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Presented by Lockheed Martin: From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey | Presented by Lockheed Martin | With help from Phelim Kine and Daniel Lippman. | 
Commuters watch a TV showing file images of Kim Jong Un and Joe Biden in South Korea in March. | Ahn Young-joon, File/AP Photo | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint It’s Thursday, Oct. 21, and not a single Biden administration official has yet heard from their North Korean counterpart. That’s the main takeaway after NatSec Daily spoke with multiple U.S. officials on how their outreach to Pyongyang is going. Despite many outreach attempts, including at least three appeals this week — one of them from U.S. ambassador to the United Nations LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD — all Washington, D.C., gets is radio silence. “Our offer to meet without preconditions remains,” a State Department spokesperson told us. “Ultimately, we hope [North Korea] will respond positively to our outreach.” No member of President JOE BIDEN’s team would go further into details on the specifics of the American outreach or how many times messages were conveyed to Pyongyang. The one-sided negotiation is troubling, especially since North Korea continues to test and develop new weapons, as leader KIM JONG UN promised to do earlier this year. He and his coterie, in statement after statement, appear unmoved by America’s advances. Instead, they claim the U.S. retains an aggressive posture against it, not one seeking peace. “Kim is looking for action, not words. He's said so multiple times. Action doesn't have to mean compromising security or leverage,” tweeted TOBY DALTON , the co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s nuclear program. Some of those actions, experts say, range from easier compromises like signing an end of war declaration to harder ones like removing U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula. None of those, for the moment, appear to be seriously on the table. Few U.S. officials and analysts NatSec Daily spoke with expect the silent treatment to end in 2021. If that’s the case, the U.S. may seek to force Kim’s hand by making current sanctions on his country bite, namely by getting Russia and China — North Korea’s main trading partners — to enforce them. The U.N. Security Council held a meeting today in which officials discussed this exact matter. Until both D.C. and Pyongyang get to the negotiating table, though, tensions will remain high — even in the quiet. | | | FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — TOP GOP SENS WANT JOINT AFG REVIEW: The top Republican senators on the Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees will send a letter to four inspectors general today asking for a joint inquiry into the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. “While we appreciate the U.S. Department of State Office of Inspector General’s commitment to carry out a review of the [Special Immigrant Visa] program, we feel any audit must be comprehensive in scope and consider the role of other key agencies, notably the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense,” wrote Sens. JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), JAMES INHOFE (R-Okla.) and ROB PORTMAN (R-Ohio) in a letter exclusively obtained by NatSec Daily. “This investigation should thoroughly review each individual executive department that holds responsibilities in the SIV process, as well as their respective bureaus, offices, and missions, and the interagency processes in place to help facilitate communication and coordination between them.” While inspectors general are typically immune from political pressure, the letter might incentivize the State Department’s DIANA SHAW, the Pentagon’s SEAN O’DONNELL, DHS’ JOSEPH CUFFARI and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s THOMAS ULLOM to combine forces. As of now, Shaw is leading the review with input from her colleagues in the other departments. However, as our own NAHAL TOOSI reported in Wednesday’s edition , some of the agencies — like USAID — are looking into their own matters. That IG’s office told her they’re conducting “an audit of USAID’s humanitarian assistance activities in Afghanistan, as well as an audit on the termination process for Afghan-related programming. We also are planning follow-up work on USAID’s risk management activities there.” FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — U.S.-CHINA CLIMATE MEETING: Our own PHELIM KINE and ZACK COLMAN report JOHN KERRY, Biden’s special envoy for climate, will meet with his Chinese counterpart, XIE ZHENHUA , in London next week ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference starting Oct. 31 in Glasgow. Kerry’s office declined comment, but a Kerry-Xie face-to-face will raise hopes of a potential joint climate initiative announcement in Glasgow building on commitments made by both Biden and Chinese President XI JINPING at the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month. It will also indicate that Kerry’s behind-the-scenes engagement efforts with Xie have advanced since he got the equivalent of a diplomatic door slam last month in Tianjin. U.S. TROOPS ATTACKED IN SYRIA: American service members at the al-Tanf garrison on the Syria/Iraq border were attacked Wednesday by a