While many top military leaders often talk about about cyber capabilities, fifth-generation fighter jets and training with virtual reality, the Marine Corps continues to demand gear that would be familiar to Roman warriors 1,000 years ago.

Andrew Howell, a managing director with the British company BCB International, stood on the sprawling vendor exhibition hall at the annual Modern Day Marine gear show selling flint sticks and steel strikers for Marines to use for starting fires.

“This is low-tech,” Howell said as he scraped the flint and created a small shower of sparks, demonstrating it as part of a kit for cooking in the field.

“Marines want a survival kit, so when a cyber attack happens and all the systems get knocked out, they can be self-reliant. I think it’s a good strategy.”

BCB sells field-cooking kits to the British Royal Marines and Howell hopes the U.S. Marines will order some, too.

The Modern Day Marine conference at Marine Corps Base Quantico is the largest annual gathering of Marines and defense industry professionals who showcase their wares in the hopes of landing big contracts with the Corps.

Amid the massive radar systems on display and software engineers showing off intelligence analysis tools, a salesman with the Ontario Knife company displayed one of the most ancient weapons of war.

“This is the Marine Corps’ bayonet,” he said, lifting from the table a knife with an eight-inch, double-sided black blade and brown handle.

The Marine Corps bought tens of thousands of the OKC 3S bayonet back in 2003 and has not bought many since then, Yates said, because the knives are nearly indestructible.

“It’s a hunk of steel. It doesn’t break. And it never gets out of date,” he said.

The standard OKC 3S bayonet, issued to most Marines, retails for $184.

While very few Marines have needed to use the bayonets in close-quarters combat, they double as a survival knife and remain a vital piece of an infantryman’s kit for cutting rope, opening food, or for use as a makeshift screwdriver or a small crow bar.

“Everybody needs a knife,” Yates said.

Across the sprawling vendor floor filled with elaborate signage and flat-screen TVs displaying promotional videos was a booth for the Fits company, which was adorned with hundreds of socks.

The company sells “tactical” socks made from merino wool reinforced with nylon. The socks have deep and well-defined heel pocket to keep them from slipping and the fabric is thinner at the end “so it doesn’t bunch up by your toes,” said Luke Eldridge, a partner with the Fits company.

The socks retail for $19 but are available for $12 in Marine Corps exchanges, Eldridge said.

Some military leaders may be losing site of the strategic value that low-tech supplies can provide, Howell said.

“At the moment, the American military cannot have a cup of hot coffee in the field,” he said, as he showed off his company’s “crusader cup canteen” that can be used with its “Fire Dragon” heating system.

“If you’re trying to win hearts and minds, making a cup of coffee for the right person at the right time can be critical.”

The “CyberPac 8201,” for example, is a 28-lb. shock-resistant server that packs $60,000 of highly reliable processing power into a box the size of a briefcase.

“This is basically their ax when they go out in the field,” said Bruce Imsand, the chief executive officer of MaxVision, the Alabama-based company that makes the CyberPac. “This is for battalion-level incident response teams.”

MaxVision has sold CyberPacs to the Air Force and Army, Imsand said.

The Modern Day Marine conference at Marine Corps Base Quantico is the largest annual gathering of Marines and defense industry professionals who showcase their wares in the hopes of landing big contracts with the Corps.

The gear on display ranged from large amphibious assault vehicles and radar equipment to small sidearms and waterproof boots.

A large swath of the event was focused on providing computer processing power to Marines at the tip of the spear, whether for cyber capabilities or to fuel the increasingly complex intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools now required for expeditionary operations.

Protecting that gear, however, is a growing concern.

“If this stuff is going to get kicked out of a helicopter, the older cardboard boxes and wooden crates just don’t provide the protection that is required,” said Jeff Gazich, a sales manager for Gemstar, a Minnesota-based company that sells customized hard cases.

Gemstar is more than 50 years old but has only recently begun to focus on the military as a potential customer.

“We’ve been asked to come in here as their standard threshold for protection is rising,” he said.

Gemstar and several other companies want to sell cases to the Marine Corps that include foam protection, cooling systems and customized designs to fit specific types of hardware.

Powering that gear is another acute challenge for the Marine Corps and its expeditionary missions. The average Marine’s kit is already weighed down with heavy battery packs, and the Corps is continuing a search for the perfect battery or mobile power source.

Rechargeable, disposable and solar-powered batteries, as well as other experimental technologies have all . But so far there’s no silver bullet.

“They are all trying to find the right technology that can provide very high energy for a long period of time but it also has to be lightweight,” said Yves Destenaves, a product manager with Acumentrics, a Massachusetts-based company that specializes in battery and power systems.

Acumentrics sells a 9-lb. battery system that is sewn into a standard Marine’s backpack with USB ports and traditional electrical-plug inputs accessible from the pack’s exterior and within reach for the warfighter.

Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has frequently raised concerns about the Corps’ need to push cyber capabilities, both offensive and defensive, down to the lowest level. He’s concerned that the Corps does not have enough Marines with cyber skills and fears the military’s networks are vulnerable and could be a critical weakness in a future war.

Forward-deployed Marines need to be able to protect their own communications networks and potentially those of their local allies. They need to respond quickly to cyber attacks to identify, attribute and counter them. And they need to be prepared to launch offensive cyber operations to shape the battlefield when needed.

For now, the Marine Corps cannot provide all of those capabilities from a brigade-level headquarters.

“You’ve got to be plugged in and connected to the network to be able to see what’s going on,” Imsand said.

“You can’t do it remotely.”

The Army fired 13-foot-long missiles from the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a long-range surface-to-surface precision-strike weapon system, into South Korea’s territorial waters. according to a statement from the Korea-based U.S. 8th Army

The test came just hours after North Korea’s test of an ICBM which analysts said for the first time displayed the capability to exceed 10,000 km in range, a distance capable of potentially threatening New York or San Diego.

Following the launch Friday morning, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, and Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris called the Republic of Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Lee Sun-jin, according to the Pentagon.

“During the call Dunford and Harris expressed the ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance,” a Pentagon release stated. ”The three leaders also discussed military response options.” Harris joined Dunford in his Pentagon office to make the phone call.

The ATACMS missile launch was a “combined training event to exercise assets countering North Korea’s missile launch/nuclear test,” the Army statement said. 

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis issued an statement on the launch from the Defense Department. 

“The U.S. Department of Defense detected and tracked a single North Korea missile launch today at about 10:41 a.m. [Eastern Daylight Time],” said Davis, reading the official statement. “We assess that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected.”

