Tag: Afghanistan
Stevenson’s army, February 9
– WSJ touts US information warfare over Ukraine.
– Politico reports some intelligence officials think too much is being released.
– Russians deny promises to Macron.
– At FP, writer sees Xi-Putin statement as no big deal.
– Maybe hypersonic weapons can easily be defeated, but that technology is on the critical list.
– The FY23 budget was due yesterday, but the 2022 budget hasn’t been passed. Expect lengthy delays.
– Sanctions against Honduran president revealed.
– Updated version of WaPo report on Afghan evacuation gives more evidence supporting my view that a key factor was the organizational culture clash between a State Dept that always resists closing an embassy and was sympathetic to the destabilizing effects on the host nation government and a military that makes detailed, rigid plans without regard to diplomatic and psychological consequences — coupled with a White House that prefers hedging to binary choices.
CORRECTION: The stopgap spending bill runs to March 11, not April as I wrongly said yesterday.
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. 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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Stevenson’s army, February 8
– French officials say Putin promised no new military initiatives for now.
– WaPo has Army report on Afghan withdrawal.
– Vox says Biden learned from Crimea handling under Obama.
– Yesterday I sent Ezra Klein’s report that social trust was key factor in pandemic coping. Kevin Drum argues that loss of social trust correlates with rise of Fox News. [FWIW, I think social media’s stimulation of anger and outrage also mattered.]
– FP says hypersonic missiles are easy to counter.
– RollCall says Continuing Resolutions hurt defense. [Latest plan is to kick the can to April]
-SAIS prof Paula Thornhill comments on new civ-mil research. And she links to great issue of Air University’s SSQ.
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. 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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Stevenson’s army, February 3
In class on Monday we talked about non-papers, the documents used in interagency meetings and international diplomacy to allow ideas to be offered as suggestions rather than demands or promises. They are useful because they don’t create a paper trail of concessions if the end result is a compromise. [Congress has a similar approach, saying “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”]
Now we have an actual example. The US response to Russia’s demands on Ukraine was in the form of a non-paper. A Spanish newspaper got a copy and has the story and a downloadable copy here. BEWARE: if you have a security clearance, you are not supposed to access or copy a classified document [Confidential in this case] on an unclassified device.
In other news…
– US special forces conducted a raid in Syria overnight. Biden says it killed a terrorist leader.
– NYT’s David Sanger suggests US may be pushing Putin too far over Ukraine.
– SFRC ranking member Risch is releasing a report critical of the US witrhdrawal from Afghanistan, due to be posted on his SFRC website.
Today is the day Austin & Blinken will be giving classified briefings to House & Senate on Ukraine. Watch for comments/leaks afterward.
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. 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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Stevenson’s army, February 2
– Senate Democrats have lost their majority for the time being. Sen. Lujan [D-NM] is hospitalized following a stroke. Since the Senate, unlike the House, does not allow remote voting, at most 49 Democrats can vote on any measure. This complicates passage of appropriations packages [Feb 18 deadline] as well as other Biden proposals.
-China weighs in — supporting Russia over Ukraine and seeking to gain influence in the Middle East.
– Stimson Center has a report on US military aid to Ukraine.
– The scathing George Packer article on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, The Betrayal, is mainly a story about the botched efforts to arrange evacuation of former Afghan employees. Axios has a leaked memo of a last-minute Deputies Committee meeting on the topic, showing how far behind the curve the USG was as Kabul fell.
-Lawfare has interesting legal analyses: how Congress has limited the use of special envoys for diplomacy and how the US can still assert legal principles in the South China Sea despite failure to ratify UNCLOS.
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. 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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Stevenson’s army, January 31
– George Packer has a 20,000 word critique of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Haven’t had time to read it yet, but expect lots of lessons to ponder.
-Politico explains interagency fights over China trade policy.
Tomorrow is the Lunar New Year. Happy year of the Tiger.
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. 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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Stevenson’s army, January 17
– How many wars are we in today? I just discovered the latest Biden administration report to Congress under the war powers resolution, which was sent on Pearl Harbor Day. It say US troops equipped for combat have been sent to 16 countries, no longer counting Afghanistan.
– I also found on the White House news site a list of the extraordinary outreach the administration claims to have made to forestall Russian action in Ukraine.
– The WH also has a new briefing on cybersecurity matters.
– CBO has a new report questioning the accuracy of Pentagon reports on aircraft readiness. I worked on this issue myself in the 1970s and know the DOD tendency to define problems away.
– CRS has recent reports on the use of defense contractors, general and historically in Iraq and Afghanistan.
– Though I still support the Senate filibuster [and would like some changes to make its use harder and less frequent] I wanted to share Norm Ornstein’s latest article.
– Over the holidays, I delved into the question of why Hitler chose to declare on war with America on December 11, 1941. I read Klaus Schmider’s book, which argues that Hitler’s decision came in that short period before the attack on the USSR clearly had stalled, when Japan needed reassurance of the alliance, and when the naval conflict in the Atlantic seemed low cost. I see the NYT Book Review discusses the new Simms and Laderman book, saying it argues that Hitler acted preemptively, expecting the war to come anyway. I look forward to reading it, too. I think it’s always important to realize that major strategic decisions often are highly contingent on the particular circumstances at the particular time.
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. 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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