The D Brief: Lessons from Iraq; Trump’s Insurrection Act-threat; DIU seeks swarm controllers; Russia’s Starlink drones; And a bit more.

Trump’s ‘imperialist’ foreign policy: President Trump’s CIA director visited the Venezuelan capital for meetings with regime officials Thursday. The trip to Caracas by director John Ratcliffe was the first by a member of Trump’s cabinet since the U.S. military attacked the city and abducted the country’s leader Nicholas Maduro on Jan. 3, the New York Times reported Thursday.  

Ratcliffe met with Venezuelan oil minister Delcy Rodríguez, who is now the interim president after the CIA told the White House she is their best option to prevent the country from “descending into some chaotic situation,” a U.S. official told the Times. 

By the way: The U.S. military seized its sixth allegedly sanctioned Venezuelan oil tanker on Thursday. “In another pre-dawn action, Marines and Sailors from Joint Task Force Southern Spear, in support of the Department of Homeland Security, launched from USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and apprehended Motor/Tanker Veronica without incident,” officials at the military’s Southern Command announced along with video of the interdiction. “The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” SOUTHCOM declared in a statement. 

Big-picture consideration: “The US wants to remake Venezuela’s oil industry. History stands in the way,” the Associated Press reported Thursday in an historical explainer. But history is not the only obstacle. “Venezuela’s oil is notoriously among the thickest, heaviest and dirtiest in the world. Handling heavy crude requires a lighter diluent—a light hydrocarbon fluid or oil, often naphtha or condensate—which is blended with the heavier crude to enable flow through pipelines.” And: “For American companies, political uncertainty and a history of asset seizures continue to raise concerns about whether contracts would be honored and who would ultimately control the sector,” AP reports.  

Echoes of—and lessons from—Iraq. A former Bush administration official has outlined what she says are five hard-learned lessons from Iraq that can help the Trump administration deliver a better outcome in Venezuela. Writing in Foreign Affairs on Friday, Meghan O’Sullivan, former Deputy National Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, argues there may be more similarities between the two interventions than many realize, and flags at least five dangerous mistakes:

• “First, Washington must not presume that a regime will survive after its top leader is removed; it therefore must have a plan to provide law and order in case they break down.” 
• “Second, it should prepare for the inevitable toxicity of the narrative that the United States is after oil alone and how that narrative can disrupt U.S. aims.”
• “Third, it must appreciate that the promotion of democracy might be needed—not out of a sense of altruism but to deliver stability.”
• “Fourth, it must be prepared to allocate resources to secure a better outcome, even if a country’s resources promise great future wealth.”
• “And finally, the United States cannot assume that its power will ensure positive results without the help and support of regional actors.”

Worth noting (as Lulu Garcia-Navarro flagged on Jan. 7): It is still “far too early to be complacent about the possibility of violence and looting” in Venezuela, O’Sullivan writes. “Venezuela’s institutions have been hollowed out after more than a quarter century of Bolivarian rule. Factor in 20 years of U.S. sanctions, chronic hyperinflation, and an estimated poverty rate of 80 percent, and it’s easy to see how the removal of a leader could stoke unrest.” To this end, “senior Trump officials have already cited the poignant lesson Iraq offers about not dismantling an authoritarian regime’s institutions,” she adds. 

And that’s partly why “Trump Chooses Oil Over Democracy” was a New York Times headline on Friday. “The challenge is not deciding whether to dismantle institutions; it is figuring out how to save the parts of the regime that remain functional and necessary while responding to—and trying to defuse—a fierce drive for retribution,” O’Sullivan writes. 

Advice for the White House: “The Trump administration appears to believe that American power is at an apex. But more than 20 years ago, when the United States was indisputably the world’s only superpower, the Bush administration overestimated its own power and erred badly by neglecting to bring other countries into decisions about Iraq’s fate.” This administration can try to avoid a similar fate. Continue reading at Foreign Affairs, here. 

Big picture: Trump’s foreign policy now appears to be openly “imperialist” and an echo of “19th-century colonial powers,” Reuters reported Thursday. 

After campaigning on an isolationist platform, “In practice, the president’s policies smack of neo-imperialism, not neo-isolationism,” Georgetown professor Charles Kupchan said. With his threats to Denmark and thus NATO, “the U.S. risks assuming the position of a rogue state within the international system,” Marc Weller of the Chatham House said. And Trump’s ambitions for war-torn Gaza look like “imperialism masquerading as a peace process,” United Nations advisor Jeffrey Sachs said. Read more, here. 

