Stevenson’s army, January 15

Although Wolf Blitzer and fellow moderators devoted the first hour of the Democratic presidential candidate debate to foreign policy, political experts at a CFR panel I attended Tuesday said foreign policy hardly ever matters in US elections unless there is an active shooting war with significant American casualties. Even trade isn’t making a difference with voters these days, they said.  Most interesting to me was Charlie Cook’s observation that unless Biden is the clear leader after Iowa and NH, Mike Bloomberg is likely to shoot to the front on Super Tuesday and stands a good chance of winning the nomination even in a brokered convention.
Sen. Kaine [D-Va] seems to have the votes for a war powers restriction on President Trump regarding Iran. The Hill has the best story of the successful negotiations with Republicans, but the parliamentary snafu that postpones debate until next week.
Washington Examiner has a story based on SAIS prof Jim Mann’s new book about the Cheney-Powell feud over foreign policy in the Bush 43 administration.
Fred Kaplan dissects administration Iran policy, sees regime change as a delusion.
A CFR writer says Huawei blacklist may backfire.
Vox disputes Trump claim about Saudi contributions to US military.
WSJ says US threatens cut in military aid to Iraq if US troops are forced to leave.

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).