Rational Security: The “Yo Adrian! Go Vote!" Edition
Scott Anderson sat down with Alan Rozenshtein, Benjamin Wittes, and Molly Reynolds to talk through the week’s big national security news
Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein, Benjamin Wittes, and Molly Reynolds to talk through the week’s big national security news, including:
- “An Eye for an Iran.” After weeks of waiting, Israel finally launched the strikes on Iran it had long promised in response to the volley of missiles Iran hit it with earlier this month. Compared to expectations, the strikes were relatively limited and aimed primarily at Iranian military targets, instead of its nuclear and oil infrastructure. And the United States is now urging an end to these “tit-for-tat” strikes. But is this likely to be the case? Or are Israel’s actions just the beginning of a bigger conflict?
- “He Just Slid into my DMs!” This week, the Wall Street Journal published a stunning report indicating that billionaire industrialist Elon Musk has been having previously undisclosed communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials. How concerning should these conversations be? And what ramifications might they have for U.S. national security?
- “Post Mortem.” Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s late decision to squash an official editorial board endorsement of Kamala Harris—and to abstain from presidential endorsements moving forward—has triggered a tidal wave of opposition, leading to hundreds of thousands of canceled subscriptions from a newspaper that was already set to lose substantial sums of money this year. How wrong-headed was Bezos’s move? And what should the proper response be?
For object lessons, Alan hyped the sci-fi classic "Hyperion Cantos," by Dan Simmons. Molly celebrated a profile of a former student of hers by the inestimable W. Kamau Bell, which is part of a new Washington Post series on civil servants. Scott urged listeners to get out and participate in democracy this pre-Election Day weekend. And Ben logrolled for Lawfare’s newest podcast endeavor: Escalation, an audio documentary series on the origins of the conflict in Ukraine.
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, Research Director and Senior Editor at Lawfare, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.
Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.