The “Unboxing Day” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2023

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Quinta and Scott rang in the New Year with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes by discussing some listener-submitted topics, including:

What does the AUKUS deal mean for the Five Eyes intelligence relationship?
How can courts enforce a gag order against former President Trump?
What would a President Nikki Haley mean for the Republican Party’s foreign policy?
Which is better, wizards or fighters?
Could anything stop former President Trump from appointing a cabinet of loyalists if elected back into the White House?
How is misinformation impacting public understandings of the Gaza conflict?
What advice would you give to folks beginning law school—and those married to them?
Could we just do away with hard printouts of classified information altogether?
How will China’s economic and demographic challenges impact its decision-making on Taiwan?
What does Prighozin’s death mean for Wagner in Africa?
What was your most (or least) favorite media of the year?

As for object lessons, they shared several sent in by listeners, including:

The video game Pentiment, a murder mystery set in Renaissance Bavaria;
The book “Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of Middle East Conflict” by Oren Kessler;
The “anti-reactionary conservative news site” The Dispatch, including its podcasts Advisory Opinions, The Remnant, and The Dispatch Podcast;
The book “Three Dangerous Men” by Seth Jones, examining military leaders in China, Iran, and Russia;
The book “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann (but not the movie);
The podcast “The Prince” about the rise of Xi Jinping (along with The Economist’s other phenomenal podcast work);
The book “Listen Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People” by Thomas Frank;
The new book “For the People, For the Country” by John Ragosta, a political biography of Patrick Henry;
And LinkedIn as the hot new social networking site!

Thank you to everyone for listening to Rational Security and supporting Lawfare throughout the year. We hope you enjoy a Happy New Year, and we will be back in your feeds in 2024!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Guys, I think this is maybe the very first transcontinental rational security
0:07.0	episode as we've got both coasts and the middle of the country covered, but
0:11.1	not that time zone that island's often coming in from. But other than that, we got most of it covered.
0:14.8	I think we should invite Alan to pop in for a moment so we can have the Central Time Zone covered
0:21.0	and then ask somebody from Alaska and somebody from Hawaii to pop in so that
0:27.2	we can we can say we've covered all US time zones., I'm mostly excited because as Molly Reynolds and I have become obsessed with the fact
0:37.1	that John Eastman's emails as produced to the January 6th Committee are for some reason all in Mountain Time despite the fact that he was not on Mountain
0:46.2	time and so now we have Scott on Mountain Time.
0:49.8	Mountain time is a state of mind you you see. That's a thing.
0:53.8	It's just like, you're like, oh, it's kind of high altitude.
0:56.7	I'm not thinking that's true, that clearly.
0:58.4	Right, your mind gets a little fuzzy.
1:00.0	The laws work differently at a certain level of oxygenation.
1:03.8	Yeah, you can't bake shit.
1:05.4	It's exactly.
1:06.0	It's the same idea.
1:07.0	Altitudes complicated.
1:08.7	So, okay, so what altitude are you at, Scott am I am mile high officially in Denver, Colorado.
1:16.3	Every time I come here I feel like complete garbage for the first 48 hours because the
1:20.4	altitude really gets you like if you're just not raised I'm from the DC
1:23.7	swamps man I'm a swamp creature I like a little below sea levels about where I live
1:27.9	uh... and this is a big adjustment for me but once you get used to it it's gorgeous and
	...

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