Stevenson’s army, September 1

News:

– Somebody leaked to Reuters the transcript of the last Biden-Ghani phone call.

-NYT details how CIA evacuated its last base.

– Defense One says Biden will offer $60 million to Ukraine in today’s meeting with Zelensky.

-NBC says Taliban did block an attack on US forces.

Opinion: Naval war college prof says both Russia and China are challenging Law of the Sea
In FP, analysts say CIA is better than DOD at building foreign armies.

– Dan Drezner assesses Biden’s foreign policy team.

– WaPo says GOP is divided on foreign policy.

– NYT conservative Ross Douthat hits Biden’s critics.

– Politico says Trump acolytes will remake the Senate.

Charlie doubts he’ll have time to read the papers before heading to 0800 class on Thursday, so here are some items tonight:

– Clip & save: WOTR has report on where defense dollars get spent. This is what matters to members of Congress, and often why they seek to be on the defense committees.

– Political deal in Venezuela.

-Longtime journalist Walter Pincus sees a new US strategy emerging. Here’s link to the earlier Biden policy paper.

–US & China need a better hotline.

– Lawfare assesses Taliban military.

– Milley says US could work with Taliban.

– International discussions on Kabul airport.

– Political games: WaPo sees a lot of GOP disinformation. NYT sees GOP switching positions on the war.

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).