DISQUIET ON THE NIGER FRONT: If American troops are in combat on foreign soil, do Americans have a right to know? When four U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack in the West African nation of Niger last year, it was initially portrayed by the Pentagon as a local “advise and assist” mission that went awry after a surprise attack. The implication was that such routine patrols were being curbed while investigators figured out just what went wrong.

The New York Times reported last night that the U.S. military is only now acknowledging that U.S. Green Berets working with government forces in Niger killed 11 Islamic State militants in a firefight in December, two months after the deadly Oct. 4 encounter. In fact, the military has acknowledged at least 10 other previously unreported attacks on American troops in West Africa between 2015 and 2017, the Times reports.

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? The Africa Command investigation of the October attack is done and sitting on the desk of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. So far the families have not been briefed on the findings, which the AP reported two weeks ago concluded that the team acted on its own to try to capture a high-level ISIS fighter, without the required senior command approval for their risky mission.

The Times reports that Mattis is “wrestling with the investigation’s apparent attempts to blame low-level commanders for the deaths of the four soldiers and not implicate senior officers,” and says one recommendation of the investigation is to scale back the number of ground missions, and to strip field commanders of some authority to dispatch troops on high-risk patrols.

TRUMP’S KOREA NEGOTIATING STRATEGY: In a fundraising speech yesterday, President Trump gave a preview of how he plans to pressure Korea to make a deal. That is, for South Korea to make a trade deal. According to an audio tape obtained by the Washington Post, Trump railed against U.S. allies South Korea, Japan and the European Union for ripping off America in trade, and seemed to be using U.S. troops as a bargaining chip with Seoul.

“We have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them,” Trump said. “We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens.”

In the tape, Trump boasted how he bluffed his way through initial trade talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he was unsure if the U.S. runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the North. “Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — ‘Donald, we have no trade deficit,’ ” Trump said describing his meeting with Trudeau. “I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart.”

Trump said he remained skeptical of Trudeau’s assertion and dispatched an aide to do a quick fact check. “I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, ‘Check, because I can’t believe it.’ ‘Well, sir, you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber. … And when you do, we lose $17 billion a year.’ ”

BOEING CREDITS TRUMP: During yesterday’s presidential visit to Boeing’s St. Louis factory, Chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg heaped praise on Trump for his tax cuts, which Muilenburg credited for creating jobs and revitalizing America’s manufacturing sector.

“One, on day one of tax reform, we announced an investment of $300 million back into our people. And this includes facility upgrades, infrastructure upgrades for our team, includes training and advanced training on new skills for the future, digital technologies, manufacturing technologies,” Muilenburg said in a session with an array of business leaders and workers.

“It’s allowing us to invest in the future, invest in capital, invest in new innovations, new products,” Muilenburg said. “We built a new $300 million composite fabrication facility in St. Louis. That’s real manufacturing jobs. And not only benefiting Boeing, but in our U.S. supply chain, we have another 13,000 companies, small and medium-sized businesses representing about 1.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs that are all benefiting as a result.”

TRUMP’S FAVORITE: At the session, Trump declared Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet, “one of my favorite planes,” adding “to me it’s a work of art, it is spectacular. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.”

But ever the negotiator Trump joked that if he doesn’t get a good price on the next batch of  F/A-18s being purchased for the Navy, he may shop elsewhere. “We’ve asked Congress to fund 24 brand new F-18s and that’s going to be the latest and the greatest stealth,” Trump said of the non-stealthy jet. “We’re working on price, and maybe we can work out a good price. Otherwise, we’re going to buy them from somebody else.” Nobody else makes the F/A-18, as Trump no doubt knows.

Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense.

HAPPENING TODAY — ARMY TESTIFIES ON ITS BUDGET: The House Appropriations Committee continues work on fiscal 2019 spending with testimony on the Army budget from Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the service’s chief of staff. It follows testimony over the past week from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

ADM. HARRIS IN THE SENATE: The outgoing leader of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris, testifies at 9:30 a.m. before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Harris, who has been tapped to be the ambassador to Australia, appeared before the House last month.

EUCOM ON THE RUSSIA THREAT: On the House side of Capitol Hill, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who heads U.S. European Command, will appear before the Armed Services Committee about the layout of military forces on the continent and moves to counter Russia.

‘SPACE FORCE’ HEARING: The debate over a new military service to handle space operations was restarted and then shifted into overdrive by Trump on Tuesday. The president broke with his Air Force and defense secretaries when he made a surprise announcement in support of what he called the “Space Force.” That will likely be front and center this afternoon at 3:30 during a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on space.