Davis said the missile was launched from Mupyong-ni, and said it traveled “about 1,000 kilometers before splashing down in the Sea of Japan.”

Mupyong-ni “is an arms plant up in the far north of North Korea, north of Pyongyang,” Davis said. The missile “splashed down inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, about 88 nautical miles from Hokkaido,” Davis told reporters at the Pentagon.

“We’re working with our interagency partners for a more detailed assessment,” he said.

North American Aerospace Defense Command assessed the launch and “determined it was not a threat to North America,” Davis said.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Defense News that the decision to do a night launch from a new location “demonstrates that we can’t preempt them” from future launches.

[What war with North Korea would look like]

Most worryingly, Lewis noted the reported 45-minute flight time of the missile and other data, which would “be consistent” with longer-range estimates of the weapon’s capabilities — perhaps putting its range in the 10,000 km range — distance enough to put continental U.S. locations at risk.

“Preliminary reports [are] consistent with computer models showing that the missile can hit targets in CONUS,” he said.

David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, wrote on his website that the launch characteristics show that a number of major U.S. cities may now be in range. 

“Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago appear to be well within range of this missile, [and] Boston and New York may be just within range,” Wright wrote. “Washington DC may be just out of range.”

However, Wright stressed that “it is important to keep in mind that we do not know what payload the missile carried on this test. If it was lighter than the actual warhead the missile would carry, the ranges would be shorter than those estimated above.”

Joshua Pollack, a non-proliferation expert with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, was less confident that the 45-minute flight time guarantees a 10,000 km range, but noted that if that range is in play, North Korea would be able to hold naval hub San Diego as a target.

The city appeared highlighted as a potential target on a map that appeared in the background of a 2013 North Korea propaganda film a North Korea.

Pollack added that the launch profile raises the possibility that North Korea has tested an ICBM Ballistic Missile Operating Area, a region of the country where mobile launch platforms would be able to move around freely and securely.

“The word of the day is ‘ICBM BMOA,’” he told Defense News.

A July 4 launch, which Pentagon officials said involved an ICBM-class missile, occurred at an aircraft plant area known as Panghyon. North Korea used a mobile platform to launch that weapon for the first time, Davis said July 5.

In response to that launch, the U.S. and South Korea issued a show of force by firing weapons from a pair of Army Tactical Missile System batteries, controlled by the U.S. Eighth Army. 

The Pentagon had been conducting surveillance of North Korea’s known launch sites in the last week and had said previously it had seen evidence North Korea was preparing for another launch.

Two U.S. Navy ships — the destroyer Momsen and the radar ship Howard O. Lorenzen —were still in the area at the time of Friday’s launch, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity, but it was not yet clear if those vessels were able to track the missile.

The ships tracked North Korea’s July 4 launch.

Friday’s missile did enter space, Davis said, which led to the conclusion it was an ICBM. An ICBM is defined as a missile that can travel farther than 5,500 km.

“It was another high loft,” he said.

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General’s General!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016

If Trump’s administration can accomplish even a portion of this, it could have sweeping effects on rank-and-file military personnel, touching everything from individual advancement opportunities to the number of U.S. troops stationed overseas and overall operational tempo. The scope of growth being suggested would require many more officers and noncommissioned officers, influencing, over the course of several years, how each service recruits, promotes and retains its workforce.

It could reshape how many American troops find themselves assigned to geopolitical hot spots, including the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. And all of this, in theory, would ease the pace at which service members are deployed or actively preparing to go overseas, which amounts to time away from their homes and families.

It is unclear, though, whether Trump’s plans include a boost for troops’ pay and benefits, the value of which has eroded as annual raises have fallen below civilian wage growth for the past five years. This has become a source of frustration and anxiety among rank-and-file personnel, many of whom feel they’ve been asked to do more with less. 

In the past, cuts to military personnel accounts came at the request of the Pentagon’s top brass, which voiced concerns that rising personnel costs would take money from modernization and readiness accounts. And any plans to ratchet up the size of the force could renew pressure on military personnel accounts because maintaining a larger force costs more money.  

Standing in Trump’s way is the ongoing fight in Washington over mandatory spending caps enacted by Congress in 2011 with hopes of reigning in the federal budget. This has inflicted a unique form of paralysis on the Pentagon, in particular, which has managed to ease some shortfalls by leveraging the $25 billion to $30 billion set aside each year for combat operations and other overseas contingencies.

Although there is widespread distaste for the Budget Control Act, lawmakers have been unable to negotiate a way forward that increases defense spending while ensuring other areas of the budget are kept in check. Republican leaders in Congress say they are hopeful the next administration, coupled with a Republican majority in both houses, will bring new possibilities for a repeal. But Democrats have promised a fight if Trump and his administration insist on increasing defense spending without boosting domestic programs.

“Both presidential candidates called for an end to sequestration for defense,” said Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio and a key member of the House Armed Services Committee. “I believe Congress is ready to repeal it, certainly on the military side.”

Yet even if a compromise is reached on Capitol Hill, the cost for Trump’s military proposals may be too much for fiscal hawks to accept. Earlier this month, officials from the conservative American Enterprise Institute estimated “about $55 to $60 billion extra per year over four years for the meat and potatoes of a military buildup.” Fully implementing his plan would surely push that number higher.

“Adding in crucial smaller programs, accounting for weapons cost growth, and returning the entire force to adequate readiness pushes the real price tag even further upward,” the report said. A more realistic figure is “somewhere between an additional $250 to $300 billion over four years.”

Convincing Democrats and skeptical Republicans already wary of federal debt to support such massive investments will take political savvy and legwork, much of which will fall on Trump’s yet-to-be-named military appointees.

AN ARMY OF 540,000

Trump’s military agenda has been heavily influenced by researchers at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank. Its annual ” Index of U.S. Military Strength,” released in mid-November, concludes that America’s armed forces have withered. They are, the report argues, “only marginally able to meet the demands of defending vital national interests.” It assigns that term — “marginal” — to the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

The Army is in much worse shape, according to these findings. With only one-third of the force at “acceptable” readiness, the Army has become “smaller, older and weaker,” the Heritage report warns.

If current downsizing plans remain intact, the Army and Marine Corps will drop to their smallest combined size in almost 70 years.

Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn/Army

Trump has said he wants to halt the Army’s planned personnel drawdown, which is on course to bottom out at 450,000 active-duty soldiers in 2018. Instead, he wants boost today’s force by 60,000, for a total of 540,000 soldiers. Defense advocates, even those who’ve been critical of Trump, say this is a necessity.

