Wednesday NatSec Roundup

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

• It’s been eighteen years since that morning.
• Politico has an account of the Final Days of John Bolton that makes clear the complete disaster of foreign policy decision-making in the Trump administration. It’s an utterly dysfunctional system bred from the extraordinary overconfidence of a rank amateur who’s in completely over his head.
• I don’t fully understand the argument over the exfiltrated Russian spy, but in general it doesn’t seem to be a good idea to reveal the identity of critics of the Putin regime, wherever they may live.
• Saab is trying to build on its success with Brazil to sell the Gripen to Colombia, among others. I suspect Bogota could get away with something a bit cheaper, although it’s currently making do with old Kfirs that are not competitive with the Flankers that Venezuela flies.
• Sexual assault against women in the military remains a serious problem. Sexual assault against men in the military remains a serious problem. The only upside is that we seem more willing to talk about the problem than in the past.
• The only thing more remarkable about the impact that TOPGUN (as opposed to Top Gun) had on US naval aviation is that it took so long to put the program into practice. For the Air Force story see Brian Laslie’s The Air Force Way of War.