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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 Matt Berg | |  Speaking at Vilnius University, President Joe Biden boasted that democracies who champion freedom against authoritarianism’s creep have held strong. | Mindaugas Kulbis/AP Photo | With help from Laura Kayali, Cristina Gallardo, Lili Bayer, Hans von der Burchard and Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt VILNIUS, Lithuania — Boy, does President JOE BIDEN love talking about democracy and freedom. He used his last moments here to rally NATO allies and the world’s democracies to stick together as Russia’s war on Ukraine extends beyond 500 days. Standing in the heart of a capital of a former Soviet republic, Biden boasted that democracies who champion freedom against authoritarianism’s creep have held strong, even in the face of the largest land war in Europe since World War II. He pushed for the protection and promotion of global democracy not just in Ukraine against VLADIMIR PUTIN’s Russia, but also well into the future to keep dictators and other global threats at bay. “The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year. It's the calling of our lifetime. We’re steeled for the struggle ahead. Our unity will not falter, I promise you,” he told a crowd of 10,000 American- and Ukraine-flag-toting onlookers who gathered at Vilnius University. Before the president walked on stage, a group could be heard chanting Slava Ukraini (glory to Ukraine). The president’s address was a paean to NATO and the transatlantic security architecture he has toiled to strengthen since well before the invasion began. But Biden also used the opportunity to offer a clarion call for more cooperation among nations to address challenges like climate change, poverty and economic inequality. “The choices we make now are going to shape the direction of our world for decades to come. With nations working together with common cause, we can answer these questions,” he said. “Keep it up, keep going,” he rallied the crowd, packed tightly into a square flanked by the university’s yellow walls. During the speech, the crowd cheered at the word “NATO.” Right at the end, they chanted “U-S-A!” The president’s apparent good mood and optimistic outlook came hours after a NATO summit with undeniable wins. The biggest victory of all happened before the gathering even began, when Turkey on Monday ended its year-long blockade of Sweden’s entreé into the alliance, paving the way for the military bloc to welcome its 32nd member. But Biden’s victory lap was marred by a tense middle portion of the summit. NATO’s communiqué removed one hurdle to Ukraine’s hoped-for membership but didn’t delineate clear accession conditions or timelines. “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met,” the joint statement read. That enraged Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, who hours before arriving in Vilnius Tuesday blasted the language as “unprecedented and absurd” — a broadside that threatened the unity Biden and his team hoped to exhibit in Vilnius. Zelenskyy, however, unexpectedly reversed course on the second and final day. He called the outcomes of the summit “a significant security victory” for Ukraine while reiterating an invitation to join NATO was the preferred deliverable. One reason for the newfound gratitude was the commitment by members of G-7 nations, including the United States, to long-term military and economic assistance for Ukraine including weapons, training and reconstruction funds. And Zelenskyy said before a bilateral meeting with Biden today, when prompted by a question from POLITICO, “we have great unity from our leaders and the security guarantees — that is a success for this summit.” Read Alex and JONATHAN LEMIRE’s full story. Further reading: How Ukraine lost its battle for a NATO membership commitment, by Lili, Alex and Laura.
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The F-35 delivers the unrivaled advantage for our pilots, nation, and partners. A decisive differentiator in near-peer warfare, the F-35 is the most advanced node in 21st century security network-centric architecture. Learn more. | | | | | ERDOĞAN THEORIES: Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN surprised nearly everyone at the NATO summit when he dropped his block on Sweden’s accession. The mystery remains why, exactly, he did it. Three theories have swirled around Vilnius over the last two days. Theory 1: Erdoğan just loves attention. Last year, he similarly held out as Finland and Sweden sought an invite to join the alliance. He ultimately relented and agreed, though he dragged out the process for Sweden while letting Finland in. And here we are again, with Erdoğan basically doing the same thing. U.S. and European officials (privately, of course) speculated that the Turkish leader wants to be seen as a key player in the alliance and a central figure at each summit. Theory 2: Erdoğan may have finally gotten assurances that he would get American F-16 fighter jets if he greenlit Sweden’s accession. That’s not a guarantee, as it’s up to members of Congress like Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) to drop their opposition to the transfer (more on that below). But there’s speculation that a deal may be in the works to send F-35 warplanes to Greece, a move that would satisfy some of Menendez’s concerns about supporting allies against Turkey’s regional aggression. Theory 3: After pushing for concessions from Sweden and others, Erdoğan finally realized he got all he could get. Sweden made some reforms in its relationship with certain Kurdish groups that Turkey considers to be terrorists, and he got bilateral meetings with Biden and NATO Secretary-General JENS STOLTENBERG. Allies were also signaling their displeasure behind the scenes, urging Erdoğan that now was the time to put up or shut up. Well, he put up. ICBM LAUNCH: Washington called out Pyongyang for launching an intercontinental ballistic missile today, saying it “needlessly raises tensions” and “risks destabilizing” the region, Matt reports. North Korea test-fired its first ICBM in three months, days after it threatened “shocking” consequences because of Washington’s military presence along the peninsula. The missile flew about 620 