Stevenon’s army, May 13

I just finished former SecDef Mark Esper’s memoir, A Sacred Oath. It’s a good, informative book about his service as Secretary. Unlike many such books, he spends little time on his life before the Pentagon, then tells revealing stories about fighting the bureaucracy, fighting the NSC staff, and, of course, pushing back on Pres. Trump’s crazy ideas. The Trump stories are scattered chronologically, showing what a constant problem he faced.

– Ukraine aid stalled by Sen. Paul’s objection.

– Sweden moves closer to NATO membership.

– Something happened to a secret Navy ship.

– WOTR has good ideas on building a cyber force.

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).