The D Brief: More US forces to Mideast; Russia sub sunk?; US leaves Niger base; Wanted: cyber inquest with teeth; And a bit more…
US adds forces to Mideast posture. On Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to replace the Theodore Roosevelt strike group in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility. (TR deployed from its San Diego homeport in early January.)
More missile defense: Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to EUCOM and CENTCOM AORs. The Department is also taking steps to increase our readiness to deploy additional land-based ballistic missile defense
Also: SecDef also sent another Air Force fighter squadron to the Middle East. All that from a Friday statement from the Pentagon, which also noted that the Wasp amphibious ready group and its embarked Marine expeditionary unit are in the eastern Mediterranean.
Per the statement, the moves aim “to improve U.S. force protection, to increase support for the defense of Israel, and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to various contingencies.”
But why? AP: “The shifts come as U.S. leaders worry about escalating violence in the Middle East in response to recent attacks by Israel on Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, which triggered threats of retaliation.”
On Thursday, President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu discussed new U.S. military deployments to ward off Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, according to the White House.
Israeli defense officials said they are coordinating with the U.S., as they did in April, when U.S. forces intercepted dozens of missiles and drones fired by Iran against Israel.
Background: “The assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday and senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut on Tuesday risk escalating the fighting into an all-out regional war, with Iran also threatening to respond after the attack on its territory. Israel has vowed to kill Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack, which sparked the war.” Read more from AP, here.
Houthis hit first cargo ship in two weeks. On Saturday, a missile fired from Yemen lightly damaged the Liberian-flagged container ship Groton, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational coalition overseen by the U.S. Navy. AP: “The Houthis offered no explanation for the two-week pause in their attacks on shipping through the Red Sea corridor, which have seen similar slowdowns since the assaults began in November over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the resumption comes after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, the Houthis’ main benefactor, amid renewed concerns over the war breaking out into a regional conflict.”
That attack, no doubt, will soon be added to this list of “All the Houthi-US Navy incidents in the Middle East (that we know of)” compiled by Military Times.
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Bradley Peniston and Sam Skove. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1864, Union Rear Adm. David G. Farragut damned the torpedoes and went full speed ahead into Mobile Bay, Alabama.
Kyiv says it sank a Russia sub: The Rostov-on-Don, an Improved-Kilo-class attack boat, was purportedly hit in the port of Sevastopol on Friday. “The boat sank on the spot,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a Saturday statement that provided no further evidence.
CNN: “If confirmed, the sinking would be Ukraine’s latest blow to Russia’s navy, which Kyiv claims has already lost a third of its Black Sea Fleet. CNN is not able to independently verify the claim, and the Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the alleged attack.” A bit more, here.
Shyu defends innovation program after Senate slam. After the Senate Appropriations Committee criticized the Pentagon’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, Research and Engineering Undersecretary Heidi Shyu defended it as having delivered innovative and “critical” military capabilities. “Every single undersecretary, every single service, every COCOM…they all concurred, thumbs up, on the first four sets of prototypes, that these are mature enough to get into production and rapid fielding,” Shyu told Breaking Defense. Read that here.
US departs second of two bases in Niger: “The U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of Niger announce that the withdrawal of U.S. forces and assets from Air Base 201 in Agadez is complete,” the two agencies said in a Monday release. The Pentagon is “all but ending a monthslong withdrawal from what was once a vital partner in the fight against terrorism,” as Defense News put it in a piece that has a succinct chronology of how we got here.
9/11 plea deal, revoked: On Thursday, SecDef Austin withdrew the Defense Department’s offer of a plea deal to 9/11 conspirators after facing backlash over the failure to bring conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others to trial. Some families of the victims have previously said a plea deal represented their best chance of justice after years of legal proceedings while others have pressed for a trial.
Additional reading:
Germany vows continued spending, Pacific presence. A lower-than-expected defense budget for 2025 won’t affect Germany’s military presence in the Indo-Pacific region “in any way,” and will not stop the country from meeting its pledge to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defense, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Wednesday.
“Standing on the deck of the German frigate FGS Baden-Württemberg here, speaking to journalists and members of the German parliament, Pistorius said a stable Indo-Pacific region is important for Germany and for Europe as a whole,” D1’s Jen Hlad reports from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
RIMPAC wrap. Stars & Stripes: “The biennial Rim of the Pacific maritime exercise ended its six-week run Thursday in Hawaii, a span that included the sinking of two decommissioned warships by numerous weapons systems wielded by a multinational force.”
SecDef, Sec’y of State visit Manila. “Tensions between the Philippines and China have been rising precipitously, and the island nation is looking to the United States to help it develop military capabilities to deter Chinese aggression. Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Philippines this week to officially announce a $500 million package to help the Philippine military build its maritime capabilities, specifically intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to better track and control threats in its waters,” D1’s Patrick Tucker, who accompanied Austin on his Asia-Pacific swing, reports from Manila.
Farnborough air show wrap. The Defense One Radio podcast revisits some of the bigger takeaways from this year’s Farnborough International Airshow with analyst Dan Darling of Forecast International.
Lastly today: Let’s start treating cybersecurity like it matters. That means a real investigatory board for cyber incidents, not the hamstrung one we’ve got now, argue Tarah Wheeler, senior fellow for Global Cyber Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Bruce Schneier, the internationally renowned security technologist.
“When an airplane crashes, impartial investigatory bodies leap into action, empowered by law to unearth what happened and why. But there is no such empowered and impartial body to investigate CrowdStrike’s faulty update that recently unfolded, ensnarling banks, airlines, and emergency services to the tune of billions of dollars. We need one.” Read on.
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