Welcome to the Blogosphere, Lawfare

Bobby Chesney, Jack Goldsmith, and Ben Wittes have started a new blog, Lawfare: Hard National Security Choices.  Here’s how Ben Wittes describes it in the opening post:

We mean to devote this blog to that nebulous zone in which actions taken or contemplated to protect the nation interact with the nation’s laws and legal institutions. We will, I am sure, construe this subject broadly to include subjects as far-flung as cybersecurity, Guantánamo habeas litigation, targeted killing, biosecurity, universal jurisdiction, the Alien Tort Statute, the state secrets privilege and countless other related and not-so-related matters.

We have all written extensively in this space, both individually and collectively. Our purpose in creating this blog is to create a collective outlet for shorter writing that is more responsive to the ongoing events.

The name Lawfare refers both to the use of law as a weapon of conflict and, perhaps more importantly, to the depressing reality that America remains at war with itself over the law governing its warfare with others. This latter sense of the word—which is admittedly not its normal usage—binds together a great deal of our work over the years. It is our hope to provide an ongoing commentary on America’s lawfare, even as we participate in many of its skirmishes.

So far they’ve already blogged about targeted killings, detention, and al Bihani. Given the bloggers and their prior work, I’m sure Lawfare will quickly join the ranks of indispensible reading on national security law issues.