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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 Jonathan Lemire | | 
President Joe Biden listens to questions asked by reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022, in Washington, D.C. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo | With help from Lawrence Ukenye Subscribe here | Email Alex As the war in Ukraine grinds on toward its 200th day, President JOE BIDEN faces fresh challenges in his vow to defy Moscow’s war machine for as long as it takes. Political leaders of key allies have been forced from power. An energy crisis looms across the Atlantic. And back in the United States, political turmoil has pushed Ukraine from the headlines as a growing faction of conservative voices accuse Biden of prioritizing Kyiv over America’s own needs. White House aides say their support for Ukraine has not wavered, even as the costs to arm Ukraine against VLADIMIR PUTIN’s military keep rising. Administration officials have been encouraged by recent developments: Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive and long reach into Russian-seized territory has come as Moscow struggles with manpower, equipment and morale. There is a sense among seasoned foreign policy observers that, as the conflict settles into a violent battle of attrition, both the United States and its allies can sustain their commitments. “The challenge will be to get Europe through the winter, but if they can do that, then they can sustain this effort,” said RICHARD HAASS, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The military requirements to the war may actually moderate because the intensity of the war is likely to fade somewhat. Neither protagonist can sustain this level of warfare.” For Biden, the war in Ukraine will likely serve as a defining moment of his foreign policy legacy — when he led the world to thwart an aggressive authoritarian power in defense of a democracy under existential threat. It was nearly three months ago in Madrid, when he wrapped up the NATO summit –– a gathering that included a historic expansion in response to Russian aggression — by declaring “we are going to stick with Ukraine and all of the Alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes.” That stance has not changed, but the challenges have multiplied. White House aides concede that some voices, mainly on the Republican side of the aisle, could grow louder if the conflict stretches into next year and gas prices spike again. And they’re careful not to take congressional support for granted, particularly if the GOP gains control of a house of Congress this November. But, for now, the White House believes that the government coffers will remain open for Ukraine. "Our support for Ukraine’s bedrock right to defend itself doesn’t waver based on any given clash," Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN said Thursday in Germany during a meeting with counterparts on the war. "We must evolve as the fight evolves." Read Alex and Jonathan’s full story. QUEEN ELIZABETH II, 1926 - 2022: Queen ELIZABETH II died peacefully today at Balmoral, the Royal Family announced Thursday. Earlier in the day, doctors said they were concerned about her health and all four of the queen’s children traveled to be with her. “The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow,” the Royal Family announced. Read more details on London Bridge, the U.K.’s monumental plan for the Queen’s death and succession.
| | | | HAPPENING 9/29 - POLITICO’S AI & TECH SUMMIT : Technology is constantly evolving and so are the politics and policies shaping and regulating it. Join POLITICO for the 2022 AI & Tech summit to get an insider look at the pressing policy and political issues shaping tech, and how Washington interacts with the tech sector. The summit will bring together lawmakers, federal regulators, tech executives, tech policy experts and consumer advocates to dig into the intersection of tech, politics, regulation and innovation, and identify opportunities, risks and challenges ahead. REGISTER FOR THE SUMMIT HERE. | | | | | | | | BILLIONS MORE FOR UKRAINE: About $2.8 billion in weapons and aid is headed to Ukraine and its neighbors, the U.S. secretaries of Defense and State announced Thursday. Austin, in Germany for a meeting with foreign counterparts about the war, announced an additional $675 million in weapons for Ukraine. The package includes more HIMARS ammunition, four 105mm Howitzers, 1.5 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, and more. And during a surprise visit to Kyiv, Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN announced $2 billion in foreign military financing for Ukraine and 18 of its regional neighbors, the ones “most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression.” The Biden administration has now committed about $15.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, with $14.5 billion of those funds coming after Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24. Read: Our own PAUL McLEARY and LARA SELIGMAN on what these billions mean for Ukraine and Eastern Europe. UKRAINE MAKES GAINS: Ukraine has advanced about 30 miles in the east and recaptured 20 villages and towns, Brig. Gen. OLEKSIY HROMOV said of his country’s counteroffensive on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. “Russian authorities haven’t commented on the Ukrainian advance. But Gen. Hromov’s comments tally with reports from Russian war bloggers close to the Russian military who have said Ukrainian forces are making gains toward Kupyansk, a city of some 30,000 before the war, that is a critical road hub for the resupply and movement of Russian occupation forces,” the Wall Street Journal’s JAMES MARSON reported. Hromov also said that they’ve taken back about 270 square miles of its territory in the east and south. "Enemy infantry and motorized artillery units unprotected by air defense systems become easy prey for our Bayraktars, the quantity of which is always increasing, thanks to our volunteers," he said. The general’s remarks to reporters Thursday is the most detailed assessment from Ukrainian officials on the advance. While in Kyiv, Blinken said, "It's very early, but we're seeing clear and real progress on the ground, particularly in the area around Kherson, but also some interesting developments in the Donbas." BURNS SAYS RUSSIA INVASION A FAILURE: CIA Director BILL BURNS said that Russia’s invasion has been nothing less than a failure six month into the war. “Putin’s bet right now is that he is going to be tougher than the Ukrainians, the Europeans, the Americans,” Burns said at the Billington CyberSecurity conference in Washington . “I believe, and my colleagues at CIA believe, that Putin is as wrong about that bet as he was profoundly wrong in his assumptions going back to last February about Ukrainian will to resist.” “Not only has the weakness of the Russian military been exposed,” he continued, “but there is going to be long-term damage done to the Russian economy and to generations of Russians.” Burns doesn’t speak publicly often. But when he does, he uses the occasion to offer his view that Putin’s war isn’t going as he envisioned. 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 follow me on Twitter at @alexbward. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @ChristopherJM, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio, @magmill95 and @Lawrence_Ukenye.