miles before landing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, South Korean and Japanese officials said. As loyal NatSec Daily readers know, North Korea has long lambasted the U.S. for its military ties with South Korea, deploying dozens of rockets over the past year in a show of protest. Some experts believe today’s missile could’ve been the regime’s developmental Hwasong-18 ICBM, a solid-fuel weapon that’s difficult to detect and intercept, the Associated Press’ HYUNG-JIN KIM and MARI YAMAGUCHI report. CHINA MEETING: U.S. and China diplomacy continues apace. According to the Pentagon, ELY RATNER, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, spoke today with China’s ambassador to the U.S., XIE FENG. The Defense Department asked the embassy for the meeting. The two men “discussed U.S -PRC defense relations, as well as a range of international and regional security issues. Ratner also underscored the Department’s commitment to maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between the United States and the PRC,” DOD spokesperson Lt. Col. MARTIN MEINERS said in a statement. The meeting comes weeks after Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN met with Chinese paramount leader XI JINPING in Beijing and mere days after Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN met her counterparts in China. IT’S WEDNESDAY: 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, @reporterjoe and @JGedeon1. And while you’re here, pre-order Alex’s book titled “The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy after Trump.”
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | LET THEM IN: NATO may not want Ukraine in the alliance just yet, but WILL HURD does. “Ukraine should be admitted to NATO the day fighting stops. It's common sense,” the Republican 2024 candidate and former lawmaker tweeted. “They will continue to be an incredibly experienced and tough fighting force that all of NATO will benefit from.” Support for Ukraine is becoming a major campaign issue among Republicans: one faction wants Washington to back away from backing Kyiv while the other wants to continue providing assistance and integrating the country into the transatlantic fold. Hurd, clearly, is in the latter camp. Relevant reading: Alex unpacks the transatlantic tightrope Republican Sen. Thom Tillis has to walk in supporting NATO and Ukraine amid skepticism that runs deep in his party. TRUMP’S TROOPS: Then-President DONALD TRUMP was “a few sentences away” from deploying the military against migrants in February 2019, forcing top officials to rush to the White House to talk him out of the move, our own LARA SELIGMAN reports. That’s the latest revelations from the new book by MILES TAYLOR, then-chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, who wrote the “Anonymous” op-ed about resistance within Trump’s administration while in his post. In the run-up to the State of the Union address that year, White House aides informed Taylor that Trump wanted to use American troops to “forcibly expel” migrants from a caravan heading toward the southern border. “This is fucking insane,” Trump reportedly told Taylor and KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, then-secretary of Homeland Security, of the migrants during a conversation in the White House as the pair attempted to sway him away from sending troops. “We can’t let them in.”
| | GOVERNMENT EMAILS HACKED: Chinese-based hackers gained access to the emails of at least one U.S. federal agency last month through a vulnerability in Microsoft email systems, our own JOSEPH GEDEON and MAGGIE MILLER report. The New York Times later reported today that they targeted “specific State Department email accounts in the weeks before Secretary of State Blinken traveled to Beijing in June. “U.S. officials have downplayed the idea that the hackers stole sensitive information, insisting that no classified email or cloud systems were penetrated. The State Department’s cybersecurity team first discovered the intrusion,” JULIAN BARNES and EDWARD WONG report. The attackers pierced the agency’s systems and those of around two dozen other organizations by using forged authentication tokens in a breach first made public by Microsoft on Tuesday night. The Microsoft investigators identified the infiltrators as Storm-0558, a group that primarily uses espionage, credential access and data theft to target government agencies in Western Europe. Sen. MARK WARNER (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement the attack “appears to be a significant cybersecurity breach by Chinese intelligence. It’s clear that the PRC is steadily improving its cyber collection capabilities directed against the U.S. and our allies.”
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | LOWDOWN ON NDAA: After wrangling between Republican leadership and conservatives, the House Rules Committee approved an initial package of nearly 300 amendments in a party-line vote late Tuesday evening. Our friends at Morning Defense (for Pros!) outlined a few notable proposals: Aircraft: An amendment from Reps. MIKE CAREY (R-Ohio), CLAUDIA TENNEY (R-N.Y.) and MAX MILLER (R-Ohio) would block the Air Force from retiring any KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft in fiscal 2024. Another proposal from Michigan Republicans led by Rep. JOHN JAMES would authorize $31 million for advance procurement of F-15EX fighters for the Air National Guard to recapitalize aircraft, prioritizing Guard A-10 squadrons that don't have replacement planes. Taiwan: Select China Committee Chair MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wisc.) won a vote on his amendment to order the Pentagon to study the feasibility of setting up a combined planning group with Taiwan that would organize joint military training and exercises. Another proposal from Rep. MICHAEL WALTZ (R-Fla.) would require a Pentagon briefing on joint military exercises with Taiwan. Munitions: Rules granted a vote to Rep. ROB WITTMAN's (R-Va.) amendment that would allow the Pentagon's acquisition chief to establish reserves of components to speed up the delivery of critical munitions. Read: McCarthy buys time as conservatives threaten defense bill over abortion, LGBTQ policies by CONNOR O’BRIEN, JORDAIN CARNEY and KATHERINE TULLY-MCMANUS.
