Today’s News D: Drone Strike on Iranian Weapons Facility; War with China in 2025?; Germany excludes deliveries of fighter jets to Kyiv; SecDef Austin to the Pacific; And a little more.

Suspected weapons production facilities in Iran appear to have been attacked on Saturday night in the city of Isfahan, which is about a five-hour drive south of Tehran. The New York Times US officials reportedly said Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency was behind the attack, which used drones to strike facilities believed to be involved in the production of medium-range ballistic missiles.

Tehran’s foreign minister called it a “cowardly drone attack on a military facility.” in central Iran.” But he said on Sunday that it “will not impede Iran’s progress in its peaceful nuclear program.”

Three small quadcopters were used in the attack, in accordance with Wall Street Journal, who also said that Israel was behind the attack. The drones were carrying “bombs” and one was shot down before the attack, Iranian officials said.

The target site suggested the strike had more to do with Israel’s security than anything to do with the war in Ukraine. in accordance with Times. “It is not clear why Iran is building a factory for the production of ammunition in the center of a city of two million people”, Times wrote afterwards. The city is also “home to a large airbase built for the US F-14 fighter fleet and a Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center.” Associated Press reports Sunday.

The last war in Ukraine: On Monday, President Uladzimir Zelensky welcomed the Danish Prime Minister in the southern city of Mykolaiv. Both “visited the Mykolaiv Sea Trade Port, where they saw oil storage tanks knocked down by missiles and drones of the Russian enemy, as well as a thermal station equipped with a water purification and distribution unit as part of a project implemented with the help of Denmark.” Reuters reported from Mykolaiv.

Monitoring equipment: German chancellor says he rules out sending fighter jets to Ukraine. Olaf Scholz said this in an interview with a German newspaper on Sunday Tagesspiegel. “The fact that we just made a decision [on sending tanks] and the next debate will be heated in Germany, which seems frivolous,” he said. Instead, he is focused on getting those Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine safely and responsibly. The BBC has more here.

Get a broader view of the defensive trenches and fortifications built by Russian forces in Ukraine through an updated and interactive map prepared by Brady Africa of the American Enterprise Institute. “In Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine, Russian troops have strengthened intersections along key roads and built layers of defense in open fields,” he wrote in an explanatory note. thread on Twitter on Friday. And that’s not all: “Even inside the Russian territory (Belgorod Region), fortifications were built a few miles from the border with Ukraine.”

Rhetoric Clock: Russian autocratic leader Vladimir Putin has repeated his false claim that neo-Nazis are committing crimes in Ukraine that Agence France Presse reminded us that this was “an accusation Moscow used to justify its military intervention as the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday.”

Additional literature:

• “Rheinmetall sees increased ammunition production, HIMARS production in Germany“, Reuters reported on Sunday;
• Former Prime Minister of Great Britain”Boris Johnson says Putin threatened him with a missile strike» before the invasion of Ukraine, the BBC reports;
• “Putin is planning a new push in Ukraine, despite losses, as he prepares for years of war“, Bloomberg reported at the end of last week;
• come inside”A hidden Polish repair shop repairs Ukrainian weapons”, through the Wall Street Journalreport on Saturday from Warsaw;
• “The US has issued another warning about possible terrorist attacks in Turkey“, Reuters reported on Monday from Istanbul;
• “Turkey favors the approval of Finland’s application to join NATO before Sweden“, the Associated Press reported on Monday, Ankara’s foreign minister;
• “Norway finds “significant” mineral resources on its seabed,” Reuters reported on Friday, reminding us of another recent Nordic mineral discovery, this time in Sweden; in Wall Street Journal there was more on this story about two weeks ago, here;
• And a new study shows that the planet has “Enough rare earth minerals for fuel [a] green energy shift,” the AP reported Friday, the same day the study was published in a scientific journal Joule.

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From Defense One

Marine Corps reactivates Guam base to expand Pacific footprint // Caitlin M. Kenny: Camp Blaze will become a “strategic hub” and a joint and allied training center.

