Lawfare is a nonprofit national-security-law publication founded in 2010 by Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney. It publishes original analysis, primary documents, podcasts, and the Lawfare Daily newsletter, and carries a body of essays on executive-branch, national-security, and US-China AI policy.
Overview
Lawfare describes itself as a non-profit multimedia publication dedicated to "Hard National Security Choices," providing what it characterizes as non-partisan, timely analysis of legal and policy issues across written, audio, and other formats (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare). It states an aim of achieving "academic-level depth with magazine-level readability at the pace of news," directed at policymakers and practitioners while remaining accessible to general readers (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare). Its stated coverage areas range across national security law, threats to democracy, cybersecurity, executive powers, content moderation, domestic extremism, and foreign policy (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare).
The site began in 2010 as a blog by Wittes, Goldsmith, and Chesney devoted to what its founders called "that nebulous zone in which actions taken or contemplated to protect the nation interact with the nation's laws and legal institutions," with stated subject matter including cybersecurity, Guantánamo habeas litigation, targeted killing, biosecurity, and the state secrets privilege (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-to-the-new-lawfare/). In a June 2015 announcement, Wittes wrote that the publication had "outgrown the blog format" and was relaunching on a new platform organized by topic, stating that it had served roughly 490,000 users in the first part of that year and that systems routing traffic to the site included those of the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the Senate, the State Department, the CIA, and the White House (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-to-the-new-lawfare/). The 2015 announcement also stated that the site had been targeted by denial-of-service attacks (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-to-the-new-lawfare/).
Lawfare publishes legal and policy analysis rather than advocacy. Its editorial team includes Alan Z. Rozenshtein (Senior Editor) and Kevin Frazier (Contributing Editor). Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/people/benjamin-wittes/).
Activities
Lawfare states that it draws on an in-house team of editors and correspondents together with regular contributors who include current and former government officials, journalists, practicing lawyers, and academics, and that it runs a Student Contributor program (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare). New articles are published every weekday, alongside special series the publication lists as including the Foreign Policy Essay, Book Reviews, and the Digital Social Contract paper series; Lawfare also publishes, summarizes, and curates primary-source documents on national-security matters (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare).
The publication produces a range of podcasts in cooperation with the production company Goat Rodeo, including The Lawfare Podcast, Rational Security, Chatter, Lawfare No Bull, and After Trump, and an anthology series, Lawfare Presents, with past seasons covering subjects such as the January 6 Capitol attack, the Mueller Report, and the first Trump impeachment (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare). It also hosts the National Security Law Podcast, co-hosted by co-founder Robert Chesney (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/podcasts-multimedia/podcast/national-security-law-podcast).
Lawfare's AI-related coverage spans executive-branch AI policy, AI cybersecurity and national-security risks, US-China AI competition and export-controls policy, AI litigation and litigation tracking, and a Cybersecurity & Tech vertical.
Two foundational AI-policy essays appeared in May 2026. On May 12, Kevin Frazier and Alan Z. Rozenshtein published an essay naming the "dominance by understanding" AI policy frame (Dominating AI Requires Understanding AI (Frazier + Rozenshtein, Lawfare, May 12 2026)). On May 6, an essay by Sun introduced the PEAT framework on Chinese AI incentive architecture (The Incentive Architecture Export Controls Cannot Reach (Sun, Lawfare, May 6 2026)). Lawfare has also published other AI-related sources.
Funding and governance
Lawfare states that it provides all of its content free of charge and without a subscription, and that it is supported by donations, soliciting monthly support through Givebutter, Substack, and Patreon (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare). For much of its history the publication operated in cooperation with the Brookings Institution, where editor in chief Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in Governance Studies and where its 2015 relaunch was announced (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/people/benjamin-wittes/) (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-to-the-new-lawfare/). Brookings states that each of its publications represents the sole views of its authors (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-to-the-new-lawfare/).
Relationships
- founded-by: Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, Robert Chesney
- editorial-staff: Alan Z. Rozenshtein (Senior Editor), Kevin Frazier (Contributing Editor)
- publishes: Dominating AI Requires Understanding AI (Frazier + Rozenshtein, Lawfare, May 12 2026), The Incentive Architecture Export Controls Cannot Reach (Sun, Lawfare, May 6 2026)
- related: Knight First Amendment Institute (Knight Columbia) (academic AI-governance venue), AI and Cybersecurity, Dominance by Understanding (Frazier-Rozenshtein policy frame), PEAT — Proactive Elite Alignment Theory, Export Controls (AI)
Sources
- Multiple foundational source pages (see "publishes" above)
- Lawfare, "About Lawfare" (Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/about-lawfare)
- Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes, "Welcome to the new Lawfare," Brookings Institution, June 8, 2015 (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-to-the-new-lawfare/)
- Benjamin Wittes, contributor profile, Brookings Institution (Source: https://www.brookings.edu/people/benjamin-wittes/)