Americas

B-1 bombers fly off Venezuelan coast. Two supersonic B-1 Lancers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in rural Texas on Thursday and traveled upwards of 2,000 miles to fly within several miles of Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal reported. B-1 bombers seldom fly near South America but more missions “could be carried out soon,” two U.S. officials told WSJ. 

President Trump said at the White House the story was “not accurate,” even though the B-1s’ flight paths were revealed by publicly available flight tracking data. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was at the Q&A session with reporters, did not correct the president, Fox reported.

The demonstration marks the latest use of the U.S. military to increase pressure on President Nicolás Maduro. Last week, B-52 bombers and F-35Bs staged an “attack demonstration” on an island off the Venezuelan coast. Other recent military activity in the region has included flights by MQ-9 Reaper drones and P-8 maritime patrol aircraft and even an Air Force Special Operations exercise.

---

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 Thomas Novelly and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so 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 1944, the USS Princeton (CVL-23) sank in the Philippines after being hit by a Japanese bomb during the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf.

---

Shutdown

Trump says a “friend of mine” donated $130 million for military pay to cover potential paycheck shortfalls during the government shutdown. The president declined to name the donor, Reuters reported. That personal check is, ultimately, a drop in the bucket compared to the $236 billion requested for troops’ pay in the fiscal 2025 budget, and it’s not clear whether the money will cover troops’ Oct. 31 paychecks. 

ICYMI: Payroll funding for service members, like that of other federal employees, is frozen during the shutdown, but Trump directed some money—reportedly, $8 billion—be diverted from research pools to pay troops. It’s not clear whether that was legal.

Gridlock continues after Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-sponsored bill Thursday to pay active-duty service members and essential federal workers in a nearly party-line vote of 54-45, the Hill reports. On Friday, the shutdown marked its 23rd day, marking the second-longest federal funding lapse in history.

Europe

Russian aircraft violated Lithuanian airspace on Thursday, officials said. An Su-30 fighter jet and an Il-78 refueling tanker flew over the Baltic nation for about 18 seconds, the country’s military said on X. Russia’s Defense Ministry disputed the claim, the Associated Press reported.

Lithuania’s foreign ministry announced plans to summon Russian diplomats. “This is a blatant breach of international law and territorial integrity of Lithuania,” President Gitanas Nausėda wrote on X. “Once again, it confirms the importance of strengthening European air defence readiness.”

The incident is Russia’s latest aerial incursion into NATO allies’ territory. Last month, Moscow sent around two dozen unarmed drones into Polish airspace and days later Russian fighters swept across the Estonian border. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker recently detailed varying responses to air incursions have led to rare public disagreements between treaty allies.

Around the Defense Department

What is homeland defense? Budget experts said a new national security strategy could redefine what homeland defense operations entail including border-security, coutner-drug enforcement, and law enforcement. Budget experts at a Center for New American Security Event on Thursday wondered if the next defense budget would reflect those shifts. Defense One’s Meghann Myers has more from the event.

But as budget experts await the release of the National Defense Strategy, some question whether it will actually change how the Trump administration prioritizes its military spending. “At the end of the day, the National Defense Strategy is a piece of paper, and it’s not worth anything unless the administration actually intends to follow it, to use it as a guiding framework,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

Acting USAF JAG steps down. Eight months after SecDef Hegseth fired the Air Force’s top lawyer, the judge advocate general tasked with those duties has stepped down. Maj. Gen. Rebecca Vernon, who had served as deputy Air Force JAG, became acting JAG after Hegseth’s widespread purge of military leaders and top lawyers. 

Former military attorneys are worried what the lack of top legal leadership will mean for the Air Force. “It’s tough to make any long-term plans without that position filled,”one lawyer said. “There’s a ripple effect throughout the [JAG] Corps that hurts morale, retention, budgets, hiring, and every major policy decision.” Defense One’s Thomas Novelly has more.

The Air Force wants private AI data centers on its bases. A lease proposal from the service is offering up more than 3,000 acres of “underutilized land” across five of its military bases, according to a new proposal posted online. The Air Force’s pitch follows a late July executive order in which Trump promised a “golden age for American manufacturing and technological dominance” by giving up public land for private use. 

Experts are worried by the unprecedented move and fear the government may not get use of the land back. “I have never heard of something like this before, where some of the public land was going to be leased to private companies to use,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank. “I think it is noteworthy…because it is potentially ceding land that the U.S. government will actually never get control over again.” Novelly has more here.

“Neighborhood watch.” Satellite imaging company Vantor signed a contract with the U.S. Space Force to monitor for satellites and debris that ground-based sensors might miss. The company, formerly Maxar Intelligence, will use existing satellites it has in orbit to protect U.S. assets in low earth orbit, Susanne Hake, Vantor’s general manager for U.S. government said. Tucker has more for Defense One, here.

Lastly today: Dissenting judges issued scathing warnings after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to revisit a panel decision to reject a legal challenge to the federalized deployment of California National Guard troops to Los Angeles this summer, Talking Points Memo reported. “The democratic ideals our nation has consistently promoted for the last quarter millennium will be gravely undercut by allowing military force and weapons of war to be deployed against American citizens on U.S. soil on the flimsy grounds asserted here for this use of Executive power,” wrote Judge Ronald Gould, a Clinton appointee.

]]>