Fdd's overnight brief

October 19, 2021

FDD Research & Analysis

In The News

Iran

Iran’s president said Monday the United States should lift the sanctions on his country to prove it is serious about restarting stalled nuclear talks in Vienna. – Associated Press 

The United States does not think talks in Brussels are necessary before the resumption of indirect negotiations with Iran on a return to the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday. – Reuters 

The European Union on Monday played down the prospect of serious talks on Iran’s nuclear programme outside the framework of negotiations between world powers and Iran in Vienna, with the EU’s foreign policy chief saying time was not on Iran’s side. – Reuters 

Iran and Russia will convene a “joint military commission” in Tehran within the next three months in order to discuss defense and security cooperation, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported, citing the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran, Mohammad Bagheri. – Bloomberg  

Ray Takeyh writes: Some might object that even if getting the bomb backfires and contributes to the fall of the theocracy, a nuclear-armed Iran governed by something other than the current regime would itself pose a major problem for the United States and its partners and allies in the region. But if the regime fell, its successor would most likely emerge from the crucible of the opposition. As such, it would probably focus on internal economic development, mending fences with the international community, and acceding to global norms. – Foreign Affairs 

Fariba Parsa writes: The exclusion of women and other groups like Sunni Muslims is gradually destroying the state from the inside by undermining its support, even among those who have traditionally backed the system. With its authoritarian behavior, the Iranian state is standing against more and more groups of people — people who are better informed and increasingly unsatisfied with the status quo. The situation is unsustainable and sooner or later something will have to give. – Middle East Institute 

Afghanistan

Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the U.S. withdrawal agreement with the Taliban under Donald Trump, has resigned as special envoy to Afghanistan, effective Tuesday. – Washington Post  

U.N. agencies will launch a nationwide effort next month to vaccinate children in Afghanistan against polio with the permission of the Taliban, the United Nations announced Monday. – Washington Post  

In the vacuum left by the sudden fall of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the Taliban has stepped in to provide much-needed security to Kabul and other cities. – Washington Post  

When the Taliban swept into power, they found Afghanistan’s economy fast approaching the brink and were faced with harrowing predictions of growing poverty and hunger. So they ordered the financial managers of the collapsed former government back to work, with an urgent directive: Do your jobs, because we can’t. – Associated Press 

The United States will not join international talks on Afghanistan organized by Russia this week due to logistical reasons, but is open to participating in the future, the State Department said on Monday. – Reuters 

The acting inspector general of the State Department is launching a number of inquiries into the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a notification sent to Congress and obtained by The Hill. – The Hill 

With shaved heads, oversized tunics and the terrified gaze of the hunted, the drug addicts rounded up by the Taliban brace for 45 days of painful withdrawal. – Agence France-Presse 

Seth J. Frantzman writes: In the final analysis, the recent uptick of attacks on Shi’ites in Afghanistan, timed to coincide with prayers, are not being fully prosecuted because of the countries that have quietly backed the Taliban, many of which also accept religious extremism, and because the international community has walked away from attempts at enforcing international law. – Jerusalem Post 

Syria

Midhat Saleh, a well-known figure in Syria, was fatally shot Saturday in Ein el-Tineh, a village along the Israeli border in the Golan Heights where he ran a Syrian government office. Syria said he was killed by Israeli sniper fire. Israeli military and other officials declined to comment on the charge. – Associated Press 

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the United States welcomed the opening of the sixth round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva on Monday. – Reuters 

Ammar Al-Musarea writes: Neglecting the development and reconstruction of areas outside regime control will prolong the Russian blackmail of the world and delay implementation of the UN resolutions on Syria. The effects of this are twofold. It will prolong the regime, leaving local residents prisoners to the fear of its return and its bloody, vengeful mentality. Furthermore, it will contribute to a decline in local confidence in the United States, and deter cooperation against remnants of the Islamic State terrorist organization, and IS sleeper cells which crop up from time to time. – Washington Institute 

Turkey

The United States on Monday did not confirm Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s comment that Washington had made an offer to Ankara for the sale of F-16 fighter jets but added that it has not made Turkey a financing offer for the warplanes. – Reuters 

Turkish prosecutors ordered the arrest of 158 suspects including 33 serving soldiers in an operation targeting people allegedly linked to a Muslim preacher who Turkey says was behind a 2016 failed coup, state-owned Anadolu news agency said on Tuesday. – Reuters 

