Stevenson’s army, August 11

– Lured by the prospect of an August recess, the Senate approved the infrastructure package and, after only 14 hours of votes, and 47 amendments, approved the budget resolution intended to pave the way for a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill.

-WaPo reports an intelligence assessment says Kabul could be overrun in 6-12 months. The reporters give no hints of their sources, but I would note that Senators got a secret briefing on Afghanistan on Monday.

– Politico reports that the administration has made a major effort to fill Senior Executive Service positions across government.

– Meanwhile, Senator Cruz [R-TX] still blocks many State Dept nominations because of his opposition to the administration’s NordStream2 policy. [Here’s a CRS report from June, shortly before the Biden-Merkel deal on the project.]

– Nobody blocked former SAIS Prof Mara Karlin, who was confirmed yesterday.

– Biden’s promised “Summit of Democracies” is now set for December.

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).