Chinese drones and American lasers; Afghan troops retake a district capital; Airstrikes in Raqqa; US troops run through fire to save Ukrainians; and just a bit more...
The global market for UAVs? China is all over it, The Wall Street Journal reports. “[M]ilitary drones exported by China have recently been deployed in conflicts in the Mideast and Africa by several countries, including U.S. allies that the U.S. blocked from buying American models. For the U.S., that is a strategic and commercial blow.”
Said one senior Trump administration official: “We are attuned to what China is doing.” That’s why Trump’s National Security Council is “reviewing the drone-export process with the goal to ‘wherever possible’ remove obstacles to American companies’ ability to compete.”
Another pull-out: “The Pentagon estimates China could produce almost 42,000 aerial drones—sale value more than $10 billion—in the decade up to 2023.” Worth the click, here.
The U.S. Navy just tested its first-ever active laser weapon and brought CNN along to capture footage. The LaWS, or Laser Weapons System, "is deployed on board the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship.” Sailors launched a “drone aircraft” and within moments of acquiring their target with the LaWS, “the drone's wing lit up, heated to a temperature of thousands of degrees, lethally damaging the aircraft and sending it hurtling down to the sea.”
It’s a $40 million system that costs about a dollar to shoot, CNN reports. Today it’s used for aircraft and small boats; tomorrow it could be trained on missiles. Story and test footage, here.
From Defense One
A Mercenary-Led Surge Won't Solve Afghanistan // Sean McFate: Private military contractors have spotted an opportunity as America's longest war grinds on.
Cuts Proposed for Key Cybersecurity Agency // Nextgov Staff: House Appropriations Committee reduces but retains White House cuts to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Don't Enshrine A Russian Advantage In Surveillance Flights Over the US // Thomas Graham Jr.: Provisions in the House version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act would prevent the Pentagon from matching Russia's advances in aerial photography.
Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. OTD1942: First jet-powered flight of a jet-powered fighter jet. Have something you want to share? Email us at the-d-brief@defenseone.com. (And if you’re reading this on our website, consider subscribing. It’s free.)
Corruption and revenge are two contributing reasons why some Iraqis have allegedly tossed accused ISIS fighters off the roof of buildings — and shared video of the act on social media. More on that ugly reality from the Independent’s Patrick Cockburn, reporting from Erbil.
Also in Mosul: The foreign orphans of ISIS fighters, including one girl possibly no older than three, who knows very little Arabic and may have been brought to the city by at least one parent from Chechnya. Story from The Telegraph’s Josie Ensor, reporting from Mosul.
See as well Agence France-Presse’s story of children in Mosul, separated from their parents by the fighting, awaiting their return, here.
In Raqqa, Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have lost nearly a dozen men to fighting ISIS militants since Sunday, the Associated Press reported. The most recent fighting Monday was “concentrated in Raqqa's southwestern neighborhood of Yarmouk as well as a central area close to the Old City.” More here.
In photos: Airstrikes raining down on Raqqa, via AFP photographer Bulent Kilic.
Quantifying the social and economic impact of war on Syria. A new report from the World Bank illustrates what $226 billion in losses to Syria’s GDP looks like, and how the “primary source of Syria's economic troubles is the destruction of its social fabric and institutions,” according to Middle East policy analyst and report contributor, Tobias Schneider.
Update on the ISIS war in the Philippines: More than half a million people have been displaced from the fighting, which began on May 23 — AFP reports in this infographic.
In southwestern Afghanistan, U.S.-backed Afghan troops “raised the national flag over the central building complex in Nawa district on Monday following a two-day offensive to reclaim the district just south of Lashkar Gah, the Helmand capital,” Pentagon spox Capt. Jeff Davis said Monday. “The Taliban had held Nawa for about nine months,” Stars and Stripes reported. “Because of its location along a major north-south thoroughfare into Lashkar Gah, the Taliban used Nawa to stage regular attacks on the city… about 50 Afghan troops were killed in the two-day battle, according to Afghan officials. It was not clear Monday how many Taliban were killed. There were no reports of U.S. casualties in Helmand operations this week.” More here.
