This week on the podcast, Lawfare’s Ben Wittes interviews Amy Zegart and Stephen Krasner, both of the Hoover Institution, about their recently released national security strategy called Pragmatic Engagement Amidst Global Uncertainty: Three Major Challenges. The document, which was produced by the Hoover Institution’s Working Group on Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy, presents three key challenges to the future of U.S. security—China, Russia, and unconventional threats—and outlines three principles that should guide the United States’s response, ultimately calling for a pragmatic foreign policy that does not go in search of monsters abroad.

Last week, General Michael Hayden—the only person to be both the director of the CIA and the NSA—joined Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes at the Hoover Book Soiree for a discussion of his new book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.

Over the course of an hour, Hayden provides an inside look at some of the most critical intelligence decisions since 9/11, including the CIA’s controversial rendition, detention, and interrogation program, the NSA's Stellarwind program, and the U.S.’s interactions with the intelligence agencies of its allies in the following years. In addition to weighing in on the ongoing FBI vs. Apple battle in the CDCA, Hayden also offers his perspective on the successes of the intelligence community, and outlines the challenges it will face in the coming years. 

This week, the president’s Homeland Security Advisor, Lisa Monaco, made news by announcing that the White House will release long sought data on the U.S. drone program. Delivering the Kenneth A. Moskow Lecture at the Council on Foreign Relations, Monaco outlined the evolving nature of the terrorist threat to U.S. national security. In her address, she notes that we no longer think of sleeper cells, but of lone wolves, and that instead of fighting a top down war, the U.S. finds itself engaging networks where information and inspiration flow both up and down. Monaco outlines how the administration is responding to this new, disparate nature of the terrorist threat.

After her remarks, Monaco was joined by former Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein for a Q&A on homeland security.

The Wilson Center takes on the Apple v. FBI controversy in a panel entitled “Will They or Won’t They? Understanding the Encryption Debate.” Wilson Center President Jane Harman hosts the event, which features Congressman Ted Lieu of California discussing the encryption challenge with Lawfare’s Susan Hennessey and Kate Martin of the Center for American Progress. Politico’s David Perera moderates the discussion.

This week as the battle between the FBI and Apple raged in a California court, the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington hosted Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) at an event unveiling new legislation that would create a commission tasked with developing viable recommendations on how to balance competing digital security priorities. Under their formulation, the commission would bring together experts who understand the complexity of both the security and technological aspects of the challenge. Following the conversation with Congressman McCaul and Senator Warner, Chris Inglis, Jim Lewis, Susan Hennessey, and Michael German discussed the merits of the proposal, and what the likely outcome would be. David Perera moderated the event. 

This week we have Leon Wieseltier on the show, who among many other things, is the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy at the Brookings Institution. Wieseltier is currently completing an essay on the moral, historical and philosophical dimensions of the refugee crisis. During his conversation with Lawfare editor-in-chief Ben Wittes, Wieseltier expresses his frustrations with the United States’ policy in Syria, arguing that the United States has a moral obligation to do more to alleviate the plight of Syrian refugees and that the U.S.’s refusal to act is the great foreign policy failing of our time. According to him, the United States has a responsibility to be more than the “world’s most powerful bystander.”

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #158: Leon Wieseltier on the Moral Dimensions of the Syrian Refugee Crisis. 

Last week as part of the University of Texas at Austin Strauss Center's conference on "The Frontiers of Cybersecurity Policy and Law," Daniel Placek, formerly one of the key figures behind the underground hacker website Darkode, offered an inside look into what led him to start the website, which Europol once called “the most prolific English-speaking cybercriminal forum to date.” In an interview with NPR News Correspondent Dina Temple-Raston, Placek describes the types of hacker tools once available for hire on the site, and describes what the future of the dark web looks like. He also discusses his cooperation with federal law enforcement officials in their efforts to take down the site. All in all, it’s an interview that shines a light into some of the darkest corners of the web and raises fundamental questions about how such places are policed.

It’s the Lawfare Podcast, Episode #157: Daniel Placek on Darkode.

This week as Iowa voters took to the caucuses, Brookings hosted a panel discussion on defense strategy for the next president. The panel, moderated by Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon, included Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute, and former Department of Defense Undersecretary for Policy James Miller, all making the case for U.S. leadership in world affairs. During their conversation, they explored the security challenges facing the next president, including two wars, a rising China, a resurgent Russia, and a metastasizing ISIS, all topped off by a contracting defense budget, and examined whether and in what ways those challenges will cause the next president to alter U.S. strategy overseas.

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #156: Defense Strategies for the Next President. 

Last week at The Brookings Institution, United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer participated in a discussion with Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Newsweek’s Dahlia Lithwick about his new book, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities. During their conversation, Justice Breyer provides an overview of how in a globalizing world, the steady operation of American laws depends more on the cooperation of other jurisdictions than at any other time. He also examines how the Court's decisions regarding presidential power in national security have evolved throughout American history, and weighs how the Court can balance national security objectives in an increasingly connected world.

Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution, introduced Justice Breyer and the panel.  

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #155: Justice Stephen Breyer on The Court and the World.

The fourth Hoover Book Soiree held this week in Hoover's beautiful Washington, D.C. offices featured Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on her newest book, Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield. At the event, Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Lawfare’s editor-in-chief Ben Wittes discussed the growing role of women soldiers in special operations and beyond, examining the story of CST-2, a cultural support team of women hand-picked from the Army in 2011 to serve in Afghanistan alongside Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. Their conversation dives into how the program developed, the lessons learned in the process, and why its success may provide critical insights for future force integration. Former Marine and current Lawfare contributor Zoe Bedell, who served in a similar capacity in Afghanistan as the women in CST-2, joined them on the panel.  

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #154: Ashley’s War and the Role of Women on the Special Ops Battlefield. 

This week, Brookings hosted a discussion on Bitcoin and the technology that undergirds the currency, specifically focusing on the promise of the distributed-ledger. The panel featured David Wessel, Michael Barr, Brad Peterson, Barry Silbert, and Margaret Liu, on how the blockchain could revolutionize payment flows and reduce the cost of financial transactions, all while securing information and enhancing privacy. They also tackle some of the most pressing policy questions facing the technology---from consumer protection to terrorists' finances---and how those tensions can be addressed. 

