As this semester has wound down, I’ve had the chance to lift my head up long enough to read BG Mark Martins’ recent (although ancient by Internet standards) posts on the term “Lawfare.” I particularly liked his contribution to the taxonomy of lawfare, since it’s a term without a settled meaning. (See, e.g., the Wikipedia entry on “lawfare,” which is about as authoritative as anything on Wikipedia (i.e. not very) but evokes a very different set of meanings.)
BG Martins’ treatment of the topic, both theoretically informed and practically grounded in his experience at CJIATF-435, suggest many implications for the role of law and legal development, especially in the context of counterinsurgency (COIN). The editors of this blog have graciously offered me this forum to explore some of them.