Author name: Branden Loizides

By Daniel Jacobson — As the public digests the results of last week’s midterm elections, many commentators have begun discussing how the makeup of the new Congress will affect various legislative areas, including national security.  Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare (and NSJ advisory-board member) suggests that the election’s impact on substantive national security issues will likely be “minimal,” noting that the 111th Congress acted much in the same way that a Republican-controlled Congress could have been expected to act. While Wittes certainly has a fair point concerning the high level of continuity on national security policies regardless of the party in

By John Cella — On November 8, former Central Intelligence Agency Acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo visited Harvard Law School at an event sponsored by the Harvard National Security Law Association. Currently a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Rizzo is now working on a memoir detailing his 34 years of service at the CIA. Except for a period in 2002-2003 when Scott Muller was appointed, Rizzo served as the CIA Acting General Counsel from late 2001 through 2009. Rizzo spoke about his start at the Agency in 1976, when he was one of only 18 lawyers. Rizzo noted

By Ronak D. Desai — With President Obama’s visit to India underway, officials in New Delhi are working with Washington to ease American concerns over nuclear liability legislation recently enacted by the Indian Parliament that effectively precludes nuclear commerce between the United States and India.  Formally entitled, “Civil Liability for the Nuclear Damages Bill, 2010,” the legislation should have represented the last stage toward completion of the landmark Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal, but it instead threatens to undermine the practical effects of the civilian nuclear accord. Unveiled in 2005 by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,