The Week That Will Be

Event Announcements (More details on the Events Calendar)

• Mon, March 3 at 8:30 am: The Chicago Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Program hosts "Individual Privacy vs. National Security." Speakers include Steven Bradbury, Carrie Cordero, Laura Donohue, Thomas A. Durkin, Patrick Toomey, Stephen Vladeck, and Judge Harold Baker.
• Mon, March 3 at 10:30 am: Brookings hosts "How Might US Defense Policy Change in the Years Ahead?" The conversation with Congressmen Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) will be moderated by Michael O'Hanlon.
• Wed, March 5 at 10:30 am:  The Atlantic Council hosts "Information Technology and the Future of Defense." David Zolet, Executive Vice President and General Manager of CSC's North America Public Sector, will deliver an address moderated by the Atlantic Council's Steven Grundman. 
• Wed, March 5 at 12 pm: Microsoft holds a conversation on "Privacy Models: The Next Evolution." Confirmed panelists include Julie Brill (FTC), Fred Cate (IU Law), Chris Calabrese (ACLU), and Peter Cullen (Trustworthy Computing Governance). Microsoft's David Hoffman will moderate.
• Thurs, March 6 at 7:30 am: INSA and Government Executive Media Group host "Developments and Initiatives in the Security Clearance Process" in conjunction with the release of INSA's white paper, "Leveraging Emerging Technologies in the Security Clearance Process." Panelists include Kirk McConnell and Kathy Pherson.

Academic Announcements

The RAND Corporation has released two reports of interest to Lawfare readers:

• Handling ethical problems in counterterrorism: An inventory of methods to support ethical decisionmaking. It's Executive Summary opens:

Counterterrorism professionals routinely face decisions that appear to require trade-offs between moral values such as privacy, liberty and security, and broader human rights considerations. Given that ethics are integral to this field, it is essential that counterterrorism professionals are proficient at making these types of decision. However, there is no existing overview of the methods that may support ethical decision-making specifically aimed at counterterrorism practitioners. To address this gap, the Research and Documentation Centre (Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum, WODC) of the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice (Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie), on behalf of the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid, NCTV), commissioned RAND Europe to develop an inventory of methods to support ethical decision-making for the counterterrorism field. The objective of this study is not to recommend which methods should be developed, strengthened or implemented in the Netherlands. Rather, the aim is to outline the methods that counterterrorism professionals could draw on to support their ethical decision-making process.

• Countering Others' Insurgencies: Understanding U.S. Small-Footprint Interventions in Local Context. The abstract reads:

This study examines the counterinsurgency strategies and practices adopted by threatened regimes and the conditions under which U.S. "small-footprint" partnerships are likely to help these governments succeed. The report's findings are derived from a mixed-method research design incorporating both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Simple statistical analyses are applied to a dataset of counterinsurgencies that have terminated since the end of the Cold War (72 in all), and more in-depth analyses are provided of two recent cases of U.S. partnerships with counterinsurgent regimes, in the Philippines and Pakistan. The quantitative analysis finds that the cases of small-footprint U.S. operations that are commonly touted as "success stories" all occurred in countries approximating a best-case scenario. Such a verdict is not meant to deny the importance of U.S. assistance; rather, it is meant to highlight that similar U.S. policies with less promising partner nations should not be expected to produce anywhere near the same levels of success. The majority of insurgencies have taken place in worst-case conditions, and in these environments, counterinsurgent regimes are typically unsuccessful in their efforts to end rebellion, and they often employ violence indiscriminately. The case studies of the Philippines and Pakistan largely reinforce the findings of the quantitative analysis. They also highlight the challenges the United States faces in attempting to influence partner regimes to fight counterinsurgencies in the manner that the United States would prefer. The study concludes with policy recommendations for managing troubled partnerships.

And the Department of Homeland Security released its report to the Attorney General on the FOIA requests it received in 2013.

Job Announcements

Do you know any undergraduate students or recent graduates who might be interested in interning with Lawfare this summer? The Brookings Institution's Governance Studies program is now accepting applications for its national security internship. Interns will provide research support to Ben, Wells, and Ritika, and will help to write for and run Lawfare.