Stevenson’s army, March 17

– A Trump NSC staffer on global health defends the way it was handled on the NSC

– An Obama official .rebuts Bolton on that matter.
– Politico says senior incoming officials had a pandemic wargame just before Trump’s inauguration. [They should have known, is the lesson.]
– The House finally sent its first coronavirus recovery bill to the Senate — by approving by unanimous consent [voice vote] a resolution telling the Clerk to make “technical corrections” in the text. Rep. Gohmert [R-Tex.], who had threatened to object, withdrew his objection.
– Politico notes limits to possible use of troops for domestic help against the pandemic.
– How to allow vote by mail by November elections.

– US forces in Iraq are being relocated to larger bases.

There was a late addition:

– The administration wants to send checks directly to Americans to help offset the economic effects of the coronavirus. I support that, but not that the Obama administration did the same in 2009 with virtually no GOP support.
– The National Intelligence Council in 2008 warned that America and the world would face pandemic threats in the 2020s.

– And the ever-valuable D Brief shows the Chinese response to Sen. Cotton’s fabricated claim that the Chinese developed the coronavirus as a weapon against the US.

Here’s a brief list of Chinese diplomats who are sharing a conspiracy theory on Twitter in what appears to be a coordinated campaign of disinformation — spreading a lie that the U.S. created the coronavirus in a military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.: 

• Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman who seems to have initially tweeted this conspiracy last Thursday; his tweet was then shared by multiple diplomats and embassies, including—
• Lin Songtian, Chinese ambassador to South Africa; 
• Lijian Zhao, Ambassador to the Maldives; 
• Zhao Yanbo, Ambassador to Botswana;
• Quan Liu, Ambassador to Suriname; 
• Chang Hua, Ambassador to Iran; 
• Wang Xianfeng, press officer to the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan;
• the Twitter account for China’s Embassy to France; 
• China’s Embassy in Manila; 
• Embassy in Jordan; 
• Embassy in Chad; 
• Embassy in Uganda; 
• and the Twitter account for China’s Embassy in Cameroon. 

One takeaway from all the conspiracy sharing: It would sure seem that “more people inside the MFA [China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs] are seeing this kind of stuff as a good career move,” tweeted Matt Schrader, China analyst at the U.S.-based think tank, Alliance for Securing Democracy. 

Another POV: “Chinese party-state [is] taking a page out of Russia’s info ops playbook, using their Ambassadors’ @Twitter accounts for a coordinated disinfo operation,” tweeted Laura Rosenberger, who directs the Alliance for Securing Democracy. “The party-state is waging an info war using COVID-19, and using this moment to try new methods.”

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).