drone and possibly gunfire. There were no reported deaths or injuries, and no group took responsibility for it yet — though Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.) claims it was Iran. U.S. and coalition troops remain in Syria to train local fighters to fend off ISIS. But their authorization from Congress to be there and their real mission remains unclear, even to close observers. “Periodic reminder that America still has a zombie troop presence in Syria that occasionally gets droned and rocketed while deployed in pursuit of absolutely no strategic objective whatsoever,” tweeted the Economist’s Middle East correspondent GREGG CARLSTROM. SOUTH KOREA’S SPACE ROCKET: Anything you can do, I can do better. At least that’s what it seems South Korea is saying to its northern neighbor with the test launch of its first domestically made space rocket. While the Nuri reached its desired altitude, it failed to put the dummy payload into orbit. South Korean President MOON JAE-IN, who was present at the launch, admitted as much but said “It's not long before we'll be able to launch it exactly into the target trajectory … it was an excellent accomplishment for a first launch.” Seoul’s 2009 and 2010 attempts to put a rocket into space failed, so South Korea spent $1.6 billion to develop a new one with the goal of sending a probe to the moon by 2030. The country expects to test the Nuri four more times before 2027 to ensure its reliability. Outside of South Korea, the most curious spectator was surely North Korean leader Kim. While his country put a satellite into orbit nine years ago, this launch is another reminder of the arms race the two Koreas are locked in, with no signs of slowing down. Kim promised to develop and test new weapons earlier this year, and responding to an historic South Korean launch is as good an excuse as any to conduct another test of his own soon. IT’S THURSDAY: 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. | | A message from Lockheed Martin: Innovation and Partnership Advance Long-Range Precision Fires
PrSM joins the U.S. Army's precision fires arsenal using transformational technology on a rapid timeline to support Joint All-Domain Operations. Learn More | | | | | | POLAND-EU RIFT TO DOMINATE SUMMIT: Before the EU started its two-day summit today, the belief was it would be all about energy prices and the hopes of a greener future. Instead, it’s turned into the latest battlefield for the knockout, dragout fight between Brussels and Warsaw. The dispute is over a top Polish court’s ruling that local laws outweigh some EU laws — thereby undermining the bloc’s legal primacy. Already this week, EU Commission President URSULA VON DER LEYEN said the commission will use “all instruments at our disposal” to get Poland back into compliance. Polish Prime Minister MATEUSZ MORAWIECKI fired back: " I will not have EU politicians blackmail Poland." The bloc has a lot of important matters to discuss, which is why EU officials hope the squabble won’t overshadow the talks. But there’s widespread worry tensions might flare inside the room — and only make the crisis worse. POLITICO’s ZOSIA WANAT has the full backstory of how we got to this point. | | | ADMIN ASKS FOR PRIVATE-SECTOR HELP TO TRACK CYBERCRIMINALS: LISA MONACO, the deputy attorney general, said private companies need to help the government track and defeat cyber criminals. "We cannot do this alone," she said Wednesday during a virtual roundtable. "The bottom line is this: I believe it is bad for companies. It's bad for America and it hurts our efforts to uphold the value that we try to demonstrate as a country if companies are attacked, and don't partner with law enforcement." The administration wants to provide incentives to firms to come forward after a ransomware attack, because it would help authorities hold them to account. "Those who come forward will see that we are determined to bring our authorities to bear to be nimble in our response," Monaco said. "We make arrests. We hold people to account. We get money back." | | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down and who really has the president's ear in West Wing Playbook, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | SPACE GUARD SQUABBLE: The proposed creation of a Space National Guard has emerged as a point of conflict between Congress and the executive branch, with the White House arguing that such an organization “would not deliver new capabilities” and only “create new government bureaucracy,” per our own BRYAN BENDER and CONNOR O’BRIEN. Lawmakers from Colorado, Florida, Hawaii and other states that are home to space operations — led by Reps. JASON CROW (D-Colo.) and DOUG LAMBORN (R-Colo.) — are pushing for a dedicated Space Guard that can provide a talent pool for the technical space branch, while also benefiting from some of the additional spending that would go with it. The House recently passed bipartisan defense policy legislation mandating that a Space Guard be established within 18 months, likely drawing from the roughly 2,000 troops that now carry out space missions in the Army and Air National Guard in eight states. But the White House and the Defense Department are unenthusiastic about the idea, as some active-duty leaders are reluctant to have to contend with another powerful lobby in Washington pushing parochial interests and projects.
