Stevenson’s army, May 26

– FT says Australia is launching a soft power offensive to counter China.
– To help out, SecState Pompeo threatens to cut off intelligence sharing with Australia.
– No wonder Dan Drezner dumps on Pompeo
– Meanwhile, China announced its defense budget.
– FP doubts US effort to replace China on rare earths will work.
– FP also calls the US-China trade deal dead.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).