Overnight Defense: Two Texas military bases chosen to house immigrants | Reports claim Mattis shut out of key decisions | Growing fears of Chinese espionage

Happy Monday and welcome to Overnight Defense. I’m Rebecca Kheel, and here’s your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.

 

THE TOPLINE: In another instance of the military getting enmeshed with President Trump’s immigration policies, officials have named two military bases that will house immigrants.

On Monday, Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base — both in Texas — will be used for temporary shelter for undocumented immigrants amid the Trump administration’s crackdown.

“We’ll provide whatever support the Department of Homeland Security needs in order to house the people that they have under their custody,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him in Alaska.

Mattis said he could not confirm any specifics on how the bases will be used.

“Week by week, the numbers are obviously dynamic, so we’ll have to stay flexible in our logistics support for Department of Homeland Security,” he added.

Reports citing unnamed defense officials said one base would house migrant children, while the other would house migrant families.

But Mattis seeks distance: Even as Mattis announced which bases are going to be used, he sought to distance the military from the controversy over Trump’s immigration policies. He reiterated that the military has a history of housing those in need, such as Vietnam War refugees.

“We’re not going to get into the political aspect,” Mattis said. “Providing housing, shelter for those who need it is a legitimate governmental function. This one I recognize the political aspects of it, but for us, it’s a logistics support effort.”

The controversy: The decision to house immigrants on military bases comes as the Trump administration has been engulfed in controversy over its “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.

The policy, announced in April, refers all illegal border crossers for criminal prosecution and has resulted in more than 2,000 children being separated from their parents.

Seeking to stem the controversy, President Trump last week signed an executive order intended to end family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border. The order in part asked the Pentagon to provide facilities to house immigrants.

Following the executive order, the Pentagon sent a memo to Congress saying it had been asked to prepare for up to 20,000 temporary beds.

 

IS MATTIS ON THE OUTS?: An NBC News report Monday said Mattis is being left out of key administration decisions, such as negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program.

From the report:

Mattis learned in May from a colleague that President Donald Trump had made the decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, and scrambled to get his boss on the phone before a formal announcement was made. It wouldn’t be the last time he was caught off guard by a presidential announcement.

A month later, Mattis was informed that Trump had ordered a pause in U.S. military exercises with South Korea only after the president had already promised the concession to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Last week, Trump again blindsided and overruled his defense secretary by publicly directing the Pentagon to create a sixth military branch overseeing operations in space.

The way these recent presidential decisions on major national security issues have played out, as detailed by current and former White House and defense officials, underscores a significant change in Mattis’s role in recent months. The president is relying less and less on the advice of one of the longest-serving members of his cabinet, the officials said.

What’s changed: One thing is that Mattis has lost two of his allies in the administration: former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former national security advisor H.R. McMaster.

The Hill reported when John Bolton came on as national security advisor that the Pentagon was bracing for more friction between Mattis and the White House.

NBC News cited unnamed officials as saying Mattis benefited from serving with Tillerson and McMaster, because Trump didn’t like either of them. As such, according to the report, when they opposed one of Trump’s ideas, the president would focus his anger on Tillerson and McMaster, not Mattis.

Similar report: The NBC News’ report follows a Wall Street Journal report from late last week that said Trump issued his Space Force directive after Mattis didn’t move on his suggestion.

The Journal quoted a former high-level industry and government official as saying Trump “doesn’t forget, and ultimately erupts when he feels slighted.”

 

PLANNING FOR PUTIN: Bolton is traveling to Moscow this week to discuss a potential summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, so we took a look at what such a summit might accomplish:

Fresh off a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that saw history-making images plastered on screens around the globe, President Trump is zeroing in on another headline-making summit — one with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A summit could provide the opportunity to push Putin on his misdeeds: the invasion of Ukraine, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, the poisoning of an ex-spy in England and interference in U.S. and other Western elections.

“There’s no point in having a summit unless you’re going to stand up to Putin,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

But it’s not clear Trump is looking for a confrontational summit with the Russian leader.

Trump has frequently talked of how it would be a good thing if he could improve relations with Russia, despite all the difficulties Moscow has caused previous administrations.

Flashback: Trump first floated the idea for a summit with Putin during a March phone call, and also suggested the former KGB spy visit the White House.

It was the same call in which Trump took heat for congratulating Putin on his re-election.

