The “Altered State” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes and Eric Ciaramella to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:

“With Arms Wide Open.” After years of open skepticism toward Ukraine (and uncharacteristic deference to Russia), it seems President Trump may have turned a page. His rhetoric has grown cooler toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he has proven more willing to provide arms to Ukraine, even over contrary efforts by some of his advisers—including an agreement to provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles and other U.S.-made, Europe-funded weapons. What explains this switch? And how durable is it likely to prove?
“Hitting Foggy Bottom.” Just days after the Supreme Court removed a preliminary injunction, the State Department went forward with substantial personnel cuts, RIFing 1,350 foreign and civil service personnel in Washington, D.C. It’s all part of a much broader reorganization that State Department leadership claims will make the Department leaner or more efficient, even as it guts personnel working on issues disfavored by the Trump administration.
“Waiting for the Intel Impressment.” Since the Trump administration’s June 21 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a heated debate has raged over their effects. The administration maintains the strikes were “historically successful” and permanently set back the Iranian nuclear program. But media reports source to people within the intelligence community have suggested a much more limited effect. How should we weigh these competing claims? And when will we know the truth?

In object lessons, Ben asks for your public service in supporting Lawfare’s Public Service Fellowship. Scott pulled a Quinta with his recommendation of the New Yorker essay “Zohran Mamdani and Mahmoud Khalil Are in on the Joke,” by Hanif Abdurraquib. And Eric makes his summer travels epic by listening to the podcast, The Rest is History.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	have you all flown back through Reagan National Airport recently, particularly since they
0:05.7	just like renovated their whole security area?
0:08.5	Well, yeah, but I got diverted to Dulles because the president said that he might be going
0:14.7	somewhere. And so a flight got diverted to Dulles and then all our bags were going to go through to National.
0:23.4	So I actually stayed on the plane for a nine-minute flight to National that then never happened.
0:31.1	Well, there you go. That's like a very DC traditional travel story, I feel like, in all ways.
0:36.5	I had the weirdest experience where they've renovated their security all around good improvements, but on the way out of the airport, the way out of the gated area before you go to the, you know, past the point of no return, out of the secure area, you have to walk through these double gates where you walk through one door and that closes behind, you walk
0:54.1	the other one.
0:54.8	And they have what can only be described as in, to my ear, sounds a little bit German woman's
0:59.8	voice making announcements, lying, saying, please proceed, please proceed.
1:03.4	And it is so distinctly dystopian.
1:06.2	I don't know what led to this particular design choice, especially because there are three
1:10.6	of them right next to each other. So you hear the same robotic German woman's voice saying, please proceed, overlapping with each other, kind of in like a YouTube remix sort of vibe, I think is the only way to describe it. And I'm just like, man, we have really, we've really kind of lost the thread a little bit on travel redesign. Better in so many ways. I think we really
1:27.6	lost on this particular one. Aren't you excited about not having to take your shoes off anymore?
1:32.8	It's like major victory. But I was pre anyway, so we didn't have to do that anyway. Well, you're
1:39.2	fancy. I mean, so am I. But yeah, so were you, I mean, come on. Everybody here uses pre. I actually have lazily never gotten pre, which I'm a little embarrassed by. Ben, I assumed you were just barefoot this whole time. You seem like a barefoot flyer. Am I wrong on this? Well, you're not wrong. I don't, it's not exactly barefoot, but I only wear, you know, shoes that I can slip on and off.
2:02.3	And I don't wear any clothes with pockets when I fly because I wear dog shirts and then, you know, like sweatpants or something.
2:11.4	And so I am TSA's dream.
2:14.6	I feel like that is actually the feature in your dog shirts that it's missing, particularly that dog shirt you're wearing now, which is a very wrinkly peculiar creature, because you could hide a pocket in that face of that dog so easily underneath one of those wrinkles, and it'd be like the ultimate security pouch. You could just slide it in under one jowl or on an ear flap, and then no one would even know, no one would be the wiser. See, you're giving away all my tradecraft for hijacking airplanes right here on the show.
2:40.7	And it hurts, Scott.
2:44.5	We'll get Ben on a no travel list.
2:46.6	That's fine.
	...

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