Tag: Cybersecurity

Stevenson’s army, February 13

– IISS released its annual military posture report, covered here.

– Here’s the background report for the Munich Security Conference, beginning this weekend.

UN report says North Korea has made over $3 billion in cyber attacks.

– USAF will keep B52s for decades more

– Just before dawn today, the Senate approved the $95 billion foreign aid package.

-The FY2025 budget won’t be released until March 11.

– Dan Drezner updates his Ideas Industry [part assigned for week 12]

History lesson: this is the 100th anniversary of a highly restrictive immigration law, anti-Catholic nativism at the Democratic National Convention, and Rhapsody in Blue.

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, February 12

Trump targets:

NATO and foreign aid — and he has allies

CISA and cyber

Insufficiently loyal officials — they even have a Feb 19-20 “boot camp” 

Ecuador wants to mimic El Salvador

– Academics say that’s the wrong way to go

NYT has a revealing article on Ukraine troop problems. I was struck by these facts:

The bill on mobilization has passed a first reading in Ukraine’s Parliament. It would lower the conscription age to 25 from 27 and stiffen penalties on draft dodgers.

Ukraine currently drafts men between the ages of 27 and 60. Under martial law, all men 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving the country, lest a decision be taken to draft them.

Men with three or more children are exempted, but men with three children or fewer who volunteered, or whose families expanded as they served, have not been permitted to leave the military.

Lowering the draft age, for example, would bring more lithe, healthy soldiers to the fight but would pose long-term risks for sustaining Ukraine’s population, given the country’s demographics.

As in most former Soviet states, Ukraine has a small generation of 20-year-olds because birthrates plummeted during the deep economic depression of the 1990s. Because of this demographic trough, there are now three times as many men in their 40s as in their 20s in Ukraine.

Drafting more men in their 20s, given the likely battle casualties, would risk reducing the number of births in this small generation of Ukrainians, resulting in declines of draft- and working-age men decades from now and endangering the country’s future security and economy.

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, January 23

-Politico reports attacks on Houthis.

-Defense Priorities analyzes the options.

– Fred Kaplan  is encouraged by emerging Gaza peace plan.

– RollCall sees Palestinian aid as an issue.

-Semafor says Israel want 2km no man’s land in Gaza

– Iran hawks Gerecht and Takeyh say Iran doesn’t want a war

– NYT worries about tipping point in Mideast conflicts

– FP’s Steve Walt says in terms of foreign policy, it doesn’t matter whether Trump or Biden wins

– New reports on Trump on Ukraine and Trump on Taiwan [from Politico’s China Watcher:

TRUMP WON’T COMMIT TO TAIWAN’S DEFENSE: The likely Republican candidate in the November U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump, refused to commit to a U.S. defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt.

Publicly declaring his position on Taiwan’s defense would put him in “very bad negotiating position” with Beijing, Trump said in a Fox News interview on Sunday.  Trump laced those comments with complaints about the self-governing island’s dominance of the global semiconductor supply chain. “Taiwan did take all of our chip business … they took our business away. We should have stopped them. We should have taxed them. We should have tariffed them,” Trump said.

Lawfare summarizes new cyber laws.

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, Decemberr 15

– Former SAIS prof Mara Karlin, stepping down at DOD

– WaPo reports Chinese cyber attacks on US infrastructure

– NYT says US & Ukraine are working on a new strategy

– Economist has valuable report on Indian military, including strategy, organization, deployments, and civil-military tensions

– NBC says promised US-Chinese military hotline still hasn’t been started

– New NDAA, expected to pass this week, will allow some military program starts despite normal CR blocks

– French analyst explains internal Hamas debates

And this from Legistorm:

Time to hand out those holiday bonuses: The average House personal office is on track to end the year with more than $360,000 left in its annual operating budget.

The average House personal office used just 61% of its office budget in the first nine months of the year, according to a LegiStorm analysis. That puts each office on pace to use 81% of its budget by the year’s end, leaving close to $363,000 unspent per office.

The personal average office ended 2022 with 10% of its budget left unspent, or more than $176,000.

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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

Hungary remains a holdout

– 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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Stevenson’s army, September 13

-WaPo summarizes GOP calls for military action against Mexico

– Schumer and other plan trips to Beijing

– AIPAC is having trouble finding candidates

– Homestyles: Politico says Rep. Boebert isn’t so MAGA at home

Trump DOJ ruling undercuts McCarthy on impeachment

Kim & Putin make nice

– DOD releases unclassified Cyber Strategy

– At WOTR Michael Kofman analyzes Ukraine offensive

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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