The SecDef will tell allies in Brussels next week they must take a hard line on Turkey as the body count in Syria continues to rise. The question is, does this emperil Turkey’s NATO membership?

More collective defense cooperation will be on display at the massive AUSA 2019 conference, attended by 92 different nations, including the chief generals of 13 armies.

Norway suspended new applications for military export licenses to Turkey today. Norway is also reviewing all current licenses for Turkey for military and multi-use military export licenses.

The one thing Boris Johnson and his DUDE — Deliver, Unite, Defeat, Energize — partisans have in common with their opponents is that they all want to see a quick end to a process that has paralyzed the debate about Europe’s future and created a climate of instability which only NATO’s foes can find suitable.

Israeli sources said the Saudis had no clue something might happen. “It seems that the Americans were also in the dark, which is very worrying. A greater cause for worry, is if Washington knew and did not share the data in time with the Saudis” one source said.

The Pentagon and State Department spent much of Monday scrambling to respond to the White House’s Sunday night announcement. Three days earlier Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters he and the Turkish Defense Minister had reached an agreement on joint US/Turkish patrols in northern Syria.

The sale to Montenegro might be small, but the US push into the Balkans will not make Moscow happy.

TEL AVIV: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, still trying to form a new government, said Israel must increase its defense spending by “many billions immediately and then many billions every year” as the threat from Iran “has intensified in recent weeks. Israel, he said yesterday, faces a significantly growing threat from Iran. The Israeli military recently attacked… Keep reading →

General Counsel Paul Nay directed DoD officials to “preserve all documents, records, and writings, and any associated attachments, in any format,” that relate to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

“New START matters to our security, to the security of the alliance, to the cohesion of the (NATO) alliance,” said Tom Countryman, former assistant secretary of State for international security and nonproliferation,