What We're Reading

Hello Lawfare Patreon Subscribers,

Here is what we’re reading this week:

Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes is reading “SPQR,” a history of ancient Rome by Mary Beard.

Executive Editor Natalie Orpett read Jennifer Senior's article in the Atlantic about the impact of 9/11 on one family who lost a loved one. She also just started “The Sympathizer,” a novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which begins during the final days of the Vietnam war and brings an all-too-rare non-American perspective to the conflict.

Publisher and Chief Operating Officer David Priess is revisiting some classics on intelligence, both to freshen up for a graduate course on "Intelligence and the Presidency" that he is teaching this semester at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and to inform an article he's working on right now for posting on Lawfare later this week. They are: “For the President's Eyes Only,” a dated but useful survey by Christoper Andrew of how presidents from George Washington through George H. W. Bush intersected with intelligence; and “Why Intelligence Fails,” in which Robert Jervis looks at lessons from CIA's analysis on Iran's revolution and the Iraq war.

In addition to all the commentary and analysis about Afghanistan, Managing Editor Jacob Schulz has been reading Matt Levine's Money Stuff newsletters about how the SEC might intervene to regulate parts of the cryptocurrency ecosystem—he wholeheartedly recommends subscribing to the newsletter. He also enjoyed Joe Bernstein's Harper's magazine takedown of the obsession with "disinformation."

Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic seconds the recommendation of Joseph Bernstein's provocative essay poking holes in the Disinformation Industrial Complex. She has also been reading this heartfelt piece by New Yorker writer David Rohde on his efforts to help evacuate the family of Tahir Luddin, an Afghan journalist with whom Rohde escaped from Taliban captivity in 2009. As of last week, members of Luddin's family remain in Kabul.

Associate Editor Rohini Kurup is reading the same piece Quinta has been reading by David Rhode in the New Yorker. She is also reading an article in Foreign Affairs titled “Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success.” In the piece, author Nelly Lahoud uses thousands of declassified documents of al Qaeda’s internal communications between 2000 and 2011—including bin Laden’s notes and communications with associates—to “offer a portrait of the U.S. ‘war on terror’ as it was seen through the eyes of its chief target."

Associate Editor Bryce Klehm is reading “What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban” by Ian Fritz, a former U.S. airman who served as a linguist aboard an Air Force Special Operations Command aircraft.

Lawfare’s Quote of the Week:

From “What Andrew Cuomo’s Resignation Reveals About the State of American Democracy” by Alan Z. Rozenshtein: “Cuomo’s fall is thus a positive sign that at least one of America’s major political parties is still willing to expel would-be authoritarians, norm violators and strongmen from its midst. But it’s sobering to reflect on how long Cuomo maintained his support, despite his manifest flaws, and that there’s no guarantee that the Democrats will avoid another Cuomo in the future. And, of course, a two-party system in which only one party cares about democratic norms is not one that can long survive.

From the Lawfare Vault:

Oct. 20, 2019: “The Logic of Staying in Afghanistan and the Logic of Getting Out” by Carter Malkasian

Thank you!