Friday News Roundup — April 19, 2024
This week something extraordinary happened, and that is a big part of the problem long bedeviling Washington, D.C. Both the House and the Senate advanced critical pieces of legislation directly impacting U.S. national security with strong bipartisan majorities.
In the House, a rare bipartisan coalition advanced a desperately needed $95 billion foreign aid package for beleaguered allies Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The vote came as outgunned Ukrainian defenders are losing ground to invading Russian forces, and after Israel struck Iran early Friday morning in retaliation for a barrage of missiles and drones launched by Tehran last weekend. China, which continues to militarily threaten neighboring Taiwan, has been watching the drama surrounding the aid legislation closely for signs of American weakness. Meanwhile, the Senate this week agreed to move ahead with a two-year reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance law deemed critical by national security and counter-terrorism experts, passing the legislation at the 11th hour before a Friday deadline for the statute to expire.
The problem is that strong bipartisan majorities have long supported both pieces of legislation, yet a small minority of extreme partisans was allowed to block passage while our allies have been pushed to the brink, a form of obstructionism that has unfortunately become business-as-usual in Washington, D.C. In fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., may yet lose his job for daring to build consensus and rely on Democratic votes to pass the aid package, a clear indication of the “no good deed goes unpunished” dynamic that has gripped Congress for far too long. This week’s votes offer a rare glimmer of hope that the bipartisan majority on Capitol Hill has finally become weary of rule by the hyper-partisan minority.
Bipartisan House Majority Finally Sidelines the Fringe
By Glenn Nye
In a rare move, members of the minority Democratic Party and majority Republican Party joined forces on the House Rules Committee Thursday night to finally move foreign military assistance bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan toward a vote by the full House, over the objection of some members of the majority party. This comes several months after the Senate passed similar legislation in a bipartisan vote of support, and even longer since the situation for Ukrainian forces awaiting U.S. assistance became extremely urgent. The delay occurred even though this assistance has enjoyed support of a large majority of members of the House for the duration of the delay, a delay which has cost Ukrainian lives and set back the national security cause the assistance it meant to further.
The good news is that this move signals how the House can work when the sentiment of a bipartisan majority of members is allowed to decide the outcomes, rather than the sentiments of the most extreme members of the majority party. We have observed for several months the dysfunction and detachment from basic democratic principles that ensues when a party with a tiny majority tries to accommodate its most extreme members rather than move policies supported by a vast bipartisan majority. The incentives to pander to this group are obvious: They are playing to concerns held by the voters who make the most difference in partisan primary elections, typically about 10% of the electorate. These intensely partisan voters tend to demand opposition to the other party at all costs, and our electoral system systemically places outsized power in their hands. Speaker Johnson deserves credit for finally acquiescing to the will of the bipartisan majority, including a majority in his own party, despite threats of his removal from his leadership position by members of his party’s fringe. Doing the right thing late is better than not at all.
If Americans viewers take from this week’s drama the lesson that perhaps we can still manage to pull back from the incentives to partisan combat, and instead allow bipartisan majorities to cooperate in a grand coalition on important issues, it might help reverse the disillusionment our citizens naturally feel toward a Congress that feels hopelessly broken. It may also provide a blueprint for a better way ahead. Why can’t we have a House of Representatives with a speaker elected by a bipartisan cross-section of House members who govern from the center, and prioritize basic functionality like the passage of on-time budgets, and seeks consensus outcomes?
American politics would benefit greatly if we were able to translate this momentary lesson into the systemic reforms to our election system that would incentivize more of this type of coalition building. Reforms that sideline partisan primaries in favor of unified open primaries and replace plurality winners with runoffs that require majority voter support are already tested and proven, and would make the reasonable outcome we are seeing in the House this week more the norm than the exception. We have only to find the will to enact these reforms to make this a reality, giving Americans the better functioning Congress they deserve.
Glenn Nye III is President and CEO of CSPC, and a former Congressman from Virginia
The Overdue Discussion on Overclassification
By Ethan Brown
This week, U.S. Space defense leaders made public the intent of the DoD to lower the classification threshold on space technology–and potentially other exchange mediums for secret programs–to better enable collaboration between the U.S. military and allied security apparatuses. Under Secretary for Defense Kathleen Hicks revised the classification policy back in January, setting the stage for adaptation to begin over the coming year.
The issue is one which has long haunted the United States, with roots in multiple conflicts and international competition with rivals and adversaries as far back as the Manhattan Project, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and indeed the Post-9/11 wars.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb said it eloquently: “you have to be able to use your systems. [The Systems] have to be able to talk to each other… Otherwise you just have a bunch of stovepipes… there is a military necessity in doing this.” Stovepiping is the operative term here, which properly puts the national security issue into context. Far too many programs within the U.S. defense enterprise are overly classified, which has proved to be a deterrent for US operations in recent years.
