Presented by Northrop Grumman
With Connor O’Brien, Jacqueline Feldscher and Lara Seligman
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Quick Fix
— Congress plans a last ditch effort this week to pass a coronavirus relief package before the election.
— Defense companies will begin reporting quarterly earnings this week as analysts watch for how the virus is infecting the bottom line.
— The race is on to be Joe Biden’s secretary of state and the field ranges from trusted advisers to a progressive darling and some out-of-the-box candidates.
HAPPY MONDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we’re following the unfolding battle for history — the competition between the Army and the Navy for the best new museum, that is. The Army is out front, with the news last week that the National Museum of the United States Army, located at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, will open to the public on Veterans Day next month. Meanwhile, the Navy announced this month it’s at a “sensitive stage” in negotiations for a new $450 million flagship museum near the Washington Navy Yard, where the National Museum of the U.S. Navy is now located in a cavernous old gun factory. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. But where will the Space Force museum be? And how might we get there? Tips: [email protected] and follow on Twitter @bryandbender, @morningdefense and @POLITICOPro.
On the Hill
TWO MORE DAYS: Months of back-and-forth negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi over a new round of coronavirus assistance may be down to its last 48 hours, POLITICO's Sarah Ferris and Allie Bice report.
“Pelosi indicated Sunday that the White House has less than two days to finalize a deal with Democrats to have any chance of muscling through a trillion-dollar-plus bill before the election,” they report. "The California Democrat said she remained 'hopeful' after a lengthy call with Mnuchin on Saturday night. The two plan to speak again Monday. But Pelosi added that the fate of the aid 'depends on the administration.'"
Senate plans longshot votes: And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to hold votes this week on scaled-back assistance measures.
"The Senate will vote Tuesday on additional money for the Paycheck Protection Program and Wednesday on the rest of the package," POLITICO's Marianne LeVine writes. "Democrats have already dismissed the GOP approach as inadequate, and are not expected to support the proposals."
Happening This Week
O’BRIEN IN BRAZIL: National security adviser Robert O’Brien landed in São Paulo Sunday night for a three-day trip to Brazil amid rumors that a mini trade deal between the two countries is in the works covering trade facilitation, regulatory practices and anti-corruption measures.
After São Paulo he heads to Brasilia to meet with President Jair Bolsonaro and other government officials. On the top of the agenda: defense cooperation and countering China are. Our own Lara Seligman is along for the ride so stay tuned.
PENTAGON LEADERS OUT FRONT: A number of senior Pentagon leaders are scheduled to appear at events this week:
Beginning Tuesday, a who’s who of Air and Space Force officials participate in the weeklong Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office Advanced Manufacturing Olympics, including Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett, Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond.
And Defense Secretary Mark Esper will participate in a fireside chat hosted by the Atlantic Council on "Strengthening U.S. alliances and partnerships in an era of great-power competition" at 1 p.m.
On Wednesday, Brown also speaks at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies at 9 a.m.
And Adm. Chas Richard, head of U.S. Strategic Command, participates in "International Security at the Nuclear Nexus” hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies at noon.
On Thursday night, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden will hold their last debate, in Nashville. Among the topics will be national security and climate change.
QUARTERLY EARNINGS: Major aerospace and defense companies will begin reporting third quarter earnings this week and are likely to face new questions from investors about how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting their business.
Up first is Lockheed Martin on Tuesday, followed by Northrop Grumman on Thursday. Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon Technologies will release their results next week.
In the first two quarters of the year, companies with commercial airline interests such as Boeing and General Dynamics took big hits, while those with a primary focus on defense contracts fared better.
Analysts tell us they’ll be listening for whether company leaders make a plea to Congress for additional Covid relief money, especially for more funding to help the industry recoup the costs of employees not being able to work at closed federal facilities.
White House
‘I’M SPEAKING FOR THE PRESIDENT’: O’Brien left Washington for Brazil on Sunday after making headlines on the still-murky plans for drawing down most troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year and the dimming prospects of extending an arms control agreement with Russia before the election. On the process he lobbed his own verbal grenade in what has become a war of words with the nation’s top military officer.
First, O’Brien “fired back indirectly at Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley ... saying he's not ‘speculating’ about the troop level going down to 2,500 in Afghanistan by early next year,” our colleagues Jacqueline Feldscher and Connor O'Brien report.
Last week Milley, in an interview with NPR, threw cold water on the notion first put forward by O’Brien on Oct. 7.
"I think that Robert O'Brien or anyone else can speculate as they see fit,” Milley said. “I'm not going to engage in speculation.”
O'Brien, without mentioning Milley by name, fired back at an event hosted by the Aspen Institute on Friday. “It's not my practice to speculate,” he said. “Other people can interpret that what I say is a speculation, but I wasn’t speculating. … When I'm speaking, I'm speaking for the president and I think that's what the Pentagon is moving out and doing.”
Related: Afghans say preventing the next war as important as ending this one, via The Associated Press.
