Tag: South Korea
Stevenson’s army, July 10
– NATO summit in Vilnius. Biden says Ukraine isn’t ready for membership.
– Jake Sullivan explains more.
– Max Boot says his heart is for admission but his head says no.
-Congress is back in town with only 12 days to get things done before August recess.
-Kremlin says Putin met with Prigozhin after mutiny attempt.
-Guardian says Sudan is on brink of civil war.
– Gzero saays South Korea is moving away from China, toward US
– Trump critic says his officials worried about nuclear war.
– Gordon Adams says Afghan withdrawal report shows State’s weaknesses.
– Former CAPE official responds to critics.
Axios says Biden has bad temper, but only in private.
My story: When I joined his Senate staff, Ted Kaufman told me, “Joe has a temper.” Having just spent 6 years working for John Culver, who was called “Big Vesuvius” for his outbursts in the HFAC, I said I could handle that. “But he really gets mad at times,” Ted replied. I said, “I know the difference between kilotons and megatons. I can handle Biden.” [And I did.]
Charlie added later:
I’ve long told my classes, “If you know how the system works, you’ll know how to work the system.” And the way Washington really works is through connections and conversations and perseverance.
The New Yorker has an excellent example this week, an article by historian Kai Bird about the effort to nullify a denial of a security clearance for the leader of the Manhattan Project that built the atom bomb, Robert Oppenheimer.
Bird and Martin Sherwin, who had co-authored a book about Oppenheimer, tried to get a DC law firm to take up the case, only to be blocked by a partner whose father had chaired the panel that punished Oppenheimer. Later they used Hill connections from long ago to try to get the Obama Administration to reconsider the matter. A legendarily effective Senate staffer, Tim Rieser, got his boss and other Senators to sign a letter to the Secretary of Energy, who has jurisdiction over the weapons labs and thus their security procedures. Unsuccessful at that time, they renewed their effort in the Biden administration, got additional letters from former officials, and finally favorable action by Secretary Granholm.
People mattered, both for and against Oppenheimer’s case. Organizations mattered: DOE officials were reluctant to revisit the issue or make legal rulings. The process mattered: connecting the advocates with people empowered to act. What a neat story, especially with a happy ending. —
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, June 27
– The Supreme Court has rejected the independent legislature legal theory
– Japan lifts trade restrictions with South Korea.
– Congress sets limits on ChatGBT use.
Prigozhin: CJR backgrounds his media coverage; Eliot Cohen analyzes the mutiny.
Reuters discovers large number of US officials whose ancestors had slaves.
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, June 23
– Politico reports on HASC NDAA
– Hill sees split between Senate and House GOP over defense
– Carter Malkasian urges Korea armistice model for Ukraine
– Defense News compares German and other national security strategies
– Talented Trump NSC deputy, Nadia Schadlow, has good points on strategy
– History: when US spies searched for Confederate VP
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, April 27
– Important US-South Korean agreement on nuclear issues. The official statement. Analysis by Semafor.
-GOP Senators frustrated with Tuberville.
– Justice says Teixeira has long history of violent remarks.
– CNN says Trump kept documents of foreign leader meetings.
– Politico reports how Biden gets his news.
– Russian article discusses background to Ukraine 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 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, April 26
– US will reassure South Korea over nuclear weapons, says WSJ. More background from NYT.
-Speaker McCarthy changed the debt bill to appease members favoring ethanol and set rule avoiding amendments except for one.
– Lawfare reviews book on broken promises to Ukraine over nukes.
– WaPo tells how to build a SCIF.
– USA Today depicts Us evacuations from Sudan.
-Axios discloses Cyber Command/CISA secret operations [scroll to second story]
-Some in DOD happy at Tucker Carlson’s firing.
– US helped Guaido escape to Florida
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, April 11
– Politico reports on the GOP push to attack Mexico.
– Politico profiles Elbridge Colby, the anti-neocon.
-Economist sees US-China competition in Indian Ocean
– Blowback from intell leaks: South Korea. Lots of places.
– WaPo says Egypt planned to sell arms to Russia
-Amy Zegart assesses US intelligence challenges.
Bloomberg opinion is behind a paywall, but look at these recent points.
Let Bloomberg Opinion columnist Minxin Pei — with assistance from Bloomberg’s editorial board — calibrate your concerns. The perception of China’s increasing power tends to exceed the reality of it. Here are five reasons that is true.
- China’s military strength is overhyped: “For all its talk about the decline of the West and rise of the East, China remains a significantly weaker power than the US on practically all fronts. What China sees as unfair practices — including US surveillance operations in international airspace and waters near the Chinese coast — are merely a manifestation of the exercise of US power in its rivalry with a weaker adversary.”
- On top of that, Minxin says, China talks a big game on national ambitions but can’t follow through: “In case after case, leaders in Beijing have identified top national priorities and lavished them with support. And time after time, this ‘whole-of-nation’ effort, meant to mobilize the talent and resources of a giant country, has led only to waste, graft and failure.”
- Bloomberg’s editorial board says Washington frets about China’s financial leverage over the US, but that’s also overhyped: “Less than 2% of US foreign direct investment is held in China, and US venture-capital companies have invested only about $60 billion in Chinese startups since 2010, compared with $1.3 trillion in the US.”
- The China-Russia alliance is also less than it seems, Minxin writes, adding that influence doesn’t equal leverage: “The meagerness of the economic deals signed during Xi Jingping’s visit to Moscow — which glaringly omitted the second gas pipeline from Russia to China — indicates that China is not ready to go all in, at least for now. This portends trouble” for any alliance between the two nations.
- And the Saudi deal was significant, but the US remains firmly in control: “Those lamenting America’s apparent loss of influence in the Middle East should know that this is one of the costs of focusing US attention and resources on the competition with China — and it’s one the US can afford to pay.”
Bonus China Reading:
- US Must Still Fight for Taiwan’s Hearts and Minds: Nisid Hajari
- US ‘Guardrails’ With China Are Shaky at Best: Hal Brands
- The US, UK and Australia Send China a Message: James Stavridis
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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