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With Connor O’Brien, Jacqueline Feldscher and Lara Seligman
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Quick Fix
— The Pentagon will share more radio frequencies to expand commercial 5G, but the tricky part will be protecting high-powered radars and other “critical” military systems.
— Bipartisan pressure builds to reopen a disputed $7 billion contract for military moving services initially awarded in the spring.
— A detailed survey finds Republicans and Democrats agree: Rein in the nuclear arsenal.
HAPPY TUESDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where in our hot little corner of the world it's back to school (virtually, anyway) and the reading assignment for one special fifth grader this week is Ray Bradbury's 1954 science fiction short story "All Summer in a Day." "The sun is like a flower, that blooms for just one hour. And fills our world with light, and leaves us feeling bright." We're always on the lookout for tips, pitches and feedback. Email us at [email protected], and follow on Twitter @bryandbender, @morningdefense and @politicopro.
On the Hill
CR SEASON IS ALMOST HERE: The House has no plans to vote until the week of Sept. 14 on government funding, leaving less than a dozen days to ward off a government shutdown, POLITICO's Caitlin Emma writes.
With lawmakers gone until after Labor Day (barring a breakthrough on coronavirus relief talks), a continuing resolution is all but inevitable to keep the government open after federal funding ends on Sept. 30 and likely through Election Day.
“I expect the House to take action on a range of important issues, including ensuring the government is funded before the end of the month,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in announcing the September floor schedule. “We cannot risk a government shutdown in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis.”
The House passed most of its annual appropriations bills last month. But the Senate hasn't started the process yet.
CONTRACT PROBE: Three senators are pushing the Pentagon to examine U.S. Transportation Command's award of a $7.2 billion contract to American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group granted in April for moving the household goods of military personnel.
The two losing bidders — Connected Global Solutions, LLC and HomeSafe Alliance, LLC — filed protests, arguing the winning bid was $2 billion above others and the company failed to disclose legal issues with its Norwegian parent company. TRANSCOM briefly pulled back the contract in June but re-awarded it two weeks later after concluding that ARC mistakenly identified a sibling company, which was fined for price fixing and bid rigging in 2016, as its parent company and that allegations were unsubstantiated.
But TRANSCOM's review isn't satisfying the lawmakers. "I do not believe that two weeks is enough to complete a thorough investigation,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) wrote to Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord on Monday requesting an investigation.
"This decision should immediately be reconsidered to ensure that we are providing our military families with the best possible services available," the letter also said.
Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) wrote Lord last week outlining their own concerns with the award.
Pentagon
FLYNN LOYALIST FILLING TOP PENTAGON ROLE: Ezra Cohen-Watnick, an aide to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, is now “performing the duties of” assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.
The previous official to hold the top SOLIC position, Christopher Miller, was sworn in Monday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a Pentagon spokesperson.
Cohen-Watnick served as senior director of intelligence programs on the National Security Council staff before being pushed out in 2017, leaving the government. He was recently named to a Pentagon role handling counternarcotics and global threats, while simultaneously working as Miller’s no. 2 in the SOLIC office.
Louis Bremer has been nominated to fill the job permanently, and his confirmation hearing was last week.
Related: Fifth time the charm for special operations leader? via Task & Purpose.
PENTAGON TO SHARE SPECTRUM FOR 5G: “The White House and Defense Department will auction off a swath of mid-band spectrum for companies to build 5G networks — the Trump administration's latest overture to industry as it vies with China to dominate the next era of telecommunications,” POLITICO’s Steven Overly reports.
“Under a plan announced Monday, the FCC will license 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum currently operated by the military to companies that desperately want the airwaves for a range of business and consumer technologies, such as driverless vehicles, automated warehouses and video gaming,” he writes.
The Defense Department has long been wary of letting go of portions of the spectrum being auctioned off, which is used for "critical" systems such as high-powered ship and airborne radars for air defense, missile and gun fire control, air traffic control, and more, said Dana Deasy, the Defense Department’s chief information officer.
What happens next: Crafting a technical strategy for sharing spectrum is a tricky concept requiring sensors to automatically detect and communicate when the military does and does not need to use the bands in question. Meanwhile, an 18-month rulemaking process begins that will include opportunities for the public — and industry lobbyists — to weigh in on the government's plan.