New: “The American public does not approve of Trump’s military forays,” according to a new survey from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “Majorities across partisan lines oppose using military force to invade Greenland, overthrow governments in Latin America, occupy Venezuela, gain access to another country’s natural resources, or expand the territory of the United States,” they write in their topline summary. Among their findings: 

• 85% oppose invading Greenland to make it part of the U.S.;
• 80% say it’s not ok to use military force to compel governments to give the U.S. territory;
• 74% oppose using U.S. troops to occupy Venezuela if the new government refuses to cooperate; 
• 70% say it’s not ok to use the military to change the country’s political leadership and install a more pro-U.S. government (Republicans are split 48-48 on the question);
• And 72% say the White House isn’t focused enough on rising inflation.

Read over the survey in full, here. 

Update: European troops arriving in Greenland on Thursday included personnel from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Sweden, according to NBC News. 

A “relative success” offers lessons for dealing with Trump. That’s one European perspective after Wednesday’s meeting between officials from Denmark, Greenland, and the Trump administration. “While the meeting ended in an agreement to disagree and the establishment of a high-level working group to manage the issue, this move was not without risk and could have easily ended badly,” writes Rachel Ellehuus of the London-based Royal United Services Institute. This outcome “was not easily achieved. Behind it lies months of careful, well-orchestrated diplomacy that validates the value of statecraft and offers important lessons on how to deal with the current US administration and its single-minded President.” Read on, here.

Denmark feels betrayed by an America that has forgotten its steadfast sacrifice after 9/11, The Atlantic reports. “Denmark is small, with a population of just 6 million. But it has tried to uphold its end of the bargain. It lost more soldiers per capita than the United States did in Afghanistan. In all, there were 43 deaths, a sacrifice that Danes accepted as the cost of their international obligations. Sophia [Bruun, the gunner on a Piranha combat vehicle] was the first female soldier to fall in combat in Danish history, her death a ripple effect of the September 11 attacks, the first time that NATO’s mutual-defense clause was invoked. Triggering Article 5 obligated U.S. allies to assist, including by sending soldiers like Sophia to fight. This time, if Article 5 is invoked, the United States might be the aggressor.”

Time to start drinking? On Wednesday, Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, “privately told lawmakers the state of the world meant it might be a ‘good moment’ to start drinking,” Politico reports.

For your radar: Ukraine’s future may hinge on upcoming votes in Congress. That’s because U.S. funding will not materialize until lawmakers pass a full-year defense appropriations bill, writes David Bortnick, a former staff member on the House Appropriations Committee and former analyst at the Office of Management and Budget. He’s now vice president of a government affairs firm known as SMI. That’s because even though the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law last month, authorized $400 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, the NDAA is only an authorization bill. 

Current estimates put possible Ukraine funding through USAI between $300 million to $400 million. “Does this funding matter? Yes, both symbolically and substantively,” argues Bortnick, writing Thursday in Defense One. “For Congress, the question is not whether Europe should carry more of the burden,” he says. “The question is whether the United States will provide a modest but reliable amount that keeps Ukraine in the fight, keeps Europe at the table, and keeps the U.S. strategy credible. Without that credibility, Russia has little reason to strike a peace deal.” Continue reading, here. 

Developing: In an apparent new first, Russian troops in Ukraine seem to have hooked one of Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals to a one-way attack drone, according to Ukrainian Serhii Flash, who posted photos of the BM-35 drone on Telegram Thursday after it was shot down by Ukrainian forces. 

Why it matters: “UAVs with this type of control are not susceptible to electronic warfare” and are more likely to strike their intended target, Flash warned in his post. He speculated that it’s only a matter of time before Russia uses similar methods on their Iranian-designed Shahed drones. 

Previously, Russia was only believed to have attached Starlink terminals to their Molniya-2 fixed-wing first-person UAVs, which greatly expands their attack range—around 230 kilometers compared to 50 kilometers—and targeting efficiency, as analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War noted Tuesday. 

Also: Catch a glimpse of “The Ukrainian war cemetery that can’t stop growing,” via photography this week from the Kyiv Independent, reporting Thursday on location. 

Additional reading: 

Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1979, the U.S.-installed Shah of Iran fled amid mutiny and violent demonstrations that enabled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to take control of the country.

Deportation nation

After threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act on Thursday, Trump’s “threat stands out against the law’s long history,” the AP reported in another historical explainer this week. Trump issued the threat in response to protests against increasingly aggressive immigration raids by ICE agents around Minneapolis. 

If he follows through, “he’d be the only commander in chief to use the 19th-century law to send troops to quell protests that started because of federal officers the president already has sent to the area—one of whom shot and killed a U.S. citizen,” AP’s Bill Barrow writes. 

