The Lawfare Podcast

From August 5, 2017: The growing threat from North Korea has intensified during the past few weeks after a series of missile tests demonstrated that the Kim regime may soon be able to strike the continental United States. This week, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Mira Rapp-Hooper, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and Stephan Haggard, a distinguished professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, to discuss recent events and the path forward for the United States and the international community. They addressed the diplomatic and military options for addressing the North Korean threat, the likelihood that the Kim regime will respond to traditional deterrence strategies, and how a new administration in the U.S. changes the dynamics in the region.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 9, 2018: It's easy to spend all our time focusing on American domestic politics these days, but the rest of the world is not going away. Take the European Union, for example—our neighbors from across the pond, and one of the US's most valuable economic and security relationships. There's a lot going on over there, and some of it even involves us. How is that relationship faring in the age of tariffs, presidential blusters, Brexit, and tensions over Iran sanctions?To figure that out, Shannon Togawa Mercer and Benjamin Wittes spoke to David O'Sullivan, the EU Ambassador to the United States. They talked about the US-EU trade relationship, Iran and Russia sanctions, Privacy Shield, the rule of law in deconsolidating democracies in the EU, and more.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, is free, having been put on a flight from Canada back to her native China. Moments later, two Canadians held in China were also freed and put on flights back to Canada in what many are describing as hostage diplomacy by the People's Republic of China. The United States had indicted Wanzhou and Huawei for bank fraud but dropped the indictment against her at least, having reached a deferred prosecution agreement with her in which she gave statements that may be used against Huawei. To go over all of the angles, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Pete Strzok, former deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI; Julian Ku, a professor of law at Hofstra University School of Law; and Leah West of Carleton University in Canada.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just two days ago, on September 28, CNN announced that it was turning off access to its Facebook pages in Australia. Why would the network cut off Facebook users Down Under?It’s not a protest of Facebook or… Australians. CNN’s move was prompted by a recent ruling by the High Court of Australia in Fairfax Media and Voller, which held that media companies can be held liable for defamatory statements made by third parties in the comments on their public pages, even if they didn’t know about them. This is a pretty extraordinary expansion of potential liability for organizations that run public pages with a lot of engagement. On this week’s episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with David Rolph, a professor at the University of Sydney Law School and an expert on media law, to understand the ruling and its potential impact. What exactly does Voller mean for media companies with some kind of connection to Australia? What does it mean for you, if someone writes a nasty comment under your Facebook post or your tweet? Why did the court rule the way it did? And why is Australia known as the defamation capital of the world? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ronan Bergman is a reporter for the New York Times and the author of the book, “Rise and Kill First,” a history of Israeli targeted killings. Most recently with Farnaz Fassihi, he is the author of a lengthy New York Times investigative report entitled, “The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine,” which is the story of the use of a ground-based robotic machine gun to kill an Iranian nuclear scientist. He joined Benjamin Wittes from Tel-Aviv to talk about the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the operation and the machine through which it was conducted, the larger policy of Israeli assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, and the legal bases on which these are done. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the weekend, Germany held elections to see who will succeed Angela Merkel as Germany's chancellor. The results are in, but there's still a lot of coalition building to go. To break it all down, Jacob Schulz sat down with Constanze Stelzenmüller, the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Yascha Mounk, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies, both of whom are experts in German politics. They talked about the election, how to make sense of the results, and what everything means for the bigger picture of European politics, Germany's role in the world and more.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

France is mad. More specifically, France is mad about Australia reneging on a deal for French submarines and opting to go instead with an American contract. It's all part of AUKUS, a new trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States that was announced two weeks ago. France recalled its ambassador to the U.S. and otherwise expressed dismay at the development.Jacob Schulz sat down with Benjamin Haddad, the senior director of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council, who is an expert in European politics and transatlantic relations. They talked through the French reaction, what might have caused it, and what it all means for the future of transatlantic relations and U.S. strategy.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From January 23, 2016: The fourth Hoover Book Soiree, held this week in Hoover's beautiful Washington, D.C. offices, featured Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on her newest book, Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield. At the event, Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Lawfare’s editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes discussed the growing role of women soldiers in special operations and beyond, examining the story of a cultural support team of women hand-picked from the Army in 2011 to serve in Afghanistan alongside Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. Their conversation dives into how the program developed, the lessons learned in the process, and why its success may provide critical insights for future force integration. Former Marine and current Lawfare contributor Zoe Bedell, who served in a similar capacity in Afghanistan, joined them on the panel to discuss her own experiences.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 11, 2014: On his recent trip to the United States, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized India's desire to take up a greater role on the world stage. With India's renewed ambition, it is increasingly important for policymakers to understand what that role may look like, how it is envisioned from the Indian perspective, and how the country views international developments. Great opportunity exists for improved bilateral relations that bring stability, increased trade, and future defense, intelligence, and counterterrorism cooperation in the region.This week, Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, former national security adviser and former foreign secretary to the government of India, gave a speech at Brookings entitled, “India’s Role in the World.” In his address, Ambassador Menon discusses the new optimism in U.S.-India bilateral relations on the heels of newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit and how leaders can capitalize on this new momentum. Ambassador Menon also delves into India’s relations with Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other countries in the region, its evolving outlook on China, and what role, if any, India can play in countering violent extremism found in groups like transnational terrorist organizations like ISIS and al Qaeda.Strobe Talbott, president of The Brookings Institution, introduced Ambassador Menon and moderated the discussion.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, more commonly known as the Quad, brings together the United States, Australia, Japan and India in strategic dialogue on everything from disaster relief, to military readiness, to technology and supply chains. Today, the leaders of those four countries will meet for the first-ever summit, a gathering which would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago. To understand what led up to this point and what could develop from it, David Priess sat down with three experts who look at the Quad from different perspectives. Lavina Lee is a senior lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Last year, she was appointed by the Australian minister of defense as director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Council. Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow at and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution, and she focuses in particular on India's foreign and security policies. And Sheila Smith is a senior fellow for Asia Pacific studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a renowned expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.