Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Iran airs animation showing its submarine sinking US aircraft carrier AFPC’s Ilan Berman: 4 key takeaways from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testimony about Iran ISIS’ David Albright and Andrea Stricker: Parsing Iran’s claims about quickly reconstituting the IR-40: are the plutonium pathway restrictions undermined? Transcript of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address U.S. military commander warns that Islamic State may quickly regroup Trump says to meet North Korea's Kim in Vietnam in late February UN experts: North Korea nukes intact, dispersing missiles Bloomberg’s Eli Lake: The high price of Trump’s next North Korea summit Hudson’s Nate Sibley: How to fight China's financial abuses: Crack down on anonymous companies Taliban talks shift to Moscow with possible U.S.-brokered deal on table Russia to build new missile systems after breakdown of nuclear pact with U.S. Elan Carr named new U.S. envoy to fight anti-SemitismIn The News
Iran
The United States supports “dictators, butchers and extremists” in the Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a Twitter post Wednesday in a response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech. – Reuters
The halls of the former prison in the heart of Iran’s capital now are hushed, befitting the sounds of the museum that it has become. Wax mannequins silently portray the horrific acts of torture that once were carried out within its walls. But the surviving inmates still remember the screams. – Associated Press
Iran warned Israel on Tuesday of a “firm and appropriate” response if it continued attacking targets in Syria, where Tehran has backed President Bashar al-Assad and his forces in their nearly eight-year war against rebels and militants. – Reuters
Iran celebrated the 40th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution by unveiling a new land attack cruise missile called the Hoveizeh that experts say looks like a knockoff of the Kh-55, a nuclear-capable Soviet missile. – Business Insider
Iran’s oil minister on Tuesday criticized Greece and Italy for not buying its oil despite U.S. waivers and said they had not offered Tehran any explanation for their decision. The United States granted the two countries exemptions along with six others – Turkey, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – allowing them to temporarily continue buying Iranian oil as Washington reimposed sanctions on Iran’s banking and energy sectors. – Reuters
Iranian state media has released an animated video showing one of the country’s Ghadir-class submarines sinking an American aircraft carrier. – Times of Israel
People in Tehran celebrated the 2015 multinational nuclear agreement the way another city might mark a major sports victory. […]Trump last year decided to pull the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, colloquially known as the Iran nuclear deal, putting its future in doubt. As America and its partners in the Middle East step up pressure against the country, the doors to the outside world are closing again. – Bloomberg
Editorial: European diplomats have convinced themselves that they must abide by the flawed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran to demonstrate their credibility. Their latest attempt to keep the deal alive despite U.S. opposition shows otherwise. – Wall Street Journal
Ilan Berman writes: Iran is on a collision course with the United States and its allies. “Iran’s regional ambitions and improved military capabilities almost certainly will threaten US interests in the coming year,” the report concludes. This trajectory, according to the intelligence community, is driven by a number of factors, from an increasingly hardline political status quo within Iran to “Tehran’s perception of increasing US, Saudi, and Israeli hostility.” – USA Today
Tom Rogan writes: But while he’s a hardliner, Shamkhani is also a realist who previously presided over a failed outreach effort with Saudi Arabia. The admiral doesn’t want to force the issue here because he knows Iran would lose a war with Israel. He’s hoping upcoming Israeli elections will deter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from taking new action in fear of Iranian reprisals. – Washington Examiner
David Albright and Andrea Sticker write: Several issues are apparent with regard to Salehi’s remarks. […] His remarks were likely to suit a domestic audience of hardliners that considered Iran’s maintenance of the heavy water project and calandria inside Iran a win for its JCPOA negotiating team and want Iran to maintain a quick ability to reconstitute its past nuclear capabilities, if the modified reactor is not finished or Iran wants to renege on starting the reactor with the JCPOA-mandated design. – Institute for Science and International Security
Syria
The Islamic State could stage a resurgence in Syria once the Pentagon withdraws its troops, the head of the United States Central Command told a Senate panel on Tuesday in a bleak warning that President Trump’s assertions of victory may be fleeting. – New York Times
The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East said President Trump didn’t discuss with him the withdrawal of all American troops from Syria before announcing the decision, a move that has rattled allies and stirred fears of a possible Islamic State resurgence. – Wall Street Journal
