Stevenson’s army, August 9

– Gen. Petraeus says US failed in Afghanistan because of a lack of strategic patience, inadequate resources to the Afghans, and misunderstanding of local conditions. He blames Congress for forcing US to supply American helicopters etc rather than Soviet equipment. He thinks we should have forced Pakistan to crack down on Taliban sanctuaries.

– SecState Blinken announced a US Africa strategy. There’s even a formal document.

– Very interesting study of intelligence oversight notes increased convergence/overlap of US military and CIA military activities, blindsiding a siloed Congress.

– Defense News notes holds blocking confirmation of a dozen DOD nominees.

– Sen. Kaine wants a war powers fight on NDAA.

– US says Russia has suffered over 70,000 casualties in Ukraine.

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).