Stevenson’s army, November 20

Look how bad aircraft readiness rates have been, as reported by GAO.
A think tank reports on Japanese efforts to influence US policies

FP says Ethiopia risks becoming the new Yugoslavia..
Kori Schake warns against an attack on Iran.
Politico says Senate Republicans may approve Biden cabinet.
AP report on NDAA negotiations misses key context. It correctly notes that the bill contains a 3% military pay raise, but that in fact is the only reason an authorization bill is necessary. [Permanent law would give a smaller raise.] It fails to note that a presidential veto because of base names would be no real problem. Every other time the NDAA has been vetoed, a revised version has been quickly passed, deleting the criticized provisions.

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).