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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 | |  In this photo provided by Ibrahim Almadi, Saad Ibrahim Almadi sits in a restaurant in an unidentified place, in the United States, on August 2021. Saudi Arabia has freed the Saudi-American citizen it had imprisoned more than a year over his old tweets critical of the kingdom’s crown prince. | Ibrahim Almadi via AP | With help from Lili Bayer, Daniel Lippman and Lara Seligman Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt This week saw the Biden administration have a run of successes in getting unjustly held U.S. citizens and residents released from abroad. U.S. citizen JEFF WOODKE suffered six years as a hostage in West Africa. SAAD IBRAHIM ALMAADI, a dual U.S.-Saudi national, was released from prison after more than a year following critical tweets of Riyadh’s rulers –– though he’s banned from leaving the kingdom. And PAUL RUSESABAGINA, a U.S. resident made famous by the film “Hotel Rwanda,” should be released Saturday following a charge in 2021 that he was connected to an opposition group that killed civilians, though the State Department said he was “wrongly detained.” U.S. officials caution the plan to release him could still fall apart. These announcements follow other releases during the Biden administration, such as TREVOR REED and BRITTNEY GRINER from Russia, MARK FRERICHS from Afghanistan, Sister SUELLEN TENNYSON from Burkina Faso and nine Americans from Venezuela, among others. A senior administration official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations and internal operations, said President JOE BIDEN’s team has taken a “more aggressive” approach to these and other cases and that individual officials have generally prioritized the release of hostages and wrongful detainees. “It takes months of hard work to see these cases through. It also takes a president who's willing to make tough calls. If you prioritize this work, you get it done, but it takes time.” Biden also seems to be following in DONALD TRUMP’s footsteps by permitting some concessions in exchange for released Americans, such as when the president authorized the transfer of “Merchant of Death” VIKTOR BOUT to Russia for Griner. But it’s hard to attribute the spate of releases to any one strategy or president, given that it's unclear what precisely leads captors to release the Americans they hold. “We never know the calculus in their minds,” said HUGH DUGAN, an acting special envoy for hostage affairs during the Trump administration, which claimed it brought at least 38 people home. “We should be cautious to think that there’s ever any formula or any correlation to what we did that led to the release. We shouldn’t try to read the tea leaves too hard.” Unfortunately, there are still high-profile cases of Americans unjustly held such as AUSTIN TICE in Syria, PAUL WHELAN in Russia or SIAMAK NAMAZI in Iran. The theory on Namazi’s continued detention is that Iran is angling for a prisoner swap, but it’s not publicly clear what their price is. Namazi, arrested in 2015, is fearful the U.S. isn’t fully committed to his case. "I remain deeply worried that the White House just doesn't appreciate how dire our situation has become," he told CNN’s CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR earlier this month. “The very fact that I've chosen to take this risk and appear on CNN from Evin prison should tell you how dire my situation has become by this point."
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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. | | | | | | RETALIATION FOR KILLED AMERICAN: Iranian proxies launched another attack on a U.S. base in northeast Syria on Friday — the latest tit-for-tat strike between the U.S. and Iranian proxies in the region. Friday’s attack — which does not appear to have caused any U.S. casualties — follows the President JOE BIDEN-ordered strikes Thursday evening, those in retribution for a Thursday morning drone strike by Iran-linked groups that killed an American contractor. The assaults indicate an intensified battle between the U.S. and Iran in Syria, potentially further endangering the 900 troops the U.S. has in Syria. The toll from the Thursday strike on the U.S. base has also raised questions about its vulnerability. The air-defense system there wasn’t “fully operational,” the New York Times’ ERIC SCHMITT reports. Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN said Thursday that the drone was of Iranian origin. In response, the U.S. deployed “precision airstrikes'' with F-15s on facilities in eastern Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he added. POLISH PM BLASTS GERMANY: Germany has fallen short in supporting Ukraine, Polish Prime Minister MATEUSZ MORAWIECKI told our own LILI BAYER and JACOPO BARIGAZZI on Friday, lashing out at Berlin as Europe searches for ways to continue arming Kyiv. In the interview in Brussels, the conservative Polish leader said the EU’s biggest economy must step up and lead — and called on NATO allies to dramatically boost military investments. Germany should be “sending more weapons, sending more ammunition, and giving more money to Ukraine, because they are the richest and the biggest country by far,” Morawiecki said. “They were not as generous as they should have been,” he added. The Polish leader also said he will be advocating for NATO to increase its defense spending target. Poland and Slovakia were the first European countries to pledge MiG-29 fighter jets for Ukraine. And while acknowledging that Poland is not giving its own F-16s to Kyiv, the prime minister argued that other countries are likely close to doing so. “I have an impression that things which were beyond our imagination several weeks ago, now started to be a mainstream topic,” he said, “so I wouldn't exclude that other countries will deliver modern fighting jets to Ukraine.” ‘RADIOACTIVE TSUNAMI’: In North Korea’s latest effort to boast about its military might, the authoritarian regime claimed it tested a nuclear-capable underwater drone intended to inhibit a “radioactive tsunami,” the Associated Press’ KIM TONG-HYUNG reports. The weapon would be intended to destroy naval strike groups and ports, North Korean state media reported, though analysts are skeptical that it poses a major new threat. The test follows reports last week that the U.S. planned to deploy aircraft carrier strike groups and other forces near the Korean Peninsula. 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. Today, we’re featuring SABRINA SINGH, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary. When she’s not answering our pesky questions, she enjoys spending time at The Royal in Shaw downing the Catching Fades, a mezcal-based drink. Singh reports that The Royal has “incredible pastries” on the weekend, but get there early because they “are almost always gone before 11 a.m.” Cheers, Sabrina! 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, @PhelimKine, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @magmill95, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco and @Lawrence_Ukenye.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | HALEY APPROVED: GOP presidential contender NIKKI HALEY supported Biden’s retaliatory strikes in Syria, saying that it was a show of force that America needs to continue to pursue against adversarial countries. The attack on U.S. personnel “shows what happens when there is American weakness. Whether it's in Afghanistan, whether you see it in Ukraine, whether you see it on the southern border, you are going to continue to see more of these things happen,” Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Fox. “I'm glad to see that Biden did strike back.” She continued, however, to bash Biden’s lack of action following other aggressive acts, particularly Russia’s downing of a U.S. drone over the Black Sea earlier this month. “What did Biden do? Nothing,” Haley said. “What we should’ve done last week is put two drones back up there, put a fighter jet up there … We have to start showing American strength.”
