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Get Your Best Daily Defense and Foreign Affairs Intelligence Here in One Brief. Read the summaries or dive deeper via the linked articles.
PENTAGON WOKE WATCH
GOOD – Troops booted over COVID vaccines would get jobs back under GOP plan. Republican lawmakers are renewing calls for the Department of Defense to reinstate thousands of troops dismissed from the service last year for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, calling it a matter of fairness and readiness.
UMMMM, REALLY? MEMES? – Coastie faces military’s highest court for sharing disrespectful memes. A U.S. Coast Guardsman faced the military’s highest court yesterday for sending disrespectful texts to other service members, inciting questions over the consequences of distributing inappropriate messages to fellow troops on duty.
POLITICS
Armed Services committee adds 11 members, quality of life panel. House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled their membership and leadership plans for the House Armed Services Committee this session, including a new special panel focused on servicemember quality of life issues.
HOMELAND SECURITY
Army vet sentenced for money, weapons support of Syrian terrorists. A federal judge in New Jersey has sentenced an Army veteran to nearly three years in prison after she admitted to providing money, weapons and ammunition to a terrorist organization in Syria.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Can we deploy hypersonic weapons before China and Russia outgun us? It’s up to Congress. Russia allegedly deployed hypersonic weapons for the first time at tactical scale earlier this month. It dispatched the Admiral Gorshkov, one of Russia’s newest warships, to the Atlantic on a long-distance cruise, armed, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, with Zirkon cruise missiles. Meanwhile, on Dec. 9, the U.S. reached a major hypersonic milestone, conducting a successful test of the AGM-183 ARRW air-launched hypersonic missile. And in late 2021, China launched a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle that circumnavigated the globe before engaging a target.
US arms export approvals soared in 2022. Sales of military weapons between the U.S. and foreign governments shot up to nearly $51.9 billion in fiscal 2022, largely because U.S. allies in Europe are rushing to arm themselves in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 11 months ago.
REAL CONCERN OR SCAREMONGERING? – Russia’s war in Ukraine pushes Doomsday Clock to closest point to midnight in history. Russia’s war in Ukraine has significantly raised the risk of global self-annihilation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned Tuesday, moving forward the Doomsday Clock to its closest point to midnight ever.
CHINA THREAT
Viva la revolución! – In China, Young Women Become Accidental Symbols of Defiance. A new generation of novice dissidents—many artists and writers—arrested after demonstrations against pandemic lockdowns is fueled by anger over a clampdown on freedoms and attacks on women’s rights.
China’s Economic Model Is in Crisis (and Xi Knows It). Though China’s draconian ‘Zero COVID’ policy which savaged its economy as well as its people, is over, its economy is still in crisis. China’s grotesquely overinflated property bubble is at perpetual risk of bursting. A youth-unemployment crisis plagues its major cities. A perennially underpaid labor force is struggling to prop up consumer demand. And the demographic collapse wrought by the one-child policy has just begun.
RUSSIA THREAT
OK. GOOD – Bipartisan reps introduce bill to designate Russia’s Wagner Group as foreign terrorists. A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced legislation on Wednesday to designate Russian mercenary company Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
A diplomat gets framed by the Russian FSB in ‘Kompromat.’ How should a diplomat conduct business when stationed in a foreign country? Should the agenda be to promote the values of one’s home country, or should the mission be to observe the customs and laws of the nation where you’re stationed?
UKRAINE WAR
After US offer, Germany unleashes Leopard tanks for Ukraine. After weeks of hesitation that saw growing impatience among Germany’s allies, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Wednesday that his government would provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 battle tanks and approve requests by other countries to do the same.
In reversal, US to send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday he would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, reversing course after Germany cleared the way for Europe to send scores of main battle tanks.
Ukraine will now push for F-16 fighter jets, government adviser says. With main battle tanks from the U.S. and Germany now headed to Ukraine, Kyiv is now focusing on securing modern fighter jets from western allies.
COUNTERPOINT – Air defense upgrades, not F-16s, are a winning strategy for Ukraine. With news that the United States and its NATO allies will send modern battle tanks to Ukraine, there are now renewed calls to provide Kyiv with modern fighter jets, like the F-16.
