Tag: Afghanistan
Stevenson’s army, December 16
–Congress passed an NDAA for the 61st year in a row, despite never letting it be debated and amended in the Senate. SASC summary is here. Bill text is here. [2,120 pages!]The 670 page statement of managers [explaining provisions and why changed or dropped] is here.
– WSJ has interesting piece on how President Xi micromanages.
–China pressures and punishes Lithuania.
– Karzai says he invited Taliban into Kabul.
-Menendez added State Authorization bill as part of NDAA.
– Congress revised Pacific Deterrence Initiative in NDAA.
-Aussie analyst changes mind on AUKUS.
Worth considering: Space Force needs different personnel system.WOTR author notes good and bad ways for military to dissent. More from Tom Edsall on threats to democracy.
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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Stevenson’s army, December 10
-New Yorker has a long article on the Afghan collapse based on newly obtained documents.
– The House approved a big bill trying to reduce presidential powers, including some measures opposed by Biden administration.
– Israel want US refueling in case of attacks on Iran.
– Lawfare explains how new Senate-confirmed cyber director has more real power than unconfirmed advisors [like National Security Adviser].
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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Democracy on the defensive, but not lost yet
I read the Biden/Putin phone call on Tuesday and the Summit of Democracies differently from many others. The former was a clear even if not conclusive win for the US. The latter is more equivocal.
President Putin went into the phone call having mounted most of an invasion force and demanding a binding legal prohibition on Ukraine joining NATO. He came out accepting an official-level dialogue with Washington on European security. That is a win for Biden, even if the invasion force remains in place for now. Moscow will continue at the dialogue to demand a commitment that Ukraine not join NATO, but the Americans won’t yield on that.
Ironically, the best guarantee that Kiev won’t join NATO lies in the current NATO members, few of whom are prepared to take on an obligation to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression. Redoubling the irony: Putin’s mounting of an invasion force has convinced any loyal Ukrainian that NATO membership is highly desirable. That makes two own goals for Putin: he has spent a fortune on an invasion force that was unnecessary and counterproductive.
The Summit of Democracies convening remotely today is harder to judge. It is one more sign of what we already know: democracy is under attack both in the US and in many places abroad. The Republican campaign against the validity of the 2020 US election and Republican legislation limiting the franchise in many states have cast doubt on whether the US can survive as a democracy. Events in Myanmar, Sudan, Belarus, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and other places have cast more than doubts. Democracy in all those places has suffered severe setbacks in the past year. Not to mention Russia, Serbia, Hungary, Brazil, and other countries that are suffering longer-term erosion of at least semi-democratic institutions and processes. Not to mention the survival of long-standing authoritarian regimes in Syria, Jordan, the Gulf, China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
What good can the Summit of Democracies do? It is difficult to judge. I suppose preparations for it in countries invited and reactions to it in countries not invited may marginally increase pressure for upholding democratic values. Certainly Washington is well aware of its own limitations as a leader of the democratic world and convener of the Summit. The Biden Administration isn’t doing all it might, as it has hesitated to eliminate the anti-democratic filibuster in order to pass Federal voting rights legislation, but it is prosecuting January 6 rioters and suing states that limit voting rights in Federal court.
There is a possibility that some would-be authoritarians in other places will find themselves pressured and even on the ropes, but the overall trend appears to be in their direction. Authoritarians have learned how to weather less draconian political environments, as totalitarian control has become far more difficult due to modern communications and social media. They have also learned how to help each other survive, in order to avoid any domino effects, especially among neighbors. The pendulum has swung in the authoritarian direction, due in part to the corona virus epidemic and the consequent economic slowdown as well as the rallying cries of ethnic/sectarian/linguistic/racial nationalists.
The pendulum can also swing in the other direction, but the Summit looks incapable of making that happen. A successful Russian invasion of Ukraine, or US agreement to block Ukraine from NATO membership, would make things much worse than they already are. Democracy is on the defensive, but not lost yet.
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Stevenson’s army, November 28
– WSJ says new technologies make it hard to operate spies.
– NYT details cyberwar between Iran and Israel.
– WSJ reveals Taliban had sleeper cells in Afghan cities.
– The Hill says lobbyists hope to change infrastructure law as implementation rules are written.
– At FP, Paul Musgrave explains how Pepsi helped the Soviet navy.
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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Stevenson’s army, November 2
– Russian troops near Ukraine border.
– Prof. Brands discusses how war might start with China.
– FEC allows foreign money for ballot fights.
– IG says US rarely enforced conditions on Afghan aid.
– Shocking poll reveals strong anti-democratic feelings, support for violence against opponents, and more. 2/3 of GOP believe election was stolen from Trump.
– Biden promises to fight for F16s to Turkey.
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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Stevenson’s army, October 25
– China competitiveness bill also stalled.
– Jim Fallows, who has analyzed presidential speeches for decades, does same for Biden’s CNN town hall.
– Military Times has a searchable guide to US military bases.
-CNN says Pakistan will allow US to use airspace for operations in Afghanistan.
– And news about Chilean elections: Right-winger on a roll in Chile: José Antonio Kast, an ultra-conservative politician who pines for the days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, has ridden a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to the top of the polls ahead of next month’s presidential election. He’s currently at 21 percent, one point ahead of leftist former student leader Gabriel Boric. Talk about political whiplash: it was just a few months ago that Chileans elected a broadly leftwing constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in the wake of mass protests about inequality. But Kast, an avowed free-marketeer and social conservative, has tapped into rising resentment against the vast numbers of migrants – in particular from Venezuela and Haiti – who have arrived in the country in recent years. Last month, for example, saw an outbreak of violence against Venezuelan refugees in the northern city of Iquique. Kast has called for digging ditches along the borders and wants a special police force to root out illegal migrants. In the last presidential election, Kast got less than 8 percent of the vote. This time he’s making a race of it.
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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