Turkey summoned ambassadors of 10 countries, including the U.S. and Germany, for demanding the release of Osman Kavala, a philanthropist and businessmen who remains jailed four years after he was charged with attempting to overthrow the government. – Bloomberg 

The country’s problems are mounting and Erdoğan looks increasingly incapable of addressing them. Even his supporters complain that the presidential system has made things worse. […]Growing public frustration with presidentialism has become a unifying force for the opposition. It is pushing for a return to a revised parliamentary system, and representatives of the opposition parties recently started working on a joint road map. By contrast, Erdoğan seems like a man without a plan. He established the presidential system to secure more power, but instead it appears to have rendered him even more powerless. – Middle East Institute  

Aaron Stein writes: After decades of speculation about the future of the U.S.-Turkish alliance, Washington and Ankara have finally reached a fork in the road. The day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced plans to deepen defense cooperation with Russia, his government formally submitted a request to the United States for 40 new Block 70 model F-16 aircraft and upgrade kits for 80 F-16s already in service with the Turkish Air Force. The U.S. Congress may well block the sale. And even if it goes through, Erdoğan may well decide to buy more Russian weapons anyways. – War on the Rocks  

Zvi Barel writes: The Biden administration and the U.S. Congress, which oppose the major weapons deals with Turkey due to Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems, are expected to reject the Turkish request – or at the very last delay it – but such a decision could very well lead Erdogan to intensify his military ties with Russia all the more. […]The game Erdogan is playing between the superpowers has equipped him with important political ammunition – through which he can present himself domestically in Turkey as a master statesman who is irreplaceable. Is he a sick and weak leader on the verge of retirement? Not yet. – Haaretz 

Israel

Sweden’s foreign minister visited Israel on Monday in an effort to mend ties after years in which the two countries have been at odds over the conflict with the Palestinians. – Associated Press  

Israel and Comoros, an island country off the eastern coast of Africa, are in talks to establish diplomatic relations, a senior diplomatic source confirmed Monday. – Jerusalem Post 

Israel has approved a budget of some 5 billion shekels ($1.5 billion) to be used to prepare the military for a potential strike against Iran’s nuclear program, Channel 12 reported Monday. – Times of Israel 

Israel is preparing to take unilateral steps to prevent Iran from continuing its enrichment of uranium, according to a source cited in a report by Israel Hayom. – Arutz Sheva 

In his September 24, 2021 speech at the UN General Assembly, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud ‘Abbas presented Israel with an ultimatum, giving it one year to withdraw to the 1967 borders and settle the final status issues with the Palestinians. […] Despite its harsh tone, the speech sparked intense criticism from journalists, politicians and former officials in the PA and the PLO, who stated that ‘Abbas’ ultimatum was meaningless, because similar threats had been made in the past but never truly implemented – and therefore that the statements would not be taken seriously by either Israel or the world. – Middle East Media Research Institute  

Max Boot writes: They should also ask themselves why they are more exercised by human rights violations committed by Israel, a liberal democracy, than by dictatorships that commit far more heinous offenses. […] Yet there is no BDS movement targeting China. Sally Rooney doesn’t want her new novel published in Israel, but her bestseller “Normal People” was published in China by a publishing house with close links to the tyrannical Communist regime. That bespeaks an inexcusable double standard. – Washington Post 

Nathan Lewin and Alyza D. Lewin write: If the Biden administration converts the Agron Street property or any location in Jerusalem into a new consulate-general that serves as a de facto Embassy to Palestine, complete with a consul-general who reports not to the US ambassador but directly to the State Department, America will be resurrecting an unprincipled dangerous fabrication that it finally buried three years ago. And if Prime Minister Naftali Bennett allows America to take this step, he will go down in history as the Israeli leader who gave away Jerusalem. – Jerusalem Post 

James Jay Carafano and Adam Milstein write: So here is the worry. Do the Squad and their ilk really believe the region would be better off if the Islamist voices from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Mullahs in Tehran were empowered? The short answer appears to be “yes.” If true, then blocking Iron Dome is the opposite of a humanitarian impulse. It is a warning light that there is a deep sickness in the American left, like a black hole with a powerful gravitational force pulling the president’s party in a dangerous direction. – The National Interest 

