The Week That Was

On Lawfare Daily, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Joel Braunold for a deep dive on the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the last few weeks before a pivotal U.S. election. Anderson and Braunold discussed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, developments in the West Bank, Israel’s external relations, implications for the conflict in Gaza, and more.

On Rational Security, Anderson and Alan Rozenshtein sat down with Anastasiia Lapatina and Tyler McBrien to go over the week’s big national security news, including the U.S. and U.K. being on the verge of giving Ukraine approval to use their advanced weapons systems to strike deep into Russia; the reception by a three-judge panel to oral arguments before the D.C. Circuit on the federal law that would ban TikTok; Israel’s detonation of thousands of pagers across Lebanon that killed both Hezbollah militants and civilians; and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Benjamin Wittes, Eric Ciaramella, and Lapatina discussed the present state of the war in Ukraine, including intense bombardments against Ukrainian cities by Russia, the continued offensive inside Russia’s Kursk Oblast, discussions with Western governments about use of long-range missiles inside Russia proper, and more.

In this week’s installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Kathleen J. McInnis evaluated former President Donald Trump’s criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, namely that members are not paying their fair share and instead taking advantage of the United States’s generous defense spending. McInnis argued that Trump’s critique lacks an understanding of NATO’s role in the international order, and that the United States “quiet quitting” the alliance under a second Trump presidency would be a grave mistake.

Jack Goldsmith reviewed “The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century” by Harold Hongju Koh, which serves as a successor to Koh’s 1990 book “The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power After the Iran-Contra Affair.” Goldsmith suggests that the new book’s treatment of unilateral presidential powers is inconsistent, finding Koh’s acceptance of Article II War unilateralism contradictory to his emphasis on “balanced institutional participation.” 

In the second installment of a new series from Protect Democracy and Lawfare on the limitations, drawbacks, and dangers of domestic deployment, Chris Mirasola discussed appropriations law’s ability to limit domestic deployment of the military. Mirasola suggested that appropriations restrictions may serve as one of the few meaningful mechanisms by which Congress can restrain the executive branch’s use of the military, especially the National Guard, on U.S. soil.

On Lawfare Daily, Kevin Frazier sat down with Bob Bauer and Liza Goitein to review the emergency powers afforded to the president under the National Emergency Act, International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the Insurrection Act. The trio also inspected ongoing bipartisan efforts to reform emergency powers.

Frazier also discussed the Guarantee Clause—Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution—which places an unavoidable duty on each branch of the federal government to ensure that state governments maintain their republican nature. Frazier suggested that this clause is relevant in addressing election interference by both domestic and foreign actors—a situation that the federal government may be able to prevent through use of the clause.

Ben Green shared the Justice Department’s criminal complaint and affidavit against Ryan Wesley Routh, the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump at the former president’s golf club in Florida.

On Sept. 19 at 4 p.m. ET, Wittes was joined by Roger Parloff and Anna Bower for this week’s episode of “Lawfare Live: Trump’s Trials and Tribulations.” If you would like to submit questions to the panelists and watch Lawfare livestreams on Zoom without ads, become a material supporter of Lawfare on Patreon or Substack. You can watch a recording of the webinar here.

Jonathan Horowitz examined the role of tech companies in armed conflict and implications for international humanitarian law (IHL), emphasizing a need for open channels of communication between businesses and governments in order to address risks that might arise when belligerents rely on company workers, services, and infrastructure.

Michael Razeeq discussed civilian cyber corps (C3s)—groups of volunteer cybersecurity professionals formed at state, local, tribal, and territorial levels (SLTT)—highlighting the legal groundwork necessary to enable C3s to protect sensitive information, operate critical infrastructure, and provide essential services.

Frazier urged Congress to increase funding for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and, in turn, encouraged the FTC to prioritize its investigative and report-writing power rather than broadly interpreting its rulemaking authority.

Matthew Tokson discussed the possibility of calculating and quantifying risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI), despite the uncertain future of its development, and advocated for precautionary government regulation of the technology to avoid catastrophic harm.

Peter N. Salib and Simon Goldstein proposed a set of legal interventions to prevent the catastrophic risk posed by artificial general intelligence (AGI). Salib and Goldstein examined the state of the AGI development race between major AI companies and discussed the possibility of developing a unified Law of AGI.

As China engages in increasingly escalatory behavior, Sam Bresnick examined growing concern among PRC scholars that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in defense might reduce China’s ability to control such escalation. Bresnick conducted a detailed review of over 50 Chinese academic articles on AI’s impact on the future of warfare, showing that many Chinese defense experts are worried that the technology could lead to rapid, uncontrollable, and potentially catastrophic conventional—and even nuclear—escalations.

On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Gharun Lacy to talk about the role of cybersecurity at the State Department, the challenging work of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the bureau’s work in the cyber and technology security area, and more.

Jim Dempsey—in the second piece of his two part series on cybersecurity initiatives taken during the Biden and Trump administrations—examined both administrations’ efforts to secure infrastructure and connected products, including connected cars, cloud computing resources, artificial intelligence capabilities, ship-to-shore cranes, underseas cables, a key Internet protocol, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Frazier sat down with Jane Bambauer, Ramya Krishnan, and Rozenshtein to discuss developments in the TikTok v. Garland case, including oral argument before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in which a panel of judges assessed the constitutionality of the TikTok bill. 

Also on Lawfare Daily, McBrien sat down with Kate Conger and Ryan Mac to discuss Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now known as X, which they reported in detail in their new book, “Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter.” McBrien, Conger, and Mac touched on the cloak-and-dagger corporate dealings that preceded the offer, the drama that unfolded after the ink dried, Musk’s predecessors, the platform’s troubled history of content moderation, and more.

On Chatter, David Priess sat down with Sarah Scoles to discuss how scientists look at extraterrestrials (ETs), pop culture’s treatment of first contact with aliens, how the Roswell myth emerged, extraterrestrial-visitation belief as a religious movement, and more.

To support Lawfare’s coverage of the Trump Trials—a first-of-its-kind project dedicated to providing in-depth coverage of the ongoing criminal proceedings against Trump in Washington, Florida, New York, and Georgia—please consider making a contribution here. Lawfare’s talented correspondents and analysts discuss the latest developments in the cases, explain the complex legal issues they raise, and consider what might come next in a wide range of content, including written analysis, podcasts, live and recorded virtual events, primary source document repositories, and infographics.

And that was the week that was.