LOOSENING THE RULES: The Trump administration is reportedly in the final stages of a review that would change the rules under which U.S. commanders have the authority to initiate military action. The Washington Post quotes senior U.S. officials as saying the new rules “would make it easier for the Pentagon to launch counterterrorism strikes anywhere in the world by lowering the threshold on acceptable civilian casualties and scaling back other constraints imposed by the Obama administration.” The Post says the review is being considered “at senior levels of the National Security Council,” and that it would effectively reverse former President Obama’s rules designed to limit drone strikes outside active war zones.

The Guardian newspaper has a similar story, which describes the proposed changes as a plan to “designate various undeclared battlefields worldwide to be ‘temporary areas of active hostility.’” If approved, the paper says, it would give U.S. military commanders “the same latitude to launch strikes, raids and campaigns against enemy forces for up to six months that they possess in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.”