Situation Report: Bergdahl wants a change; robots take home millions in prize money; Putin funding political opposition; and new tanks heading to Iraq

By Paul McLeary with Ariel Robinson

Judge not… The nominee to be the next chief of staff of the U.S. Army might have a Bergdahl problem.

The lawyers for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier charged with desertion after walking off his post in eastern Afghanistan in 2009 and then spending five years in Taliban captivity, wants Army Gen. Mark Milley removed from overseeing the case. Bergdahl’s attorneys argue that Milley’s recent nomination to run the Army clouds his objectivity, new court documents show. They filed a motion on June 5 to have Milley removed, since he has an “interest in a smooth confirmation hearing and an easy path to confirmation.”

The appeal was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington. Milley – who is currently head of the Army’s Forces Command – ruled in March that Bergdahl would be charged with desertion as a result of walking off his post in Paktika province on June 30, 2009. The Obama administration swapped five Taliban leaders held by the U.S. to get Bergdahl back in May 2014. If convicted, Bergdahl faces life in prison.

Bergdahl’s lawyers say that just days after Milley was nominated on March 13 as the next Army chief, they requested that he be removed from the case. But the general refused, and the Army would not listen to a subsequent appeal on the issue.

At least they try. In another typical episode for Washington’s ongoing “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific region, we note that it wasn’t until a two-day wrap-up in Germany that Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s weeklong swing through Singapore, India, and Vietnam really made some news.

And it was about Russia.

On his way home, Carter stopped in Germany where he called a meeting with top U.S. military and diplomatic leaders in Europe. On the flight back to Washington, Carter told reporters that Russia’s war in Ukraine has been “a mixture of subversion and sophisticated threat making, manipulation of information, the big lie—all this cocktail that we saw in Ukraine.”

He claimed that while economic sanctions against Moscow are working, he’s worried that they’re not having any real effect on the decision-making of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces appear to be gearing up for a new offensive in Ukraine.

Carter’s message looks to be part of a larger campaign by U.S. officials to expand the threat picture presented by Moscow beyond armored forces arrayed on the Ukrainian border. Vice President Joe Biden recently talked up the funding that Moscow has been providing to opposition parties in western Europe, and Pentagon staffers helpfully forwarded an email from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey’s to the New York Times on Sunday, in which he claims that in this war of political influence, “Putin’s ultimate objective is to fracture NATO.”

Let’s not fracture! Let us know what’s on your mind. Pass along any tips, recommendations, high-level job changes, or anything else national security related. You know we’re always interested. As ever, best way to reach out is: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com and on Twitter: @paulmcleary

Open for business

We’re creeping closer to finding out who is going to win the $50 to $80 billion competition to build the U.S. Air Force’s next generation long range bomber. Reuters’s Andrea Shalal reports that the service is expected to announce in August whether Northrop Grumman or a Boeing/Lockheed Martin team will end up building the 80 to 100 new bombers, at a cost of about $550 million per aircraft.

The State Department has agreed to the sale of 1,000 Lockheed Martin-made Hellfire II air-to-surface missiles to Lebanon for about $146 million, allowing the country to replenish its existing stocks of the laser-guided missile. The Lebanese Air Force is modest, but has three Cessna C208B Grand Caravans standing by that have been modified to carry the Hellfire.

State also signed off on selling Egypt a “mobile surveillance sensor security system” with associated towers and command and control equipment for $100 million to help Cario watch the border with Libya, where an ongoing civil war has recently been complicated by the arrival of Islamic State fighters who are starting to capture small amounts of territory. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will get the work.

Talking Heads

The former commander of the war in Afghanistan and JSOC boss, retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, told ABC News on Sunday that despite recent comments from U.S. generals and diplomats boasting of the losses that the Islamic State is suffering at the hands of U.S. air power, “you can’t a play a numbers game in this kind of effort, you can’t count how many people you’ve killed, particularly how many leaders, because they’re replaceable.”

Robot news

In some of the coolest video footage of a government-sponsored competition released to date, over the weekend a South Korean team walked away with $2 million in prize money for taking first place in the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency’s (DARPA) “Robotics Challenge” in Pomona, Calif.

The competition featured robots from a dozen U.S. teams and 11 others from around the globe competing in a variety of disaster relief operations, mimicking the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. DARPA planners had the robots do things like drive a truck, open doors, shut off valves, climb stairs and operate power tools, all in an environment where their ability to communicate with their operators was severely constricted.

You have to watch the videos. If you don’t think people are comfortable with robots performing human tasks, note how the crowd of thousands groans when one of the ‘bots fails, and goes nuts when the winner walks up to the podium.

While Team Kaist won the competition, Team IHMC Robotics of Pensacola, Fla., came in second place and banked $1 million, while Tartan Rescue of Pittsburgh, Pa., brought home $500,000 for its third place finish.

What you find on the Internet

Several Iraq-focused Twitter feeds lit up over the past several days with pictures of old Russian T-72 tanks being shipped to Iraq from Czech company Excalibur Army Ltd.

There’s also a tweeted picture of Iraqi soldiers being trained up on the first batch of 2,000 U.S.-supplied AT-4 anti-tank weapons, which Washington shipped quickly in an attempt to give Baghdad a weapon to combat the Islamic State’s use of American-made armored vehicles as suicide weapons.

Yemen

In a worrying escalation in the sophistication of violence that Yemen-based Houthi rebels are capable of, Saudi Arabia said over the weekend that it intercepted a Scud missile fired by the rebels using a Patriot missile, an engagement that came just a day after the Houthis killed four Saudi troops in cross-border attacks. The fighting doesn’t bode well for the start of U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva on June 14.

After the Scud launch, Saudi Arabia pounded the Houthi stronghold in Sanaa on Sunday with airstrikes that killed 44 and wounded over 100 others.

Islamic State

Australian officials are claiming that the Islamic State’s pursuit of chemical weapons has moved beyond “aspirational” in recent months. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned that “the use of chlorine by Daesh, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development.”

Israel

A group called “Supporters of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Jerusalem” has been carrying out attacks on both Israel and Hamas, the Jerusalem Post reports. Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Martin Dempsey will be heading to Israel next week to meet with defense and military leaders.

And finally….
Over the weekend, FP’s own Sean Naylor was part of a reporting team put together by the New York Times to unleash a sprawling, deeply reported story on the history of SEAL Team 6, the legendary special ops unit that has gone from being the vanguard of the nation’s “quiet professionals” to writing books, appearing on television specials, and, of course, killing lots of bad dudes. It’s really a must-read for anyone with even a cursory interest in the shadow war that U.S. forces have engaged in over the past 14 years. Even if you thought you knew, this story shows that you didn’t.