Overnight Defense: Trump faces tough choices in Syria | Top officer: Marines had ‘horrible year’ with air crashes | House panel reintroduces defense spending bill

THE TOPLINE: President Trump faces a slew of unappetizing choices in Syria as the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) winds down.

The administration recently acquiesced that U.S. troops will stay in the country even after the terrorist group’s defeat. But Trump’s voter base could see the indefinite stay as an example of the sort of nation-building the president promised to end, while lawmakers are warning they haven’t authorized such a mission.

Meanwhile, NATO ally Turkey has begun bombing a Syrian Kurdish force that the U.S. built up to help fight ISIS. Lawmakers say the situation is an example of Washington’s chickens coming home to roost after choosing to back a force another ally sees as a terrorist group.

{mosads}

“We need to have a hearing on this,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, referring to the way forward in Syria. “We need to find out what have we done here. What is our Syrian strategy? Our Syrian strategy cannot be to hold Arab territory with a bunch of YPG Kurds … who are seen by Turkey and people inside of Syria as being unacceptable.”

His comments came after Turkey this week began an offensive against a Kurdish force known as the YPG in Afrin, a region in northern Syria.

The Hill’s Rebecca Kheel has the rest here.

PENTAGON CALLS TURKEY’S ACTIONS IN SYRIA A ‘DISTRACTION’: Tensions between the U.S. and Turkey continued to simmer on Thursday as officials on both sides called on each other to scale back military involvement in a key region of Syria.

“Turkey is an ally and we’re going to work with them, but this current issue offensive is a distraction and we have to focus as allies on the mission at hand and that’s defeating ISIS,” chief Defense Department spokeswoman Dana White told reporters at the Pentagon, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terror group.

NATO ally Turkey last week began an offensive called “Olive Branch” against a Kurdish force known as the YPG in Afrin, a region in northern Syria.

The U.S. has built up the Syrian Kurdish force to help fight ISIS, but Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist organization within its borders.

The U.S., however, considers the Kurds the most effective force fighting ISIS on the ground in Syria and has provided weapons, training and air support to the group.

Turkey on Thursday later urged the U.S. to halt its support for the Kurdish YPG fighters or risk confronting Turkish forces on the ground in Syria.

Read about that here.

MARINES HAD ‘A HORRIBLE YEAR’ WITH AVIATION CRASHES: The Marine Corps’ top officer on Thursday said the military branch “had a horrible year last year” with a series of critical aviation mishaps.

Gen. Robert Neller made the comments while addressing a string of emergency helicopter landings this month in Japan, which he blamed on readiness issues.

He said there had been 12 aviation mishaps last year that resulted in either the loss of aircraft or the deaths of service members.

“The majority of them, they were not the result of the material condition of the airplane. I’m just going to leave it at that,” Neller said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington.

His remarks came after a Marine AH-1Z Viper helicopter made an emergency landing Tuesday on Okinawa. A warning light went off in the cockpit during a training exercise and the pilot decided to land.

The mishap was the third such incident in January. That was followed by emergency landings by Marine helicopters on Jan. 6 and Jan. 8.

Read the rest here.

HOUSE PANEL RE-INTRODUCES DEFENSE SPENDING BILL: The House Appropriations Committee re-introduced Thursday a bill to fund the Pentagon for fiscal year 2018.

“It is past time that this essential, must-pass Department of Defense funding bill is enacted into law,” committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said in a statement Thursday. “Congress must act responsibly and quickly to get these dollars out the door and where they are needed as soon as possible.”

The House has twice passed defense appropriations for fiscal 2018, but the Senate has not voted on a defense spending bill because Congress has yet to agree to a budget deal that would set the top-line dollar figure for defense and non-defense funding.

But earlier this month, House leadership promised defense hawks and conservatives another vote on a defense appropriations bill in exchange for their votes on a stopgap spending measure needed to avert a government shutdown.

Read more about the bill and its details here.   

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