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Stevenson’s army, July 10

– NATO summit in Vilnius. Biden says Ukraine isn’t ready for membership.

– Jake Sullivan explains more.

– Max Boot says his heart is for admission but his head says no.

-Congress is back in town with only 12 days to get things done before August recess.

-Kremlin says Putin met with Prigozhin after mutiny attempt.

-Guardian says Sudan is on brink of civil war.

– Gzero saays South Korea is moving away from China, toward US

– Trump critic says his officials worried about nuclear war.

– Gordon Adams says Afghan withdrawal report shows State’s weaknesses.

– Former CAPE official responds to critics.

Axios says Biden has bad temper, but only in private.

My story: When I joined his Senate staff, Ted Kaufman told me, “Joe has a temper.” Having just spent 6 years working for John Culver, who was called “Big Vesuvius” for his outbursts in the HFAC, I said I could handle that. “But he really gets mad at times,” Ted replied. I said, “I know the difference between kilotons and megatons. I can handle Biden.” [And I did.]

Charlie added later:

I’ve long told my classes, “If you know how the system works, you’ll know how to work the system.” And the way Washington really works is through connections and conversations and perseverance.

The New Yorker has an excellent example this week, an article by historian Kai Bird about the effort to nullify a denial of a security clearance for the leader of the Manhattan Project that built the atom bomb, Robert Oppenheimer.

Bird and Martin Sherwin, who had co-authored a book about Oppenheimer, tried to get a DC law firm to take up the case, only to be blocked by a partner whose father had chaired the panel that punished Oppenheimer. Later they used Hill connections from long ago to try to get the Obama Administration to reconsider the matter. A legendarily effective Senate staffer, Tim Rieser, got his boss and other Senators to sign a letter to the Secretary of Energy, who has jurisdiction over the weapons labs and thus their security procedures. Unsuccessful at that time, they renewed their effort in the Biden administration, got additional letters from former officials, and finally favorable action by Secretary Granholm.

People mattered, both for and against Oppenheimer’s case. Organizations mattered: DOE officials were reluctant to revisit the issue or make legal rulings. The process mattered: connecting the advocates with people empowered to act. What a neat story, especially with a happy ending. —

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. 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).