“The Army is grossly undermanned.” said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a 32-year infantry officer who held top-level posts at the Pentagon and in NATO and later served as drug czar in President Bill Clinton’s administration. “You’ve got to have a military combat capability that is believed by the Russians and the North Koreans, among others, as being capable and willing to confront them in an air-ground-sea battle.”

McCaffrey said specifically that there is “inadequate ground combat power” in Europe, which is under threat from a resurgent Russia. Trump has indicated he wants to reset relations with Moscow, but Pentagon leadership and even members of his own party believe that would be a mistake. The Heritage Foundation says Russia is the primary threat to American interests, followed by Iran, China and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State. North Korea was downgraded, from “hostile” to merely “aggressive.”

It is unclear whether the growth Trump envisions would translate to more troops deployed or assigned outside the United States. He has said he wants foreign allies to take a larger role providing for their own defense, hinting that some overseas military bases could be consolidated or shuttered. But McCaffrey said he is confident Trump will see value in those alliances and strive to reinforce U.S. military presence in key regions.

“At some point,” the retired general said, “math counts in warfare. If you don’t want to fight, then maintain a capability that is persuasive to your adversary as being capable of taking them on.”

DOZENS OF NEW SHIPS & SUBMARINES

Trump also as vowed to build the 350-ship Navy that Republican defense hawks have long sought. Today, the battle force totals 272 ships and submarines.

It’s unclear what mix of ships the incoming administration wants to build, but one thing is for sure: There will be considerable cost. Ford-class aircraft carriers, for instance, are about $10 billion each. A single Virginia-class attack sub is $3 billion. Each new littoral combat ship is $500 million. And beyond hardware, this plan would require the addition of 50,000 sailors, by one estimate.

In a campaign memo, Trump advisers promised specifically to fund modernizing “a significant number of the Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers,” some of which have been sidelined for months or years pending overhauls. The memo describes plans to invest heavily in new subs and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and to revitalize shipyards and get warships the maintenance that has been deferred in the last few years because due to budget cuts. Trump wants to identify where old shipyards went out of business and have the ability to restart, an effort that would be led by the incoming Navy secretary, and to build a robust training pipeline for skilled workers in the shipyards. This would increase the support base for a growing Navy.

The Ticonderoga-class cruiser Vicksburg escorts the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt as they pass the Rock of Gibraltar while entering the Mediterranean Sea.

Photo Credit: MCSN Anthony Hopkins/Navy

Even if Trump’s administration can find the money needed for such a dramatic expansion, new ships can’t be built overnight. Reaching a fleet of the size Trump has proposed will take until the 2030s, said Bryan Clark, who served as senior aide to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert and now works as an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. To get there, the Navy would need to accelerate aircraft carrier production, start building three Virginia-class attack submarines per year, continue to commission new Littoral Combat Ships and have new frigates doing low-end missions in 2019.

Such a buildup would propel the service from a force of 330,000 sailors today to more than 380,000. If enacted, Trump’s Navy would be largest size since 1998.

MORE AIRCRAFT & AIRMEN TO MAINTAIN THEM

Trump’s Air Force would boast 1,200 fighter aircraft, ideally, an increase of about 100. Including surveillance, cargo planes and other platforms, the Air Force fleet numbers nearly 2,000 today.

Defense advocates are hopeful that Trump’s administration will push to supplement the Air Force’s operations and maintenance budget, making it easier to pay for spare parts, fuel and training hours. “It needs to be done,” said retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, who was the Air Force’s chief of staff during the first Gulf War. “The Air Force is too small now, and in particular, the combat flying elements of the Air Force are too small. If he is able to follow through on such a notion, I think that would be grand.”

The Air Force needs to refocus on improving readiness and training, says former Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill McPeak. More money would enable more flying hours in general and more large-scale exercises, and help it remain sharp if the U.S. pulls back from the Middle East.

Photo Credit: Air Force photo

The Air Force has declined from its post-9/11 peak of 376,616 airmen in fiscal 2004 to roughly 311,000 in fiscal 2015. That drawdown was most painfully felt in 2014, when a series of voluntary and involuntary force management programs cut roughly 20,000 airmen in two years and left the active-duty Air Force at its lowest end strength since 1948 — the year after it was established as its own service.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James later admitted that she soon realized the sequestration-driven force cuts “just didn’t seem to be adding up anymore,” and were causing significant strain on the force. So leaders refocused on trying to rebuild, especially in crucial areas such as cyber security, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, battlefield airmen and maintenance. Today, the Air Force numbers about 317,000.

John Venable, an Air Force veteran and a defense fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said he believes Trump could boost Air Force personnel by roughly 40,000 airmen in the next few years, a number needed to operate and maintain the new equipment Trump wants to buy. But it will have to be a methodical growth to bring airmen on board and train them, he said. Today, the Air Force is about 700 pilots short, and training new personnel to replace departing pilots is not a quick process.

ENOUGH MARINES TO FIGHT TWO WARS AT ONCE

Trump has promised to build a Marine Corps capable of simultaneously

winning

two wars. It would be based on 36 battalions, up from the current force structure of 24 active-duty infantry battalions, two active-duty tank battalions and supporting units. That means adding between 8,000 and 12,000 more Marines to the service’s roster, another potentially expensive personnel plus-up dependent on a significant influx of new funding.   Using the fiscal 2017 personnel costs as a base, that could total more than $1 billion per year just in personnel costs, before equipment and training are factored in.

But supporters say it’s worth the cost. “A Marine Corps of 36 battalions would enable an ability to handle a major conflict and an ability to handle other taskings around the world, wherever this may be,” Dakota Wood, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

About 17 percent of the service’s active-duty force is now deployed. More personnel would give Marines more time between deployments.

Photo Credit: Cpl. Aaron Patterson/Marine Corps

By getting larger, the service would also be able to give Marines more time at home between deployments, he said. Currently, 31,277 Marines are forward deployed, about 17 percent of the service’s active-duty force, officials said. Traditionally, the Marine Corps has committed 15 battalions to conflicts such as Vietnam and the Gulf War, Wood added. Having 30 battalions plus an extra six for units that are training or otherwise unavailable to deploy would allow the Marines to be more than a one-war force.

“We say that the United States needs to have the ability to handle two wars,” Wood said. “Not that we’re saying that we’re going to be in two wars simultaneously, but if you only have a one-war force and you have to commit to it, that’s everything.”

