Stevenson’s army, January 25

– Budget hawk think tank CRFB, whose online game we use in class to help you understand what’s in the US budget, has a new report on balancing the budget.  NYT’s Paul Krugman says we don’t have to worry so much about the debt.

– FP says Iraq’s leader is tilting toward US.

– RollCall says the number of competitive House seats has fluctuated within a range, not shrunk dramatically.

– AP has historical background on presidential handling of classified records.

IISS has analysis of Japan’s new defense strategy.

– Politico notes the dubiousness of Santos’ $199 expenses.

Charlie also posted this yesterday:

Several news reports, including this first one by WSJ, say Ukraine will be receiving armored vehicles that many call “tanks.” Stars & Stripes notes that many dispute what a tank is. As many of you probably know, Churchill was the spearhead for tank development and gave it that name as a secrecy measure.

-Big corruption scandal in Ukraine.

-It sure looks as if Turkey will block Sweden’s admission to NATO.

-US will greatly expand artillery production.

– WaPo reviews SecState Pompeo’s new book, calling it “savage.”

– Ron Brownstein expects more redistricting to help GOP in next 2 years.

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, with occasional videos of my choice. 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).