|
From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey | With help from Daniel Lippman Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint
| 
Russian snipers change their position during a military exercise in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia. | Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP | The Biden administration alleges the Kremlin could create a pretext for a Ukraine invasion by distributing a fake video of Kyiv’s forces targeting Russian territory or Russian-speakers — thereby giving President VLADIMIR PUTIN what he needs to send troops rolling over the border. A senior administration official told NatSec Daily that Moscow has already recruited people to be in the video and that Russian intelligence officials are “intimately involved” in the plot. “This video likely will depict graphic scenes of a staged false explosion with corpses, actors depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations and military equipment,” the official said. “We believe that the military equipment used in this fabricated attack will be made to look like it is Ukrainian or from allied nations.” It’s also possible Russia will make it look like Ukraine used Turkish-made Bayraktar drones in the staged strike. To be crystal clear: The administration isn’t saying that such a video has been made but rather that Russia is in the pre-production planning stage. The official made clear that this is just one option among others at Putin’s disposal. “We are publicizing it in the hopes that it dissuades Russia from its intended course of action,” the official said. “We don’t know definitively that this is the route they’re going to take,” deputy national security adviser JON FINER told MSNBC’s ANDREA MITCHELL today. Should Russia go ahead with this plan, though, Finer said making this information public would complicate the Kremlin’s efforts to spread disinformation about its reason for escalating the Ukraine war while keeping America’s allies and partners aligned. Finer also reiterated that a Russian invasion “could happen at any time, that means it could happen immediately or it could happen over a longer period of time.” Another option is that Putin could say he’s acting to protect a newly recognized nation composed of separatist territories within Ukraine, the senior administration official said. There’s currently a recognition measure moving through Russia’s rubber-stamp Parliament to formally treat breakaway parts of Ukraine as independent. If passed and agreed to by Putin, the Kremlin boss could then claim his forces are simply backing this new nation against Kyiv’s aggressions. “In line with its previous interventions, Russia would portray its actions as defending ethnic Russians and coming at the request of a sovereign government for assistance,” the senior administration official told us. The U.S. shared the intel with NATO allies before releasing it, per an official of a European NATO country. Since January, President JOE BIDEN’s team has said that Russia was working on a pretext plan but never provided concrete evidence of what that would entail. We still haven’t seen such evidence — officials aren’t releasing intelligence to safeguard sources and methods, they say. Even so, the administration is right to note that the Kremlin has often used these playbooks in the past ahead of invasions, so it’s not as far-fetched as, say, claiming Iraq has yellowcake. Releasing this information is another indicator that the U.S., along with its allies, is pessimistic about the prospects for a negotiated peace. While the administration still seeks a diplomatic resolution, it seems the Kremlin is making other plans.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: Our mission is to prepare you for the future by engineering advanced capabilities today.
Many of today’s military systems and platforms were designed to operate independently. Through our 21st Century Warfare vision, Lockheed Martin is accelerating innovation, connecting defense and digital to enhance the performance of major platforms, to equip customers to stay ahead of emerging threats. Learn more. | | | | | | U.S. KILLS ISIS LEADER: Biden on Thursday heralded the success of a large-scale counterterrorism raid carried out by U.S. special operations forces in northwestern Syria that resulted in the death of ABU IBRAHIM AL-HASHIMI AL-QURAYSHI, the leader of the Islamic State militant group, Quint reports. “Thanks to the bravery of our troops, this horrible terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in an address delivered from the Roosevelt Room of the White House. In a call today with reporters organized by the National Security Council, two senior administration officials said the al-Qurayshi raid had “been months in planning,” describing it as an “incredibly complex” operation that “was not without significant risk.” Al-Qurayshi “seemed to purposefully live in a residential building” and “never left the house,” using “innocent people as his shield,” the first senior administration official said. As U.S. troops closed in, al-Qurayshi detonated a “significant blast” on the third floor of the building, “killing himself and several others” — including his wife and children. The blast “was so large … that it blew bodies outside of the house and into the surrounding areas,” the first official said. In addition, one of al-Qurayshi’s lieutenants and his wife barricaded themselves in a room on the second floor of the building and engaged U.S. troops. The first official stressed that “all the casualties at this site were due specifically to their actions” — referring to al-Qurayshi’s detonation on the third floor and the barricaded lieutenant on the second floor. The first official did not provide a confirmed total number of casualties but said, “Some of the numbers that are reported out there do not align with our information.” The first official also said the barricaded lieutenant and his wife “may have had their children with them in that room” and that those children may have died during the raid. Biden first received an in-depth briefing on options to take down al-Qurayshi more than a month ago, and he was briefed again in the Oval