It's a relatively positive take on Bitcoin and its future potential and an argument for why you should buy back your Bitcoin if you sold it after last week's show featuring Lawfare's Bitcoin skeptic, Nick Weaver. 

This week we have on Nick Weaver the show. Nick's a regular Lawfare contributor, senior staff researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, and as you’ll see, quite the Bitcoin skeptic. Nick walks Ben through what exactly Bitcoin is, answering whether the platform is a financial opportunity of historical proportions, the massive criminal problem law enforcement officials have suggested, or something else entirely—a waste of your money. Nick also outlines some of the design flaws he sees in Bitcoin and why those flaws, which many in the Bitcoin community view as important features, will actually lead to the platform’s downfall. It’s a discussion of Ponzi schemes, the benefits of the blockchain, and the future of international currency transactions.  

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #152: Nick Weaver on Why You Should Sell Your Bitcoin. 

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.

We welcome Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist and author of the new book, Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security and the Internet, to 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. 

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.

At the last Hoover Book Soiree—which if you haven’t attended one yet, you really should—Charlie Savage, New York Times national security reporter and author of the newly released book Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency, sat down with Lawfare’s Jack Goldsmith for a detailed discussion of the Obama administration’s national security legacy. The conversation, and so too the book, is chocked full of insider accounts of just about all of the most important Obama administration legal and policy decisions. We won't spoil the fun here, but Charlie walks Jack through how Abdulmutallab’s failed underwear bombing affected President Obama, and the two discuss exactly why a president who came into office critiquing Bush's national security policies ended up keeping so many of them. They even touch on whether he will actually shutter Guantanamo Bay.

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #148: Charlie Savage on the Power Wars of the Obama Administration. 

You can read Jack's review of Power Wars, mentioned in the podcast, here. 

The third Hoover Book Soiree will be held on December 2nd, from 5:00-7:00 pm in Washington D.C. Ben Wittes will interview Edward Lucas of the Economist on his new book, Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security, and the Internet. RSVP.

Earlier this week, Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes interviewed John Carlin at the Atlantic Council on National Security and the Cyber Threat Landscape. Carlin, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, walks Ben through recent changes in his division of the Justice Department, the U.S. government’s ongoing efforts to deter and disrupt cyber threats, and how the shorter flash-to-bang timeline of modern day inspired terrorist attacks is affecting investigations and prosecutorial decisions. They even dive into the U.S.-China Cyber Deal. 

Last week, George Washington University and the CIA co-hosted an event entitled Ethos and Profession of Intelligence. As part of the conference, Kenneth Wainstein moderated a conversation between CIA General Counsel Caroline Krass, Orin Kerr, and Benjamin Wittes on Bridging 20^th Century Law and 21^st Century Intelligence. What new legal questions are raised by rapidly evolving technologies and how do those questions interact with existing national security law? Can the United States strike a balance between privacy, security and the economic imperatives driving innovation?

The panel addresses these critical issues and more. 

Perhaps you’ve heard, but tensions between the United States and Russia are heating up. With Putin upping the ante in Syria, Marvin Kalb, journalist, scholar, and a nonresident senior fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings, came to Brookings to launch his new book that looks at the Russian leader’s last foray titled, Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War. Putin’s recent actions in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and, more recently, in Syria have provoked a sharp deterioration in East-West relations. But is this the beginning of a new Cold War, or is Putin just wearing the costume of a prizefighter?

Joining the discussion were Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and Nina Khrushcheva, a professor at The New School. Brookings President Strobe Talbott provided introductory remarks while Martin Indyk, Executive Vice President of Brookings moderated the conversation.

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #145: Putin’s Imperial Gamble

Joby Warrick, author of Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, and William McCants, author of The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State, join Benjamin Wittes in the first Hoover Book Soiree. 

Last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted Ben, along with Laura Donohue of Georgetown Law, former NSA Director General Michael Hayden, and Robin Simcox of the Henry Jackson Society, to discuss the future of surveillance reform in a post-Snowden world. What have we learned about NSA surveillance activities and its oversight mechanisms since June 2013? In what way should U.S. intelligence operations be informed by their potential impact on U.S. on economic interests? What privacy interests do non-Americans have in U.S. surveillance? And domestically, has the third-party doctrine outlived its applicability?

Tom Karako of CSIS moderated the panel. 

As listeners may know, while we often talk about cybersecurity on the show, Brookings itself has been subject to a number of cyber-attacks in recent years. Those attacks have ranged  from infiltrations led by Chinese government-affiliated units to the more run-of-the-mill hacker intrusions targeting credit and financial information.

This week on the Lawfare Podcast, Helen Mohrmann, the Chief Information Officer at the Brookings Institution, discusses the difficulties of securing a large, public facing organization from a vast array of cyber-attacks. Helen walks Ben through the threat environment that an organization like Brookings faces (and how that is continuously changing) and she outlines some of the steps organizations and individuals can take to shore up their own security.

This week, New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane came on the Lawfare Podcast to provide an overview of his new book on the life and death of radical Islamic cleric Anwar al Awlaki, Objective Troy: A Terrorist, A President, and the Rise of the Drone. Shane provides an overview of the book, examining the role played by al Awlaki in al Qaeda plots against the United States, his continued influence on the jihadi movement, and how his life and death was intimately tied to the rise of the drone in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Why and how did al Awlaki transform from a leader in American Islamic thought into a recruiter for al Qaeda? And what lessons can the trajectory of his life teach us about countering violent extremism and the methods the United States uses to achieve its counterterrorism goals?

On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Gregory Johnsen outlines the state-of-play currently in Yemen. Johnsen, who is a writer-at-large for Buzzfeed News, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, and an all-things-Yemen-expert, walks Ben through the byzantine power politics in Sanaa that led to the conflict now engulfing Yemen and he explains why the war shouldn’t be viewed as just another Sunni-Shia fight. Yet while he clarifies that the issues that sparked the war are much more local, he warns that the longer the conflict goes on, the more likely it is to expand. Johnsen also outlines the events that led to the Saudi intervention and just whether or not Yemen, which he says is really twelve separate countries now, can ever be put back together again.  

