Lawfare News

Rational Security: The 'Are You There, Nena? It's Me, NORAD' Edition

Jen Patja, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson, Benjamin Wittes
Thursday, February 9, 2023, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined once again by host emeritus Benjamin Wittes to talk through the week's various freak-outs, including:

  • “We Found the 100th Luftballon.” Last week, a Chinese spy balloon floated over the United States, triggering a national freak-out that led to the cancellation of a major high-level summit between U.S. and Chinese leaders. Was this freak-out warranted? What does it tell us about U.S.-China relations?
  • “SotFU.” President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address last night—and it was about as contentious as expected. How did he do? And how should we feel about this most vaunted of national institutions?
  • “ChatOMG.” Over the past several weeks, countless Americans have had the chance to hash it out with ChatGPT, a large language-model artificial intelligence that is open to the public and will either revolutionize or devastate a thousand different human tasks, depending on who you ask. Just how revolutionary is ChatGPT? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

For object lessons, Alan embraced his home state of Minnesota’s annual “name a snow plow” contest and its winner, “Yer a blizzard, Harry.” Quinta lamented the latest fatality resulting from Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter: the end of its free API and the countless useful integrations it helped facilitate. Scott suggested that listeners check out David Romero’s 3D renderings of some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most dramatic but never built designs, and implored Mr. Romero to put Wright’s “Plan for Greater Baghdad” higher on his project list. And Ben saluted the service of the “Little Ass Projector” he’s used in countless special military operations, which he lost in battle earlier this week. 


Topics:
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.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.

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