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From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey | | 
Taliban fighters hold Taliban flags in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021. | Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi/AP Photo | Welcome to National Security Daily, your guide to the global events roiling Washington and keeping the administration up at night. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint Before America and its partners consider formally recognizing the Taliban as Afghanistan’s governing force, they want to put the militants through a major tryout. Read the draft text of a U.N. Security Council resolution by the United States, France and the United Kingdom, and it’s clear the Taliban have three conditions to meet before winning such a prize. Condition 1: Ensure the “safe, secure, and orderly departure from Afghanistan of Afghans and all foreign nationals” from here on out. That means not only through the end of Aug. 31 — the date the American military mission in the country ends — but also well into the future. Condition 2: Allow for humanitarian assistance to enter Afghanistan while safeguarding the human rights of women, children and minorities. This includes a “negotiated political settlement, with the full, equal and meaningful representation of women, that responds to the desire of Afghans to sustain and build on Afghanistan’s gains over the last twenty years in adherence to the rule of law.” Condition 3: Demonstrate that Afghanistan will “not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists, or to plan or to finance terrorist acts.” This resolution is targeted right now toward getting people out safely over the next few hours, but it still may not go as far as some Western leaders have wanted. For example, French President EMMANUEL MACRON recently said the three permanent Security Council members would push for a U.N.-enforced “safe zone” in Kabul. It also may not even win approval from the body, since either Russia or China could unilaterally sink the measure’s passage. Still, the draft resolution is the clearest signal yet that the Taliban have a path to formal recognition, if the group wants it. “This is going to come down to the Taliban actually following through before we can talk about things like embassies and recognition and the like,” national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN told “Fox News Sunday” over the weekend. Sullivan said there are ways to force the issue. “We’ve rallied dozens of countries from around the world to stand with us in saying to the Taliban that if they do not follow through on those commitments, there will be significant consequences,” he told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” as he made the Sunday show rounds. | | | PENTAGON PREPPED FOR “MASS CASUALTY” ATTACK BEFORE KABUL AIRPORT STRIKE: If you still haven’t read the eye-popping exclusive from our own LARA SELIGMAN today, make sure to take the time. Here’s a taste of the scoop-filled story: “Speaking from a secure video conference room on the third floor of the Pentagon at 8 a.m. Wednesday — or 4:30 p.m. in Kabul — Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN instructed more than a dozen of the department’s top leaders around the world to make preparations for an imminent ‘mass casualty event,’ according to classified detailed notes of the gathering shared with POLITICO. … “‘I don’t believe people get the incredible amount of risk on the ground,’ Austin said, according to the classified notes. On a separate call at 4 that afternoon, or 12:30 a.m. on Thursday in Kabul, the commanders detailed a plan to close Abbey Gate by Thursday afternoon Kabul time. But the Americans decided to keep the gate open longer than they wanted in order to allow their British allies, who had accelerated their withdrawal timeline, to continue evacuating their personnel, based at the nearby Baron Hotel.” FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — CLINTON CAMPAIGN CHIEF IN KABUL: Per our own DANIEL LIPPMAN, ROBBY MOOK — who was HILLARY CLINTON ’s 2016 campaign manager — was part of the contingent of several thousand service members who worked at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the last few weeks helping evacuate Americans and Afghan allies, according to two people familiar with the matter. Mook, who most recently was president of House Majority PAC, is a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve and took a year off from Democratic politics starting last February for active duty abroad. As part of his earlier reserve duties, he’s written stories like “Navy’s First Reserve Cyber Defense Unit Brings Reinforcements to Newest Fight.” One person saw Mook in the military operations center at HKIA working as part of a group of four public affairs officers dealing with press questions. