What We're Reading

Hello Lawfare Patreon Subscribers,

Here is what we’re reading this week:

Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes is reading Tom Nichols’s new book ”Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy.”

Lawfare Publisher and Chief Operating Officer David Priess is in the midst of Kai Bird's new biography of our 39th president called “The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.” Its core provides a deep and insightful re-examination of Carter's enigmatic single term in the White House—both by its actual record and through lingering perceptions of it among the American public and political elite.

Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic has been reading two new books that critically examine the U.S. response to 9/11: “Subtle Tools,” by Karen Greenberg, and “Reign of Terror,” by Spencer Ackerman. (Special easter egg for readers who decide to pick up the latter: keep an eye out for the mildly derisive references to Lawfare.) She also recommends reading the New York Times report—and the accompanying video—on the last U.S. drone strike in Kabul before the end of the American withdrawal. The Pentagon framed the missile as a “righteous strike” on the Islamic State, but the Times’s reporting indicates that the victim was likely an Afghan man who worked for a U.S. aid group and had applied for refugee resettlement in the United States.

Fellow in Cybersecurity Law Alvaro Marañon is reading a Bloomberg article on the breach of United Nations computer networks earlier this year. The intruders were able to breach the U.N. network in a highly unsophisticated manner—"they likely got in using the stolen username and password of a UN employee purchased off the dark web."

Managing Editor Jacob Schulz is reading a Wall Street Journal story about the fate of the Afghan embassy in Kalorama Heights and the staff who occupy it. He also enjoyed "Severance," a novel about a deadly pandemic that, despite being published in 2018, foreshadows with remarkable accuracy some of the scenes that have played out during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Associate Editor Rohini Kurup is reading a piece in the New Yorker titled “What the 9/11 Museum Remembers, and What It Forgets.” It’s a great article that considers where the museum fell short in addressing the legacy of 9/11, offering an interesting look into the significance of curatorial decisions.

Associate Editor Bryce Klehm is reading this book review from the New York Review of Books titled, “Stalin’s Lawyers at Nuremberg.” This fascinating article details the Soviet lawyers’ impact on the trials and the stark differences between Soviet and American jurisprudence.

Lawfare’s Quote of the Week:

From “Remembering the Gains of the Afghanistan War” by Daniel Byman and Benjamin Wittes: “Constant evaluation is necessary. Part of the Afghanistan problem was that after the initial success, policy went on autopilot, with the Iraq war as one distraction but also little willingness to evaluate whether the Afghanistan occupation was still necessary once al-Qaeda had been devastated. Such self-examination is difficult, both bureaucratically and politically, but the forever war risk is real, and the stakes are immense.”

From the Lawfare Vault:

Sept. 11, 2019: “Al-Qaeda Today, 18 Years After 9/11” by Bruce Riedel

Thank you!