Johnsen is the author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia. Follow him on Twitter for the latest updates on Yemen.  

Last week, Ben attended a symposium at the Pentagon on the rise of so-called “hybrid conflicts,” whereprofessionals from around the national security establishment attempted to define the idea as well as its implications for existing legal structures and the law of war. In this week’s podcast, Brig. Gen. Richard Gross, the legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explains that the DOD’s senior leadership has increasingly begun discussing conflicts such as Ukraine, Syria, and the South China sea, in terms of hybrid conflict. He and Ben explore what lawyers should do with the idea, asking is it really new and should the law adjust to deal with it?

On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Ben sits down with Professor Gabriella Blum, professor at Harvard Law School, and Dustin Lewis, a senior researcher at Harvard Law Schools’ Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, to discuss their new report written with Naz Modirzadeh entitled Medical Care in Armed Conflict: IHL and State Responses to Terrorism. The conversation takes a look at whether we should consider medical care a form of illegitimate support to terrorists. Their argument? We shouldn't, because IHL lays down extensive protections for medical care, and those protections in many instances should also constrain domestic material support cases. Yet the authors make clear that in their view, there's also more to be done, as there are gaps and weaknesses in the protections afforded by IHL itself.   

Lawfare ran a summary of the report earlier this week, which you can read here. 

It's a special encore performance of our panel discussion from last year on the legal architecture of the zombie apocalypse: Foreign Policy's Shane Harris hosts a panel--incuding Bobby Chesney, Benjamin Wittes, and Jennifer Daskal--on the law of the War on Zombies. What will be the legal architecture when the dead walk and come for your brains? Do we need a zombie AUMF? Do zombies have due process rights? Find out on this week's special episode. 

With Congress is away, the economists will play, and last week, Brookings hosted a discussion on the health of the U.S. national security industrial base. The panel, which featured Brookings scholars Michael O'Hanlon, Ben Bernanke, and Mark Muro, looks across the spectrum at both the security and economic sides of the defense economy, evaluating the effects of sequestration, how America’s defense needs are informed by the threats it faces, and exactly what impact defense spending has on regional and national job creation and technological innovation.

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #137: The American Defense Economy and the Future of American Prosperity 

Last week, Ben posted five hard questions to both government and industry regarding encryption and the "going dark" debate. We posed these questions and more on the issues of technology, public policy and corporate responsibility to Mike Janke, co-founder and Chairman of Silent Circle, an international company that sells a platform of devices and services with built-in privacy-by-design. As a former Navy SEAL, Mr. Janke, who previously was CEO and founder of a private security company, offers a unique perspective with respect to the equities of law enforcement and other government officials who have a mandate to keep people safe, individuals' right to privacy, and corporate duties to protect intellectual property and customer data.

One thing that listeners will likely take away from the interview is that law enforcement has a long way to go before convincing sophisticated industry participants that the FBI or other government entities are not actually technically capable of accessing the communications or devices they need in a pinch. Janke also makes a compelling case for why companies should be wary of the cybersecurity risks posed by communications or storage services or products that are capable of being decrypted. And yet, we identify what just might be a fault line between tech leaders' claims that end-to-end encryption is necessary to address the privacy concerns of everyday users, and the reality of who is the real market for a secure platform, at least in Silent Circle's recent experience. And we leave open the door as to whether there is room in the debate to carve out some middle ground when innocent victims are in harms way.

The war with ISIS turns one today. This week, Senator Kaine marked the anniversary of the fight with a speech at the Cato Institute, which has generously allowed us to use the audio for the podcast. With more than 5,000 airstrikes, more than 3,500 troops on the ground, and new fronts opening with Division 30 and the Turkish military, Senator Kaine wonders how it is that Congress has still failed to live up to, in his view, it most solemn duty---that of authorizing war. In his address, Kaine explores how Congress’s failure is fundamentally transforming the Congressional-Executive relationship and even the presidency itself.

Gene Healy, Vice President of the Cato Institute, moderated the discussion.

Last week, the Aspen Security Forum featured interviews from a host of Obama administration national security officials, some of which we provided last week. This week is part II, wherein we share edited discussions from White House Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. 

Monaco's conversation with Mike Isikoff of Yahoo News ventures into the Administration's policy on ISIS and what she calls a "generational struggle," the trials of social media as a recruitment vehicle, and most interestingly, whether Obama would act unilaterally to move Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the United States. 

Clapper's discussion with Andrew Mitchell of MSNBC is most notable for his comments on lone wolf attacks and going dark, a threat about which he shares much of the same concern as FBI Director Comey. Later, Clapper touches on the OPM hack and why the United States is choosing to respond much more forcefully to economic espionage than "traditional" espionage.

Finally, in her interview with Andrew Mitchell, Loretta Lynch walks us through the challenges of domestic terrorism, the Justice Department's approach to intvestigating and prosecuting home grown ISIS supporters, and the legal protections afforded to Guantanamo Bay detainees should they be moved to the United States. 

FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers all spoke this week at the Aspen Security Forum. CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Comey. The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza spoke with Johnson. And New York Times reporter David Sanger interviewed Rogers. We have edited the interviews down to manageable length and strung them together for listeners. Thanks to the folks at the Aspen Security Forum for giving us permission to use the audio.

While the world powers and Iran were embroiled in last minute negotiations last week, Brookings hosted a discussion on the meaning of another power’s recent nuclear threats: this time looking at Russia. In recent months, Russia has issued a variety of nuclear threats: Putin's has commented both on his nuclear options during the Crimea crisis and issued a mild threat to nuke the Danish navy. Given that Russia maintains the power to at least theoretically destroy the world, how serviously should we take these provocations? 

The panel was moderated by Brookings Fellow Jeremy Shapiro and  featured Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists and Brookings scholars Pavel Baev and Steven Pifer. Together, they take a deep dive into Russia’s recent nuclear threats during the Crimea crisis, the country’s capabilities---both conventional and nuclear---relative to NATO, and its ongoing modernization program. They conclude with terrifying thought: The folks surrounding Putin just might not fully understand deterrence. 

