Tag: Coronavirus
At risk
President Trump, concerned about the stock market’s more than 20% falloff, is still minimizing the risk and pushing for aid to the travel industry (including his own hotels of course) as well as a payroll tax cut, which he hopes will bury the memory of his massive tax cut for the wealthy in 2017. Neither move will do much for the non-payroll poor, who either vote for or against him because he is a racist. There is no buying them off his poor opponents or his poor proponents. He knows it.
I suppose his economic moves might cheer the markets temporarily, but there is no way we don’t get a big slowdown and likely a contraction this quarter and into the next. The failure of the US government to act promptly against Covid-19, has condemned us all to self-quarantine. While the economy is digitalizing, face-to-face interaction is still indispenable to industries that handle physical stuff and important to others, like teaching international relations. Presidents Xi and Trump may want to purvey happy talk, but reality bites.
It’s biting me too. I’m scheduled to travel to San Antonio Sunday and Atlanta during the following week to visit with our grandchildren, whom I haven’t seen since Thanksgiving. I’m not really worried about protecting myself from the virus. Lots of sanitizer and surgical masks will do a decent job of that, with some residual risk. But if we happen to cross paths with an infected person and are advised to self-quarantine, we could end up stranded for a couple of weeks in one of the destinations or the other. As attractive as that might be for seeing the grandchildren, it won’t help me get my work done. Nor will housing a grandparent for an unexpectedly long period, sick or not, be easy on the kids. So we need to choose between taking the risk or canceling the trip. Ugh.
Many millions of people are now making similar decisions. The Italian government has made it for them: stay home except for work and emergencies it says. I won’t be surprised if we end up there, but the President is still thinking more about his re-election prospects than about the welfare of the American people. Fortunately, they get the final say. How anyone watching the bozotic performance of this Administration in responding to Covid-19 would want it back in office come November is beyond me. It would be fitting if the germophone fell to a virus. Trump is at risk.
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Stevenson’s army, March 9
– DOD has 60 vacancies, about 1/3 of Senate-confirmed positions, and time is running short for filling them. And Politico says WH is resisting Esper nominees.
– Details of the Afghan deal are also missing — and the president even suggests Taliban may take over.
-Lawfare has a legal analysis of the deal.
– Numerous stories tell of the administration’s missed opportunities to deal with the coronavirus. Consider Dan Drezner and Peter Baker of NYT.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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, March 7
The Saudi crown prince has arrested his chief rivals and charged them with treason.
Pres. Trump has named Cong. Mark Meadows as his new chief of staff. [Not “acting”]
Coronavirus blame game: countries are blaming their rivals for the epidemic.
WaPo says CIA & NSA clashed over the purchased of a Swiss crypto machine company.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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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Botched
The Trump Administration reaction to the corona virus outbreak is a classic case of government failure. The President has downplayed the risks from the first, hoping to limit damage to stock markets and the economy in the run-up to his re-election campaign. He is claiming anyone can get tested, which isn’t even close to being true. The number of test kits available at the end of the week was just 75,000, after the Vice President had promised one million.
Part of the problem lies at the Centers for Disease Control, which at the start of this debacle shipped test kits that did not work properly while barring others from providing them. No wonder its leadership tries to look on benevolently as the President lies blatantly:
The chronicle of the inconsistencies in US government messaging is getting biblical. No one should be surprised. It is hard to keep a straight story when you are not telling the truth. That is the trick to many police interrogations: get the suspect to contradict himself, then hammer away at the contradiction. Real infectious disease experts will stand up to that sort of interrogation. President Trump and Vice President Pence will not, because they have a tale to tell that aims at political results, not scientific ones. That’s why they’ve channeled all questioning to the White House.
There is still a great deal of uncertainty about Covid-19: when during the course of the disease is it contagious? can you be reinfected? how lethal is it? what is the best protection for the older people who are succumbing in higher percentages? will the virus attenuate as spring rolls around? But some things are already clear: stay off cruise boats and out of nursing homes. Our friend Toby Edelman had this to say yesterday on NPR about the latter:
The other advice we are getting also makes sense: wash your hands, don’t touch your face, self-quarantine if in doubt, avoid contact with people who are ill. But really we haven’t got much idea how much of this will work. It’s just common sense for any infectious disease.
What we do know is that Trump and his administration have botched their first real crisis. Unable to tell the truth, unable to fix things that go wrong, unable to listen to sound advice, they have instead politicized an epidemic and made it much worse than it might have been.
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Stevenson’s army, March 1
An agreement has been signed; many difficult steps to follow. NYT analysis.
U.S., analyst of military contractors wonders whether they will go or stay.
CNAS has numbers on recent US sanctions.
Authorities matter: NYT says US is considering invoking Defense Production Act of 1950 to force production of masks and other medical items to deal with coronavirus.
WaPo details the conflict and bureaucratic disarray as the administration tackled the coronavirus.
NYT graphics show how Afghanistan became an”invisible war.”
David Sanger assesses the deal with the Taliban.
Another assessment from the Atlantic.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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 29
An agreement has been signed; many difficult steps to follow. NYT analysis.
U.S., analyst of military contractors wonders whether they will go or stay.
CNAS has numbers on recent US sanctions.
Authorities matter: NYT says US is considering invoking Defense Production Act of 1950 to force production of masks and other medical items to deal with coronavirus.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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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