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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 | | 
We thought we’d ask ChatGPT some questions about the Biden administration’s foreign policy and get some reactions from State, NSC and USTR comms staffers. | Leon Neal/Getty Images | With help from Erin Banco and Phelim Kine Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt We here at NatSec Daily often ask our colleagues at various government agencies policy-related questions. Sometimes the spokespersons are forthright, but more often than not, their responses can feel a bit…automated. So since it’s Friday, and we were feeling cheeky, we thought we’d ask ChatGPT some questions about the Biden administration’s foreign policy and get some reactions from State, NSC and USTR comms staffers. Their verdict: The administration still needs real people responding to our queries. We started by asking the AI two State-related questions. First: How was President JOE BIDEN’s handling of allies different from DONALD TRUMP’s? Second: How does the administration aim to place human rights at the center of its foreign policy? ChatGPT is quite verbose — one answer clocked in at 370 words — so we won’t provide the full responses here (Alex has a Twitter thread with screenshots of all the “remarks”). But on the first question, the AI came back with “these relationships are critical to advancing American interests and values around the world.” And on the second, ChatGPT named five different ways the State Department promoted human rights, such as “addressing systemic racism” and “supporting LGBTQ+ rights.” We sent these answers to NED PRICE, State’s top spokesperson. His response to the new competitor: “Not bad at all, but no one’s job is in jeopardy. To the extent these answers capture our policy, I sure hope the algorithm is pulling from the transcripts of my briefings. To the extent these answers are off, I sure hope the algorithm isn’t pulling from the transcripts of my briefings.” NatSec Daily also made two queries of ChatGPT that we would normally ping the NSC about. The first: How does the Biden administration plan to execute a “foreign policy for the middle class?” The second: How does the administration seek to compete with China while avoiding a conflict? Again, we received long answers, but it hit some similar themes. “We are focused on ensuring that trade policies benefit American workers and businesses,” ChatGPT said in response to the middle-class question. On the China query, the AI sounded pretty diplomatic. “The Biden Administration is committed to competing with China in a way that is constructive, sustainable and avoids the risk of conflict,” it fired back. NSC spokesperson SEAN SAVETT said the full responses were “not bad, although I’m not worried about it taking my job just yet.” Finally, we asked a trade question: Why hasn’t the Biden administration removed some Trump-era tariffs off China? ChatGPT: “Any resolution of the U.S.-China trade dispute must be part of a broader effort to address China's strategic challenge to the United States and the international rules-based order.” Once again, a spokesperson isn’t too worried: “Interesting response, but I’ll still need to answer the phone when POLITICO calls,” said USTR’s ADAM HODGE. NatSec Daily hopes we’re the ones in the future making the calls — and not ChatGPT.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | BIDEN-SCHOLZ TALKS: German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ took a quiet trip to Washington on Friday to talk with Biden, forgoing any media appearances or details about the discussions aside from conversing about Western support for Ukraine. The muted nature of the visit — which comes against the backdrop of the war, China’s rising economic and military heft and the race to accelerate green technology — is an “exception,” Scholz’s spokespeople said, while emphasizing that there’s no grave situation that prompted the trip, The New York Times’ ERIKA SOLOMON reports. No traveling press, no news conferences, no outline of his plans at a speech before German lawmakers on Thursday. White House spokesperson KARINE JEAN-PIERRE also didn’t give reporters much to work with during a briefing Friday afternoon. “How we see this meeting is a bilateral cooperation to talk about a range of issues, global security, economic issues. And at the forefront of this meeting,” she said, “will be [discussions] on Ukraine. That coordination is going to continue.” MASSIVE JOINT DRILLS: South Korea and the U.S. will hold their largest joint field exercises in five years later this month, the Associated Press’ HYUNG-JIN KIM reports. The Freedom Shield exercise, a computer-simulated command post training, will take place from March 13 to March 23, focusing on strengthening defense and response capabilities, military officials announced Friday. There will also be Warrior Shield FTX, separate large-scale joint field training exercises that will include amphibious drills. The announcement comes as the United States sent a long-range B-1B bomber to the Korean Peninsula in a show of force against North Korea. In the past, Pyongyang has called similar actions as a rehearsal for invasion, vowing to take “unprecedentedly” strong action against the adversaries. NO ‘SILVER BULLET’: Rather than focusing on the next aid to Ukraine, Finnish Ambassador to the U.S. MIKKO HAUTALA believes allies must look at the bigger picture to bring the war to an end. “Quite often in our media discussion … people are looking for the silver bullet. Sometimes, it’s F-16s; sometimes, it’s long-range HIMARS,” Hautala told Playbook’s RYAN LIZZA. “It’s like some miraculous weapon could somehow change the situation and solve the problem. That’s not the right approach, in my opinion,” he said, adding that allies “should look at the challenge in its totality instead of trying to sort of chase the latest fancy idea.” Since serving as Finland's ambassador to Russia, Hautala has become one of the most highly regarded sources of information on Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN. In the wide-ranging interview, the ambassador predicted that even if Moscow’s spring offensive isn’t successful, the war will drag on. “It's very hard to see any reasons for Putin to conclude that this war is now unwinnable,” he said. ANOTHER ROUND: A new $400 million U.S. military aid package to Ukraine will, for the first time, include eight armored vehicles that can deploy bridges, allowing soldiers to cross rivers and other obstacles. The package will also include large amounts of ammunition, including rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. DRINKS WITH NATSEC DAILY: At the end of every long, hard week, we like to highlight how a prominent member of the global national security and foreign policy scene prefers to unwind with a drink. This week, we’re featuring Rep. JASON CROW (D-Colo.), the House Armed Services Committee member and veteran. When he’s not legislating or at the Munich Security Conference, Crow enjoys drinking an Old Fashioned. He said his pandemic project was perfecting his own recipe, “and I was successful.” But if he’s in D.C., Crow recommends the Old Fashioned served up at The Eastern. Cheers! IT’S FRIDAY. WELCOME TO THE WEEKEND: 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, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @magmill95, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco 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. | | | | | | CPAC FIESTA: Former U.N. Amb. NIKKI HALEY and former Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, a major moment for both 2024 presidential hopefuls (though Pompeo has yet to formally declare his candidacy). Haley went first, using the opportunity to once again say that she would stop foreign aid from going to countries that work against American policies. “We need to stop trying to buy friends, and all we're doing is paying off our enemies. When I'm president, we will stop giving money to countries that hate America,” she said. Haley also called China “the strongest, most disciplined enemy we’ve ever faced.” Pompeo went up to the podium minutes later and talked about rising prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In his home state of Kansas, Pompeo said, “fertilizer to put crops in the field is more expensive now.” The challenge from China, he continued, is that “they’re inside the gates.” “They're gathering intelligence through technology that is on our cell phones; they’re here propagandizing,” he said, later referring to the time the Trump administration shuttered China’s consulate in Houston over spying allegations.