With reporting by Stephen Losey of Air Force Times, David Larter of Navy Times, Meghann Myers of Army Times and Jeff Schogol of Marine Corps Times. 

Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

Andrew Tilghman is Military Times’ Pentagon bureau chief. He can be reached at atilghman@militarytimes.com.

Some observers say the president-elect’s business background will bring a shift to the White House’s management style, allowing for the Pentagon to make more decisions independently about the execution of military strategies and policies.

“There will be a natural inclination to shift day-to-day decision-making back to the generals … with Trump simply setting the basic philosophy,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

But there are plenty of reasons to believe Trump’s White House will continue Obama’s pattern of heavy-handed management.

“It could get worse,” said another military officer, who was among several who talked to Military Times and speculated about the future Trump administration Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

Trump has signaled some intent to second-guess military leadership. Last year, for instance, he said of the Islamic State group “I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.” And some experts say that, during the campaign to be president, the business mogul revealed important insights about his management style. Turnover among his top advisers was common, and Trump often ignored recommendations from those closest to him.

“He’s micromanaged everything. He disregards the advice of the people working for him, and he makes the final decision himself. So it’s hard to think that he would change that style,” said Larry Korb, a defense expert with the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington.

As an executive, Trump was often eager to stay involved in the day-to-day operations of his businesses, according to a biographer. He “didn’t surrender any actual power. He signed checks, read documents, interrogated everyone about assignments and did not hesitate to call the people they were calling,” wrote Gwenda Blair, author of “The Trumps,” a book about his family published in 2000.

If Trump and his administration do seek involvement in the smaller details of military operations and policies, he would be continuing a trend that has persisted for years — one that’s frustrated military leaders. The National Security Council, the White House’s civilian-led inner circle responsible for coordinating national security policy across the government, grew from about 100 staffers under President George W. Bush in the 2001 to more than 400 under Obama.

One of Trump’s military advisers during the campaign, Republican Congressman Randy Forbes of Virginia, told Defense News in late Octoberthat as commander in chief, Trump will make clear early in his presidency that “we are going to have an international defense strategy driven by the Pentagon and not by the political National Security Council.” That will be “a clear game changer,” said Forbes, who chairs the House Seapower Subcommittee.

“Because if you look around the globe, over the last eight years, the National Security Council has been writing that,” he added. “And find one country anywhere that we are better off than we were eight years ago, you cannot find it.”

The Pentagon often has complained about Obama’s aggressive oversight. His first defense secretary, Robert Gates, once said that the White House micromanaged himto the point it “drove me crazy.” One military official who spoke to Military Times said such an approach erodes accountability, that removing control over key decisions makes it more difficult to hold senior military leaders responsible for poor performance.

Ultimately, Trump may be unable to micromanage the Pentagon even if he wanted to because it will take substantial time for him to get a full team in place. His campaign-trail promises to not rely on Washington insiders will make it challenging to find top national security advisers and obtain proper security clearances for them.

“I suspect,” Rubin said, “we’re looking at perhaps 18 to 24 months before he has his whole team in place. That means he’ll have to rely on a bureaucracy which is overwhelmingly hostile to him, and that could mean more gridlock.”

Tilghman is Military Times’ Pentagon bureau chief. With additional reporting by Christopher P. Cavas and Joe Gould of Defense News.

^{(Video by Daniel Woolfolk/Staff)}

At this moment, there are two major issues.

In Iraq, U.S. officials expect that, once victory is declared in Mosul, ISIS will shift to guerrilla warfare and the fight there will continue as a counter-insurgency mission. The American military’s potential role in such operations remains unclear.

In Syria, the U.S. and its allies are focused on the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa, an objective that will draw the American military deeper than ever into that country’s multi-sided civil war. On Sunday, Syrian Kurdish forces announced the startof its campaign to liberate the city, where an estimated 5,000 ISIS fighters are entrenched and upwards of 200,000 civilians remain trapped.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Sunday called the Raqqa operation a necessary step to “end the fiction of ISIL’s caliphate.” But while U.S. officials have signaled an urgent desire to oust ISIS the terror group from Syria, it’s unknown what their near- or long-term strategy there will entail.

This much is clear: Once Mosul and Raqqa fall, and the Islamic State’s caliphate is destroyed, the U.S. military will almost certainly remain heavily engaged, conducting airstrikes, and providing tactical assistance and advisement for ground-level allies in addition to large-scale material support. The group’s ideology has spread well beyond its rapidly diminishing territory inside Iraq and Syria. It’s become a potent global threat, active in Afghanistan and in pockets of Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia — at the backdoors of both China and Russia.

“Defeating ISIS doesn’t bring an end to the problem,” said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official who is now a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“We can destroy extremist elements as a proto state. And that is very important,” he said. “But this is not something that is going to have a quick, easy end. One way or other the foreign fighters who affiliated themselves with ISIS are still going to be around in significant numbers.”

IRAQ BRACES FOR ANOTHER COUNTER-INSURGENCY FIGHT

As the battle for Mosul continues to progress, U.S. officials are optimistic. Coalition forces had advanced toward the city center, and intelligence assessments suggested there are about 3,000 ISIS fighters dug in there, compared to approximately 12,000 Iraqi and Kurdish troops surrounding them. The U.S. is providing daily airstrikes, artillery support and attack helicopters as well as vehicles, ammunition, food and other supplies.

If and when ISIS in Iraq no longer has outright control of any significant territory, the militants will likley dissolve into a shadowy insurgency.  “It is a strange echo of the situation we encountered about ten years ago. But at this point we are looking at a very different political context,” Ucko said.

Politically, the U.S. is not willing to deploy large numbers of combat troops to Iraq. On the other hand, Washington has seen the fallout that can result from a complete military withdrawal. Ucko said the U.S. force level in Iraq, officially capped at about 5,200, is unlikely to decline after the battle of Mosul. The mission will shift to training, advising and assisting Iraqi forces on counter-insurgency operations.

“I think we will see a continuation of what some people might call an indirect approach,” he said.

Ted Karasik, a Middle East expert with Gulf State Analytics, said the next president will confront questions about a long-term U.S. presence similar to the one Obama faced in 2011, when all operational forces were withdrawn.

“It’s easy to come up with the argument, once the U.S. feels comfortable that he Iraqis have the situation under control, that the U.S. can slowly wind down and leave. Then, of course, we’ll be back where we were 2012,” Karasik said in a recent interview.

“We don’t want history to repeat itself, so the next administration will have to deal with that question.”

