The D Brief: What’s next for Syria?; Defense-policy bill unveiled; New counter-UAV strategy; Some GOPers unsold on Hegseth; And a bit more.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled his palace in Damascus on Sunday as a coalition of rebel factions poured into the city this weekend, capping a lightning advance from the north that began gaining significant speed just over a week ago. Assad’s departure to Moscow brought his 24-year rule to an abrupt end after more than a dozen years of civil war that began in the first few months of the Arab Spring. Assad’s family has ruled the country since the early 1970s.

Scores of angry Syrians and militants streamed into Assad’s palace grounds, looting whatever they could and reportedly marveling at Assad’s collection of rare and expensive automobiles and recreational vehicles stored in a Damascus garage. The BBC has on-the-ground footage from around the palace, while others shared purported video of the exotic car collection. 

Latest: Rebel leaders have already begun organizing the transition of power from Assad-appointed officials like Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali to others more sympathetic to the rebel factions, including the rebel-linked “Salvation government” Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, according to Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute. 

“The speed of change and the peaceful nature of this on-the-ground transition is remarkable” and “fast outpacing the UN-led Geneva process the international community is hurriedly drawing up,” Lister observed Monday. 

Assad’s overthrow opens questions about the future of these (and many other) considerations:

• Russia’s coastal base at Tartus and its Hmeimim airbase southeast of Latakia;
• Eastern territory held by fighters under the banner of U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces; 
• Iran-backed Shi’a proxies as many of the advancing rebels are predominantly Sunni Muslims;
• Turkey’s Kurd-focused, counter-terrorism operations in northern Syria;
• Lebanon and Hezbollah, which has used the former’s Bekaa Valley for decades as a crossroads to move and stage personnel and equipment between Syria and Beirut; 
• The Israeli military and its ongoing war against Hamas around Gaza;
• The Israeli military’s occupation of land in the Golan Heights, where Syrian troops withdrew over the weekend, leaving vacant their portion of a sensitive buffer zone; 
• Iraqi Kurdistan, which has been the target of Turkish military operations and airstrikes for several years. 

By the way: Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin called his Turkish counterpart Yasar Guler on Sunday. According to Austin's team, both men agreed “to prevent further escalation of an already volatile situation, as well as to avoid any risk to U.S. forces and partners.” They also reportedly shared an urgency “protect civilians, including ethnic and religious minorities, and abide by international humanitarian norms” via the proxy forces both nations support inside Syria.  And the two men “discussed the risks posed by ISIS and other malign actors in the region,” the Defense Department said in a statement. 

Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden called Assad’s downfall a “fundamental act of justice” but also a “moment of risk and uncertainty” for the region—especially since ISIS is still active inside Syria. 

Speaking of ISIS, the U.S. military unleashed “dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria” on Sunday, striking “over 75 targets using multiple U.S. Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s,” Central Command officials said in a statement. 

Biden vowed not to let ISIS regroup and create a new safe haven in Syria’s failed state. But there are several overlapping considerations at play for U.S. officials, and ISIS is only one of them, Biden admitted. 

“Make no mistake, some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses,” said Biden. “But as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions,” he said. 

President-elect Donald Trump declared “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” writing Saturday on social media. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, he attempted to link the fall of Assad to the pursuit of some kind of “deal” in Ukraine, where he said, “There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin.”

“I know Vladimir [Putin] well. This is his time to act,” Trump said, adding, “China can help.”

Biden-administration goals for Syria: “We will be supporting Syria’s neighbors — Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel — from any threats from Syria during this important period of transition,” administration officials told reporters in a call Sunday afternoon. “We will be maintaining the mission against ISIS, helping ensure stability in east Syria; protecting our personnel from any threats; but most importantly, engaging with all Syrian groups to establish, and help wherever we can, a transition away from the Assad regime towards an independent, sovereign Syria that can serve the interests of all Syrians under the rule of law, protecting a rich diversity and tapestry of Syrian society — all the ethnicities, religions, minority groups.” And U.S.-backed humanitarian relief work will continue, at least for the next several weeks. 

One obvious consideration: The next leaders of Syria “will need economic lifelines to rehabilitate and rebuild a country that has endured multiple cruelties since the start of the 2011 war,” Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute said Sunday, adding: “this is now a radically transformed Syria, and Russia has no good options.”

For the U.S., its SDF forces now face “the very real prospect of losing U.S. support as Trump has made no secret of his desire to withdraw the 900 or so American troops stationed in the north,” Ozcelik writes. “This will isolate the SDF in Syria, and throw into question what role it will have in the new post-war Syria.”

And the Iran question: “Syria was the conduit for Iran's systematic support for Hezbollah in Lebanon,” Ozcelik noted. “This supply chain has now been cut off,” he said—though there are almost sure to be some lawless regions where transport options could still be feasible, even if the uncertainty of travel has spiked considerably. 