This week, we invited the the Virginia Cyber Commission’s Executive Director, Rear Admiral Bob Day (USCG, Ret.) to come tell us more about the Commission’s work and the upcoming release of its report later this month. The Commission’s mandate is expansive and ambitious. It aims to take on: securing Virginia’s government networks, systems and data; incorporating cybersecurity into state government emergency planning; improving citizens' cyber hygiene; developing a cybersecurity workforce; and improving economic development opportunities for cybersecurity business sector, particularly in relation to military facilities and defense industry present in Virginia. 

We also talked about the accountability issue, and how in the world it can still be the case that large organizations – whether in the private sector or government – are still struggling with whose job it is to be responsible for the cybersecurity of an organization. Who or what entity is accountable for proactive cybersecurity as well as for incident response has been the subject of some recent  debate on Lawfare, as it relates to the OPM breach. Finally, we took on the confidence issue. Cybersecurity failures - not only in prevention (which will not be fail-safe), but in detection and handling – are reducing Americans’ confidence in industry, and in government. We'll see what governments and organizations at all levels, are doing to address that.

It's the Lawfare Podcast, Episode #131: Admiral Bob Day on Cybersecurity and Accountability

Last week, Brookings convened three policy experts, Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute, Brookings fellows Michael O’Hanlon and Jeremy Sharpiro, as well as Senator Chris Murphy for the first ever Brookings Debate. The question at hand? Should the United States put boots on the ground to fight ISIS?

As the ground continues to advance against Iraqi security forces, is ISIS a threat to the region, the U.S. and the world? Or is it a distraction from other, much more important strategic interests? How should the U.S. proceed in its effort to degrade and defeat ISIS? And, if there is a Sarah Palin doctrine, is the Obama administration following it?

Bloomberg journalist Indira Lakshmanan moderated the debate, while Brookings Executive Vice President Martin Indyk provided opening remarks. 

Benjamin Wittes gives a lecture at the George Mason Law and Economic Center on his paper with Jodie Liu, "The Privacy Paradox: The Privacy Benefits of Privacy Threats."

On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Lawfare Managing Editor Wells Bennett invited Steve Vladeck of both Lawfare and Just Security, and Adam Thurschwell, an attorney with the Office of the Chief Defense Counsel of the Military Commissions, into the Lawfare studio to discuss the D.C. Circuit’s decision in al Bahlul v. USA, in which the Court vacated Ali Hamza Suliman al Bahlul’s conviction for inchoate conspiracy. The show takes a deep dive into the case and the Court’s opinion, ponders the future of the military commissions, and outlines what we can expect the government to do next in the case. 

On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Lawfare Founding Editor Jack Goldsmith and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Marty Lederman sat down to discuss the Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling in Zivotofsky v. Kerry. In its opinion, the Court ruled that the President has the exclusive power to recognize foreign sovereigns, and he therefore can disregard a Congressional statute requiring him to designate “Israel” on the passports of U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem. What are the consequences of this decision? What does this now mean for the method of determining the President’s exclusive powers? And could the Court have reached a more limited ruling? Goldsmith and Lederman tackle all this and more. 

The Daily Beast's Shane Harris takes stages a coup, takes over the podcast, and interviews temporarily-deposed host Benjamin Wittes about the new website Lawfare is unveiling next week and the development of Lawfare that took a small blog to this new place.  

Last week, FBI Director James Comey spoke at the 3^rd Annual Cybersecurity Law Institute, hosted by Georgetown University Law Center in cooperation with the American Bar Association Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, Bloomberg BNA, and the Center for Internet SecuritBenjamin Powell, a partner at WilmerHale, interviewed Director Comey.

Last May, the Bharatiya Janata Party won the first majority government in India in 25 years, giving newly minted Prime Minister Narendra Modi a broad mandate to initiate much needed reforms in the country. The question is, how is Modi delivering on his promises to root out corruption, spur economic growth and job creation, and garner greater respect for India on the world stage? 

This Wednesday, the India Project at Brookings hosted a roundtable of India experts to evaluate Modi's first year in office. They panel considers developments over the last year in India's economic, social, and foreign policy, including its treatment of minorities, its accent to the title of fastest growing economy in the world, and its revived engagement with its neighbors and world powers alike. They also take a turn towards the future. Has Modi set expectations so high he cannot help but disappoint? Or is India on the up-and-up, with what he calles "Acche Din" or "Good Days" on the way? And what does all this mean for the United States and how engages with both India and the rest of the Asia-Pacific?

The panel includes Tanvi Madan, Bruce Jones, Diane Farrell, Vikram Singh Mehta, and Milan Vaishnav. 

It's the Lawfare Podcast, Episode #124: The Modi Government in India Turns One

For months, the world has been transfixed by the apparent brutality of the Islamic State's practices in war. The beheading of journalists, the burning of prisoners and the enslavement of religious minorities all seem like a return to a barbaric past. Certainly, these practices seem far removed from any notion of conduct constrained by law.

Islam, however, has a robust religious legal tradition, including on matters of war. So to better understand that tradition and its connection (or lack thereof) with the warfare of contemporary groups, including the Islamic State, we turned to Andrew March, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. March is the author of Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus as well as numerous scholarly and popular articles on Islamic political and legal thought. In the last few weeks, he has also published pieces in Foreign Affairs and on Brookings' own Markaz blog taking a closer look at the Islamic State and the ways it interprets, adjusts and applies traditional Islamic jurisprudence.

In this podcast, March discusses the Islamic law of war, both in the classical tradition and in the discourse and practice of contemporary states and non-state actors. In doing so, he walks us through some of this vast, complex tradition, and he warns Western governments that their interests are best served by staying out of the internal interpretive debates of religious communities.

The Triple Entente Beer Summit was a great success, with an audience that filled the Washington Firehouse loft and a cast that mashed up Lawfare, Rational Security, and the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast.  We attribute the podcast’s freewheeling interchange to the engaged audience, our profound respect for each other, and, mostly, the beer. After a discussion of between the combined panels, we throw the event over to the audience, which demonstrates that we could have produced almost as good a program by randomly selecting audience members to appear on the panel with us.