A soldier with Iraq’s elite counterterrorism force inspects a tunnel made by Islamic State militants in Bartella, Iraq, on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016. The village is just east of Mosul.

BUT SYRIA MAKES IRAQ LOOK SIMPLE

The sense of urgency in Raqqa stems from new intelligence suggesting Islamic State leaders there are planning external attacks in the U.S. and Europe. But there’s no primary ally on the ground, as there is in Iraq.

“We have a huge tactical problem” in Raqqa, said Jim Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Iraq and Turkey who now works with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Who is going to be the infantry?”

In Syria, the U.S. faces geopolitical crosswinds that make Iraq look simple. The battlefield there includes Russia and Turkey, major military powers with separate agendas.

Currently, the U.S. has only about 300 American troops on the ground in Syria, and no artillery or attack helicopters positioned near Raqqa. Even fixed-wing air support and intelligence aircraft may be in short supply until the Mosul operation is over, Jeffrey said. There may be urgency, he added, but “we’re not set up for Raqqa.”

It will be difficult to keep the U.S. allies focused on ISIS militants rather than each other. The new president may have to consider authorizing more American boots on the ground for Syria to help manage the fractured network of allies.

“The biggest problem with Raqqa will be managing the coalition,” said J. Matthew McInnis, a Middle East security expert with the American Enterprise Institute. “If you get an extra six hundred or an extra one thousand troops, that doesn’t dramatically change the situation from a military standpoint, but it does from a political standpoint. You gain a certain amount of ability to manage the situation when you have a little bit larger number troops there.”

The invasion of Raqqa will put the teams of U.S. special operations troops into a unique role managing the movements of rival allied factions that often have fought each other during the five-year-old civil war.

Small teams of American troops will attach to various allied elements, which could include the Turkish military, Syrian Kurdish militias, Sunni Arab tribal fighters and others linked to the so-called Syrian Defense Force, according to defense officials familiar with the planning. Those teams of elite American troops will provide vital communication links between the groups as well as to the U.S.-led coalition’s centralized command and control system overseeing the operation.

“The U.S. can play a very pivotal role in negotiating this, and then the U.S. troops would help them deconflict it on the ground,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I don’t know who else can play that role.”

The main fissure in the U.S. alliance is between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds.

The U.S. military believes that the only rebel faction capable of fighting ISIS in Raqqa is the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, a network of militias dominated by the Syrian Kurds. Syrian Kurdish fighters have proven to be an effective ally for fighting ISIS with the help of U.S. air strikes in other parts of Syria.

This frame grab from video provided by Arab 24 network shows officials with the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces at a press conference in Ein Issa in northern Syria. U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian forces announced their plan Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016, to retake the Islamic State group’s de facto capital of Raqqa, saying they hoped Turkey would not “interfere in internal Syrian affairs.”

Photo Credit: Arab 24 network via AP

Yet Turkey — a NATO ally — fiercely opposes U.S. support for the Kurds, fearing that a strengthened Kurdish force will consolidate power and form its own autonomous region along Turkey’s southern border. For decades Turkey has mounted counter-insurgency operations targeting its own restive Kurdish minority.

This tension erupted in combat recently. On Oct. 20, the two sides exchanged indirect fire, prompting the Turkish military to launch air strikes against Kurdish forces. Turkey said its attacks killed 160 to 200 Kurdish fighters.

The U.S. also depends on Turkey for use of Incirlik Air Base, a hub for U.S. air operations near Turkey’s southern border. A power struggle has played out in public view as the top American general overseeing operations against ISIS vowed to march on Raqqa with Kurdish forces regardless of Turkey’s opposition. “Turkey doesn’t want to see us operating with the SDF anywhere, particularly in Raqqa,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend acknowledged in a recent press briefing.

After Sunday’s announcement, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with his Turkish counterpart, Gen. Hulusi Akar, to discuss next steps, according to a Pentagon spokesman. Details of their meeting in Turkey were not disclosed, except that they agreed to develop “long-term plans to work collaboratively … and consult closely on the coalition plan to seize and hold Raqqa,” said Navy Capt. Greg Hicks.

There is a sense that the U.S. and Turkey may resolve their differences in a way that makes the battlefield even more complicated and result in more American personnel on the ground, said McInnis. “The best case scenario for the U.S.,” he added, “is to move toward some zones of operation, that we try to stay out of each other’s way. Having additional U.S. troops in Syria would help manage the balance of power and manage the situation with Turkey.”

THREAT SPREADS BEYOND THE CALIPHATE

America’s next president will face the added challenge of confronting the ISIS threat beyond Iraq and Syria. In Libya, for instance, ISIS loyalists are clinging to a small outpost in the port city of Sirte despite months of U.S. airstrikes.

In Afghanistan, U.S. forces are supporting operations against an estimated 1,000 militants who’ve declared allegiance to the Islamic State. They’re located primarily in Nangarhar province, along the Pakistan border. The top American commander there, Army Gen. John Nicholson, told NBC Newslast month that those fighters are attempting to establish a caliphate.

A small cadre of U.S. troops in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula live under constant threat from local militants loyal to the Islamic State group.

And the movement is slowly spreading east.

“It’s clear to me that [ISIS] is also ‘rebalancing’ to the Indo-Asia-Pacific,” Adm. Harry Harris, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, said in June. There are signs of ISIS and ISIS-linked groups in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The group has the potential to expand across many parts of Asia, where governance is weak, Karasik said. “The geographical dispersion is heading toward south and southeast Asia, and also potentially up into central Asia and southern Russia and ultimately to China,” he added. “The group seems to be looking east to find new ungovernable urban areas that they can take root in.”

The group spreads in two ways. In some cases, the ISIS leadership strategically identifies a location that could be a safe haven, as they did in Libya. Last year, thousands of ISIS fighters migrated from Iraq and Syria to the ISIS enclave in Libya.

“That,” Ucko said, “was a rational strategic evolution by the group.” At the same time, ISIS spreads its influence with grassroots support, when local militant groups pledge allegiance and seek to align with ISIS leaders.

“Nothing gains the world’s attention like a black flag with Arabic writing on it.”

Tilghman is Military Times’ Pentagon bureau chief. Follow him on Twitter: @andrewtilghman. Military Times chief editor Andrew deGrandpre contributed to this report. Follow him on Twitter: @adegrandpre.

^{Video by Kelly Norris/Medill News Service}

Trump took questions from a friendly audience of mostly older veterans at the event sponsored by a conservative fundraising group called Retired American Warriors, a political action committee. The event was moderated by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian public policy group. Perkins was joined by one of the PAC’s leaders, retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin.

