Eagle v. Goose

A #BeastOfTheDay cage match

Good Evening:

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Today on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher, the estimable Eve Gaumond, and I welcomed the estimable Shane Harris to talk about Trump’s cut-off of military intelligence to Ukraine. Then we discussed the non-State of the Union address, which none of us watched, the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, Trump’s rhetoric, and why we haven’t seen big street protests in the US

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Today On Lawfare

Compiled by the estimable Caroline Cornett

JAGs Alone Can’t Defend Rule of Law

Dan Maurer details the procedural constraints that limit judge advocates general (JAGs) from counseling against unlawful orders their commanders might receive from higher quarters. Maurer also warns of the chilling effect the firing of top JAGs will have on the Defense Department’s organizational culture:

But I offer another reason to be concerned: that no military lawyers outside the Pentagon—the judge advocate officers ranging in rank from junior lieutenants to the senior colonels (Army, Air Force, Marines) and captains (Navy, Coast Guard)—assigned to operational units and bases, posts, camps, and stations worldwide, can serve as adequate bulwarks against the rapid erosion of the Defense Department’s commitment to the rule of law. Of the concerns raised by the secretary’s actions, the least well appreciated by the public is that there are structural obstacles—occupational duty “roadblocks” if you will—that bar most military lawyers from counseling most service members and commanders who believe they have received unlawful orders. Like the other concerns triggered by relieving the TJAGs, these tactical-level duty, position-based obstacles could work to the advantage of the administration looking to advance an aggressive interpretation of legal authority for the use of armed force in the U.S. or abroad.

Does the Response to OPM’s Latest Email Evidence a Turf War?

Nick Bednar analyzes how 31 federal agencies instructed their employees to respond to an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) email asking for a list of five things they accomplished last week. Bednar notes several patterns—such as national security agencies’ resistance to Elon Musk’s orders and other agencies' compliance out of fear or loyalty—and discusses the potential implications this episode has for Musk’s relationship with other members of the Trump administration:

The mixed reaction from federal agencies raises questions about the political dynamics emerging in the Trump administration. Some media have portrayed the incident as illustrating growing frustration with Musk’s intrusions into agency management. Maybe. At least some agency officials appear frustrated. Yet most agencies still instructed their employees to reply—at least among the agencies for which data was available. The emerging dynamics exhibit greater nuance than often described. Political science sheds some light on why these dynamics may be emerging.

DeepSeek Points Toward U.S.-China Cooperation, Not a Race

Simon Goldstein and Peter N. Salib caution against the United States intensifying the race for artificial intelligence (AI) dominance against China in response to the release of DeepSeek. Goldstein and Salib argue instead for a collaborative approach to AI development, beginning with the creation of a joint U.S.-China AI lab:

Geopolitics is complicated, and gut reactions are often wrong. AI racers would do well to think through the underlying causal models driving their reasoning, to check whether their premises support their conclusions. On reflection, it is extremely difficult to view DeepSeek as evidence that either the U.S. or China would benefit from intensifying the AI race—at least while cooperation remains a live possibility.

National Security Excerpts From Trump’s Address to Congress

Lulu Mansour and Omowunmi Odeja share excerpts from President Donald Trump’s recent address to Congress relating to foreign policy and national security, including his comments on the military, the Panama Canal and Greenland, Ukraine, and tariffs:

Trump “report[ed] that in January, the US Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years, and that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services.”

“As commander in chief, my focus is on building the most powerful military of the future. As a first step, I'm asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA.”

Podcasts

On Lawfare Daily, Scott R. Anderson sits down with Joel Braunold to discuss the end of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire, recent tensions between Israel and the new Syrian regime over threats to Druze communities, and how the Trump administration is trying to navigate the situation:

On Rational Security, Quinta Jurecic and Molly E. Reynolds join Anderson to work through the week’s big national security news stories, including Trump’s heated argument with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and its aftermath, the state of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives after passing a budget last week, and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s mandate for the paper to defend “personal liberties and free markets”:

Videos

On March 7 at 4 p.m. ET, Natalie Orpett will speak to Anderson, Bednar, and Anna Bower about the status of the civil litigation against Trump’s executive actions, including the firing of probationary employees, the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the foreign aid freeze:

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is this Canada goose, who, in an exercise of patriotic valor, fought a 20 minute bout with a bald eagle last week before finally driving off the interloper:

The CBC reports:

A bald eagle may have thought it spotted an easy lunch in a Canada goose sitting on an icy bay in Burlington, Ont., but according to Mervyn Sequeira — who watched and photographed a 20-minute battle between the two birds — the goose held its own.

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"We were there, and we saw this bald eagle coming in and going in to attack a Canada goose that was on the ice," the 74-year-old told CBC Hamilton.

Sequeira is a retired airline captain who has been photographing Canadian wildlife since he arrived to Canada from Goa, India, 30 years ago. He captured the eagle-goose battle with his camera on Feb. 23.

The bald eagle made "several attempts" to attack the goose, Sequeira said.

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The Canada goose, much more commonly spotted, appeared to be sick, Sequeira said, which he thinks is why the bald eagle chose it as prey. He said it's common in winter for eagles to turn to sick waterfowl when the ice makes it harder to catch fish.

Sequeira said the goose was unstable on its feet and its head kept swinging "very much like a person would be if a person had had vertigo."

We here at Dog Shirt Daily wish this goose a swift recovery from its illness and many future victories against invading scavengers. In honor of today’s Beast, stay away from geese. They are loud and smelly and entitled to their personal space. Don’t bother them.

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AI Reads The Comments

A couple weeks ago, I (EJ Wittes) presented a selection of YouTube comments on Dog Shirt TV videos with my responses. It seems that YouTube really wants me to give my responses on the YouTube platform itself, because it has introduced a new feature: it now writes responses for me.

This irritates me for several reasons. First of all, it means that YouTube has had an AI scrape its comment sections, which means that there exists an AI trained on YouTube comments. While the idea of an AI apocalypse doesn’t generally worry me very much, it does become dangerously plausible if I imagine an AI imitating YouTube commenters. But even leaving that aside, the fundamental problem is that YouTube’s AI is very bad at suggesting responses.