More US-SK wargames cancellations?; Afghan ceasefire collapses; Prisoner swap in Syria; Cyber deterrence, unfortunately; and just a bit more...
More cancellations coming on the Korean peninsula? Those could happen as soon as this week. Word of that comes after South Korean official said this weekend “large-scale annual maneuvers, such as the springtime Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, and the summertime Ulchi Freedom Guardian” could be cancelled, Seoul’s Yonhap News agency reported on Sunday.
For some context, Reuters writes “The U.S.-South Korean exercise calendar hits a high point every year with the Foal Eagle and Max Thunder drills, which both wrapped up last month. The next major drill, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, is planned for the end of the summer.”
And for what it’s worth, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to South Korea, newly-retired U.S. Navy Adm. Harry Harris, told senators on Thursday he supported a “pause” in major military exercises, with the understanding that “any suspension would involve only major military exercises and that regular training of U.S. forces in South Korea would continue,” Reuters adds.
The Trump-Kim summit has made America’s regional allies very nervous, according to this take in The Australian, and passed along to us by a regional fan of The D Brief.
The short read: “Hurting the US alliance structure in Asia hurts Australia’s national security. That is what Trump did more than anything in Singapore [last] week.”
The slightly longer read: Like South Korea, “Australia also enjoys extended nuclear deterrence provided by the US…Extended nuclear deterrence is one of the most important counter-proliferation mechanisms in human history because it means US allies do not need their own nuclear weapons. Like most things in international security, and everything in Asia, it depends absolutely on US credibility, especially the credibility of alliances. Here is where Trump’s mis-treatment of key US allies South Korea and Japan in Singapore is so shocking and dangerous.” Continue reading, (paywall alert) here.
From Defense One
Has Trump Irreversibly Altered the GOP's Foreign Policy? // Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic: He’s reprising a struggle within the party that was fought in the 1950s—with long-term results.
US Agencies Chip Away at Science and Climate-Change Spending // Charles S. Clark, Govexec: A progressive group analyzes Trump team efforts to downplay data and research.
Defense One Radio, Episode 8: The Atlantic's Uri Friedman; Battle for Hodeida; New Special Ops gear, weapons and more. // Defense One Staff: Welcome to our podcast about the news, strategy, tech, and business trends defining the future of national security.
There Is Now a Well-Documented Example of Cyber Deterrence // Jason Healey, Council on Foreign Relations: Unfortunately for the United States, it was executed by Russia.
Welcome to this Monday 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. #OTD in 1966, U.S. Army Gen. William Westmoreland requested (and was granted) 111,588 more troops for the Vietnam War. The American commitment would go on to peak in 1969, when 543,500 U.S. troops were in country fighting the North Vietnamese.
Afghanistan’s president has extended its ceasefire with the Taliban — but the Taliban did not return the favor, despite a modest outpouring of camaraderie between the group’s fighters and Afghan security forces in a couple locations across the country since Friday, the Washington Post reported Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Afghans are marching for peace in the capital of Kabul, Reuters reports this morning on location. “The march was triggered by a car bomb in Helmand on March 23 that killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens…” The “marchers, varying in number from day to day, would take main roads and sometimes turn into villages, choosing dangerous areas on purpose to try to confront people’s fear.” The group reportedly encountered Taliban fighters in Ghazni who showed the group where to pass unharmed. A bit more, here.
No surprise here: ISIS affiliates in Afghanistan kept up their pace of violence throughout the country this weekend, killing at least two dozen people in a car bomb attack on Taliban and Afghan troops in the eastern city of Nangarhar.
New phase in Manbij, Syria. American and Turkish troops are now reportedly patrolling — independent of each other — “along the line between the town of Manbij and a neighboring region under Turkey’s control,” Reuters reports this morning in a short take on a new release from the Turkish military.
Operation Roundup latest: U.S.-backed troops in Syria “liberated” a village of ISIS fighters in the northeastern province of Hasakeh, Agence France-Presse reported Sunday from an offensive that how now reached to within two miles of the Iraq-Syria border.
Location: Dashisha, "an important IS bastion on a corridor linking jihadist-held territory in Syria and Iraq."
The mission: “expel [ISIS] from their holdouts in Hasakeh and along the Euphrates River in the adjacent province of Deir Ezzor.”
Newly unhappy: The Iran-backed Shi’ite paramilitaries of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces — which alleges “a U.S. air strike on the Iraqi border with Syria killed 22 of its members and wounded 12 others,” Reuters reports from Baghdad.