And: Top White House official went to Syria for hostage talks: The Wall Street Journal
‘NON-STARTER’: O’Brien on Friday also rejected a new offer from Moscow to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, calling it a “non-starter” unless in return Russia also agrees to a one-year freeze on all nuclear weapons, your Morning D correspondent reports.
"We made a proposal. It was a relatively straightforward proposal that we extend New START for a year and the Russians would cap nuclear warheads for a year," O'Brien told the Aspen Institute on Friday. "I thought we had favorable movement on that front."
He followed up his remarks with a post on Twitter in which he made clear the U.S. will not accept the new Russian offer.
He said an extension with a freeze on warheads “would have been a win for both sides, and we believed the Russians were willing to accept this proposal when I met with my counterpart in Geneva. President Putin’s response today to extend New START without freezing nuclear warheads is a non-starter."
Arms Sales
EARLY AND OFTEN? The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in what one analyst called “unusual,” has notified Congress four times in 2020 about potential foreign military sales for competitions that are still underway, Feldscher reports.
The notifications are part of a pattern during the Trump administration of alerting sales that are “less than fully baked,” said Roman Schweizer, managing director of the Cowen Washington Research Group.
Since 2009, just nine notifications were “in the context of a competition,” meaning the foreign country in question had yet to select a winner between competing international bids. Of those, four have come this year. Among them were the potential sale of fighter jets and missile defense systems to Finland and Switzerland and attack helicopters to the Philippines.
The heads up could help allies get planes and equipment faster. But some analysts worry the administration is trying to artificially inflate arms sales numbers. The State Department denied any political motivations and tweeted, “standard business practice, no significant increase.”
‘SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES’: The Pentagon on Friday said Turkey’s use of the Russian-made S-400 air defense system “risks serious consequences for our security relationship,” Feldscher also reports.
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that the NATO ally successfully test-fired three S-400 missiles on Friday.
“We object to Turkey’s purchase of the system, and are deeply concerned with reports that Turkey is bringing it into operation. It should not be activated,” said chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman. “Doing so risks serious consequences for our security relationship. Turkey has already been suspended from the F-35 program and the S-400 continues to be a barrier to progress elsewhere in the bilateral relationship.”
Related: Iran sees no arms buying spree as it expects U.N. embargo to end, via The Associated Press.
2020 Watch
THE DIPLOMATIC CHATTER: “The race to serve as Joe Biden’s secretary of State has already begun,” our colleague Nahal Toosi reports, “and the signs are surprisingly obvious if you know where to look.”
“Did you see the George Will column about why Biden should pick Chris Coons? Or the Jewish Insider story filled with quotes about how great the Delaware senator would be at Foggy Bottom? Or Coons’ essay in Foreign Affairs earlier this month? If you want to know more, supporters of Coons have crafted an informal five-page, bullet-pointed document making the case for why a future President Biden should name him America’s top diplomat.”
Another senator who could very well be in the mix? Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, a favorite of progressives.
“In discussions with various foreign policy observers,” Toosi adds, “POLITICO has heard around 10 names overall, from Foreign Service luminaries such as William Burns to way-outside-the-box picks like Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.”
ICYMI: Bidenworld fires warning shot against Cabinet jockeying, via POLITICO’s Alex Thompson.
KEEP ME OUT OF IT: One retired senior officer over the weekend bemoaned what has become commonplace: military leaders, current and former, being used in political ads.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland took to LinkedIn to make clear that he was not consulted about a new ad for Biden picturing them together while he was commanding the fight against the Islamic State.
“A number of people have understandably inferred that my appearance constitutes an endorsement of the former vice president,” MacFarland posted. “It does not. To be clear, I have not endorsed President Trump, either.”
MacFarland, who is now an executive at General Atomics, called the episode a “civil-military relations case study.”
“I am not a political person, but this isn’t about me,” he added. “I object to the use of ANY military personnel in uniform in political ads — full stop. That goes double for generals and admirals, even if we have since retired, as I have.”
The critique comes a week after Milley was pictured in uniform without his knowledge in an online ad posted by the Trump campaign and after hundreds of retired senior officers have publicly endorsed either the president or Biden.
Related: Deployed soldiers face punishment for their ‘message to liberals’ video, via Army Times.
Making Moves
Lisa Gaisford, most recently a senior business development manager at BAE Systems, and an alumna of LMI and Deloitte, is joining Dcode as managing director of its new GovHub.
Making Moves
— After the parade, North Korea’s steady progress matters more than its big new missile: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
— On front lines of a brutal war: death and despair in Nagorno-Karanakh: The New York Times
— Military names Air Force judge for Guantánamo Bay 9/11 trial. But there’s a snag: The New York Times
— Refugees who assisted the U.S. military find the door to America slammed shut: The New York Times
— Extremists don't belong in the military: The Atlantic
— Army halts Apache delivery after improper record keeping: Defense One
— Duncan Hunter heads to federal prison in Texas: Roll Call
— Biden would revamp frayed intel community: POLITICO Pro
— LISTEN: Biden, Trump and the future of foreign policy, via War on The Rocks
— LISTEN: John Bolton says U.S. not safer under Trump: NPR
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