The D Brief: Commandant’s ARG/MEU push; Army acquisition reform; B-21, ICBM projects; ‘DoW’ price tag; And a bit more.

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U.S. national security requires three deployed ARG/MEUs, Marine Corps commandant argues in Defense One. That’s Amphibious Ready Groups and Marine Expeditionary Units, like the one built around the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima that has been sailing in the Caribbean since August.

Once the United States could keep three such groups at sea, ready to respond to conflict or other need, Gen. Eric Smith writes. “But as the nation focused on extended land campaigns in the Middle East, the amphibious fleet was deprioritized. By 1997, that number had dropped to 40, and by 2016 it stood at just 31. Today the amphibious fleet has 32 ships whose average readiness hovers around 45 percent. Shipyards are strained, timelines are slipping, and hulls are aging faster than we can replace them.

“Sustaining a 3.0 ARG/MEU presence will require 31 amphibious ships at 80 percent readiness. The recent LHA/LPD block buy was a step in the right direction, but we must continue to build on this momentum.” Read how, here.

Developing: Former U.S. military bases in Panama and Puerto Rico are returning to service as the Trump administration eyes possible military action in Venezuela amid its new war on alleged drug trafficking-boats around Latin America, Task & Purpose reported Friday. 

This includes Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico and Fort Sherman in Panama. If these sound familiar, Reuters mapped the ongoing U.S. military build-up in the region in a special report published two weeks ago, here. 

Update: The Pentagon wanted to stage at an old base in Ecuador but voters there rejected the proposal on Sunday, AP reports from Quito—calling the decision “a significant defeat for President Daniel Noboa, a conservative who is closely aligned with the Trump administration.”

Also: The Pentagon says it killed three more people it claims were trafficking drugs on Saturday. Like nearly all the other U.S. attacks since September, this strike hit a small boat traveling off the coast of Latin America—this time on the Pacific side. That makes 21 known strikes that have killed at least 83 people. 

ICYMI: American Marines in Haiti exchanged gunfire with suspected gang members near the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, the Washington Post reported Saturday. 

The Marines returned fire; none were harmed in the incident, a spokesman for the service told the Associated Press in a very brief follow-up. 

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson 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 1856, the U.S. Army established a post called Fort Buchanan in southern Arizona to control new land acquired from Mexico two years earlier. The fort was officially abandoned five years later. 

Around the Defense Department

Army unveils its own acquisition reform. Among other moves, it’s “gathering up the many offices that weigh in on requirements and stacking them under a new program office structure,” Defense One’s Meghann Myers reported on Friday. The previous dozen Program Executive Offices will be compressed under six Portfolio Acquisition Executives (Fires; Maneuver Ground; Maneuver Air; Command and Control and Counter Command and Control; Agile Sustainment and Ammo; and Layered Protection and Chemical, Biology, Radiological and Nuclear Defense). Read on, here.

One-stop shopping for counter-drone gear? That’s what the Army’s-led Joint Interagency Task Force 401 is working on as it pushes to improve the military’s counter-drone defenses. Myers reports on that and other steps, here.

B-21, ICBM construction projects. The deal that reopened the government included some $850 million for 11 construction projects related to the Air Force’s nascent strategic bomber and its under-development ICBM, Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reported on Friday. Learn what and where, here.

Update: Changing the Defense Department’s name to the War Department could cost as much as $2 billion, NBC News reported Wednesday, noting this “estimate for renaming the Pentagon comes as Trump has promised to cut back on federal spending.”

For the record, changing the actual name of the department requires an act of Congress. And while it is true that President Trump has ordered the executive branch to refer to the Defense Department as the “War Department” and to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as “Secretary of War,” Trump’s Sept. 5 executive order does not formally change the name of the department. 

Trump’s own order acknowledges this, saying: “The Secretary of Defense is authorized the use of this additional secondary title—the Secretary of War—and may be recognized by that title in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch.” 

Changing “New department letterhead and signage alone could cost about $1 billion,” NBC reports. But “rewriting digital code for all of the department’s internal and external facing websites, as well as other computer software on classified and unclassified systems” could cost more, four senior congressional staffers said. 

Survey: Do you approve of DoD to DoW name change? Overall 54% opposed while just 22% supported, with the rest undecided, according to a survey of 2,542 people by political scientists Don Casler and Robert Ralston. Only 42% of Republicans overall expressed support for the name change, they said. More, here. 

Additional reading: 

Trump 2.0

Update: The Pentagon pulled hundreds of National Guard soldiers from Chicago and Portland beginning this weekend, ABC News reported Saturday. That includes ​​200 federalized California Guard soldiers in Portland and 200 more Texas troops sent to Chicago early last month. 

Northern Command officials teased the reductions in a vague social media post Friday night, writing, “in the coming days, the Department will be shifting and/or rightsizing our Title 10 footprint in Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago to ensure a constant, enduring, and long-term presence in each city.” That leaves around 300 activated Illinois Guard soldiers on standby for Chicago, and another 100 Oregon Guard troops will stay near Portland, the New York Times reported Sunday. 

“While they deployed to the two cities, the troops never carried out operations because of several legal rulings that placed a hold on their deployment,” ABC explains. A federal judge in Portland blocked the Guard from deploying to the city after protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility led the president to declare Portland a “war-ravaged” combat zone. The judge disagreed. Meanwhile in Illinois, an appeals court upheld a federal judge’s temporary restraining order blocking those Guard troops from deploying to Chicago. That decision has now moved to the Supreme Court. 

By the way: Less than 3% of the 600-plus people arrested during DHS’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago had criminal histories, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday, citing Justice Department statistics. 

Related reading: “Immigration crackdown inspires uniquely Chicago pushback that’s now a model for other cities,” AP reported Sunday. 

The Border Patrol arrested 81 people on its first day of a new immigration crackdown in Charlotte, North Carolina, Reuters reported Monday. Homeland Security officials surged to the city, arresting most of those over a five-hour span Saturday in an effort dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web.” NPR has a short history of naming such operations, here. 

Related reading: “Homeland Security Missions Falter Amid Focus on Deportations,” five writers for the New York Times reported Sunday in a big-picture analysis. 

Developing: Energy Department officials want to “tamp down Trump’s idea of explosive nuclear testing,” and they could have that conversation with National Security Council officials quite soon, CNN reported Friday. 

The gist: “Energy Secretary Chris Wright, National Nuclear Security Administration leader Brandon M. Williams and officials from the US National Laboratories are planning to inform the White House that they do not think blowing up weapons for nuclear warhead testing, as Trump suggested last month, is tenable,” CNN reported citing two sources familiar with the matter. 

Happening today: Trump welcomes Saudi Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud to the White House for talks about AI and nuclear energy, Reuters reports. AP, the New York Times and Fox have more.

Additional reading: 

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