Stevenson’s army, March 9

– DOD  has 60 vacancies, about 1/3 of Senate-confirmed positions, and time is running short for filling them. And Politico says WH is resisting Esper nominees.
– Details of the Afghan deal are also missing — and the president even suggests Taliban may take over.
-Lawfare has a legal analysis of the deal.
– Numerous stories tell of the administration’s missed opportunities to deal with the coronavirus. Consider Dan Drezner and Peter Baker of NYT.

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).