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mook was just doing his job and made a self-deprecating comment about how he was happy some people didn’t know who he was. Mook declined to comment, and a U.S. Central Command spokesperson had no comment, either. VETS SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE CALLS UP: The Daily Beast’s SHANNON VAVRA reported some troubling statistics. Calls from veterans to the Veterans Crisis Line — a resource offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs — ticked upward 6 percent since Aug. 13, as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan. On Aug. 16, hours after Kabul fell, the call line received 12 percent more calls than it had on the same day last year. And on Aug. 25, the day before the ISIS-K attack on Kabul’s international airport, the number grew again to 17 percent compared to the same day the previous year. While it remains unclear whether the increase in calls is directly attributable to the Afghanistan crisis, it’s obvious that what’s unfolding in the country weighs heavily on many veterans of that war. STUDENTS STRANDED IN KABUL: The American University of Afghanistan informed roughly 600 of its students, their relatives and staff over the weekend that they would not be evacuated out of the Afghan capital as civilian rescue flights at the city’s international airport drew to a close, per The New York Times’ FARNAZ FASSIHI. The students and their families later learned the U.S. military had shared a list of their names and passport information with the Taliban — a practice the United States previously employed when it gave the militant group the names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to be granted access to the airport’s outer perimeter, as POLITICO reported last week. On Monday, White House press secretary JEN PSAKI dismissed such reports of the United States providing lists of potential evacuees to the Taliban as “inaccurate,” as well as “misreported and misconstrued.” But she did concede that “there have been limited, limited cases where it is possible that when buses or individuals are at a border checkpoint, and they’re trying to get through, in order to get them through, to evacuate them successfully, we have had to coordinate and provide details.” NORTH KOREA CONTINUES WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT: In case you forgot, North Korea is still out there, and KIM JONG UN hasn’t stopped building his arsenal. The Wall Street Journal’s MICHAEL GORDON and LAURENCE NORMAN first reported Pyongyang likely has put its Yongbyon plutonium-producing nuclear reactor back to use. That jarring revelation is included in a forthcoming annual report on North Korea’s nuclear development. “Since early July, there have been indications, including the discharge of cooling water, consistent with the operation of the reactor,” reads the International Atomic Energy Agency’s document that the two reporters cited. “North Korea operates the gas-graphite reactor for one reason and one reason only: To make plutonium for nuclear weapons,” said JEFFREY LEWIS, who directs the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. “What we are seeing is a shift in North Korea’s goals from developing a deterrent to U.S. invasion to an offensive capability to preemptive[ly] strike U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan before an invasion can begin.” Known for a time as the “heart” of North Korea’s nuclear program , Yongbyon’s revival after lying mostly dormant since December 2018 is a stark reminder of the threat Pyongyang still poses. The news “tells us that North Korea continues to produce fissile material,” said JENNY TOWN, who directs the Stimson Center think tank’s 38 North Program. “They never stopped.” IT’S MONDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at award@politico.com and qforgey@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @QuintForgey. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmccleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio and @JonnyCustodio. | | | | INTRODUCING OTTAWA PLAYBOOK : Join the growing community of Politicos — from lawmakers and leaders to pollsters, staffers, strategists and lobbyists — working to shape Canada’s future. Every day, our reporting team pulls back the curtain to shed light on what’s really driving the agenda on Parliament Hill, the true players who are shaping politics and policy across Canada, and the impact it all has on the world. Don’t miss out on your daily look inside Canadian politics and power. Subscribe to Ottawa Playbook today. | | | | | | | | CHINA’S FM TEES OFF ON BLINKEN: Chinese Foreign Minister WANG YI let Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN have it over America’s handling of Afghanistan and the U.S. intelligence