Stevenson’s army, February 5
The WH website now has the presidential order setting up the Biden administration’s NSC system. Notable is the number of people now regularly allowed to attend,including “as appropriate” people from mostly domestic agencies and the Special Envoy for Climate [John Kerry]. The new administration will call its national security documents “National Security Memorandum” and its assistant secretary working groups “Interagency Policy Committees” [IPC]
NSA Jake Sullivan answered questions at a WH briefing before the president’s speech.
The WH promised additional NSMs on other issues, including the national security workforce sent around earlier.
Charlie put this out earlier:
The NSC system is busy although the organizing order has yet tp be released. Axios reports that a Principals Committee [cabinet level but without the president] will hold a meeting today on Iran policy. They’ll consider a paper from Thursday’s meeting of the Deputies Committee. [I wonder who attended, since most departments still lack confirmed deputies.]
President Biden gave his first major foreign policy address at the State Department. It was basically “I’m not Trump,” reversing many positions of the previous administration. He also issued a formal order to review personnel policies for the “national security workforce.” That could hopefully lead to revised rules for recruitment, training, and promotion of careerists.
Biden also gave a morale-boosting talk to State employees, but got pushback in the NYT from people who complain the administration is hiring too many political appointees for jobs often filled by careerists in the past.
FP sees the big speech, not surprisingly, as reflecting Jake Sullivan them of a populist “foreign policy for the middle class.”
The Senate this morning approved the budget resolution that opens the way for a filibuster-avoiding reconciliation bill for Covid relief. There were 15 hours of votes that were symbolic since the measure never goes to the president or becomes law. House has to pass the measure again because of minor amendments.
FYI, there’s an S-400 problem with India.
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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