This week, following the New York Times revelation of the purported identities of three covert CIA agents, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, along with the James Madison Project and Just Security, hosted an entitled “Whistleblowing and America’s Secrets: Ensuring a Viable Balance,” which with the support of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins, we now present to you in full. In the discussion, Bob Litt, General Counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, along with Ken Dilanian of the Associated Press, Dr. Gabriel Schoenfeld of the Hudson Institute, and Lawfare’s own Steve Vladeck, tackle the important legal and policy questions surrounding classified leak prosecutions, the responsibilities of the press, whistleblower protections, and the future of the Espionage Act.

Mark Zaid, the Executive Director of the James Madison Project moderated the discussion.

This week, Benjamin Wittes spoke at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas on his and Gabriella Blum's new book, The Future of Violence. Robert Chesney introduces Wittes in what turns into a lively discussion with an engaged audience. 

A few weeks ago, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Brookings for a public address on the current priorities and future prospects for U.S. engagement in Central Asia. With the draw-down in Afghanistan on the horizon, Mr. Blinken makes clear that the United States is not relinquishing its interests in the region. Blinken stresses that the security of the United States is enhanced by a more secure Central Asia, and a stable Central Asia is most likely if the nations there are sovereign and independent countries, connected with one another, and fully capable of defending their own borders. He concludes that investing in connectivity can spur commerce from Istanbul to Shanghai while serving as a stabilizing force for Afghanistan's transition. 

Senior Fellow Fiona Hill introduced Mr. Blinken, and Brookings President Strobe Talbot moderated the conversation. 

When Oula Abdulhamid Alrifai was nearly 19, her family fled Damascus for Washington under death threats from the Bashar Assad regime. Since she left, she has watched as her country has fallen apart. 

With a tenuous ceasefire holding in Ukraine, we asked Fiona Hill onto the show to discuss the man behind the unrest: Vladimir Putin. Fiona is the co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, and a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. On the Lawfare Podcast, Fiona tackles the hard questions about Putin. Who exactly is he? What does he want? Is Putin an unhinged madman obsessed with personal appearances or a shewed realist with a nuanced understanding of the geopolitical challenges his country faces? And, how should the West respond to Russian aggression based on what we know about its leader?

It's an important look at an often caricatured but rarely understood man--The Lawfare Podcast: Who is Vladimir Putin? 

This week, Brookings hosted a book launch with Jessica Stern and co-author Brookings Fellow J.M. Berger for their new book, ISIS: The State of Terror. The panel, which also featured Brookings Fellow William McCants, details ISIS’s strategies and techniques--its unprecedented mix of brutality, media savvy, territorial gain, and recruitment. The authors also outline their recommendations for how the United States and its allies should respond to the ISIS threat.

This week, we invited Major General Michael Lehnert (Ret.), the first commander of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, onto the show. In January 2002, General Lehnert deployed to Guantanamo Bay as Commander of Joint Task Force 160 with the mission to construct and operate the detention facilities for Taliban and Al Qaeda Detainees. He is now one of the most prominent voices calling for the closure of the prison facility. In the interview, Gen. Lehnert describes those early days before GITMO became GITMO, how he managed the facility, and what he thinks should be done with the remaining detainees. In the end, he offers advice for avoiding mistakes when conducting critical missions and making hard national security choices. 

This week, Brookings hosted a book launch with Harvard Law Professor Gabriella Blum and co-author Benjamin Wittes for their new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones—Confronting a New Age of Threat. The panel, which also featured Senior Fellow William Galston and the ACLU’s Ben Wizner, explored the book’s themes surrounding the potential dangers of modern technology in a world of many to many threats and defenses. What does technological proliferation mean for the framework of state and global security? How should we think about the interaction of liberty, security, and privacy? And, does this world of empowered individuals challenge the foundations of the liberal state?

This week, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a controversial address to a joint session of Congress over US President Barack Obama's objections. The speech, repeatedly interrupted by thunderous applause focused heavily on the nature of the developing nuclear accord between the P5+1 and Iran, and insisted a better deal was possible. The speech was also heavily colored by its proximity to the upcoming Israeli elections, with many Israel watchers wondering whether it was meant to play more to Israel voters than to Congress.

Just after Netanyahu's address, we invited Brookings Fellow Natan Sachs into the Lawfare studios to unpack the speech, including what it means for the US-Israeli relationship, the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, and Bibi's chances in the upcoming election.

On Thursday of this week, Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Bobby Chesney, along with General Jack Keane, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee to provide “Outside Perspectives on the President’s Proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).” It’s an in-depth hearing that delves extensively into the President’s proposed AUMF, its merits and its flaws, and how those failings can be addressed. For today’s podcast, we’ve removed any non-AUMF discussion so that only the most relevant parts are included.

In mid-September, Benjamin Wittes, Editor-in-Chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, delivered a keynote address on Constitution Day at the National Security Agency. We are pleased to now be able to provide that speech in full. That’s right - it took this long for an unclassified speech, from someone without a security clearance, to pass through the declassification process. To that point, Ben’s address touches on the difficulties of transparency in intelligence operations, outlines just why so many people now struggle to trust the intelligence community, and concludes with three challenges the community must address in order to maintain public confidence in the future. 

A few weeks ago, Shane Harris and Benjamin Wittes spoke at Washington and Lee School of Law’s symposium on Cyber-surveillance in the Post-Snowden Age. Shane and Ben are familiar names to frequent Lawfare readers, no doubt. Ben is the editor-in-chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Shane is senior correspondent at the Daily Beast and author of @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex. Their speech, under the title "Point/Counter-point," is a lighthearted, but thorough, overview of the prevailing debates around NSA surveillance including the role of congressional oversight, our evolving perception of privacy, and how the law can respond to rapid technological change.

This week, Robert S. Litt, General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence gave a keynote speech at the Brookigns Institution on US Intelligence Community Surveillance One Year after President Obama’s Address. In his address, Litt discusses the progress the Administration and the IC has made in carrying out Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive, or PPD-28. He outlines the legal authority for certain surveillance programs, particularly those set to expire in 2015, and addresses their implications on privacy, civil liberties, competitiveness, and security. In the end, the conversation addressed many of the questions raised by the implementation of these reforms, and laid out an explanation of where we go from here.  

