Stevenson’s army, February 16

– WSJ says Russia’s forces are depleted.

– Politico reports a private comment by Blinken calling Crimea a Russian red line.

– FT reports Latin American countries resist US calls for help for Ukraine.

– Steve Walt lists what Putin got right.

– Defense Priorities has a good collection of comments on Ukraine.

-FP has summary of the rise of China hawks.

-No surprise here: Politico says Chinese balloon is argument for increased defense spending.

– CBO report on the debt ceiling.

-I agree with this op-ed falling for defense budget to be split into capital and operational expenses.

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).