Russia fires wave of missiles at Ukraine after Kyiv secures tanks. Russia launched a rush-hour barrage of missiles towards Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least one person, the day after Kyiv secured Western pledges of dozens of modern battlefield tanks to try to push back the Russian invasion.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 337. The United States and Germany announced plans to send Ukraine dozens of modern tanks, hailed by Kyiv as a potential turning point in its battle to repel Russia’s invasion but denounced by Moscow as an “extremely dangerous” step.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY – NATO, MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA ASIA, LATIN AMERICA
Panel seeks to allow re-exports of Swiss weaponry to Ukraine. A parliamentary panel in Switzerland has recommended waiving a law that bars countries from re-exporting Swiss armored vehicles, weapons and other war materiel to Ukraine for its defense against Russia, insisting the move would not violate the country’s much-vaunted neutrality.
JOINT US-ISRAEL EXERCISE – Carrier USS George H. W. Bush in eastern Mediterranean in joint US-Israel exercise Juniper Oak. Aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) is participating in the Juniper Oak, joint drills between Israel and the United States in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Japan issues military equipment wish list that includes hypersonic weapons, unmanned systems. Japan’s Ministry of Defense this week issued a document detailing new military equipment it’s developing, with rationales and status updates for programs ranging from hypersonic weapons to unmanned underwater vehicles.
France agrees to withdraw troops from Burkina Faso within a month. The move comes after the Sahel country’s military rulers demanded that Paris withdraw its forces.
Israeli raid kills nine in Palestinian city amid escalating attacks. At least nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, were killed in an Israeli raid in the north of the occupied West Bank early Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
US and Canada not interested in sending armed force to Haiti. The United States and Canada — the two countries most often mentioned as possible leaders of an international armed force to help Haiti combat gangs – showed no interest Tuesday in deploying security personnel despite renewed appeals from the United Nations and Haiti for help to end worsening violence in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation.
France’s big military budget leap ‘corresponds to the threat,’ defense minister says. A big investment in intelligence agencies is a “nice surprise,” a former military intelligence chief said.
BIDEN’S AFGHAN DISASTER
US Marine couple at center of custody battle over Afghanistan war orphan tells their story. A 3-year-old girl who was recovered as a baby after being injured in a military raid in Afghanistan is now at the center of court battles in the United States as two families say they want to care for her.
What it was like for US troops at Kabul airport when the chaotic withdrawal began: ‘I thought I was going to die.’ “This is probably one of the scariest parts of my life.”
SPACE
Secrecy hinders info-sharing with allies, says Space Command deputy. The Pentagon’s tendency to over classify space programs and intelligence is making it harder for agencies to collaborate with international partners, the deputy chief of U.S. Space Command said this week.
NATO’s forthcoming space center for excellence hits key milestone. NATO is one step closer to launching a new space center of excellence in southern France, meant to hone key roles for the alliance to address in the domain.
US MILITARY
Will Alaska be the Marine Corps’ next unit training location? The Corps will explore options to expand “unit and service-level training into Alaska.”
With demand high in Ukraine, US Army ramps up artillery production. The U.S. Army is rapidly moving to expand its domestic production capacity of 155mm artillery shells, according to the Army’s acquisition chief, as Ukraine uses thousands daily fending off Russia.
MILITARY ROBOTS AND AI
When may a robot kill? New DoD policy tries to clarify. An updated policy tweaks wording in a bid to dispel confusion.
KILLER ROBOTS – Pentagon updates autonomous weapons policy to account for AI advances. The Pentagon’s policy shop released updated guidelines for developing and operating autonomous weapons that incorporates the Defense Department’s vision for ethical artificial intelligence and requires additional reviews for new systems.
VETERANS
New VA initiative helped house more than 40K vets last year. Veterans Affairs staffers helped move more than 40,000 veterans into permanent housing last year, surpassing their goal and establishing new pathways to help individuals in need, officials announced today.
END of PDB
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Haiti is, was, and always will be corrupt so why should we???
Best to keep our troops in our own corrupt country, as opposed to sending them to a foreign one.
send the Clintons there so the Haitians can get them for the MILLIONS that the clintons STOLE after that hurricane some years ago