General Michael Hayden, former Director of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, gave the keynote address ast weekend at Washington and Lee School of Law's symposium on Cyber-surveillance in the Post-Snowden Age. During his address, General Hayden outlined an unapologetic defense of the NSA’s recently revealed activities, yet remained candid about where the agency has made mistakes and where it can improve. In particular, the speech raises a profound question: can intelligence activities succeed in a society that demands greater and greater transparency about those activities?

With President Barack Obama on his way to India early next week, we asked Tanvi Madan, Fellow and Director of the India Project here at Brookings, onto the show to preview Obama’s trip and discuss what we can expect from the President’s second India summit in less than four months. It’s a trip that comes with much fanfare: it's the first time that an American president has been invited as chief guest to Republic Day, and it's also the first time a sitting American president has visited India twice. But, can we expect the results to match the hype? What can be done to advance the bilateral relationship on trade, defense cooperation, and regional integration? And, what role does India play in the broader US strategy in the Asia-Pacific region?

This week, Ben and Matt Waxman sat down with Daniel Reisner, former head of the International Law Branch of the Israeli Defense Forces and current partner with Herzog, Fox and Neeman. Reisner also served as a senior member of Israel’s peace delegations, participating in all negotiation sessions and summits including those at Camp David. He continues to advise senior members of the Israeli government on a variety of issues relating to Middle East peace process and security issues. Colonel Reisner was in New York on a visit sponsored by Academic Exchange for a series of events and discussions on contemporary national security challenges. His experiences set up a wide-ranging conversation touching on everything from Middle East peace to the ethics of targeted killing.

This week, Ben and Jack sat down in sunny Palo Alto to discuss what we know about the Sony Pictures cyber-attack, the FBI’s response, and the lingering questions about the credibility of the US government’s claim that North Korea was behind the attack. They explore the tradeoffs inherent in explaining or proving the governments attribution claims, and whether or not the FBI should do so if it will “tip their hand” to the hackers planning future attacks. If technical capabilities cannot solve the public element of the attribution problem, how far should the government go in producing evidence regarding its claims? 

This week, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller gave a keynote address at Brookings on US Nuclear Arms Control Policy. In her address, Gottemoeller discussed how the administration is adjusting to the slowed progress of arms control given the far less conducive atmosphere left in the wake of the Ukraine-Russia crisis. After beginning with such high hopes, and with definite achievements including New Start and the Nuclear Security Summits, how is the Obama administration approaching arms control in its final two years? Where can it find success in a sea-full of difficulty? Under Secretary Gottemoeller tackles these questions and more.

Steven Pifer, senior fellow at Brookings and the director of the Arms control and Nonproliferation Initiative, introduced Gottemoeller and moderated the discussion.

Mieke Eoyang of Third Way discusses her provocative recent proposal on Lawfare for making the FISA Amendments Act the exclusive means by which the NSA can acquire content against overseas non-US persons from U.S. tech companies.

Brookings scholar Nathan Sachs discusses the Byzantine politics of the Israeli government, the fall of the latest government of Binyamin Netanyahu, and the coming Israeli elections.

The ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, ODNI General Counsel Robert Litt, and Syracuse Law's William Banks debate FISA. Laura Donohue of Georgetown law school moderate at the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security's 24 Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law.

In our one hundredth episode of the podcast, Shane Harris of the Daily Beast talks about his new book, @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex.

Jack Goldsmith speaks at the Hoover Institutions Fall 2014 retreat on "President Obama's War Powers Legacy."

ACLU technologies Chris Soghoian takes on James Comey's proposal for preserving law enforcement access to smartphones.

On Wednesday, a panel of the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument in Al Bahlul v. United States, a long running---and potentially quite consequential---appeal concerning Congress's power to subject domestic law crimes to trial before Guantanamo military commissions. Shortly after argument, Lawfare's Wells Bennett and Steve Vladeck joined Kevin Jon Heller for some post-argument analysis.  

Issues of privacy and security are at the forefront of public debate, particularly in light of recent national security disclosures and increasingly pernicious cyber attacks that target our personal information, our ideas, our money, and our secrets. But are privacy rights trumping public safety interests?  And if so, at what cost?  Has the post-Snowden pendulum swung too far in one direction? 

On October 16, Governance Studies at Brookings hosted FBI Director James Comey for a discussion of the impact of technology on the work of law enforcement. Law enforcement officials worry that the explosion in the volume and the means by which we all communicate threatens its access to the evidence it needs to investigate and prosecute crime and to prevent acts of terrorism.

In particular, officials worry that the emergence of default encryption settings and encrypted devices and networks – designed to increase security and privacy – may leave law enforcement in the dark. Director Comey spoke about the need for better cooperation between the private sector and law enforcement agencies. He also discussed potential solutions to the challenge of “going dark,” as well as the FBI’s dedication to protecting public safety while safeguarding privacy and promoting network security and innovation.   

Following these remarks, Brookings Senior Fellow and Lawfare co-founder Benjamin Wittes moderated a discussion with Director Comey and took audience questions.

It's the Lawfare Podcast, episode #96, FBI Director James Comey on "Going Dark."

This week, Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, India's former national security advisor and former Foreign Secretary, gave a keynote address this week at Brookings entitled, “India’s Role in the World.” In his address, Ambassador Menon discusses the new optimism in U.S.-India bi-lateral relations on the heels of newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit. Ambassador Menon also delves into India’s relations with Pakistan and other countries in the region, its evolving outlook on China, and how India and the United States can forge new ties on counterterrorism and defense cooperation.

Strobe Talbott, president of The Brookings Institution, introduced Ambassador Menon and moderated the discussion. 

With the recent decision by the Obama administration to begin launching airstrikes against Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria, questions have arisen about the nature of the terrorist threat groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al Qaeda pose to the United States and whether our current strategies to eradicate terrorism are actually working. Many are concerned that just as we thought we were finally coming to the end of over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are being sucked into yet another long, bloody conflict in a region where our success rate has been anything but stellar, and all to address what amounts to a fairly minor threat. Others have argued that the threat of ISIS is an existential one for the United States and its allies and interests in the region and therefore believe that nothing short of a full military intervention coupled with long-term state-building projects in Iraq and Syria will suffice to eliminate the threat of ISIS once and for all.