Office this week, the first official said. On Tuesday morning, Biden “gave the final go” in an Oval Office meeting with Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN and Gen. MARK MILLEY, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Read Quint’s full story here. FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY –– BIPARTISAN EFFORT TO RELABEL HOUTHIS AS TERRORISTS: Reps. SETH MOULTON (D-Mass.) and MIKE WALTZ (R-Fla.), both veterans serving on the House Armed Services Committee, will soon send a letter to Biden urging him to redesignate the Houthis in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization — a move the president said is under consideration. They cited the escalation in attacks by the Iran-backed group — namely drone and missile attacks on the United Arab Emirates where U.S. troops are stationed — for why the administration should put the Houthis back on the list after removing them last February. “I understand that removing the designation was meant to help the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, but it has done little outside of embolden the Houthis to escalate their attacks and block reconciliation efforts in the country. The U.S. relies on our relationship with the UAE to promote regional security and address pressing global challenges. They have been a key ally in assisting the U.S. with the evacuation of thousands of Afghan evacuees, and continue to provide essential support to our U.S. troops and military platforms. This is a critical time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an important ally while they are under assault, reiterating our commitment to the US-UAE strategic partnership,” Moulton and Waltz wrote in a draft obtained exclusively by NatSec Daily. The lawmakers are still sending the letter around to colleagues, and there’s no set deadline for when they will transmit it to Biden. Their goal is to get more signatures to show the president that there’s strong bipartisan support for the redesignation. “The Houthi attacks against our partners in the Middle East are terrorism — and the Biden administration must acknowledge that,” Waltz told NatSec Daily. “Removing the Houthis from the list of designated terrorist groups only emboldened them and their Iranian backers and has resulted in attacks against civilian populations and the U.S. embassy in Yemen.” RON ECKSTEIN , a spokesperson for Moulton, said the former Marine wants to redesignate the Houthis as terrorists because doing so will better protect American troops. Meanwhile, human rights groups are lining up to oppose the considered redesignation. In a January letter to BRETT McGURK, the NSC’s top Middle East official, they urged the administration to weigh the humanitarian impact of putting the Houthis back on the terrorist list. “Earlier experience with the FTO designation did not affect Houthi behavior or choices, but instead had a direct and drastic effect on the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver life-saving aid and services to civilians living in Yemen who have no other alternatives or recourse,” groups like Human Rights Watch, the Project on Middle East Democracy and Hands Off Yemen wrote. “Designating the Houthis as an FTO would primarily hurt millions of civilians and businesses engaged in routine economic transactions across all Yemen.” JOSH HAWLEY RESPONDS: Sen. JOSH HAWLEY (R-Mo.) yesterday said that the U.S. shouldn’t let Ukraine into NATO and that sending troops to Europe to deter Russia sends America’s limited resources away from the real fight against China. Asked about those comments, White House press secretary JEN PSAKI accused the lawmaker of “ digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points” — a remark that received bipartisan condemnation. We called Hawley to get a better sense of where he’s coming from, as his position cuts against the consensus in Washington on this issue. “Russia is an opponent,” Hawley stated outright, adding the U.S. should counter Moscow’s aggression by imposing crushing sanctions on the Kremlin, on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and by providing Ukraine with even more lethal aid. But sending more troops to Europe — and spending more on defense there — will make it harder to push back against China militarily, Hawley claimed. “We can’t do everything at once,” he said, “unless we plan to spend $2 trillion on defense, which we’re not going to do.” Hawley, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he enjoyed reading ELBRIDGE COLBY’s Strategy of Denial . In that book, and often on Twitter, Colby argues Europe is a sideshow and the U.S. should focus the vast majority of its energy on the China challenge. The former law school buddies have talked about America’s future defense posture at length, Hawley noted, though he also gets advice elsewhere. Still, Hawley wants to clear up any confusion: “We do have an interest in the territorial integrity of Ukraine. I don't want to suggest that we don't.”
| | | | DON’T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | IRAN DEAL WON’T LIMIT IRAN LIKE BEFORE: Should the U.S. reenter the Iran nuclear deal, American officials note that Iran will be closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon this time around than when the deal was first agreed to. “The Biden administration expects a restored nuclear deal would leave Iran capable of amassing enough nuclear fuel for a bomb in significantly less than a year, a shorter time frame than the one that underpinned the 2015 agreement, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said,” The Wall Street Journal’s LAURENCE NORMAN reported. “Administration officials concluded late last year that Iran’s nuclear program had advanced too far to re-create the roughly 12-month so-called breakout period of the 2015 pact, the U.S. officials said.” The exact breakout timeline remains unclear and will depend on what aspects of its nuclear program Iran chooses to dismantle after America rejoins the accord. Still, supporters of the deal say some constraints are better than no constraints at all, as is mainly the case today. 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 and @AndrewDesiderio.
