Stevenson’s army, August 20

The centenary of the 19th amendment is a good moment to reflect on the struggle for women’s suffrage. GZero has a great graphic. I liked to brag that my home state of Colorado gave women the right to vote in 1893, long before the 19th amendment and second only to Wyoming. But a few years ago I did some research and learned that the main reason the law was changed was to dilute the voting power of single miners. Right thing for the wrong reason.

The Air Force is even going to redesign its aircraft to allow more female pilots.
NYT doubts that a President Biden would be able to build bipartisan coalitions in Congress. I certainly favor bipartisanship in foreign policy and the “regular order” [like the NDAA] for major legislation. But maybe the hyperpartisanship is too strong. We can talk about this in class.
NYT says an intelligence community assessment in June disagreed with an earlier DHS intelligence report and concluded that low level officials in Wuhan withheld key coronavirus information from Beijing.
Politico says SecState Pompeo illegally sought military housing, though the army eventually provided lodging at Fort Myer.
NYT has more on F35 sale to UAE, including Netanyahu’s non-denial denial of the sales’ connection to the recognition deal.
I agree with Alice Hunt Friend’s article questioning the need for the SecDef to have military experience.

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).