Stevenson’s army, February 2

– Senate Democrats have lost their majority for the time being. Sen. Lujan [D-NM] is hospitalized following a stroke. Since the Senate, unlike the House, does not allow remote voting, at most 49 Democrats can vote on any measure. This complicates passage of appropriations packages [Feb 18 deadline] as well as other Biden proposals.

-China weighs in — supporting Russia over Ukraine and seeking to gain influence in the Middle East.

– Stimson Center has a report on US military aid to Ukraine.

– The scathing George Packer article on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, The Betrayal, is mainly a story about the botched efforts to arrange evacuation of former Afghan employees. Axios has a leaked memo of a last-minute Deputies Committee meeting on the topic, showing how far behind the curve the USG was as Kabul fell.

-Lawfare has interesting legal analyses: how Congress has limited the use of special envoys for diplomacy and how the US can still assert legal principles in the South China Sea despite failure to ratify UNCLOS.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I 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).