WH denies Korea-drawdown report; Fake islands get cruise missiles; US blames China for Djibouti laser attack; Drone swarm disrupts FBI hostage raid; and just a bit more...

Bolton denies reports of a U.S. military exit from South Korea. Plenty of natsec heads exploded yesterday after the New York Times reported that the White House had asked the Pentagon to draw up options for reducing U.S. forces in South Korea. The piece, which cited “several people briefed on the deliberations,” drew audible gasps — or at least dismayed tweets — from national-security types who were at pains to explain how the troops on the peninsula undergird U.S. security strategy in the entire region, and how a withdrawal would serve, most directly, China.
White House says no. The pushback started late yesterday: “South Korea’s presidential Blue House says it has been told by US officials that reports of Trump asking for plans to withdraw US troops from South Korea ‘not true’,” reported Reuters’ Korea correspondent.
John Bolton had his own statement this morning. Quoth the national security adviser: “The New York Times story is utter nonsense. The President has not asked the Pentagon to provide options for reducing American forces stationed in South Korea.” (Via Reuters)
So did the Times blow it? Or did a trial balloon simply go down in spectacular flames? (Or did one part of the White House have the wrong info? Or is someone lying?)
Your D-Brief-ers discussed the situation in our very first topic in Defense One Radio’s second episode — just released Thursday; find that here.

From Defense One

A Criminal Gang Used a Drone Swarm To Obstruct an FBI Hostage Raid // Patrick Tucker: And that's just one of the ways bad guys are putting drones to use, law enforcement officials say.

Terrorists Are Going to Use Artificial Intelligence // Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Machine-learning technology is growing ever more accessible. Let's not have a 9/11-style 'failure of imagination' about it.

We Need a NATO for Infowar // Atlantic Council’s Elisabeth Braw: Western countries have pitifully few defenses against ever-more-powerful disinformation campaigns. Banding together can help.

Global Business Brief  // Marcus Weisgerber: What if Congress kills the Strategic Capabilities Office?; Pentagon projects arms-spending decline; Still no Air Force One deal; and more.

Defense One Radio, Episode 2 // Defense One Staff: Korean summit, Space Force, AIA’s Eric Fanning, Paul “Army of None” Scharre, and more.

Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. And if you find this useful, consider forwarding it to a friend or colleague. They can subscribe here for free. OTD1970: National Guardsmen fire on antiwar protesters at Kent State University, killing four.

Suns out, guns out in the South China Sea. Beijing just put “anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its fortified outposts in the South China Sea,” CNBC reported Thursday citing “sources with direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence reports.”
Timeline: “the missile platforms were moved to the outposts in the Spratly Islands within the past 30 days.”
Location and competing claimants: “Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands. The Spratlys, to which six countries lay claim, are located approximately two-thirds of the way east from southern Vietnam to the southern Philippines.”
About the systems — called “defensive weapons” — CNBC reports, “The land-based anti-ship cruise missiles, designated as YJ-12B, allow China to strike surface vessels within 295 nautical miles of the reefs. Meanwhile, the long-range surface-to-air missiles designated as HQ-9B, have an expected range of targeting aircraft, drones and cruise missiles within 160 nautical miles.”
Notes CNBC: “The defensive weapons have also appeared in satellite images of Woody Island, China's military headquarters in the nearby Paracel Islands.”
Said the Pentagon: "The further militarization of outposts will only serve to raise tensions and create greater distrust among claimants." More here.
Quick word on “defensive weapons.” The label can be a bit absurd — like the Javelin system now in Ukraine that Paul Scharre talked about on this week’s podcast (53:22), and how “defensive weapons” do not always seem so when they are pointed at you. Speaking of which...

Chinese lasers injured two U.S. airmen in Djibouti, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said Thursday.
The skinny, via Defense News: "Two pilots of a C-130 aircraft were hit by a 'military grade' laser" in one of as many as 10 (White wouldn't give specifics there) incidents spread out over "the last few weeks."
Beijing has been “demarched.” Said Dana White: “I’d have to ask you [to] ask the Chinese about the motivation. But it’s serious, we take it seriously, and that’s why we demarched them.” A bit more, here.

New in the region: The USS Harry Truman Carrier Strike Group is on station in the Med for what remains of the war on ISIS, U.S. Naval Forces Europe tweeted Thursday with photos of Growlers and Super Hornets at work. For more on what vessels are involved, go here.