Iraq

For many Iraqis, the name Colin Powell conjures up one image: the man who as U.S. secretary of state went before the U.N. Security Council in 2003 to make the case for war against their country. – Associated Press 

Iraq said Monday it has detained the mastermind behind a deadly 2016 bombing in a Baghdad shopping center, which killed around 300 people and wounded 250. – Associated Press 

Iraq’s October 10 elections reinforced the parliamentary strength of mercurial Shiite preacher Moqtada Sadr and saw a sharp decline in that of his adversaries, the pro-Iran Hashed al-Shaabi alliance, according to preliminary results. – Agence France-Presse 

Lebanon

Lebanon’s Shi’ite Amal movement said on Monday last week’s street violence in Beirut aimed to reignite internal strife and threaten civil peace. On Thursday, seven people were killed in Beirut as crowds headed for a protest called by Amal and its Iranian-backed ally Hezbollah. – Reuters 

Worsening sectarian tensions in Lebanon are testing an alliance between Shi’ite Hezbollah and its Christian ally President Michel Aoun, who may lose ground to their rivals as they step up opposition to the Iran-backed group’s influence. – Reuters 

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader declared for the first time on Monday that his powerful militant group has 100,000 trained fighters. His speech appeared to be meant as a deterrent to domestic foes following the nation’s worst internal violence in years. – Associated Press  

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned in an address on Monday that the clashes in Beirut in which seven people were killed and dozens were injured last week were dangerous and marked a pivotal “new stage” for the movement concerning how it deals with internal affairs. – Jerusalem Post 

Yochanan Visser writes: It remains unclear whether Hamas is working in tandem with Hezbollah and Iran, but since nothing in Lebanon takes place without the tacit support of the Shi’ite terror group and its patron Iran, this must be the case. After all, Iran is the founder of the so-called resistance axis against Israel and is supporting both organizations financially, supplying weapons and training for its members. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also addressed the situation in Lebanon at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting and said he was sure that Iran was stirring up the tensions there. – Arutz Sheva 

Middle East & North Africa

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was forced to leave the United Arab Emirates after he arrived in the country to visit the Expo 2020 in Dubai, due to the recommendation of Emirati officials, according to Iranian Fars News. – Jerusalem Post  

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen has warned that the Iranian threat to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is much greater than the Iranian threat to Israel, Israel Hayom reported. – Arutz Sheva 

Minister of Regional Cooperation Esawi Frej (Meretz) said in an interview published on Monday that Qatar, Tunisia, Oman and Malaysia may join the Abraham Accords. – Arutz Sheva 

Seth J. Frantzman writes: The KRG has hosted hundreds of thousands of refugees from across Iraq, including Yazidis who were persecuted by ISIS. […]It remains to be seen if the Gulf will begin to invest even more seriously in Erbil and the Kurdish region and whether that investment will also flow to Nineveh and Kirkuk and other areas around the KRG, key governorates that need rebuilding after ISIS and also want to be free of extremism. – Jerusalem Post 

Korean Peninsula

North Korea launched at least one ballistic missile eastward into the sea, South Korean and Japanese officials said Tuesday, the latest development in Pyongyang’s battery of weapons tests in recent weeks. – Washington Post 

Most North Korean defectors to the South are ethnically Korean, but Cho, 53, is a third-generation Chinese immigrant. While ethnically Korean defectors are entitled by law to a package of benefits designed to help their resettlement in South Korea, Cho can’t receive that support because he maintained his Chinese nationality in North Korea, even though his family has lived there for generations. – Associated Press  

Bruce Klingner writes: North Korea has steadily improved both the quality and the quantity of its nuclear and missile arsenals. In recent years, Pyongyang has unveiled tactical and strategic missile systems that pose greater risk to the United States and its allies. The United States must ensure that it can protect the American homeland and U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region against this growing North Korean nuclear and missile threat. To this end, Washington should coordinate with South Korea and Japan to improve comprehensive allied missile defenses. The United States and its allies must also have sufficient offensive capabilities to reduce the number of North Korean missiles that are launched. – Heritage Foundation 

