Trump’s ISIS speech and ‘nation-building’; Dems doxxed; Manbij down, what’s next; Boko, those girls, and airstrikes; Taliban advance; And a bit more.
Trump says he would ditch “nation-building.” GOP 2016 contender Donald Trump is set to give a major speech today on how the U.S. should fight terrorism and more, his aides told reporters Sunday. A major facet of the speech is said to revolve around the notion that “we can't choose our friends, we must always recognize our enemies," AP reports in this teaser. “The candidate is also expected to call in the speech for declaring in explicit terms that, like during the Cold War, the nation is in an ideological conflict with radical Islam.”
Recall Rumsfeld: If we’re still debating the dirty word “nation-building,” then one must revisit the other Donald’s—former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s—famous nation-building speech aboard the USS Intrepid. In it, Rumsfeld tried to distinguish between America giving Afghans a fish versus teaching Afghans how to fish. “Our goal is to begin moving toward an end state in which the Afghan government is sufficiently established so they can provide security and stability for the country,” he declared. Yeah, that was February 2003. The U.S. invaded Iraq the next month and U.S. troops remain in combat in both war-torn and destabilized countries (and beyond) doing many forms of nation-building. What commitment to the Pentagon’s beloved “building partner capacity” would a President Trump stomach, one wonders? We’ll be listening.
ICYMI: Hezbollah’s leader this weekend repeated Trump’s sarcasm from last week that Obama and Hillary Clinton co-founded ISIS. That, here.
Surprise, surprise: Former SecDef Chuck Hagel says he may support Trump for president, according to an interview with the Omaha World Herald where “Hagel said he’s in the same situation as many American voters: torn between two of the most disliked presidential candidates in history.”
Hagel’s own words: “I’m very offended by Trump personally, his actions, his style and how he does and says things… But I want to see — he’s got 90 days, and I want to see if he can turn some of that around.” Read the interview in full, here.
Manbij down; al-Bab is next. A flood of imagery poured in late Friday showing U.S.-backed fighters in northern Syria pushed ISIS out of its stronghold of Manbij after two months of fighting. Now, the Arab and Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces are looking to advance some 50 kms southwest, to the Syrian city of al-Bab, AFP reported Sunday. The SDF established what they called a military council to help the al-Bab clearance effort. More (though not a lot) on that angle, here.
Some 500 cars believed to be carrying ISIS fighters, their family members and even some civilians were allowed to flee Manbij during the final assault Friday, which would have made quite a target for coalition warplanes to bomb similar to what occurred outside of Fallujah when nearly 30 aircraft struck some 300 cars believed to be transporting ISIS fighters in June. This time, the coalition evidently showed some mercy and permitted the cars (and the civilian shields in them) to transit to the border town of Jarablus.
But don’t think the SDF is leaving Manbij unattended, The Wall Street Journal reported in anticipation of dreaded car bombs after all the weekend imagery of beard-trimming, cigarette-smoking and niqab-burning.
Reminder: ISIS was also pushed out of their Libyan stronghold of Sirte last week, and the WSJ reported Sunday the fighters who fled “are seeking to cross the border into neighboring countries or possibly regroup in southern towns to fight again,” according to “western and local officials.” That’s to say no one in or around Libya expects the fight against ISIS hold-outs to be over anytime soon—especially considering the notoriously porous border security in northern Africa.
In Syria, near Aleppo, the Assad regime’s allied forces struck back at rebels (led by al-Qaeda-linked Fath al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) attempting to expand their territorial hold, AP reported. Rebels had attempted to overtake a key Assad troop position at a cement factory southwest of town, but fierce airstrikes helped push the opposition back as recently as this morning. More here.
Boko Haram still has those girls, and wants an end to airstrikes. The terrorist group may be fragmenting, but they’d like the world to know they still have those captured schoolgirls in captivity, according to a new video released this weekend—their third media release (one audio, and two videos) in 10 days.
"Some of the girls, about 40 of them with God's permission have been married, some of them have died as a result of bombing by the infidels," a masked man announced standing before dozens of girls.
The video seemed to be a request to halt future airstrikes against the group’s fighters, wrote Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group.
It’s a sickening sight. “One veiled girl could be seen holding a baby,” Reuters reported from this weekend’s video release. “Parents have accused Boko Haram of having married off some of the girls against their will. At the end of the video unidentified bodies could be seen on the ground.”
For what it’s worth, the Nigerian military “disputed the claims that the air force had hit the girls,” Reuters reports, but they said they are analyzing the latest release for clues about the girls’ conditions and the group’s whereabouts. More here.
