Author Archive | Kenneth Anderson

Camille Paglia writes an essay in the weekend Wall Street Journal Review on the state of the visual arts in America today (seems to be open access on the website).  As I imagine is true of many readers, I blow hot and cold on Paglia; some things are dead on and others dead misses, but […]

File this under “extremely speculative” (and it also goes on for a while, so be warned).  But I’ve been working – mostly with Columbia’s Matthew Waxman – on autonomous weapons systems for a while now, with particular focus on the incremental ways in which weapons platforms gradually increase their levels of automation until, someday, they […]

Noel Sharkey is a long-time scientist and researcher in AI who has more recently turned his attention to autonomous weapons systems.  He is sharply critical of them and is a leading member of a campaign based in Britain to ban them from the get-go.  He discusses these issues in a very interesting podcast on “SuchThatCast […]

Last term the Supreme Court heard arguments in Kiobel, an Alien Tort Statute case that presented, among other things, the question of whether the ATS includes corporate liability – with, of course, large implications for corporations both domestic and foreign.  To everyone’s surprise, at oral argument the questions ran far more to the question of […]

The much-awaited Lawfare Drone Smackdown is taking place today – as I write, in fact, at an undisclosed location somewhere sufficiently far away from DC in Virginia that it will not run afoul of the FAA’s objections.  It’s a long and complicated saga that you can catch up with at Lawfare, but the short version […]

After a blogging hiatus over the summer due to some family medical issues – all happily resolved – I am moving back to posting on a regular basis. I’ve missed posting here at VC and the Volokh community; family circumstances left me with less time to post, but more time to read, and I plan […]

For various family reasons, I have been mostly off-line during the last few months, but I could not let slip by the sad news of the passing of Sir John Keegan, the renowned military historian and author of many works that certainly shaped my thinking and, I would guess, that of many of our readers. […]

One common theme in the higher education-and-economy debates is that students would be better off skipping the “soft” subjects and going for STEM – “Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.”  In comments to some of my posts on higher education, commenters sometimes seem to endorse something close the idea that, since all advances in the standard of […]

During the month of July, negotiations will be under way in New York over a proposed arms trade treaty (links roundup at Opinio Juris).  Meanwhile, note the release of a letter from some 130 US lawmakers to the Obama administration warning it against any weakening of US sovereign rights or individual 2nd Amendment rights in […]

That’s not me talking in the post title, it’s Economist blogger Emma Bond, writing on her Tumbler blog about a friend’s email, which makes note of the following UN entity: Open-ended Ad Hoc Working Group of the General Assembly on the Integrated and Coordinated Implementation of and Follow-up to the Major United Nations Conferences and […]

My corner of the national security law world is abuzz today reading the outstanding New York Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.” As Ben Wittes says at Lawfare, it is a richly textured, detailed look at how the administration approaches targeted killing […]

While we are celebrating Memorial Day and the armed forces, hold a thought for agents of the CIA, which last week held its annual remembrance for those lost in service of the CIA, and attended by hundreds of CIA staff and family members. This year the CIA added a new star to its memorial wall […]

New York Magazine has a lengthy, fascinating article – yes, even tantalizing, if, like me, you follow the business side of media and were once a NYT Co shareholder – in the current issue on the inside process by which Janet Robinson, the ex-NYT Co CEO, was forced out in December 2011. Fired, however, with […]

Further to my last post, wishing everyone a Happy Memorial Day, a commenter chides the use of “Happy Memorial Day” and, by implication, the idea of a happy holiday: I do not believe malice is intended, but do you not see a conflict with placing “Happy” within the phrase involving Memorial Day? It’s not a […]