also spoke to Stripes’ Jon Harper late last week about the limits of military power. Read that bit here.

Meantime, there’s a war on in Eastern Europe: On Saturday, more than 30 civilians were killed and nearly 100 injured by separatists shelling the strategic Ukrainian port city of Mariupol with Grad missiles. Bloomberg’s Daryna Krasnolutska and Aliaksandr Kudrytski, here.

And, Obama and the European Union threatened new sanctions on Russia. But, as before, Obama stopped short of saying military engagement is the U.S. way forward. WSJ, here.

The Pentagon announced Friday that the first advance team of U.S. trainers are headed to CENTCOM’s AOR for the Syria moderate rebel training mission. Pentagon Pressec Rear Adm. John Kirby said the group of about 100 would begin arriving in various locations over the weekend and into this week. A second wave of maybe “several hundred” will arrive in the next few weeks.

Kirby, on Friday: “… This advance element is sort of A team, if you will. They're going to go after the sites, take a look at what's there and -- and prepare for further deployments.” That full transcript, here.

Defense One’s Lubold first reported last week that the Pentagon’s training mission for Syrian moderate rebels was taking form. Read that here.

Kurdish soldiers launched 20 of their own Grad rockets at what was believed to have been an ISIS meeting at a Mosul neighborhood on Friday, Reuters reports from Irbil. That, here.

ISIS appears to have murdered one of its Japanese prisoners while Tokyo scrambles with allies like Jordan to secure the remaining hostage’s release, which now hinges not on a $200 million ransom, but a proposed prisoner release. WaPo’s Anna Fitfield from Tokyo, here.

Who is the prisoner ISIS wants freed? An Iraqi-born female and failed suicide bomber detained in Amman since late 2005. The Independent with more on Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, here.

Meantime, tragic and very different pictures are emerging of Japan’s hostages. NYTs Martin Fackler, here.  

What do members of the Taliban, Hamas and a sizable portion of the U.S. air campaign against ISIS share in common? Qatar. The Los Angeles Times’ Laura King with a great check-in from Doha, here.

The White House just this morning provided a readout of Lisa Monaco’s trip to Afghanistan. Monaco, the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, talked with top leaders there, who likely told her they want the U.S. military to stay longer and in larger numbers. Could a more gradual off-ramp off troops be in the works? From the White House: “…Ms. Monaco also met with U.S. military and civilian leaders and U.S. troops at bases throughout the country.  During these meetings, Ms. Monaco sought their views on the security environment and welcomed their ideas on how to preserve the security gains we have made in Afghanistan while maintaining pressure on the remnants of al-Qa’ida and disrupting terrorist threats.”

The Afghan Air Force remains plagued with problems as soldiers and police are dying in larger numbers from fighting with less coalition firepower overhead. Reuters’ Kay Johnson from Kabul: “NATO is training and advising some 390 Afghan pilots, most with no tactical combat experience, and a limited number of planes and helicopters have been promised to bolster an air force of around 140 aircraft, mostly transport helicopters.

“As a stopgap measure, the Afghans began fitting forward-firing 23mm machine guns and 57mm rockets to some of the 86 Mi-17 transport helicopters to supplement five larger Mi-35 attack helicopters that were the only combat aircraft… This month, a newly modified Mi-17 came to the rescue in real combat, helping an Afghan patrol pinned down by insurgents firing from a ridge in Badakhshan province in the northeast. The air force plans to have about a dozen weaponized Mi-17s by the spring fighting season that typically begins in April.” More here.

Approximately 80 percent of Pakistan lost electricity early Sunday when a transformer was reportedly attacked by “rebels.” AFP, here.

Aside from boosting recruiting incentives, how is the U.S. reacting to its drone pilot shortage? Increasing UAV autonomy so one pilot manages a “unit” of six or more drones at once. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker lays out DARPA’s new call for ideas—along with anticipated pushback from legal experts on the widening, new-look autonomic warfare front.