| | | MILITARY “PINK TAX” BILL: Sens. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-N.H.) and JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) today introduced legislation to reduce out-of-pocket costs for women in the military, who on the whole pay more for their uniforms than their male counterparts. “It is absurd that we are forcing service members to fork over thousands of dollars in order to pay for necessary clothing items that they wear while serving our country,” Hassan said in a statement. “This disparity in uniform costs is particularly stark for women, who are in some cases paying almost twice as much for the same uniform item as their male counterparts.” Per a news release, the bipartisan bill has support from numerous groups, including TREA: The Enlisted Association, Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), Air Force Sergeants Association (AFSA), Service Women's Action Network (SWAN), Combined Arms, Fleet Reserve Association, United States Army Warrant Officers Association, The Independence Fund, National Defense Committee, Secure Family Initiatives (SFI), Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC) and Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. HOUSE DEMS PROPOSE ANTI-GLOBAL ISLAMOPHOBIA BILL: Reps. ILHAN OMAR (D-Minn.) and JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-Ill.) today introduced the “Combating International Islamophobia Act ,” which would require the State Department to appoint a special envoy for monitoring and combating Islamophobia, and ensure the annual human rights report features sections on state-sponsored Islamophobia violence. “We are seeing a rise in Islamophobia in nearly every corner of the globe,” Omar said. “These types of incidents are all too common for Muslims in the United States and beyond. As part of our commitment to international religious freedom and human rights, we must recognize Islamophobia and do all we can to eradicate it.” “For over a decade we have seen increasing incidents of violent Islamophobia both in the U.S. and worldwide — from the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma, and Uyghurs in China, to the attacks on Muslim refugees in Canada and New Zealand,” Schakowsky added in a statement. “It is past time for the U.S. to establish a comprehensive plan for combating this hatred worldwide.” The administration insists it puts human rights at the center of its foreign policy and wants the U.S. to lead by the power of its example. Omar and Schakowsky’s bill tests that proposition — should it get through Congress and arrive on the president’s desk. | | | |   | | | | | | GERMAN DEFMIN TO EUROPEANS: STICK WITH NATO: The new hotness in Europe is “strategic autonomy,” the idea pushed mainly from Paris that the continent must be able to defend itself instead of outsourcing its security to the U.S. That could come in the form of an EU force separate from NATO. But German Defense Minister ANNEGRET KRAMP-KARRENBAUER told POLITICO’s FLORIAN EDER and LAURENZ GEHRKE today that those are mere dreams, not reality. “There is a lot of talk about European autonomy, or sovereignty, or — as I prefer to call it — more ability to act from the European Union in security and defense. People are asking why we were not in a position to hold the Kabul airport ourselves,” she said just before the NATO defense ministers’ meeting that started today. “We have to say quite openly: Without the capabilities of the Americans, we, as Europeans, would not have been able to do that.” Europeans instead should think about how to “become capable to act within NATO” — not create their own institution. “That is the big difference,” said the defense chief known as AKK. This is a big statement coming from Germany, arguably Europe’s most powerful country. It’ll prolong the nation’s rift with France, whose President EMMANUEL MACRON has championed the strategic autonomy idea. There’s no question this issue will cause friction over two days of NATO meetings in Brussels.
| | | — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: Per our own DANIEL LIPPMAN, the president plans to nominate MICHÈLE TAYLOR for the rank of ambassador during her tenure of service as U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council and BETH VAN SCHAACK for ambassador at large for global criminal justice at the State Department. — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: Foreign Policy for America has added 12 new members to its advisory board: JOHN B. BELLINGER III, LOUIS CALDERA, SUZANNE DIMAGGIO , NAIMA GREEN-RILEY, DAVID J. KRAMER, TJADA D’OYEN MCKENNA, REGINA MONTOYA, SUSAN D. PAGE, CHRISTOPHER PREBLE, BEN RHODES, MELANNE VERVEER and ROBERT B. ZOELLICK. Also, Bellinger and HEATHER HURLBURT will become co-chairs of the organization’s policy meetings for the 117th Congress. — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: NICOLE ELKON is now deputy assistant secretary for private sector exchange in the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs at the State Department. She most recently was chief operating officer of Human Rights First and worked in ECA in the Obama administration. — KAREEM W. SHORA will become executive vice president for programs and policy at Human Rights First. He currently serves as acting deputy director for policy and programs in the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security. | | | | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | — ISAAC ARNSDORF, ProPublica: “Oath Keepers in the State House: How a Militia Movement Took Root in the Republican Mainstream” — JULIA IOFFE, Puck: “ A Cold War Saga in Biden’s Washington” — JONATHAN BRODER, SpyTalk: “Mossad’s New Boss is a Gadget-Loving Killing Machine” | | | — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 a.m.: “A Discussion of U.S.-China Economic Competition — with FRENCH HILL, DAVID RANK, ANNE STEVENSON-YANG, ALEXANDER TITUS, REMCO ZWETSLOOT, MATTHEW P. GOODMAN and STEPHANIE SEGAL” — House Homeland Security Committee, 9 a.m.: “ Member Day Hearing” — The Atlantic Council, 10 a.m.: “Women, Peace, and Security 2030: Integrating lessons learned from Afghanistan — with SAHANA DHARMAPURI, CORI FLESER, RACHEL GRIMES, CLARE HUTCHINSON and SARAH DAWN PETRIN” — The Middle East Policy Council, 10 a.m.: “Middle East Cybersecurity: Threats and Opportunities — with GAWDAT BAHGAT, SIMON HANDLER, JIM MORAN and JAMES SHIRES” — The Atlantic Council, 12 p.m.: “Bloody fatwa: Iran’s new president and the 1988 prison massacre — with LAWDAN BAZARGAN, ROYA BOROUMAND, HOLLY DAGRES, IRAJ MESDAGHI and GISSOU NIA” — The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 1 p.m.: “ Teetering on the Brink: Turkey’s Troubled Ties with the West — with NATHALIE TOCCI” — The Wilson Center, 1 p.m.: “Book Talk: The Catacazy Affair and the Uneasy Path of Russian-American Relations — with LEE FARROW and WILLIAM E. POMERANZ” — The Wilson Center, 2:15 p.m.: “What Next For the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor? A Conversation with Pakistani Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar — with ABRAHAM DENMARK and DAVID HALE” — The Heritage Foundation, 3 p.m.: “Japan’s Growing Role in Indo-Pacific Security — with JEFFREY HORNUNG, BRUCE KLINGNER and H.R. MCMASTER” 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. | | A message from Lockheed Martin: Sniper® Advanced Targeting Pod: Affordable, Reliable and Sustainable
Sniper ATP is the most widely fielded combat-tested targeting and ISR pod used today. Handling the most challenging air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, Sniper ATP has easy two-level maintenance with 24/7 support worldwide. Learn more | | | And thanks to our editor, John Yearwood, who only gives us the silent treatment when we deserve it. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
