‘Special Military Operations’ Against the Russians with Benjamin Wittes
Explicit content warning
05/18/23 • 80 min
On April 13, 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes conducted his first “special military operation” at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. It involved 14 theater stage lights that Wittes and other activists used to project images of the Ukrainian flag onto embassy walls. Since then, Wittes’s special military operations have garnered increased attention and become more complex—technically and diplomatically.
In his conversation with Katherine Pompilio, one of Lawfare’s associate editors and this week’s Chatter guest host, Wittes talks about the genesis of these special military operations, what it’s like conducting international negotiations with Russian diplomats via the U.S. Secret Service, the international law of light protests, how a paper mache washing machine is involved in all of this, his career, his other projects, and more.
Works mentioned in this episode:
Ben’s Substack Dog Shirt Daily
The video Defect and Repent: A Laser Poem
The video "It's Almost Like the Russians Don't Negotiate in Good Faith": A Video Parable.
The video U.S. Ukrainian Activists Presents Umbrella Boy
The podcast #LiveFromUkraine: Katya Savchenko Survived Bucha—and Wrote About It
The Washington Post article “Activists train spotlight of Ukrainian flag on Russian Embassy”
The video of the spotlight cat and mouse game
The work of Robin Bell
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On April 13, 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes conducted his first “special military operation” at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. It involved 14 theater stage lights that Wittes and other activists used to project images of the Ukrainian flag onto embassy walls. Since then, Wittes’s special military operations have garnered increased attention and become more complex—technically and diplomatically.
In his conversation with Katherine Pompilio, one of Lawfare’s associate editors and this week’s Chatter guest host, Wittes talks about the genesis of these special military operations, what it’s like conducting international negotiations with Russian diplomats via the U.S. Secret Service, the international law of light protests, how a paper mache washing machine is involved in all of this, his career, his other projects, and more.
Works mentioned in this episode:
Ben’s Substack Dog Shirt Daily
The video Defect and Repent: A Laser Poem
The video "It's Almost Like the Russians Don't Negotiate in Good Faith": A Video Parable.
The video U.S. Ukrainian Activists Presents Umbrella Boy
The podcast #LiveFromUkraine: Katya Savchenko Survived Bucha—and Wrote About It
The Washington Post article “Activists train spotlight of Ukrainian flag on Russian Embassy”
The video of the spotlight cat and mouse game
The work of Robin Bell
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
Politicians and White House Plumbers with Olivia Nuzzi
Olivia Nuzzi gets Washington in a way many journalists don’t. As the Washington correspondent for New York magazine, she has written perceptive, piercing, and enduring portraits of Donald Trump and the bizarre characters in his orbit. Now she’s turning her reporter’s eye to history, hosting a companion podcast to HBO's “White House Plumbers,” a five-part series that imagines the Watergate scandal through the lives of two notorious Nixon operatives, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy.
Olivia came up as a journalist writing about politics in New Jersey. She began covering Trump at The Daily Beast, where she worked with Shane. They discussed her career, what fascinates her about politics, and the prospects for the 2024 presidential campaign, where Trump appears likely to be the Republican nominee.
They also discussed Hollywood and Washington’s mutual fascination with each other, and why they’d both rather live in L.A. than New York.
Olivia’s work at New York magazine: https://nymag.com/author/olivia-nuzzi/
The White House Plumbers podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/white-house-plumbers-podcast/id1682542231
The White House Plumbers series on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/white-house-plumbers
Olivia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Olivianuzzi?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Garrett Graff’s new book on Watergate, which serves as a history companion to the podcast and was just named a Pulitzer Prize finalist: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Watergate/Garrett-M-Graff/9781982139179
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Ian Enright and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode
Popular Presidential Communication with Anne Pluta
From the birth of the republic, American presidents have communicated with the public in one form or another. The frequency and exact nature of such efforts have varied quite a bit over time due to variables ranging from the extent of partisanship in the media to each commander in chief's personal preference to travel technology. Political scientist Anne Pluta has explored this history deeply, including extensive analysis of contemporary newspaper accounts back to the late 18th century. And her insights, contained in writings like the book Persuading the Public: The Evolution of Popular Presidential Communication from Washington to Trump, provide plenty of surprises and even challenge some conventional wisdom about the presidency.
David Priess chatted with her about her favorite presidents and her assessment of the best communicators among them; the precedents set by George Washington; Thomas Jefferson's State of the Union delivery method; changes in the communication environment during the Andrew Jackson era; Abraham Lincoln's exceptional presidency; the importance of train travel for presidential contact with the public; Rutherford Hayes's underappreciated importance in presidential communication; Theodore Roosevelt as a speaker; Woodrow Wilson's decision to deliver the State of the Union address in person; the importance for presidential communication of radio, television, and the availability of Air Force One; the relatively brief period of national, "objective" media; the late 20th century shift to splintered media; Donald Trump's social media use; Joe Biden's communication practices; and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
- The play Hamilton
- The TV show John Adams
- The movie Lincoln
- The book Persuading the Public by Anne Pluta
- The TV show The West Wing
- The TV show Veep
- The movie The American President
- The movie Air Force One
- The movie Independence Day
- The TV show Scandal
- The book The Devil's Teeth
- The book Twelve Days of Terror
- The book The Wave
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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