Situation Report: “Iraq first” replaced by momentum in Syria; Washington, CEOs brace for Chinese visit; Russian soldiers blab on social media; and lots more

By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Same war, new focus. For now. The “Iraq first” model of fighting the Islamic State appears, for the moment, to be a thing of the past. With Russia shipping dozens of fighter planes, helicopters, drones, and tanks to Syria, and a serious rethinking of the U.S.-led train and equip program for Syrian rebels being hashed out at the White House and in the Pentagon, the fight there has taken hold of the headlines.

Building on the original scoop by FP’s Dan De Luce earlier this month that Washington is weighing embedding U.S.-trained Syrian rebels with larger local forces, the Washington Post’s Missy Ryan and Greg Jaffe reported Monday that White House officials are working on a plan to provide weapons “to a wider array of rebel groups in Syria and relaxing vetting standards, effectively deepening America’s involvement in the ongoing civil war.”

American military planners have recently seen Kurdish and Syrian rebels make unexpected gains against the Islamic State in northern Syria, and are rushing to capitalize on that momentum by pressing down on Raqqa, the Islamic State’s seat of power. The Pentagon announced Monday that a new group of 70 U.S.-trained rebels completed their training in Turkey, and have made it back to Syria.

Tale of two departments. U.S. and Russian officials have called for meetings to deconflict military activities in Syria, but it remains unclear what steps — if any — have yet been taken. State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday that the Russian build-up in Syria “continues to give us concern, and that’s why we’re in favor of some level of military-to-military communication for the purpose of de-confliction.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said over the weekend that the Pentagon would take the lead in any such discussions, and “we need to get to the negotiation. That is what we’re looking for and we hope Russia and Iran, and any other countries with influence, will help.”

Kerry has spoken with his diplomatic counterpart in Moscow several times over the past week, while the Pentagon issued a short statement on Friday announcing Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke with Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoygu for the first time in seven months. In fact, Carter has yet to make a public statement about Russian activities in Syria, but on Monday hosted a private “Lean In” event at the Pentagon with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, meant to encourage women in the military to form small support groups.

The business of Beijing is business. And security. President Xi Jinping of China arrives in the United States on Tuesday on a trip packed with implications for the security of both countries. But Washington better keep it straight. While Defense Secretary Ash Carter has made reaching out to Silicon Valley and courting the defense industry a cornerstone of his tenure, Beijing can play that game, too.

Xi is being met at the Seattle airport on Tuesday by a group including the CEOs of Microsoft and Starbucks, and will speak at a private event on Wednesday with execs from Apple, Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, IBM, DuPont, GM and others.

Cyber rules. While Xi might be breaking bread with tech execs in Seattle, in Washington the talk will be about cyber security and China’s island building in the South China Sea. The New York Times reported on Saturday that the two sides are negotiating an arms control agreement for cyberspace that would bar either country from waging a hacking campaign against the other nation’s critical infrastructure.

But security and economic security issues are intimately related. “The problem is that the Chinese define ‘national security’ to include ‘economic security,’ which includes state-owned industries,” Patrick Cronin, the senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, told FP’s Elias Groll. “For the United States, there is a gap on that issue. We don’t think that the government should be involved in making companies rich.”

In a sharply-worded speech in Washington on Monday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice delivered a blunt assessment of China’s cyber activities. “This isn’t a mild irritation. It is an economic and national security concern to the United States,” she said. “Cyber-enabled espionage that targets personal and corporate information for the economic gain of businesses undermines our long-term economic cooperation, and it needs to stop.” FP’s John Hudson has more.

If it’s a Tuesday morning, it must be SitRep in your inbox. Thanks so much for clicking through yet again. As always, please pass along any tips, notes, or otherwise interesting bits of information that you may have at your disposal. Best way is to send them to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

In this week’s The E.R. podcast, just posted today, FP’s CEO and editor David Rothkopf sits down with the usual panel Rosa Brooks, Kori Schake and Robert Kagan to discuss the America’s presidential candidates and how they compare on foreign policy.  Listen and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher: http://atfp.co/1K7nhrI

Nyet!

The first rule of Syria Fight Club is “do not talk about Syria Fight Club.” Russian contract soldiers are now in hot water for breaking that rule and going public with their refusals to ship out to Latakia, Syria as part of Russia’s efforts to buttress the Assad regime. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and military are none too pleased that the troops publicly confirmed their deployment orders in an interview with a Russian newspaper and are now threatening the  soldiers with criminal charges.

