Stevenson’s army, December 19

– The new NDAA forbids dishonorable discharges for military personnel who refuse to get vaccinations.

– 3 retired general warn of insurrection in 2024.

-Some Israeli officials doubt ability to strike Iran.

– Major NYT review of  airstrike investigations finds undercounts of civilian casualties and reluctance to blame US.

– WaPo says US greatly expanded air attacks in Afghanistan in mid-2021.

From the entrepreneurial NatSecDaily:

FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — AMERICANS WARY OF GOING TO WAR OVER UKRAINE: A new YouGov poll commissioned by the pro-restraint Charles Koch Institute found that there are more Americans skeptical of going to war with Russia than those who are gung-ho.

In response to the question “If Ukraine is invaded again by Russia, do you favor or oppose the US going to war with Russia to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity?” 28 percent of respondents said they “strongly oppose” the idea while another 20 percent said they “somewhat oppose” it. By contrast, only 9 percent said they “strongly favor” going to war with Russia and 18 percent said they “somewhat favor” the notion. Meanwhile, 24 percent of the 1,000 internet-using Americans surveyed said they “don’t know.”

That’s not an outright repudiation of the idea of going to war to defend Ukraine from Moscow’s forces, but this one poll indicates a majority of people are at least skeptical.

Importantly, Biden to date has ruled out sending U.S. troops to Ukraine to fight the Russians, were they to invade.

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).