Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford on Tuesday met with his Russian and Turkish counterparts in Turkey to “discuss deconflicting” operations inside Syria. A photo posted by the Joint Staff on Twitter showed Dunford sitting next to Turkish Gen. Hulusi Akar and Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov in Antalya. The meeting, which comes on the heels of multiple close calls and other bombing incidents inside Syria, is the second time Dunford has met with Gerasimov within a month, following February’s meeting in Azerbaijan. Both meetings, according to Dunford and Defense Department officials, solely focused on deconfliction because legislation bars the US from talking about the possibility of military-to-military cooperation.
President Donald Trump projected confidence Nov. 19 that a proposed sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia will sail through the Foreign Military Sales process, an early test of the Pentagon’s acquisition reforms. The deal is also likely to face scrutiny from ally Israel over how it could affect the balance…



