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From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward, Matt Berg and Lawrence Ukenye | | 
Poland's President Andrzej Duda attends a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023. | Markus Schreiber/AP Photo | With help from Maggie Miller and Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt DAVOS, Switzerland — The harsh winter weather isn’t why a pall has fallen over the normally optimistic World Economic Forum. War rages while Berlin weighs the transfer of German-made tanks stashed throughout Europe to Ukraine. Tensions between the United States and the EU are high as cries of protectionism ring off the Swiss Alps. And there’s some concern, even from President JOE BIDEN’s own party, about just how “back” America can be on the world stage. In panel after panel and glitzy side event after glitzy side event, the discussion turns not to a new era of Western unity following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but rather where the seams are tearing open. During a Tuesday morning event, European leaders pleaded with German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ, who will speak here tomorrow, to stop dilly-dallying and greenlight the tanks. It’s a “very, very, very, very needed decision,” Polish President ANDRZEJ DUDA said to POLITICO Editor-in-Chief MATT KAMINSKI. “We don’t have the luxury for such delays, and decision-making must be decisive, fast,” Lithuanian President GITANAS NAUSĖDA piled on. He continued: “I have to tell you honestly, it’s a pity because every day of this war costs a lot,” referring mainly to the lives and destruction in Ukraine. He called the energy crunch and price spikes in Europe “peanuts” in comparison. Meanwhile, a U.S. congressional delegation is battling behind the scenes with European officials about the Inflation Reduction Act. The $369 billion legislation, bursting with domestic climate- and tech-industry incentives, has French and German officials fearful that American firms now have an unfair advantage. But the lawmakers are working to calm nerves. “That bill was designed to basically strengthen the United States so that we can help our allies and friends, which need it right now," Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), who proved decisive in passing the bill, told NatSec Daily on the sidelines of the gathering. "And if anybody needs it, the EU needs it. And without that, we're not going to be and maintain the superpower status of the world — if we're not energy independent." That spat, along with predictions of a recession this year, has soured transatlantic relations and the future economic outlook. This is NatSec Daily’s first time up the Magic Mountain, and we expected to find a much cheerier event — after all, there are people handing out hot chocolate in a gorgeous setting! But in a place that prides itself on finding solutions to global problems, the conference’s earliest days see the well-heeled stuck on the gravity of the issues at hand. There’s even some trepidation coming from House members at Davos on America’s standing. The U.S. has seen a rollback of democratic values and a growing cynicism about its place in the world, Rep. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-N.J.) told Semafor’s STEVE CLEMONS during a Tuesday morning side event. Younger generations aren’t drawn to organizations like NATO because America hasn’t used its power so wisely over the past few decades. “The time of peace in the world was quite bad for democracy,” she said while noting the U.S. was at war for the last 20 years. And in a post-Jan. 6 world, it’s “a tougher proposition” for the U.S. to coach other nations on how to be a model democratic state.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | TOP U.S. LEADERS IN KYIV: Three senior U.S. officials arrived in Kyiv on Monday to meet with Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY and other local leaders about how to rebuild the country Russia is destroying. Deputy Secretary of State WENDY SHERMAN, Undersecretary of Defense COLIN KAHL and deputy national security adviser JON FINER made the trek to assure Kyiv the U.S. would remain involved in assisting Ukraine. Kahl noted that the U.S. was working to provide air-defense equipment and armored and mobile capabilities to the armed forces. That visit came as Gen. MARK MILLEY, the Joint Chiefs chair, showed up in Germany to visit Ukrainian troops training with their American colleagues. “This is not a run-of-the-mill rotation,” Milley told the reporters traveling with him. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.” BLINKEN TO BEIJING: Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN will make a much-anticipated trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister QIN GANG in early February, Washington-based diplomats familiar with Blinken’s travel plans told our own PHELIM KINE. Blinken’s China trip is a follow-up to Biden’s meeting with Chinese leader XI JINPING in Indonesia in November. There, Biden pledged to “maintain open lines of communication” with Beijing at a time of worsening bilateral tensions. Gang, in particular, has felt the cold shoulder from the United States. The visit is a test of whether the Biden-Xi meeting can pave the way for more productive U.S.-China ties, given the increasingly rancorous relationship over issues ranging from Taiwan and trade policy to U.S. concerns about Beijing’s human rights record. NETHERLANDS TO SHIP PATRIOT: The Netherlands plans to send a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, Bloomberg News’ NATALIA DROZDIAK, DIEDERIK BAAZIL and DARYNA KRASNOLUTSKA report. The U.S. and Germany have already pledged to send Patriot batteries, bolstering the Ukrainian military arsenal as Russia continues persistent aerial assaults. The news that the Netherlands would join in came as Dutch Prime Minister MARK RUTTE met with Biden in Washington to discuss ongoing Ukraine aid and concerns about China’s semiconductor industry. Earlier in the day, BRADLEY BOWMAN, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power, told NatSec Daily that the move by the Dutch would be “very admirable,” given that they’re one of the few European countries to have Patriots. “They've been very impressive since the beginning” in providing aid, “so I’m not surprised,” he said. IT’S TUESDAY: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 mberg@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @mattberg33. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @magmill95, @ericgeller, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco and @Lawrence_Ukenye.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: LMXT: Competitive capabilities for America’s next strategic tanker.
