Stevenson’s army, August 24

– WaPo says CIA Director Burns met with de facto Taliban leader in Kabul on Monday.

– Former CJCS ADM. Mullen now say Afghanistan war was mistake.

– WSJ describes faltering Afghan economy.

In other news –

– sanctions on Eritrea.

– withdrawals from Sahel.

– Merkel reassures Ukraine over NS2.

– CFR has good backgrounder on global water stress.

I don’t know how much of this is accessible right now, but Foreign Affairs displays its new issue online.

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).