Stevenson’s army, December 16

–Congress passed an NDAA for the 61st year in a row, despite never letting it be debated and amended in the Senate. SASC summary is here. Bill text is here. [2,120 pages!]The 670 page statement of managers [explaining provisions and why changed or dropped] is here.

– WSJ has interesting piece on how President Xi micromanages.

–China pressures and punishes Lithuania.

– Karzai says he invited Taliban into Kabul.

-Menendez added State Authorization bill as part of NDAA.

– Congress revised Pacific Deterrence Initiative in NDAA.

-Aussie analyst changes mind on AUKUS.

Worth considering: Space Force needs different personnel system.WOTR author notes good and bad ways for military to dissent. More from Tom Edsall on threats to democracy.

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).