Also in Afghanistan: The Taliban released a photograph recently showing a fighter holding “a FN SCAR 7.62mm rifle, a weapon commonly issued to U.S. special operators, such as Marine Raiders and Army Rangers,” Military Times reported Monday. “The rifle may have also been lost by U.S. forces last August, when American forces battling ISIS fighters in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, lost a SCAR and a host of other equipment — to include a tactical encrypted radio — as forces attempted to evacuate battlefield casualties.”
Top US cyber diplomat is stepping down. Nextgov: “As the State Department’s first cyber coordinator, Chris Painter led a global push urging nations to adhere to rules of the road in cyberspace, such as not hacking each other’s cyber emergency responders or critical infrastructure such as hospitals, energy plants and transportation systems.” Among his successes in his six years in the job: “a series of multinational pledges that nations would not hack each other’s companies for commercial gain, including a November 2015 agreement among the Group of 20 leading world economies.” But the next steps will be trickier: recent UN-sponsored meetings on how international law should apply in cyberspace closed without new conclusions, which one State Department official “called ‘troubling and potentially destabilizing.’ In the wake of that meeting, White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert suggested the U.S. would pivot to more bilateral cyber agreements.” More, here.
The Navy also now has a new Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer — the USS John Finn. It was just commissioned this past weekend at Pearl Harbor, The Diplomat reports. “The new 9,140-ton USS John Finn, a multi-purpose surface guided-missile destroyer capable of conducting anti-air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and anti-submarine warfare missions, is PACOM’s latest asset to fight ‘the many forces of darkness’ in the region including ‘forces like North Korea,’” according to PACOM’s Adm. Harry Harris.
Some of its specs: “The new warship is fitted with 90 vertical launch system cells armed with various types of missiles for anti-air warfare and land attack missions. In addition, the USS John Finn is equipped with an advanced over-the-horizon anti-ship missile system, a torpedo launching system, and two 155 millimeter Advanced Gun Systems (AGS) next to two 30 millimeter Close In Guns (CIGS). The USS John Finn will be the first Arleigh Burke-class destroyer equipped with the Baseline 9 version of the Aegis Combat System.” More here.
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have “announced proposals to abolish Ukraine and create a new state in its place,” Reuters reports this morning from Moscow. It’s the brainchild of Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. Reuters: "Zakharchenko, who scarcely would have expected anything other than outright rejection from Kiev, said in a declaration that he and his allies were proposing a new state called Malorossiya (Little Russia) be set up with its capital in rebel-held Donetsk. 'We are proposing to residents of Ukraine a peaceful way out of a difficult situation without war. It's our last proposal,' Zakharchenko said in a statement."
Adds AP: “The surprise announcement in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk casts further doubt on the 2015 cease-fire deal that was supposed to stop fighting in Ukraine’s industrial heartland and bring those areas back into Kiev’s fold while granting them wide autonomy. It also caught unawares some rebels who said they have no intention of joining the new state.”
Ukraine officials dismissed the idea, calling it part of a “puppet show” courtesy of Moscow. France condemned the plan; German officials called it “totally unacceptable.” More from Reuters, here.
Need a review on the dynamics inside Ukraine? AFP videographics has you covered with this two-minute video.
Lastly today: The American firefighters of Lviv. Six U.S. National Guard troops from Oklahoma helped rescue residents from a burning apartment building in Lviv, Ukraine, about an hour’s drive east of the Yavoriv Training Center in the country’s far west — where the NG troops are training the Ukrainian army. According to the Oklahoma soldiers, "We kept asking if there was anyone still in the building, and finally we found someone who spoke English who said that there was...Instinctively, we all just ran inside and started getting people out...We were knocking on doors and windows trying to get people’s attention; they were definitely not aware of the fire.” Read the rest, here.