Volume 16

Nahal Kazemi* [This essay is available in PDF at this link] Abstract In 2021, the United States government identified countering corruption as a core national security interest for the first time. However, corrupt police and military forces supported by the United States in countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Nigeria, actively undermine security and reveal a profound weakness in the previous administration’s strategic anti-corruption priorities. Where the recipient government lacks the will to combat corruption, traditional anti-corruption tools are ineffective. Experts on combating international corruption, from government, the academy, and civil society agree on the importance of focusing anti-corruption efforts on […]

Anu Bradford,* Eileen Li,** & Matthew C. Waxman*** [This essay is available in PDF at this link] Abstract The United States (U.S.), China, and the European Union (EU) are engaged in a national security-driven economic competition over advanced technology. Many scholars and commentators focus on the external dimension of this geopolitical contest; that is, they describe the strategic choices by each actor in terms of geopolitical realities, threat perceptions, and relative power. However, this Article brings to the fore the internal dimension of the global tech war. We argue that each player’s strategy in the tech war is a function

Crispin Smith* [This essay is available in PDF at this link] Abstract The United States military and intelligence communities are sounding the alarm about the escalating risk of interstate conflict with the People’s Republic of China. China is already a premier practitioner of “lawfare” in the context of interstate competition, but the impact of Chinese lawfare in potential active conflict scenarios could be even more profound. Indeed, Chinese lawfare could set the conditions for U.S. or allied forces’ defeat before a single shot is fired. This paper introduces the concept of “operational lawfare” as the application of lawfare during interstate

Articles Protecting the U.S. National Security State from a Rogue President By Laura A. Dickinson The presidency of Donald Trump revealed weaknesses in the U.S. constitutional structure and its legal rules, weaknesses that had been covered over for most of our history because presidents of all political parties voluntarily obeyed norms of behavior that kept the presidency within the bounds of constitutional democratic governance. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that such norms have been permanently restored. Thus, scholars, policymakers, and judges must consider now how to protect the rule of law from a rogue president, rather than waiting for the