Trump’s remarks about today’s military threw into stark relief a central issue in the presidential campaign regarding the question of whether the current state of the force amounts to a national crisis. Democrat Hillary Clinton consistently strikes a more optimistic view, stating that her plans are to “maintain the best-trained, best-equipped, and strongest military the world has ever known.”

This is a familiar theme for Trump, who often casts a dark and pessimistic view of the nation he’s seeking to lead. Trump talks about soaring crime rates, yet most data suggests crime levels are near a 20-year-low. He talks about economic turmoil despite data that show the U.S. jobless rate has declined steadily since 2010, the U.S. gross domestic product has risen steadily since 2009 and stock markets are at record highs.

Trump said ISIS reflects a failure not only by today’s military but by the senior civilian leaders who refused to heed professional military advice.

“I don’t think you’ve been allowed to fight ISIS, as an example, the way you wanted. I don’t think you’ve been allowed to fight for Iraq the way you’ve wanted,” Trump said.

“If they’d listen to the military people, we probably wouldn’t be having an ISIS right now. I think I can say not ‘probably.’ I think we definitely wouldn’t be having an ISIS right now. But we’re running a war by politicians and we’re running a war by political correctness,” Trump said. “We have a politically correct military and it’s getting more and more politically correct every day. … Some of the things that they’re asking you to do and be politically correct about are ridiculous.”

Trump did not offer any military-specific examples of how “political correctness” was harming readiness, but he suggested that opposition to racial profiling was hindering law enforcement and voiced concern about a high school football coach in Washington state who was told to stop leading students in prayer on the field after games.

Trump suggested the military’s air campaign in Iraq and Syria was authorizing strikes indiscriminately and putting civilians at risk. “We’re dropping things all over the place. Who knows what they’re hitting.? Who knows how many people are being killed? And who knows if they’re the right people?” Trump said.

Those comments are at odds with the military’s top brass who have repeatedly described the two-year-old air campaign targeting ISIS as the “most precise air campaign in history.”

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has rejected the suggestion that today’s military is in crisis, often describing it as “the best-trained, most effective fighting force the world has ever known.”

Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said concerns about defense spending caps and their impact on military readiness should not be confused with overall military weakness.

“That point should not be lost on our enemies, our allies, or more importantly, on the men and women of the joint force,” Dunford said on Sept. 21 when speaking to the Air Force Association’s annual conference in Maryland. “It’s not about ‘we’re broke.’ It’s not about ‘we don’t have a competitive advantage.’ It’s about the standards that we’ve set for ourselves, which are incredibly high.”

To be sure, the two have scrambled party lines on national security, staking out positions often at odds with traditional Republicans and Democrats.

Trump has denounced past attempts at “nation building” and elicited concerns from foreign allies accustomed to Republican rhetoric of a more active role for the U.S. military. “He’s a non-interventionist,” said Doug MacGregor, a retired Army colonel who is now a consultant in Virginia. “In broad terms, he promises a break, not just from the last eight years but the last 25 years, in foreign and defense policy. We’ve been engaged globally for all sorts of reasons — how has this helped us? It’s bankrupting us, not helping us.”

Clinton sits closer to the status quo, promising a military that is historically small but high-tech and lethal. Few Democrats have more consistently favored the use of military force. “She would be the more muscular internationalist of the two candidates,” said Michael Noonan, a defense expert with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank in Philadelphia. “She’s a bit more hawkish than Trump would be. It’s completely useless to discuss foreign and defense politics in terms of liberal or conservative. Those discussions mean nothing. It’s really about restraint on one hand and internationalism on the other.”

There are other big differences. Trump wants to befriend Russia, which would mark a stunning shift in U.S. foreign policy and would change the role of the U.S. military in Europe. Clinton is skeptical of spending $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, an issue that will soon require tough decisions. They disagree on whether the U.S. military should adhere to international laws when pursuing terrorists. Both have promised to force lawmakers to end budget caps on defense spending, but plan on allocating that money in very different areas.

Conventional wisdom in Washington suggests the next commander in chief will have limited control when it comes to dramatically reshaping the military. Congress still controls the defense budget, and will have final say over force growth or reductions. But with both chambers up for grabs in November (the Senate more so than the House), troops can view the election in terms of how their votes could impact the military they know. Either choice will come with new leadership at the Pentagon, a new set of defense priorities and a new reality for those in the ranks.

FORCE SIZE & MILITARY SPENDING

For much of the presidential campaign, critics have hammered Trump as being intentionally vague and offering fewer specifics than Clinton. But when it comes to the size of the military, their roles are reversed. Trump has outlined a host of manpower and equipment targets, while Clinton has pledged generally to maintain the “best-equipped and strongest military the world has ever known.”

In September, Trump outlined plans for an active-duty Army of 540,000 soldiers, up about 50,000 from today’s level. The Marine Corps, under Trump’s plan, would grow by 10,000 troops and be composed of 36 battalions, up from 23 now. Both would represent dramatic reversals of President Barack Obama’s efforts to draw down the number of service members as the military’s commitments waned in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump pledged to build “a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines” and “an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft.” For the Navy, that plan represents a 27 percent boost in the fleet size. The Air Force boasts nearly 2,000 aircraft today, but a little more than 1,100 are readily available for missions, so Trump’s plan appears to be an increase in that inventory too.

“Russia has much newer capability than we do,” Trump said at the first presidential debate on Sept. 26. “We have not been updating from the new standpoint. I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s, they’re old enough that your father, your grandfather could be flying them. We are not keeping up with other countries.”

Maintainers service a nuclear capable B-2 bomber at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has outlined a host of manpower and equipment targets should he win the presidency, including an expansion of the Air Force fleet. His opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has pledged generally to maintain the “best-equipped and strongest military the world has ever known.”

Photo Credit: Mary-Dale Amison/Air Force

The message from Trump’s campaign is clear: As president, he’ll push for a larger military. Whether he can pay for it is another question.

“We buy products for our military, and they come in at costs that are so far above what they were supposed to be, because we don’t have people that know what they’re doing,” he said during the debate. Yet the National Taxpayers Union Foundation has estimated that growing the Army, Navy and Marine Corps alone would add more than $75 billion to the defense budget in the first five years, an almost 3 percent increase each year. Offsets like eliminating waste and civilian workforce attrition would not come close to covering that cost.

