Today's Headlines and Commentary

The crisis in Ukraine has spread beyond the Crimean peninsula. Reuters reports that pro-Russian protesters seized government buildings in three eastern Ukrainian cities yesterday. Members of the Ukrainian government are blaming President Vladimir Putin and ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovich for helping to coordinate the attacks. The interim Ukrainian president has called an emergency meeting of his cabinet’s security chiefs. The Afghan presidential election took place on Saturday, with a record voter turnout---despite threats from the Taliban and multiple deaths on election day. According to the Washington Post, the votes are still being tallied, but early returns suggest that the vote will be divided along ethnic lines, which could cause problems in the formation of the new government. Although Saturday’s election was not marred in violence as many had worried, it is important to remember those lives that were claimed by the Taliban in the runup to the election. On Friday, renowned AP photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus was shot dead. The Telegraph remembers her award-winning and important work with a selection of some of her most moving photographs. The Palestinians have been making a renewed push for U.N. recognition as a state. Time reports that this move, unsurprisingly, has angered the Israeli government and thrown the peace talks that Secretary of State Kerry has worked hard to propel into disarray. The Iranian government has appointed a new envoy to the U.N., and the pick has angered the United States. NPR explains that Hamid Aboutalebi was part of the group of students that held Americans hostage in Iran in 1979. Groups are putting pressure on President Obama to deny Aboutalebi a visa. The question: was the pick a deliberate snub or a diplomatic miscalculation? The United States is planning on sending more missile defense ships to Japan. CNN reports that in response to recent North Korean military muscle flexing, the U.S. is helping to support Japan. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made the announcement from Tokyo yesterday. Hagel hopped over from Tokyo to Beijing this morning. The New York Times predicts that Hagel will highlight China’s lack of cooperation and reciprocity in cybersecurity matters:

In the months before Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s arrival in Beijing on Monday, the Obama administration quietly held an extraordinary briefing for the Chinese military leadership on a subject officials have rarely discussed in public: the Pentagon’s emerging doctrine for defending against cyberattacks against the United States — and for using its cybertechnology against adversaries, including the Chinese.

The idea was to allay Chinese concerns about plans to more than triple the number of American cyberwarriors to 6,000 by the end of 2016, a force that will include new teams the Pentagon plans to deploy to each military combatant command around the world. But the hope was to prompt the Chinese to give Washington a similar briefing about the many People’s Liberation Army units that are believed to be behind the escalating attacks on American corporations and government networks.

We all know about the standoff between the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Dianne Feinstein (D – CA), and the CIA. That relationship got a little testier this weekend when former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden, while chatting with Fox News Sunday,  used the adjective “emotional” to describe Senator Feinstein's reactions, as Salon reports. The comment, naturally, has ruffled quite a few feathers; the New Yorker has come to Feinstein’s defense, calling Hayden out on his response. In other CIA related news, the Washington Post covers a fascinating story about the agency’s  involvement in helping to illicitly distribute a novel, “Doctor Zhigavo,” throughout the Soviet Union as a propaganda weapon during the Cold War. Twenty years have passed since the end of the Rwandan genocide. The Telegraph contemplates the progress that the global community has made since---highlighting the situations in Syria and the Central African Republic, it seems as though the wider international community is still slow to respond to similar devastation and mass displacement. Commemorations are under way today in Kigali to remember the hundreds of thousands of lives that were claimed during the Rwandan genocide. BBC notes that a notable absence from the ceremonies will be that of the French delegation, who have pulled out of the events after the Rwandan President accused France of participating in the mass killings two decades ago. Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Sign up to receive Lawfare in your inbox. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.