Stevenson’s army, July 11

I can’t figure out what’s happening in Haiti, but sure hope somebody can. WaPo says observers fear a “Somalia in the Caribbean.“
NYT summarizes the power struggle. There’s a poor country with a long history of poverty, political violence, corruption. No wonder the US doesn’t want to get involved militarily. WaPo has scary first-person story.
Nobody knows who hired the Colombian mercenaries who are alleged to be the assassins
of the president. I’m waiting for one of the China hawks to blame Beijing because Haiti is one of the few countries to recognize Taiwan and there was a break in at the embassy [I don’t think this is likely, but conspiracy theories don’t require evidence.]

Catching up with other items worth reading:

– How WH reporters are coping with Trump’s absence.

– Dan Drezner explains “lab leaks” from IR scholars. He draws on FP piece by former APSA Congressional Fellow Paul Musgrave.

– FP notes Chinese interest in bases across the Indo-Pacific.

– Since President Biden made a vigorous defense of his Afghanistan policy and even answered questions, I thought you should see the full transcript.

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).