This essay is adapted from a 2005 book chapter that explained the benefits of studying law in the US, specifically explaining why civil law-trained lawyers from Brazil would benefit. I recently revised the version you can view here to bring it up to date and explain its relevance for students from around the world.

Originally published in Globalizacao Economica, Meio Ambiente E Sociedade Civil edited by Claudia Lima Marques
2006

This article examines the Proliferation Security Initiative - a multinational activity launched in 2003 to enable the United States and like-minded countries to interdict the flow of weapons of mass destruction. This Initiative may also bring dramatic changes the international security system by enabling concerned states to interdict international trade in weapons of mass destruction regardless of the location or nationality of their owners. As such, the Proliferation Security Initiative not only addresses one of the most urgent threats to peace and security that the world has ever witnessed but it does so in an innovative way that has the potential to change the basic paradigm of peace and security by legitimizing the proportional and discriminating use of force to prevent a great harm. This article argues that the Initiative can be most successful by building broad support through increased transparency and a greater willingness to address forth-rightly the legal challenges that it faces.

Houston Journal of International Law
Spring 2006

This article examines the President's authority to initiate preventive war. Published in the months before the Iraq war, it insisted that the President must seek congressional approval for preemptive invasions.

Human Rights (The magazine of the ABA's Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities)
Winter 2003

The remarkable and unprecedented expansion of state power and its centralization in the executive branch during the Cold War era has been explained in many ways. Yet the story would not be complete without an examination of its early origins in the Progressive era, specifically in the ideology, agenda, and activities of the National Security League (NSL). The NSL was a public service organization founded in 1914 to lobby for increased and improved preparation for America's defense from enemies at home and abroad. This article examines the NSL's history and argues that the measures that formed the basis of the Cold War national security regime had been proposed long before the National Security Act of 1947. The national security state was built from blueprints drawn by the leaders of the NSL during the First World War.

Penn State Dickinson Law Review
Winter 2000

As societies and economies increasingly rely on electronic telecommunications, they grow more vulnerable to threats from other computer systems. Dropping an explosive on a computer server or a hydroelectric dam, using a laser to destroy a telephone line, or using a directed electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) to disrupt a satellite's operations have enough similarity to conventional warfare that the traditional LOAC would still apply. As the International Court of Justice recently held, this regime does not by itself preclude operations that have a secondary or collateral impact on civilians as long as the intended target is an armed force or other military objective. Despite these differences, three traditional principles remain valuable for discriminating between legitimate and illegitimate targets: military necessity, humanity, and chivalry. On the other hand, it might halt an information attack that would disable the computers controlling not only air defense but also civilian aviation or an automated subway system. While it is important to weigh military necessity, humanity, and chivalry, some categories of outright impermissible activities present themselves in the area of IW. Second, the proposed protocol does not contain a definition of an information operation. Still, the principles of military necessity, humanity, and chivalry provide valuable limitations.

Columbia Journal of Transnational Law
Spring 1999

One of the most exciting learning opportunities of my life was participating in a MacArthur Foundation supported series of workshops on the politics of strategic adjustment. Chaired by political scientists, these workshops brought together approximately a dozen young scholars to examine the roles of ideas, institutions and interests in shaping US national military strategy in an time of strategic flux. This work required each of us to develop case studies on a given era. Fortunately for me, I had recently completed a dissertation on the emergence of a new, aggressive naval strategy in the late nineteenth century, so I had an empirical advantage over most of my colleagues. On the other hand, they had a powerful advantage over me in terms of their rigorous political methodology. So I learned a tremendous amount about how to focus a thesis to identify the critical factors in the "case" I had already dedicated five years to investigating. The result was a chapter that summarized my dissertation and moved it forward in some methodologically useful ways. Fortunately, I completed the work in time to include its learning in my published dissertation as well. This work clarified in my mind the great value I place as a scholar (and a person) on the impact of ideas -- over institutions and interests -- in shaping human destiny. I carry this belief with me every time I enter a classroom or commence a new research project.

The Politics of Strategic Adjustment edited by Peter Trubowitz, Emily O. Goldman and Edward Rhodes
Columbia University Press

In the fall of 1991, a new strategic era emerged with the fall of the Soviet bloc. Insecurity abounded, and as the US struggled to reshape its national security apparatus to meet new challenges, an old debate resurfaced: to what extent should intelligence services provide objective information versus actionable intelligence? The question arose when President George H.W. Bush nominated Robert M. Gates to serve as Director of Central Intelligence. Gates had been a vocal supporter of providing actionable intelligence, and many critics believed that this attitude had skewed Cold War intelligence to the extent that the CIA had failed to see the fissures appearing in the Soviet bloc and then to predict its remarkable demise. My article investigated the ways that an earlier era's leaders dealt with the tension between objective investigation and the president's need for practical advice. This article concluded that when intelligence professionals knows the answers they are supposed to provide, they invariably provide it. This lesson has been echoed most recently in James Risen's fascinating study State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration which argues that DCI George Tenet bent the Agency to an agenda that led to the misbegotten war in Iraq.

Intelligence and National Security
April 1993