Stevenson’s army, March 29

As you know all presidential budgets are wishlists sent to Congress, cloaked in bright political messages. WaPo summarizes those messages and mentions some of the political goals. The real details are at OMB and the various departments.

I’m surprised at how much the administration wants to increase defense and pleased by the additions for international affairs. I’m awaiting analyses of how it proposes to deal with issues like Army vs Air Force and the unknown Ukraine costs.

I’m sure there are budget gimmicks, but haven’t seen any good analyses of them.

Other interesting news: WSJ reports the generational divide among Russian speakers in Latvia.

– NYT recount the history of restraint in attacking enemy sanctuaries.

In preparation for our week 12 discussions of the media, it’s useful to see Columbia Journalism Review’s comment on coverage of Ukraine, including Politico’s Jack Shafer’s column saying journalists love war. 

And to correct fake history, proof that W.R. Hearst never told Frederic Remington in Cuba in 1898 to furnish the pictures and he would furnish 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 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).