Most notably, there is the effectiveness with which the Taliban were able to exploit the occurrence of airstrikes in Afghanistan using social media. In such, the Taliban could and often did use open source platforms like Twitter, WhatsApp, and Facebook to post pictures of incidents post-strike, and then claim that civilians had been killed in the airstrike. In reality (and this is covered in my forthcoming book trilogy “Visual Friendlies, Tally Target”), there were rarely, if ever, such instances of civilian casualties. In some cases, the Taliban would in fact murder civilians and leave them at the airstrike site for the sole purpose of exploitation.
This is a grim, dark truth, and yet the U.S. response–an obvious denial and subsequent investigation into each such allegation–was often lacking any gravity or weight on account of the fact that the denial could seldom provide definitive proof of the reality. The reason? The systems used to conduct the airstrike, the intelligence collection, and the verification of the target struck were buried so deep in layers of classification, read-on rights, and special access constraints that even members of the military (including coalition partners) weren’t able to see the investigation results, let alone disclosure to the global public on the reality of the engagement.
This is a very myopic example, demonstrating why U.S. military policies on classification have been a deterrent to effective operational strategy, but it serves as proof of this change in policy being a net gain for increased cooperation with partners and allies. The aforementioned shift in classification mandates is not explicitly related to kinetic effects as the United States is not presently engaged in a major war (yet), but the initiative to increase data-sharing with allies and partners, especially in the space-domain, is of the utmost importance as networks continue to shrink the globe and blur the concept of international or sovereign borders.
This blog entry is focusing on the changes to space tech and information exchange between the U.S. and allies, but importantly, this new policy could set in motion a reconsideration of how U.S. classification is mandated across the defense enterprise. To put the issue of classification in scope, consider that in a calendar year (2023, for example), the U.S. government transferred or otherwise operationally handled over 50 million classified documents, many of which reached touch-points across the 4.2 million government employees or contractors authorized to handle such material in multiple levels. Plenty of national security research has abused the term “mission creep,” and in this case, “secrecy creep” is no less applicable (if a little trope-y).
And thus, the issue of overclassification of special programs related to the interests of our allies, particularly in the space and tech domains, has served as a deterrent to effective cooperation with allies and partners, and it’s been a constraint for years. The United States cannot continue to front the work of securing, managing, and expanding the space and cyber domains alone, and it certainly cannot continue to advance the programs and ensure effective security cooperation if it stovepipes the exchange of information based on out-of-date, dinosaur principles of who gets to access the data.
Case in point: as consolidation of sensitive data has narrowed responsibility for tech exchange and transfer of data in a Microsoft server supporting DoD operations,, the collection of sensitive data becomes easier for adversaries (Chinese state-affiliated hackers) to exploit. The issue of space and cyber domains is tricky when it comes to holding offenders and attackers responsible due to server locations and transfer over sovereign borders. Thus, increasing collaboration by changing classification restrictions offers the opportunity to work with allies and partners to improve hacking attribution accuracy and thus, holding aggressors accountable for their attacks and exploitation of cyber and space networks.
This overhaul of the classification paradigm is yet in its early evolution, but it comes not a moment too soon as the United States must and should double-down on deepened ties with partners and allies abroad to counter novel and innovative threats to our systems and networks.
Ethan Brown is a Senior Fellow at CSPC and author of the “Visual Friendlies, Tally Target” trilogy of books on air power in the Global War on Terror.
Farewell to a Great Bipartisan Leader: Bob Graham
By Robert W. Gerber
U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) passed away this week at age 87. I was fortunate to have worked in his Senate office for a few years. Everyone on his staff loved working for him. He would regularly walk around the office in between votes, briefings, and press interviews, saying hello to staff, often asking those of us who worked in his mailroom, “What are folks writing about today?” The answer was usually social security, Medicare, or veterans’ benefits — subjects that he knew in extraordinary detail. He meticulously kept notes of every meeting and every idea he found useful. Graham was a true policy wonk, but beyond his mastery of domestic policy, Graham was also a leader on human rights and international affairs. He cared deeply for Haiti and for the plight of oppressed Cubans. He fought successfully to normalize trade relations with Lebanon. He served with distinction on the Helsinki Committee.