| | | ETHIOPIAN DRONE STRIKES KILL CIVILIANS: More than 100 civilians have died in Ethiopian government drone strikes in 2022 as it continues to pound rebel areas and camps with displaced people, Voice of America’s SALEM SOLOMON reports. “Workers in a flour mill were the most recent victims of the weaponized drones that have become a key tool of combat in Ethiopia’s civil war,” Solomon wrote. “The 17 victims, mostly women, were killed on January 10 near May Tsebri, a town in the Tigray region, as they gathered to grind grain. Witnesses say the unmanned aerial vehicles floated above the mill and then attacked.” Foreign-built drones have helped Prime Minister ABIY AHMED reverse rebel gains and take more control in the 15-month civil war. The effectiveness with which Addis Ababa has wielded the technology disquiets experts who say it “may set off an arms race with other countries seeking to acquire the technology,” per Solomon. “The concern with drone use in the region is that it lowers the threshold for the use of lethal force — in particular in situations which are not armed conflicts — which is very worrying, because those kind of means and methods can be easily seen as a sort of easy fix for a complex issue,” WIM ZWIJNENBURG from the humanitarian group PAX told VOA.
| | | |   | | | | | | DHS LAUNCHES CYBER REVIEW BOARD: The Department of Homeland Security today announced the formation of the first-ever Cyber Safety Review Board, which Biden directed in an executive order last May. The public-private group will “review and assess significant cybersecurity events so that government, industry, and the broader security community can better protect our nation’s networks and infrastructure,” reads a DHS statement. The board’s first review will be about the Log4J vulnerability crisis in which members will provide a report in the summer on how best to address current and future problems going forward. “I look forward to reviewing the Board’s recommendations regarding how we can better protect communities across our country as DHS works to build a more secure digital future,” Homeland Security Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS said in the news release. Some members of the board include CHRIS INGLIS, the national cyber director; DMITRI ALPEROVITCH , co founder of CrowdStrike now chairing Silverage Policy Accelerator; and HEATHER ADKINS, Google’s senior director for security engineering, who will co-chair the board. ROBERT SILVERS, DHS’ under secretary of policy, is the CSRB’s chair.
| | | DOD WANTS HYPERSONICS NOW: Our friends at Morning Defense (for Pros!) note that Pentagon leaders are sitting down with defense industry CEOs today to push them on faster production of hypersonic weapons and new defenses to counter advancing Chinese and Russian capabilities. The meeting is being led by Deputy Defense Secretary KATHLEEN HICKS and DoD’s research and engineering chief, HEIDI SHYU. Austin will deliver closing remarks. Pentagon officials say they think weapons makers are too timid about racking up test failures, a DoD official tells our own PAUL McLEARY . So Hicks wants to recommit to the message that the department fully expects hiccups and doesn’t want the fear of failure to slow down the effort. The mantra, according to the official: test, fail, test again. The session is expected to address everything from offensive missiles, such as hypersonic glide bodies, to technologies to defend against highly maneuverable missiles that travel at more than five times the speed of sound.
| | | SENATORS FEAR RUSSIAN SANCTIONS DEAL WILL BE TOO LATE: After attending a classified briefing on the Russia-Ukraine standoff, Senators said that crafting a sanctions package to deter Putin might not come before an invasion, our own ANDREW DESIDERIO reports. “I’m concerned that Mr. Putin’s timetable is different than ours. And he may well move before we can get this done,” said Sen. JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas), who has been deeply involved in the effort. “We’re trying to encourage the administration to take appropriate steps, but right now Ukraine is over-matched in a dramatic way by the Russian capabilities.” Lawmakers have already settled on a plan that punishes Russia for the destabilizing actions it has already taken, including cyberattacks targeting Ukraine as well as false-flag operations to create a pretext for an invasion. A final agreement remains up in the air, however, amid some disagreements over the sanctions’ scope and the amount of flexibility to give Biden. They're also trying to bridge disagreements over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which became a contentious issue in Washington after the Biden administration declined to impose sanctions on the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline. Even if Senators agreed on a package tonight, it would still take time to make it the Senate and the House before reaching Biden's desk. Putin could launch an invasion while Congress continues to deliberate. “This is one of those issues in which you don’t have the luxury of time. You want to make an impact, the sooner the better,” said Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who's leading the negotiations. “Collectively, what I heard only makes the case that this is more pressing, more timely, and that time in this regard — if we want to be preventative — is of the essence.”
