Tag: Trade
Stevenson’s army, December 14 and 15
December 15
NBC says Trump plans to pull 4,000 US troops from Afghanistan.
NYT says US secretly expelled two Chinese officials for spying at SOCOM base.
NYT says Chinese believe they just won the trade war with the US.
What goes around comes around: a judge has invoked a law passed by GOP Congress to limit Obama against Trump.
Trump campaign briefs press on its plans. Looks pretty good for them.
Dartmouth prof doubts effectiveness of various campaign reforms. Note especially the data on term limits.the evidence is at best equivocal on the effects of term limits. Some studies find they would actually enhance the power of special interest groups. The problem is that incumbents who lack a reelection incentive can reduce the effort they devote to their jobs, becoming less attentive to their constituents and working less on the legislative process. The political scientists Alexander Fouirnaies and Andrew B. Hall, for instance, use data from 1995 to 2016 to show that legislators facing term limits sponsor fewer bills and miss more votes. This shift can increase the influence of outside forces such as interest groups and lobbyists, who will happily fill the vacuum in expertise and effort created by term-limited legislators. These dynamics played out in California after term limits were enacted in 1990 that restricted members of the Assembly to three terms (six years) and state senators to two terms (eight years). Observers found that these short limits scrambled the legislative process, discouraging legislators from acquiring experience while in office and creating constant turnover in leadership positions. Lobbyists, staffers and other unelected figures seemed to gain power as a result. In response, good-government groups endorsed Proposition 28, which passed in 2012, reducing lifetime limits to 12 years but allowing legislators to serve all of that time in one chamber.
Prof. Brands and others say Trump has abandoned the Carter Doctrine of protecting oil fields.
December 14
– British expat Andrew Sullivan says Boris Johnson won with “Trumpism without Trump.”
– I look at the electoral maps and conclude that more and more people voted their amygdala instead of their pocketbooks. Same trend in the US.
– WSJ says USMCA sets a model for future trade agreements. I agree.
– There’s pushback on the Post’s Afghanistan series, from a Dartmouth prof and Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings.
– WaPo notes winners and losers from first US China trade deal.
– NYT says Ukraine is looking for a US lobbyist. [They all do eventually.]
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, December 13
Along with agreement on the NDAA and USMCA, congressional leaders now have a deal on spending bills, avoiding both a government shutdown and another CR.
First time ever, the Senate unanimously approved a resolution condemning Armenian genocide.
Here’s the language.
The president seems to have a deal rolling back sanctions on China for some trade concessions.
How many wars are we in today? Still 19, according to the 6-monthly report to Congress under the war powers law.
Who loves us, hates us? Pew has a new international survey.
Politico’s London branch reviews UK election results.
The latest in the Post’s Afghanistan series,this time on the security forces. But former Amb.Ryan Crocker pushes back.
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, December 11
What’s in the 3,488 page[ ! ]NDAA? Besides the key domestic section of parental leave for federal workers, there’s security stuff. The HASC summary. The Defense News summary.
What’s in the final USMCA? WSJ lists winners and losers. Politico shows how Pelosi ran the negotiations.
Part 3 of the Post’s Afghanistan papers — wasted aid.
NYT says US commanders aren’t sure how to respond to Russian and Turkish acts in Syria.
Dan Drezner laments the end of WTO and the economic order that came with it.
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, December 9
– China has ordered no foreign computers or software after 2022.
– US strangles WTO.
– North Korea lambastes Trump.
-WaPo details how Democrats leveraged Space Force for parental leave.
– WaPo publishes formerly secret documents showing misleading statements about Afghan war.
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, November 16
-WSJ has an article urging a US industrial policy which I find persuasive.
– The Nuclear Threat Initiative has a background paper on Russia’s new weaponry.
– TNSR has a roundtable on reforming the war powers processes.
– Bloomberg reviews the changing Trump trade policies.
– Meanwhile, Trump pardoned war criminals, contrary to DOD recommendations.
– South Korea rejects intelligence sharing with Japan.
And this from WSJ:
U.S. MILITARY reduces press access to combat troops
in Afghanistan. War correspondents accompanied Marines into the country
in 2001, and for years the Pentagon facilitated front-line visits.
After Special Forces and Rangers took the combat lead in 2014, embeds
became rarer.
In the past year, the number of embeds with the 13,000 U.S. troops remaining in the country has declined sharply. The message from Kabul HQ: “We do attempt to make every opportunity available to cover other events—such as the important train, advise and assist mission the Coalition of 40 nations is conducting.”
This year, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul has largely ceased speaking to the international media in the Afghan capital. Commanders and diplomats fear U.S. news coverage could lead President Trump to tweet a strategic reversal or further upend peace talks. They glimpsed that possibility with Trump’s surprise withdrawal from Syria.
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Stevenson’s army, November 14
– The Edogan-Trump meeting produced expressions of friendship, but no announced agreement on any of the issues between the two countries. Axios reports, however, that Erdogan showed the Americans, including several Senators, a video of Kurdish atrocities.
– Problems with F35.
– WSJ says trade deal snagged over farm purchases.
– FP says Latin America divided over Bolivia.
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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