AND WE HAVE LIFTOFF: Today’s ceremony reestablishing U.S. Space Command marks a significant step in fulfilling President Trump’s vision of a full-fledged Space Force as a separate, albeit the smallest, branch of the armed forces.
The president is scheduled to participate in the ceremonies at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, remotely from the White House. Vice President Mike Pence, who as head of his Space Council has been spearheading the effort to stand up the new service, is also expected to take part.
The original U.S. Space Command was stood up in 1982 and disbanded in 2002, when U.S. Northern Command was established. Now, with space considered a warfighting domain, having a combatant commander solely focused on protecting U.S. satellites has strong bipartisan support.
“To ensure the protection of America’s interests in space, we must apply the necessary focus, energy, and resources to the task, and that is exactly what Space Command will do,” said Defense Secretary Mark Esper yesterday. “As a unified combatant command, the United States Space Command is the next crucial step towards the creation of an independent Space Force as an additional armed service.”
The Senate confirmed Gen. John Raymond to be the commander of Space Command in June.
THE FORCE MAY OR MAY NOT BE WITH US: The fate of the Space Force is still up to Congress, which has yet to finish work on the National Defense Authorization Act, with some Democrats arguing that creating the bureaucracy to support a whole new military service is unnecessary overkill.
At last month’s Senate confirmation hearing for Gen. John Hyten to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin questioned the need to add a space commander to the Joint Chiefs, asking why Space Command, as part of the Air Force, isn’t sufficient.
“I just can’t get there; I can get there with the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Manchin said. “If it’s going to be under the Air Force, and the Air Force has done one heck of a good job all these years, why can’t we continue with that type of support command under that?”
HALFWAY THERE: In his maiden news conference yesterday, Esper expressed gratitude to Congress for the bipartisan two-year budget deal, which he said would give the Pentagon the funding predictability to protect the country.
But he noted there is still some uncertainty about whether the final legislation will be passed on time. “As I’ve expressed to members of the Congress on many occasions — to include yesterday — continuing resolutions harm our military readiness and stifle our modernization efforts,” Esper said. “As such, I urge Congress to work together in a bipartisan manner to ensure the defense bills are passed by October 1st.”
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HAPPENING TODAY: On the second day of his visit to Washington, Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, the kingdom’s vice minister of defense, will be welcomed by Esper to the Pentagon at 10:30 a.m.
Yesterday, the minister met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Topic A was Yemen. “[T]he Secretary reiterated U.S. support for a negotiated resolution between the Republic of Yemen government and the Southern Transitional Council,” said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus. “The Secretary and the minister agreed that dialogue represents the only way to achieve a stable, unified, and prosperous Yemen.”
Esper yesterday downplayed the U.S. role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition against the Iranian-backed Houthis. “Our support has been very limited, and limited to helping them for their defensive purposes,” Esper said. “I think with most of these conflicts, they best end, they often end in a political agreement. And we’ll see if the parties are ready to move to that stage.”
NEW YEMEN REPORT: This week, the Heritage Foundation released “A Way Forward in Yemen,” which concludes that “the brutal civil war has reached a stalemate” and that the “unwieldy anti-Houthi coalition, which in recent years clawed back considerable territory seized by the Houthis, is disintegrating.”
MATTIS WEIGHS IN: Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has followed up on his essay published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal — indirectly criticizing President Trump’s leadership — with an interview in the Atlantic, in which he further expounds on why he felt he had to resign.
In the widely cited Journal essay, which was adapted from Mattis’s soon-to-be-released book Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, Mattis doesn’t criticize Trump by name, but it’s clear who he’s talking about when he makes the case that the United States needs all the allies it can get.
“A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader,” Mattis writes. “A leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed. Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together. Absent this, we will occupy an increasingly lonely position, one that puts us at increasing risk in the world.”
“I did as well as I could for as long as I could. When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign,” Mattis writes.
‘THE MAN WHO COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE’: … is the title of the Atlantic article, in which Mattis, in his first interview, tells the magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg: “I had no choice but to leave. That’s why [my resignation] letter is in the book. I want people to understand why I couldn’t stay. I’ve been informed by four decades of experience, and I just couldn’t connect the dots anymore.”
Goldberg reports that on the day Mattis resigned last December, he met with Trump in the Oval Office and made his case for keeping troops in Syria. When Trump rejected his arguments, Mattis told the president: “You’re going to have to get the next secretary of defense to lose to ISIS. I’m not going to do it.”
NO COMMENT FROM DUNFORD: Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, a fellow Marine who served under Mattis in uniform and alongside him at the Pentagon before his resignation, refused to be drawn into the discussion.
“I’ve worked very hard to remain apolitical and not make political judgments,” said Dunford at what may be his last Pentagon news conference. “I will not now, nor will I when I take off the uniform, make judgments about the president of the United States or the commander in chief. I just won’t do it.”
Mattis himself is trying to walk a fine line, writing a book on leadership without undercutting Trump, who he clearly sees as a flawed leader.
