Rational Security 2.0: The ‘Hockey With Guns’ Edition

Jen Patja, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson, Stephanie Carvin
Wednesday, February 9, 2022, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

This week, Alan, Quinta and Scott were joined by Canadian national security expert, Stephanie Carvin! They talked through some of the week's biggest national security news, both in the U.S. and in our neighbor to the north, including:

  • “Assault on the Capital, Eh? Hold My Labatt Blue.” For the past two weeks, our neighbors to the north have suffered through their own insurrectionary moment, as thousands of protesters have descended on Canadian cities to protest vaccination policies, leading the capital city of Ottawa to declare a state of emergency. What does this mean for Canada moving forward? And what lessons might it be able to learn from the U.S.’s January 6th experience (and vice versa)?
  • “Just Be Glad Someone Unplugged the Shredder.” The Washington Post released a deep dive this week on the consequences of former President Trump’s habitual tearing up of official records that are supposed to be protected by federal laws, revealing that White House staff spent countless hours piecing some records back together while others are permanently lost. What is the real cost of Trump’s actions here and what can we do to prevent other presidents from doing the same in the future?  
  • “The Biggest Beijing Slapback Since Misty Met Dubya.” The Beijing Olympics got off to a controversial start this week, as China selected an athlete from its persecuted Uyghur minority to light the Olympic torch–a choice quickly contextualized by NBC commentators, who correctly noted that the U.S. government has labeled what China is doing to its Uyghur population as a genocide. What does this incident tell us about NBC’s approach to covering this most complicated of Olympics–and the media’s engagement with China more broadly? And will it change China’s calculus in trying to host the games?

For object lessons, Alan recommended Leslie Jones's commentary on mogul skiing (while Scott also urged listeners to check her tasteful critique of occasional Lawfare contributor Prof. Bec Ingber's home office). Quinta urged readers to check out the new separate feed Lawfare is standing up for her other podcast series, Arbiters of Truth. Scott threw down the glove over NYC Mayor Eric Adams's effort to steal his bit by turning a press conference into a vegetarian cooking show, and upped the ante by offering not one but two of his vegetarian chili recipes for listeners to try. And Stephanie recommended Jessica Davis's new book, “Illicit Money: Financing Terrorism in the 21st Century,” which tracks the money behind violent extremism (and will be the subject of a forthcoming Lawfare review).


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, a senior editor at Lawfare, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.
Quinta Jurecic is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare. She previously served as Lawfare's managing editor and as an editorial writer for the Washington Post.
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.
Stephanie Carvin is an associate professor with the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University and co-author of “Intelligence Analysis and Policy Making: The Canadian Experience,” recently published with Stanford University Press.

Subscribe to Lawfare