Your weekend at the movies: American Sniper dominated the box office for the second straight week, bringing in a U.S. total of $200 million. So with the film’s production budget listed at less than $60 million, Mr. Eastwood’s latest is a certified profitable haul for Warner Bros. More on that, here.

Brett Lambert is headed to Northrop. From our Defense One colleague Marcus Weisgerber: Former DOD industrial policy chief Brett Lambert, who left the Pentagon in 2013, will join Northrop Grumman next week as the vice president of corporate strategy. “Lambert will lead development and implementation of Northrop Grumman's corporate and business focus area strategies, and will serve as the chair of the strategic development council,” the company said yesterday. Lambert, who has spent his career in the defense and intelligence sector, most recently has been affiliated with Renaissance Strategic Advisors, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and National Defense Industrial Association. He became deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy, in 2009.

An F-35 formation passed over the Pro Bowl last night in Glendale, Ariz. However, NFL cameras failed to capture the jets in action. (Oops!) But you can catch footage of the 4-jet flyover from Luke Air Force Base’s 61st Fighter Squadron, here.

ICYMI: Investigators of the 2014 shooting at Fort Hood said Friday they found "stressors" in Spc. Ivan Lopez’s life, but no warning signs unit commanders would have seen. WaPo’s Dan Lamothe, here.

Twenty Qs with Kirby: Doctrine Man just shared a diversionary chat with the PentagonPresSec, Rear Adm. John Kirby—including how he became a PAO (tongue depressors were involved), why to never let anyone tweet in your name and how a good narrative is never going to be enough—over here.

See also: Kirby’s Rules (13 of them), starting with “Always be good to your family,” here.

The Nigerian military managed to halt a new offensive by Boko Haram on the key northeastern city of Maiduguri yesterday. A mix of air and ground attacks killed close to 200 militants, Nigerian military officials said. Los Angeles Times’ Robyn Dixon, here.

John Kerry, in Nigeria, told Nigeria’s presidential candidates that future military assistance is tied closely to the presidential election being peaceful and transparent. The WSJ’s Jay Solomon Gbenga Akingbule, here.

85 miles to the north, militants did manage to take control of the town of Monguno, with a population of 100,000. CNN’s Aminu Abubakar from Kano, here.

Meantime, dude, where’s my CAR? The selection of Sgt. Maj. Ron Green as the Corps’ top enlisted Marine reignites the debate about combat action ribbons. Brian Adam Jones for Task & Purpose, here.

Shake it up: Joe Dunford released his “planning guidance,” on a Friday, and outlines how he’ll guide the tradition-bound Corps into the new era. The WaPo’s Dan Lamothe on Commandant Gen. Joe Dunford’s “CPG:”…The service will focus heavily in 2015 and 2016 on preparing to fight from the sea in an “anti-access, area denial” environment, military-speak for an area in which enemies can contest U.S. troops reaching it with a variety of weapons. Fighting from the sea has long been considered a Marine Corps mission, but the service did much less of it as it deployed tens of thousands of troops at a time to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The commandant also signaled a desire to have Marine units work more closely with Special Operations troops — something Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, the top general overseeing Marine Special Operations, also indicated was coming in a recent interview with Checkpoint. Marines and Special Operations units are ‘highly complementary,’ Dunford wrote, making it ‘only natural” that the service should improve its ability to operate with U.S. Special Operations Command.’” More here.

A tryst with a junior sailor in Guam ended the career of a Navy EOD command master chief, making him the second Navy leader fired in 2015. Navy Times' Lance M. Bacon, here.

Two Marines killed during training at 29 Palms: Two Marine officers—Capt. Elizabeth Kealey and 1st Lt. Adam Satterfield—died Friday after their helicopter crashed while training at California’s Twentynine Palms Marine Base. AP, here.

ICYMI: The top spy at the CIA steps down. The Daily Beast’s Shane Harris writes about what the Daily Beast describes as “the secretive head of the agency’s National Clandestine Service is retiring amid reports of infighting over a reorganization of the intelligence service.” Read that here.