The hearing will be chaired by Rep. Mike Rogers and include ranking member Rep. Jim Cooper, who have championed a new space service over the past year and hope to resurrect it this year. Gen. John Raymond, Air Force Space Command, will represent the service, which has been a main opponent of the proposal. It remains unclear what tack the Air Force may take following Trump’s surprise support for the Rogers and Cooper plan during a speech in California.

RUN THAT BY ME AGAIN: Both Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, were asked by a House panel on Wednesday to reiterate their opposition to a new space service. Both Wilson and Goldfein, who helped shoot down the proposal on Capitol Hill last year, treaded lightly during the public hearing. “As the president said yesterday, the new national defense strategy for space recognizes that space is a warfighting domain. We appreciate the president’s and the vice president’s leadership on space,” Wilson told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. “Nowhere is that leadership more clear that in the president’s budget.”

Neither leader offered their previous criticism that carving out Air Force space operations into a new service would add unneeded bureaucracy to the military. “I’ll just say that I’m excited about the dialogue,” said Goldfein, who brought up his background as the space coordinating authority under Mattis when the Pentagon chief was in charge of U.S. Central Command. He said it remains his priority now as a joint chief. In July, Mattis took the unusual step of sending a letter to lawmakers warning a Space Corps could create a “narrower and even parochial approach” to space operations.

INTERPRETING TRUMP’S SPACE COMMENTS: Military officials and experts are often left to interpret Trump’s seeming off-the-cuff remarks and parse out their possible long-term policy implications. That was the case with an expert panel on space called before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. All three witnesses admitted they were unsure exactly what the president meant with his space service comments. Here is what they thought Trump should be saying about military space operations:

Doug Loverro, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy: “We have a military service whose sole mission is to prepare this nation to go ahead and win in the sea. We have a military service whose sole purpose is to prepare this nation to win on land. We have a military service in this nation whose sole purpose is to win in the air and to protect our interests in the air. And we now have at least a unified command whose sole purpose is to make sure we stay ahead and win in cyberspace. We lack that focus for space, one of our major five warfighting domains. And I may be biased, but I think one of the most important.”

Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “We can operate more effectively in this domain. You know, as I was sitting here thinking about this, I looked right here in front of us. There’s a little plaque with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. And as you read that, you know it gives Congress the power to, you know, raise an Army and to maintain the Navy. It doesn’t mention air. Of course there was no air domain at that time. And you know that’s just proof that we have to evolve our organizations, we have to evolve our thinking over time. And I think that we have reached that point now with space as a fourth physical domain.”

Gen. Robert Kehler, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command: “While I think steps are necessary beyond what has been taken to date, to me this is a matter of degree. If you’re going to do something dramatic, then I think there are — there’s more than one model you can follow. And I would be urging that you carefully consider those, because there are pros and cons to each one of those models.”

WHAT TO CALL IT? Rogers helped popularize the term Space Corps last year to describe his plan for a new military service within the Department of the Air Force. Space Corps is reminiscent of the Marine Corps, a separate service branch located within the Department of the Navy. The name stuck for nearly a year, right up until the moment Trump uttered his support Tuesday for a “Space Force” during a visit to California. “We may even have a space force, develop another one: Space Force. We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force. We have the Army, the Navy,” said Trump, who also took credit for coming up with the idea.

By Wednesday, Space Force was dominating headlines, and Rogers had adopted the name. “I like him, even better today,” Rogers gushed about Trump. No matter the name, Rogers’ prediction that a new military space service will be operational within three to five years just got a major boost from Trump. “We can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing, we have to do something dramatically different, better, more efficient and more effective. As you all know, I believe that we have to segregate those 5,000 people [who deal with space at the Pentagon] … into a separate service, the Space Force, in the Department of the Air Force in order to get that culture and educational system and career development that we need to make space a priority,” Rogers said.

DEFENSE BUDGETS HEADED FOR ‘DRY HOLE’: The Pentagon is set to reap funding hikes thanks to Congress’ deal on a $700 billion defense budget this year and the agreed-upon $716 billion budget next year. But the military could face a funding “dry hole” after the two-year budget deal runs out in late 2020, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said on Wednesday. Specifically, the Air Force, which is the biggest buyer of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, could be saddled by its plans to outfit the aircraft with new high-tech systems and the costs of sustaining it, Frelinghuysen said during a hearing on the service’s upcoming annual budget.

“You’re going to get a flush of money here and you’ll get a flush of money representing, what, $716 billion,” Frelinghuysen said. “After that, you know, anything goes and it could be a relatively dry hole. I’m just hoping, and I’m sure that you’re assuring us, whatever the money that’s coming down the pipeline that it’s going to be well spent because in the future we may not have a caps deal that has embraced, I think rightly, our future defense needs.”

OPEN FOR BUSINESS: The Air Force is busy digging itself out from a PR disaster of its own making as it tries to reassure the public and the press it’s not going into stealth mode. The service began to draw fire from all sides as the result of a leaked memo, first reported by Defense News, that revealed media engagements and base visits were being put on hold so that public affairs officers could get a refresher course on preserving operational security, or OPSEC.

