Armed Conflict Cybersecurity & Tech Democracy & Elections

Rational Security: The "Let's Understand How We Got Here" Edition

Scott R. Anderson, Kevin Frazier, Eugenia Lostri, Benjamin Wittes
Thursday, September 12, 2024, 12:30 PM
In the debut episode of RatSec 2.1, Scott Anderson sat down with Kevin Frazier, Eugenia Lostri, and Benjamin Wittes.

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

In the debut episode of RatSec 2.1, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Kevin Frazier, Eugenia Lostri, and Benjamin Wittes to talk over the week’s big national security news, including:

  • “I Have Concepts of a Segment Topic.” On Tuesday, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump faced off in what might end up being the only presidential debate between the two candidates in the 2024 election. What did it tell us about how national security is figuring into this election? 
  • “Running Political Interference Interference.” The Justice Department has been very busy these past few weeks, bringing an array of indictments and enforcement actions against various Russian actors and their proxies for spreading misinformation, surreptitiously funding political commentary, and otherwise attempting to interfere in the upcoming 2024 elections. What explains this sudden wave of activity so close to the election? And what threats are still hanging out there?
  • “Never Forgot.” Twenty-three years have passed since the unprecedented terrorist attacks of 9/11. In many ways, they redefined the trajectory of U.S. national security policy (and politics) for decades. But today, the United States has shifted focus to a very different set of challenges. What is the legacy of 9/11 more than two decades after the attacks? 

For object lessons, Kevin readied our listeners for depression before recommending Neil Postman’s new book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Ben endorsed the documentary Man on Wire as his favorite movie about 9/11, in part because it has nothing to do with 9/11. Scott urged D.C.-area residents not to sleep on the sublime joys of an outdoor show at Wolf Trap while the weather is still nice. And Eugenia shed her video game label to throw her support behind James Cameron’s latest maritime adventure, the (weirdly mutant-free) sea exploration documentary series OceanXplorers.


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.
Kevin Frazier is an Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and Senior Research Fellow in the Constitutional Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin. He is writing for Lawfare as a Tarbell Fellow.
Eugenia Lostri is Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law. Prior to joining Lawfare, she was an Associate Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She also worked for the Argentinian Secretariat for Strategic Affairs, and the City of Buenos Aires’ Undersecretary for International and Institutional Relations. She holds a law degree from the Universidad Católica Argentina, and an LLM in International Law from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
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.

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