That means a Trump military budget would almost certainly breach the defense spending caps in place for the next five years, and require a long-term budget deal with Congress that has eluded Obama.

Clinton’s military plans could fall within those budget caps as she has not committed to any specific increases, like Trump has.

At the American Legion’s annual conference in August, Clinton said that America “cannot lose our military edge, and that means giving the Pentagon the stable, predictable funding it needs to make smart investments.” But instead of promising more troops or platforms, she pledged to “create a defense budget that reflects good stewardship of taxpayer dollars” including “investing in innovation and capabilities that will allow us to prepare for and fight 21st century threats.”

That appears in line with Obama’s effort to forge a leaner, more tech-centric military, one that’s focused on small-scale special operations missions and increasingly reliant on unmanned aircraft. Clinton, like Trump, has promised to find defense savings through cutting waste and fraud.

Clinton also has emphasized using “diplomacy and development on the front lines, solving problems before they threaten us at home.” That could translate to more dollars directed to State Department initiatives rather than military investments.

THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE

Trump and Clinton have sketched out vastly different philosophies about the U.S. military’s basic purpose and its role in the world.

Clinton envisions an activist military that’s deeply involved in advancing her notions of American interests and international law, relying on troops deployed with allies overseas “so we can respond quickly to events on the other side of the world,” she said in June.

Her campaign has highlighted Clinton’s hawkish views and apparent willingness to initiate military interventions or expand those already underway. She voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, she backed the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, and she advocated for the 2011 intervention in Libya. Clinton espouses a belief in American “exceptionalism” that resonates with some Regan-era Republicans, and she has drawn support from several Bush-era neoconservatives as a result.

During a major foreign policy speech in June, she threatened action against Iran. “The world must understand,” Clinton said, “that the United States will act decisively if necessary, including with military action, to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”

Trump, on the other hand, is a Republican unlike any other in recent memory. His skepticism of military intervention evokes a political posture historically in step with the Democratic Party. He’s been outright critical of today’s armed forces and its leaders, describing them by using words like “disaster” and saying the generals under Obama have been “reduced to rubble.” Trump also has promised to prioritize the country’s financial security and that of American families, eschewing its leadership role around the globe.

To that end, Trump has signaled he would be cautious about using American military force abroad and defer instead to regional powers. He suggested the U.S. should let Russia take the lead in fighting the Islamic State group. He’s said countries like Saudi Arabia and South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons programs to help contain adversaries.

Trump has repeatedly criticized Clinton’s experience and her support for military involvement overseas. “Sometimes it has seemed like there wasn’t a country in the Middle East that Hillary Clinton didn’t want to invade, intervene or topple,” he said in September. “She is trigger-happy and unstable when it comes to war.”

Though he’s vowed to “knock the hell out of ISIS,” Trump says he’d use military force only when absolutely essential. He’s critical of broader U.S. policy in the Middle East and has suggested taxpayer money would be better spent at home. “We’ve spent $6 trillion in the Middle East,” Trump said while debating Clinton. “We could have rebuilt our country twice. And it’s really a shame. And it’s politicians like Secretary Clinton that have caused this problem.”

Relations with Russia reveal the clearest distinction between the two nominees. Clinton supports deploying more troops throughout Europe to challenge Moscow’s ambitions. “I think a president Clinton is going to be far less solicitous of Russia,” said Michael Rubin, a defense expert with the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.

Yet Trump has raised concerns about the costs and value of the NATO alliance. Trump’s friendly overtures toward Russian President Vladimir Putin suggest he may seek to fundamentally reshape the U.S.-Russian relationship, said Omar Lamrani, a military expert with Stratfor, a Texas-based firm that provides geo-political intelligence to the private sector. “We might see more of an opening for a Trump administration to make more accommodations with Russia.”

SOCIAL POLICY & ENVIRONMENTAL FEARS

Beyond such sensitive geopolitical issues, the next commander in chief will have to decide who carries out his or her orders. In eight years as president, Obama has overseen a number of historic changes in military personnel policy. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” law was repealed, allowing gay men and women to serve openly. More recently, he’s opened all combat jobs to women, the Pentagon announced this summer plans to lift its ban on transgender troops.

Clinton has praised the transgender decision and suggested that women should have to register with Selective Service, which would implement a military draft should the need ever arise. She has also promised to upgrade the service records of gay veterans dismissed under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy approved by her husband, President Bill Clinton, during the 1990s.

From left, Capt. Kristen Griest, Maj. Lisa Jaster and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, the first women to graduate from the Army’s elite Ranger School. Hillary Clinton has embraced many of the military personnel policies ushered in during the Obama administration. Her opponent, Donald Trump, says the armed forces aren’t a place for social experimentation. (Photo by Paul Abell/AP Images for U.S. Army Reserve)

Clinton has made “full equality” for the LGBT community a key pillar of her campaign, vowing to expand upon changes made by the Obama administration. Her campaign has promised regular town hall meetings with gay troops and military families to hear about their ongoing concerns and challenges.

Trump hasn’t weighed in directly on most of these issues, but he has spent most of the last year promising to upend “political correctness” in federal policies and programs. He has expressed opposition to gay marriage and backed local laws limiting transgender individuals’ access to public bathrooms and locker rooms. His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was an outspoken supporter of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

The Republican party platform approved this summer (which Trump’s staffers had a hand in authoring) includes language opposing “the use of the military as a platform for social experimentation.” It says that the services’ mission readiness and need to retain a quality workforce should guide all military personnel decisions, not the desire to advance a “social or political agenda.”

It’s unclear whether that could result in an attempt to rollback Obama’s efforts. Those in Congress who are critical of such changes have acknowledged that reversing these policies would be near impossible, given the number of job changes and dismissals it would require. But decisions still loom on how to implement such change, and whether new policies are needed to advance them further.

The debate over climate change also looms large over the military. A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, for instance, concluded that rising oceans threaten to submerge 128 military bases by the year 2100, fallout from warmer global temperatures. Obama has framed climate change as a significant national security issue, sparring with Congress over the use of renewable fuels in military vehicles and warning that the demand for natural resources will feed unrest and create more terrorist breeding grounds around the globe.

Clinton has echoed that argument of climate change as a national security issue, and during the first presidential debate accused Trump of ignoring the science behind it. “Some country is going to be the clean-energy superpower of the 21st century,” she said. “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.”

Trump countered, saying that environmental issues are a concern but not to the extent that Clinton has suggested. He also accused Obama and Clinton of advocating energy policies, including public investment in solar energy, that are “putting a lot of people out of work” and said he believes these efforts need to be dialed back.

