Stevenson’s army, May 18 and 19

This is from yesterday: We’re back from travel and I’ve only begun to look at the accumulated papers. More to come.  Meanwhile, these worthwhile pieces:

– Steve Walt has good advice on how people with master’s degrees can have good foreign policy careers.

– WOTR warns of the seduction of buzzwords.

-Substack columnist Noah Smith has interview with China specialist who has the best analysis I’ve seen of China’s tech policies.

– Media critic Dan Froomkin hits WaPo for not curating its classified leaks. I agree.

– I also agree with this call for beefing up CRS.

– NYT had fine profile of CIA director Burns.

In more recent news: US & allies disagree on F16s to Ukraine.

-Taiwan’s opposition has an interesting candidate.

– CFIUS may be used for Forbes acquisition.

– NYT questions Pentagon rules for special forces.

– FT says South Africa may face severe US sanctions

– Teixeira’s supervisors warned him about classified procedures but didn’t stop him.

Charlie posted this today:

– State has released a new foreign military sales policy, WSJ explains

– Pentagon acknowledges $3 billion accounting error, freeing more money for Ukraine.

– Assad is back in the good graces of the Arab League.

– Politico explain the legislative complexity of passing a debt ceiling bill.

– Glenn Kessler uses the example of “VA cuts” to explain how Ds & Rs argue over the GOP bill. [The point is that discretionary spending cuts are required but not identified.]

Good think pieces: By SAIS Prof Frank Gavin

– On Marine Corps reform

– On future Eurasian security

– And if you’re a subscriber, Economist has a new “defence” news site.

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).