Stevenson’s army, July 16

– Citing “former officials with direct knowledge,” Yahoo News has a detailed exclusive story revealing the Trump Administration’s 2018 presidential finding giving the CIA much greater freedom to launch offensive cyber operations against key adversary countries [including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea] and against critical infrastructure and financial institutions.It says that there are now “lessened … evidentiary requirements” for choosing targets. There is no mention of reporting these activities to Congress, and even the NSC is said to have little oversight role. Nor does there appear to be any provision like the Obama requirement for specific presidential approval of any action that was expected to have “significant consequences.”  In my opinion, this is way short of adequate.
The Trump directive apparently repeals and replaces the Obama PDD 20. [Beware before opening this link. Some people say that you could jeopardize a valid security clearance by opening a document like this — Top Secret/Noforn — released by Snowden and not formally declassified] On the other hand, its details have been widely reported over several years.
Readers here know that I have long promoted the “Title 60” idea of applying the Hughes-Ryan model to offensive cyber ops and lethal drone strikes: require presidential approval and congressional notification. Obama went half way in PDD 20. Trump and his NSC won’t even go that far.
In other news, the US is planning even more sanctions on Chinese officials as part of the escalating cold war.
– The sparkplug for the pivot to Asia in the Obama administration, Kurt Campbell, has a new assessment of China’s strategy.

-US may sanction more companies, including Shell Oil, over Nordstream2.
– NBC says WH tried to block Alexander Vindman’s promotion after his impeachment testimony by sending the Pentagon a report that he created a hostile work environment.

– Brookings has an interesting database of states’ ability to handle voting by mail.

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).