The D Brief: More device detonations; House rejects CR plan; First B-21 flight video; AFSOC’s light-attack vision; And a bit more.
Walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon Wednesday, killing another 25 people and wounding at least 600 others just one day after pagers exploded across the region, killing a dozen and wounding more than 2,000 people, the Associated Press reports.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke publicly Thursday for the first time since the attacks were launched, telling supporters and Israeli officials listening, “This is sheer terrorism. We'll call them Tuesday's massacre and Wednesday's massacre. These are war crimes or at least declaration of war,” said the leader of the U.S.-designated terrorist group.
About the Tuesday attack, Nasrallah claimed Thursday, “A number of pagers were out of service or switched off. Some were not allocated and still in storage.”
Update: 37 of Hezbollah’s fighters have been killed in the past 48 hours, including three from Israeli airstrikes, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute reports.
IDF reax: “For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them, and used civilians as human shields — having turned southern Lebanon into a war zone,” the Israeli military said in a statement Thursday.
ICYMI: “I believe that we are at the onset of a new phase in this war, and we need to adapt,” Israeli military chief Yoav Gallant said in a statement Wednesday.
By the way: Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin spoke with Gallant Wednesday to “review regional security developments,” to “reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel,” and to reaffirm “the priority of achieving a Gaza ceasefire deal” and an “enduring diplomatic resolution to the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border,” according to a Pentagon readout.
Expert reax: The exploding device operations are “likely to damage Hezbollah’s morale, and many fighters and collaborators will have been put out of action for some time due to their injuries,” said Luca Trenta, associate professor in International Relations at Swansea University in Wales, writing Wednesday for the Royal United Services Institute. “Israel has increasingly shown a tendency to escalate the fighting, bringing the region to the precipice of a wider war,” he added.
Former NSA Director Nakasone: The pager and walkie-talkie attack perpetrators “had incredible ability to do targeting intelligence and to be able to actually know the numbers, know who’s got them, know the periodicity upon which they’re using them,” said Paul Nakasone, former director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, said Wednesday at a news conference in Nashville.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1994, U.S. troops landed in Haiti for Operation Uphold Democracy, the U.S.-led, UN-sanctioned effort to overturn a three-year-old coup.
House shoots down Speaker’s funding plan. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., brought to the floor a legislative package that paired a six-month stopgap bill with a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote, only to see it go down, 220-202. The Hill and the Wall Street Journal have more.
Among the 14 GOP lawmakers voting no: House Armed Services chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who, along with SASC ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., opposes a CR that would freeze Pentagon spending for half a year.
They’re not the only ones. AEI’s Todd Harrison and CSIS’s Seamus Daniels detail the risks of pushing budget decisions into the new year. Read their argument at Defense One, here.
Even a short continuing resolution could disrupt the Pentagon’s satellite plans, reports Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams. Read how, here.
This morning: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti spoke about her new “2024 Navigation Plan and America's Warfighting Navy” in a moderated discussion jointly hosted by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. Naval Institute. Catch that one in reruns, here.
Later: Army officials are set to testify on the service’s counter-extremism training this afternoon at 1 p.m. ET before the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee. Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Patrick Matlock is among those attending. Details and livestream, here.
The Air Force this week said it hit its annual recruiting goal after tweaking body fat standards and its tattoo policy, Military.com reported Tuesday.
- The goal: Enlist 27,100 active-duty airmen.
- The year’s result: 27,139 as of Tuesday, Thomas Novelly writes.
In case you missed it: “The Air Force in January also cut the time non-citizens must hold a green card — from 10 years to two — before they can join,” Air Force Times reports. “That change, in conjunction with an accelerated naturalization program at basic military training, has broadened the pool of highly qualified people,” according to Air Force Recruiting Service commander Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein.
Related reading:
- “Air Force’s Ospreys will return to forward-deployment within 'weeks,” Defense One’s Audrey Decker reported Wednesday from the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber conference in Washington;
- “Lessons from Ukrainian F-16 crash will shape US training: Air Force general,” Decker reported Tuesday from that same event;
- And “AFSOC still wants 75 light attack aircraft despite Congress’ doubts,” Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Wednesday from AFA;
- “Army wants to buy as many drones as it does munitions,” Defense One’s Sam Skove reported Wednesday from a different event this week in Washington;
- See also, “How the New Hampshire National Guard failed to protect women,” according to CNN, reporting last Friday.
