Stevenson’s army, June 20

On this new federal holiday, commemorating the announcement of the end of slavery in Texas in 1865, WaPo has one of its historical stories [Retropolis] noting that, just before Lincoln’s inauguration, Congress passed a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the continuation of slavery in states where it existed. Lincoln supported the amendment as a way of preventing civil war. It was not ratified by enough states, but author Ben Winter wrote an intriguing novel [Underground Airlines] assuming we still had slavery in four states today.

– Germany is restarting its coal-fired plants to cope with Russian cuts in energy.

– Task & Purpose says USAF should re-think, given the Ukraine 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).