NEW WEAPONS & NUCLEAR UPGRADES

At first glance, the candidates look like traditional Republicans and Democrats on the issue of defense spending. Trump has called for increasing the Pentagon’s budget — though it’s not clear by how much, or how he’d pay for it. Clinton has signaled support for Obama’s approach and rarely voices concern about military readiness.

Yet many military experts say the new commander in chief may have little control over the next few Pentagon budgets. The next president will arrive at the White House facing sequestration, the law imposing spending caps or across-the-board spending cuts through 2021. It’s like a legal “meat ax,” as former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta liked to say. Moreover, it’s unlikely any call for a surge in defense spending will become law.

“The budget situation does not change in January 2017 regardless of whether Hillary Clinton or Donald trump is inaugurated president,” said Christopher Preble, a defense expert with the CATO Institute. He predicts that Tea Party Republicans, who oppose most government spending, will block the congressional consensus needed to increase Pentagon funding. “The impasse we’ve seen since 2011,” Preble added, “that doesn’t change.” 

Clinton opposes sequestration and has voiced support for the approach to military spending laid out by the Obama administration: incrementally exceeding the current spending caps in hopes of raising them over the next several years. The gridlock in Washington would pose a problem for Trump, who has vowed to “rebuild” the military.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s top brass warns that these tight defense budgets could threaten overall readiness and a host of specific modernization programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force’s B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber and the Navy’s long-term ship-building plans. The next president will have to evaluate these and other programs as they move from concepts into the Defense Department’s official budget process, but it’s not entirely clear where either nominee stands.

Clinton has suggested she would oppose planned spending for new nuclear weapons, specifically the Pentagon’s goal of investing $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. arsenal — spending that includes new bomber aircraft, new ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and a new fleet of ballistic-missile submarines. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” Clinton said in January. She has also voiced support for nuclear disarmament measures. 

The Ohio class ballistic missile submarine Rhode Island, seen here off Kings Bay in Georgia. The Navy has ambitious plans to replace its Ohio class fleet. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class James Kimber/Released)

Trump has suggested he might use nuclear weapons. “

Somebody hits us within ISIS,   you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?” he said on MSNBC in March. And he’s repeatedly said it’s important for a president to be “unpredictable” regarding nuclear weapons.

The lack of specificity is frustrating those with the most at stake. “We’re talking about the largest agency with the largest budget, in charge of making sure the country is safe,” said Mandy Smithberger, a military analyst for the Project on Government Oversight, nonprofit in Washington. “And there’s been very little meaningful debate about either candidate’s plans for the future.” 

One thing is certain as the presidential campaign heads into it’s final stretch: Military professionals are not happy with the options. 

“The consensus is: ‘Are you ready to go to the polls and hold your nose?” said one recently retired admiral who said the topic comes up often among military officers, both past and present. He said many worry about Trump’s temperament while Clinton’s improper handling of emails at the State Department is seen as an egregious and unforgivable error among those who work with classified information every day.

“Neither candidate,” the admiral said, “passes anyone’s test.”
Follow @LeoShaneLeo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

Andrew Tilghman covers the Pentagon for Military Times. He can be reached at atilghman@militarytimes.com.

The key requirement was adherence to a seven-day cease-fire that called on the Syrian regime and Russia to halt attacks around the city of Aleppo, which has experienced some of the war’s most horrific violence, and allow for sustained delivery of humanitarian aid.

But those attacks have continued, including Monday’s bombing of an aid convoy carrying food supplied by the United Nations to a rural area near Aleppo. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the strikes killed 20 people and were a violation of international law.

Technically, the military cooperation between the U.S. and Russia could have begun Tuesday. But violations of the cease-fire have halted the planning effort. Thomas said U.S. military officials began internal planning for the “joint integration center” that will be the hub for the military cooperation with Russia.

But that planning effort has not included direct discussions with the Russians.

“We haven’t had any mil-to-mil contact [with Russia] at all because we are not authorized to,” Thomas said.

“We are waiting to see what we’re asked to do,” Thomas said. “It’s not a situation where we are anticipating any great progress anytime soon.”

Also on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, met in New York to talk about saving the deal for a cease-fire.

U.S. military officials have criticized the plan for coordinated military operations with Russia. Many military leaders say the Russians cannot be trusted and joint U.S.-Russian military operations would be extremely complex.

The U.S. and Russia have backed different factions of Syria’s multisided civil war. The U.S. has limited its airstrikes to ISIS and ultimately wants to see Syrian President Bashar Assad leave office. The Russians are targeting al Nusra militants and are supporting Assad’s regime.

And he’s confident, given our mutual security interests in the region, that any concerns that the Filipinos might have — that these are issues that can be resolved and worked out,” Cook said.

Cook said there has been no official communication between the U.S. and the Philippines on the issues Duterte raised.

“Our defense ties have been strong for some time and … there’s no reason that they can’t continue to be very strong,” Cook said.

Duterte’s comments were the first since he took office in June that questioned the U.S.-Philippines military cooperation.

Duterte said in a speech in Manilaon Monday that the American special operations forces in the southern Mindanao region, about 100 troops, should leave because they are inflaming local Islamic extremist insurgencies. Duterte also pointed to past abuses by U.S. forces during the period when the Philippines was an American colony before 1946.

On Tuesday, Duterte saidhis government will no longer conduct joint patrols with the U.S. Navy in the disputed waters near the South China Sea, a move that would nullify a deal his predecessor reached with the U.S. military earlier this year.

In a further sign that Duterte is seeking a major foreign policy shift away from the U.S., the Philippine president said he was considering buying defense equipment from Russia and China. The Philippines has traditionally relied on the U.S. and other Western allies for military acquisitions.

Duterte did not offer any details or timelines for his pronouncements.

U.S. Marines board an MV-22B Osprey for an exercise at the Basa Air Base in the Philippines on Aug. 1.

Photo Credit: Lance Cpl. Carl King/Marine Corps

Expanding involvement with the Philippines has been a key piece of President Obama’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region. An island nation across the sea from Vietnam, the Philippines offers a strategic location to counter China’s growing military ambitions.

In March, the U.S. and the Philippines announced plans for a permanent American military presence there and named five military bases that will support rotational deployments of U.S. forces near the contested South China Sea.

The U.S. Navy’s port visits to the Philippines have increased significantly this year. Other joint-training operations this year have included U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aircraft detachments and U.S. Army and Marine Corps ground units.