CRYING FOUL: “Today Defense Secretary Mark Esper notified me that the Department of Defense will reprogram $3.6 billion in funds appropriated for military construction projects, including at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in order to build @realDonaldTrump 's misguided border wall,” tweeted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “It is a slap in the face to the members of the Armed Forces who serve our country that @realDonaldTrump is willing to cannibalize already allocated military funding to boost his own ego, and for a wall he promised Mexico would pay to build.”

“Defense spending is supposed to be for national defense,” said Jack Reed of Rhode Island, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Clearly, this administration is trying to circumvent Congressional authority and this ill-advised attempt should be legally challenged and struck down by the courts. If it stands, future presidents will make similar end-runs to try and tap defense dollars for anything a president wants to label a ‘national emergency.’”

PERFECTLY LEGAL: Despite all the fuming by Congress, including some Republicans, the transfer is in accordance with the National Emergencies Act , passed in 1976. The law provides the defense secretary, “without regard to any other provision of law, may undertake military construction projects” so long as they “are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.” (Emphasis mine.)

In his memo to Congress outlining the 11 projects covering 175 miles he approved, Esper cited the law and argued the new and replacement barriers, mostly in the form of “pedestrian fencing,” would support the military’s mission on the border.

“These projects will deter illegal entry, increase the vanishing time of those illegally crossing the border, and channel migrants to ports of entry. They will reduce the demand for personnel and assets at the locations where the barriers are constructed and allow the redeployment of DoD personnel and assets to other high-traffic areas on the border without barriers,” Esper wrote. “In short, these barriers will allow DoD to provide support to DHS more efficiently and effectively. In this respect, the contemplated construction projects are force multipliers.”

NO ONE GETS HURT IF YOU DO WHAT WE SAY: The Trump administration has Congress over a barrel. The Pentagon has structured the reprogramming of funds so that none of the 127 affected projects will be canceled or even delayed, so long as Congress restores the $3.6 billion in the FY 2020 budget.

“The funds being made available are associated only with deferred military construction projects that are not scheduled for award until fiscal year 2020 or later and do not include any family housing, barracks, or dormitory projects,” Esper said, explaining the initial $1.8 billion will come from overseas projects. “My intent in prioritizing funds in this manner is to provide time to work with you to determine opportunities to restore funds for these important military construction projects as well as to work with our allies and partners in improving cost burden sharing for the overseas construction projects.”

Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre ( @jamiejmcintyre ) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance ( @kjtorrance ). 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 .

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HAPPENING TODAY: Esper is on a short European trip that will take him to Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

His first stop is Stuttgart, where Esper will meet with combatant commanders for U.S. Africa and U.S. European Commands before moving on to London and Paris. ”I will be discussing a range of issues and underscoring the need to stand strong together in the face of Chinese and Russian influence,” Esper tweeted before his departure.

DEEPENING CONCERNS: A virtual who’s who of U.S. diplomats who have worked on Afghanistan over the years is expressing concern that the Trump administration is in “a rush to failure” in its zeal to end the war in Afghanistan. The group of nine consists of James Dobbins, Robert Finn, Ronald Neumann, William Wood, John Negroponte, Earl Anthony Wayne, Ryan Crocker, James Cunningham, and Hugo Llorens.

“[W]e believe that US security and values, including support for women, require that a full troop withdrawal come only after a real peace,” the group writes in a post on the Atlantic Council’s website.

“First, it is not clear whether peace is possible,” they warn. “The Taliban have made no clear statements about the conditions they would accept for a peaceful settlement with their fellow Afghans, nor do they have a track record of working with other political forces.”

“Secondly, there is an outcome far worse than the status quo, namely a return to the total civil war ... something that could follow a breakdown in negotiations if we remove too much support from the Afghan state.”

THEY’RE BACK: The latest analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies concludes that ISIS has reorganized and recovered to a significant degree in both Iraq and Syria as well as continued its operations in other countries, despite the much-touted defeat of the ISIS caliphate in March.

“The U.S.-led Coalition did not, however, fully defeat ISIS in either Iraq or Syria or eliminate ISIS and other forms of extremism as serious threats. It did not bring lasting stability to Iraq or end the Syrian civil war, and it did not eliminate the threat from ISIS and other extremist groups,” write the CSIS analysts, led by Anthony Cordesman.

“Defeating the ISIS ‘Caliphate’ has treated a key symptom of terrorism and extremism but has not addressed most of its major causes,” Cordesman writes. “More broadly, the decline in the level of ISIS-caused violence does not mean that the U.S.-led counter-terrorism coalition has reduced the overall threat of extremism, or brought unity and stability to Iraq, Syria, or any of the other states affected by ISIS and other extremist movements.”

INSULT TO INJURY: The Trump administration has announced sanctions against the Iranian Space Agency, days after satellite imagery emerged showing what appeared to be a failed rocket launch by the country.

“For the 1st time, the US has sanctioned Iran’s civilian space agency, which develops the same space launch vehicle technology used in ballistic missiles,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted yesterday. “We call on our allies to join us in deterring the world’s top sponsor of terrorism from growing its ballistic missile program.”