| | 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 Security 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. | | | | | | UKRAINIAN HIT SQUADS: “Since Russian forces invaded in late February and began seizing Ukrainian cities and towns, close to 20 Kremlin-backed officials or their local Ukrainian collaborators have been killed or injured in a wave of assassinations and attempted killing,” the Washington Post’s DAVID STERN reported. “They have been gunned down, blown up, hanged and poisoned — an array of methods that reflects the determination of the Ukrainian hit squads and saboteurs often operating deep inside enemy-controlled territory.” The hit squads show the underbelly of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. As the military fends off Russia and attempts to take back seized territory, the shadow operators work to prevent Moscow from gaining political control. “In my understanding, everything that is done to destroy the leaders of the invaders and traitors is done by our special services,” a Ukrainian official told Stern. “You can say that three organizations are involved in this kind of business: special operations forces, the main intelligence department [of the military] and a special unit of the SBU,” Ukraine’s main internal security service.
| | | HOW RUSSIANS CAN READ BANNED NEWS: A new anti-censorship tool is helping Russians and others living in oppressed societies to read independent reporting. “The project, called Samizdat Online, makes blocked websites visible to people and doesn’t need any technical knowledge to use,” Wired’s MATT BURGESS reported. Basically, it “supercharges the process of registering unblocked domains and automatically syndicating news articles,” making it easier on both the publisher and the reader. Here’s Burgess explaining how it works: “Every time you access the website of The Moscow Times using Samizdat Online, for instance, it will show on a different domain. When I open the homepage, I am shown it on the domain: sfzgohtwrm.net/. The rest of the URL after the slash is made up of a long string of characters and letters, which encode data about the page you’re visiting, such as the CSS needed to display the website correctly.”
| | | SPECIAL DELIVERY: The Army confirmed to our own LEE HUDSON in Morning Defense (for Pros!) that the first batch of 5,000 high-tech battlefield goggles that Microsoft is delivering to the Army include upgrades that were made after soldiers complained about the design during earlier testing. Soldiers testing the goggles in 2020 said that they were heavy, and reported the display didn’t work properly and the batteries ran out too soon. Delivery of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System was postponed until more rigorous testing could take place. The upgrades will address some of these problems, but not the weight issue. Microsoft is working on a redesign of the goggles to make them lighter. The Army and Microsoft will negotiate the production phase of the program. The service plans to spend $21.9 billion over 10 years on the goggles, spare parts and support services.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | | | | SENATORS WANT PROBE INTO CIVILIAN HARM: Three senators wrote to the Pentagon and State Department asking for the agencies to investigate what role, if any, the U.S. military had in civilian harm observed throughout the Saudi-led war on Yemen. A June Government Accountability Office report found “DOD has not fully assessed the extent to which its advisory and training efforts have facilitated civilian harm reduction in Yemen,” and “DOD has not reported to relevant State officials nor could State provide evidence that it investigated indications that U.S.-origin equipment transferred to Saudi Arabia and UAE through [foreign military sales] was used for unauthorized purposes.” Sens. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.), BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) and MIKE LEE (R-Utah) find this unacceptable. “The United States should not contribute in any way to the suffering of millions of innocent Yemenis caught in a devastating Saudi-led war,” Warren said in a statement. “The U.S. government has a moral and legal obligation to ensure its actions are not exacerbating a dire humanitarian crisis, and there is strong bipartisan support for thorough investigations into possible U.S. complicity to civilian harm in Yemen.” The Pentagon recently announced new procedures to minimize instances of civilian harm and investigate them when they happen. It’s unclear if DOD will leverage those new procedures to dig into past reports of U.S.-involved civilian harm in Yemen.
| | | ERDOGAN BLASTS GRAIN DEAL: Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN criticized the grain-shipment deal he helped broker when he said most of the foodstuffs goes to rich countries, not the nations with the most need — echoing a similar claim made by Putin. The Russian leader was “right” on this issue, Erdogan said Thursday during a news conference in Croatia. Here’s the U.N. data, per the Financial Times: “as of September 8, 28 per cent of the shipments had gone to lower-middle income countries, including Egypt, India, Iran and Sudan. Roughly 44 per cent went to high-income nations, while 21 per cent went to Turkey and 7 per cent to China.” Erdogan often plays a double game: Making moves that keep Turkey in the West’s good graces while maintaining strong ties to Russia. His support for Putin’s position, after coming under fire from the Kremlin, could be part of that.
| | | |   | | | | | | — JAMES CUNNINGHAM is leaving the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, he announced on Twitter. His last day will be Oct. 7. Cunningham is moving to an executive role with Wireless Guardian, a company that focuses on public safety and corporate security within the U.S.
| | | — FRANKLIN FOER, The Atlantic: The Operator — CAI XIA, Foreign Affairs : The Weakness of XI JINPING — BENJAMIN JENSEN, War on the Rocks: Not So Fast: Insights from a 1944 War Plan Help Explain Why Invading Taiwan Is a Costly Gamble
| | | –– Billington Cybersecurity, 9 a.m.: “13th Annual Summit” –– The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, 9 a.m.: "Freezing Order: Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath, with Bill Browder" –– The Lowy Institute, 12 p.m.: "An address by José Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste" –– The Brookings Institution, 4 p.m.: "The role of veterans in strengthening our democracy." Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at award@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. And thanks to my editor, Ben Pauker, who says he needs a pair of high-tech battlefield goggles to look at the raw copy of this newsletter.
| | 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 Security 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 | | | | |  |
