Stevenson’s army, October 8

What are US troop plans for Afghanistan? The national security adviser yesterday said the level would be about 2500 by year’s end; the President tweeted  that all would be gone by Christmas.
Should DOD focus on Taiwan? A WOTR article says yes.
Why did US let China write rules for international organizations? SAIS Prof Anne Applebaum sees US politics and shortsightedness.
When will absentee ballots be counted? Here’s a state-by-state list. Note the wide variations.
 Why is SecDef Esper ducking the press? To avoid upsetting POTUS, it looks like.

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).