The D Brief: Navy jet downed by US cruiser; Tech titans push tieup; Trump’s latest DOD picks; More Taiwan aid; And a bit more.
The U.S. Navy rescued aviators downed “in an apparent case of friendly fire” over the Red Sea early Sunday, officials at Central Command announced this weekend. Both members of the F/A-18F Hornet’s aircrew are safe, one with minor injuries.
What happened: “The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64), which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18, which was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman,” CENTCOM said in a statement, adding: “This incident was not the result of hostile fire, and a full investigation is underway.” USNI News has some more details, here.
Hours earlier, the U.S. military carried out airstrikes inside Yemen targeting “a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis” in the capital city of Sana’a, CENTCOM announced separately this weekend.
The Houthis launched “multiple” aerial drones and at least one anti-ship cruise missile as the U.S. forces carried out their precision airstrikes Saturday, U.S. officials said.
Expert reax: While there are still a lot of details we don’t know about the incident, if the Houthis timed their missile and drone attacks “to coincide with the return of the F/A-18, this may mark a higher level of coordination and sophistication than seen from their previous attacks,” naval historian Sal Mercogliano speculated Sunday on social media. “That means the Houthis are altering their attacks or they are being assisted by outside forces, i.e. Iran, Russia or China,” he writes, adding, “We know that Iran has been assisting” the Houthis. Read more, here.
In other regional developments, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Iraq, and Albania James Jeffrey has some ideas about Syria for the Biden administration’s final days in office. For example, “Washington has a moral duty and geopolitical interest to ensure that the Kurds are not crushed militarily, and that the fight against ISIS not lag,” he writes in a commentary published Friday in Defense One.
However, Jeffrey warns, “the U.S. must not indefinitely prop up a Kurdish statelet inside Syria as a perpetual counter-terrorism partner or ‘great game’ Levantine pawn, in the face of resistance from the new Syrian national government and the regional king-maker, Turkiye.”
His advice: “With U.S. help, the SDF should resurrect the buffer-zone concept along the Turkish border agreed between Ankara, Washington, and the SDF in 2019, including joint U.S.-Turkish patrols, until the central government can assume border control,” Ambassador Jeffrey argues. But perhaps most importantly for Ankara, “The SDF should open channels to Ankara and lay out a step-by-step plan for its demobilization and transformation into a political party without overt institutional links to the PKK, similar to the largely Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democratic Party in Turkey.”
And for the Trump administration, they should “announce an eventual withdrawal of all forces from Syria, based on conditions, but no later than December 2026, absent a new agreement with Damascus.” Read the rest, here.
Additional reading:
- “Top Arab Diplomats Visit Syria to Build Ties With New Leadership,” the New York Times reported Friday from Beirut;
- “Inside the abandoned homes of Assad's ruthless enforcers,” the BBC reported Saturday;
- “Cargo vessel sent to transport Russian military equipment from Syria breaks down in open sea, Ukraine's intel claims,” the Kyiv Independent reported Monday;
- ICYMI, “Russia Withdraws Air-Defense Systems, Other Advanced Weaponry From Syria to Libya,” the Wall Street Journal reported last week;
- And “US judge finds Israel's NSO Group liable for hacking in WhatsApp lawsuit,” Reuters reported Friday.
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson, Bradley Peniston and Audrey Decker. 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 1910, Lt. Theodore G. Ellyson became the first naval officer sent to flight training.
Shutdown averted
Three-month stopgap passed at 11th hour. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, Congress approved a stopgap spending bill to keep agencies afloat through March 14, allowing the federal government to remain open—even though lawmakers technically missed the midnight deadline, Govexec’s Eric Katz reported. “The measure includes more than $100 billion in disaster aid—to victims of hurricanes Helene and Milton, among other events—and economic assistance to farmers. The bill required a two-thirds majority to pass the House, meaning a large portion of Democrats had to join Republicans for the bill to advance. Nearly all Democrats did so and the bill moved to the Senate, which passed it with ease after a series of failed amendment votes.” Read on, here.
President Biden signed the stopgap into law on Saturday, issuing this statement: “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted. But it rejects the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires that Republicans sought, and it ensures the government can continue to operate at full capacity.”
Trump 2.0
Four named for senior Pentagon roles. On Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate:
Deputy defense secretary: billionaire Stephen Feinberg, who is co-chief executive of Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm that has invested in defense companies. Feinberg served on an intelligence advisory board during Trump's first administration.
Undersecretary for policy: Elbridge Colby. A former DASD for strategy best known as a China hawk. Find Foreign Affairs’ review of his most recent book, here.
