Braxton Taylor
Judge orders DOD, other agencies to rehire fired probationary workers. Roughly 24,000 employees are to be given their jobs back, according to figures compiled by Government Executive, under the Thursday injunction by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for Northern California.
Alsup concluded that the Trump administration had performed mass layoffs while pretending to fire people for cause, which is against the law. “It’s a sad, sad day when our government would fire a good employee and say it’s based on performance when they know good and well that is based on a lie,” he said. GovExec’s Eric Katz has more, here.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt: “The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order,” she said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Alsup’s order pertains to DOD, Veterans Affairs, and four other agencies; in a separate ruling on Thursday, a Baltimore judge reached a similar decision covering other departments.
Background: DOD officials, who announced plans last month to fire about 5,400 of the department’s 55,000 probationary employees, had begun to terminate some and place others on administrative leave. More about that effort, here.
Office of Net Assessment, deleted. “The office costs about $10 million to $20 million a year—a fraction of the Pentagon’s $850 billion annual budget—but its work and staff of about a dozen civilians and military officers has often had an outsize impact on how the Pentagon prepares for possible conflicts,” the New York Times reported after DOD announced the shuttering of the storied, half-century-old net assessment office.
DOD spokesman Sean Parnell said in a Thursday press release that ONA would be “disestablished” so officials could “rebuild it in alignment with the Department’s strategic priorities.”
The office was a longtime target of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who questioned its value and pointed to a 2022 inspector general report that criticized its contracting methods.
CNAS, in 2022: “A half-century after its founding, the ONA has its admirers and its detractors, but few would dispute the value of creating space within government for long-term, strategic analysis.”
Cutting NIST would leave the US vulnerable to Chinese cyber attacks, experts say. Firings by and proposed cuts to the National Institutes for Standards and Technology, or NIST, “have not received as much attention as cuts to other agencies,” reports Defense One’s Patrick Tucker. “But cybersecurity experts and officials are worried about what a weakened NIST could mean in the future. The organization sends scientists and researchers around the world to advocate for strong cybersecurity standards for electronics and digital devices, work that would be directly affected by a travel or funding freeze.” Read on, here.
Related reading:
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1995, Norman Thagard became the first U.S. astronaut to fly up to space on board a Russian launch vehicle (Soyuz TM-21).
Trump 2.0
President Trump again leaned into his threat to take land from an ally, telling reporters at the White House Thursday, “We really need Greenland for national security, it’s very important.”
The president was seated beside NATO chief Mark Rutte when he doubled down on his recent threat to annex the Danish island, extending an odd, imperialist fixation completely absent from his campaign in the run up to last year’s election—and deploying logic that, if applied to U.S. actions, would render many U.S. territorial claims (throughout the Pacific, e.g.) null and void.
Trump: “Denmark is very far away, and really has nothing to do. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it, I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it is, actually.”
After he was asked what his “vision for potential annexation of Greenland” looks like, Trump interrupted the reporter to say, “Well, I think it’ll happen. And I’m just thinking I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man who could be very instrumental,” he said.
“You know, Mark, we need that for international security,” Trump said. “We have a lot of our favorite players cruising around the coast. And we’ll be talking to you,” he said.
Rutte interrupted to distance himself from the annexation talk, but to share his likemindedness with Trump’s attitude about naval access around Greenland. “The issue of up north, the arctic, what you did when it comes to Greenland—yes or not joining the U.S.—I will leave that outside for me [and] this discussion; I don’t want to bring NATO in that,” said Rutte.
“But when it comes to high north and the arctic, you are totally right,” he added. “The Chinese are now using these routes. We know that the Russians already are. We know we have a lack of icebreakers. So that fact that the seven—outside Russia—the seven arctic countries are working together on this, on the U.S. leadership, is very important to make sure that that region, that part of the world stays safe. And we know things are changing there, and we have to be there,” Rutte said.
Trump was undeterred by Rutte threading the needle, and insisted U.S. national-security needs would be served by annexing Greenland. “I think that’s why NATO might be—have to get involved in a way because uh, we really need, uh, Greenland for national security. It’s very important,” Trump said.
“You know we have a couple of bases on Greenland already. And we have quite a few soldiers,” said Trump, in what began to sound like the formulation of a threat. “Maybe you’ll see more soldiers go there. I don’t know. What do you think about that, [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth]?”
The Pentagon chief then murmured briefly in agreement. “Don’t answer that, Pete,” Trump then said, and laughed. See video of the full exchange in the Oval Office, via C-Span, here.
Related: Trump is also still thinking about annexing Canada, telling reporters Thursday, “This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it…To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. We don’t need anything they have. As a state it would be one of the great states.”
By the way: Canada’s outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is one of many Canadians deeply disturbed by Trump’s threats to annex Ottawa and its territories. Last week, he said publicly, “What [Trump] wants to see is a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us.” But he added, “That is never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.”
