A lot happened in 2025–from the deployment of National Guard in cities across the country to airstrikes in the Caribbean to DOGE's incursion into executive agencies to the weaponization of the Justice Department—and we covered it all. Lawfare contributors reflect back on the year that was:

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The Year That Was (2025)

The issues—and Lawfare coverage—that kept our editors up at night in 2025.

"[T]o put the issue of border security as the top objective in one’s national security strategy is a kind of a nativist madness that is more about cultural—and let’s be honest, racial—anxiety about immigration than it is about any tangible security threat," writes Benjamin Wittes.

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The Situation: Why Did the White House Write This National Security Strategy?

A very strange document.

This year's UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) highlighted a harsh reality: the optimistic era of climate diplomacy has given way to a more fragmented and competitive world, in which climate change is taking a back seat to other concerns, write Erin Sikorsky and Siena Cicarelli.

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Embracing Climate Realities: The Climate Security Implications of COP30

The optimistic era of climate diplomacy, epitomized by the 2015 Paris Agreement, has given way to a more fragmented world in which climate change h...