“If you leave an administration, you owe some silence,” Mattis said. “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country.” He continued: “I may not like a commander in chief one fricking bit, but our system puts the commander in chief there, and to further weaken him when we’re up against real threats — I mean, we could be at war on the Korean peninsula, every time they start launching something.”
IMPERFECT AFGHANISTAN DEAL COMING: Sometime in September, the administration expects to announce a deal with the Taliban under which the United States will agree to withdraw its troops in return for Taliban pledges to cut ties with al Qaeda and negotiate directly with the Afghan government.
The Taliban insists the deal rests on America withdrawing all its forces, and that has raised concerns about whether the United States will still have the ability to conduct counterterrorism missions against ISIS and al Qaeda and provide some level of support for the Afghan military, which the Pentagon admits is not capable of standing on its own.
At yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, Dunford, a former Afghanistan commander, made the case that however imperfect the final agreement turns out to be, it’s worth a shot.
“I wouldn’t have been standing here as long as I have if I wasn’t a glass-half-full person, right?” he told reporters. “I believe that what is needed is some type of disruption to the status quo. I think an agreement that can initiate inter-Afghan dialogue and potentially leading to a reduction of violence associated with the insurgency is something that’s worth trying.”
Dunford said any deal would be conditions based, implying that the withdrawal of U.S. troops could be reversed if the Taliban reneges on its promises. He was pressed about whether the agreement would allow for the United States to maintain a counterterrorism force in Afghanistan.
“We have enduring security interests in the region, diplomatic interests in the region, and economic interests in the region, and the form of our presence to advance our interests in those areas is going to change over time,” Dunford said, adding, “We will need our interests addressed.”
END OF AN ERROR: At yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, the first by a defense secretary in a year, Esper tacitly admitted it was a mistake to go so long without facing the press and by extension the public.
“It is my commitment to the American people, who entrust us with their sons and daughters, to keep them informed of the work that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Department of Defense civilians do every day to keep our nation safe,” Esper said, promising to return to the days when press briefings were routine.
“While we have many avenues to engage with the media in today’s world, moving forward, I intend to do these briefings to maintain an open dialogue about the department’s activities,” Esper said. “Our head of public affairs and a representative from the Joint Staff will also begin holding regular press briefings.”
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: US rebukes South Korea for scrapping security pact with Japan
Reuters: China Rotates Hong Kong Troops as Protesters Call for Democracy
CNN: U.S. Sails Warship Near Contested Islands in South China Sea Amid Tensions With China
New York Times: U.S. Cyberattack Hurt Iran’s Ability to Target Oil Tankers, Officials Say
CBC: ‘They Are Going to Deliver This Oil to Syria’: How an Iranian Supertanker Is Flouting Trump’s Sanctions
NBC: Proposed U.S. deal with Taliban uses name of insurgency’s former ’emirate’
Air Force Magazine: Turkey Shopping for Russian Fighters as Russia Claims Ankara as an Ally
Popular Mechanics: After 12 Years, Russia’s Forward-Swept Fighter Makes a Surprise Appearance
Reuters: As Maritime Rows Resurface, Duterte Readies to Raise Ruling With China
Military Times: College Women Using War Games to Break into the Male-Dominated Defense Industry
Stars and Stripes: Sen. Johnny Isakson, Chairman Of Veterans’ Affairs Committee, to Resign at End of 2019
Calendar
THURSDAY | AUGUST 29
9 a.m. Nashville, Tennesse. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie and James Stewart, performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, provide comments on suicide prevention at the 2019 Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense Suicide Prevention Conference. Livestreamed at www.defense.gov/Watch/Live-Events.
10:30 a.m. Pentagon River Entrance. Defense Secretary Mark Esper welcomes Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, vice minister of defense, to the Pentagon on the steps of the River Entrance.
2 p.m. Pentagon Briefing Room. Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Strategic Engagement Kim Joiner and District of Columbia National Guard commanding general Maj. Gen. William Walker provide remarks and host World War II veteran Sgt. Herman Zeitchik, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Paris. Live streamed at www.defense.gov/Watch/Live-Events.
6 p.m. 1750 Independence Avenue S.W. Friends of the National World War II Memorial 75th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany, with Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of former president Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and David Norquist, deputy defense secretary. wwiimemorialfriends.networkforgood.com/events
7 p.m. 70 District Square S.W. Politics and Prose Bookstore discussion on The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear with author George Beebe, director for intelligence and national security at the Center for the National Interest. www.politics-prose.com/events
TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 3
11:30 a.m. 58 East 68th Street, New York. Council on Foreign Relations discussion with former defense secretary Jim Mattis, on his new book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. www.cfr.org
WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 4
7:30 a.m. 1250 S. Hayes Street, Arlington. Third annual Defense News conference, featuring Matthew Donovan, acting Air Force secretary; Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering; Ryan McCarthy, acting Army secretary; Gen. James McConville, Army chief of staff; and many others. conference.defensenews.com/agenda
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I will not now, nor will I when I take off the uniform, make judgments about the president of the United States or the commander in chief. I just won’t do it.”
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, insisting he will remain apolitical when he retires from military service next month.
