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The Defense Department is moving ahead with previously announced plans to stand up a four-star U.S. Space Command as part of a broader effort to reorganize military space forces, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Tuesday at a joint news conference at the Pentagon with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford. Mattis said the new command will be funded with existing resources and staffed with existing personnel. Congress in the 2018 defense policy bill directed DoD to create a "sub-unified" Space Command under U.S. Strategic Command, but the Pentagon has proposed taking this a step further and...

Defense Secretary James Mattis has authorized up to 4,000 National Guard troops to remain deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border until next fall, according to the Pentagon. Mattis earlier this week gave a 12-month extension of the current deployment order, set to expire at the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jamie Davis. The guardsmen are authorized to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) through Sept. 30, 2019. “Nothing changes. It’s going to be the same amount of people in the same places,” Davis told The Hill. President Trump in April signed an executive...

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 was enacted this month well ahead of a still-pending budget bill. It was also the earliest date on the legislative calendar that the NDAA has been sent to a president for his signature in more than two decades. Congress matched dollar-for-dollar what the Pentagon asked for. The bill sped through Congress as the nation's military continues waging war in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Niger, Libya, Somalia and an untold number of other global hot spots. All arise from what's been the Pentagon's main post-Sept. 11 focus: fighting terrorism. But this new...

Russia's poisoning of a former spy in Britain is part of a Kremlin strategy to divide the West by conducting covert operations and then fomenting doubt and disagreement over who's responsible, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said. It was part of a pattern seen in Russia's actions, Mattis said, starting in Ukraine in 2014, where he said Moscow sent armed men without insignias into Crimea and has provided fighters and weapons under cover to Ukrainian separatists. Mattis said Russia's subterfuge continued through covert efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. "They take the insignia off soldiers' uniforms and...

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has rejected an offer by the US defence chief and other top American officials to buy F-16 fighter jets, saying such an acquisition would be “utterly useless” because his country needs lighter combat aircraft to fight insurgents. Duterte scoffed at the offer on Thursday, saying it had been floated in a letter by Defence Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. The offer came after he was slammed by the US for his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs, he said.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed solidarity with President Trump’s stripping of former Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance earlier this week. “All I can tell you is, I have taken security clearances away from people in my previous time in uniform, and a security clearance is something that is granted on an as-needed basis,” he told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in South America on Friday. The comment came in response to a question on what he thought about former intelligence officials denouncing the president for stripping Brennan’s security clearance. Earlier this week, retired Navy Adm. Bill McRaven published...

A Chinese space force in Argentina, Russian control of Venezuelan gas and South American armies equipped with the latest Chinese and Russian hardware. Until recently, it might have sounded like the plot of a geopolitical thriller in a region once considered America’s backyard. But this is what Defense Secretary James N. Mattis faced on his visit this week to several South American nations, where economic and military posturing by Beijing and Moscow has been on the rise for the past decade. Analysts say Chinese loans in recent years have allowed authoritarian leaders to consolidate power in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua,...

Last week, US Defense Watch reported on the continuing social engineering destruction derby that is laying waste to what is left of the fighting spirit, warrior culture and combat power of the US military. In Six Months’ Worth of PC, Diversity and Leftist Destruction in the US Military, Part I, we discussed several events and policies that occurred or were implemented from June to August 2018. Part II continues with a myriad of examples concerning the leftist social engineering that marches on; without anyone, including Mad Dog Mattis, lifting a finger to stop it. What follows should alarm any American....

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a defense authorization bill that restricts any drawdown of American troops in South Korea. The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act, which approves $716 billion for defense in fiscal year 2019, passed the House by a vote of 359-54. Upon Senate approval, it will be sent to US President Donald Trump to sign into law. The bill notes that about 28,500 American troops are currently stationed in South Korea as a demonstration of the US commitment to the bilateral alliance. Their "significant removal" is "a non-negotiable item as it relates to...

The Pentagon announced Friday it would send $200 million in nonlethal military aid to Ukraine -- a move likely to anger Moscow. The American military hardware being shipped to Ukraine includes “secure communications, military mobility, night vision, and military medical treatment." Secretary of Defense James Mattis is also asking that Congress sign a waiver that would allow the U.S. to sell weapons to countries that also purchase arms from Russia. The idea is to make sure U.S. sanctions don’t push allies into the arms of Russia. “Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive, destabilizing behavior and its illegal occupation of...

