Our picksDeclassifying 9/11 Documents | China’s Dossiers on U.S. Citizens | Remington & Sandy Hook Victims’ School Records, and more

Biden’s Issues Order on Declassification Review of 9/11 Documents  (Shawna Chen, Axios)
President Biden signed an executive order on Friday directing the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to pursue a declassification review of documents related to the FBI’s investigations of the 9/11 attacks.
Victims’ families have told the president they will object to his presence at next week’s 20th-anniversary memorial events unless he declassifies documents that they believe will show the Saudi Arabian government supported the attacks.
Biden’s order requires Attorney General Merrick Garland to publicly release the declassified documents over the next six months.

Lessons from Afghanistan  (Scott Savitz, RealClear Defense)
Sifting through the ashes of America’s 20-year intervention in Afghanistan, lessons might be learned by viewing it in a wider context. Afghanistan’s fierce, relentless warriors and forbidding geography have defeated a succession of outsiders, including Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union. While it is tempting to become fixated on comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam, especially given the strikingly similar images of people clambering onto aircraft in the fallen capital, there are lessons to be learned from past interventions by other powers. The multiple British wars in Afghanistan are particularly instructive, not only because of their civilization’s similarity to the United States but also because of the ebullient overconfidence with which they began.

Failure in Afghanistan Has Roots in the All-Volunteer Military  (Paul Cavallo, U.S. Naval Institute)
For the past three decades, careerism among senior officers coupled with the disconnect between the American public and the All-Volunteer Force have led to failed and unnecessary overseas military interventions.

The Unipole in Twilight:American Strategy from 9/11 to the Present  (Justin Logan, Independent Review)
Foreign policy in the United States is like polo: almost entirely an elite sport. The issue rarely figures in national elections. The country is so secure that foreign policy does not affect voters enough to care much. No country is going to annex Hawaii or Maine, so voters are mostly rationally ignorant of the subject. The costs of wars are defrayed through debt, deficits, and the fact that the dying and dismemberment happens in other people’s countries. Moreover, the dying and dismemberment of Americans are contained in an all-volunteer force that is powerfully socialized to suffer in silence. Unlike on abortion, the environment, or taxes, elites in both parties mostly agree on national security. Given rational ignorance among the public and general consensus among elites, voters rarely hear serious debates about national-security policy. Their views are mostly incoherent and weakly held.

Chinese Hackers Build Dossiers on U.S. Citizens  (Gordon G. Chang, The Hill)
“It is estimated that 80 percent of American adults have had all of their personal data stolen by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), and the other 20 percent most of their personal data,” William Evanina told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Aug. 4 in his opening statement.
As Evanina, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, also stated, “the existential threat our nation faces from the Communist Party of China is the most complex, pernicious, strategic and aggressive our nation has ever faced.”
What is the most shocking aspect of Beijing’s illegal collection of American data? It is not that China has conducted the most successful criminal enterprise ever. It is America’s unwillingness to stop a crime that has continued for decades. 
One thing’s for sure: Chinese hackers have collected unprecedented amounts of information. “Beijing has stolen sensitive data sufficient to build a dossier on every American adult — and on many of our children, too, who are fair game under Beijing’s rules of political warfare,” testified Matthew Pottinger, President Trump’s last deputy national security adviser, at the same hearing.

Remington Subpoenas School Records of Sandy Hook Shooting Victims  (Erin Doherty, Axios)
A gunmaker being sued by nine families of Sandy Hook shooting victims has subpoenaed school records belonging to five children and four educators who were killed, the Connecticut Post reports.
Lawyers representing the nine families in court on Thursday sought to seal the records requested by the now-bankrupt Remington company.

U.S. Digital Corps Launched to Recruit the Next Generation of Technology Talent to Federal Service  (HSToday)
The U.S. Digital Corps will recruit Americans with skill sets in software engineering, data science, design, cybersecurity, and other critical technology fields to kickstart their careers in federal service.

China Wants to Build a Mega Spaceship That’s Nearly a Mile Long  (Edd Gent, Scientific American)
A proposal plans to study how to build a giant spacecraft.