Recent reports about the so-called Khorasan Group, a mysterious faction of Al Qaeda operatives with links to the core organization in Pakistan and its affiliate in Yemen that is supposedly recruiting Westerners in Syria to carry out attacks against the United States and other Western countries have sharpened the debate—is Al Qaeda really “on the run,” as we’ve so often been told? Do they still pose a threat to the U.S. homeland? And if so, what exactly have we been doing the past 13 years? Where did all that money and manpower we threw at counterterrorism after 9/11 go? Will the war on terrorism ever really be won?

For this week’s Lawfare Podcast, I sat down with preeminent terrorism scholar Audrey Kurth Cronin to dig into these issues a little more deeply. Audrey recently wrote a fantastic piece titled “Is this How to Win the War on Terrorism?” for the Foreign Policy Essay here at Lawfare, in which she discussed the Obama administration’s use of drones as its primary counterterrorism tactic, the bloated counterterrorism bureaucracy that has emerged since 9/11, and how best to combat terrorist threats from groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Ben interviews Dan Carlin in a wide-ranging conversation on WWI, NSA, and how to make a podcast. 

This week, the nation once again celebrated Constitution Day, and Ben gave the keynote address at Kenyon College, which we provide to you in full. In his address, Ben covers what he calls a “Constitution under stress,” and how the post-9/11 world has catalyzed a prolonged debate over liberties in the United States and in turn, how the Constitutional framework has shaped our response to the challenges of drones, cyber security, surveillance, detention, and extended overseas military operations. 

Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney, Shane Harris and Wells Bennett talk the politics and law of the ISIS AUMF--and why President Obama isn't seeking one.

 It’s already made the headlines, but earlier this week, Matt Olsen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center delivered a keynote threat assessment of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to the Brookings Institution. Olsen’s assessment stood out among the many others that have been released into the Washington echo chamber: it was alarming yet measured; it addressed the structural factors both propelling and limiting ISIL; and it outlined a series of steps the United States could take to limit the threat to the U.S. homeland and its interests abroad. Overall, Olsen paints a picture of a radical group with unnerving capabilities, but one that he says is certainly not “invincible.” Bruce Riedel, Director of the Intelligence Project and Senior Fellow at Brookings, introduced Olsen and moderated the discussion. 

Foreign Policy's Shane Harris hosts a panel--incuding Bobby Chesney, Benjamin Wittes, and Jennifer Daskal--on the law of the War on Zombies. What will be the legal architecture when the dead walk and come for your brains? Do we need a zombie AUMF? Do zombies have due process rights? Find out on this week's special episode. 

Earlier this week, the Brookings Institution hosted a panel on Russia’s place in the international order in the light of recent more aggressive turns in its foreign policy. As the crisis in Ukraine continues to evolve, the United States is seeking to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin. But, what is his ultimate goal? Is Russia attempting to free itself of the Western dominated world order? Is this a new Cold War? And specifically, what are the potential consequences to the global economy, counter-terrorism efforts, and the non-proliferation regime? Thomas Wright, fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy (IOS), moderated the conversation with Brookings President Strobe Talbott, Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy of Brookings’ Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) and Susan Glasser, editor at Politico Magazine. 

Washington was abuzz this week as more than 50 African leaders were in town for the first U.S.-Africa Summit. Yesterday, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the President of Somalia, spoke at Brookings on the future of his country. In his talk, President Mohamud addressed the challenges to democracy that Somalia faces, and how Somalia, the African Union, and other international partners can work together to ensure security, foster development, and promote stable state-building in the country. President Mohamud also addressed the challenges his state faces in its ongoing battle against Al-Shabab militants - a mission that the U.S. has contributed more than half a billion dollars to since 2007. President Mohamud provides a realistic assessment of that threat, while highlighting the efforts his country is taking to bring democracy to Somalia. Michael E. O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings, provided introductory remarks and moderated the conversation.

Benjamin Wittes discusses the ongoing crises in Gaza with Brookings scholars Natan Sachs, Khaled Elgindy, and Tamara Cofman Wittes. 

Last week, Professor Fernando Reinares, a senior analyst on International Terrorism at the Elcano Royal Institute, delivered a talk on his new book, entitled in English, “Kill Them! Who was Behind 3/11 and Why Spain was Targeted.” The talk covered the March 11, 2004 Madrid bombings, the rise and shape of jihadist networks in Spain, and the evolution of terrorism in Western Europe. In his speech, Reinares provides evidence that the decision to attack Spain was made not in response to the Iraq War, but instead in December 2001 in Pakistan by Moroccan Amer Azizi – previously a charismatic member of Al Qaeda’s Spanish Abu Dahdah cell – and that the Madrid bombing network began its formation in March 2002, more than one year before the start of the Iraq war. He highlights that like much of the West, today Spain battles the challenge of jihadist radicalization and recruitment networks that are sending fighters to join the wars in Syria and elsewhere.

Benjamin Wittes, Wells Bennett, and Steve Vladeck sit down to talk aboout the D.C. Circuit Court's recent decision in the Al Bahlul case and what it means for the future of US military commissions. 

As the election crisis in Afghanistan comes to a head, all eyes are once again on the future of Afghan democracy. But, America’s history in the region extends back much further than its nation-building efforts since September 2001. On Tuesday,  at a Brookings launch of his newest book entitled, “What We Won: America’s Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979-1989,” Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow and Director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, discussed lessons the United States can learn from its successful efforts in the 1970s and 1980s in Afghanistan. In his talk, Riedel discusses the why the American intelligence operation in Afghanistan in the 1980s was so successful, and what, if any lessons, the United States can apply to its ongoing operations in the country. Riedel also explored the complex personalities and individuals who shaped the war, and explains how their influence still affects the region today. Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott provided introductory remarks and moderated the conversation. 

Brookings Senior Fellow Suzanne Maloney talks about Iran: common interests with the United States in Iraq and the fight against ISIS, attitudes toward working with the United States, and the prospects for a nuclear deal in the coming weeks and months.

Brookings scholars Ken Pollack, Mike O’Hanlon, and Suzanne Maloney spoke about Iraq’s security crisis.