community’s report on the origins of Covid-19. Citing information from China’s Xinhua News Agency, Wang “urged the U.S. to work with the international community to provide economic assistance to the new Afghan government, and stressed the importance of both sides actively guiding the Taliban as the American military prepares to withdraw after two decades,” Bloomberg News reported. “Wang added that the war had failed to accomplish its goal of rooting out terrorism in the South Asian nation.” Furthermore, the foreign minister noted “China opposed the U.S. intelligence community’s inquiry into the source of Covid-19, the virus that caused the worst pandemic in more than a century. He accused the U.S. of turning the coronavirus into a political issue.” State Department spokesperson NED PRICE confirmed the call , saying both leaders discussed “the importance of the international community holding the Taliban accountable for the public commitments they have made regarding the safe passage and freedom to travel for Afghans and foreign nationals.” The broadsides from Beijing come after Reuters’ IDREES ALI reported that MICHAEL CHASE , deputy assistant secretary of Defense for China, spoke last week with Chinese Major General HUANG XUEPING, deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation. It was the first time since President JOE BIDEN took office that a top Pentagon official held talks with the Chinese military. | | | NEW CYBER CHIEF GOES ON THE RECORD: In his first in-depth interview since the Senate confirmed him in June as America’s first-ever national cyber director, CHRIS INGLIS warned that “[t]he bad actors are not standing still” as the United States continues to combat a wave of ransomware attacks, per our own ERIC GELLER. The former deputy director of the National Security Agency said his new role would focus on how to “hold them at bay and ensure that they don’t succeed in ways that, far too often in the past, they have.” He also said he would highlight both “investments that are not on the books but that should be made” — as well as inefficiencies in existing spending — when submitting reviews of agencies’ cyber budgets to OMB and Congress. As for potential friction with Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technology ANNE NEUBERGER, Inglis insisted that although there was “room enough in this” for both of them, the wide-ranging nature of cyber policy precluded “very clean … boundaries” between their portfolios. | | | THE BLADED MISSILE USED AGAINST ISIS-K: When the U.S. military targeted and killed two high-profile ISIS-K militants in retaliation for the suicide bombings at Kabul’s airport last week, the Pentagon used a special Hellfire missile known as the R9X, per The Wall Street Journal’s GORDON LUBOLD and WARREN STROBEL. “Instead of exploding, the weapon ejects a halo of six large blades stowed inside the skin of the missile, which deploy at the last minute to shred the target of the strike, allowing military commanders to pinpoint their target and reduce the possibility for civilian casualties,” they wrote — adding that the missile is known within the military as “the flying Ginsu” or the “ninja bomb.” It just so happens that Bellingcat’s NICK WATERS authored a deep dive on the R9X a few days ago and viscerally described what exactly the weapon is capable of. The missile was used “in February 2017 when Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, an Al-Qaeda deputy leader, was killed in what appeared to be a drone strike in Syria’s Idlib Province. However, there was no explosion. Instead, the roof of his car was torn open, as though sliced with a massive razor,” he reported. The missile’s existence was first reported in 2019 by Lubold and Strobel, though the U.S. government has yet to publicly confirm the weapon is real or in use. U.S. STRIKE ON ISIS REPORTEDLY KILLS 10 INNOCENTS: A Sunday drone strike by the U.S. military on an ISIS-K target laden with explosives may have resulted in numerous civilian casualties. “[A]t a family home in Kabul on Monday, survivors and neighbors said the strike had killed 10 people, including seven children, an aid worker for an American charity organization and a contractor with the U.S. military,” per The New York Times’ MATTHIEU AIKINS. “The missile hit the rear end of the Corolla in the narrow courtyard inside the walled family compound, blowing out doors, shattering windows and spraying shrapnel. Mr. Ahmadi and some of the children were killed inside his car; others were fatally wounded in adjacent rooms, family members said. An Afghan official confirmed that three of the dead children were transferred by ambulance from the home on Sunday,” the report continued. As for the possibility of civilians being killed by the strike, Pentagon spokesperson JOHN KIRBY said at a news briefing Monday that