Graham’s legislative aides who staffed him on the Finance Committee and Intelligence Committee had to be best in class — because they were aware that the Senator always knew more than his staff did. Graham inspired people to be the best public servants they could be, and he helped forge many successful careers in public service. By prioritizing people, Senator Bob Graham engendered a lifetime of loyalty and appreciation from both his staff and his constituents. Many Floridians did not know (or care) about his party affiliation. They knew him as a sensible, pragmatic former Governor whom they could trust. Many constituents knew Graham from his “Workdays” where he would spend a day as a public school teacher, a construction worker, or truck driver. Bob Graham regularly won elections with over 65% of the vote.
Bob Graham was kind, sociable, and funny. He would host gatherings at his Capitol Hill townhouse for staff, family, and Friends of Bob. He would gladly tell you all about a veteran he recently met, about his close friendship with musician Jimmy Buffett, or if you were lucky, he would offer a dissertation on the Dry Tortugas (an archipelago off the coast of Florida) — one of his favorite topics.
Graham set a high bar for bipartisanship. As a policymaker he sought rational solutions to pressing problems. He regularly collaborated with Republican colleagues like Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Bob Dole (R-KS). Graham organized joint press interviews with fellow Floridian Representative Joe Scarborough (then a Republican).
Graham’s book “Intelligence Matters” is a fascinating recount of deliberations over the U.S. intervention in Iraq. He was convinced the intelligence did not justify war. Graham showed the kind of political courage that is rare today in deciding to join 23 Senators to vote against authorizing the use of force against Iraq.
Bob Graham was a friend of the environment. As the Miami Herald reported, “As governor, his 1983 “Save Our Everglades” restoration program served as the foundation for four decades of state and federal efforts to bring back and preserve the natural flow of the River of Grass.”
Senator Bob Graham was an extraordinary American who made lasting contributions to the State of Florida, the United States, and the cause of human rights overseas. He demonstrated the value of integrity and pragmatism in building consensus to solve problems. America today would be blessed to have more leaders like Senator Bob Graham.
Robert Gerber is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
House Foreign Affairs Committee Concerns About USAID and the Humanitarian Crises in Sudan and Ethiopia
By Greyson Hunziker
Last Wednesday, the full House Foreign Affairs Committee discussed the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) foreign policy with Administrator Samantha Power. The members expressed bipartisan concern about China’s increasing influence and the need for American pushback. There was also bipartisan recognition that U.S. foreign aid is an essential aspect of American soft power that can benefit U.S. national security, industry, and research. Members of both parties expressed oversight concerns with some differences in viewpoint, however. For example, Rep. Kean, R-N.J., was concerned about U.S. oversight of Ukraine aid, while Rep. Jacobs, D-Ca., questioned Israeli compliance with norms governing humanitarian aid to Palestinians. Overall, the Republicans were more critical of USAID policy and its proposed budget, while Democrats were more supportive of higher funding levels and more attention to specific humanitarian crises.
The members also asked Administrator Power about countries including Kenya, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Syria, and Lebanon, but crises in Gaza, Haiti, and Sudan were the primary focus. In Gaza, the Israel-Hamas war rages on, producing death and destruction but little safety and food. With famine imminent, humanitarian organizations have struggled to deliver and distribute aid, forcing the United States and some other countries to resort to airdrops. In Haiti, gang violence and political instability have created chaos, preventing aid from entering and stopping Kenya from sending peacekeepers and a police force until a new government forms. Last Friday, a transitional ruling council was formed, however, and it will seek to appoint an acting prime minister and pave the way for a presidential election.
Sudan has faced a year of war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Even before this conflict, 16 million Sudanese needed humanitarian assistance “due to conflict, displacement, economic crisis, and widespread food insecurity.” That number has grown to 25 million people out of a total population of 49 million. According to a Reuters report, nearly 18 million Sudanese now face acute food insecurity, and only 10 percent of them have access to assistance. Furthermore, only 30 percent of health facilities are fully functioning, and half of all children have been trapped in a warzone in the past year. The United States is set to send $100 million in additional aid.
Acute international crises in Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti, and Sudan have overshadowed other needy countries such as Ethiopia. While the U.N. has raised nearly $630 million of pledges for Ethiopia’s humanitarian crisis, this is well short of their $1 billion goal. Moreover, donors are concerned about security, and they have urged the Ethiopian government to not interfere with aid deliveries and to protect aid workers, nine of whom have been killed since last April. Last year, USAID suspended all food aid for months in Ethiopia due to it being diverted. On Tuesday, however, the U.S. pledged $154 million in additional aid. According to USAID, 21 million people in Ethiopia need aid due to conflict in the Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray regions, climate shocks causing drought and flooding, and an influx of 42,000 refugees from Sudan. This aid will go towards agriculture, water, hygiene, and food.
Greyson is a student intern at CSPC.