In defending the call, Trump said he and Putin would meet to discuss the “arms race.”

“I suspect that we’ll probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control,” Trump told reporters in March. “But we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have.”

Trump did not elaborate on what he meant by an arms race. But the United States has accused Russia of violating a landmark arms control treaty and of adopting a policy of “escalate to de-escalate” in which Moscow would be willing to use a nuclear weapon early on in a conflict. In response, the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review calls for a so-called low yield nuclear warhead.

A propaganda win?: Without concrete results, the summit could be a propaganda win for Putin, warned Alexander Vershbow, a former deputy secretary-general of NATO who is now at the Atlantic Council.

“Putin is keen to break out of his isolation that he’s been faced with since he invaded Crimea, invaded Ukraine,” Vershbow said. “So just having the summit would be a political boost for Putin and they would play it in Russia propaganda as kind of the West is coming to its senses and giving up on the isolation policy.

Still, he said, the United States may need to work with Russia to implement any North Korea denuclearization deal. Other summit topics could include what is happening after Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, of which Russia is a party, and Afghanistan, where Russia has been accused of supporting the Taliban, he added.

 

CHINESE SPYING FEARS: Our cyber colleague Morgan Chalfant took a look over the weekend at fears about Chinese spying:

Fresh concerns over Chinese espionage are gripping Washington as lawmakers fear Beijing is gaining sensitive details on U.S. technologies.

Lawmakers are scrutinizing the Pentagon over its efforts to keep military secrets safe from hackers, after Chinese actors allegedly breached a Navy contractor’s computer and collected data on submarine technology.

U.S. officials stepped up warnings that China regularly steals American intellectual property and technology, through cyberattacks and other means — allegations Beijing denies.

Key background: Security professionals observed a considerable decline in Chinese cyber espionage targeting U.S. businesses after a 2015 agreement between then-President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping to stop supporting cyber-enabled intellectual property theft against the other country’s businesses.

However, some cyber experts say that Chinese actors continued to target defense contractors to gain intelligence on military technology.

New research from cybersecurity firm Symantec suggests that Chinese cyber activity against U.S. targets could be picking up overall.

The company revealed Tuesday that a previously unidentified Chinese cyber espionage group had breached satellite communications, telecommunications firms and geospatial imaging, as well as a defense contractor in the United States.

The Symantec research, however, did not specifically link that activity to the Chinese government.

ZTE connection: Espionage fears are also at play in the controversy over Chinese telecom firm ZTE, which is pitting the administration against Congress.

Many argue that Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese firms could provide a means for Beijing to conduct spying on U.S. targets.

The Commerce Department in April banned U.S. companies from doing business with ZTE, citing allegations the company violated Iran sanctions laws this year.

The ban almost led to the company closing its doors before President Trump, locked in tense trade negotiations with China, backed a deal to keep ZTE alive.

But lawmakers, who see ZTE as a national security threat, are seeking to block the administration from allowing the company to resume business with U.S. firms.

 

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW

Several defense officials, including Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, will speak at the Defense One Tech Summit from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Newseum. https://bit.ly/2IH39TM

The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for the nominee to be the commander of U.S. Transportation Command, Gen. Stephen Lyons, at 9:30 a.m. at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, room G-50. https://bit.ly/2K5mgIA

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee subpanel will hold a hearing on U.S. policy in Europe with testimony from a State Department official at 9:45 a.m. at Dirksen 419. https://bit.ly/2tzMdFe

The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee will mark up its fiscal 2019 defense spending bill at 10 a.m. at Dirksen 192. https://bit.ly/2tEpkQS

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a business meeting to consider several bills and nominations, including the U.S. ambassador to South Korea nomination, at 11:15 a.m. at the Senate side of the Capitol, room 116. https://bit.ly/2lvV730

 

ICYMI

— The Hill: Pentagon identifies Navy pilot killed in New Mexico crash

— The Hill: US military indefinitely suspends two training exercises with South Korea

— The Hill: Trump must beware of declaring ‘mission accomplished’ on North Korea

— The Washington Post: If they needed to fend off war with Russia, U.S. military leaders worry they might not get there in time

— The New York Times: Iraqi political alliance unites a U.S. friend and foe

— Associated Press: What’s next for Turkey after vote grants Erdogan vast powers