The Lawfare Podcast: Juliette Kayyem on Dealing with Disasters

Jen Patja, David Priess, Juliette Kayyem
Wednesday, March 29, 2023, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

We live in a time of seemingly constant catastrophes, and we always seem a step behind and still fumble when they occur. It's no longer about preventing disasters from occurring, but learning how to use the tools at our disposal to minimize the consequences when they inevitably do.

Juliette Kayyem has just written a book about it all called, “The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters.” Juliette is a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a CNN national security analyst, and David Priess sat down with her to talk about it all. They talked about the traditional focus of the disaster framework; consequences minimalization; the paradox of preparedness; and a variety of disasters and what we can learn from them, ranging from the Y2K incident, to Super Bowl XLVII, to the shipping incident in the Suez Canal back in 2021. They talk a lot about how to recover from disasters, and how to deal with them in a way that stops the bleeding and keeps them from getting worse, even as they’re occurring.


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
David Priess is Director of Intelligence at Bedrock Learning, Inc. and a Senior Fellow at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. He served during the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations as a CIA officer and has written two books: “The President’s Book of Secrets,” about the top-secret President’s Daily Brief, and "How To Get Rid of a President," describing the ways American presidents have left office.
Juliette Kayyem is the former assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Homeland Security and served on the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Committee. She is author of the book, “The Devil Never Sleeps.”

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