Stevenson’s army, July 30

– LA Times has a summary of Robert Draper’s new book on the Iraq war.  [I’m happy to say I just got a copy from my newly reopened library.]
– I have a piece debunking the “wag the dog” theory. Yes, foreign policy decisions including use of force, are often driven by domestic political considerations, but the US just doesn’t start wars in presidential election years.

–DOD now sees protesters and journalists as “adversaries” in mandatory training manuals.
– The Gang of 8 are feuding over what to tell us about foreign interference in the election.
– DOD announced withdrawal of troops from Germany. Fred Kaplan has a good critique.
Reading between the lines, it looks to me as if DOD is slow-rolling the matter, making it easy to reverse course after the election.
Daily Beast reports on all the dark money flooding into our elections this year.
Congratulations to the NYT editor who wrote the line saying the tech execs who testified yesterday all wore “trust me suits” and ties.
Breaking news: the quarry for the Stonehenge stones has been found 15 miles away. Still not know is how they were transported 4500 years ago.

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).