Experts say the military should recruit more female immigrants for future forces // Jennifer Hlad: At a symposium on building an all-volunteer force by 2040, panelists push back against criticism of diversity initiatives.

Welcome to this Monday’s edition of The D Brief, brought you Ben Watson with Jennifer Hlad. If you are not already subscribed to this newsletter, you can do so here. On this wet and damp day in Washington in 1835, 32-year-old artist Richard Lawrence brought two loaded pistols with him to the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren Davis at the US Capitol. He planned to shoot and kill President Andrew Jackson, who was passing by at the end of the service, but two Lawrence both guns misfired, and Jackson himself began to beat Lawrence with the president’s own cane, when the mentally ill artist was knocked to the ground by people nearby, including Tennessee representative Davy Crockett. A jury later found Lawrence guilty by reason of insanity (perhaps the toxicity of the paint went to his head), and he was institutionalized until his death some 26 years later, in 1861.

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A four-star US general says his “gut” has told him war with China could happen as early as 2025. That’s it NBC Newswhich received the general’s internal memo after it was circulated late last week (Friday), just days before the memo itself was dated (Feb. 1, which is Wednesday this week), according to Reuters.
Who says four stars? Air Mobility Command Gen. Mike Minihan of the Air Force. He oversees about “50,000 military personnel and nearly 500 aircraft, and is responsible for transportation and refueling,” according to NBC. “I hope I’m wrong,” he wrote, and warned, “My gut tells me [we] will fight in 2025.” His memo directs AMC commanders to “report to Minihan all major efforts to prepare for a battle with China by February 28,” according to NBC.
Why 2025? Because both the US and Taiwan hold presidential elections a year early, it can be a particularly distracting time for US officials.
For the record, Minihan’s comments are not consistent with the department’s view of China. The Pentagon told NBC News. However, Air Force spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said, “The National Defense Strategy makes clear that China is a top priority for the Department of Defense, and our focus remains on working with allies and partners to maintain a peaceful, free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“Also accelerate drone swarm technology.” Minihan also ordered KC-135 Stratotanker troops to prepare to “deliver 100 ready-made UAVs of a size and type from a single aircraft,” according to his memo. Continue reading at NBC News, here.
Related: The entire US fleet of B-2 bombers remains groundeda public relations representative confirmed Brief information D on Monday morning. Nuclear heavy bombers were grounded in December after a crash on the runway at Whiteman Air Force Base; before Christmas, the runway was restored, but the planes did not return to the air. However, despite the resignation, the president can direct the B-2 to fly if necessary, the 509th Bombardment Wing said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is traveling to the Pacific this week, with scheduled stops in the Philippines and Korea. The visit was Austin’s sixth to the region since taking over as Pentagon chief and his last since November, when he visited Cambodia for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
On Austin’s agenda: “engagement” with allies as there has been a “sharp rise in China’s destabilizing operational behavior” The Ministry of Defense said in public liberation Sunday. “They include a significant increase in dangerous air-to-air interceptions, as well as destabilization [Chinese military] conduct, including mobs of naval militia vessels in disputed areas of the South China Sea,” the Pentagon said.

• Secretary of State Anthony Blinken plans to visit China in early February. CNN and Politics reviewed this trip here and hererespectively.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg is also in the region this week. He is visiting Seoul today for meetings with Foreign Minister Park Jin, National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and other senior officials, alliance officials said. Chirping From Seoul, Stoltenberg said on Monday: “We share values ​​and concerns, including continued pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its reckless missile and nuclear activities, as well as support for Ukraine.”
Reminder: Japan and South Korea have joined the G7 (and, by extension, all 27 EU countries) that have imposed sanctions against Russian industries and organizations as a result of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Singapore also joined these sanctions.
Stoltenberg will travel to Tokyo on Tuesday, where he plans to meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and deliver a speech at Keio University, just south of Tokyo Tower.
Related reading:

And finally today: America’s largest naval shipbuilder, HII, has hired Eric Chuning, former chief of staff to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former head of the Pentagon’s industrial base policy. Chowning will now serve as HII’s executive vice president of strategy and development. Details in HII, here.