| | | THE WAY OF WATER: The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced new requirements for states to ensure that their public water systems have sufficient cybersecurity protections in place, our own ANNIE SNIDER and MAGGIE MILLER report (for Pros!). EPA is mandating that states include cybersecurity assessments as part of their regular reviews of water systems through the existing “sanitary survey” program. That program has historically focused on physical threats to water systems, but EPA's Friday memo to state drinking water administrators expanded the program to also cover cyber vulnerabilities.
| | | MORE HIMARS: Demand for HIMARS has soared in Asian countries as the U.S.-made rocket launcher system has made a lasting impact on the battlefield for Ukraine’s ability to counter Russia. The Wall Street Journal’s MIKE CHERNEY reports that three countries in the Asia-Pacific region are interested in purchasing the rocket system, which is produced by Lockheed Martin. While the firm hasn’t disclosed the countries interested in buying HIMARS, the system’s anti-ship capabilities could make it valuable for militaries in the Pacific looking to preserve shipping lanes.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | WARNER WARNING: Sen. MARK WARNER (D-Va.), chair of the Intelligence Committee, wants “a little more sophistication” in the way the U.S. handles China. “China is potentially a military threat, but it is very much also an economic and technology threat,” Warner told our own ERIN BANCO in “Global Insider” this morning, adding that the U.S. policy on China is constantly changing, especially as Washington moves to implement measures that make it easier for America to compete directly with Beijing. “In 2017, I would meet with industry sector after industry sector in a classified setting to kind of say, 'Hey, you guys need at least go in eyes wide open on what kind of challenge China is.' There were some industry groups that pre-Covid didn't even want to hear the message. Now every industry group is listening,” Warner said. “But because we had become so economically tied together —and I'm not saying we have to go to a full decoupling — this new reality is being written in real time.” Warner said the U.S. still needs to “collaborate with China” — particularly on big geopolitical issues like climate change. But that cooperation could become increasingly difficult to foster should the diplomatic relations between the two countries worsen. Warner said lawmakers are still analyzing data to determine the extent to which China is using surveillance balloons to spy. But, he said, the balloon doesn’t worry him as much as other national security threats posed by China. “In terms of importance, [the balloon] got publicized way beyond its value,” Warner said. “That is a tiny concern compared to the potential of China selling arms to Russia.”
| | | LOL: Russian Foreign Minister SERGEY LAVROV, at an event in India, offered the laughable line that “the war we are trying to stop was launched against us.” We mean that literally: The audience laughed at him. It’s worth seeing the clip. ‘MILITARY COLLABORATOR’ ALLEGATIONS: According to our own PHELIM KINE, Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry expressed concern Friday about a report this week in Japan’s Nikkei Shimbun newspaper alleging that “up to 90 percent of military retirees have spent time in China, where they provided information to Beijing in exchange for money.” Per the Taipei Times, the Foreign Ministry expressed “deep regret” about the allegation and requested clarification of its details. That followed a Taiwan Defense Ministry statement on Thursday that accused the Japanese newspaper of publishing those assertions “out of thin air, without verification, with sensational headlines that smear the morale of the national army officers and soldiers and divide the unity of the troops.” Suspicions of the potentially divided loyalties of Taiwan’s senior military brass aren’t new. The island’s anti-espionage agencies are battling a campaign by Beijing to penetrate Taiwan’s military “that has compromised senior officers at the heart of the island’s armed forces and government agencies,” Reuters reported in 2021.
| | | |   | | | | | | — SABRINA SOUSSAN, CEO of Paris-based global utility company SUEZ SA, has been nominated to serve on Boeing’s board.
| | | — LIAM HOARE, POLITICO: Austria, it’s time to join NATO — JACQUELYN SCHNEIDER, Foreign Affairs: Does Technology Win Wars? — HENRY OLSEN, The Washington Post: This is Biden’s chance to press Scholz on Germany’s rearmament
| | | — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8 a.m.: Deterring a Cross-Strait Conflict: Beijing's Assessment of Evolving U.S. Strategy — Washington Post Live, 11 a.m.: Former deputy national security adviser MATTHEW POTTINGER on U.S.-China tensions — The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, 12:30 p.m.:The West Is Back (Again): Transatlantic Relations and the Ukraine War — The Government Executive Media Group, 1 p.m.: Modern and Flexible Cybersecurity: A Dispatch from the Rocky Mountain Cyberspace Symposium — The Brookings Institution, 2 p.m.: Syria after the earthquakes Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who would happily replace us with ChatGPT. We also thank our producer, Kierra Frazier, who is the only being — real or technological — who can do what she does.
| | 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 | | | | |  |