From Defense One
Inside the Doxx of House Democrats. Friday's leak of US lawmakers’ phone numbers and emails by Russian-linked group is part of an established pattern, writes Tech Editor Patrick Tucker. Connecting the dots reveals a troubling string of low-level information warfare successes for Russia, he writes, adding, "It should be an interesting fall." More here.
The Hidden Costs of America’s Addiction to Mercenaries. Washington’s reliance on unheralded (and unknown) private military contractors, or PMCs, to fight its wars has mutated into a strategic vulnerability, argues Sean McFate, former contractor and now senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Europe’s history of coping with terrorism offers solutions for the resurgent new terrorism era upon the continent today, writes Jamie Tarabay from Paris. That, via The Atlantic, here.
The Pentagon Needs You To Help Them Take Down Small Drones, Tucker reported, on the heels of a new DARPA inquiry and as drone-borne IEDs keep showing up in the AOR. That, here.
The Army’s Coming Readiness Challenge is No Myth, writes retired Gen. Carter Ham, the newly installed president of AUSA, the Association for the United States Army, for Defense One. Ham is pushing back on the Petraeus-O’Hanlon WSJ article alleging the readiness sky above the Pentagon was not, indeed, falling. Ham retorts Army readiness “will remain challenged” without some real commitments and key steps. The solution? Read on, here.
As Wars Demand Intel, Air Force Boosts Drone Pilot Bonuses. No later than Oct. 1, the service will pay a higher bonus to eligible airmen operating remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs, (drones, just say drones) who choose to renew their active-duty service commitment for another five years, totalling $175,000. GovExec’s Kellie Lunney has more, here.
(DIUx abroad?) Looking to Grow the Next Big Military Innovation? Plant a Seed Overseas, says Benjamin Locks, a senior analyst at Avascent. “Done right, industry-led technological development can help re-invigorate American innovation and improve strategic ties with allies,” Locks writes, calling it “the right approach in an era where no nation can bet its security on a monopoly on good ideas.” More here.
Welcome to Monday’s edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Kevin Baron. On this day in 1961, East German authorities began building the “Iron Curtain” Berlin Wall that would separate the two sides for the next 28 years. (Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
Russia may not be attempting to invade Ukraine (again) after all. Despite a blitzing build-up of Russian military equipment into the Crimean peninsula last week, Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this morning “Russia had no intention of breaking diplomatic ties with Ukraine and was discussing the possibility of organizing joint talks with Ukrainian, Russian, French and German officials aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.” Some, like NYT’s Max Fisher, viewed their movements last week as an effort to gain greater leverage in future talks with the West broadly and U.S., in particular, for the purposes of lessening sanctions on the Russian economy and carving out a greater space for Moscow in talks on Syria’s war.
So what equipment did they move last week and where did they move it? The folks at the Institute for the Study of War put out this robust visual explainer to help make sense of it all.
Turkey pivoting away from NATO. Ankara’s foreign minister said this morning alliance countries aren’t sharing enough intelligence, nor are they willing to sell his country the kind of military equipment it needs. So Ankara will be looking outside the alliance for items like air defense equipment, AP reports this morning from the FM’s stop in Berlin. (Some background on Turkey’s recent flirtation with Chinese air defenses, here.)
The Taliban in Afghanistan have seized a new district in northern Baghlan province, next to Kunduz province, which the group took almost a year ago, Reuters reports this morning.
And the Taliban looks to be mending factions, WSJ reported Sunday from the capital of Kabul. “The defections are another sign the new Taliban leader, Maulavi Haibatullah Akhund, is succeeding in repairing ties within the group. The more inclusive approach marks a break from Mullah Mansour, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in May. Mullah Mansour had attempted to stamp out opposition to his leadership, after rival factions battled for control of the group.” More here.
And while we’re on extremists: al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri released a video this weekend warning jihadists not to compromise with national leaders. He spent a majority of his message dinging the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, comparing them to chickens ignorant of the threats around them. The Long War Journal has a decent breakdown of Zawahiri’s rambling message, here.
Apropos of nothing: What can stop an F-22? Bees, evidently. That’s what officials at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., discovered in June when they found 20,000 honeybees swarming the aircraft’s exhaust nozzle. That, here.
Lastly today, Army Secretary Eric Fanning will be headed to Rio to join the U.S. delegation for the 2016 Olympics’ closing ceremony on August 21, the White House announced. He'll be joined by three-time gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee and retired NBA player, Jason Collins, among others you can find here. For an up-to-date medal count by nation—the U.S. maintains a commanding lead—NBC has this. You also can catch Fanning at the 4th annual Defense One Summit, Nov. 17, in Washington, DC. More to come on that, soon.