Rational Security: The 'Toodle 2020-Two Doo' Edition

Jen Patja, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson
Wednesday, December 28, 2022, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

For their end-of-the-year episode, Alan, Quinta, and Scott took on a number of hard-hitting questions posed by you, the listeners, including:

  • What did Quinta mean when she referenced "the radical political statement" of the Star Wars series Andor?
  • How should we grade Biden as a foreign policy president? Has he made America credible again?
  • Will recent mass shootings make Congress more open to any sort of "domestic terrorism" legislation?
  • What delay tactics did former President Trump use in the courts, and what can be done to stop others from doing the same?
  • Who wins, werewolf or vampire? And how?
  • How would the Afghan Adjustment Act provide legal protections for Afghans who fled the Taliban in the final days of the U.S. military presence? And what is stopping Congress from enacting it?
  • Why has the United States let Turkey bully Stockholm and Helsinki over NATO membership? 
  • How can we get Americans to care about foreign policy? 
  • Which Muppet does each host identify with most strongly and why?

They also passed along listener-submitted object lessons, including:

  • The World Affairs Councils of America network, a group of grassroots nonprofits from all over the country that are dedicated to promoting international affairs knowledge at the local level. 
  • How Not to Network a Nation” by Benjamin Peters, an interesting book that contrasts the Soviet and American attempts to build early computer networks, focusing on the competition that made the Soviet attempts flounder, and the state-subsidized programs that made the American attempts succeed.
  • Net Assessment, the War on the Rocks' bi-weekly journal club podcast that the listener considers the "serious and professional" Rational Security (cue Quinta's eye-rolling).
  • Bag Man, a seven-part podcast miniseries by Rachel Maddow about the Spiro Agnew scandal.

Finally, listener Mike shared his favorite cocktail of the year—a variant of the standard Gold Rush formula that swaps Nocino or another walnut liqueur out for a third of the honey syrup—and asked each host their own. Alan endorsed any and all cocktails involving miso paste. Quinta endorsed her old stand-by the Dark and Stormy, while also recommending hot mulled cider for the season (which Scott supplemented by recommending the addition of some citrus fruit, demerara sugar, and star anise, plus a spike of bourbon and cognac). And Scott passed along the Diplomatic Handshake, a phenomenal cocktail from Local Jones in Denver, CO, the recipe for which he'll share on social media as soon as he has their permission...

Happy holidays everyone, and here's hoping for a fantastic New Year! We will see you in 2023...


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.

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