“The Pentagon has released a Kenyan prisoner who was held at Guantánamo Bay for nearly 18 years on suspicion he was tied to an affiliate of Al Qaeda that plotted attacks against Israeli tourists in East Africa two decades ago,” the New York Times reports.

“The prisoner, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, 51, was never charged with a crime.”

Mark Bowden: “You would stay awake all night if you had any idea how short we are of artillery ammo…”

“It is a weakness that afflicts the U.S. military at all levels, and about which the public is largely unaware. The vaunted American war machine is in disarray and disrepair.”

Wall Street Journal: “As SpaceX deepened its ties with the national-security agencies in recent years, the company’s lawyers advised senior executives not to seek a higher security clearance for Musk that would give him access to details about sensitive programs SpaceX is involved in.”

“The reason, these people said, was that Musk would have had to answer questions from the government about his contacts with foreign nationals and drug use… In internal discussions, the lawyers and executives posited scenarios in which Musk might inadvertently disclose secrets to foreign officials with whom he regularly speaks, the people said. The Journal reported in October that Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.”

Military.com: “Gen. Charles Hamilton, who had been the head of Army Materiel Command, was removed after what officials described as a flagrant abuse of authority aimed at securing a leadership role for a subordinate officer who was found unfit for command and had an inappropriate relationship with the general.”

Don Moynihan: “In the short run, we should be very worried about what Trump will do with a military repurposed to serve him, and not the constitution. In the long run, the politicization of the American military will undermine its capacity.”

“What happens if every new President distrusts the generals in place because they were selected via a politicized process? They then choose their own, adding to the instability in leadership. Under such circumstances, expect a Putinification of the military, where officers are afraid to tell the President the truth.”

“Amused observers have long dismissed Elon Musk’s dream to colonize Mars as unserious science fiction. But in his pursuit of the Red Planet, Musk has managed to build a deadly serious business with vast military consequences,” the Washington Post reports.

“Security experts say SpaceX has leapfrogged so far ahead in several critical technologies that it could deter major rivals like China from engaging in a war with the United States — or tip the balance if one breaks out. Others worry that it could provoke an untimely response.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told NBC News that women and racial diversity are vital to the strength of U.S. armed forces.

Said Austin: “I have spent 41 years in uniform, three long tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and everywhere I went on a battlefield, there were women in our formation. I would tell you that, you know, our women are the finest troops in the world. Quite frankly, some of the finest in the world.”

He added: “They do impact readiness. They make us better. They make us stronger. And again, what I’ve seen from our women is quite incredible, and I’m not — this is not hyperbole. This is fact.”

A senior former intelligence official told Politico that the nomination of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence was a “left turn and off the bridge.”

“Defense officials are getting anxious about the possibility of the incoming Trump administration firing or not renewing the term of Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown, due to perceptions that he is out of step with the president-elect on the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion programs,” Politico reports.

“The Trump administration’s DOD transition team — led by former Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie — has yet to officially set foot in the Pentagon since the election was called, owing to the transition team’s refusal so far to accept assistance from the federal government.”

“But concern is beginning to bubble up that Brown, who spoke publicly about the challenges of rising through the military as a Black man as Donald Trump urged the Defense Department to crack down on the George Floyd protests in 2020, could be swept out by a president-elect who has promised to make the Pentagon less ‘woke.'”

“Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers,” CNN reports.

“Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.”

“The Army on Friday released the report from a controversial August incident between the Trump campaign team and an Army staff member working at Arlington National Cemetery, in which the campaign staffer made contact with the Army official ‘with both hands,’ according to the heavily redacted document,” Politico reports.

“The release, which identifies the incident as ‘simple assault,’ comes amid fresh scrutiny over Trump’s treatment of veterans, including comments by former chief of staff John Kelly, who said the former president disparaged wounded and fallen troops.”

Wall Street Journal: “Officials didn’t know if the drone fleet over Langley Air Force Base, which numbered as many as a dozen or more over the following nights, belonged to clever hobbyists or hostile forces. Some suspected that Russia or China deployed them to test the response of American forces.”

“Reports of the drones reached President Biden and set off two weeks of White House meetings after they first appeared in December last year.”