Stevenson’s army, April 25

– NYT cites contrasting assessments of Biden’s Afghanistan policy.
– Former DOD official and military writer Bing West blasts the Biden decision. But he also says: During the Vietnam War, presidents and civilian policy makers dominated military strategy and decision-making. In contrast, during the Afghanistan war, our generals held the strategic power; civilian policy makers deferred to their judgment. But the generals clung irrationally to a nation-building strategy whose costs far exceeded America’s security needs. They failed to adapt, set new objectives and lower the human and financial costs of the war. Looking back, no U.S. military commander would repeat the clear-hold-build strategy. But to its detriment at times, our military’s ethos is to accentuate the positive and to never, never quit.
–Bombers moving in, equipment out.
-History lesson: late 19th century US politics was nasty and wildly competitive.

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).