Stevenson’s army, November 12
Jonathan Swan of Axios says the firings and shuffling in the Pentagon may be the prelude to rapid troop withdrawals before the inauguration. Politico echoes that and adds efforts to put loyalists in the intelligence community.
While the simplest explanation may be revenge by the president, the maneuvering of people who couldn’t even be confirmed by a GOP Senate suggests a master plotter — NSA O’Brien?
WaPo notes the uneasy position these moves put CJCS Milley in.
NYT doubts a master plot, but also reports a recent clash between the new acting SecDef and SecState Pompeo.
This is not a good time for the national security leadership to be in such disarray.
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).
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