Expert reax: Should he follow through, it “would be a flagrant and particularly dangerous abuse of the Act—one that would threaten the rule of law and public safety alike,” writes Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice. “Presidents have thus used the law sparingly, only 30 times in US history. In virtually every case, either the governor requested assistance because local law enforcement was overwhelmed or the state was actively obstructing federal civil rights laws,” she explained in a social media thread. 

One notable difference this time: “The chaos in Minneapolis is of the federal government’s own making,” Goitein says. “The violence and lawlessness is overwhelmingly coming from ICE. Agents have been filmed smashing windows, ramming vehicles, and forcibly entering homes without warrants.” She continues, “Minneapolis is not L.A. in 1992, where riots killed 63 people and caused $1 billion in damage. Nor is it Detroit in 1967, where the death toll was 43 and 400 buildings were destroyed. The unrest in Minneapolis could easily be handled by police under normal circumstances. Instead, it’s being handled—violently—by ICE.” 

“The administration seems intent on escalation rather than deescalation, ‘reminding’ ICE agents (falsely) that they have absolute immunity for the actions they take against Minnesotans who get in their way,” Goitein writes. “Sending troops to Minneapolis under current circumstances would, of course, inflame tensions and lead to more protests, which would presumably trigger further ICE aggression,” she worries. 

“The military should never be used to enable violence and lawlessness by the federal government. That would be an abuse of the Insurrection Act, a threat to public safety, and an incredibly dangerous precedent.” She ends by asking rhetorically, “Congress… where are you???”

Second opinion: “It’s hard to think of another instance in which a president would deploy troops to enable further federal deprivation of people’s rights,” Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said in a statement Thursday. “The real risk to people’s safety comes from ICE and other federal agents’ violence against our communities, and the killing of Renee Good starkly shows what happens when ICE operates without accountability.” 

Reporting update on the killing of Renee Good: According to video evidence available so far, there is “no indication that the [ICE] agent who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, had been run over,” the New York Times visual forensics team reported in a detailed, seven-minute video analysis Thursday (gift link). Their reporting “also establishes—millisecond by millisecond—how Mr. Ross put himself in a dangerous position near her vehicle in the first place.” 

And according to the Minneapolis Fire Department’s incident report on the day of the shooting, “Good was found with gunshot wounds to the chest, arm and head after a federal immigration officer shot her,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported Friday. 

Developing: U.S. guards may have choked a man to death inside an ICE tent encampment near the Mexican border on Jan. 3, the Washington Post reported Thursday, citing a phone call from the medical examiner’s office. The man had three children and had been in the U.S. for 30 years. 

Surveillance-focused defense contractor joins ICE ops: “Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a ‘confidence score’ on the person’s current address,” 404 Media reported Thursday. 

It’s called “ELITE,” or Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement. And agents can use the app “in bulk, selecting up to 50 people at once.” 

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon: The app “makes a mockery of the idea that ICE is trying to make our country safer. Rather, agents are reportedly picking people to deport from our country the same way you’d choose a nearby coffee shop.”

FWIW: “Neither Palantir nor DHS responded to multiple requests for comment,” 404 reports. More, here. 

Additional reading: 

Around the Defense Department

The Pentagon leans into drone swarms with a $100M challenge. On Tuesday, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit announced the Orchestrator Prize Challenge, seeking “technologies that allow humans to work the way they already command–through plain language that expresses desired effects, constraints, timing, and priorities—not by clicking through menus or programming behaviors,” said Lt. Gen. Frank Donovan, who leads the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker has more, here.

Reminder: One of the president’s sons is now a defense contractor with a focus on drones, thanks to a Florida-based venture called Unusual Machines that has a $620 million deal with the Pentagon, as the Financial Times reported in late October. 

The Pentagon has approved all but 23 of the 2,463 companies and schools that have asked to bid on up to $151 billion worth of work on the Golden Dome missile-defense program, Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reports.

Additional reading: “There’s a Lootbox With Rare Pokémon Cards Sitting in the Pentagon Food Court,” 404 Media reported Thursday after a photo of the device was posted to Reddit.

Finally: Pentagon Press Association files brief in lawsuit against the Defense Department. The PPA represents journalists who work at the Pentagon—or rather, worked there until October, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth instituted new rules that he falsely claimed stemmed from professional misconduct. On Thursday, the PPA filed an amicus brief to the New York Times’ lawsuit over the matter “to assist the Court in understanding the long history of reporters working at the Pentagon, the significant value this access has provided to both the public and the Department, and the fundamental threat to press freedom posed by the Department’s attempt to change how reporters have worked at the Pentagon for over 80 years.” Read that, here.

Note: We’ll be away on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Enjoy the time away, and we’ll see you again on Tuesday!