| | | | 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 our West Wing Playbook newsletter, 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. | | | | | LITHUANIAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE CHAIR MAKES D.C. ROUNDS: LAURYNAS KASČIŪNAS, chair of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Defense, is in Washington, D.C. meeting with congressional counterparts to make the case that his country needs a permanent “heel-to-toe” U.S. military presence. He had lunch today with the top two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — Menendez and JIM RISCH (R-Idaho) — as well as House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), among others. What Kasčiūnas aimed to convey is that Russian troops inside Belarus, which borders Lithuania, means there’s a “no-notice scenario” of Kremlin forces storming toward Vilnius. Kasčiūnas acknowledges that his nation is in NATO and so Russia attempting to take that territory is unlikely, but he’d feel safer if U.S. troops were stationed indefinitely in his nation. “We need an American forward presence,” he told NatSec Daily. Kasčiūnas last month sent a letter to congressional leaders seeking their support for the permanent deployment, a longstanding desire of officials in Vilnius. Rep. DON BACON (R-Neb.), who met with the Parliamentarian, told NatSec Daily that he agreed the U.S. should have a permanent presence in Lithuania. "I am an advocate for it. I’ve thought that way since I was elected on the 115th," he said.
| | | FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY –– HFX PLANS ANTI-CHINA VIDEO CAMPAIGN: The Halifax Security Forum, the pro-democracy think tank and conference organizer, will tomorrow begin a video campaign tied to the Olympics to shame China for its human rights abuses. Starting with four short videos tomorrow, the “This is Freedom” campaign will juxtapose images from the games with others like camps that house Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. “[Chinese leader] Xi Jinping is not going to like this,” PETER VAN PRAAGH , founding president of the Halifax Security Forum, told us. Each day will feature two to three more similar videos, drawing from Olympics coverage and violations committed by Beijing. The videos, which will end with #StandTogetherOnChina, will be sent out through Halifax’s own social media accounts and those of people in its network. HFX, as the group is known, has long had China in its sights. It plans to host a session in Taiwan later this year, gave Taiwan’s president an award and focuses many panels at its flagship conference on how to counter Beijing.
| | | — LILIANA MACHUCA is now a special assistant in the office of the assistant secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs. She most recently was a defense fellow for Sen. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-Calif.). — JOSHUA PICKETT now works on legislative affairs at the International Development Finance Corporation. He most recently was a congressional adviser at the Department of the Navy. — AL ABRAMSON, a retired Army brigadier general, has been named vice president of customer engagement at the National Armaments Consortium. He most recently served as vice president of strategy and plans for Patricio Enterprises. — PETER PACE , a retired Marine general, has been elected chair of the board of Rigetti Computing. He has served on the company’s board of directors since 2017 and is a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
| | | — JOSHUA GOODMAN, The Associated Press: “ Digital Warfare Tech at Sea Helping U.S. Foes Evade Sanctions” — STEPHANIE SAVELL, Foreign Policy: “ U.S. Security Assistance to Burkina Faso Laid the Groundwork for a Coup” — MAX FISHER, The New York Times: “ Putin, Facing Sanction Threats, Has Been Saving for This Day”
| | | — The Stimson Center, 8 a.m.: “ Evolving Maritime Issues in the Indo-Pacific — with YURIKA ISHII, JAMES KRASKA, RAUL PEDROZO, SUSUMU TAKAI and KATHLEEN WALSH” — House Foreign Affairs Committee, 10:30 a.m.: “ Members Briefing: Addressing the Threat of a Nuclear Iran — with ERIC BREWER, ELISA EWERS, JANE HARMAN and JON WOLFSTHAL” — The George Washington University, 11 a.m.: “ Ukrainian Perspectives on the Current U.S.-Ukraine-Russia Crisis — with VOLODOMYR DUBOVYK, HENRY HALE, OLEXIY HARAN, SERGIY KUDELIA, TETYANA MALYARENKO and OXANA SHEVEL” — Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 12 p.m.: “ Turkish-Russian Relations in Ukraine and Beyond: The Stakes for Europe and the United States — with ANNA BORSHCHEVSKAYA and AYKAN ERDEMIR” — The Atlantic Council, 12:30 p.m.: “ In Power After Six Months: What Lies Ahead for Afghanistan Under the Taliban? — with JAVID AHMAD, JAMES CUNNINGHAM, LISA CURTIS and BRUCE HOFFMAN” — The Center for a New American Security, 1 p.m.: “ The World in 2022 — with MICHELE FLOURNOY, RICHARD FONTAINE, JEH JOHNSON and JAMES MURDOCH” — The Institute for Corean-American Studies, 2 p.m.: “ The Korean Peninsula Issues and U.S. National Security — with JOHN BOLTON” 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. And thanks to our editor, John Yearwood, who never falls for our fake videos about why we can’t work today.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: Our mission is to prepare you for the future by engineering advanced capabilities today.
Many of today’s military systems and platforms were designed to operate independently. Through our 21st Century Warfare vision, Lockheed Martin is accelerating innovation, connecting defense and digital to enhance the performance of major platforms, to equip customers to stay ahead of emerging threats. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