Doug Bandow writes: While Daalder emphasized having serious discussions with South Korean officials on the issue of extended deterrence, the real talk needs to be with the American people. U.S. policymakers should level with the public, note the rising costs and risks of the American commitment, and listen to people’s responses. An honest and open dialogue is needed since most Americas probably don’t want to commit national suicide. Yet policymakers increasingly risk triggering catastrophe for the U.S. over Korea. – The National Interest 

China

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is preparing to officially stamp his personal imprint on the Communist Party’s historical record, a sign of his strengthening grip on power in the face of simmering uncertainties over the country’s economy and tensions with Western powers. – Wall Street Journal 

A week-long hunt for a Chinese man suspected of two homicides — which drew national attention and elicited an outpouring of sympathy for the accused — ended Monday when police said the suspect took his own life in a cave after being surrounded by law enforcement. – Washington Post 

As China Evergrande Group teeters on the edge of collapse, videos of protesting home buyers have flooded social media. Online government message boards teem with complaints and pleas for intervention to save the huge property developer. The hashtag “What does Evergrande mean for the real estate market?” has been viewed more than 160 million times on one platform. – New York Times 

China tested a space vehicle in July, not a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile as reported by the Financial Times, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday. – Reuters  

China is signaling that a stunning new missile test that reportedly surprised U.S. intelligence officials was not designed to accelerate an arms race with the West but rather to grant Beijing a strategic advantage to seize control of the Taiwan Straits and other hotly contested territory in its region. – US News 

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday that Washington was closely watching China’s development of advanced weapons systems but declined to comment on a report that it had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. – Reuters 

Washington is concerned about hypersonic missile technology and its potential military applications by China and Russia, a U.S. arms control official said on Monday, after a media report that Beijing had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide weapon. – Reuters 

For nearly seven years, LinkedIn has been the only major Western social networking platform still operating in China. People like 32-year-old Jason Liu view it as an important career enhancing tool. – Associated Press 

Two officials involved in overseeing China’s vast network of detention camps for about 1m ethnic minority people in Xinjiang have studied on coveted fellowships at Harvard University, according to research by an Australian think-tank. – Financial Times 

Tom Rogan writes: That said, developments in drones and space-based capabilities will provide new opportunities to employ hypersonic weapons. The greatest threat is that hypersonic vehicles might be used with very short notice or no warning at all. This requires some forward-thinking. Congress might want to reconsider whether its current missile defense strategy is feasible against saturation strikes involving hypersonic vehicles and traditional ballistic missiles. […] Attention and flexibility, then, should be the watchwords of the hypersonic era. – Washington Examiner  

Emily Kilcrease  writes: Tai’s remarks reflected low but realistic expectations for how likely China is to undertake fundamental reforms. Notably absent was insight on how the administration views future trade negotiations with allies, once the president’s domestic agenda has advanced sufficiently. While negotiations with China are necessary to remedy a significant imbalance, negotiations with allies can enhance the United States’ economic integration with major trading partners, including in the Pacific region. – Lawfare 

Dai Yuming writes: The Taiwan question concerns China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and core interests, and bears on the national sentiments of all 1.4 billion Chinese people. […]We highly appreciate that the Israeli government has been committed to the one-China principle, and hope our Israeli friends could get an accurate picture of the Taiwan question, understand and support China’s national reunification, and avoid being used by “Taiwan independence” separatists and anti-China forces that have malicious intentions. – Jerusalem Post 

South Asia

A roadside bomb exploded near a police bus parked outside a university in southwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least one officer and wounding 15 other people, mostly civilians, a provincial minister said. – Associated Press 

Indian authorities have moved thousands of migrant workers in Kashmir to safer locations overnight, while hundreds have fled the Himalayan valley after a wave of targeted killings, two security officials said on Monday. – Reuters 

Israel and India are expected to sign a free-trade agreement by the middle of 2022 as the two countries mark the start of celebrations of 30 years of bilateral relations. – Algemeiner 

Asia

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed a new security agreement with his Georgian counterpart on Monday, extending the U.S. effort to train allied troops amid encroaching threats from Russia. – Washington Post 

Myanmar’s ruling junta announced plans Monday to release more than 5,600 political prisoners arrested in anti-military demonstrations this year. – Washington Post 

Myanmar’s junta chief on Monday said that the ruling military was committed to peace and democracy, and that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should consider the provocations and violence being carried out by its opponents. – Reuters  