From Syria: Britain’s military reportedly revealed footage of appears to be drones firing thermobaric missiles in the war on ISIS, Drone Wars UK reported this week after filing a British equivalent to a FOIA here in the states.
Munition in question: The AGM-114N4, which "uses a Metal Augmented Charge (MAC) warhead that contains a thermobaric explosive fill using aluminium with the explosive mixture. When the warhead detonates, the aluminium mixture is dispersed and rapidly burns. The sustained high pressure explosion is extremely damaging, creating a powerful shock wave and vacuum. Anyone in the vicinity is likely to die from internal organ damage."
Worth noting: "In the first three months of 2018, UK drones fired as many weapons in Syria (92) as they have over the previous 18 months." More here.

Also in Syria: The U.S. State Department just froze its financial support to review American assistance to the emergency workers of the White Helmets, CBS News reported Thursday.
Background: “President Trump put a freeze on the $200 million in U.S. funding for recovery efforts in Syria in late March. This freeze means that U.S. support for the White Helmets is not the only project in jeopardy. There are also many other stabilization efforts that are backed by the U.S. -- including the clearing of explosive devices, bringing back electricity, rebuilding schools, and getting water running -- that may end soon.”
If you’re just catching up the White Helmets, (there’s been lots of mean-spirited antagonism aimed at the group from Russia) CBS reminds us they are made up of some “3,000 volunteer rescuers that have saved thousands of lives since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. A makeshift 911, they have run into the collapsing buildings to pull children, men and women out of danger's way. They say they have saved more than 70,000 lives.” Catch the Netflix doc on them, here; or read the rest of the CBS report, here.  

Back stateside, there's been a 65 percent drop in the "number of service members applying for and earning U.S. citizenship through military service... since Defense Secretary Jim Mattis directed additional background checks for non-citizen troops" back in October, Military Times' Tara Copp reported Thursday.
Said Pentagon spox Dana White: “It’s still our intent to recruit every patriot who is qualified to serve. But yes, with the enhanced vetting, there is a process. And that process has to move forward. So there may be a bit of a delay because of that, but we also need to ensure, because we did identify a problem, a security problem, we do need to ensure that we vet these people thoroughly.” Lots more to dig into in this story — including a summary of how things work presently — here.

These week in homegrown extremism, the “Ranks of [a] Notorious Hate Group Include Active-Duty Military,” an investigation by ProPublica and Frontline PBS found this week.
The Marine at the center of the story: Vasillios Pistolis, age 19, from "a white supremacist group known as Atomwaffen Division, a secretive neo-Nazi organization whose members say they are preparing for a coming race war in the U.S."
But Pistolis is not the end of the story: “ProPublica and Frontline have identified three Atomwaffen members or associates who are currently employed by the Army or Navy. Another three served in the armed forces in the past. Pistolis, who remains an active-duty Marine, left Atomwaffen in a dispute late in 2017 and joined up with another white supremacist group.”
Why this matters: For all the reasons laid out by U.S. military leaders, including Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., back in August 2017 — which is also where ProPublica/Frontline PBS’s story begins. Read on, here.

Jade Helm 15, revealed? Former CIA Director Michael Hayden says: that whole Jade Helm controversy in 2015? It was the work of the Russians, the Texas Tribune reported Thursday off MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” podcast.
In case you forgot, here’s the whole controversy, in review: “Jade Helm 15 was a planned military training exercise that became a fascination of conspiracy theorists before it even began. The exercise, which spanned several states, began in Texas in Bastrop County in 2015 and was described by federal officials as routine. But some conspiracy theorists speculated that the exercise was a covert effort to institute martial law.” Read more, here.

In questionable-tech news this week, facial recognition gear (a van, actually) used by British police “is making a ton of mistakes,” Wired reports this morning.
The gist: “South Wales Police has been testing an automated facial recognition system since June 2017 and has used it in the real-world at more than ten events. In the majority of cases, the system has made more incorrect matches than the times it has been able to correctly identify a potential suspect or offender.” Story — and related ethical concerns — here.

And finally this week — apropos of nothing: random Pentagon statistics, via ABC News' Elizabeth McLaughlin, who "used to be a tour guide at [the University of Michigan] so I've naturally taken an interest in the tours here at the Pentagon," she shared Thursday.
Her “favorite fun facts” about the building include:

• The Pentagon took 16 months to build (from September 1941 to January 1943);
• It's the world's largest low rise office building;
• There are 26,000 total employees (about 50% military and civilian);
• It has six zip codes;
• There are over 20 restaurants;
• The Subway is the busiest in the nation, selling over 6,000 foot-long subs every day. The stats continue, here.

Have a safe weekend, everyone. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast, and we’ll see you again on Monday!