China

Chinese President Xi announced cuts to the size of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by around 300,000 less troops this summer as part of a move to cut personnel costs for a leaner and more modern military. But not everyone is ok with the cuts, least of all the PLA troops who might soon be out of a job. One Chinese government official tells Reuters that the cuts are not going down well with the PLA’s officer class, which is a little worried about the job losses and feels the cuts were sprung on them without consultation.

India

India is looking to Israel to help it get armed drones, Reuters reports. The Indian military is looking to hurry up and join the growing club of countries with armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and it wants Israeli Heron drones to help it accomplish the task. The news that Pakistan recently carried out it’s first armed drone strike against Islamist militants in the country may have something to do with the push. India wants to buy 10 Herons from Israeli Aircraft Industries and is hoping to build them locally.

Israel

One of the arguments that pops up in the wake of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal is that the U.S. should transfer bunker busting ordnance like the massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) to Israel. When talking to Israeli military officers, though, Al-Monitor found at least some ambivalence over the idea. While some Israeli military officers said they’d welcome the transfer of MOPs, at least one officer told the outlet that the bomb would require expensive and resource-intensive infrastructure upgrades in order to accommodate a bomber that could carry the bomb — a bomber like the B-52, which Israel would also have to purchase.

Jordan

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Ca.) published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Monday calling on the Obama administration to sell Jordan Predator or Reaper drones, including armed versions, to help it take on the Islamic State. The U.S. recently relaxed the regulations governing the sale of drones to allies but the Obama administration still refuses to sell Predators or Reapers to the Jordanians. Rep. Hunter argues that the U.S. refusal to sell drones to Jordan and other countries in the Middle East simply creates a market for drones made by China, which has been only too happy to serve the market in the absence of the United States.

The Islamic State

The International Center for the Study for Radicalization at King’s College London has put together a new study of 58 western defectors from the Islamic State exploring the causes behind disillusionment with the self-styled caliphate. The reasons for disappointment with the group are varied, including disgust at its violent savagery, excessive factionalism with other jihadist groups and a lifestyle that offered less excitement and more austere living standards than expected. The report argues that governments should do more to leverage this disillusionment and help publicize accounts of defectors.

Iran

It’s Sacred Defense week in Iran, the commemoration of the country’s long and bloody war against the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and today the country is throwing its annual military parade. It’s traditionally a time for the Iranian armed forces to puff out their chests and show off the latest weaponry so stay tuned to the parade floats cruising down the streets of Tehran for any signs of new kit.

DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hard at work on a project to make an “unhackable” drone through its High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems project, according to New Scientist. Over the summer, DARPA tested a more secure operating system aboard a robotic Little Bird helicopter, giving hackers access the chopper’s operating system to see if they could take control of it. The secure operating system managed to keep the hackers from taking over, and scientists are hoping that this project and ones like it could lead the way to greater security for operating systems that run critical systems.

Who’s where when

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work is in Groton, Ct., on Tuesday to talk submarines at the Joint Undersea Warfare Technology Fall Conference at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base there. It’s a classified session, so unless you know, you don’t know.

The three-day Modern Day Marine trade show kicks off in Quantico, Va. on Tuesday. If you haven’t been, the event is a three day walk through the latest in Marine-centric arms, ammo, and armored vehicles, all jammed into a few large tents in a field in Quantico. While the event has traditionally been light on panel sessions, this year features several where Marine program managers and acquisition officers will lay out their wish lists for the coming years.

Think tanked

The Institute for the Study of War drops a new report about the Russian information war in Ukraine, but while Moscow “has sowed discord within the NATO alliance and created tensions between potential adversaries about how to respond,” it has not been able to “translate the strategic and grand strategic advantages of its hybrid warfare strategy into major and sustainable successes on the ground in Ukraine.”

Should the Department of Defense consider ditching its 11 aircraft carriers and instead invest more heavily in submarines and space capabilities? That’s what a recent report by the Rand Corporation suggests. Over the past two decades, China has built long-range radars to detect surface ships at long ranges, developed a new generation of anti-ship cruise missiles and large, quiet submarines armed with cruise missiles, all of which threaten the health and well-being of American surface ships.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in town for another visit to the United States this fall. The American Enterprise Institute announced on Monday that Netanyahu will be its recipient of the annual Irving Kristol Award and will speak at a ceremony in at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 9.