Defense One does a round up type of news bulletin with lots of links-
DefenseOne
The president’s Monday declaration of a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C.—notwithstanding most crimes’ decline from a post-pandemic peak—will further entangle the U.S. military, its equipment, and technology, in law-enforcement matters. It could also expose D.C. residents and visitors to unprecedented digital surveillance, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports.
A similar turn of events happened in June 2020, when the National Guard was sent into the streets of U.S. cities amid protests of police brutality. “Stingrays” and “dirtbags” were deployed to track cellphones. And spyplanes and Predator drones traced the skies, a world away from the war zones they were built for.
Now, with federal agencies and entities working with military personnel under declared-emergency circumstances, new gear could enter domestic use, Tucker writes. And local officials or the civilian review boards that normally oversee police use of such technologies may lack the power to prevent or even monitor it. For example, in 2021, the D.C. government ended a facial-recognition pilot program after police used it to identify a protester at Lafayette Square. But local prohibitions don’t apply to federalized or military forces. Read more, here.
ICYMI: Trump federalized the DC police, and declared an emergency as crime hit a 30-year low. Defense One’s sister publication, GovExec explains. The New York TimesandAssociated Press have more.
Anatomy of a decision: Trump had long planned a takeover, the Washington Post reported Tuesday morning, with “an informal playbook for how he would use the powers of the presidency to take control of the District of Columbia, with options prepared for him such as deploying more federal law enforcement officers or taking over the entire municipal government.”
Developing: Pentagon mulls military “reaction force” for civil unrest. A “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” of 600 National Guard troops—split between military bases in Alabama and Arizona—would be kept ready to deploy in as little as one hour to American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to documents reviewed by the Post’s Matt Viser, Emily Davies and Perry Stein. The documents say the cost could reach “hundreds of millions of dollars” if military aircraft and aircrews are used instead of cheaper charter aircraft.
The proposal “represents another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil. It relies on a section of U.S. Code that allows the commander in chief to circumvent limitations on the military’s use within the United States,” the Post reports. More, here.
Russian troops charge ahead
“The advance is one of the most dramatic in the last year,” Reuters reports. “Ukrainian troops must pass through a narrow 10-mile corridor to enter [Pokrovsk], leaving them vulnerable to drone attacks,” the New York Timesreports.
How it happened: “the Russians found a gap in Ukrainian lines this week after weeks of probing attacks, an
d then used their vast reserves of manpower to break through the lines,” a Ukrainian officer told the Wall Street Journal. Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War noted parallels to previous recent gains for Moscow: “Russian forces used a similar tactical penetration in mid-April 2024 to facilitate the seizure of operationally significant territory northwest of Avdiivka,” ISW wrote Monday.
Trump intimated Russians were having difficulties with manpower having lost so many soldiers.
New: Officials in Ukraine have successfully tested a new direct-to-cell satellite technology from Elon Musk’s Starlink, Reuters reported Tuesday. The new gear “aims to provide reliable connectivity when terrestrial networks are unavailable, a critical asset for war-torn Ukraine where Russian attacks on infrastructure regularly disrupt communications,” the wire service explains. “Space X-owned Starlink has signed deals with telcos in 10 countries for a direct-to-cell service, with Kyivstar set to become the first operator in Europe to roll it out.” Read more, here.
Developing: Russia’s Geran drones are allegedly laying anti-tank mines along “an unspecified logistics route in Ukraine,” ISW warned in its Monday assessment. The War Zone has more on the video purporting to show the drones at work, here.
China
China is about to merge two state-run shipbuilders to create the world’s largest, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The new entity is the result of combining China State Shipbuilding with another entity called China Shipbuilding Industry. The two companies totaled about 17% of the world market for shipbuilding, with an annual revenue of around $18 billion.
“CSSC’s main business is commercial, but it is also an important contractor for the Chinese navy,” the Journal notes. “The company it is absorbing designed and built China’s first homegrown aircraft carrier, the Shandong.”
Around the Defense Department
Coast Guard commissions first new icebreaker since the 1990s, USNI News reports. The medium icebreaker USCGC Storis (WAGB-21) was commissioned Saturday in a ceremony in Juneau, Alaska, joining the only two other U.S. icebreakers: Healy (WAGB-20) and Polar Star (WAGB-10).
The Coast Guard needs about nine to do the job properly, officials have testified. Get up to speed with the Congressional Research Service’s January report.
Tesla Cybertrucks
Lastly today: The Air Force wants to buy two Tesla Cybertrucks for target practice. “Testing needs to mirror real world situations,” said one document cited by Fortune. “The intent of the training is to prep the units for operations by simulating scenarios as closely as possible to the real world situations.”
Yah, because so many people have Tesla Cybertrucks? Check the price of those ugly things. In the US and Canada. This sounds like graft for the usual Pentagon contractors