Lawfare Archive: CYBERCOM Legal Conference: The Role of the Private Sector in Conflict

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4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

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Summary

From April 24, 2024: The annual U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) Legal Conference convenes lawyers across government and the private sector working on cyber issues. This year’s conference focused on the power of partnerships. Executive Editor Natalie Orpett moderated a panel, titled “The Business of Battle: Navigating the Role of the Private Sector in Conflict,” featuring Jonathan Horowitz of the International Committee for the Red Cross, Laurie Blank of the Defense Department’s Office of the General Counsel, and Adam Hickey of the law firm Mayer Brown. They talked about how government and private sector actors bring different frames of reference and different equities when faced with a conflict, and how they can work together to address it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Isabella Royo, Internet Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare Archive for October 26, 2025.
0:17.2	On October 9th, Lawfare published a piece about proposed reforms to military acquisition,
0:21.7	in which the authors argued in favor of maintaining robust government oversight over military weapons acquisition from private contractors.
0:28.7	The day before, a different lawfare piece on Microsoft's decision to sever services to Israel's elite intelligence unit
0:34.2	over their mass surveillance of Palestinians, illuminated a different dimension
0:38.1	of the emerging relationship between traditional national security entities and their private
0:42.4	sector partners. For today's archive, I chose an episode from April 24, 2004, in which Natalie
0:49.1	Orpit moderated a panel featuring Jonathan Horowitz, Laurie Blank, and Adam Hickey, entitled
0:53.7	The Business of Battle,
0:55.3	navigating the role of the private sector in conflict.
0:58.0	The four discussed how government and private sector actors bring different incentives and frames of reference to a conflict,
1:03.4	the legal obligations that bind each party, how reputational concerns influence the relationship between them and more.
1:26.6	It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Natalie Orpet, executive editor of Lawfare, with Jonathan Horowitz,
1:28.8	Lori Blank, and Adam Hickey.
1:36.0	Things like where a private technology company provides goods or services to a belligerent in a party-torn armed conflict such that their infrastructure might qualify as a military objective.
1:43.6	And do company executives know that? And do their
1:46.4	lawyers know that? Today we're bringing you a panel discussion I'm moderated at the U.S.
1:51.5	Cybercoms legal conference on April 9th. The title of the panel was The Business of Battle,
1:58.7	navigating the role of the private sector in conflict.
2:03.6	So the premise that we have here for this panel is that there will need to be rapid-fire communication and partnership between the private sector and government in times of conflict.
2:15.6	But before we even get there, I think it's clear to most of us that
2:20.9	private sector and government actors sometimes speak quite different languages. And so it's useful to
	...

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