Recent court judgements have freed Hong Kong authorities to use national security powers to deploy tough colonial-era laws in a crackdown against opposition groups, alarming activists and lawyers in the city. – Reuters 

A group of 10 naval vessels from China and Russia sailed through a strait separating Japan’s main island and its northern island of Hokkaido on Monday, the Japanese government said, adding that it is closely watching such activities. – Reuters 

Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister accused Armenia of “ethnic cleansing” and continuing to lay landmines in Nagorno-Karabakh even after a cease-fire ended a six-week war in the disputed region late last year, as a second case related to the conflict opened at the United Nations’ top court. Armenia denied the accusations.- Associated Press 

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called for increases in Japan’s military capability and spending in response to what he described as growing threats from China and North Korea in a public debate with eight other political party leaders ahead of upcoming national elections. – Associated Press  

Russia

Russia is shuttering its permanent mission to NATO and suspending the alliance’s liaison office in Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday, further fraying the relationship between the organization and the Kremlin. – Washington Post 

A Russian court will consider a request next month to transfer former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, sentenced last year to 16 years in a Russian jail, to the United States, his lawyer told TASS news agency on Monday. – Reuters 

Russian State media pundits and personalities are claiming that Hadley Gamble, the experienced CNBC journalist who interviewed President Vladimir Putin last week, was part of an American “special operation” designed to sway and tantalize the Russian leader. – Daily Beast 

A Russia-led post-Soviet security bloc started its largest military drills near the Tajik-Afghan border in years on Monday amid cross-border tensions ahead of talks between Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders and major regional powers. – Reuters  

Frederic Wehrey and Andrew S. Weiss write: There is no question that Washington’s position in the broader Middle East was dented by the fiasco in Afghanistan. Ultimately, however, U.S. assets in the region are still unrivaled: the United States’ political and economic influence, hard power, soft power, embrace of multilateral diplomacy, and leadership of a rules-based global order continue to give it the upper hand over all its rivals. U.S. policymakers should focus on bolstering those advantages rather than inflating the threat posed by Moscow. – Foreign Affairs 

Europe

When President Biden met Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the White House last month, one of Mr. Biden’s advisers passed him a note reminding him to raise the issue of trade tensions over Northern Ireland. – New York Times 

European Union foreign ministers debated new economic sanctions on Belarus on Monday, including on airlines, to halt what Brussels says is a deliberate policy by Minsk to fly in thousands of migrants and send them across the border. – Reuters 

Russian-backed separatists on Monday ended their blockade of a hotel housing international conflict monitors in eastern Ukraine, an incident sparked by the capture of an officer by Ukrainian armed forces last week. – Reuters 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday warned fellow EU leaders that the European Union risked unravelling if there was no “democratic control” over its institutions. – Agence France-Presse 

Belarus said Monday it was recalling its ambassador in Paris for consultations after French envoy Nicolas de Bouillane de Lacoste was ordered to leave the post-Soviet country amid a diplomatic crisis with the EU. – Agence France-Presse 

Canada, the US, France, the UK and other Western countries have helped trained far-right extremists in Ukraine, a report by the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University revealed last month. – Jerusalem Post 

Africa

A sit-in calling on the military to dissolve Sudan’s government grew into the thousands on Monday as the country grappled with what its civilian leadership has called the biggest crisis of a two-year-old transition from autocracy. – Reuters  

Rebellious Tigrayan forces accused the Ethiopian government of launching air strikes on the capital of Tigray region on Monday, and though a government official initially denied strikes, state-run media later reported the air force conducted an attack. – Reuters  

Nigerian troops killed 24 suspected Islamist insurgents in two attacks in the northeast and recovered some weapons, the army said on Tuesday. – Reuters 

The Americas

Colin L. Powell, who helped guide the U.S. military to victory in the 1991 Persian Gulf War as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then struggled a decade later over the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a beleaguered secretary of state under President George W. Bush, died Oct. 18 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He was 84. – Washington Post  

The Biden administration warned on Monday that digital currencies posed a threat to America’s sanctions program and said in a new report that the United States needed to modernize how sanctions were deployed so that they remained an effective national security tool. – New York Times 

Following an investigation, Oberlin College said it has cleared a faculty member accused of lying about mass political executions in Iran during the 1980s and of making antisemitic statements, according to a student newspaper report. – Algemeiner 

