Rational Security: The “Hip to Be a Square State” Edition

Rational Security: The “Hip to Be a Square State” Edition

This week, Scott sat down with his colleagues Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai, to talk through the week’s big news in foreign policy, including: * “Truce or Consequences.” The fragile ceasefire that had paused the U.S.-Iran war since the spring now appears to have collapsed. After Iran struck several commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the United States has launched several successive nights of strikes, hitting more than 300 targets across Iran. Iran has in turn retaliated against U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. Speaking from the NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump declared the June memorandum of understanding “over” even as he insisted that talks toward a lasting peace could still continue. By the weekend, Iran had declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, and U.S. officials were describing the ceasefire as fully “broken down.” Then, on Monday, Trump escalated further—declaring that the United States would “keep” and “run” the Strait as its self-styled “Guardian,” reinstate its blockade on Iranian ships, and charge a 20% fee on all cargo passing through, an arrangement Tehran has flatly rejected. Is the war back on? And is there any diplomatic path left to pull both sides back from the brink?  * “Rutte Awakening.” NATO’s leaders gathered in Ankara last week for a summit that Secretary General Mark Rutte billed as the launch of “NATO 3.0”—a stronger, more self-reliant Europe inside an alliance less dependent on the United States. Allies touted rapid progress toward last year’s pledge to spend 5% of GDP on defense, announcing more than $50 billion in new procurement and at least €70 billion in fresh military aid for Ukraine. But the gathering was overshadowed by friction with President Trump, who publicly berated allies for declining to help in the Iran war and briefly revived his campaign to acquire Greenland before ending on a somewhat more conciliatory note. What did the Ankara summit actually accomplish? And what does “NATO 3.0” mean for the alliance’s future? * “Bad Bromance.” The once-close alliance between Washington and Jerusalem—and between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu—is showing unusual public strain. Trump has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu over Israel’s continued operations in Lebanon—which have threatened the Iran ceasefire—and over the stalled second phase of his Gaza peace plan, which has all but wilted as Hamas refuses to disarm and Israel refuses to withdraw. Defense Secretary Hegseth abruptly canceled a planned trip to Israel, and a possible F-35 sale to Turkey has added to the unease. The tensions turned vivid this past week when Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna said he was detained for more than an hour by armed Israeli settlers—and then by IDF soldiers—during a West Bank visit, and armed settlers attacked a CNN crew and other journalists days later. At home, Israeli confidence in Trump has plummeted in advance of Israeli elections in October, even as U.S. primaries have produced a record number of candidates critical of Israel, particularly on the left. Just how strained is the U.S.-Israeli relationship? And how might Israel’s coming elections—and America’s midterms—reshape it? (Also see the Atlantic article by Thomas Wright that Julia references here [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/07/democrats-foreign-policy-future/687816/].) In object lessons, Dan reviews the movie The Invite [https://a24films.com/films/the-invite], and it’s complicated. Ari reviews Israeli jazz musician Avishai Cohen’s new album “Eternal Child [https://avishaicohenshop.com/product/eternal-child-vinyl/]” and is totally engaged. Scott remembers the influential life and career [https://thedispatch.com/article/lindsey-graham-obituary-trump-foreign-policy-senate/] of Lindsey Graham, separating himself from any alleged involvement in a long-ago gym-mat scandal. And Julia is in love with post-SCIF life, especially one in which she can work from the serenity of her mother’s paradisiacal porch. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lawfare Daily: What Do the Russians Actually Think About the War?

On today’s episode, Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina talks to Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about how the Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy sites are shifting attitudes towards the war inside Russia. They also discuss Maria’s latest report, co-authored with Jade McGlynn, called “Russian Attitudes Are Shifting as the War’s Effects Come Home [https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-attitudes-are-shifting-wars-effects-come-home].” ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lawfare Daily: AI Targeting Systems Are Coming—But Not as Fast as You Think

On this episode, Senior Editor Kate Klonick speaks with Steve Feldstein, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about his recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists essay [https://thebulletin.org/2026/06/ai-targeting-systems-are-coming-but-not-as-fast-as-many-assume/] on AI targeting systems. Feldstein argues that the conventional wisdom about AI warfare has it backwards: the technology's battlefield debut in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza is real and consequential, but AI targeting is not a model you download—it's a stack of surveillance infrastructure, data pipelines, battle management software, and strike capacity that takes decades and billions to build, which means it will spread far more slowly and unevenly than the common narrative suggests. Among the things they discuss: what the Iran War's staggering Maven numbers do and don't prove, how Israel became the case study in what it actually takes to build an AI kill chain, why the same handful of American tech companies that govern online speech now supply the infrastructure of targeting—and who is accountable when they do, whether the UAE is next, and whether export controls, or norms, can realistically slow any of it down. Additional resources: * Steve Feldstein, “Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalry, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250394088/bytesandbullets/]” (St. Martin's Press, September 2026) * Steve Feldstein, "Anthropic-Pentagon Feud Over AI Technology Is a Bad Sign [https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/25/anthropic-pentagon-feud-ai/]" (Foreign Policy, February 2026) * Steve Feldstein, “The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance [https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Digital-Repression-Technology-Resistance/dp/0190057491]” (Oxford University Press, 2021) ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lawfare Daily: Taking Stock of the Ukraine-Russia Talks

Lawfare Contributing Editor Mykhailo Soldatenko sits down with Eric Ciaramella, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Samuel Charap, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, to take stock of the U.S.-led negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. They discuss the improvements in Ukraine's position, the structure of negotiations, territorial questions, and security commitments to Ukraine. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 10

In a live conversation on YouTube [https://youtube.com/live/WVO2m0PoHAU], Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff to discuss the Justice Department settling a second suit with Michael Flynn, developments in the E. Jean Carroll litigation, the D.C. Circuit denying a stay pending appeal of the order to take Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center, and more. You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here [https://www.lawfaremedia.org/trumplitigationtracker]. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation [https://www.lawfaremedia.org/projects-series/trials-of-the-trump-administration], new Bluesky account [https://bsky.app/profile/trumplitigation.lawfaremedia.org], and new WITOAD merch [https://thelawfarestore.com/]. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare [http://www.patreon.com/lawfare]. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.