Expected US COVID deaths double; DoD braces for ‘new normal’; US warships exercise north of Russia; 50 women have Ranger tabs; And a bit more.

America’s projected coronavirus death toll just doubled. The New York Times first reported on the spike in anticipated deaths from COVID-19 here in the states on Monday. That came from an internal document obtained by the Times "based on government modeling pulled together by the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

About the doubling: “The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1,” which is “a 70 percent increase from the current number of about 1,750.”

Similarly, “a public model that has been frequently cited by the White House revised its own estimates, doubling its projected death toll,” the Times adds. That data comes from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which “is now estimating that there will be nearly 135,000 deaths in the United States through the beginning of August — more than double what it forecast on April 17, when it estimated 60,308 deaths by Aug. 4. (The country has already had more than 68,000 deaths.)” Now the total is 69,079, each of them a person with a name, a family, and a past. 

Why so many more anticipated deaths? Because of “rising mobility in most U.S. states” — which is to say the easing of stay-at-home orders we’re seeing in the U.S. across 31 states as early as May 11, Reuters reports off that Univ. of Washington study. “The projections reinforced warnings from public health experts that a rising clamor to lift restrictions on commerce and social activities — in hopes of healing a ravaged economy — could exact a staggering cost in terms of human lives,” Reuters writes. 

It is perhaps unsurprising then that the U.S. military is publicly bracing for a “new normal” that will last “at least until we have a vaccine that we’re confident in,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a virtual Brookings Institution event on Monday. “The long-term view is: What do we do over the next 6, 12, 18 months?” Esper said to Brookings’ Michael O’Hanlon, framing a concern on many Americans’ minds, including members of the military. 

“There will be a new normal that we will have to adapt to for an extended period of time at least until we have a vaccine that we’re confident in,” he said.

FWIW: This has been the public and private messaging from Pentagon leaders for several weeks now, Defense One’s Katie Bo Williams reported Monday. The U.S. military doesn’t seem to have much science-backed choice but to prepare to operate under pandemic restrictions for the foreseeable future — even as some states, like Georgia with 13 military bases, are beginning to lift coronavirus lockdowns. 

Bigger picture: The differing policies of military and state officials demonstrate the lack of national consensus about how and when to “reopen.” Meantime, the department is still working on a plan to reopen the Pentagon “in phases,” Esper said. Read the rest of Williams’s reporting Monday, here.

If you’re an American and you’re going to protest stay-at-home orders, there’s a decent chance you’re receptive to Sean Hannity’s TV show weeknights on Fox. Now he has a new message: the “militia look” is “dangerous,” he said, and it “puts the police at risk. And by the way, your message will never be heard, whoever you people are.”

“God forbid something happens,” Hannity continued. Then, just maybe, “they are going to go after all of us law-abiding Second Amendment people.” More where that came from, here.

Down south, the U.S. Coast Guard is bolstering its Caribbean presence in anticipation of “a potential COVID-19-inspired surge in illegal migration and human smuggling from the region,” Yahoo News reported Monday.  

The coronavirus may have hit France in December, scientists now believe, which would be at least a month earlier than previously thought. AP has that update, here.

France is trying to gradually reopen schools next week, although: “More than 300 mayors in the capital region, including Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, urged [President Emmanuel] Macron in an open letter to delay the reopening of primary schools scheduled for next week,” AP reports from Paris. 

By the way: The U.S. skipped a virtual vaccine summit by world leaders on Monday. “We can’t just have the wealthiest countries have a vaccine and not share it with the world,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in his remarks. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, “Let us in the international community unite to overcome this crisis,” The Washington Post has more, here.

From Defense One

Esper Says Pentagon Is Bracing for a ‘New Normal’ That Lasts ‘An Extended Period of Time' // Katie Bo Williams: "What do we do over the next 6, 12, 18 months?” the defense secretary asked at a Monday virtual event.

State Dept. Reroutes Peacekeeping Gear To Coronavirus Fight In Africa // Katie Bo Williams: The move shows how the virus has refocused U.S. security policy.

Pull US Troops, not Diplomats and Development Experts, from Afghanistan // Elizabeth Beavers and Jennifer Anderson: America’s interests are no longer furthered by military might in the country, but we can still help in other ways.

Amid Pandemic, China Is Working to Lead the World Trump Abandoned // Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic: Administration officials don't understand the significance of the chaos they have created in place of what used to be American foreign policy.

Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Send us tips from your community right here. And if you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 1821, exiled former French dictator Napoleone di Buonaparte took Catholic confession and then passed away at the age of 51 on the remote volcanic island of Saint Helena, some 1,200 miles from the coast of Africa. 