Undersecretary for acquisitions and sustainment: Michael Duffey, a former U.S. representative who has held several Pentagon jobs. As a White House official in Trump’s first administration, he played a role in the freezing of aid to Ukraine that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Undersecretary for research and engineering: Emil Michael, a former executive at Uber who was appointed to a Pentagon defense-business advisory group in 2014. Michael left Uber in 2017 “after a report that he had visited an escort bar in South Korea as part of a business trip,” the New York Times wrote Sunday.
Industry
Palantir and Anduril aim to forge a tech group to win Pentagon contracts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The pair are talking with about a dozen newish companies about forming a consortium to jointly bid for U.S. government work. The group may include SpaceX, OpenAI, autonomous shipbuilder Saronic, and artificial intelligence data group Scale AI, the newspaper said.
ICYMI: This comes after a flurry of announcements of smaller partnerships among new-breed defense firms. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported on those earlier this month under the headline “Are AI defense firms about to eat the Pentagon? / Competitors are becoming collaborators in the industry’s hottest segment.”
Contract agreed for next F-35 lot. The Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin a $11.8 billion contract for the next production lot of F-35 stealth fighter jets, according to a contract notice Friday. The contract award for lot 18 covers the production of 145 aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and foreign customers. The contract is “undefinitized,” meaning final pricing could still change as the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed finish negotiations, but it allows the money to start flowing to Lockheed. Lockheed and the program office reached a handshake deal in November for the next production lots, 18 and 19, after prolonged negotiations took a bite out of the company’s earnings this year. Jets in these next lots will be more expensive than previous lots, as inflation and new technology have driven up pricing. The F-35 program has come under scrutiny in recent weeks from Elon Musk, key adviser of President-elect Donald Trump and co-leader of an effort to increase government “efficiency,” but top Air Force leaders continue to defend the jet, arguing that the military needs to continue buying and upgrading the stealth fighter.
U.S. Ospreys to resume flight after gearbox inspections. The U.S. military’s V-22 Ospreys will be cleared to fly after each aircraft is inspected to assess their prop-rotor gearboxes, a part connected to a deadly 2023 crash, and operating limits are being imposed on new gearboxes, Defense One’s Audrey Decker reported on Friday. Earlier this month, the Pentagon paused Osprey flights after a near-crash at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico on Nov. 2. That followed a crash that killed eight airmen last year off the coast of Japan after the gearbox failed.
China and Russia
Arms to Taiwan: The White House announced a drawdown of more than $570 million in military-related “defense articles and services” for Taiwan on Saturday. That’s on top of a nearly $300 million sale of MK 75 76 mm Gun Mounts as well as tactical radios and servicing for Taiwan’s Advanced Tactical Datalink System, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced Friday.
China’s Foreign Ministry denounced the sales and transfers, describing them in a statement Saturday as “a severe breach of the US leaders’ commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence,’” which “sends a gravely wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”
“Arming Taiwan is just like playing with fire and will get the US burned,” the Foreign Ministry said, and “urge[d] the US to immediately stop arming Taiwan.”
Developing: North Korea is on the verge of sending more drones, weapons, and troops for Russia’s Ukraine invasion, South Korea’s military announced Monday, according to Seoul’s Yonhap news agency.
The apparent shipments allegedly include 240-millimeter rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery as well as “some signs of (the North) moving to manufacture and supply suicide drones,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
Related: “Recent satellite images show that North Korea is shipping more munitions to Russia and is expanding arms production at home to churn out the weapons Moscow needs to feed its voracious war machine,” the Wall Street Journal reported Monday (gift link).
Additional reading:
- “Russia Taps Soviet-Era Stockpiles as Armored-Vehicle Supply Dwindles,” the Journal reported separately Saturday;
- “Ukrainian military unveils false IDs used by N.K. troops deployed to Russia: report,” Yonhap news agency reported Monday;
- “Former Marines pilot who worked in China to be extradited to U.S., Australia government says,” NBC News reported Monday;
- “China's state importer books US soy purchases as tariff threat looms,” Reuters reported late last week;
- “Biden launches new US trade probe into legacy Chinese chips,” Reuters reported Monday;
- And “Makers of Taiwan's 'Zero Day' TV series set around invasion fear backlash from China,” Reuters reported separately on Monday.
Finally today: Review the year that was and ponder the upcoming one with Defense One Radio’s new episode, which features conversations with some of the most fascinating guests of 2024.
That's it for us this year. Have a happy holiday, and we’ll see you again in 2025!