New satellite photos have revealed that three of four new S-300 aerial defense missile launchers provided by Russia have been successfully deployed at a Syrian military base. – Algemeiner
Fabrice Balanche writes: Since the Trump administration announced that it would be withdrawing all U.S. forces from Syria, the country’s northern frontier has become the subject of major haggling between Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Ankara is reportedly eager to seize Manbij, but Moscow seems to strongly oppose this outcome. As the tough negotiations play out behind closed doors, it is instructive to take a closer look at the geography and dynamics around Manbij in order to better understand what is most likely to happen there. – Washington Institute
Israel
With just over 60 days left until Israelis head to the polls, election season is now in full swing. But alongside the typical mudslinging and vying for votes, an unwieldy slew of short, viral video clips are being uploaded by parties and politicians to social media. And each one seems to be more outrageous than the last. – Washington Post
A West Bank settler group on Tuesday said the number of people living in Israeli settlements surged at a much faster rate than the overall Israeli population last year and predicted even more rapid growth thanks to the policies of the Trump administration. – Associated Press
The U.S. Senate passed a Mideast policy bill on Tuesday including a measure that would allow states to penalize businesses that take part in boycotts of Israel and an amendment that breaks with President Donald Trump by opposing any plans for an abrupt withdrawal of troops from Syria. – Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that he would fly to Moscow later this month for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the situation in Syria. – Algemeiner
With tensions high along Israel’s northern border, hundreds of soldiers from the IDF’s Givati reconnaissance battalion are completing a drill simulating war with Hezbollah. – Jerusalem Post
The White House is not interested in being considered an “honest broker” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a senior US official said this week, rejecting the notion that some sort of “equivalency” between the two sides was required to successfully mediate a peace deal. – Times of Israel
Felicia Schwartz writes: If Mr. Netanyahu wins in April but Mr. Trump loses in 2020, the Israeli prime minister will likely face an uphill battle repairing his relations with a Democratic counterpart. Ties have soured between Democrats and the Israeli government after Mr. Netanyahu publicly lobbied in Congress against the Iran deal. – Wall Street Journal
Gulf States
Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies are backing a formal partnership with a 10-nation group led by Russia to try to manage the global oil market, according to OPEC officials, in an alliance that would transform the cartel. – Wall Street Journal
The United Arab Emirates dismissed reports it had detained a British man for showing support for Qatar at a soccer tournament in the UAE, saying he had been charged for making false assault claims to police. – Reuters
Amnesty International accused the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday of diverting arms supplied by Western and other states to “unaccountable militias accused of war crimes” in Yemen. – Reuters
A dispute between Dubai and Kuwait appeared to have ended on Tuesday as the United Arab Emirates’ central bank authorized the release of $496 million which had been frozen at Dubai’s state-owned Noor Bank since late 2017. – Reuters
Qatar and the European Union have agreed to terms for an open skies agreement expected to be signed this year, the two sides said on Tuesday. – Reuters
A U.N. special envoy told warring Yemenis on Tuesday that rapid implementation of a prisoner swap deal would help advance efforts at a political settlement of a nearly four-year-old war. – Reuters
Erin Dunne writes: U.S. support for the Saudi coalition fighting in Yemen has long been a deadly headache for Washington, rife with U.S.-backed airstrikes targeting civilians and a spiraling crisis of starvation. And as a CNN report published Monday makes clear, U.S. weapons sold to allies have now ended up in the hands of al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militants. – Washington Examiner
Middle East & North Africa
Greek and Turkish leaders vowed to work on easing bilateral tension after meeting in Ankara on Tuesday but strained to paper over a dispute born out of the 2016 failed coup against Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. – Wall Street Journal
John Cantlie, the British journalist captured by Islamic State more than six years ago, is still alive, the Home Office has said. – The Guardian
Pope Francis said Tuesday he sensed “good will to bring about a process of peace” in Yemen during his meetings with officials from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s key ally in the war.- Associated Press
Korean Peninsula