Now the Air Force is scrambling to reassure everyone that it’s still in the media engagement business. “Bottom line,” said Brig. Gen. Ed Thomas, director of Air Force public affairs, “OPSEC is paramount but we’re open for business and our charge of ‘maximum disclosure with minimum delay’ remains.” In an email to me last night, Thomas emphasized, “Hope people don’t miss the ‘we’re open for business’ part.”

ARMY FUTURES COMMAND? YES, PLEASE: Congress’ Georgia delegation wants Atlanta to be the home of the Army Futures Command. Sen. David Perdue, a member of the Senate Armed Services, and Sen. Johnny Isakson spearheaded a letter from lawmakers on Wednesday to Army Secretary Mark Esper asking him to locate the new command in the city. “As the largest hub for the private sector and innovation in the Southeast region, Atlanta is already the home to numerous technological resources and Fortune 500 companies. Atlanta continues to attract technology industry leaders like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, and Honeywell,” they wrote.

The Army is scouting dozens of cities across the country as a potential site of Army Futures Command, which the service is developing to fast-track the notoriously slow pace of military innovation. “We’re trying to be very thoughtful about this. Where you plop it down it will be for a while. It’s not going to look like some of these bigger other commands because it’ll need certain things, it’ll need certainly access to civilian talent,” Esper told Travis Tritten this week. No location announcement is expected this month. The Army is still forming its criteria and looking for a general to head the command, which is slated to stand up in July, Esper said. “Once we’ve blessed that criteria, we will then pour into that sieve a number of locations, then we’ll produce a list of locations, and then we’ll tease it out with a little more detail,” he said.

RAND’S NEXT STAND: Sen. Rand Paul says he’ll oppose the nominations of both Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel, who Trump has selected to serve as secretary of state and CIA director, respectively.

DoD SPENDING: The Defense Department spent more than $138,000 at various Trump-branded properties during Trump’s first six months in office, according to records obtained by a government watchdog group.

BRITAIN GETS SERIOUS: British Prime Minister Theresa May has declared Russia “culpable” for the nerve agent attack on a former double agent and his daughter and announced Britain is expelling 23 Russian diplomats.

In addition, May said Britain will also “freeze Russian state assets wherever we have the evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents.”

SASSE CALLS ON NATO: Sen. Ben Sasse said Wednesday that the U.S. should coordinate with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to expel Russia from participating in the treaty as punishment. “Americans ought to be leading a conversation with our NATO allies about a collective response to this act and future acts of aggression,” Sasse said in a statement.

HALEY’S WARNING, ‘IT COULD HAPPEN HERE’: New York City could be the next site of a chemical assassination attempt if world leaders fail to punish Russia, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned yesterday. “If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used,” Haley told the United Nations Security Council. “They could be used here in New York, or in cities of any country that sits on this Council. This is a defining moment.”

SUPER HORNET CRASH: Two naval aviators were killed yesterday when their F/A-18 Super Hornet crashed as it was about to land at Naval Air Station in Key West. The pilot and weapons systems officer were quickly recovered from the water and they were rushed to Lower Keys Medical Center. The Navy later announced that both aviators had died. Trump tweeted shortly after midnight: “Please join me with your thoughts and prayers for both aviators, their families and our incredible @USNavy.”

THE RUNDOWN

Cipher Brief: Fault on Both Sides: 25 Years of North Korea Negotiations

CNN: Inside the US nuclear sub challenging Russia in the Arctic

AP: Meghan McCain: Father might return to Senate by summer

Task and Purpose: Defense Secretary Mattis Has Some Questions To Answer About A Company Just Charged With ‘Massive Fraud’

Air Force Times: President Trump visits the ‘Marine Core,’ and veterans everywhere facepalm

Defense News: Fortress Sweden: Inside the plan to mobilize Swedish society against Russia

AFP: Britain seeks support at UN in spy poisoning clash with Russia

Business Insider: The US military is facing a ‘real war for talent’ — but some valuable recruits could be scared away

AP: Families feel deserted after sex assaults at base school

New York Times: Tillerson’s Ouster Has Allies Hoping for Coherence, but Fearing the Worst

Defense One: The Military Race for Space Will Turn on the Ability to Choose Commercial Services

Daily Beast: Reacting to Russian Terror, Britain Ducks the Chance to Hit Putin Where it Hurts

Breaking Defense: Drone Delivery, Direct To The Grunt: Marines Experiment With Hive UAVs

Foreign Policy: An Interview With the President of NATO’s Most Persistent Applicant

Marine Corps Times: Faced with MARSOC shortages, the Corps boosts budget request