| | | |   | | | | | | ALBANIA MISSION: U.S. Cyber Command sent a team to Albania to hunt for cyber threats against the NATO ally, the military organization announced Thursday night. The “Hunt Forward” team of the U.S. Cyber National Mission Force supported Albanian counterparts after cyberattacks from Iran starting last year. The American team assisted by “hunting for malicious cyber activity and identifying vulnerabilities on networks of Albania’s choice,” per CYBERCOM. They shared information with Albania’s government and the U.S. team will disseminate what they learned with public and private sector partners. The U.S. cyber force has deployed 44 times to 22 countries and assisted in places like Ukraine, Estonia and North Macedonia since 2018.
| | | PENTAGON PROBE: The Defense Department has a question for Boeing: Why did its employees work on current and future Air Force One planes without security credentials? The Pentagon and the plane manufacturer are investigating the matter, as well as the length of time many workers had access to the highly classified jets without adequate credentials, a senior Pentagon official and another person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal’s ANDREW TANGEL. Some of the Boeing employees’ credentials expired months or years prior, and in one case seven years before. In total, some 250 employees have worked on the planes without proper clearance, according to people familiar with the matter.
| | | COTTON: DEPORT TIKTOK CHIEF: Sen. TOM COTTON (R-Ark.) wants TikTok boss SHOU ZI CHEW “deported” from the U.S. following yesterday’s…shaky congressional testimony. “CEO Shou Chew’s disgraceful testimony today is beneath contempt. He should be deported immediately and never again allowed to re-enter our country,” the senator tweeted Thursday night. Cotton also called for “every employee of TikTok” to register as a foreign agent. According to The Wall Street Journal, Chew “runs TikTok from offices in Singapore,” though he travels often to the United States and other nations.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | KINDA LAME, NGL: While Washington widely viewed Chew’s testimony yesterday as a brutal smackdown, the chronically online had a different impression, our own MOHAR CHATTERJEE reported Thursday night. For many of those watching, the spectacle looked like a CEO being hectored by out-of-touch legislators over issues that plenty of companies face. Politically, being tough on TikTok appears to be a winning issue in Washington, but it also struck a lot of TikTok users and tech insiders as alienating — even xenophobic. “Watching the hearing on TikTok right now, and the amount of leading questions and interruption to the CEO trying to answer questions is so extremely unprofessional and irritating,” OLIVIA JULIANNA, a prominent activist for Gen Z-related causes who has met with Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, wrote in a tweet. “This is a hearing— let us ACTUALLY HEAR him.” Chinese officials are hailing Chew as a hero for defending the social media platform against aggressive lawmakers, The Washington Post’s VIC CHIANG and LILY KUO report. The hearings were an “embarrassment” for America, state media reported, as China’s foreign ministry noted “unreasonable suppression” of TikTok.
| | | — GLORIA COLON-BUZATU has been hired by the Department of Veterans Affairs as a senior communications analyst. She most recently has served as a public affairs specialist in the office of the assistant to the secretary of Defense for public affairs.
| | | — MICHAEL SCHAFFER, POLITICO: The Surreal Post-Trump Embrace of MARK MILLEY — ESWAR PRASAD, Foreign Policy: The World Will Regret Its Retreat From Globalization — Editorial Board, The Boston Globe: Banning TikTok is not th e real solution
| | 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. | | | | | | — Georgetown University, 8:30 a.m.: 2023 U.S.-China Conference — The Brookings Institution, 9 a.m.: The future of recruitment, retention, and education in national security — The Atlantic Council, 9 a.m.: A visit to a dear friend: Debriefing the Xi-Putin summit — The Henry L. Stimson Center, 9:30 a.m.: Japan’s New National Security Strategy: New Domains — The Middle East Institute, 10 a.m.: Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement: A Diplomatic Coup or a Temporary Respite? — The American Enterprise Institute, 10 a.m.: The Iraq War Series: Operation Iraqi Freedom — The United States Institute of Peace, 10 a.m.: Securing the Peace in Ukraine: Tackling Security Sector Governance and Reform Challenges to Support Democracy — The Mitchell Institute For Aerospace Studies, 10:30 a.m.: Operational Imperative Series: Defining the Next Generation Air Dominance System-of-Systems — The Government Executive Media Group, 1 p.m.: Modernizing Combat and ISR Aircraft to Realize Distributed, Real-Time Sensing Grid Capabilities for Battlespace Awareness — The Center for a New American Security, 1 p.m.: 20 Years Later: The Legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom — The Air and Space Forces Association, 2 p.m.: Warfighters in Action: Col. CHRISTOPHER PUTMAN — The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, 2 p.m.: Big Deal? China Brokers Iran-Saudi Normalization — The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, 3 p.m.: Greece: A Strong Ally at a Time of Geopolitical Threat Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who is always “more aggressive” toward us. We also thank our producer, Andy Goodwin, who is “aggressive” in helping everyone he can. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