U.S. envoy Stephen E. Biegun will travel Wednesday to meet his North Korean counterpart in Pyongyang, where he will try to advance a plan to reinvigorate denuclearization talks ahead of a new summit. – Washington Post
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would hold his second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28, while giving himself credit for averting a major war on the Korean peninsula. – Reuters
As Vietnam prepares to host North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump’s second summit later this month, the Vietnamese model of reform is being widely touted as the economic path for impoverished and isolated North Korea to follow. – Reuters
Politicians and campaigners are urging Germany to use the lessons of its own reunification to help bring North and South Korea together, but Berlin is in no rush to take up the challenge. – Reuters
North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs “remain intact” and its leaders are dispersing missile assembly and testing facilities to prevent “decapitation” strikes, U.N. experts said in a new report. – Associated Press
President Trump said the U.S. and North Korea would be at war with each other if he hadn’t been elected president, a war that could have left “millions” dead. – Washington Examiner
Erin Dunne writes: But that also means that Trump must not have unrealistic expectations. North Korea is unlikely to, even under the best circumstances, simply hand over all of its nuclear weapons and destroy its facilities. It is even less likely to cut its capacity to wage biological and cyber war — both which threaten U.S. interests. – Washington Examiner
Eli Lake writes: What are Iranians to think, for example, when they see the U.S. president exchange love letters with the warden of North Korea’s prison state? Should they trust that the U.S. government cares about their human rights? Worse still, as Iran’s rulers become more desperate, they may think they can earn a reprieve from U.S. pressure if they just flatter Trump and agree to bargain. – Bloomberg
China
The U.S. is dispatching its chief trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to Beijing early next week to continue trade talks as a March 1 deadline to reach an accord nears, a senior Trump administration official said Tuesday. – Wall Street Journal
A leading Chinese state-run media organization has registered as a foreign agent under orders from the Justice Department, a public filing shows, as the Trump administration takes a harder line on Chinese government-led activities in the U.S. – Wall Street Journal
A Norwegian intelligence assessment that China posed a threat to the Nordic country’s security by seeking to steal its secrets was “ridiculous”, the Chinese Embassy said on Monday as Norway mulled the future status of China’s Huawei Technologies. – Reuters
Nate Sibley writes: State-linked Chinese companies and individuals have also made extensive use of anonymous companies to circumvent U.S. sanctions, most notably in their dealings with North Korea. In a high-profile recent example, the CFO of Huawei stands accused of misleading HSBC executives over the alleged use of a front company to carry on business in Iran. – Washington Examiner
Afghanistan
Members of the Taliban and key Afghan power brokers, including former president Hamid Karzai, discussed their vision for the future of Afghanistan on Tuesday, meeting in Moscow for talks aimed at ending the war. – Washington Post
The United States will reduce its 14,000-troop presence in Afghanistan as progress is made in negotiations toward a peaceful settlement of the 17-year war, President Trump told the nation Tuesday night, in an apparent loosening of orders he gave the Pentagon in late December to cut the number in half. – Washington Post
A delegation of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s political rivals discussed Afghanistan’s postwar political arrangements with Taliban representatives in Moscow on Tuesday, thrusting the country’s stormy electoral politics into the middle of its peace process and further weakening the current Afghan leader. – Wall Street Journal
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said on Tuesday no peace deal between the Taliban and the United States could be finalised without involving his government as “the decision-maker”. – Reuters
The Taliban demanded a new constitution for Afghanistan and promised an “inclusive Islamic system” to govern the war-torn country at a rare gathering with senior Afghan politicians in Russia Tuesday that excluded the Kabul government. – Agence France-Presse
Two Afghan journalists were killed on Tuesday night when gunmen entered a radio station and opened fire, authorities said. – Reuters
The Taliban launched a pre-dawn attack on an army base in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 26 members of the security forces, a provincial official said, the latest brazen assault by insurgents to defy stepped-up efforts to resolve the country’s protracted war. – Associated Press
Asia
Australia has canceled the residency of a wealthy political donor tied to the Chinese government, officials confirmed Wednesday, denying his citizenship application and stranding him overseas in a widening conflict with Beijing over its efforts to influence Australian politics. – New York Times
