In Defense of Crazy Talk: Why Bradford’s West Point Article is Worth Talking About

War on The Rocks September 10, 2015 The dust has now settled after William C. Bradford, a newly hired West Point law professor, made headlines for a controversial essay published in the little-read student-run National Security Law Journal. The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman reported that Bradford was denied tenure a decade ago from the Indiana University School of Law for wildly misrepresenting…

Torture Doesn’t Work: The CIA Torture Report’s Long Shadow

The National Interest December 11, 2014 Despite more than a decade of reports that the U.S. government had tortured high-level terrorist suspects, including a frank, if detached, admission from President Obama that the nation had “tortured some folks,” Tuesday’s release of the Senate study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program was chilling. We learned…

Whack-a-Mole: Obama’s Real ISIS Strategy

The National Interest September 12, 2014 Two weeks after declaring that he had no strategy for dealing with ISIS, President Obama declared his existing policy a strategy. Given that he came to national prominence and won the presidency almost solely on the basis of having been alone among the serious Democratic aspirants to have opposed…

Ahmed Abu Khattala and the Miranda-Rights Question

Butch Bracknell and James Joyner The National Interest July 7, 2014 The September 11, 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya were, according to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources, designed and led by Ahmed Abu Khattala, a Libyan jihadist. Recently, Khattala was captured by U.S. special-operations forces and transported to a U.S. Navy…

Interview with Jed Babbin

The New Individualist March 2008 TNI‘s Interview with Jed Babbin, by James Joyner Jed Babbin is an attorney and international affairs expert who served as a deputy undersecretary of defense during the administration of George H.W. Bush. A commentator and prolific author, he has written a new book, In the Words of Our Enemies, published by…

New War and the Threat to Globalization

TCS Daily June 26, 2007 Editor’s note: TCS contributor James Joyner recently interviewed John Robb of the Global Guerrillas blog on his new book Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. Robb paints a picture of a resilient enemy that morphs into something new just as we develop ways to protect…

Interview with Author John Robb

Washington Examiner May 23, 2007 James Joyner: Throughout the book, you point out how easy it would be for relatively small groups with minimal funding to create power blackouts, disrupt our oil distribution networks, or even stage 9/11-style attacks on a routine basis. Why do you suppose that hasn’t already happened? For that matter, we…

Review: Brave New War

Washington Examiner May 22, 2007 REVIEW: John Robb, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization (New York: Wiley, 2007). John Robb has spent his career studying terrorism, computer systems, and risk management. He has brought these experiences to bear in this vital study of global terrorism. The view is…

Risk-Terrorism Analysis

TCS Daily August 21, 2006 Reason magazine science correspondent and TCS Daily contributor Ron Bailey argues that our fear of terrorist attacks is irrational, because you’re more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder. He concludes that, “with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our…

Bombing to Lose: Why Israel failed in Lebanon

Reason August 16, 2006 Just hours after the cease-fire with Lebanon took effect Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave a speech to the Knesset acknowledging “deficiencies” in the way the war was conducted. Buffeted by critics on the left and right, he added that, “We will have to review ourselves in all the battles” and pledged,…