Rational Security: The “Sara-FIN” Edition
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2023
⏱️ 68 minutes
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Summary
This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare colleagues Eric Ciaramella and Saraphin Dhanani, the latter for her last episode of RatSec before departing Lawfare, to break down the week’s big national security news stories, including:
- “UNGA UNGA Party.” President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy made back-to-back addresses to the U.N. General Assembly, which is gathered in New York for its annual summit this week. What should we make of their statements? Might this be a turning point for the conflict—and, if so, in which direction?
- “Et Tu, Modi?” Canada has leveled a serious allegation against the government of India: that it was directly involved in the recent assassination of a Sikh separatist leader (and Canadian citizen) on Canadian soil—something that promises to complicate U.S. efforts to bring India into the fold as a balance to China. How credible are these claims and what might they mean?
- “Ransomwhere?” The Biden administration has struck a deal with the government of Iran, exchanging several imprisoned Iranian nationals and $6 billion in frozen oil revenue for five U.S. nationals held by Iran and their spouses. Is this negotiating with terrorists, a new opening for Iran negotiations, or something else entirely?
For object lessons, Quinta recommended Tyler Austin Harper’s penetrating review of Richard Hanania’s “The Origins of Woke.” Eric also went the critic’s route and passed along Gary Shteyngart’s withering review of Walter Isaacson’s new Elon Musk biography. Scott urged anyone with a junior mycologist at home to run out and find Elise Gravel’s charming “The Mushroom Fan Club.” And Saraphin gave a double-headed finale: BBC’s controversial documentary “India: The Modi Question,” which has been banned in India; and David Brooks’ recent article, “How America Got Mean.”
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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, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.8 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:55.6 | I'm Caleb Benjamin, intern at LawFair with an episode of rational security for September |
| 1:16.7 | 24, 2023. For today's episode, the team at LawFair decided to cross-post this week's episode |
| 1:22.9 | of rational security. A podcast hosted by Scott R. Anderson, Quintet Jurassic, and Alan |
| 1:27.8 | Rosenstein, in which they cover the week's big national security news stories. Today's |
| 1:32.3 | episode is entitled The Seraphine Edition. This week, Anderson and Jurassic set down with |
| 1:37.5 | Eric Tremello and Seraphine Denani to discuss President Biden and E. Cretian President |
| 1:42.1 | Volodymyr Zelensky's addresses to the UN General Assembly. Kenna's allegation that the |
| 1:47.0 | Indian government was involved in the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen |
| 1:52.7 | on Canadian soil. The prisoner swap deal, the Biden administration struck with Iran and |
| 1:58.3 | more. This is rational security. |
| 2:03.7 | Seraphine has New York. Oh, we're going to talk about anger today, the UN General Assembly, |
| 2:09.3 | but traffic has been wild. So I took the M31 cross-town bus and we were stalled in the |
| 2:16.3 | same spot for about 15-20 minutes. So the best driver was kind enough to open the door |
| 2:21.1 | and let us all out, which is a big no-no in New York. He was over it. We were over it, |
| 2:26.3 | and that's been the state of New York these days. So if you want to travel underground, |
| 2:30.9 | don't travel over ground on ground. I feel like that's generally a good New York rule in |
| 2:36.2 | the winter. Underground always feels like you're like, you know, stuck inside one of |
| 2:40.4 | those creatures from Star Wars trying to huddle against the cold, where it's always like |
... |
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