Professor Stephen Holmes
Professor David Golove
Professor Rachel Goldbrenner
Spring 2022
Thursdays, 3:20–5:20 p.m.
LAW-LW.11698.001
2 credits
The Colloquium will explore a broad array of emerging issues in the rapidly changing field of national security. Today, U.S. policy makers no longer see transnational terrorism as the central threat to American national security. Unchallenged American hegemony is increasingly a feature of the past. The nature of how we fight as well as how we cooperate across borders is changing. Phenomena like the COVID pandemic pose both domestic and international challenges. The aim of the seminar, therefore, is to define and debate the new, complex and evolving threat environment facing the country in the third decade of the twenty-first century. We will look abroad, including at deteriorating relations with an increasingly powerful China and a belligerent Russia, the threat of cyber warfare and “gray zone” tactics, the weakening of America’s traditional alliances and values, and emerging conflicts in regions such as the Middle East. And we will also focus on domestic issues in the United States, including white nationalism and systemic racism, strains on our system of democracy, challenges within our national security bureaucracy, and persistent, and growing, questions around executive powers and the adequacy of Congressional oversight. Each week we will engage with a presentation by an eminent national security expert—including former government officials, legal academics, international relations specialists, journalists, and human rights advocates—as we explore the defining features and dilemmas of today’s national security law and policy.
Spring 2022 Schedule of Presenters
Thursday, January 27
Danielle Citron (University of Virginia School of Law)
Government Spies and the Future of Privacy
Thursday, February 3
Anne-Marie Slaughter (New America)
Rethinking National Security: Globalism vs. Nationalism
Thursday, February 10
Naz Modirzadeh (Harvard Law School)
Passion and the International Law of War
Thursday, February 17
Oona Hathaway (Yale Law School)
National Security Lawyering
Thursday, February 24
Bobby Chesney (University of Texas School of Law)
Operation Goldenrod and the Hybrid Model of Counterterrorism: Mixing Military and Law Enforcement Elements
Thursday, March 3
Samuel Moyn (Yale Law School)
How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvent War
Thursday, March 10
Aziz Huq (University of Chicago School of Law)
Islam, Terrorism, and Democratic Backsliding
Thursday, March 24
Susan Thornton (Yale Law School)
Prospects for US - China Relations in a Globalized World
Thursday, March 31
Steve Simon (Minnesota Secretary of State)
A New American Civil War?
Thursday, April 7
Anatol Lieven (Kings College, London)
Climate Change as the Greatest Threat to American National Security
Thursday, April 14
Tendayi Achiume (University of California)
Racial Borders
Thursday, April 21
Ambassador Gerard Araund (Atlantic Council)
US - EU Relations and the Future of the Atlantic Alliance