National Security Law:
The Law of War & The Law of Terror
Exercise
Instructions
– This course examines international law, the U.S. Constitution, and federal statutes from legal and operational perspectives.
– Use legal argument not efficacy argument.
(draw on distinct processes, principles, and precedents)
– Do not use “interests”, “geopolitics”, “counterinsurgency”, “counterterrorism,” and other terrorism studies literature.
– Do not use ethical and ideological debates surrounding the War on Terrorism.
Only the legal question, what does the law say about the issue.
– The goal must always be to distinguish the law’s substance from the assertions that others may make about it.
Exercise:
– The Exercise will be distributed on 8 April and it will be due on 11 April.
– Student will complete Exercise based on a hypothetical crisis scenario.
– The Exercise will comprise three distinct questions, each requiring a separate 1000-word response.
Question 1: International law issue
Question 2: Domestic law issue
Question 3: Value judgement issue
(when there is overlap of 2 types of laws that apply to an issue, which one has priority?)
Please prepare separate answers for each of the three questions based on the fact pattern presented below.
Each answer must be no more than 1,000 words in length, not including citations.
Although Bluebook-style citations are not required for this evolution, you must use footnotes and apply a consistent citation methodology.
Your answers must also follow the formatting guidelines established in the Syllabus.
(only use the SYLLABUS READINGS + NOTES)
Fact Pattern
1.) The sacking of Riyadh on March 15, 2024 concluded a decade of historical realignment of the Middle East. Bolstered by the fall of the Saudi monarchy, Glorious Caliphate (“GC”) forces swept south and East in a bid to unite the Arabian Peninsula. By June 2024, GC forces had overrun the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, seized strategic oil and gas reserves, and closed the Strait of Hormuz. As global oil prices soared about $1,000 per barrel, Abdullah Alani, the self-styled Sunni caliph, ordered his forces to prepare for a massive two-front war against the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
2.) On April 1, 2025, a combined force of Israeli and Iranian aircraft launched preemptive strikes on oil and gas producing facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq in a bid to shutter the energy sector and undermine the GC’s economy. Alani’s forces swift retaliated, launching short- and medium-range ballistic missiles on Tel Aviv, Tehran, and other civilian population centers. As cities and refineries across the Middle East burned, ten Iranian Army divisions invaded southeastern Iraq in a bid to divide GC-held territory in two. Energy exports to Europe, China, and Japan immediately ceased.
3.) The Middle East’s de facto isolation from the world economy sparked a global energy and financial crisis during the final months of the U.S. presidential election. As the Dow Jones industrial average fell below 2,000 and unemployment rose above 20 percent, the newly-founded American Patriot Party (“APP”) captured the U.S. Presidency in the November 2024 General Election, together with veto-proof majorities in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Led by president Thomas Williams, the United States withdrew from the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, imposed a 50 percent general tariff on foreign goods, and implemented massive federal subsidies for the domestic energy industry.
4.) The collapse of global energy markets and the United States’ return to protectionist trade policies sparked a rapid realignment in political and trade relations. Led by far-left and far-right populist parties, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Hungary entered into a Strategic Energy Partnership (“SEP”) with the Russian Federation to ensure a reliable supply of oil and gas. As part of the November 11, 2024 deal, the four countries agreed to withdraw from NATO’s military command structure and suspend their membership in the European Union.
5.) On December 25, 2024, forces from Russia’s 25th and 138 th Motorized Rifle Brigades invaded Latvia and Lithuania. Supported by the 76th Air Assault Division, these units bypassed the national capitals and swiftly opened an “energy transportation corridor” between Russia and the Polish Border. The United Kingdom and France immediately drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing the operations as an “illegal armed attack” justifying “individual and collective self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.” Russia, China, and the United States subsequently vetoed the resolution, arguing that the events protected under Article 2(7) of the U.N. Charter and therefore outside the Security Council’s jurisdiction.
6.) On January 7, 2025, GC sleeper cells infiltrated and seized four elementary schools in affluent suburbs outside New York, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles. After contacting national news media, the militant began streaming the execution of American children live via the Internet – stopping only to detonate their suicide vests when police stormed the building. Documents found at the scene later identified the assailants as natural born American citizens from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.
7.) With fears of GC subterfuge dominating the headlines, the U.S. Congress passed a nonbinding resolution on January 10, 2025 urging the president to “close the borders to foreign infiltrators” and take “all necessary measures” to prevent the “radicalization of Muslim on U.S. soil.” On January 12, 2025, President William issued an executive order directing the U.S. Army National Guard in all 50 states to “search and secure Mosques” in order to “prevent unlawful assemblies that oppose or obstruct the laws of the United States.” That executive order also directed the U.S. Treasury Department to seize the assets of “Islamic religious leaders” in the United States to prohibit them from providing “material support” to the GC.
8.) On April 2, 2025, armed gunmen from the pro-Russian Notsnoi Dozor militia group stormed the Estonian parliament, seized hostages, and demanded the extradition of the Forest Brothers to St. Petersburg to face trial. When Estonian officials refused, the gunmen executed the hostages, set fire to the parliament building, and attempted to flee. Estonian police short and captured two of the assailants in the ensuring firefight. After taking the prisoners to the emergency room at a local hospital, they discovered that both men had tattoos and identifying them as members of Russian 2nd Special Forces brigade. Later that afternoon, Estonian Army soldiers blindfolded the two prisoners, tied them to lampposts in Tallinn’s Central Square, and executed them by firing squad.
9.) On May 2, 2025, a contingent of soldiers from Maryland National Guard stormed the DC Metro Sufi Center in Montgomery Village, Maryland and arrested the Executive Director for “inciting sedition and violence” by distributing pamphlets opposing President Williams’ executive order. That evening, members of the George Washington University Muslim Students Association marched to the White House carrying green banners demanding the President’s impeachment.
10.) Fearing a possible attack, national security advisor Thomas Weston ordered the District of Columbia National Guard to secure the White House and disperse the “unlawful combination threatening the nation’s capitol.” As National Guard troops took up positions around Lafayette Square, a lone man in a Guy Fawkes mask threw a pipe bomb at the soldiers. Within seconds, the square erupted in explosions, gunfire, and screams as panicked Guardsmen and Secret Service agents opened fire on the students. Minutes later, television cameras atop the Hays-Adams hotel beamed footage of the carnage to news organizations around the world.
Questions
1.) International law issue:
To what extent did the military operations described in the fact pattern violate the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols (where relevant), and customary international law?
1000-words
2.) Domestic law issue:
Please identify, describe, and evaluate the constitutional and statutory restraints on the Williams Administration’s efforts to protect the U.S. homeland.
1000-words
3.) Value judgement issue:
How do the international and domestic legal principles presented change when the parties include irregular partisan groups, terrorist syndicates, student activists other non-state actors? What legal criteria should decision makers use to distinguish between those groups that constitute security threats and those that do not?
(There is some kind of overlap of 2 types of laws that apply to an issue, which one has priority? how? why?)
1000-words
