The Lawfare Podcast

This week, we asked Lorenzo Vidino and his co-author, Seamus Hughes, both from the George Washington University Program on Extremism, into the studio to discuss their new report, “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa.” Their study looked at the 71 Americans charged with ISIS-related activities. So what commons denominators did they find within the group? How much of a role does social media play in radicalization and recruitment? And what should law enforcement do to counter violent extremism? We discuss all that and more. 

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #151: ISIS in America: Disrupting Retweets from Raqqa.

Direct download: Episode_151--ISIS_in_America.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:48pm EDT

We welcome Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist and author of the new book, Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security and the Internetto the show this week. At the third Hoover Book Soiree a few weeks ago, Lucas shared a drink with Lawfare’s Ben Wittes and discussed the rapid increase in cybercrime, the difficulties of identity verification on the web, and why, even today, we still do not take cybersecurity seriously enough. Lucas paints a bleak picture of our cybersecurity landscape, but closes with a few recommendations for how we can fix it.

It’s a conversation that prompted Ben to digitally betray his country, and the rest of us to grab our dongles and strengthen our passwords.  

And it’s the Lawfare Podcast, Episode #150: Edward Lucas on the Sum of All Cyberphobias. 

Direct download: Episode_150--Cyberphobia.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:27pm EDT

The show this week features Natan Sachs, a Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, who recently published an article in Foreign Affairs on anti-solutionism as strategy in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

During his conversation with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Ben Wittes, Sachs argues that what resembles the absence of a constructive national security agenda is actually better described as a belief on the part of the Israeli right that there are currently no solutions to the challenges Israel faces. Sachs call this policy “strategic conservatism” and explains that it is a philosophy U.S. policymakers need to better understand in order to make smart decisions about the problems in the Middle East.

Direct download: Episode_149--Natan_Sachs_on_Anti-solutionism.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:56pm EDT

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