FREE THE UKRAINE FUNDS: A bipartisan group of five U.S. senators, including Republicans Rob Portman of Ohio and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, has fired off a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney urging the immediate release of $250 million in congressionally authorized military security assistance for Ukraine. Three Democrats co-signed the letter: Jeanne Shaheen, Dick Durbin, and Richard Blumenthal.

“The funds designated for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative are vital to the long term viability of the Ukrainian military. It has helped Ukraine develop the independent military capabilities and skills necessary to fend off the Kremlin’s continued onslaughts within its territory,” wrote the senators. “We strongly urge you to direct the Department of Defense to obligate these funds immediately.”

MATTIS: OBAMA’S RESPONSE TO TERROR PLOT ‘EMBOLDENED’ IRAN: Former defense secretary Jim Mattis says he predicted years ago that Iran would escalate its provocations against the United States — and he partly blames the Obama administration’s anemic reaction to an Iranian plot to bomb a restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Mattis writes in his just-released book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, that Washington didn’t even inform him when Iran committed an “act of war” on American soil. The duty officer at U.S. Central Command’s Tampa, Florida, headquarters on October 11, 2011, told him that the attorney general and FBI director had held a press conference to announce the arrest of two Iranians who had planned a bomb attack on Cafe Milano, a high-end restaurant in Washington that was a favorite of the rich and famous, including Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

“I saw the intelligence: we had recorded Tehran’s approval of the operation,” Mattis writes. “We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation, jailing the low-level courier.”

WHY SO MUM?: Everywhere he goes on his book tour, Mattis is asked some form of the same question: If he believes President Trump may be unfit for office, doesn't he have a responsibility to speak out?

“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” Mattis said yesterday at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York.

“We’ve got a president and a secretary of state and a secretary of defense trying to protect this great big experiment that you and I call America. And I’m not going to make their job more difficult by a former secretary of defense speaking out from what I would call the cheap seats,” he said.

“For those of you who say I have a responsibility to speak out, I’ve led a responsible life. I know what responsibility is … so when the time comes — I’ll know it, when it’s right — I can’t tell you. I can’t tell myself. I’m not keeping a secret. When the time’s right to speak out about policy or strategy, I’ll speak out.”

WOMEN IN COMBAT COMPLICATED BY ‘SEXUALITY’ AND ‘ATHLETICISM’: Mattis did raise some eyebrows when he answered a question from former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, who served as a colonel in the Marine Reserves, about integrating women into rifle platoons.

Mattis was known to have reservations about allowing women to serve in all combat jobs in the Marines, and he expounded on those concerns, arguing that the military was doing something the Olympic Committee won’t do.

“We have a male and a female [team] because there’s different aspects to male and female athleticism,” he said. “We also have to look at young people coming of age. It’s not fair to say to the young sergeants and lieutenants, ‘You figure it out. You figure it out. You’ve got young people falling in love in your unit, sort it out.’”

Mattis said respect for the “sexuality” of young people should be part of the decision on whether to allow women to fight on the front lines with men in close combat. “We’re going around outraged these days, shocked by the level of some of the coarseness of our society, especially towards women — young women. And I think we have to be darn careful going to where the veneer of civilization is peeled off you in combat completely, and at times you’re just fighting to keep from going insane or losing your ethics and your morality. And in that environment you’re going to put young men and women, at a time when they grow very fond of one another.”

‘EMBARRASSINGLY OUTDATED VIEWS’: The Palm Center, a group that advocates on behalf of gay and transgender troops, denounced what it called Mattis’ “embarrassingly outdated views,” including that “‘young people falling in love' requires a man and a woman,” and “‘society's coarseness toward women' is best dealt with by sheltering and limiting women rather than holding men accountable.”

“His concern for our national unity rings hollow against his record,” said Palm Center director Aaron Belkin, who has been sharply critical of the policy Mattis crafted while defense secretary that restricts the service of some transgender troops.

ON THE SAME DAY: Mattis’ comments came as we learned that 1st Lt. Chelsey Hibsch made history last week by becoming the first female in the Air Force to graduate from the Army’s grueling Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Hibsch joins a very small group of elite females in the military who earned the right to wear the coveted Ranger tab by successfully completing the emotionally and physically demanding two-month course, which is “designed to train military members on small unit tactics and instill combat leadership skills that empower members to make quick decisions in adverse situations.”

CRUZ: DEEP STATE CONSPIRACY: Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz claims the so-called “deep state" is actively working against President Trump’s efforts to counter Iran, by secretly trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal he scrapped as the “worst ever.”

"I am here to tell you the deep state is alive and well and has circled the barricades around Washington, D.C. And the number-one objective of the deep state at the Department of State, at the Department of Treasury, is to preserve the disastrous Obama Iran nuclear deal," Cruz said at the Hudson Institute yesterday.

"Their overarching objective is to prevent this administration from dismantling the Iran deal completely because they believe one of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates is going to win," Cruz said.

