Day: June 17, 2020
Stevenson’s army, June 17
– WSJ says Trump administration is still working with WHO despite announced US withdrawal.[ Teaching point: throughout Trump’s presidency, he and the WH staff have made announcements that were not followed up with action. They seemed to think that a press release was sufficient. Or a so-called executive order that really only called for an action to be studied. Process matters.]
– Britain is merging its development office with the Foreign Office. [Teaching point: the US has the same longtime tension between USAID, which wants to give aid for developmental goals, and State, which usually wants to add political goals. No easy answers. As JFK said, “To govern is to choose.”]
– CIA hackers got hacked, with enormous damage. [Teaching Point: Hubris is a powerful force in elite organizations. We also have prioritized cyber attack over cyber defense and resilience.]
– Here’s good background on the China-India clash and on the Line of Actual Control. BTW, the deadly fighting was with barbed wire clubs, since firearms aren’t authorized by either side.
– Speaker Pelosi mandates masks in committees.
– My local library system, PG County in Maryland, sent a message yesterday saying that major newspapers and many magazines are now freely accessible online via the library. Your local library might do the same. Check it out.
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).
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