Tag: Cybersecurity
Stevenson’s army, July 14
But there’s no big news about France. Celebrate anyway.
NYT reports and speculates about disappearance of REvil from Dark Web.
But WaPo says lack of indicators it was offensive cyber op that did it.
HASC approved defense appropriations bill. But report criticizes Space Force.
Many Senate holds block defense nominees.
GOP Senators resist AUMF repeal.
Japan mentions Taiwan, climate change in new defense white paper.
I think Adam Gopnik is onto something in what he calls Biden’s “invisible ideology.”
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, July 1
China appears to be building 100 more missile silos.
HASC Chairman questions private funding of National Guard deployment to Texas. Military Times says it’s legal.
IISS assesses various national cyber capabilities.
Pew study of 2020 presidential election shows different strengths of Trump and Biden.
Donald Rumsfeld died yesterday. I’ll send an assessment separately.
FYI, I have a lot of Grandparent Duty this month, so postings will be infrequent.
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, June 22
– US & EU joined in new sanctions on Belarus.
-NYT says Eastern European populists aren’t popular nowadays.
– WOTR piece argues for State Dept reorganization to deal with digital issues.
– Retired army colonel Joe Collins says US civil-military relations aren’t broken.
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, June 18
-Congress and administration fight over cyber jobs.
-Pentagon considers sending troops back to Somalia.
-Covid locks down Kabul embassy.
-Defense One writers call PDI a slush fund.
-House votes to repeal 2002 Iraq AUMF. [Hello. It’s the 2001 AUMF that has been stretched beyond the breaking point.]
-Ronan Farrow wonders if Blinken can rebuild the State Dept
-WSJ says US & EU are cooperating on emerging technologies.
-Rand analyst says US should understand what defeat in war means.
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, June 13
The NYT special section on the Pentagon Papers is part of today’s print edition. I want to call to your attention Peter Baker’s piece on leaks and secrets, with footnotes to the Times’ affidavit as part of its court case.
WaPo sums up the Iran negotiations.
WaPo also reports new aspirational cybersecurity pact.
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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The Biden-Putin professional wrestling match
President Biden and Russian President Putin will meet Wednesday in Geneva. Biden has a long-standing distaste for Putin, whose behavior in recent years will have made Biden even more critical. Since their last meeting in 2011, Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, had a leading opposition figure murdered just outside the Kremlin, deployed troops and aircraft to Syria to support dictator Assad with a wide array of war crimes, tried to murder an ex-Russian intelligence agent in Great Britain, tried to murder and then jailed another opposition leader on trumped-up charges, backed Belaruan autocrat Lukashenko after he engineered massive election fraud, and is now busily shutting down what remains of political opposition and civil society in Russia. That is on top of the many episodes of election interference in the US in favor of Donald Trump, Russian hacking of US government cyber systems, and Russian tolerance for cyber ransom attacks that have several times closed important American companies.
It is no surprise there will not be a joint press conference after the Putin/Biden summit. While there may be some positive news on specific issues like arms control, climate change, or the Iran nuclear deal, the atmospherics surrounding this meeting are 180 degrees opposite from President Trump’s attempted lovefest with Putin in 2018, when he said at a joint press conference that he believed Putin’s denials of election interference and not the unanimous rejected the unanimous view of American intelligence agencies.
The choreography leading up to next week’s summit has been careful, perhaps even masterful. Biden, committed to rekindling traditional American alliances, met first in Cornwall with UK Prime Minister Johnson, then rallied the G7 (that’s Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan, as well as the UK and the US) to focus on China and cybersecurity, and next week he will meet first with America’s 29 NATO allies before confronting Putin. Unlike his three predecessors, Biden does not want a “reset” with Putin. He wants to confront him where needed but leave the door open to cooperation on specific issues and even improved relations overall if Putin stops his perfidies.
But Biden knows he won’t. Putin has been in many ways a successful President. Russians often give him credit for revival of their pride and their aspirations to great power status after the economically difficult Yeltsin period. His personal popularity is low at the moment, but he is committed to holding on to power by autocratic if democratic means fail. Russian parliamentary elections in September (and the presidential election in 2024) will be far from free and fair. There is not much the Americans can do about that. Even getting Alexei Navalny out of jail is more than they have managed so far.
Putin will want to use the meeting with Biden to shore up his domestic support. He can do that best by being confrontational. Biden, who has much stronger domestic support, will want to do the same thing. He will want to be seen as calling Putin out on election hacking, cybersecurity, and repression of the Russian opposition. Neither bodes well for the occasion. This summit is likely to be like “professional” wrestling: more theater than real, staged for TV and radio, but still with some possibility one or the other protagonist gets hurt.
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