U.S. officials were “not in a position to dispute” such reports: “We take it very, very seriously. And when we know that we have caused innocent life to be lost in the conduct of our operations, we’re transparent about it. We’re investigating this. I’m not going to get ahead of it. But if we have verifiable information that we did in fact take innocent life here, then we will be transparent about that, too.” Major Gen. WILLIAM TAYLOR added that although “commanders will always minimize collateral damage,” the strike “prevented a high-profile attack against both coalition and U.S. forces and other Afghan civilians. And so, as we looked at the information that we had during the time of the strike, we took all those measures in place, and the decision was made to strike and thwart that attack.” | | | HOUSE PROGRESSIVES PUSH BACK ON NDAA BUDGET HIKE: Two dozen House Democrats from the party’s progressive wing sent a letter Monday to House Armed Services Committee Chair ADAM SMITH (D-Wash.) arguing against the $25 billion budget increase endorsed by the Senate National Defense Authorization Act and urging the House panel not to exceed Biden's $715 billion defense request, per our own BRYAN BENDER at our sister newsletter, Morning Defense (for Pros!). “Surpassing the President’s request by such a large and unwarranted amount should not be the starting position of the House Armed Services Committee, particularly when current defense spending levels should already be reduced,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Reps. MARK POCAN (D-Wis.) and BARBARA LEE (D-Calif.). But it may be too late to stop the bipartisan momentum to tack billions on to the Pentagon budget. While Smith supports the Biden budget level, plenty of HASC Democrats have said they’re willing to consider a larger topline. “I think it’s pretty clear that there will be an attempt to raise the topline,” a HASC aide told reporters last week. Read more on the NDAA debate — which is poised to deliver Biden another defense budget defeat — from our own CONNOR O’BRIEN. | | | ADMINISTRATION BATTLING AFGHAN REFUGEE BACKLASH: Increasingly vocal anti-refugee sentiment within the GOP is complicating the administration’s plan to resettle thousands of Afghan allies and their families in the United States, with Republicans hoping to exploit the issue ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, per our own ANITA KUMAR. The White House is already trying to avoid the sort of politicization that plagued efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in 2015. Administration officials say they’ve been working behind the scenes to brief local and state leaders on how extensively refugees are vetted before stepping foot on U.S. soil. Refugee organizations coordinating with the administration are doing the same in communities, and both are conducting media outreach to dispel myths on the resettlement process. | | | — DAN SHAPIRO, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration, has begun work as a “part-time senior adviser” to ROBERT MALLEY, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, per Axios’ BARAK RAVID. | | | | Be a Policy Pro. POLITICO Pro has a free policy resource center filled with our best practices on building relationships with state and federal representatives, demonstrating ROI, and influencing policy through digital storytelling. Read our free guides today . | | | | | | | | — AÍDA CHÁVEZ, The Nation: “Barbara Lee Has to Vote” — MEGAN K. STACK, The New Yorker: “ The Veterans Struggling to Save Afghan Allies” — MATTHEW ZWEIG and RICHARD GOLDBERG, The Wall Street Journal: “Beefed-Up Sanctions Could Limit the Damage in Afghanistan” | | | — The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 2 a.m.: “Climate change and Finland’s security: threats and preparedness in the overall security operating model” — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 a.m.: “A Mission to Mars: A Conversation with Her Excellency SARAH AL AMIRI, UAE Minister of State for Advanced Technology” — The Brookings Institution, 10 a.m.: “ How the NDAA invests in America’s defense: A conversation with HASC Chairman ADAM SMITH” — The Heritage Foundation, 10 a.m.: “Grim Prospects for Women and Girls in Afghanistan” — The Stimson Center, 10:30 a.m.: “Analyzing Diversion Dynamics: Lessons Learned” — Government Executive, 12 p.m.: “Cyber Defenders: Cyber Policies and Priorities” — The Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 12 p.m.: “The longest day: The Allied landing in Normandy in 1944” — The National Defense Industrial Association, 3 p.m.: “Small Business Roundtable with FAROOQ MITHA , Director of DoD's Office of Small Business Programs” Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot us an email at award@politico.com or qforgey@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