Lockheed Martin and Airbus announced the LMXT’s boom will be manufactured in Arkansas, reinforcing that the LMXT will be built in America for Americans by Americans. Learn more. | | | | | | ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN WAR HEATS UP: A distracted and weakened Russia has lowered the chances that the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh will stop any time soon, the New York Times’ ANTON TROIANOVSKI reports. “Since Dec. 12, the mountain road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia has been blocked amid protests by Azerbaijani activists claiming to be opposing illegal mining operations in the area. Azerbaijan’s government has endorsed the protests; Armenians say Azerbaijan engineered them and criticize Russian peacekeepers for not keeping the road open,” Troianovski writes. “In Nagorno-Karabakh, supermarkets are stocked with little but alcohol and candy, and supplies of diapers and basic medicine are so low that residents post on Facebook in search of them … Starting Friday, people will have to present ration cards to buy rice, pasta, buckwheat or sugar,” he writes. During the last conflict two years ago, Russia was able to step in and get both sides to lay down their arms, though Azerbaijan had, by that point, used Turkish drones to seize territory in the enclave. But now Russia can’t spend much time on the issue due to the war in Ukraine, and so thousands are left to suffer during their flare up in tensions. “Whoever does not want to become our citizen, the road is not closed; it is open. They can leave whenever they want,” Azerbaijani President ILHAM ALIYEV said last week. In a letter to Blinken last week, Sens. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) and JACK REED (D-R.I.), demanded that the Biden administration strengthen efforts to end Azerbaijan’s month-long blockade of the Lachin corridor, saying the U.S. “cannot stand aside while the Aliyev regime callously threatens the lives of Nagorno-Karabakh’s citizens.” EXPECTING COLD TURKEY: Turkey’s top diplomat MEVLUT CAVUSOGLU will meet with Blinken in Washington on Wednesday in an effort to smooth out tensions between the two countries, the Associated Press’ SUZAN FRASER and ANDREW WILKS report. But expectations are low that key issues, such as Turkey’s purchase of Russian-made missiles and opposition to U.S.-backed Kurdish militants in Syria, will be resolved. While Turkey remains a critical ally due to its geography, the United States has become at odds with President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
| | | UKRAINE WANTS ‘CYBER UNITED NATIONS’: Ukraine’s top cybersecurity leader is calling for the establishment of a single global organization to help share threat information and prepare for future attacks, our own MAGGIE MILLER reported over the holiday weekend. “We need the Cyber United Nations; nations united in cyberspace in order to protect ourselves, effectively protect our world for the future, the cyber world, and our real, conventional world,” YURII SHCHYHOL, the head of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, told her through an interpreter. “What we really need in this situation is a hub or a venue where we can exchange information, support each other and interact.” Whether Ukraine’s allies would support the idea is unclear, though Shchyhol said, “our partners tend to agree with us, the United States first of all,” on finding a space to safely coordinate work on new technologies. However, there’s no public indication that the Biden administration sees it the same way. Ukraine has been under constant attack by Russian hackers since the beginning of the conflict last year, including attacks against energy and satellite infrastructure. This was illustrated Tuesday when Shchyhol told reporters at a press briefing in Kyiv that the event had been delayed for 15 minutes due to a cyberattack on the platform being used to broadcast the briefing. “They’re just postponing the end of their country,” Shchyhol told reporters through a translator on Tuesday.
| | | AWAITING TAKEOFF:The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit is looking for proposals for its virtual flight prototype, our friends in Morning Defense (for Pros!) report. The selected proposal will serve as a fighter simulator for the Air Force’s fifth-generation aircraft, which have forced current training modules to become obsolete. Prototypes selected by DoD will be integrated into training modules at Vance AFB in Oklahoma, Laughlin AFB in Texas, Columbus AFB in Mississippi and Sheppard AFB in Texas.
| | | | DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID. | | | | | | | | U.S. COULD SEND MORE TO UKRAINE:The Semafor event at Davos featured a noteworthy exchange between Rep. SETH MOULTON (D-Mass.) and KURT VOLKER, the former U.S. special representative for Ukraine. The question posed to the lawmakers on stage was whether the West was running out of time to help Ukraine win the war. Rep. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-Texas) threw the question back to Volker, who responded that the U.S. should send long-range artillery, tanks and aircraft. Volker lamented the Biden administration’s stance that VLADIMIR PUTIN has a red line it can’t cross without risking significant escalation. “Putin already thinks he’s at war with NATO,” Volker asserted. Moulton defended the Biden administration, saying it had struck the right balance of giving Ukraine what it needs without overstepping. But, he conceded, “we could push a little further.” The back and forth comes as Western nations are preparing to send tanks to Ukraine and as Russia wins some brutal battles. And it underscores that there’s disagreement, even from some Democrats who serve on the House Armed Services Committee, on whether the U.S. should be sending more military aid to Kyiv. YOUNG VISITS TAIWAN: Sen. TODD YOUNG (R-Ind.) arrived in Taiwan on Monday for a three-day visit to meet with the island nation’s leaders, per a readout from the American Institute in Taiwan. During the trip, he’ll meet with leaders and private sector representatives “to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade and investment, global supply chains and other significant issues of mutual interest,” the readout states. BANKING ON iSTOCK:In an ad introducing his Senate run, Rep. JIM BANKS’ team used iStock video of actors from Estonia to depict American troops, our hawkeyed editor DAVE BROWN pointed out. As the Indiana Republican pledges to keep critical race theory and “anti-Americanism” from being “pushed on our troops,” a clip of three uniformed soldiers carrying rifles, with a sunset dramatically framing them, flashes across the scene before the two-minute mark. Only they aren’t our troops at all. Oops.
| | | MORE WAITING: Turkish President Erdoğan is demanding that Sweden and Finland release up to 130 individuals that Ankara views as terrorists for Turkey to support both countries’ admission into NATO, Reuters’ ECE TOKSABAY reports. Tensions over extraditions have halted NATO admissions for months as Turkey has accused both countries of harboring individuals who've participated in plots to overthrow the Turkish government. Hungary and Turkey are the final two of the total 30 members of the alliance who have yet to approve Swedish and Finnish membership. BADGERING BELARUS:The Biden administration placed new visa restrictions on 25 Belarusian individuals amid that nation’s move to put an opposition leader and other activists on trial for treason charges, our own KELLY HOOPER reports. “These politically motivated trials are the latest examples of the Lukashenka regime’s efforts to intimidate and repress those who seek justice, respect for human rights, and a democratic Belarus,” SecState Blinken said in a statement. The new order targets “regime officials,” including members of the National Assembly of Belarus, who took part in authorizing the death penalty for people convicted of supposed “attempted acts of terrorism” — a charge the State Department said has been used to intimidate the democratic opposition.
| | | |   | | | | | | — Our own BRYAN BENDER is joining Strategic Marketing Innovations to launch the firm’s strategic comms practice. You’ve read much of his stuff during his seven-year tenure here, delivering scoops and helming our indispensable Morning Defense (for Pros!) newsletter. We’ll miss you, Bryan! — MARK McKINNON is now national security adviser for Sen. KATIE BRITT (R-Ala.). He most recently was NSA for former Sen. RICHARD SHELBY (R-Ala.). — MEGAN APPER will be joining Treasury as senior spokesperson for international affairs. She most recently was a senior adviser at the State Department and has worked for Biden since his primary campaign launched in 2019. — German Defense Minister CHRISTINE LAMBRECHT officially resigned from her post Monday. That confirms reports last week of the move, which followed a series of blunders by Lambrecht as Scholz shifted the country’s defense policy. The chancellor appointed regional official BORIS PISTORIUS as successor.
| | | — RYAN HEATH, POLITICO: ‘Succession’ has nothing on Davos: Elite conclave mulls next leader — WILLIAM GALSTON, The Wall Street Journal: Tanks for Ukraine Are a No-Brainer — WALTER PINCUS, The Cipher Brief: We Need Clear Communication Over What’s Happening in Japan
| | | — The Association of the United States Army, 7:20 a.m.: AUSA Coffee Series Featuring CSA Mcconville — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 a.m.: Ocean Security Forum 2023 — The Hudson Institute, 10 a.m.: Enhancing Cybersecurity, Information Security, and Industrial Security as the Foundation for Japan’s Defense Transformation — The Wilson Center, 11 a.m.: Book Talk | Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers and Moscow's Struggle for Ukraine — New America, 12 p.m.: Assessing Variation in the Labeling of Terrorist Organizations Around the World — United States Navy Memorial, 1 p.m.: SITREP Speaker Series: Rear Admiral GREGORY N. TODD — New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, 3 p.m.: Secret War: Unauthorized Combat and Legal Loopholes 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. Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who is just as upset as the people in Davos –– but about returning from vacation, not the state of the world. We also thank our producer, Kierra Frazier, who always keeps us happy.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: LMXT: Competitive capabilities for America’s next strategic tanker.
The LMXT aircraft delivers proven capabilities for the U.S. Air Force’s increasing aerial refueling missions. One of the LMXT’s discriminating capabilities is its refueling system, which includes a fly-by-wire aerial refueling boom. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
