– The administration is deliberately refusing to allow the transition to begin.
– The president has abruptly fired the Secretary of Defense, installed an official with limted experience, while threatening also to fire the CIA director and FBI director. Esper is trying to defend himself.
– This is the season for “what Biden will do ” stories. Most are highly speculative, based on sources that may or may not have power in the new administration. I’m only going to send stories I think are soundly based, especially by reporters with very good sources. So pay attention to what Michael Gordon reports for WSJ and David Sanger for NYT.
– Armenia has lost the war, cut a deal.
– AEI scholar questions the way the combatant commands are run.
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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