Strategy: Directing the Instruments of National Power

The tools that can be used to assert national power and influence have often been summarized by the acronym DIME — Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic.

But “US policy makers and strategists have long understood that there are many more instruments involved in national security policy development and implementation,” according to a new Joint Chiefs of Staff publication on the formulation of national strategy.

“New acronyms such as MIDFIELD — Military, Informational, Diplomatic, Financial, Intelligence, Economic, Law, and Development — convey a much broader array of options for the strategist and policymaker to use.” See Strategy, Joint Doctrine Note 1-18, April 25, 2018.

The pursuit of strategic goals naturally entails costs and risks, the document said.

“Risks to the strategy are things that could cause it to fail, and they arise particularly from assumptions that prove invalid in whole or in part. Risks from the strategy are additional threats, costs, or otherwise undesired consequences caused by the strategy’s implementation.”

Missile Defense Flight Test Secrecy May Be Reversed

Some members of the House Armed Services Committee want the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency to return to its previous practice of publicly disclosing information about planned flight tests of ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems and components.

Earlier this year, the Department of Defense said that information about BMD flight tests, objectives and schedules was now classified, even though such information had routinely been made public in the past. (DOD Classifies Missile Defense Flight Test Plans, Secrecy News, March 5, 2018).

But in their initial markup of the FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act, members of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee said that the new secrecy was unacceptable, at least with respect to the test schedule.

They directed that “Together with the release of each integrated master test plan of the Missile Defense Agency, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency shall make publicly available a version of each such plan that identifies the fiscal year and the fiscal quarter in which events under the plan will occur.”

The pending provision would “require that MDA make the quarter and fiscal year for execution of planned flight tests unclassified.” (h/t Kingston Reif)

Aside from the merits of the House language, it represents a noteworthy legislative intervention in national security classification policy.

Under other circumstances, the executive branch might consider it an intolerable infringement on its authority for Congress to require information to be unclassified over and against an agency’s own judgment or preference.

But in the context of the context of the ambitious and contentious defense authorization act — which among other things would establish a new U.S. Space Command under U.S. Strategic Command — this particular dispute over classification authority recedes into comparative insignificance.

Somewhat relatedly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have updated DoD doctrine on space operations, with an expanded discussion of natural and man-made threats.

“Our adversaries’ progress in space technology not only threatens the space environment and our space assets but could potentially deny us an advantage if we lose space superiority.”

The doctrine describes general approaches to defending against threats to space-based assets, including defensive operations, reconstitution, and enhanced resilience through distribution, proliferation and deception. See Joint Publication (JP) 3-14, Space Operations, 10 April 2018.

Covert vs. Clandestine: Defining Terms

The differences between “covert action” performed by the CIA and “clandestine activities” conducted by the military, as well as the distinct legal frameworks and reporting requirements that govern them, are revisited in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

See Covert Action and Clandestine Activities of the Intelligence Community: Selected Definitions in Brief, April 25, 2018.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made publicly available this week include the following.

Army Futures Command, CRS Insight, April 24, 2018

Australia, China, and the Indo-Pacific, CRS Insight, April 23, 2018

The Consumer Product Safety Act: A Legal Analysis, April 24, 2018

Frequently Asked Questions About Prescription Drug Pricing and Policy, updated April 24, 2018

Overview of “Travel Ban” Litigation and Recent Developments, CRS Legal Sidebar, updated April 23, 2018

Can Corporations be Held Liable under the Alien Tort Statute?, CRS Legal Sidebar, April 24, 2018

Cross-Border Data Sharing Under the CLOUD Act, April 23, 2018

A Peace Treaty with North Korea?, & More from CRS

In the past 25 years, there have been multiple failed attempts to negotiate a peace treaty or a non-aggression pact with North Korea and to formally end the Korean War.

A new report from the Congressional Research Service surveys these efforts with an eye toward the upcoming Trump-Kim summit and current initiatives aimed at North Korean “denuclearization” and a final peace treaty. See A Peace Treaty with North Korea?, April 19, 2018.

Other new and updated CRS reports that have not been publicly released include the following.

What’s the Difference? — Comparing U.S. and Chinese Trade Data, updated April 23, 2018

U.S. Trade with Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Partners, updated April 23, 2018

Defense Authorization and Appropriations Bills: FY1961-FY2018, updated April 19, 2018

Registered Apprenticeship: Federal Role and Recent Federal Efforts, April 20, 2018

The Mental Health Workforce: A Primer, updated April 20, 2018

Coast Guard Cutter Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, updated April 20, 2018

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program, updated (again) April 23, 2018

Homeland Defense: An Update

The Joint Chiefs of Staff last week issued updated doctrine on homeland defense, including new guidance on cyberspace operations, unmanned aerial systems, defense support of civil authorities, and even a bit of national security classification policy.

See Joint Publication 3-27, Homeland Defense, April 10, 2018.

Homeland defense (HD) is related to homeland security, but it is a military mission that emphasizes protection of the country from external threats and aggression.

