Stevenson’s army, April 1

-Josh Rogin reports that NSC staff had numerous meetings on the coronavirus in Jan & Feb and recommended quick action, but met higher level resistance.
-NYT says WH economists warned of economic consequences of a pandemic in 2019, also ignored.
– Some British scientists also downplayed the problem.

-Despite Trump’s reluctance to invoke Defense Production Act as “nationalization,” Trump administration has already invoked it hundreds of thousands of times, both in defense contracts and FEMA.
– WaPo has graphic of president’s changing tune on the pandemic.
-US proposes power sharing plan in Venezuela.

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. 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).