"I like to write about foreign policy, national security, and related subjects. I like to make art. This site is an experiment in combining the two."

An old Yiddish definition of chutzpah is the young man who murders both his parents in cold blood and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.  Today we have a new Chinese d...

Controversy surrounding the DoJ White Paper on targeting Americans abroad has generated interest and debate about the meaning of "imminence" in the terrorism context, for purposes of self-defense and oth...

The New York Times reports today that “U.S. Again Delays Transfer of Bagram Prison to Afghan Forces.”  (Bobby discussed some of these issues, including the “Daqduq problem” issues, a couple of days ago)....

Without wanting to shoehorn my way into Ben's invaluable service in keeping the country safe from errors in New York Times editorials, I too wanted to raise something about today's editorial, "Repeal the...

The New York Times editorial page has still not corrected its error of the other day, when it promoted John Brennan to National Security Adviser.

[UPDATED 4:53] Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti, and Charlie Savage of The New York Times have this lengthy article on the hunt for Anwar Al-Aulaqi.

As Steve noted on Tuesday, the government petitioned for rehearing in the military commission case of United States v. Al-Bahlul, asking the full D.C.

I've posted many times on the gradual but inexorable process through which the United States is closing out its detention operations in Afghanistan, including this recent update.  It has been a bumpy roa...

Joel Brenner, the former National Counterintelligence Executive at ODNI has an interesting piece in Foreign Policy, entitled "Gray Matter." [Free login required]. Here's an excerpt: We're in a strategic ...

Rand Paul has a triumphant blow-by-blow account of his filibuster in the Washington Post. It contains the following curious sentence that to me captures almost everything wrong with his little campaign: ...

I have been curating a running debate about whether LOAC requires an attempt to capture rather than a first-resort to lethal force in some circumstances, sparked by a paper from Professor Ryan Goodman an...