In December, lawmakers appropriated $858 billion in national defense funding — $45 billion more than Biden sought. That included $817 billion for the Pentagon, and billions more for nuclear weapons development through the Energy Department and other national security programs.
At the time, it was the most the U.S. had ever spent on the Defense Department, reflecting the Pentagon’s efforts to simultaneously counter the threat from Russia, keep pace with China’s growing technological advantage, modernize aging arsenals and fight inflation.
But the outlook for Biden’s Pentagon budget is increasingly uncertain now that Republicans have taken over the House, where a partisan fight is brewing over the nation’s debt limit. With just four months to go until the Treasury Department could run out of ways to stave off a default, Republican lawmakers have demanded deep spending cuts — including potentially defense — in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
Republicans have yet to rally around a specific set of conditions to raise the debt limit, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has voiced support for capping spending at fiscal 2022 levels. If the Pentagon is not spared from those cuts, reverting to last year’s budget levels would amount to a nearly $75 billion cut across the board — roughly 10 percent.
There are deep divisions within the Republican Party on the issue of potential defense cuts. Many hawkish members have sought to quash any talk of reducing the Pentagon’s budget, instead looking to make cuts to non-military programs. Defense boosters are actually eyeing another increase this year of up to 5 percent to mitigate the effects of inflation and meet threats from Moscow and Beijing.
But a small but vocal faction of budget hardliners in the GOP conference is hellbent on cutting defense spending — and even some, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), oppose continued aid to Ukraine. Those lawmakers will be hard to win over.
The parallels between the current situation and the debate that led to automatic cuts known as sequestration 12 years ago are not lost on McCord. In 2011, Republicans had just taken over control of the House and were demanding spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. The crisis ended in the Budget Control Act, which forced hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years.
This time, lawmakers will have to make tough choices about which parts of the defense budget to cut, McCord said.
“You are going to have to face the harder question of what is it that you want to do less? Do you want to have fewer people? Do you want to have fewer ships? Fewer airplanes? Smaller pay raises? That’s where the money is in the defense budget,” he said.
Although it’s not certain defense cuts will be part of a budget deal, McCarthy has strongly hinted the Pentagon could be on the chopping block. He told Fox News in January that the Defense Department could “be more efficient,” and even identified some potential targets that would be popular among his party:
“Eliminate all the money spent on ‘wokeism,’” he said, referring to DoD personnel policies aimed at diversity, inclusion and climate change put into effect during the Biden administration. “Eliminate all the money [they are spending] trying to find different fuels.”
But McCord said the amounts saved from cutting those types of programs would be miniscule.
“I’m not aware that anybody knows the number … but you would need a super telescope,” McCord said.
As for spending on alternative fuels, McCord said that’s already well under 1 percent of the Pentagon’s total budget.
He chastised Republicans for what he called a “complete reversal of the last two years” of calling for bigger defense budgets.
“It would appear to be largely the same people saying, ‘well, now it should be smaller,’” he said. “It is puzzling to me that the message we’ve gotten from Congress the last few years was in one direction, for a robust budget, and in both years they added to our request.”
Lawmakers have consistently voted to boost defense spending on a bipartisan basis, noted defense budget expert Todd Harrison, the managing director at Metrea Strategic Insights. But he also acknowledged the role that budget hawks will play.
“Everything is uncertain until Congress figures out how they are gonna resolve this standoff over the debt ceiling,” Harrison said. “The problem is that Biden can negotiate all he wants with McCarthy, but it’s not clear McCarthy can deliver the votes in the House.”
The possibility of spending cuts and even defaulting on the nation’s debt adds to a dangerous environment of uncertainty at the Pentagon, McCord said.
“If we started missing payments, there’s no free get out of jail card,” McCord said, of the possibility of default. “There is no exact playbook for this. So there is a certain extra layer of uncertainty and of course, the stakes are bigger.”
Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
MUNICH, Germany — As the world’s security elite gathers in Munich this week, they’ll be connecting their mobile phones to Chinese telecoms equipment surrounding the venue.
Heads of state, security chiefs, spooks and intelligence officials head to Germany on Friday for their blue-riband annual gathering, the Munich Security Conference. On the event’s VIP list are U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and hundreds more heads of state and government, ministers and foreign dignitaries.