A businessman who prosecutors say was a major conduit for corruption by Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle appeared for the first time in Miami federal court Monday after a weekend extradition that has further strained relations between the U.S. and Venezuela’s socialist government. – Associated Press 

A top Canadian Jewish group is asking Canada’s Department of National Defense to investigate its training of Ukrainian soldiers after revelations that a neo-Nazi group had infiltrated Ukraine’s military. – Algemeiner 

Editorial: It is true that some recent ambassadors have been markedly undiplomatic. Ric Grenell, Donald Trump’s ambassador to Germany, seemed to go out of his way to offend his hosts. But even Grenell had the virtue of accurately reflecting the views of his president. The best political appointees have connections in Washington that give them authority and an effectiveness that career diplomats cannot always replicate. – Financial Times 

Latin America

One hundred days after the nationwide demonstrations of July 11, when dissidents and ordinary citizens turned out in mass to protest the government’s handling of the coronavirus, energy shortages and the economy, the extent of the police state’s crackdown is becoming clear. – Washington Post 

On Monday, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Colombian state responsible for violating Bedoya’s rights, saying it found “serious evidence” of state participation in the attack, which it described as “torture.” – Washington Post 

A protest strike shuttered businesses, schools and public transportation in a new blow to Haiti’s anemic economy, and unions and other groups vowed to continue the shutdown Tuesday in anger over worsening crime as authorities try to rescue 17 kidnapped members of a U.S.-based missionary group. – Associated Press 

The US hopes to win back ground lost to China in Latin America with an ambitious new initiative to fund infrastructure. – Financial Times 

Editorial: Haiti’s outmatched police are bystanders to the spreading pandemonium, and the government, which includes no elected officials, is window dressing. […]Yet for all its unintended consequences, outside intervention could also establish a modicum of stability and order that would represent a major humanitarian improvement on the status quo, and with it, the prospect of lives saved and livelihoods enabled. – Washington Post 

Francisco Toro writes: Given the strength of Venezuela’s mobilization on his behalf, it’s easy to guess that if Saab chooses to cooperate with the Justice Department, most of Maduro’s financial secrets will be laid bare. […]Venezuela is a poor, diplomatically weak country, with limited tools at its disposal to make its displeasure felt. Yet it is using all the tools at its disposal to protest Saab’s arrest, a streak of panic plainly visible throughout. – Washington Post 

Cybersecurity

Sinclair Broadcast Group was the target of a ransomware attack that disrupted operations this weekend at several television stations, the company said Monday in a regulatory filing. – Washington Post 

But today, as a series of whistleblowers take on Silicon Valley, a supporting cast of organisations, staffed by lawyers, researchers and publicists, have emerged to help them. – Financial Times 

Charles Henderson writes: Government agencies such as the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security in the US or the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK already realise that the game has changed. Leaders across industry and government who commit to a culture shift in which trust becomes just as much of a currency as data will gain a strategic advantage — limiting the moves an adversary can make, forcing them to make more noise and ultimately leaving them less room to execute their attack. – Financial Times 

Defense

A defense contractor accused of slipping envelopes stuffed with more than $30,000 in cash to a U.S. Navy official appeared Monday in federal court in Washington and pleaded not guilty to a charge of bribery. – Washington Post 

The mashup of an Australian small boat designed for safety and an American sensors and communications suite that helped Marines secure the Kabul airport during the August evacuation may help fill a capability gap as the U.S. Marine Corps eyes distributed operations in the Pacific. – Defense News  

The US Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Inspector General is auditing the army’s militarised version of Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 augmented reality (AR) system to determine if the technology will in fact meet soldiers’ needs. – Jane’s 360 

The US Air Force (USAF) is seeking a new advanced tactical trainer, with a request for information (RFI) for at least 100 aircraft issued on 12 October. – Jane’s 360 

Brian Bennett writes: Milley’s behavior may have been unusual, but it wasn’t unprecedented. The steps Milley took are reminiscent of how President Richard Nixon’s military leaders handled their fears that he might give the military politically-motivated orders as his Presidency was unraveling during the Watergate investigation. […] It’s also a reminder that some of the fires Trump started during his time in the Oval Office are still burning and won’t easily snuff out. – TIME