The head of U.S. intelligence made misleading claims about what Obama-administration officials said about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, while accusing them of a “conspiracy” to “politicize” intelligence and asking the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports. On Sunday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Fox interviewer that she would be sending a memo, report, and supporting documents to the DOJ for investigation and potential prosecution of Obama-era officials who, she alleged, had concluded one thing in private but said something different in public.
That conclusion? That Russia had not manipulated voting machines in the 2016 election.
But that’s just what U.S. officials said, as Tucker traces through the public record, including sworn testimony.
What was the actual meddling? Russia’s hack of Democratic Party emails and its efforts to sway U.S. votes through mis- and disinformation, as documented in 2020 by the GOP-led Senate intelligence committee.
Tucker: “The new ODNI report, in short, misrepresents a documented Russian influence campaign aimed at voter perception as a cyber campaign to manipulate vote totals. It also omits a subject of more current relevance: the evidence that Russia is continuing its efforts to reshape perceptions of truth to America’s disadvantage.” Read on, here.
Welcome to this Tuesday’s edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Bradley Peniston with Lauren C. Williams. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1940, Britain created the secret Special Operations Executive, or SOE, to train and equip local resistance groups to fight Nazi occupiers.
Defense industry
How to boost arms production? Modular weapons—made of easily sourced materials with manufacturing standards that commercial factories can accommodate—will be key, according to a panel of experts who spoke Monday at the Hudson Institute. That means moving away from “highly integrated, monolithic weapons,” according to a Hudson report released earlier this year. Defense One’s Meghann Myers has more from the talk, here.
Meanwhile, in Detroit, the second annual Reindustrialize Summit drew defense vendors pitching innovations of their own. Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reports on electric seaplanes, AI factories and more. “This wasn’t a typical defense conference; more of a tech and finance event with defense elements. The only military hardware spotted belonged to Allen Control Systems, which featured an autonomous weapons station on the back of a pick-up truck—a robotic turret called the Bullfrog that serves as a platform for unmodified automatic weapons in counterdrone missions. But there was a clear theme: building in America and using new, advanced technology to do it.” Read on, here.
Look abroad, Trevor Phillips Levine and Andrew Tenbusch argue at War on the Rocks: “Co-manufacturing interchangeable weapon systems with trusted allies, particularly when combined with innovative employment concepts, presents a compelling solution. The U.S. government should seize opportunities for co-manufacturing and joint procurement of existing munitions with allies to maximize deterrence. Doing so will strengthen the credibility and resilience of the global defense-industrial base required to prevail in a major conflict.” Read their argument, here.
Europe
Ukraine-war status check: “Russia’s summer offensive in Ukraine is gaining ground as its forces attack on multiple fronts. In June, the country’s numerical advantages in troops and air power produced its biggest monthly gains in territory since the beginning of the year,” reports the New York Times, which adds that Moscow is aiming to destroy the Ukrainian military as it takes ground—and do so before its own economy can no longer support the war. Ukraine’s survival may depend on the Trump administration, which is giving “mixed signals about its desire and ability to continue arming Kyiv’s forces. Last week, President Trump said that NATO countries would buy weapons from the United States to give to Ukraine.” The NYT’s status check goes on at some length, covering “The ground war,” “The air war,” “Russia’s goals,” “The Russian economy,” and “Casualties.” Read on, here.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is working hard to boost its own ability to manufacture arms, an effort that depends heavily on foreign investment, the NYT reports in a separate article, here.
And: Is the U.S. weapons stockpile depleted by the war in Ukraine? The War Horse takes a crack at answering that partially classified question, with help from CSIS’s Mark Cancian and starting with a timeline of the year’s events so far. Read that, here.
ICYMI: UK, Germany have a new bilateral defense treaty. Signed on Thursday, the so-called Kensington Treaty “includes a broad range of promises, ranging from joint military-industrial exports to facilitating school exchanges between the two countries. It additionally commits the NATO allies to ‘assist one another, including through military means, in the event of an armed attack on the other,’” AP reports.
And: “On the sidelines of the signing, the leaders also teased a new phase in the provision of long-range weapons to Ukraine. Shortly thereafter, Russia’s foreign ministry renewed warnings that such a move may be met with military strikes against European countries.” Read on, here.
Around the Defense Department
USAF’s big agility exercise. The service is marshalling more than 400 aircraft and 12,000 personnel to test its ability “to shift operations from large, centralized air bases to smaller, more agile clusters that are harder for adversaries to target,” Stripes reported. “Resolute Force Pacific, which began July 10 and runs through Aug. 8, is designed to evaluate the service’s agile combat employment strategy, which emphasizes rapid deployment, flexible basing and dispersal operations.” Read on, here.
House, Senate policy bills aim to nurture innovation, accelerate production. How so? Air & Space Forces magazine has a short roundup, here.
Marines leave LA. AP: “The Pentagon ordered the U.S. Marines to leave Los Angeles on Monday, more than a month after President Donald Trump deployed them to the city against the objections of local leaders. The 700 Marines were deployed June 9 on the fourth day of protests in downtown LA over the administration’s crackdown on immigration. Four thousand National Guard soldiers were also deployed.” More, here.
Timeline of SecDef advisors’ departure. The Hill: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tenure has seen a series of high-profile staff departures, leaving the Pentagon head without a chief of staff and other key advisers”—including, on Saturday, the announced departure of senior adviser Justin Fulcher. The Hill has a ticktock of who has left and when, here.
Read the full article here