The Australian government on Tuesday urged Thailand to exercise its legal discretion to free a refugee soccer player who lives and plays in Australia and told a Bangkok court that he refuses to be voluntarily extradited to Bahrain. – Associated Press
India’s defense budget for 2019 included a marginal 6.87 percent bump to $49.68 billion, which is unlikely to meet modernization demands or ‘Make in India’ manufacturing increases. – Defense News
Their offices raided, bank accounts frozen and travel restricted, international aid and rights groups with deep roots in India say they are struggling to operate under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has elevated the role of sympathetic homegrown social organizations while cracking down on foreign charities. – Associated Press
A Vietnamese blogger for Radio Free Asia has vanished after fleeing to Thailand, the news organization said on Tuesday, as rights activists voiced fear that he had been abducted. – Agence France-Presse
Mohammed Sinan Siyech writes: To date, the Islamic State has not established a significant presence in India. IS’ main recruiter, Shafi Armar, who, based in Bhatkal, is believed to be operating in Syria, has been responsible for officially forming two major cells […]. However, over the past five years, these groups have not gained the traction they expected and have struggled to carry out any attack. Simultaneously, IS only did marginally better in attracting Indians to its heartlands in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, over the past year, the Islamic State has seemingly tried to expand its presence. – Middle East Institute
Russia
Russia said it was working to develop new missile systems, including a hypersonic long-range rocket, in the first concrete indication of its response to the breakdown of a Cold War-era nuclear treaty. – Wall Street Journal
Gancherov’s account is one of half a dozen instances Reuters has identified where the Kremlin-linked private military organization that recruited the fighters returned bodies more than seven weeks after the battle and with official documents bearing details that people who knew them say were incorrect. […] Such practices, an unusual pattern for Russian fighters killed in Syria, would have helped conceal heavy casualties until after President Vladimir Putin’s re-election in mid-March. – Reuters
Cleaning up explosives is a job best left to robots. What demining robots lack in human dexterity they more than make up in expendability, and the ability to send even a pricey robot to clear explosives gives battlefield commanders much better options when trying to navigate a dangerous area. To that end, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced it is acquiring 12 more Uran-6 demining robots in 2019. – C4ISRNET
Rauf Mammadov writes: Although Saudi-Russian relations are nascent, there is no question they are growing. This may be in part because the two regimes’ tradition of authoritarianism has helped them find a common language. While stabilizing oil markets has been their major achievement, the embattled Russian economy has also benefited from Saudi investment. The Trump administration has criticized OPEC’s production cuts, but it has been quiet about Saudi Arabia’s rapprochement with Russia. – Middle East Institute
Europe
Macedonia takes the first step to joining NATO on Wednesday, a victory for Western diplomacy against Russian efforts to shore up its waning influence in the Balkans. – Wall Street Journal
Germany said it would step up efforts to shield important industries from foreign takeovers and competition, as it seeks to counter what it called growing protectionism in the U.S. and China. – Wall Street Journal
The French Air Force has successfully practiced a nuclear strike mission, sending aircraft on an 11-hour mission to sneak a nuclear-capable cruise missile through simulated enemy air defenses and nail it into the sands of a test range south of Bordeaux. – Defense News
The German cabinet will hold a secret session on Wednesday to discuss safeguard measures regarding the possible participation of China’s Huawei Technologies in building Germany’s 5G network, the daily Handelsblatt said, citing government sources. – Reuters
UK cabinet ministers have secretly held talks on plans to delay Brexit by eight weeks, the Telegraph newspaper reported late on Tuesday. – Reuters
British Prime Minister Theresa May told business leaders in Northern Ireland on Tuesday that she is seeking changes to the U.K.’s withdrawal agreement with the European Union, but not the total removal of the Irish border provision that is the most contentious part of the deal. – Associated Press
The German government has reassured the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) it will stick to its plans to continue increasing military spending to reach 1.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2024 despite declining tax revenues, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Tuesday. – Reuters
The United States sees the European Union as its top priority in a global effort to convince allies not to buy Huawei equipment for next-generation mobile networks, a U.S. State Department Official said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Lithuania’s intelligence agencies fear Russia will interfere in its forthcoming elections, including one in May to find a successor to the staunchly anti-Kremlin president, Dalia Grybauskaite. – Reuters