Extra reading: 

• “Can Syria's triumphant rebel coalition unite the country?” asks Sefa Secen, assistant professor of Political Science at Nazareth University, writing Sunday in The Conversation; 
• And “‘Multi-headed monster’: Biden, Trump officials address China-Russia-Iran coordination,” Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Saturday from the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. 

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson and 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 1992, and amid widespread starvation and state collapse, U.S. troops landed in Somalia.

Russia’s Ukraine invasion

Ukraine has lost at least 43,000 soldiers to Russia’s nearly three-year-long invasion, and it’s suffered another 370,000 wounded, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who gave a rare update on social media Sunday. Zelenskyy spent the last few days trying to win more allied support during a trip to Paris, which President-elect Donald Trump attended along with several other top leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron. 

“Approximately half” of those wounded later returned to the battlefield, Zelenskyy claimed. It’s impossible to know if his estimates are accurate. But: “The last time Zelensky gave an update on Ukraine's casualties was in February, when he put deaths at 31,000,” the BBC writes. More than a year ago, U.S. officials claimed 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers were believed to have been killed in fighting, “a figure that has probably increased significantly since then,” the New York Times reports. 

The Pentagon announced another almost-billion-dollar arms package for Ukraine on Saturday. The $988 million tranche is unusual in that there were only three bulleted items listed: 

1. Ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
2. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS); and
3. Equipment, components, and spare parts to maintain, repair, and overhaul artillery systems, tanks, and armored vehicles. Read more, here. 

Related reading: 

• “Ukraine confirms second Danish delivery of F-16s,” the Associated Press reported Saturday; 
• And “Russia in talks to send fighter jets to North Korea, INDOPACOM says,” Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported separately Saturday from the Reagan forum.

Around the Defense Department

Congressional negotiators produce $895 billion defense policy bill, more than two months after the start of the fiscal year. It features a 14.5% pay hike for lower enlisted, plus GOP culture-war measures such as limits on transgender-related treatment.

Pentagon’s new counter-UAV strategy. A unclassified fact sheet on the policy signed last week by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin shows that DOD aims to “unify the military’s approach to protecting its facilities and personnel from weaponized unmanned aerial systems,” as Defense News put it.

Related reading:

• “Robot reality check: crewed warplanes will be vital for years, USAF general says,” Defense One’s Audrey Decker reports from the Reagan forum.
• “Space Force activates component field command in Japan,” according to a U.S. Forces Japan press release.

Trump 2.0

Some Republicans remain unsold on Hegseth. Donald Trump’s SecDef pick is working to defuse concerns by promising not to drink on the job, but Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, wants to hear more about his attitudes toward women and a 2017 allegation of sexual assault.

And Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., pushed back on Hegseth’s desire to fire officers he deems “woke” and who participated in the Afghanistan withdrawal. “I think we should be careful about that. Our generals are following the orders of the President of the United States, the civilian commander and the Secretary of Defense, and it's not right to punish a military guy for bad decisions,” Bacon said. Decker reports from the Reagan forum.

His inexperience is also a concern: Hegseth has never made national-security policy, served in a senior military role, worked in defense acquisition, or led an organization larger than a nonprofit advocacy group. 

Meanwhile, Politico has gone through Hegseth’s public statements and writings, and concludes that “it’s likely he will aim to undermine the military’s long-standing nonpartisan pluralism by scrubbing diversity from the ranks, banning women in combat, urging the military to choose sides in a ‘civil war’ against ‘domestic enemies’ on the left, and orienting the military’s mission around his fixation on the Muslim world, which he feels represents an existential threat to Western civilization.” Read that, here.

Deportation watch: Trump vowed to deport American citizens if they have family members who are undocumented. The president-elect made the statements in a Sunday interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 

How widespread could that be? Axios: “An estimated 4.7 million households in the U.S. are defined as ‘mixed-status,’ meaning they house at least one undocumented resident and at least one citizen or legal noncitizen resident,” according to the Center for Migration Studies.

Commentary: Want ‘government efficiency’? Help change agencies from within. Instead of slashing headcount, DOGE co-chairs should be soliciting ideas from reformers inside government, argues Steve Kelman, a former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy who now teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Examples of beneficial changes introduced by government employees “include the switch from buying individual shrink-wrapped software to paying for site licenses (although it took a decade to adopt this practice) and the use of online auctions to buy products,” Kelman writes, here. 

Industry

Boeing whistleblowers have been reporting concerns about airplane parts for years, several of them told CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” Watch and read.

And lastly today: We discussed the decline of America’s commercial shipbuilding industry in our latest podcast, which was posted Friday. It’s a conversation with Brian Potter, senior infrastructure fellow at the Institute for Progress and author of "Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?"; and Nicole Foy, an immigration-and-labor reporter with ProPublica.

Don't miss our complementary podcast episode, "How U.S. Navy shipbuilding sank so low."