On a special Lawfare Live, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Michael Feinberg, Molly Roberts, and Renée DiResta to unpack President Trump’s primetime address on July 16 about election security.
Julia Curlee explained why firings at the National Security Council (NSC) are critical to understanding the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. Curlee described how the administration’s purge of career staff dismantled the NSC’s ability to coordinate decision-making between different agencies, clearing the way for a foreign policy that moves faster, considers fewer options, and relies on political loyalty rather than expertise.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Eric Columbus, Anna Bower, Roberts, and Roger Parloff to discuss the Justice Department settling a second suit with Michael Flynn, developments in the E. Jean Carroll litigation, the D.C. Circuit denying a stay pending appeal of the order to take Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center, and more.
On Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration this week, Wittes sat down with Bower, Roberts, Columbus, and Parloff to discuss the Justice Department sending grand jury subpoenas to New York Times reporters, the White House firing the court-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington state, and more.
Peter Beck, Troy Edwards, Alexandra Hughes, and Barry Jonas analyzed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s decision in U.S. v. Ullah, which held that Akayed Ullah, who attempted a suicide bombing inspired by ISIS in 2017, could not be charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization. The authors posited that the decision substantially undermines a critical instrument the Justice Department needs to prosecute lone wolf actors, which is particularly concerning as terrorist groups increasingly turn to digital channels to inspire recruits.
Duncan B. Hollis unpacked the Government Accountability Office’s recent report finding that the State Department significantly delayed reporting U.S. international agreements to Congress and the public. Hollis explained the State Department’s failure to meet its Case Act reporting requirements is due to systemic issues, such as an out-of-date website and high administrative burdens, but emphasized that despite these problems, such reporting is critical to maintaining transparency in U.S. foreign policy.
Liron Libman analyzed the U.S.’s memorandum of understanding with Iran and its implications for the Strait of Hormuz. The memorandum, Libman argued, offers little clarity about what Iran (or the U.S.) can and cannot do, perpetuating an ambiguity that endangers traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and freedom of navigation more broadly.
Rachel Alpert, Claire O’Neill McCleskey, and Naomi Maxwell considered what lessons from the end of U.S. sanctions on Syria could be applied to Iran. The authors explained that the rollback of sanctions in Syria required continuous effort from the executive branch, Congress, and its international partners and argued that the process would likely be even more complicated in the case of Iran.
On Lawfare Daily, Mykhailo Soldatenko sat down with Eric Ciaramella and Samuel Charap to take stock of the U.S.-led negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. They discussed the improvements in Ukraine's position, the structure of the negotiations, territorial questions, security commitments to Ukraine, and more.
Anna Sayko and Jeanne Sulzer analyzed the practical implications of implementing universal jurisdiction in Ukraine, which allows for the prosecution of foreign nationals for core international crimes, regardless of when and where the crime initially took place Sayko and Sulzer explained that while the law makes prosecution theoretically possible, clearer guidance is needed on procedure and how prosecution interacts with international law, especially in the context of Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia.
Also on Lawfare Daily, Anastasiia Lapatina spoke to Maria Snegovaya about how the Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy sites are shifting attitudes towards the war inside Russia, Snegovaya’s latest report called “Russian Attitudes Are Shifting as the War’s Effects Come Home”, and more.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Daniel Byman, Curlee, and Ariane Tabatabai to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including the collapse of the ceasefire with Iran, announcements from last week’s NATO summit, growing tensions in the U.S.-Israel relationship, and more.
Dominic Brennan and Charlie Prior considered the implications of China’s plan to deploy floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs) to the South China Sea. FNPP deployment, Brennan and Prior argued, could both improve China’s ability to sustain operations in the region and increase the risk of nuclear escalation in the highly contested waters.
Jakub Kraus reviewed Katrina Manson’s book, “Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare,” an account of the U.S. military’s collaboration with Palantir to develop artificial intelligence (AI) for warfare. Kraus praised Manson’s documentation of such a secretive project and highlighted how she tied Project Maven to broader questions about ethics in AI warfare.
On Lawfare Daily, Kate Klonick spoke with Steve Feldstein about his recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists essay on AI targeting systems. Feldstein discussed what the conventional wisdom about AI warfare gets wrong, what the Iran War’s staggering Maven numbers do and don’t prove, how Israel became the case study in what it actually takes to build an AI kill chain, whether export controls can realistically slow any of it down, and more.
Jason Healey reviewed how cyberattacks historically transitioned from taking advantage of vulnerabilities to relying on deception. He argued that the development of AI will reset cybersecurity to a world where there are abundant vulnerabilities that defensive technologies, even those powered by AI, are not yet equipped to address.
On Scaling Laws, Nils Tracy joined Kevin Frazier to discuss the challenges and solutions with deploying AI in highly sensitive contexts. The two discussed how Tracy’s company, Authorship, enables users to map their AI policies to myriad use cases—from on-device AI tools to those connected to the cloud.
Bahrad A. Sokhansanj argued that policymakers rushing to crack down on AI “distillation attacks”—training a model on a rival’s outputs at scale—are diagnosing the problem incorrectly. Sokhansanj proposed that, rather than treating all distillation attacks as theft, which they are often not, policymakers should identify the specific harm such attacks cause, such as bypassing model safeguards or threatening cybersecurity, and tailor policy accordingly.
Also on Scaling Laws, Joe Seddon joined Frazier to discuss AI, social mobility, higher education, and the future of opportunity. They explored whether AI can scale the kinds of guidance and tutoring that have historically been available only to students with strong networks, the role of universities in preparing students for an AI-transformed labor market, and whether AI will disrupt entry-level white-collar work.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed how AI is enabling more effective ransomware extortion, how AI-supported bug patches may expose small companies that cannot quickly implement patches, the White House’s announcement of a new cybersecurity “clearinghouse,” and more.
And on Lawfare Daily, DiResta spoke with Klonick and Elissa Redmiles about the difficulties of preventing AI systems from generating exploitative content. They considered technical approaches to prevention and discussed the cultural and legal concerns that the different approaches raise regarding privacy, consent, and responsibility.
And that was the week that was.
