Tag: Iraq
Stevenson’s army, December 23
Today the president must veto the NDAA or it will become law without his signature. WIll he carry through on his threat? [He is supposed to fly to Florida at 4pm.]
Trump surprised his own staff by disparaging the omnibus bill and hinting at a veto, though his complaints were more about the foreign aid in the appropriations measures combined with covid relief. If he vetoes that, government will have to shut down next week.
Among his pardons, Trump included the 4 Blackwater contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.
The Senate can’t organize itself and begin nomination hearings until the Georgia results are clear.
AP has numbers for the Trump legacy.
David Ignatius also believes that the Russia hack was espionage, not an act of war. Fred Kaplan has more background.
NYT says US Navy has a secret mission against Venezuela but off the coast of Africa.
Sweden considers joining NATO.
Trump wants to politicize 88% of OMB personnel.
FP details how China used stolen data to catch US spies.
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 16
Military families need food assistance.
Iraq’s economy is collapsing.
White House meddled in CDC.
Somalia breaks relations with Kenya.
John Bolton criticizes Trump action on Morocco.
A reporter tries to tell what will happen to nuclear “football” if Trump skips inauguration.
The hawkish FDD has its policy recommendations.
Analogy of the day: writers call for “Goldwater-Nichols for emerging technology.”
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 2, late edition
Couldn’t wait til morning for these:
The House Calendar for 2021 is out. Here’s a story about it. And here’s the document.
FP reports on the fight to be HFAC chairman.
The administration is slashing the size of its embassy in Iraq.
A former official says CIA is losing people because of poor personnel management.
Dan Drezner sees Trump-Biden tug of war over foreign policy.
WSJ says China’s only US friend is Wall Street
CSIS has a list of popular but bad ideas.
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 18
The Acting Defense Secretary announced cutbacks in US troops overseas. The press noticed that the CJCS was not present at the briefing.
Stars & Stripes says US will leave Somalia but stay in Djibouti
Micah Zenko notes that, even with the cuts in Afghanistan, there will be 22K civilian contractors..
NYT says foreign countries are signing up US lobbyists with Biden ties.
The Post’s Dave Weigel summarizes the gerrymander consequences of the elections. GOP ahead; Dems fell short.
Another think tank group releases its plan for State Dept reform.
Interesting suggestion for a special China directorate on NSC.
And strangely, the State Dept policy planning staff has released a heavily footnoted paper on the China challenge.
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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Premature withdrawal is not good foreign policy
President Trump is spending these first days of his “lame duck” presidency sulking out of public sight and playing golf. He fired the Defense Secretary on Twitter and has installed yes-men throughout the upper echelon of the Defense Department. His minions there are plotting a rash of US troops withdrawals from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, and perhaps from South Korea and more from Germany.
I’d be more than happy to see US troops come home, not least because I’ve got a beloved daughter-in-law slated for deployment, I know not where. She is a lieutenant colonel physician in the US Army and has already done three tours in Afghanistan in recent years as well as one in South Korea. It would be more than nice if she could stay home rather than leave a toddler behind in the care of her admittedly very capable husband.
But we know from bitter experience the trouble premature withdrawal of US troops can cause. We don’t have to harken back to Vietnam, graphic though the evacuation was. The Soviet-sponsored regime in Afghanistan lasted a few years after Moscow’s withdrawal, but the civil war and Taliban rule that followed weren’t good news for either the US or the Soviet Union, never mind the death and destruction they wrought in Afghanistan. President Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 opened the door to sectarianism and the rise of the Islamic State.
There is little reason to believe the government in Kabul will survive if the preconditions for US withdrawal specified in Washington’s agreement with the Taliban are not met. The government in Mogadishu is even weaker than the one in Kabul. Baghdad’s government would be more likely to survive, but in a pro-Iranian form that won’t be to Washington’s liking.
The sad fact is that withdrawal requires at least as much diplomacy as military intervention. Zal Khalilzad has been doing the right thing by negotiating the US exit from Afghanistan with the Taliban and insisting also that the Taliban reach an agreement with Kabul. But that negotiation can’t be successful if President Trump pulls the carpet out from under it. There is no reason to believe that any withdrawal decided because it is time for the President to leave office will be done at the right time. Withdrawal, like intervention, should be decided based on conditions in the country concerned, not only in the US.
President-elect Biden should of course be informed if not consulted on any decisions for withdrawal, or military action, during this lame duck period. That won’t happen so long as Trump is disputing the election result. Even thereafter he may avoid Biden, but at least the Pentagon and State Department people should be allowed to talk with Biden’s transition teams. Some of Trump’s mistakes will be correctable. He is unlikely to get the troops out of Germany in an irreversible fashion. But once the troops are out of Iraq, it will be hard to get them back in.
You don’t have to think the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Somalia, were good ideas to appreciate that ending them abruptly on a timetable determined by American politics is a bad idea. Each will require careful diplomatic preparation to ensure that US interests are preserved as much as can be reasonably expected. Premature withdrawal just isn’t good any better for foreign policy than it is for birth control.
PS: For more on the mendacity of the troop withdrawal announcement, list to this from NPR:
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Stevenson’s army, November 17
NYT says Trump sought military options against Iran in a meeting last Thursday. His advisors counseled against the idea, but we’ll see. [Last summer I argued , citing US history, that Trump would not “wag the dog” by launching a major military operation before the election. Now, who knows? Even conservatives are warning about the inexperience of new appointees.]
Everybody says Trump will speed up US troop reductions from Afghanistan, Iraq & Somalia, so the administration must be giving briefings. NYT has the most comprehensive story.
WaPo also has details.
There are also dueling China stories. WaPo says Biden will likely follow many of Trump’s policies. Axios has administration officials bragging at how much they’ve done, calling it irreversible.
A former official warns of cuts in defense attache postings.
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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