Related reading: “Challenged by Trump, Trudeau Rallies Canada as His Final Act,” via the New York Times reporting Friday from Ottawa.
Trump officials have reportedly asked the Pentagon to “draw up options to increase the American troop presence in Panama” to reclaim the canal for the U.S., NBC News reported Thursday, citing two U.S. officials.
Involved: “U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops’ seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said.” SOUTHCOM commander Adm. Alvin Holsey, “presented draft strategies to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week,” NBC reports, and adds, “Hegseth is expected to visit Panama next month.”
Key considerations:
- On the one hand, “Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the U.S.”
- But on the other, “The officials cautioned that a U.S. invasion of Panama is unlikely and would only come under serious consideration if a larger American military presence in Panama does not achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of reclaiming the waterway, the officials said.”
The view from London: “Let’s be clear: no real difference to Russian behaviour, here,” said Shashank Joshi of The Economist. If the story is true, then what the Trump administration is doing, said Joshi, is issuing a “Threat to invade & occupy land to secure coercive policy alignment by a democratic state.”
For what it’s worth: A majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s foreign policy so far, with 53% feeling that way and 42% approving, according to a new poll out this week from Quinnipiac. (He faces nearly identical numbers on the economy, which almost always polls as voters’ most important issue.)
Developing: Trump is reportedly considering invoking an 18th-century wartime authority to boost his mass deportations. “The little-known 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, gives the president tremendous authority to target and remove undocumented immigrants,” CNN reported Thursday.
One possible speedbump: “Legal experts say it would be difficult for Trump to use the act when the US isn’t being attacked by a foreign government, even if the administration does cite threats from gangs or cartels.” Indeed, “There will be immediate legal challenges,” predicted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. “The law is clear that may only be used during wartime, and certainly cannot ever be used to substitute for normal immigration enforcement,” he said.
Worth noting: The law has been invoked just three times before—during World Wars I and II, according to “The Alien Enemies Act, Explained,” via the Brennan Center for Justice.
Trump’s anti-NATO turn could sink F-35 sales, experts tell Defense One’s Audrey Decker. First, there’s Trump’s threats to Denmark and Canada: “If the current efforts to challenge the territorial integrity of those nations continue, it is very hard to see how they remain with the program,” one former defense official said. And second, nations wonder whether they can trust the United States to keep parts and vital software upgrades coming. More, here.
Update: Portugal says it won’t buy the F-35. The Aviationist has more.
Related reading:
- Commentary: Trump’s coercive approach risks driving Latin America into China’s arms, argue Defense Priorities’ Daniel DePetris and Jennifer Kavanagh;
- “Power, Money, Territory: How Trump Shook the World in 50 Days,” analysis by the NYT’s veteran natsec reporter David Sanger;
- “In Trump’s new world order, strongmen dominate and might makes right,” writes the Washington Post’s similarly venerable David Ignatius.
- “Elon Musk paid a visit to NSA, Cyber Command amid DOGE-led overhauls,” reports NextGov;
- “Arlington Cemetery website drops links for Black, Hispanic, and women veterans,” Task and Purpose reports.
Ukraine developments
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has declined an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, and is dragging out talks with Washington and Kyiv, insisting the Russian invasion “not be paused until a number of crucial conditions were worked out, raising the prospect of longer negotiations,” Reuters reported Friday from Moscow.
According to his spokesman, Putin “said that he supports President Trump’s position in terms of a settlement, but he voiced some questions that need to be answered together,” Dmetry Peskov told reporters Friday.
Putin’s questions for Trump likely hinge on his previous, maximalist demands of Kyiv, which Reuters writes include his insistence that Ukraine “drop its ambitions to join NATO,” that Russia “control the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions it has claimed as its own,” and that the size of Ukraine’s army should be limited so as to not threaten Russia. Putin “has also made clear he wants Western sanctions eased and a presidential election to be held in Ukraine, which Kyiv says is premature while martial law remains in force” due to the war, Reuters reports.
The view from Kyiv: “We are not setting conditions that complicate the process—Russia is,” President Volodymir Zelenskyy said in a message recorded Thursday afternoon. “As we have always said, the only one stalling, the only one being unconstructive, is Russia. They need this war. Putin has stolen years of peace and continues this war day after day,” said Zelenskyy.
“Now is the time to increase pressure” on Putin,” he said. “Sanctions must be applied—ones that will work. We will continue working with our American and European partners and with everyone in the world who wants peace—to force Russia to end this war.”
By the way: 55% of Americans disagree with Trump when it comes to the Ukraine war, and 62% say that supporting Ukraine is in the national interest, according to Quinnipiac’s polling data.
Related reading: “Americans worry Trump too closely aligned with Russia, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds,” via the wire service reporting Thursday.
Read the full article here