The D Brief: Chinese blockade drill encircles Taiwan; Army program cuts coming?; Israel gets THAAD; Navy reloads at sea; And a bit more.

New: China’s military carried out snap drills Monday encircling the democratic island of Taiwan, and it did so with no 24-hour notification, no specific locations announced, and no end date for what it referred to as its Joint Sword 2024B exercises—the -A portion having occurred this past May. 

Beijing’s stated objectives included a “blockade of key ports and areas,” and practicing an “assault on maritime and ground targets.” China’s Coast Guard also patrolled the waters surrounding Taiwan over the course of the 12-hour exercise. 

And Beijing set a new record for aerial pestering around Taiwan, using 153 aircraft—111 of which entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, according to Taipei Defense Ministry. “This is the highest single-day total ever recorded,” said Taiwan-watcher Ian Ellis. 

Taiwan’s defense ministry condemned China’s actions as “irrational and provocative” and vowed to “deploy appropriate forces to respond and defend our national sovereignty.” It also distributed a map purporting to show China’s operating areas around the island.

Worth noting: The drills occurred four days after Taiwan President William Lai delivered a “National Day” speech in which he said officials in Beijing have “no right to represent Taiwan” and that the democratic island is “not subordinate” to Beijing, the Taipei Times reports.

Official Chinese military reax: The exercises are “a stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” and “a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding national sovereignty and national unity,” Eastern Theater Command spokesman Senior Captain Li Xi said in a statement. 

Official Pentagon reax: “This military pressure operation is irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing,” Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement Monday. “It is a long-standing tradition for Taiwan’s president to deliver remarks on [October 10],” he said. “It is a routine, domestic-focused address that has historically prompted little response from the [People’s Republic of China]. Still, the PRC has chosen this opportunity to take provocative, military action.”

Expert reax: “It was pretty clear from the outset that no matter what President Lai said, Beijing would use his address to ‘justify’ the exercises,” said consultant J. Michael Cole. 

Was China looking to impress Russia? Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov visited Beijing on the very day the snap drills took place, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War noted Monday evening. “Russian forces have experience repelling Ukrainian autonomous naval drone strikes against Russian naval and port infrastructure, and the [Chinese military] may hope to absorb some of these lessons in planning for the PRC’s potential future actions against Taiwan,” ISW wrote atop their daily assessment. 

New: Taiwan’s army just signed contracts to buy nearly 1,000 U.S.-made attack drones, including 685 Switchblade 300 loitering munitions and 291 Altius 600M-V anti-armor attack drones, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday. Altogether, the contracts are just under $164 million. 

But don’t expect these anytime soon: “The Switchblade drones are expected to be delivered by the end of November 2029 while the Altius drones are expected to be delivered by the end of 2027,” SCMP writes. 

For your ears only: Get to better understand Taipei’s counter-invasion considerations via our in-house podcast Defense One Radio, which discussed “The future of Taiwan’s security” with Dmitri Alperovitch and retired Australian major general Mick Ryan (both are episodes from June).

From the region: 

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Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. 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 1917, Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Osmond Kelly Ingram became the first American sailor to die in World War I. Ingram was on the deck of his submarine, Cassin (DD-43), when a German torpedo approached; he rushed to throw depth charges overboard to prevent their detonation and died in the torpedo’s explosion. He received the Medal of Honor and became the namesake of a U.S. Navy warship, the first U.S. enlisted sailor so honored.

Developing: The Pentagon is sending a THAAD air defense battery to Israel in anticipation of additional attacks from Iran. After all, according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the system is a “combat-proven defense capability against short, medium and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.” And Iran has an enormous stockpile of ballistic missiles, as think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies note. 

Latest: “An advance team of U.S. military personnel and initial components” arrived Monday, with the rest expected “in the coming days,” the Pentagon’s Maj. Gen. Ryder said in a statement Tuesday morning. Sending the battery to Israel “underscores the United States’ commitment to the defense of Israel and to defend Americans in Israel from any ballistic missile attacks by Iran,” Ryder said, declining to elaborate on precise timelines “for operations security reasons.”

By the way: Israel “faces a looming shortage of interceptor missiles as it prepares itself for attacks from Iran and its proxies,” the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing industry executives, former military officials and analysts. 

Developing: Israel is also planning to attack Iranian military targets instead of its energy sector, the Washington Post reported Monday afternoon. Israeli officials have promised a response following Iran’s attack on October 1 featuring around 200 ballistic missiles, many of which appear to have struck an air force base hosting F-35 jets in southern Israel, according to satellite imagery. 

• Oil prices dropped 4% on the news, Reuters reported Tuesday morning. 

ICYMI: A Hezbollah drone attack Sunday killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded 61 others in the town of Binyamina. The Iran-backed militants used at least three different kinds of projectiles—drones, rockets, and three precision missiles—simultaneously to attack Israel, which likely contributed to the attack’s unusually high casualty count, according to a preliminary investigation by the Israeli air force. 

“The [Israeli] Navy and Iron Dome [air defense system] intercepted two of the drones near Nahariya and Acre but detection systems lost track of a third drone, a Shahed 107—which ultimately impacted in Binyamina,” the Washington-based ISW relayed Monday afternoon. 

Notable: Hezbollah reportedly attempted a similar tactic on Monday, but did not have similar results. 

Additional reading: 

New: The U.S. Army wants to recruit 61,000 new soldiers this fiscal year, which is a sharp increase over last year, Defense One’s Sam Skove reported Monday from the annual Association of the U.S. Army convention in Washington.

The 61,000 number is similar to the Army’s 2022 recruiting goal of 60,000 and its 2023 target of 65,000 new soldiers. Both years the Army missed its target by about 15,000 soldiers, Skove writes. But the service exceeded its fiscal year 2024 recruiting target of 55,000 new soldiers—though by just half a percent.

Notable: Secretary Christine Wormuth signaled that the Army is open to cutting more programs. That warning comes nine months after the service canceled a major helicopter program because it said unmanned, current, and space-based assets could do the job. (The service had already spent nearly $2 billion on the program, known as the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft.)

“As we continue modernizing our weapons systems, we are also asking ourselves every step of the way, “Does this capability make our troops more lethal?” Wormuth said. “If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’ or even ‘maybe,’ we are willing to make hard choices and adjust course.” More, here. 

Also in Defense One:

And lastly: Former President Trump suggested using the National Guard and military against his political enemies. In an echo of 1950s-era Sen. Joe McCarthy, the GOP presidential candidate said on a Sunday interview show that the United States is threatened by an “enemy from within.” 

And should a violence break out on Election Day, “I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” he told a Fox interviewer, adding that “the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country.” 

Who is the enemy? He named Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who presented evidence against him during his first impeachment trial. Read more at CNN, The Hill, or the Wall Street Journal.

Defense One