“The purpose of HD is to protect against incursions or attacks on sovereign US territory, the domestic population, and critical infrastructure and key resources as directed,” according to JP 3-27.

Homeland defense may also function domestically, subject to relevant law and policy. “Threats planned, prompted, promoted, caused, or executed by external actors may develop or take place inside the homeland. The reference to external threats does not limit where or how attacks may be planned and executed.”

Effective homeland defense, whether abroad or at home, requires sharing of information with civilian authorities, international partners, and others.

In an odd editorial remark, the new DoD doctrine says that DoD itself keeps too much information behind a classified firewall to the detriment of information sharing.

“DOD’s over-reliance on the classified information system for both classified and unclassified information is a frequent impediment. . .,” the Joint Chiefs said.

“DOD information should be appropriately secured, shared, and made available throughout the information life cycle to appropriate mission partners to the maximum extent allowed by US laws and DOD policy. Critical to transparency of information sharing is the proper classification of intelligence and information,” the document said, implying that such proper classification cannot be taken for granted.

Use of Armed Forces to Secure the Border

The legal framework governing the deployment and use of armed forces to guard the US border with Mexico is surveyed in a new publication from the Congressional Research Service.

See The President’s Authority to Use the National Guard or the Armed Forces to Secure the BorderCRS Legal Sidebar, April 19, 2018.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response, updated April 18, 2018

Spain and Its Relations with the United States: In Brief, updated April 19, 2018

France and U.S.-French Relations: In Brief, April 19, 2018

Energy and Water Development Appropriations: Nuclear Weapons Activities, updated April 18, 2018

Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress, updated April 18, 2018

A Forum for Classified Research on Cybersecurity

By definition, scientists who perform classified research cannot take full advantage of the standard practice of peer review and publication to assure the quality of their work and to disseminate their findings. Instead, military and intelligence agencies tend to provide limited disclosure of classified research to a select, security-cleared audience.

In 2013, the US intelligence community created a new classified journal on cybersecurity called the Journal of Sensitive Cyber Research and Engineering (JSCoRE).

The National Security Agency has just released a redacted version of the tables of contents of the first three volumes of JSCoRE in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

JSCoRE “provides a forum to balance exchange of scientific information while protecting sensitive information detail,” according to the ODNI budget justification book for FY2014 (at p. 233). “Until now, authors conducting non-public cybersecurity research had no widely-recognized high-quality secure venue in which to publish their results. JSCoRE is the first of its kind peer-reviewed journal advancing such engineering results and case studies.”

The titles listed in the newly disclosed JSCoRE tables of contents are not very informative — e.g. “Flexible Adaptive Policy Enforcement for Cross Domain Solutions” — and many of them have been redacted.

However, one title that NSA withheld from release under FOIA was publicly cited in a Government Accountability Office report last year:  “The Darkness of Things: Anticipating Obstacles to Intelligence Community Realization of the Internet of Things Opportunity,” JSCoRE, vol. 3, no. 1 (2015)(TS//SI//NF).

“JSCoRE may reside where few can lay eyes on it, but it has plenty of company,” wrote David Malakoff in Science Magazine in 2013. “Worldwide, intelligence services and military forces have long published secret journals” — such as DARPA’s old Journal of Defense Research — “that often touch on technical topics. The demand for restricted outlets is bound to grow as governments classify more information.”

USA v. Terry Albury: A Guilty Plea

The second prosecution of an accused leaker in the Trump Administration (after Reality Winner) will yield the first conviction. Former FBI special agent Terry J. Albury pleaded guilty this week to unlawful disclosure and retention of national defense information, each of which is a felony under the Espionage Act statutes.

The plea agreement, signed by the defendant, outlines the facts of the case and sets the stage for sentencing.

“Terry Albury betrayed the trust bestowed upon him by the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Tracy Doherty-McCormick in an April 17 news release.  “Today’s guilty plea should serve as a reminder to those who are entrusted with classified information that the Justice Department will hold them accountable.”

But Albury’s attorneys said that his actions were those of a whistleblower. “His conduct in this case was an act of conscience. It was driven by his belief that there was no viable alternative to remedy the abuses he sought to address. He recognizes that what he did was unlawful and accepts full responsibility for his conduct,” they said in a statement quoted in Politico.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, “The defendant waives all rights to obtain, directly or through others, information about the investigation and prosecution of this case under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974.”

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program, and More from CRS

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the single largest procurement program in the Department of Defense, which anticipates acquiring thousands of these aircraft.

But while “the F-35 promises significant advances in military capability…, reaching that capability has put the program above its original budget and behind the planned schedule,” according to the Congressional Research Service. See F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program, updated April 13, 2018.

Other new and updated CRS reports that have not been made publicly available include the following.

