The D Brief: B-52s head to the Mideast; Russia’s progress, charted; Nat’l Guard on election standby; Navy cruisers, extended; And just a bit more.
The Pentagon ordered more ships, fighter jets, and B-52 bombers to the Middle East this weekend, Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced Friday evening. The bombers arrived in the region Sunday, officials at Central Command said on social media.
However, the full package won’t arrive terribly quickly, Ryder said. Instead, “These forces will begin to arrive in coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to depart,” he said. The Lincoln strike group has been in the region since August supporting Israel and U.S. forces nearby after pivoting away from an assignment in the Pacific over the summer.
Talking points: “These movements demonstrate the flexible nature of U.S. global defense posture and U.S. capability to deploy world-wide on short notice to meet evolving national security threats,” Ryder said in a statement. “Secretary Austin continues to make clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” he warned.
In case you missed it: Israel’s military warned officials in Baghdad it may attack Iran-backed militias inside Iraq if nothing is done to suppress their recent attacks on Israel, Axios reported last week.
Worth noting: The rate of strikes against Israel from Iraqi militias has sharply increased, “from six attacks in August, to 37 in September, to 111 in October,” according to the Washington Institute, which is tracking the allegations here.
Israel’s use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its recent strikes inside Iran have piqued others’ interest in the weapon, Reuters says. “The main advantage of an ALBM over an [air-launched cruise missile] is speed to penetrate defences,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California. “The downside—accuracy—looks to have been largely solved.” Read on, here.
Related reading:
Welcome to this Monday 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 1979, the Iran hostage crisis began.
Russia’s Ukraine invasion
Ukrainian forces allegedly struck a Russian S-300/400 air defense system southeast of Donetsk City, in occupied eastern Ukraine, using a half dozen or so U.S.-provided ATACMS missiles on Saturday. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War tallied six more alleged strikes on Russian air defense systems (often Buk M2s and M3s) across occupied Ukraine over the past two weeks.
Why bring it up: “Russia has struggled to source the microelectronic components” critical for these air defense systems “due to Western sanctions,” ISW wrote Saturday evening. If those attacks persist, “Russia may not be able to produce or repair a sufficient number of air defense systems to maintain the current density of Russia’s air defense coverage.” Similar Ukrainian strikes could also affect Russian air force targeting and glide bomb strikes in the weeks ahead, ISW said.
Update: Russia has reportedly armed North Korean soldiers with AK-12 assault rifles, RPK/PKM machine guns, SVD/SVCh sniper rifles, Phoenix anti-tank guided missiles, 60mm mortars, and RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers, Ukrainian officials said Saturday. Others may have night vision equipment, thermal imagers, and other optics including more traditional binoculars.
Russian forces are increasingly targeting Ukrainian medics, according to the Economist, which reports that in some frontline locations, “If you put a red cross on a car, you’ll be fired on within 15 minutes.”
Accelerating invasion, charted: Compare Russia’s month-to-month territorial gains in a recent illustration from conflict analyst War Mapper, posted Saturday on social media. October “was Russia’s largest monthly net gain since the start of the war, surpassing last month’s 467.7km²,” he writes.
Election Day preparations
The National Guard has been put on standby in the Pacific Northwest in case of unrest on Election Day, CNN reported Saturday. That includes troops in Oregon, Washington, and Nevada.
“Based upon general and specific information and concerns regarding the potential for violence or other unlawful activity related to the 2024 general election, I want to ensure we are fully prepared to respond to any potential additional civil unrest,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday.
Coming soon: Pentagon officials are set to brief the media on the Guard’s “various election support roles” Monday afternoon.
Developing: Far-right groups are ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas, the New York Times reports after analyzing more than a million messages across almost 50 Telegram channels. “Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt.”
Additional reading:
Navy cruisers
New: The Navy says it will extend the lives of three cruisers. The USS Gettysburg (CG 64), Chosin (CG 65), and Cape St. George (CG 71) will each receive maintenance and modifications to give them a total of ten years of extra service life, with the first of these expected in 2026, the service announced Monday.
Those 30-plus-year-old ships are the youngest of the Ticonderoga class, whose oldest members the Navy has sought for years to retire, arguing that the money sunk into keeping them battle-ready would be better spent on new ships. In 2022, half of the Navy’s unexpected maintenance days were due to Tico problems. Congress has generally refused, saying that the nation needs the cruisers’ missile capacity tubes and accusing the Navy of slow-walking repairs. Last year, Navy Times offered a status report they called “The Navy’s continuing cruiser debacle.”
That makes 15 ships the Navy has recently announced will operate beyond their design lifespan. A dozen destroyers will also operate beyond their 35-year windows, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced last week. That plan was finalized after a 10-month evaluation conducted this calendar year amid what officials say is a shipbuilding budget shortfall.
Expert reax: “If we’re going to have the Navy we need to counter the threats we face,” retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery told Defense One, “you’re going to have to change the top line on Navy ship building in a fairly dramatic way…or you’re going to have to reimagine where you build things at a labor cost you can afford.”
What are your thoughts on the state of U.S. Navy shipbuilding? We’re diving into the topic in an upcoming Defense One Radio podcast. Feel free to send us your constructive feedback in an email over the next few days and we promise we’ll take a look.