There is still time to find a solution to Britain’s exit from the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday, voicing optimism on a political deal over the tricky “backstop” that has stymied progress. – Agence France-Presse
France, one of Europe’s two nuclear powers, said on Tuesday that it had fired a nuclear-capable missile from a fighter jet, while the US and Russia feud over the death of a nuclear treaty that saw Europe purged of most of its weapons of mass destruction during the hair-triggered days of the Cold War. – Business Insider
In an unusually strong public criticism of its anti-Israel voting at the United Nations, Israel’s ambassador to Germany on Tuesday called on the federal republic “to change its voting behavior.” – Jerusalem Post
Tom Rogan writes: President Trump should thank President Emmanuel Macron here. Alongside France’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet — Triomphant, Terrible, Téméraire, and Vigilant — America’s oldest ally is showing new commitment to confronting a shared challenge. If only German Chancellor Angela Merkel were willing to do the same. – Washington Examiner
Africa
Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo has been released on bail to Belgium following his acquittal by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity, the court said Tuesday. – The Guardian
Burkina Faso’s armed forces have killed 146 jihadists in counterterror operations in the northwest near the border with Mali, the army’s commander general said. – Associated Press
Central African Republic’s government on Tuesday initialed a peace deal with 14 armed groups following unprecedented talks aimed at ending more than five years of conflict. – Associated Press
Venezuela
Investors betting on regime change in Venezuela have seen trading in the country’s government bonds dry up after Washington issued fresh guidance on sanctions that ban purchases of the country’s debt. – Wall Street Journal
Pope Francis expressed a potential willingness on Tuesday to mediate a peaceful resolution to the tense political conflict in Venezuela if asked by both President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition leader who is increasingly recognized as the country’s legitimate leader. – New York Times
After pledging full support for the embattled regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Russia is starting to show signs of doubt about his ability to survive an opposition challenge. – Bloomberg
Editorial: Venezuelans have spent years trying to persuade the world about the brutality of dictator Nicolás Maduro. They probably never expected Mr. Maduro to help them make the case. On Monday Mr. Maduro promised to use Venezuela’s military to block international humanitarian aid for his own people. – Wall Street Journal
Max Fisher writes: There is no one litmus test for political legitimacy, which can come from a few different sources. Both Mr. Maduro and Mr. Guaidó have debatable claims to legitimacy, which is part of what makes this so messy. […] So when a leader takes power and is initially treated as legitimate — and Mr. Maduro was generally accepted when he took office in 2013 — it’s very difficult for him or her to lose it. But Mr. Maduro has seen his sources of legitimacy weaken. – New York Times
Adam Taylor writes: Without an escape plan, many strongmen may be tempted to stay in power. […]But Venezuela’s ruling elite goes far beyond the president. Any exit plan for Maduro would have to deal with the question of not only what would happen to him but also who else would be allowed to go with him. If Maduro is removed, focusing on him alone may offer only a surface-level solution to a much deeper problem. – Washington Post
Eli Lake writes: “The transition in Venezuela has begun,” says David Smolansky, a member of Guaido’s opposition party and former mayor of El Hatillo. He told me he expects more military defections in the coming days. Members of the armed forces, he notes, are facing the same problems as other Venezuelans.This is why Trump’s approach, to follow the lead of Guaido and the National Assembly, is for the best. At this point, the only issue to discuss with Maduro is how and when he will leave office. – Bloomberg
Cyber Security
The Pentagon’s top weapons tester said the Army needs to more clearly establish how it will use electronic warfare systems as it conducts a significant, years-long initiative to rebuild its jamming capabilities for the first time since the Cold War. – C4ISRNET
Huawei and ZTE will be left out of more state tenders after the tax authority excluded them, the head of the Czech cyber watchdog, which issued a recent security warning about the Chinese technology firms, said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Justin Lynch writes: The United States needs to expand its cyber intelligence authorities and capabilities to meet the Trump administration’s new cybersecurity strategy, according to top current and former government officials and academics. The United States intelligence community’s ability to boost its surveillance of American computer networks, foreign adversaries and even third-party countries is integral to the Trump administration’s plan to be more aggressive in cyberspace. – Fifth Domain