Pentagon planning for possible budget cuts, Esper says. The $3 trillion COVID stimulus may lead the White House and Congress to trim the defense budget, and so DoD planners are prudently working up various ways to deal with them, he said at the Monday Brookings event. 
One idea, Esper said, is “developing a concept of immediate reaction forces and contingent reaction forces to respond to global situations,” USNI News reported. 
CSIS budget guru Todd Harrison: “I think DoD should start preparing for the possibility of a budget downturn. It should not repeat the mistakes it made in 2012-2013 in the leadup to the [Budget Control Act] going into effect, where the department refused to plan for the cuts in advance. The argument then was, ‘if we plan for cuts, we make the cuts more likely to happen.’” Read on, here.

U.S., UK navies conduct a Barents Sea FONOP, America’s first since the 1980s. Five ships and a P-8A maritime patrol aircraft exercised in the Arctic region north of Russia after training together as part of the U.K’s Submarine Command Course, according to a Navy release.
Involved: Three Spain-based Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers – USS Donald Cook (DDG-75), USS Porter (DDG-78) and USS Roosevelt (DDG-80) – along with fast combat support ship USNS Supply (T-AOE-6) and Royal Navy frigate HMS Kent (F 78) are in the Barents Sea, north of Russia, to “assert freedom of navigation and demonstrate seamless integration among allies,” the release said.
U.S. officials gave Russia three days’ notice “to avoid misperceptions, reduce risk, and prevent inadvertent escalation.” The Russian military subsequently “tracked” the U.S. ships, state media said. 
The U.S. Navy has been increasing its Arctic ops since 2016. USNI News has a short list.
Here’s a fascinating look at the effort to disinfect the USS Theodore Roosevelt. AP’s Lolita Baldor interviewed Capt. Carlos Sardiello about his crew’s painstaking process of deep-cleaning their aircraft carrier.
More than 1,000 Roosevelt sailors have tested positive for the coronavirus, Baldor reports. That’s up from 969 on April 28.
Recognized: ProPublica’s series on leadership, readiness, and death in the 7th Fleet has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

Happening now: The first confirmation hearing during the Covid-19 pandemic, and it concerns the nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe to be America’s next Director of National Intelligence.
Background reading: Ratcliffe is an unusual nominee for several reasons, including his lack of obvious qualifications for the job. Writing at Lawfare,  Nicholas Rasmussen and Margaret Taylor offer eleven questions that senators might put to the nominee. 
See what a socially-distanced confirmation hearing looks like, thanks to NBC News’s Haley Talbot who brings us these four images this morning. AP’s Mary Clare Jalonick also offers this unusual photo from the first tense moments of the hearing.

Seven new Defense Department and intelligence nominations were announced Monday by the White House (here and here). Those include:

• Marshall Billingslea to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
• Shon J. Manasco to be Under Secretary of the Air Force.
• Christopher C. Miller to be Director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
• Michele A. Pearce to be General Counsel of the Department of the Army.
• Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
• Louis W. Bremer to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.
• Patrick Hovakimian to be General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Fifty women have now graduated from the U.S. Army’s Ranger School. And “The most recent graduation included five women,” writes retired Army colonel and West Point graduate Ellen Haring in the op-ed section of Military Times.

Six soldiers have received Purple Hearts in the wake of Iran’s January ballistic missile attack, and 23 more have been approved while at least two have been denied, Military.com reports.
Here’s a photo of Maj. Alan Johnson, an aeromedical physician’s assistant with the 834th Aviation Support Battalion receiving his decoration in Iraq.
More than 110 U.S. servicemembers have been treated for traumatic brain injury suffered in the Jan. 7 attack. Pentagon officials initially said the attack had caused “no casualties.”

China just launched a spacecraft with its largest carrier rocket to date, Reuters reports. “The Long March-5B carrier rocket took off at 1800 local time (1000 GMT) at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in the southern island province of Hainan.” 
That Long March-5B is about 54 meters tall with a “takeoff mass of about 849 tonnes,” Reuters writes. By comparison, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets are 70 meters tall and about 1,566 tons in mass. 
Next up is “a July mission to send an orbiter and rover to Mars,” SpaceNews reports this morning, reminding us “China suffered two launch failures in March and April, bringing a temporary halt to launch activity and adding pressure on the mission.”
China’s goal is “to complete a multi-module, inhabited space station around 2022," Reuters writes. "China has since been racing to catch up with Russia and the United States to become a major space power by 2030." 

And lastly today: T-minus 24 days for Steve Carrell’s new space comedy. The marketing team for the Netflix comedy “Space Force” just released a two-and-a-half minute trailer for the show, which has a May 29 premiere date.