Experts fear cascade of nuclear proliferation as Trump shakes alliances. U.S. allies around the world are warming to the idea of developing their own nuclear weapons, former senior defense and White House officials told Defense One’s Patrick Tucker. Decades of efforts to persuade countries to forgo such destabilizing arsenals, work led by the United States through security guarantees, are under threat.
Even one new nuclear project by a non-nuclear U.S. ally could draw a military response from Russia or China, which might touch off yet more nuclear development in a self-reinforcing cycle, the officials said.
What’s changed? “The Trump administration’s approach to Ukraine and Russia has significantly undercut allied confidence in the United States, including on extended [nuclear] deterrence,” Eric Brewer, a former director for counterproliferation at the National Security Council. “Not only is [Trump] pivoting away from allies but he’s seemingly pivoting toward Russia.” Read on, here.
Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2012, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales abandoned his bunk at a remote special forces base in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province and walked to a nearby village in the dark of night, where he shot and killed 16 people, including nine children, and injured six others. The brutal massacre helped hasten the end of an experimental U.S. special forces program to train local police across rural Afghanistan known as Village Stability Operations.
Around the world
An oil tanker and a container ship collided in the North Sea Monday morning, “causing multiple explosions and forcing the crews of both ships to abandon their vessels,” the New York Times reported Tuesday morning as recovery efforts continued. The BBC has video of the apparent damage, which you can view here.
The tanker, Stena Immaculate, was carrying jet fuel for the U.S. military. It was also one of 10 such vessels for the U.S. under the Department of Transportation Maritime Administration’s Tanker Security Program, as Howard Altman of The War Zone explained Monday.
The tanker was anchored when the container ship struck, triggering the explosions off the coast of East Yorkshire. Thirty-six people were recovered safely; but one crewmember from the container ship appears to have perished at sea, the British Coast Guard said Monday evening.
Latest: The fires are still raging. ABC News has a bit more.
Breakthrough in Syria? U.S.-backed forces in Syria are about to merge with the new Syrian military, according to what the Associated Press described as a “breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in the northeast.”
The deal also includes prisons holding ISIS fighters, which number about 9,000. Those would be folded under the new Syrian administration’s watch as well.
But perhaps most notably, “Syria’s Kurds will gain their ‘constitutional rights’ including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades under Assad,” AP reports. But that’s not all. “Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship.” Read on, here.
By the way: Israel’s military is still conducting ground raids inside Syria, including 18 different incursions over the past week, as well as “creating pop-up checkpoints, demolishing buildings & questioning locals,” Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute reports.
Happening Thursday in DC: Lister joins a panel discussion featuring former Pentagon official Dana Stroul entitled, “Reimagining Syria: A Roadmap for Peace and Prosperity Beyond Assad.” That’s hosted by the Middle East Institute, and begins just before 10 a.m. ET. Details and RSVP, here.
Around the Defense Department
Developing: Trump wants to build metal refineries on U.S. military bases “as part of his plan to boost domestic production of critical minerals and offset China’s control of the sector,” Reuters reports, citing senior administration officials.
“With the Pentagon controlling about 30 million acres of land, the plan would ensure there is available land for the refining facilities, avoiding the controversy that sometimes occurs in host local communities,” the wire service writes.
Notable: “The order would also seek to reclassify mine waste on federal land, mimicking a step that Rio Tinto (RIO.AX), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX.N), and others have taken to tap piles of old waste rock at U.S. mines previously thought to be worthless,” Reuters reports. We investigated this process of sifting through mine detritus to find rare earth metals in a previous episode of our Defense One Radio podcast, featuring researchers at the University of Kentucky.
On Capitol Hill today: “The State of U.S. Shipbuilding” is under the microscope at the House Armed Services’ Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. The Navy’s Assistant Secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition, Brett Seidle, is attending; Eric Labs of the Congressional Budget Office is also speaking. That began at 10 a.m. ET. Details and livestream, here.
There’s also a hearing to discuss “stabilizing the Military Health System to prepare for large-scale combat operations” in the Senate Armed Services Committee. That one’s ongoing; catch the livestream here.
ICYMI: Anduril has won a potential 10-year, $642.2 million contract to install and deliver systems at Marine Corps bases seeking to counter unmanned aircraft, Ross Wilkers of Washington Technology reported off a notice posted Friday.
Marine Corps officials set up the contract to acquire more capabilities for detecting, tracking, countering and defending their facilities, personnel and assets from small drones and other emerging threats. Read more, here.
And you can learn more about Anduril founder Palmer Luckey via a Wall Street Journal podcast discussion with him last week, as well as a profile published over the weekend by the Journal’s Tim Higgins, who refers to Luckey as “Donald Trump’s original tech bro.”
Trump 2.0
DOGE must release its records, judge orders. In a 37-page ruling issued on Monday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said that the vast and “unprecedented” power handed to Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency require it to be subject to open-government laws.
Politico: “It’s the first significant ruling in a growing legal push to pierce DOGE’s secretive veil, a decision that undercuts Musk’s repeated insistence about the operation’s transparency — and the White House’s refrain that Musk is simply a run-of-the-mill presidential adviser with limited decision-making authority. Cooper said this representation is undercut by the weight of evidence that has trickled out in court and in the news.”
Recap: DOGE’s work has been described as a “national-security nightmare.” Critics cite its penetration of many federal databases containing personal and sensitive information; the unclassified distribution of CIA employees’ names; the hasty firing of employees responsible for nuclear safety, long-range air defense, and elsewhere; the gutting of a distributor of soft-power foreign aid, and much more. The Trump administration says Musk’s team is simply cutting waste.
