Stevenson’s army, December 28-31

I was traveling over the weekend, so managed to miss some first-rate recommendations by Charlie Stevenson:

December 31

Forward: Protesters storm US embassy in Baghdad — in response to US airstrikes, as reported by WaPo and NYT stories.
– Likely changes in congressional representation after 2020 census.
– Chinese impact in Djibouti.
– Navy tries again to decommission carrier Truman and cut an air wing.

Backward: Sarah Binder reflects on Congress in 2019.
– FP lists top ten stories.
See you next year….

December 30

– NYT has long piece with previously unreported details of administration fights over Ukraine aid. OMB began working in June to halt aid; Trump met in late August with Pompeo, Esper & Bolton and rejected their unanimous advice to release aid.
-WaPo reveals backchannel of Giuliani & Cong. Pete Sessions negotiating with Maduro.
–US struck forces linked to Iran in Iraq & Syria in response to attacks in Kirkuk that wounded Americans. Here’s Reuters background.
– NYT explains al shabab’s strengths.
– Armed Services chairmen vow smaller NDAA next year.  It was amazing to me how many foreign policy and non-defense matters were shoehorned into the bill. But, then, few other bills were debated in the Senate.

December 29

– NYT has long article documenting Trump administration’s demotion and disregard of scientific expertise.
-Newly released documents show how banker David Rockefeller maneuvered to help the shah of Iran.
-Hard to dispute:article calls Sen. McConnell the “most consequential US politician of the past decade.”

December 28

– NYT says Russia is ahead in hypersonic weapons.
– Congress is more assertive against Trump on foreign policy.
– Huawei is making nice in Europe and winning.
– Fed study says Trump tariffs backfired.

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).