Mark Pomerleau writes: The United States needs to expand its cyber intelligence authorities and capabilities to meet the Trump administration’s new cybersecurity strategy, according to top current and former government officials and academics. The United States intelligence community’s ability to boost its surveillance of American computer networks, foreign adversaries and even third-party countries is integral to the Trump administration’s plan to be more aggressive in cyberspace. – Fifth Domain
Defense
President Donald Trump made the case for drawing down the number of American troops fighting overseas and boosting up those deployed along the southern U.S. border in his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night. – Defense News
A U.S. guided-missile cruiser and Navy resupply ship have collided off the coast of Florida during a training exercise on Tuesday, USNI News has learned. USS Leyte Gulf (CG-55) and USNS Robert E. Peary (T-AKE-5) collided during a training exercise as part of a pre-deployment workup at about 4 p.m. EST. – USNI News
The Navy’s AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) completed its final round of developmental testing having successfully tracked its 15th ballistic missile target. During the Jan. 31 test in Hawaii, the SPY-6 searched, found and tracked a ballistic missile target launched from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility as part of the radar’s development, according to the Navy. – USNI News
The Navy in 2017 initiated a new program, called the FFG(X) program, to build a class of 20 guided-missile frigates (FFGs). The Navy wants to procure the first FFG(X) in FY2020, the second in FY2021, and the remaining 18 at a rate of two per year in FY2022-FY2030. The Navy’s proposed FY2019 budget requests $134.8 million in research and development funding for the program – USNI News
A Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser and a dry cargo ship collided stern-to-stern during a resupply operation in the Atlantic off the southeastern coast of the U.S., the Navy announced Tuesday. The cruiser Leyte Gulf and cargo ship Robert E. Peary “made contact” during an underway replenishment operation, Navy officials said in a release. – Military.com
The Navy recently got a step closer to getting the first ship in its new class of aircraft carriers ready for combat missions with a live-fire test off the coast of California. A drone was taken out by Raytheon’s latest integrated combat system that’s being developed for the supercarrier Gerald R. Ford, Raytheon announced Tuesday. – Military.com
In a move that could completely change the way military personnel transfer from base to base, U.S. Transportation Command is considering privatizing the system that supports permanent change of station (PCS) and other personnel moves. – Military.com
Build the border wall. Or build an engineering center at West Point. Or an aircraft hangar in North Carolina. Or flood control projects. Or a vehicle maintenance center in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address tonight is expected to present members of Congress with difficult choices. – Military.com
Margaret Seymour writes: While the experiences of a reservist vary across component, military branch, unit, and billet, there are a number issues that are both consistent and pervasive through the reserve force: administrative processes, retention, annual training to name a few. […] reserve forces have too many requirements with too little support. The complaint of too many requirements has been echoed across the active duty side as well, to little or no avail. For reservists, however, the issue is not simply being overtasked, it is being overtasked without the means to accomplish such tasking. – Center for a New American Security
Trump Administration
President Trump warned China and Russia not to seek to win an arms race with the United States and instead proposed negotiations to expand a recently scrapped nuclear arms control pact. – Washington Examiner
US President Donald Trump appealed to Congress Tuesday to unite at a moment of deep partisan division as he made the case for a new era of compromise on immigration and security in his State of the Union address. – Agence France-Presse
The Trump administration, after more than two years and significant pressure from Congress, has named a special envoy dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism. The appointment of Elan Carr, whose title is special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, was announced Tuesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. – Politico
A new report from two top Trump administration officials said they have found no evidence that foreign governments had a significant impact on the integrity of the 2018 midterm elections. […] But the new report does not mean that other nations were quiet or that their efforts were non-existent during the midterm elections, only that they had no significant impact on the vote. – Fifth Domain
The Trump administration’s newly-appointed special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism will take his first official trip to Slovakia and Belgium this week. – Jerusalem Post