Today's D Brief: Biden at NATO HQ; Israel’s new PM; Vaccine diplomacy; F-22's in the danger zone; And a bit more.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his defense secretary are at NATO HQs in Brussels today, the second of three destinations before ending his first trip abroad since taking office in January. “NATO is critically important for U.S. interests in and of itself,” Biden said in a press conference Monday while standing beside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. “If there weren’t one, we’d have to invent one. It allows America to — to conduct its business around the world in a way that never would have occurred were it not for NATO.”

Also on Biden’s agenda today: Meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Politico previews that one, here.

What sort of changes are ahead for NATO? A formal “Cyber Defense Policy” intended to combat “disruptive ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure”; a “Defense Innovation Accelerator” will also be introduced this year, according to a White House statement Sunday.

A “Climate Security Action Plan” is also expected to emerge from meetings today in Brussels, the White House said, including an “agree[ment] to reduce greenhouse gases from military activities and installations in line with national commitments under the Paris Agreement,” in addition to beginning formal alliance-wide talks about climate-related security issues. Read more here.

And previewing his face-to-face with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday, Biden told reporters on Sunday, “We’re not looking for conflict. We are looking to resolve those actions which we think are inconsistent with international norms, number one. Number two, where we can work together, we may be able to do that in terms of some strategic doctrine that may be able to be worked together…Russia has — has its own dilemmas, let us say, dealing with its economy, dealing with its — dealing with COVID, and dealing with not only the United States, but Europe writ large and in the Middle East. And so, there’s a lot going on where we can work together with Russia. For example, in Libya.”

And here’s how Biden views the bigger picture and the wider push by the U.S. and its allies away from regimes like Russia and China: “I know this is going sound somewhat prosaic, but I think we’re in a contest — not with China per se, but a contest with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world, as to whether or not democracies can compete with them in the rapidly changing 21st century. And I think how we act and whether we pull together as democracies is going to determine whether our grandkids look back 15 years from now and say, ‘Did they step up? Are democracies as relevant and as powerful as they have been?’”

Biden also reflected on the limits of diplomacy with nations like Russia and  China, telling reporters Sunday, “There’s no guarantee you can change a person’s behavior or the behavior of his country. Autocrats have enormous power and they don’t have to answer to a public.” Meantime, he said, it’s only been “A hundred and twenty days” into his administration. “Give me a break,” he told a reporter who asked when he’s going to try to remove Trump-era steel and aluminum sanctions. “Need [more] time” for issues like that, he replied. 

You may be wondering: Where is talk about the future of Afghanistan amid all this G7 and NATO talk? The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung wondered, too, and filed this report about the apparent lack of Afghanistan messaging on Saturday. 

ICYMI: G7 nations will help provide an additional 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to nations in need, following America’s lead last week when Biden announced the U.S. will begin shipping 200 million of its half billion donated doses as early as August. (The remaining 300 million are expected by June 2022.) 

• For the record, the World Health Organization says it needs 11 billion vaccine doses to cover 70% of the world’s population (calculating for two shots per person). Read more at the BBC.

And that helps at least partially answer one key question from Biden’s first trip abroad: How will America’s leadership under Biden inspire other nations? “Leadership is not something that you can claim; leadership involves people following you,” former NATO Ambassador Ivo Daalder told Defense One last week. “That's what ‘America is back’ means to me...That change, that needs to lead to real action. And that action is not only what the U.S. does, but how others are going to be part of solving common problems.”

Hear (or read) more about the future of transatlantic security from Daalder, as well as Alina Polyakova of the Center for European Policy Analysis and Elisabeth Braw of the American Enterprise Institute, in our latest Defense One Radio podcast, here.

From Defense One

Hundreds of Troops Complain About ‘Woke’ Racism, Extremism Training, Cotton Claims // Jacqueline Feldscher: Senator confronts Austin, releases list of purported examples of Black Lives Matter advocacy, anti-white male bias, and diversity efforts.

Indian Democracy Is On The Ropes. The US Must Act // Akshai Vikram: There are still things U.S. policymakers can do to shore up the world’s largest democracy.

Defense One Radio, Ep. 84: Biden, Europe and the future of transatlantic security // Defense One Staff : Three experts unpack the opportunities and challenges ahead for Europe and the U.S. in 2021.

Defense Business Brief // Marcus Weisgerber: Defense Business Brief: F-35’s new leader; Navy’s big choice; 3D-print milestone; and more...

What Blockchain Tells Us about the Pentagon’s Innovation Struggles // Isabelle Corbett: The obstacles to this new technology are hardly unique to it.

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. If you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. 

Israel is under new management, and thousands of Israelis filled Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Sunday to mark the occasion of signing in a new government and saying goodbye to the previous one, which had been led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for 12 years — the longest tenure of any Israeli PM.
Taking a page out of POTUS45’s uncooperative playbook, Netanyahu on Monday “declined to take part in the traditional transition ceremony [with Bennett], and the brief meeting took place behind closed doors, with no statement to the press,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
Israel’s new PM — until 2023 — is Naftali Bennett, who is “a wealthy tech executive and former Netanyahu aide who leads the small religious right-wing Yamina Party,” The New Yorker reports. In two years, Bennett will switch posts with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid as part of a power-sharing agreement.
Bigger picture: The two men now “lead a fragile eight-party alliance ranging from far left to hard right, from secular to religious, that few expect to last a full term and many consider both the embodiment of the rich diversity of Israeli society but also the epitome of its political disarray,” the New York Times reports.
“We stopped the train before the abyss,” Bennett told parliamentarians Sunday, when the power-sharing deal was sealed in a very tight 60-59 vote in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset.
Bibi’s reax this weekend was to equate POTUS46’s pursuit of a diplomatic agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear agreement with failure to stop the Holocaust, comparing Biden and the international community’s effort to re-enter the so-called “Iran deal” with alleged U.S. inaction during POTUS32’s tenure in 1944.
Biden’s reax: “On behalf of the American people, I congratulate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, and all the members of the new Israeli cabinet,” POTUS46 said in a statement Sunday. “Israel has no better friend than the United States...My administration is fully committed to working with the new Israeli government to advance security, stability, and peace for Israelis, Palestinians, and people throughout the broader region.”
And read over SecDef Lloyd Austin’s congratulations to his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin “Benny” Gantz, via the Pentagon, here.
What lies ahead for PM Bennett? Finding a way to “manage political, military and intelligence coordination with the Biden administration, which will affect how it addresses almost all other foreign, national security and economic policy challenges,” the Times reported separately Sunday. Read on, here. 

F-22 danger warning: Three years after Hurricane Michael tore through Tyndall Air Force Base, F-22 squadrons based in Florida are struggling with burnout and higher-than-average mishap rates, Air Force Times reports. Read on, here. 

And finally this morning: The former Green Beret and his son who helped former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn escape Japan have pleaded guilty today in Tokyo, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Just catching up? “Former special forces operative Michael Taylor, 60, and his 28-year-old son Peter were extradited by U.S. authorities over claims they smuggled Ghosn out of Japan in a music equipment case as he awaited trial,” AFP reports via CBS.
Now what? AP attempts an answer to that and several related questions in this highly unusual case over here.