Tag: China
Stevenson’s army, November 15
Just in time for the Xi-Biden summit, the congressionally created US-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its annual report.
– Politico explains how the IPEF plan got scuttled.
– All such summits are carefully choreographed. CNN tells about this one.
– Senate Rules Committee reported a measure to get around Tuberville holds, but lack current GOP support.
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).
– Normally the majority leader controls the Senate agenda. GOP tried and failed to take over.
– Todd Harrison on how Congress should handle the Space Force.
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Stevenson’s army, November 13
– The Hill looks at the budget fight as viewed by the House and by the Senate.
– Bloomberg says Netanyahu also faces a budget dilemma.
– WaPo details Hamas planning
– NYT contrasts Xi’s public statements in his first term with internal statements.
– WSJ reveals back channel maneuvers setting up Xi-Biden talks.
Charlie added these extras later:
– Matt Yglesias explains how the weakness of US political parties — and because the hyperpartisanship is negative rather than affective — prevents any significant challenges to Biden and Trump.
– Politico says US defense companies don’t like the Buy American requirements.
-Political scientists discuss possible occupation of Gaza.
-The history of human shield concerns goes back to the Franco-Prussian war and has been ideologically divisive ever since.
-Lawfare explains the formation of Israel’s wartime cabinet. [Historical note, when Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, he created and assumed the role of Minister of Defence, although there was no ministry of defence at the 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, 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).
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Stevenson’s army, November 11
– NYT has interactive graphic on the Gaza tunnels.
– WOTR writer revisits his article on Israel’s urban warfare
– Prof Hal Brands analyzes Chinese strategies for Taiwan
Politico discusses the Trump plan for Gaza:
LET IT BURN: Trump has a plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: just let it burn.
“You have a war that’s going on and you’re probably going to have to let this play out … because a lot of people are dying,” he also told Univision reporter ENRIQUE ACEVEDO last night. “There is no hatred like the Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jewish people. And probably the other way around also, I don’t know. You know, it’s not as obvious, but probably that’s it too. So sometimes you have to let things play out and you have to see where it ends.”
“Eventually there’s peace, because you’re going to have a winner and a loser,” Trump continued.
It’s as pure a distillation of EDWARD LUTTWAK’s “let it burn” theory as there exists. In his seminal 1999 Foreign Affairs article “Give War a Chance,” Luttwak wrote “an unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace … fighting must continue until a resolution is reached.”
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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).
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Stevenson’s army, November 3
– Matt Yglesias says Israel is fighting a just war in Gaza and an unjust war in the West Bank.
– T.X. Hammes revisits his analysis of Israeli tactics in Gaza.
– WSJ says Wagner group is sending air defenses to Hezbollah
– NPR has photos and analysis of Israeli actions in Gaza.
– US & China have arms control talks
– CSIS has new report on export controls
– RAND has new report on eroding US power
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).
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Stevenson’s army, November 1
– WaPo says House GOP Israel bill will add $90 billion to the debt over 10 years.
– Yale prof warns against bombing Mexico
– Consistent with War Powers law and past precedent, Biden informed Congress of the recent US attacks in Iraq and Syria.
– I’ve often told the story that LBJ asked a prospective White House counsel if he was “a Yes lawyer or a No lawyer.” NYT says Trump would want only Yes lawyers in a new administration.
– SecState Blinken expects a “revitalized Palestinian Authority” will rule postwar Gaza.
Trade-offs [from D Brief]
Chinese-drone ban gains pace: Later today, bipartisan members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party plan to introduce the American Security Drone Act of 2023, the latest attempt to stop the U.S. government from buying drones built in China and other countries labeled as national security threats. It follows several failed attempts to extend the current ban on DOD purchases of Chinese drones to the rest of the government, including a companion to a Senate bill that was re-introduced in February after failing to pass in 2021.
Here’s a case for such a ban, from former INDOPACOM ops director Mark Montgomery, now with FDD. Essentially, he argues at D1, Chinese-made drones could spy on U.S. citizens and infrastructure.
Here’s a case against it, from drone expert Faine Greenwood, writing at Foreign Policy. The FP piece is paywalled, but she limns it here: “There’s one big, fat problem: there is no non-Chinese consumer drone company that does what DJI does. Much less does it at such a low price-point, which is a vital consideration for the vast swaths of modern drone users who don’t have unlimited cash to throw around. And building a DJI-killer is a lot harder than you might assume: although a number of Western competitors tried to knock DJI off the pedestal over the last decade, they all failed…Eventually, they largely stopped trying. This is also why both Ukrainians and Russians are continuing to chew through vast quantities of DJI drones on the battlefield, despite massive misgivings about their reliance on Chinese tech.”
DOD’s current bans: The Pentagon stopped buying drones from China’s DJI in 2017, and most off-the-shelf drones in 2018; that same year, Congress generally but not totally forbade the military to buy any Chinese-made drones.
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Stevenson’s army, October 24
– Jake Sullivan has a big think piece in Foreign Affairs, updated to mention Gaza.
-WOTR article challenges administration’s legal authority to commit forces in Israel, and links to recent HFAC hearing.
-France is sending weapons to Armenia.
– US promises to defend Philippine ships threatened by China
– WaPo reports CIA links to Ukraine spies.
– Turkish parliament gets Sweden NATO bill
– Trump advisors suggest NATO pullout
– CSIS has big report criticizing CISA
– Writer suggests rule change to get around Tuberville holds
– Vanity Fair has new book chapter on Operation Warp Speed, a real success story.
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).
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