The gathering takes place at the five-star Hotel Bayerischer Hof. From its ice-themed Polar Bar on the hotel’s rooftop, you can overlook the city’s skyline, spotting multiple telecommunications antennas poking between church steeples. Some of these antennas, within 300 meters of the hotel, are equipped with hardware supplied by controversial Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, POLITICO has learnt through visual confirmation, talks with several equipment experts and information from industry insiders with knowledge of the area’s networks.
One mast, on top of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof building itself, is also potentially equipped with Huawei gear, talks with two industry insiders suggested.
The question of whether to allow Chinese 5G suppliers into Western countries in past years became a bone of contention between Berlin on the one hand and Washington and like-minded partners on the other. This week’s gathering also comes as the U.S. continues to call out Germany’s economic reliance on Beijing, with a new report showing the German trade deficit with China exploded in 2022, and amid sky-high tensions between Washington and Beijing over surveillance balloons hovering over the U.S., Canada and elsewhere.
“The dependence on Huawei components in our 5G network continues to pose an incalculable security risk,” said Maximilian Funke-Kaiser, liberal member of the German Bundestag and digital policy speaker for the government party Free Democratic Party (FDP).
“The use of Huawei technology in the mobile network here runs counter to Germany’s security policy goals,” Funke-Kaiser said, calling the vendor’s involvement in German 4G and 5G “a mistake in view of the Chinese company’s closeness to the state.”
Huawei has consistently denied posing a security risk to European countries.
Delving into data
Despite extensive reporting, POLITICO was unable to gather on-the-record confirmation of which vendor’s telecoms equipment was used for which masts. Operators and vendors refused to disclose the information, citing contractual obligations, and local authorities said they didn’t have the information available.
The security risks associated with Huawei equipment also vary, and differ even among close allies in the West. Some capitals argue the real risk of Chinese telecoms equipment is the overreliance on a Chinese firm in an unstable geopolitical situation — much like Europe relied on Russian gas for its energy needs.
But others argue that the risk runs deeper and that China could use Huawei’s access to equipment and data in European mobile networks — especially in areas of critical importance and high sensitivity — to put the West’s security at risk. Huawei has been implicated in a number of high-profile espionage cases, including at the African Union Headquarters.
The Munich Security Conference takes place at the five-star Bayerischer Hof hotel | Ronald Wittek/EPA-EFE
When asked about Huawei’s presence in Munich, Mike Gallagher, a Republican and Chairman of the U.S. House select committee on China, said POLITICO’s findings were “troubling” and “should concern every individual attending the conference.”
The chair of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, a Democrat who’s attending the conference, said it was “a timely reminder that we must continue to work with like-minded allies to promote secure and competitively priced alternatives to Huawei equipment.”
U.S. Senate intelligence committee Vice Chair Marco Rubio (Republican, Florida) said U.S. diplomats “should be aware of the risks and take necessary precautions.”
Munich networking
From a 2007 speech by Russia’s Vladimir Putin to U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual address at the start of his mandate in February 2021, the conference strives to set the global diplomatic and international relations agenda. Its organizers see it as an open space for debating geopolitics and world affairs, with attendees ranging from across the world and an advisory board where Chinese state officials sit alongside Western diplomats and titans of industry.
The conference’s guest list reveals something else too: The gathering is seen as critical by U.S. government officials. This year, the U.S. is sending its largest delegation yet, with Harris flanked by dozens of government officials, security chiefs and congresspeople, including Democrat leader Chuck Schumer, Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others.
For these U.S. attendees — and the Western partners that see eye to eye with the U.S. position on China’s telecoms giant Huawei — the networks around the premises prove troublesome.
An online map on the website of Germany’s telecoms agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, shows 13 locations for masts and antennas surrounding the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. The agency also provides information about which of the country’s three main operators — Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica — use which locations.
POLITICO shared photos of seven masts near the hotel with fourexperts specialized in telecoms radio access network (RAN) equipment. These experts established that at least twowere equipped with gear of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.
