Stevenson’s army, September 20

CFR analyst sees a trade-off.

Defense News reports regional reactions.

A friend of mine sees program problems: This deal was in trouble for the last two years.  Costs went from the $50 b contract to an estimated $100 b.  Local content went the other way, from 90% to 60%.  Delivery slipped to 2035. And it was noisy and limited dwell time to boot.  So Australia has wanted out for a while.  Brits want back in the Anglo game; Australia decided a better deal with 8 nukes from either UK or US.  Naval in France screwed the pooch, and Macron is covering for them.  Sound and fury signifying very little, except what the excited press liked to report.

And note that Iran is joining the Russia-China SCO.

Interagency fight over whether to blacklist Huawei-linked firm.

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).