| | BLOCKS ON F-16 SALE TO TURKEY: The White House wants to make sure it provides Turkey with fighter jets “carefully and in consultation with” congressional lawmakers who are stalling the deal with Ankara, national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN said on CNN today. Biden can’t sell the planes without buy-in from the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees. While those members have been reluctant to approve the sale, senators showed signs of a thaw Tuesday, but they said the administration and Erdoğan have to do more before they get to “yes,” our own JOE GOULD reported Tuesday evening. “We’re having conversations with the administration,” Menendez told Joe. “I still have concerns. I’ve told them about those concerns. If they can find a way to ensure that Turkey’s aggression against its neighbors ceases — which has been great, but that has to be a permanent reality.” Menendez said his longstanding objection over Turkey’s aggression toward Greece and Cyprus still needs to be addressed, and he wants assurances “if there is to be any sales to Turkey, that they will not use them to act in the belligerent way they have against other NATO allies, not just Greece.” Sullivan said: “Senator Menendez has an important voice in this. We will continue to stay in close touch with him.” Read: Biden vs. Coach: White House relishes matchup against Tuberville by JENNIFER HABERKORN and BURGESS EVERETT.
| | U.K. TO UKRAINE: SHOW SOME GRATITUDE: British Defense Secretary BEN WALLACE has a message for Kyiv after it expressed displeasure with the alliance communiqué: be careful in your messaging. “Whether you like it or not, people want to see gratitude. My counsel to the Ukrainians is … sometimes you have to persuade lawmakers on the Hill in America, you have to persuade doubting politicians in other countries that, you know, that is worth it, that it is worthwhile and that they are getting something for it,” he said. “And whether you like it or not, that’s the reality of it.” He added: “Sometimes you would hear grumbles not from the administration in the American system, but you would hear them from lawmakers on the Hill … ‘We’ve given $83 billion worth or whatever, we are not Amazon.’” That’s unusually direct language from a prominent European politician. But it reflects a sentiment from many NATO allies here — including the U.S. — who feel that Kyiv got a lot out of Vilnius, including the removal of a bureaucratic hurdle to eventually become an official ally and billions in continued security assistance. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak later sought to iron out the diplomatic wrinkles caused by Wallace’s remarks, saying “Zelenskyy has repeatedly expressed his gratitude to me” and other allies. Jake Sullivan also used the word “gratitude” in relation to U.S. support for Ukraine, but regarding the American people’s backing of the effort.
| | | |   | | | | | — JERRY DUNLEAVY is joining the House Foreign Affairs Committee to help lead its investigation into the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal. He most recently was a Justice Department reporter at the Washington Examiner. — AMANDA ROTHSCHILD is headed to CRC Advisors. She most recently was senior policy director at the Vandenberg Coalition and is a Trump State Department, White House and NSC alum. — LINDA ZECHER has been appointed CEO of cybersecurity company IronNet. She currently serves as chair of C5 Capital, director of the board of Hasbro and as a board member of Tenable, a cloud-based cybersecurity platform. — ANNA KLINGENSMITH has been promoted to be program associate for the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum.
| | — BENJAMIN FRIEDMAN and CHRISTOPHER McCALLION, POLITICO: Make Ukraine a porcupine rather than a protectorate — MAXIMILIAN BREMER and KELLY GRIECO, Breaking Defense: Ukraine’s push for F-16s risks a battlefield advantage: simplicity — THOMAS FRIEDMAN, The New York Times: The U.S. reassessment of Netanyahu’s government has begun
| | — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9:30 a.m.: Discussion on the NATO Summit — Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change, and Manufacturing Subcommittee, 10 a.m.: Hearing on budget oversight of the U.S. Coast Guard — House Science, Space and Technology Committee, 10 a.m.: Hearing on continuing U.S. leadership in commercial space at home and abroad. — The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 10:30 a.m.: Conference on Diversity in Nuclear Policy with keynote by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security BONNIE JENKINS Thanks to our editor, Emma Anderson, who says getting us fired is the “calling of her lifetime.” We also thank our producer, Gregory Svirnovskiy, who will “shape the direction of our world for decades to come.”
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