Rational Security: The “Long Middle Finger of Europe” Edition
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2023
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Ravi Agrawal, Editor in Chief of Foreign Policy Magazine, to talk through the week’s big natsec news, including:
- “Pledge Week.” In a sign of strength, NATO held its annual summit in the capital of Vilnius this week, just kilometers from Lithuania’s border with Belarus. But those hoping to join the club have gotten mixed receptions, with NATO members securing a clear path for Sweden to join the alliance without presenting a clear way forward for embattled Ukraine. What did we learn about the state of the alliance from this week’s historic meeting?
- “Cluster Ruck(us).” Late last week, the Biden administration made the controversial decision to provide U.S. cluster munitions—a type of weapon that many U.S. allies have banned by treaty, due to concerns about civilian casualties—to its ally Ukraine. Is it the right move? And what might it mean on the battlefield—and after the war is over?
- “Needling and Threads.” Mark Zuckerberg appears to have finally gotten under the skin of tech billionaire Elon Musk, as his recently launched competitor to Musk’s beleaguered Twitter, Threads, launched last week and soon secured over 100 million users. Has Twitter finally met its match? And what will Threads and other competitors mean for the future of the information (and disinformation) economy?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm GeoKokutakis, intern at LawFair with an episode of rational security for July 16, |
| 0:41.9 | 2023. |
| 0:43.7 | For today's episode, the team at LawFair decided to cross post this week's episode of rational |
| 0:48.7 | security. |
| 0:49.7 | A podcast hosted by Scott Ar Anderson, Quintet Jurassic, and Alan Rosenstein in which they |
| 0:54.6 | cover the week's big national security news stories. |
| 0:58.2 | Today's episode is entitled The Long Middle Finger of Europe Edition. |
| 1:02.3 | This week, Anderson, Jurassic, and Rosenstein sat down with Ravi Agrawal to discuss NATO's |
| 1:08.0 | annual summit in Vilnius. |
| 1:10.0 | The Biden administration's controversial decision to send US cluster munitions to Ukraine, |
| 1:15.5 | Mark Zuckerberg's launch of threats and more. |
| 1:18.8 | This is rational security. |
| 1:25.1 | So every time I think about Vilnius, which to be honest, I don't think about very often, |
| 1:29.3 | I just think of the Hunferedoctober, and I'm just wondering if I'm the only person that |
| 1:34.6 | is treating this as the Hunferedoctober themed NATO summit. |
| 1:38.4 | Probably yes, but I do get the reference. |
| 1:41.8 | I shouldn't be the only person that's sad. |
... |
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