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday called NBC News’ report that said the Pentagon was in “damage-control” mode to reassure NATO allies after President Trump’s visit “fiction.” Mattis, during a press gaggle on the way to Oslo, Norway, brought up the report, which claimed that “hours” after Trump departed NATO, U.S. military leaders embarked on a “full-scale” damage-control operation across Europe. The report said U.S. military leaders were “directed by the Pentagon leadership” in response to Trump threatening to reassess U.S. commitments in the region. “That was fascinating. I love reading fiction, so it was stimulating to read it,” he...

The U.S. will maintain its “current” military presence in South Korea as part of an “ironclad” commitment to the country’s security, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday. Mattis met with his South Korean counterpart Song Young-moo in Seoul, defending President Donald Trump’s decision to end “war games,” while also reassuring the East Asian ally of Washington’s continued dedication to responding to any threat. “U.S. commitment to the Republic of Korea remains ironclad, and the U.S. will continue to use the full range of diplomatic and military capabilities to uphold this commitment,” the defense secretary said, Reuters reported. He also...

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (CNN) - Defense Secretary James Mattis said the Pentagon is in "close alignment" with the Department of Homeland Security with efforts to utilize military bases to house undocumented immigrants along the southern US border. The Department of Homeland Security has "come to us asking us to build temporary camps on two of our bases," Mattis told reporters on board his plane at the beginning of a trip that will take him to Alaska, China, South Korea and Japan. "We are in a logistics support response mode," with DHS, Mattis said, adding that "details are still...

The Trump administration may place up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children on military bases starting as early as next month, according to a new Pentagon memo. The notification, sent to lawmakers on Wednesday and first reported by The Washington Post, says the Defense Department received a request for assistance from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “HHS has requested DOD determine its capabilities to provide up to 20,000 temporary beds for unaccompanied children at DOD installations,” the document states. If the Pentagon finds that it can provide such lodging, “the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) requests the...

On North Korea: There is now a "new avenue to peace" with North Korea after President Trump's meeting with Kim Jong Un, but the United States must remain "vigilant" in blocking Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons. "President Trump's historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un proves the past does not have to define the future." On China: China appears to be modeling its global ambitions after the Ming Dynasty, "demanding other nations become tribute states kowtowing to Beijing." China is "attempting to replicate on the international stage their authoritarian domestic model," militarizing the South China Sea and using...

Remember Afghanistan? The longest war in American history? Ever? When it comes to wars, we Americans have a selective memory. The Afghan war, dating from October 2001, has earned the distinction of having been forgotten while still underway. President Trump’s Inaugural Address included no mention of Afghanistan. Nor did his remarks last month at a joint session of Congress. For the new commander in chief, the war there qualifies at best as an afterthought — assuming, that is, he has thought about it all. A similar attitude prevails on Capitol Hill. Congressional oversight has become pro forma. Last week Gen....

"Despite the differences we see between Nato allies on issues like trade, we see a Nato which is delivering on strengthening our collective defence and the biggest reinforcement to our collective defence since the end of the Cold War." "Not only do we see a Nato which is united, but we see actually a Nato which is able to strengthen our cooperation and transatlantic bond," Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato head and former Norwegian PM, told press in Brussels on Thursday (7 June). US defence minister Jim Mattis echoed Stoltenberg when asked in Brussels on Thursday if the trade clash could...

A pair of Democratic senators on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would stop President Trump from withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea without the Pentagon’s input. The amendment “would help prevent the President from making a rash decision about troop reductions on the Korean Peninsula that negatively impacts our national security,” Sens. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Chris Murphy (Conn.) said in a joint statement. Introduced for the Fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the provision would stop a withdraw “unless the U.S. Secretary of Defense certifies it is in our national security interest...

Here’s a brief update to the Pregnant Ranger story posted on US Defense Watch yesterday: A source at the Mountain Ranger Camp at Dahlonega has informed USDW that a female Ranger School student is indeed pregnant. Apparently, this student and her boyfriend are in the same Ranger School class (yes, Virginia, it’s not your grandfather’s, your father’s or even your older brother’s Army anymore). Both students were recycled during the Benning phase. While in the ‘Gulag’ awaiting the beginning of the Benning phase recycle, she got pregnant. She’s now at the Mountain Phase, and as of today, still has not...