FY2018 Defense Appropriations Act: An Overview, CRS In Focus, April 5, 2018

The President’s FY2019 Military Construction Budget Request, CRS In Focus, April 4, 2018

Legal Authorities Under the Controlled Substances Act to Combat the Opioid Crisis, April 16, 2018

Regulatory Reform 10 Years After the Financial Crisis: Dodd-Frank and Securities Law, April 13, 2018

Offshore Oil and Gas Development: Legal Framework, updated April 13, 2018

NASA Appropriations and Authorizations: A Fact Sheet, updated April 16, 2018

Special Counsels, Independent Counsels, and Special Prosecutors: Legal Authority and Limitations on Independent Executive Investigations, updated April 13, 2018

Cuba After the Castros, CRS Insight, April 17, 2018

US Gifts to Foreign Individuals Reported

The Obama Administration gave dozens of wrist watches to various foreign leaders in 2014.

A newly released State Department report to Congress lists all of the gifts presented by President Obama, Mrs. Obama, Vice President Biden, Mrs. Biden, and Secretary of State Kerry to foreign individuals.

The 32 page report reflects the fact that the presentation of gifts is a customary feature of personal encounters between US and foreign leaders, as is the recording and reporting of each gift.

Based on the descriptions in the report, most of the gifts seem generic and unimaginative, not reflecting any particularized esteem. The most common gift was a “custom men’s watch in a wooden presentation box with inscription plaque” with a reported value of $465.

One exception was a “custom seed chest… containing nine varieties of American seeds” (declared value $1964.87) that was presented to Pope Francis. Also noteworthy is a rare edition of a book about the 1893 World’s Congress of Religions that featured Swami Vivekananda and other luminaries (declared value $1375 — but now half that price on Amazon) that was given to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The report on gifts from the United States to foreign individuals in FY2014 was released under the Freedom of Information Act following a three-year processing delay.

Growing Pentagon Secrecy Draws Questions

In just the last few weeks and months, U.S. military officials imposed new restrictions on media interviews and base visits, at least temporarily; they blocked (but later permitted) publication of current data on the extent of insurgent control of Afghanistan; and they classified previously unclassified information concerning future flight tests of ballistic missile defense systems.

“We’ve seen multiple instances in the past year where the [military] services have sought to be more guarded in their transparency and accessibility to the media,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) at an April 12 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. “Part of that’s understandable, but I think transparency is needed now more than ever.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis said in response that he didn’t exactly disagree.

“I want more engagement with the media, [but] I want you to give your name, I don’t want to read that somebody spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak,” Mattis said.

“I have yet to tell anyone they’re not authorized to speak. So if they’re not willing to say they know about the issue and give their name that would concern me. If they’re giving background, they should just be a defense official giving background information authorized to give it.”

“What I don’t want is pre-decisional information, or classified information or any information about upcoming military movements or operations, which is the normal lose lips sink ships kind of restriction.”

“Pre-decisional, we do not close the president’s decision making maneuver space by saying things before the president has made a decision. But otherwise, I want more engagement with the military, and I don’t want to see an increase in opaqueness about what we’re doing.”

“We’re already remote enough from the American people by our size and by our continued focus overseas. We need to be more engaged here at home,” Secretary Mattis said.

Part of that is understandable, as Rep. Gallagher said. But it does not correspond to, or justify, the way that DoD conducts itself in practice, which has certainly produced “an increase in opaqueness.”

Last week, for example, DoD published its regular quarterly report for December 2017 on the number of US troops deployed abroad — but now with the number of troops in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan deleted. See Pentagon strips Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria troop numbers from web by Tara Copp, Military Times, April 9. (Previously disclosed numbers in prior quarterly reports were also deleted but then reposted last week.)

Citing the new secrecy, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said “I’m very concerned about that. I think that there’s no combat advantage to obfuscating the number of U.S. service members that were in these countries three months ago. And, furthermore, the American public has a right to know. Do you intend to restore that information to the website?,” she asked Secretary Mattis at last week’s hearing.

“I’ll certainly look at it,” he replied. “I share your conviction that the American people should know everything that doesn’t give the enemy an advantage.”

Special Operations Forces Aiming to Expand

The 2019 budget request for U.S. Special Operations Command — $13.6 billion — is 10% higher than the 2018 level and is the largest budget request ever submitted by US SOCOM.

U.S. special operations forces, which are currently deployed in 90 countries, have more than doubled in size from 33,000 personnel in 2001 to around 70,000 personnel in early 2018. Next year’s budget, if approved, would make them larger still.

For a newly updated overview from the Congressional Research Service, see U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress, April 13, 2018.

Other recent CRS reports that have not otherwise been made publicly available include the following.

Federal Election Commission: Membership and Policymaking Quorum, In Brief, April 12, 2018

Regulatory Reform 10 Years After the Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk Regulation of Non-Bank Financial Institutions, April 12, 2018

Abortion At or Over 20 Weeks’ Gestation: Frequently Asked Questions, April 11, 2018

Millennium Challenge Corporation, updated April 12, 2018

Latin America and the Caribbean: Fact Sheet on Leaders and Elections, updated April 11, 2018

Softwood Lumber Imports From Canada: Current Issues, updated April 12, 2018

Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention, updated April 12, 2018