The Week That Was

Anna Bower parsed the legal questions surrounding the ongoing political battle in Texas after 51 Texas House Democrats left the state on Aug. 3 to prevent Republican lawmakers’ efforts to redraw congressional maps—including whether Gov. Greg Abbott can remove absent Democrats from office.

Benjamin Wittes considered three ways to undermine President Trump's attacks on American democratic institutions, arguing that some amount of mass non-cooperation with Trump’s controversial policies is essential to preserving the fabric of American democracy.

Renee DiResta waded through a trove of documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who claimed they reveal a years-long “treasonous conspiracy” to sabotage President Trump by former President Barack Obama and top intelligence officials. DiResta argued that Gabbard’s claims of a conspiracy are baseless, and that the documents drop is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to create doubt about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

On Aug. 8 at 4 pm ET, Wittes sat down with Bower, Roger Parloff, and Peter Harrell to discuss legal challenges to the president’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs, the legality of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles given the temporary restraining order in place, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Bower, DiResta, Michael Feinberg, and James Pearce to discuss the politicization of the Justice Department, the controversy surrounding Alina Habba’s appointment as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, agreements between U.S. universities and the Trump administration, and more.

Jason Smith responded to a recent Lawfare article by Graham Parsons, who initially argued that military neutrality means, more than obedience, requiring officers to assess whether orders from elected officials endanger civil society. Smith suggested Parsons’s model threatens the subordination of the military to democratically elected officials, empowering officers to exercise their own judgement to the detriment of a politically neutral military. 

Philip Wallach argued that the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) push for President Trump to use pocket rescissions as a tool to cut spending endangers Congress’s power of the purse. Wallach emphasized that legislators must make it clear to OMB’s Russell Vought and Mark Paoletta that allowing the executive to deploy a pocket rescission would amount to illegal impoundment and represent an act of hostility towards the legislature.   

Alan Rozenshtein evaluated three big questions about technology, law, and politics raised by the recent executive order, “Preventing Woke Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Federal Government.” He argued that the order is reasonably substantive, despite its transparent political posturing.

Michael Daniel urged policymakers to swiftly renew the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, explaining that Congress’s failure to reauthorize the statute would threaten the functioning of the U.S. cybersecurity ecosystem. 

Sam Adler, Thomas Kadri, and Chinmayi Sharma—in response to a string of attacks, including the murder of a Minnesota lawmaker in June—proposed a new system to regulate data access and combat violence enabled by the sale of personal information by data brokers. 

On Thursday’s episode of Scaling Laws, Kevin Frazier sat down with Brian Fuller to discuss the challenges to creating policies that ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are safe, aligned, and socially beneficial.

Sarosh Nagar and David Eaves compared how the United States, China, and the European Union are building ways for public-goods-creating entities to access compute power—the infrastructure and services needed to perform essential computational operations—to stay competitive in an age where artificial intelligence is being deployed rapidly.

Justin Sherman sat down with Sam Bresnick to discuss his recent report entitled, “Big Tech in Taiwan: Beyond Semiconductors,” as well as how companies think about geopolitics and the security threat landscape and perspectives on “derisking” versus “decoupling” from Taiwan or China, and more. 

Jeffrey A. Lovitky defended the legality of Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, arguing that legality can be ascertained by assessing the necessity and proportionality of the strikes, not the immediacy of their timing in relation to Iran’s 2024 attacks.

Anastasiia Lapatina sat down with Minna Ålander and Max Bergmann to discuss NATO’s commitment to raising member states’ defense spending to 5 percent of their country’s gross domestic product.

Mykhailo Soldatenko sat down with Oona Hathaway to discuss the deterioration of the norm prohibiting the use of force in international relations, why it’s concerning, what to do about it, and more.

Alexander Downes refuted three of President Trump’s assertions about transgender soldiers made in his executive order barring them from military service: cost to unit cohesion, medical cost to the military, and lack of integrity. Downes explained that there is no evidence to support the president’s claims, and argued that rather than bolstering units’ efficiency and readiness, the removal of transgender troops will have detrimental effects on the military.

Graham Parsons—on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—questioned the commonly held notion that there is conflict between morality and military strategy in war. Parsons explained that law and morality can, in fact, serve as important safeguards against unnecessary harm.

In the latest installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Charles Edel and Kathryn Paik argued that the United States’s neglect of smaller Pacific Island nations has created an opportunity for China to establish a stronger foothold in the region, and suggested five steps Washington can take to reengage with these countries.

And Tadeusz Koczanowicz discussed the results of Poland’s recent presidential election—in which the far-right candidate beat out the liberal candidate. Koczanowicz argued that a united liberal coalition could both solve Poland’s duopoly issue—the tense division between the liberal Civic Coalition and the right-wing Law and Justice party—and help address the political disillusionment among younger voters.