On Tuesday, at the 2014 Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, a panel of experts debated the pros and cons of adding outside lawyers to litigation before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Generally proceedings at that court are held in secret and ex parte, with only the government arguing its position. But, in the wake of the Snowden revelations, many have called for reform, and for greater participation by non-government attorneys. 

The panel---comprised of Marc Zwillinger, Alex Abdo, Amie Stepanovich, and moderator Steve Vladeck---discussed the question of whether, and how, to add more adversarial process to FISC proceedings.  

Many within the United States and others abroad continue to question the United States’ role in the world. Understandably, Americans have grown wary of the country’s role in the world, some asking whether the U.S. still has the power and influence to lead the international community, while others question why the United States must still take on this seemingly singular responsibility. On the eve of a major speech by President Obama addressing these questions, Senior Fellow Robert Kagan released a new essay entitled, "Superpowers Don't Get to Retire: What Our Tired Country Still Owes the World," which was published in the latest edition of The New Republic. Kagan argued that the United States has no choice but to be “exceptional.” On May 27, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and The New Republic hosted an event to mark the release of the Kagan essay and in advance of President Obama’s address to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Kagan, a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings, was joined by The New Republic's Leon Wieseltier and The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt. After the program, the panelists took audience questions.

“At the Nexus of Public Policy and Cybersecurity: Some Basic Concepts and Issues.”

That’s the title of a new report co-edited by Herb Lin, chief scientist at National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.  This week, Lin sat down with our own Ben Wittes.  Their engaging discussion, together with the report itself, offers an excellent primer on the day's most pressing cyber concerns---and strongly suggests that policymakers haven’t yet begun to address them with sufficient urgency.  Enjoy.

Ben sat down with Cmd. Michael Adams, deputy legal adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pacific Command conference in Manila this week, to talk about his new paper on "Jus Extra Bellum."

This week, the University of Texas at Austin hosted a two day conference, "The National Security Agency at the Crossroads." Former NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis gave an address; afterwards, Inglis joined Lawfare's Ben Wittes for a wide-ranging discussion about (among other things) the NSA's recent controversies, and proposals to reform its surveillance programs.  

John Carlin, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice, gave a keynote address on cybersecurity at American University’s Washington College of Law.

On March 19, the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) hosted NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen for a Statesman’s Forum address on the importance of the transatlantic alliance and how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is evolving to address new common security challenges. As the crisis in Ukraine shows that security in the Euro-Atlantic area cannot be taken for granted, the secretary-general discussed NATO’s essential role in an unpredictable world. He outlined the agenda for the September NATO summit in Wales as a critical opportunity to ensure that the alliance has the military capabilities necessary to deal with the threats it now faces, to consider how NATO members can better share the collective burden of defense and to engage constructively with partners around the world.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen took office as North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 12th secretary-general in August 2009. Previously, he served in numerous positions in the Danish government and opposition throughout his political career, including as prime minister of Denmark from November 2001 to April 2009.

Brookings Senior Fellow and CUSE Director Fiona Hill provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

Shane Harris of Foreign Policy magazine sits down with Benjamin Wittes to discuss two major news events of the week: the CIA-SSCI flap and the back-and-forth between NSA and the courts over whether it can, may, or must retain telephony metadata past the five year deadline for its destruction.

Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and ACLU Chief Anthony Romero go mano a mano at a Federalist Society Event over Edward Snowden, metadata collection, standing in national security cases, and other thing--and find some surprising areas of agreement. Moderated by Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post.

Ten years after the Iraq War and five years after the global financial crisis, the state of the international order is decidedly mixed. The international system faces a new and increasingly complex set of challenges. While the past decade has seen some successes in international cooperation – most notably the response to the financial crisis – core questions remain about whether the established and emerging powers will be able to sustain the peace, foster a system for shared prosperity and make progress on democracy, justice and human security. Brookings scholars Ted Piccone, Bruce Jones, Robert Kagan, Thomas Wright, and Jeremy Shapiro discuss.

On February 19, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution hosted a panel discussion evaluating the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework.

A discussion at the Berkman Center: In the wake of the disclosures about government surveillance and the rise of corporate-run applications and protocols, is the idea of an “unowned” Internet still a credible one? The Berkman Center’s Jonathan Zittrain moderates a panel, incluing Yochai Benkler (Harvard Law School), Ebele Okobi (Yahoo!), Bruce Schneier (CO3 Systames), and Benjamin Wittes (Brookings Institution) to explore surveillance, and the potential for reforms in policy, technology, and corporate and consumer behavior.

DNI General Counsel Robert Litt talks about implementation of President Obama's NSA reforms, privacy rights for foreigners in espionage, spying on foreign heads of state, and amnesty for Edward Snowden.

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The Brookings Intelligence Project hosted Foreign Service Officer Yaniv Barzilai on January 23, 2014 to discuss his new book, 102 Days of War---How Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban Survived 2001. Bruce Riedel moderated the discussion.

President Obama delivered a major address this morning---and released an accompanying policy directive---in response to the recommendations of his surveillance review group. He announced limited reforms to the NSA's surveillance activities, defended the larger role and activities of the intelligence community, and suggested that limited privacy protections extend to non-Americans. Lawfare convened a roundtable discussion by phone to discuss the president's highly-anticipated speech; the discussion featured Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney, and Carrie Cordero of Georgetown University Law School. Lawfare's managing editor, Wells Bennett, moderated the conversation.

Are there parallels between insurgencies and illness? Or between healthy bodies and healthy nations? Innovative new thinking argues that indeed there are. As understanding in various related disciplines grows, targeted responses are often able to alleviate at least some of the problems.

On December 19, two Yale University professors, Stanley McChrystal (retired General, U.S. Army) and Kristina Talbert-Slagle, an associate research scientist at Yale Global Health Leadership Institute, presented their model of counterinsurgency warfare that likens that mission to the way in which the human body fights infectious disease. The presentation was not intended to produce specific recommendations for any particular ongoing or prospective operation abroad, but it did have interesting and potentially significant implications for the future of counterinsurgency warfare and for how the U.S. government prepares for such possible future missions.