The term “lawfare” has become part of the lexicon of the current global conflict and although it is defined in various ways, it is essentially a way to describe legal activities within the context of armed conflict. To date, the term has not been applied to legal activities focused on negatively impacting United States’ adversaries. This article seeks to expand the lawfare conversation and encourage a policy dialogue by weaving it together with the Army’s operational doctrine and counterinsurgency doctrine.
The United States Army’s operational concept provides a framework to conceptualize “offensive lawfare” which, in the current global counter-insurgency conflict, should be understood to include efforts to deny enemy forces sanctuary, to blunt their abuse of courts, and to use both foreign and domestic courts to better support our national security strategy. Policy discussions to improve our offensive lawfare posture should include providing support to litigants in certain domestic and foreign court actions that are deemed to be congruous with these ends. More specifically this article advocates broadening the national security policy discussion to include providing support to plaintiffs in terrorism related civil litigation domestically, to certain defendants in certain foreign criminal actions, to defendants in foreign civil litigation that is deemed to be related to the current conflict, and to plaintiffs pursuing foreign causes of action against terrorist organizations and their supporters...
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