COMMUNITY ACTION: The Association of Defense Communities will kick off a series of virtual events next month for state and local government and industry officials and other advocates who represent communities with military bases and other major Pentagon installations.
The 2020 Virtual Defense Communities Summit Series will include a town hall with Pentagon leaders, an “insider’s guide” on the politics driving defense issue and sessions on military family readiness and “protecting our defense economy.”
Nuclear Weapons
WE CAN AGREE TO … AGREE: The Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland over the past five years sought to find out “whether there is common ground between Republicans and Democrats in the public.” And it surveyed nearly 86,000 Americans about more than two dozen policy issues. One takeaway we found interesting: there’s surprisingly bipartisan agreement on nuclear weapons policy.
For example, 65 percent said they support cutting a modest $2 billion from the annual nuclear weapons budget — 56 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Democrats. Overwhelming majorities in both parties also supported continuing to have nuclear arms control treaties with Russia, renewing the New Strategic Arms Reducation Treaty before it expires in February, and continuing to abide by a moratorium on explosive nuclear tests (see pages 6 and 20 of the report).
Get rid of ICBMs: The surveys also found that 61 percent support phasing out the land-based leg of the nuclear triad (53 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of Democrats). Meanwhile, 68 percent of respondents — 50 percent of Republicans and 74 percent of Democrats — agreed that it should be U.S. policy to “require that before using nuclear weapons first, the President must get a declaration of war from Congress.”
“Overall this report finds bipartisan support for modest changes to current policies in a large number of areas,” emails Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, a disarmament group in New Mexico, who flagged it for us. “It does not say that these changes represent an optimal set of policies. It just says they are supported (or in some cases at least ‘tolerated’) by bipartisan majorities.”
Top Doc
INDOCTRINATION: The clearest sign a fighting force is maturing is when it outlines its own doctrine, or the fundamental principles it seeks to instill in its members. And the first installment of Space Force doctrine was released Monday, laying out why space is strategically important to U.S. and allied military operations and to defend broader national objectives, our colleague Jacqueline Feldscher reports.
It identifies three “cornerstone responsibilities”: “preserve freedom of action in the space domain; enable joint lethality and effectiveness; and provide independent options to U.S. national leadership capable of achieving national objectives,” the 40-page document states. And that means both in “deterrent and coercive capacities.”
The document is also heavy on what it means to be a space warrior as the service tries to develop an ethos and culture of its own. That begins with “the recognition that personnel conducting space operations, engineering, acquisitions, intelligence, and cyber comprise the space warfighting community and must therefore master the art and science of warfare,” says the document, which builds on previous doctrine developed by the Air Force.
It also offers some dire warnings: “Warfighting is a solemn endeavor,” it says. “We must never let the remote aspects of space operations dilute the solemn moral dimension of warfare. Warfighters’ actions carry severe consequences. Victory secures U.S. interests and prosperity while defeat jeopardizes the political ideals the United States was founded upon. As an interdependent element of the Joint Force, failure jeopardizes the safety of warfighters around the world.”
Next the Space Force plans to develop warfighting doctrine for the tactical and operational levels.
Industry Intel
DOD ASKS COURT FOR JEDI EXTENSION: The Pentagon has asked for more time to reconsider parts of its disputed contract award to Microsoft for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, according to court documents filed on Monday.
The Defense Department, which has until Aug. 17 to reconsider parts of the JEDI award that losing bidder Amazon claims were unfair, has asked to extend the deadline until Sept. 16. Neither Amazon nor Microsoft has objected to the extension request.
Speed Read
— Pentagon details $11 billion for Covid costs, warns ‘at least one shipyard may close’: Breaking Defense
— Unresolved IG recommendations piling up at DoD: Federal News Network
— Top Navy officer: Sailor burnout big concern in Covid-19 crisis: NBC News
— Explosion targets convoy carrying U.S. military equipment near Iraq-Kuwait crossing: Reuters
— GOP aides: Trump nominee for Germany ambassador ‘dead on arrival’: The Free Beacon
— Belarus election was not free and fair, U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo says: Reuters
— Turkey flexes maritime muscle in feud with Greece: Bloomberg
— China sends fighter jets as U.S. health chief visits Taiwan: Reuters
— Trump to deliver nomination speech from White House or Gettysburg battlefield: POLITICO
— Col. Steven dePyssler, who aided veterans, dies at 101: The New York Times
— Navy’s UFO sightings don’t add up: NBC News
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