Rational Security: The “Chestbursters Roasting on an Open Fire” Edition

Dec 17, 2025

Alan Rozenshtein, a legal and technology policy expert, joins Ari Tabatabai, a national security analyst focused on China policy, to discuss pressing national security issues. They delve into the implications of the Trump administration's approval for Nvidia to export advanced AI chips to China, highlighting the strategic competition landscape. The duo also critiques a recent executive order aimed at preempting state-level AI regulations, questioning its efficacy and legal grounding. Additionally, they reflect on the tragic Bondi Beach attack and the rising trend of global antisemitism.

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INSIGHT

EO Uses Litigation, Not Direct Preemption

The executive order mainly instructs DOJ to litigate against state AI laws under doctrines like the dormant commerce clause.
Its practical reach is limited and likely to provoke political backlash from states and Congress.

INSIGHT

Spending Threats Are Limited Leverage

Spending conditionality on federal broadband funds is legally dubious and small-scale.
Threats to withhold funding may not deter politically motivated blue states from regulating AI.

INSIGHT

Federal Push Could Backfire Politically

The EO may energize state lawmakers to enact more AI rules by creating political salience.
Federal threats can create perverse incentives for states seeking attention or resistance.

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This week, Scott down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein and Ari Tabatabai to talk through a few of the week’s big national security news stories, including:

“Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop.” The Trump administration has given a green light to Nvidia to export its powerful H200 chips to China, opening a potentially significant new market while jumpstarting China’s strategically significant AI industry—or, perhaps, making it reliant on U.S. technology. What explains this decision? And how does it align with the Trump administration’s broader reframing of strategic competition with China as a primarily economic problem, as reflected in its recent National Security Strategy?
“Lavatories of Democracy.” Late last week, President Trump signed an executive order setting up a number of mechanisms intended to assert federal preemption over and otherwise deter state efforts to regulate the development and use of AI—an executive branch-only effort that followed a failed push to insert a related legislative provision into year-end omnibus legislation. How effective is this measure likely to be? And how wise is it to try and bar the states from regulating AI development and use in the first place?
“Some Things You Can’t Make Light Of.” Over the weekend, a pair of gunmen inspired by the Islamic State executed a brutal massacre at a Hanukkah event on Australia’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and injuring 40. The violence has shocked Australia, a country with strict gun control laws where incidents of anti-semitism have been on the rise, as in much of the world. What is there to learn from the attack and its aftermath? And what could its ramifications be, both in Australia and further abroad?

In object lessons, Alan tells us what the buzz is—seeing Jesus Christ Superstar live. Scott, heavy with Christmas spirit, shares his grandmother’s recipe for sour cream coffee cake (remember, during the holidays, dense=delicious). And Ari keeps us grounded with a recommendation of “Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight,” a South African film about a White Zimbabwean family following the Rhodesian Bush War.

Rational Security will be having its traditional end-of-year episode later this month, which will focus on listener-submitted topics and object lessons! If you have topics you want us to discuss and object lessons you want to share—whether serious or frivolous—be sure to send them to rationalsecurity@lawfaremedia.org by Dec. 21!

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