When Red Lines Fade Away
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jack Goldsmith is feeling a little bit grouchy. In a piece on Lawfare entitled, "Empty Threats and Warnings on Cyber," he blasts the Biden administration and its predecessors for "publicly pledging to impose 'consequences' on Russia for its cyber actions for at least five years—usually, as here, following a hand-wringing government deliberation in the face of a devastating cyber incident." Goldsmith catalogs the recent history of administrations promising big action against Russia, yet seeming to take none, and he asks why we would do this. Why would we thus erode our deterrent capability?
He joined Benjamin Wittes to discuss the latest of these statements, the history of them and the question of why the United States keeps speaking loudly and carrying such a small stick.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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. |
| 0:33.9 | There's so many strange things about the United States posture and cyber. |
| 0:38.6 | There's this constant boasting about how powerful we are and this constant threats about |
| 0:42.4 | doing these things to people who mess with us that don't seem to materialize and don't |
| 0:46.8 | seem to be working. |
| 0:48.4 | We're also the only country that we actually boast about living in adversary networks. |
| 0:53.4 | I mean that's what defend forward is. |
| 0:56.4 | That's what it's been described as. |
| 0:58.6 | We're the only country as I said earlier that talks about how powerful its capabilities |
| 1:03.1 | are. |
| 1:04.1 | It's just a very, very strange posture. |
| 1:07.2 | I'm Benjamin Whitties and this is the LawFair podcast July 14, 2021. |
| 1:14.4 | Jack Goldsmith is feeling a little bit grouchy today in a piece on LawFair entitled |
| 1:21.1 | Empty Threats and Warnings on Cyber. |
| 1:24.2 | He blasts the Biden administration and its predecessors for quote publicly pledging to |
| 1:32.2 | impose consequences on Russia for its cyber actions over the last five years. |
| 1:39.4 | Usually as here, following a hand-ringing government deliberation in the face of a devastating |
| 1:45.8 | cyber incident. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.