The Octagon House Greets You

It's always there when the White House gets destroyed

Good Evening:

This is the Octagon House.

During the War on 1812, British soldiers burned the White House. You know the story: Dolly Madison saved the portrait of George Washington. The British soldiers ate the meal hastily abandoned as the first couple fled Washington for Brookeville, MD, which served as the country’s capital for a day or two. And then James Madison came back to DC. And he took up residence in the Octagon House, a few blocks from the smoldering ruins of the White House—which was rebuilt.

I went over to check on the Octagon House today. No part of it has been bulldozed.

It is important for democracies to have backup plans. The Octagon House stands for that principle.

It is my favorite building in Washington.

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Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable

Holly Berkley Fletcher

and I discussed the difference between covert actions and plain old murder. The conversation was a little more complicated than that:

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Yesterday on Lawfare

Compiled by the estimable Isabel Arroyo

Shared Residual Liability for Frontier AI Firms

Ben Gil Friedman argues that sharing catastrophic harm liability between frontier artificial intelligence (AI) firms would resolve thorny incentive issues that hamper AI safety.

Despite the risks, frontier AI firms continue to underinvest in safety. This underinvestment is driven, in large part, by three major challenges: AI development’s judgment-proof problem, its perverse race dynamic, and AI regulation’s pacing problem. To address these challenges, I propose a shared residual liability regime for frontier AI firms. Modeled after state insurance guaranty associations, the regime would hold frontier AI companies jointly liable for catastrophic damages in excess of individual firms’ ability to pay. This would lead the industry to internalize more risk as a whole and would incentivize firms to monitor each other to reduce their shared financial exposure.

Reconfiguring U.S. Cyber Strategy in the Wake of Salt Typhoon

Alistair Simmons outlines a series of steps U.S. government agencies can take to defend against future cyberattacks like Salt Typhoon, emphasizing the need to deter attacks through proportional and predictable offensive cyber responses.

The U.S. government should counter persistent cyberattacks on telecom providers by strengthening defenses and clarifying its offensive posture. Credible deterrence depends on resilient networks that can withstand retaliation. To strengthen defenses, government agencies can coordinate to sanction threat actors, disrupt compromised devices, and remove vulnerabilities. To clarify offensive posture, policymakers can set clear thresholds for deterrence and balance offensive operations with intelligence priorities. Denying adversaries long-term access to U.S. networks will reinforce deterrence and sharpen cyber capabilities.

Podcasts

On Lawfare Daily, Daniel Byman sits down with Holly Berkley Fletcher to discuss the recent coup in Madagascar, the coup’s effect on Madagascar’s neighbors, and the death of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga.

On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sits down with Eric Columbus, Anastasiia Lapatina, and Loren Voss to discuss President Trump’s upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, the Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling on domestic military deployments, and the Trump administration’s efforts to link individuals accused of attacking an immigration detention facility to the antifa movement.

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the bearded vulture, which we honor today for its role as an archivist. From Popular Science:

Most bird nests are temporary homes, but not for the bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus). The threatened species assemble their abodes in the rocky shelters and cliff caves of various mountain ranges around the world, offering shelter for generations. If especially well protected from the elements, a bearded vulture nest can host the animals for multiple centuries.

Like many other birds, the bearded vulture isn’t picky about the building materials, either. Objects made by humans, including paper litter and plastic bags often find their way into the nesting components. For creative archaeologists, this means that the harmless scavengers’ residences can unintentionally double as time capsules. And after surveying multiple sites in Spain, researchers determined that some of these accumulated artifacts are almost 700 years old. The findings are detailed in a study recently published in the journal Ecology.

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Among the centuries’ worth of eggshells, prey remains, and natural nesting material, researchers identified 226 objects that were either made or altered by humans. These included weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot.

Using carbon dating, the team determined that the items also had a huge age range. For example, a shoe made from twigs and grass is around 675-years-old, while a basket is estimated to have been woven about 150 years ago.

Here are some things vultures hundreds of years ago saved for future archeologists:

In honor of today’s Beast, check out the paper on its archival work here!