See the first public video of a B-21 bomber in flight. A test Raider is flying up to twice a week, Northrop reports, while two others “in various configurations” are in ground tests, Tom Jones, president of Northrop’s Aeronautics Systems, said Wednesday at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber conference.
ICYMI: Northrop has already started building production aircraft. The company received the greenlight for low-rate initial production after the B-21 took its first flight last November. Watch the (short) flight video and read more from Defense One’s Audrey Decker, here.
Microsoft turns to Anduril to improve IVAS goggles. The U.S. Army has multibillion-dollar plans for the augmented-reality headset, whose development has been beset by glitches and delays. Can the defense startup founded by the inventor of Oculus gaming headsets help? More at Bloomberg.
Developing: AWACS without a plane? Northrop just pitched a new connect-everything product. NG InSight is meant to be a no-kidding way to meld everything from sensors to shooters. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker has more, here.
Making moves: Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has joined the team of consultants at Squire Patton Boggs international law firm. He’ll serve as a senior advisor with a portfolio spanning national security, domestic and foreign policy issues, the firm announced Thursday.
Rewind: Esper was former President Trump’s longest-serving Pentagon chief at 16 months on the job until he was fired in November 2020—five months after U.S. marshals and prison security forces were sent to Washington in a heavy-handed response to peaceful protests related to the police killing of George Floyd. In early June, Esper was filmed walking with Trump and then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley across Washington’s Lafayette Square for a photo op after authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to remove peaceful protesters. Two days later, Esper publicly broke with Trump and told reporters the Insurrection Act did not need to be invoked yet and active duty troops should not be used to suppress protests, as Trump had suggested. Esper’s reaction rattled Trump, but the president waited until the week after Election Day 2020 to fire Esper—during a period in which Trump had begun isolating among his most loyal followers after it became clear had lost the election to Joe Biden.
Esper had also served as Trump’s Army secretary beginning November 2017 and running through his appointment as SecDef nearly 18 months later. Prior to that, Esper was employed as an executive at Raytheon, capping 21 years in the Army as an active duty officer, as well as more than a decade as a member of the National Guard and Reserve.
“We are living through an era of great change that has stoked national security ramifications that are rippling through board rooms around the world,” Esper said in a statement, according to his new employer. “Squire Patton Boggs has a clear vision to lead in this space and I am excited to add to the unique offering that the firm is building,” he added. Read more, here.
And former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy just joined the Florida-based private equity firm AE Industrial where he’ll serve as an operating partner, the company announced Tuesday. McCarthy took over for Esper when Trump nominated the latter to lead the Pentagon in 2019. He stayed on in that role until the Biden administration took over in January 2021. Before that, he’d served for more than two years as Army undersecretary after hopping over from a role at Lockheed Martin.
Like Esper, he, too, was an Army veteran, with five years of service on active duty ending 2002. But unlike Esper, McCarthy was an Army Ranger with the 75th Regiment’s 3rd Battalion.
“Global events continue to illustrate that there is sustained need for innovative technologies to combat complex and evolving threats,” McCarthy said in a statement, according to his new employer. “I look forward to partnering with AEI’s portfolio companies operating within the national security space to capitalize on new opportunities and create value,” he said.
And lastly today: The manhunt is reportedly over in Kentucky following an apparently random highway shooting less than two weeks ago that injured at least five people who were driving along I-75.
Authorities said they located a body “in the deep brush” near the scene of the shootings Wednesday afternoon. “The people of Laurel County can rest easy — much easier — knowing that this manhunt has now come to a conclusion,” Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a news conference later that evening.
One tip off: “vultures in the air,” according to the police. Upon further investigation, they “detected a heavy odor consistent with a decomposing body.” What’s more, “Personal artifacts and a weapon found with the body are consistent with the suspect,” police said. Read more, here.