If a network operator has one mast equipped with Huawei in Munich, it likely equips all masts in the area with the same vendor, two industry insiders said. Operators usually use one provider for larger areas. This means at least one other location is also likely equipped with Huawei gear, the insiders said. Three other locations, including the mast on the roof of the conference venue, are used by an operator using Huawei equipment but those locations are part of infrastructure that is shared by several operators, meaning there’s a chance these are equipped with Huawei gear but it’s unconfirmed.
The findings are in line with recent reports on Germany’s telecoms infrastructure.
Europe’s largest economy is a stronghold for Huawei in the West. A report by boutique telecoms intelligence firm Strand Consult estimated that Germany relies on Chinese technology for 59 percent of its ongoing 5G network deployment. The country already had a massive reliance on Chinese equipment in its 4G network, where Strand estimated Huawei accounts for 57 percent.
In February 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden delivered remarks at the virtual event hosted by the Munich Security Conference — Biden stressed the United States’ commitment to NATO after four years of the Trump administration undermining the alliance | Pooled photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“If you look at the percentage of Chinese equipment in Germany, you could say it is the most unsafe country in Europe,” said John Strand, founder of Strand Consult. “Welcome to the Munich Security Conference: We can’t guarantee your security,” he quipped.
Black hole of telecoms intelligence
Establishing with certainty just how many of the 13 masts are equipped with Chinese telecoms gear is extremely difficult. Both German operators and their vendors have a policy to not communicate what equipment they’re using in which locations, citing contractual obligations on confidentiality.
Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone confirmed that they use Huawei in their German antenna networks. Telefónica said they use “a mix of European and international network suppliers” in Germany. Yet, all declined to comment on whether they use Huawei in Munich.
Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei all declined to comment on whether they were providing gear in the greater Munich area, referring questions to the local operators.
Government regulators, too, divulge no details of which suppliers provide gear for certain locations. The Federal Network Agency and the Federal Office for Information Security admitted they don’t know which equipment is fitted to which mast; both referred to the interior ministry for answers. The interior ministry said it “does not usually know which critical components are installed on which radio mast in detail.”
The Hotel Bayerischer Hof forwarded questions about mobile infrastructure on its roof to the security conference’s organizers.
The Munich Security Conference itself said in a statement: “As a matter of principle, we do not comment on the exact details of the infrastructure used for the main conference in Munich. We are in close contact with all relevant authorities in order to secure the conference venue, the participants and the digital space accordingly.”
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) does provide its own security networks for official events, but the Munich Security Conference is “outside the responsibility of the BSI,” the BSI said in an email.
Germany’s telecoms ambiguity
Through its 5G equipment it is feasible for Huawei to spy on users of a network or to disrupt communications as the very design of 5G makes it harder to monitor security, the head of the U.K.’s intelligence service MI6, Alex Younger, said to an audience in his second public speech.
But John Lee, director of the consultancy East-West Futures and an expert on Chinese digital policy, said it’s “not a clear cut technical case” as to whether Huawei equipment in current telecoms networks represents a material security risk.
“Some non-Western countries are proceeding to upgrade their telecoms infrastructure with Huawei as a key partner,” Lee said. “This is still mainly a political issue of how much suspicion is placed on the ambitions of the Chinese state and its relationship with Chinese companies.”
In an effort to coordinate a common approach to vendors, the EU developed “5G security toolbox” guidelines in 2019 and 2020 to mitigate security risks in networks. Some major European countries, including France, have imposed hard restrictions for their operators, including by limiting the use of “high-risk vendors” — a term widely understood across Europe to be Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE — in certain strategic geographic areas.
In Germany, however, policymakers took years to agree on their framework for 5G security. In April 2021 — more than a year after the EU’s joint plan came out — it passed measures that allowed the government to intervene on operators’ contracts with Chinese vendors.
But those interventions haven’t barred the use of Huawei in certain geographical areas yet.
And the interior ministry — which has veto power to ban or recall certain components if they see them as an “impairment of public order or safety” — hasn’t intervened much either, a ministry spokesperson said via email.
Up till now, the spokesperson said, specific orders to cut Huawei from German networks “have not been issued.”
Alex Ward, Maggie Miller and Tristan Fiedler contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