This weekend we learned the UK’s “allies in Syria have released European ISIS suspects back to [the] terror group through secret prisoner swap deals…raising concerns that jihadists are returning to the battlefield and could re-enter Europe,” The Telegraph’s Josie Ensor reported.
The quick read, via Ensor’s tweet-thread: "There were three deals between the SDF and ISIS in Feb., April and June. Hundreds of ISIS suspects were exchanged for Kurdish prisoners. Among those were lots of Chechens and Moroccans but some French, German, Dutch and Belgians too. In return, ISIS handed over an equal number of Kurdish prisoners caught during the battle for oil-rich Deir Ezzor and promised not to attack lucrative oil and gas fields under SDF control.”
Worth noting: “So sensitive were the deals that four of the 15 mediators involved were reported to have been assassinated shortly after, leading remaining intermediaries to pull out of future negotiations despite the [money] at stake."
What's more, Ensor writes, a Western diplomat “predicted that [the] U.S. would withdraw forces from coalition 'within six months or so,' leaving their allies with a major headache as European countries are still refusing to take back their nationals." Worth the click, here.
The battle for Hodeida, Yemen, continues with a wave of airstrikes on alleged Houthi positions in and around the airport, Reuters reports this morning from the southern port city of Aden.
The latest there: “On Monday Apache helicopter gunships fired at Houthi snipers and other fighters positioned on the rooftops of schools and homes in the Manzar neighborhood abutting the airport compound, according to local residents... The Houthis’ al-Masira television reported six coalition air strikes on the Duraihmi district in the vicinity of the port.”
And on the humanitarian side, “100 trucks of food aid were en route to Hodeidah on the road from coalition-controlled Aden and Mokha to the south,” the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, said in Dubai.
He also estimated the Houthi force in Hodeida to range between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters — but added the UAE and its allies have the numerical advantage. Meantime, families and children are hiding from airstrikes “on the floor of empty classrooms while others sat forlornly in the courtyard, where a few items of clothing and blankets were draped over balconies and upturned desks.” More here.
And French special forces are reportedly working with the UAE military on the ground near Hodeida, France’s Le Figaro reported this weekend, citing two military sources. Read a bit more on that report via the Middle East Monitor, here.
For your ears only: What are the terrain obstacles, and possible egress routes for the Houthis out of Hodeida? Adam Baron of the European Council on Foreign Relations explains what lies ahead in this week’s Defense One Radio podcast. That chat begins at the 44:05 mark, here.
CNO begs: stop the ballistic-missile-defense patrols. For half a decade, the U.S. Navy has been required to keep six destroyers at sea in tiny predefined areas, ready to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. That actually ties up 18 ships, which is both “a good chunk of the surface fleet,” said CSBA’s Bryan Clark, and one of the stresses blamed for last year’s deadly destroyer collisions. Now Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is saying no más — it’s time to put those defenses on land and let his multibillion-dollar warships be warships. Defense News’ Dave Larter reports, here.
A “timeline of major events” since the destroyer collisions. One year after seven American sailors died aboard USS Fitzgerald, USNI News has put together a 45-item list of investigations, mitigations, firings and the like in the wake of that tragedy and the similar one involving USS John S. McCain.
Navy’s top enlisted sailor, under investigation: Officials confirmed to Navy Times that they are investigating allegations that Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Steven Giordano has created a hostile work environment. “Behind closed doors, MCPON Giordano takes on an alter ego that is condescending and defaming to the senior leaders and junior staff alike on a regular basis, totally contradicting his own publicly preached values and beliefs of being a ‘quietly humble leader,’” one former staff member told Navy Times. Read on, here.
Ex scientia, branding: Nike withdrew plans to launch a line of soccer gear after the U.S. Naval Academy tweeted that the logo for “The Fives” looked, well, exactly like the coat of arms long used by the school on the Severn.
The colonel whose nuclear-security unit lost a box of grenades has a new job. Fired as CO of the 91st Security Forces Group at the USAF’s Global Strike Command, Col. Jason Beers will take over as chief of the installations division at Air Force Special Operations Command headquarters. Jeff Schogol of Task & Purpose has a few more deets, here.
And finally this morning: "There was an attempt tonight to implement dress blues shorts at the [U.S. Army's] birthday ball," Defense News' Jen Judson reported Friday on location via Twitter — complete with a photo.
Taking one look at the scene, @AngryStaffOfficer replied: "Welp. Guess we had a good run. Shut it down."