New Issue of Harvard National Security Journal

The Harvard National Security Journal's recently published spring issue may be of interest to Lawfare readers.

John Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security at DOJ, discusses the Obama administration’s push to identify and attribute hostile cyber activities, setting out how he views the role of national security investigators and lawyers at DOJ, and how attribution can be used to detect, disrupt, and defend against cyber threats.

Alice Debarre of the International Committee of the Red Cross argues that applying the current interpretation of IHL as developed by the ICRC would provide U.S. civilian contractors with greater protection on the battlefield than current U.S. law provides.

Daphné Richemond-Barak and Ayal Feinberg address the role of intelligent defense systems such as Israel’s Iron Dome and the challenge they pose to existing tenets of IHL. The article argues that failing to incentivize these systems is contrary to the overarching humanitarian goals of IHL.

Major Peter C. Combe II of the US Marine JAG Corps examines covert U.S. activities in cyberspace, noting where current guidelines for decision-making and oversight fail to clearly delineate traditional military activities from military information support operations.

Lieutenant Commander Luke Whittemore of the US Navy JAG Corps explores how heuristics andcognitive biases affect military decision-makers in conducting proportionality analysis, suggesting an interdisciplinary approach to IHL targeting principles may better align proportionality decisions with those which might be expected by rational choice theory.