The Rundown

The Daily Beast: The Taliban Scoff at Trump’s Afghan Peace Talks Bluff

AP: New US-led patrols in Persian Gulf raise stakes with Iran

Japan News: Japan Considers Boosting Maritime Security In Strait Of Hormuz

AP: Iran Oil Tanker Pursued By U.S. Turns Off Tracker Near Syria

Washington Examiner: Pentagon looks down under to cut China out of its technologically critical rare earth supply chain

Wall Street Journal: Beijing Asserts Power to Declare Emergency to Quell Hong Kong Unrest

Defense One: U.S. Pacific Forces Are Using AI To Predict Chinese and Russian Moves

The Atlantic: Coming soon to the battlefield: Robots that can kill

Defense News: Denied hot meals and indoor toilets, US airmen prepare for the fog of war

Stars and Stripes: The Navy Has Fattest Members Of The Military — But Obesity Rates Are Up Across All Services

Forbes: Why Aircraft Carriers Are The Most Cost-Effective Way Of Containing China's Military

Seapower Magazine: Huntington Ingalls Completes Initial Sea Trials Of Virginia-Class Sub Delaware

National Defense Magazine: Fourth-Generation Fighters Experiencing Rebirth

Defense News: Lockheed makes its pitch to Polish industry in exchange for F-35 deal

Washington Post: Women Of ISIS Rekindle Its Brutal Rule At Camp

AP: Former Navy SEAL enters Yale as a 52-year-old freshman

Calendar

WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 4

7:30 a.m. 1250 S. Hayes Street, Arlington. Third annual Defense News conference, featuring Matthew Donovan, acting Air Force secretary; Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering; Ryan McCarthy, acting Army secretary; Gen. James McConville, Army chief of staff; and many others. conference.defensenews.com/agenda

9 a.m. 300 5th Avenue S.W. U.S. Army Military District of Washington holds “Capital Shield 2019” joint training exercise focusing on urban search and rescue following mass casualty scenarios in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive threat. www.mdwhome.mdw.army.mil

10 a.m. 1957 E Street N.W. The University of Southern California and George Washington University hold a forum with Michelle Giuda, assistant secretary of state for public affairs and acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. communicationleadership.usc.edu/events

11:45 a.m. 201 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Maryland. Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and the Intelligence and National Security Alliance 2019 Intelligence and National Security Summit, with Gen. Paul Nakasone, U.S. Cyber Commander; Lt. Gen Robert Ashley, director, Defense Intelligence Agency; Jack Gumtow, CIO of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Lt. Gen. Veralinn "Dash" Jamieson, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and cyber effects operations at the Air Force; Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, deputy chief of staff for intelligence at the Army; Rear Adm. Steve Parode, warfare integration director at the Navy; and others. website.eventpower.com/19INSS/Home

1 p.m. 801 Mount Vernon Place N.W. Billington Cybersecurity 10th annual Cybersecurity Summit, with Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, director, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center; Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commanding general, U.S. Army Cyber Command; Grant Schneider, federal chief information security officer in the Office of Management and Budget; and Anne Neuberger, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency. www.billingtoncybersecurity.com

2 p.m. 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Former supreme NATO commander retired Adm. James Stavridis addresses the annual conference of the Inter-American Dialogue, the Organization of American States, and the Andean Development Corporation-Development Bank of Latin America. www.thedialogue.org/events

THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 5

10:45 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Association of the U.S. Army Hot Topic Symposium on Army aviation, with Maj. Gen. David Francis, commanding general of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker, and others. www.ausa.org/events

12 p.m. 1763 N Street N.W. Middle East Institute discussion on "Assessing the Implications of a U.S.-Taliban Deal,” with former Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies' Center for Strategic Studies; Javid Ahmad, senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center; Jarrett Blanc, senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Geoeconomics and Strategy Program; Laurel Miller, director of the International Crisis Group's Asia Program; and Marvin Weinbaum, director of the MEI Afghanistan and Pakistan Program. www.mei.edu/events

12:30 p.m. CVC-268, Capitol. Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies discussion on "Building Tomorrow's Air Force,” with Lt. Gen. Tim Fay, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements at the Air Force Headquarters; Dave Gerber, senior principal systems engineer at the MITRE Corporation; Mark Gunzinger, director of future aerospace concepts and capabilities assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies; and Doug Birkey, executive director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event

6:30 p.m. 1777 F Street N.W. Council on Foreign Relations discussion with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford on U.S. military and defense strategy in conflict areas around the world and the current state of cooperative efforts with U.S. allies, with David Sanger, national security correspondent at the New York Times. www.cfr.org

FRIDAY | SEPTEMBER 6

8:30 a.m. 300 First Street S.E. Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies "Space Power to the Warfighter" seminar on "Secure Communications,” with Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, commander of Air Forces Central Command, and Air Force Lt. Gen. J.T. Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center. www.mitchellaerospacepower.org

7:30 p.m. 800 21st Street N.W. Politics and Prose and George Washington University present a conversation with former defense secretary Jim Mattis on his book Call Sign Chaos. calendar.gwu.edu