MIT Wargaming Lab | UCLA Burkle Senior Fellow | UCLA Law & USC Gould lecturer | CBS News LA contributor | Foreign policy, law & political crisis
Los Angeles, CA
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Benjamin Radd retweeted
Coming up LIVE on @CNNTheStoryIs from 12A-2A/9p-11p PT:
China & U.S.: @StevenCNN
Israel & Iran: @BenjaminRadd
Media Ban: @sarafischer
Politics: @ElishaKrauss Will Rollins
Nor'Easter: @ChrisGloninger
Nepal: @HanakoMontgome1
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Benjamin Radd retweeted
Coming up on @CNNTheStoryIs from 12a-2a ET & 9-11p PT:
Iran: @BenjaminRadd @LisaDaftari
Politics: @shanesmith30 @carolineheldman
911 First Responders: @Norma4Congress
Plus my reporting from @lucasmuseum
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7/ It matters because imagination suggests nobody was responsible. "It'ss not your fault if nobody came up with the idea of flying jetliners into skyscrapers." Synthesis assigns responsibility.
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8/ Which leaves the question I keep returning to: Is synthesis something an institution can build, or does it depend on who happens to be in the room?
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Longer version, with what this means for organizations that can't build their own DHS, is on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/feed/update/urn…
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6/ This wasn't a failure of imagination alone. It was a failure of synthesis: combining the pieces into a scenario and preparing for it.
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4/ But the pieces were all imagined, each in a different time and place. The Phoenix memo from an FBI field office noted Middle Eastern men at flight schools. Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota wanted to learn to fly a 747 with almost no experience.
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1/ On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the CIA released about 70 PDBs. Nothing in them was new. What struck me was not the originality of what was known, but its consistency.
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2/ In September 1998, one PDB to Clinton warned that al-Qaeda may fly an explosive-packed plane into a U.S. city. The government didn't incorporate this threat into its operational planning.
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Well written essay.
“Pro-Palestine” and “anti-Hamas” are not mutually exclusive.
Those who call for “Free Palestine” should include, in that meaning of “free”, liberation from the oppression of Hamas as well as any Israeli control/occupation.
“Gaza has no future as long as Hamas holds two million Palestinians hostage to its nihilistic agenda.” - @afalkhatib
nytimes.com/2026/09/04/opini… via @NYTOpinion
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The US and Iran exchanged direct fire tonight for the first time in more than a month. My take: the strategic situation hasn't changed.
Four conclusions matter:
1. Don't mistake activity for movement.
2. Stalemates end when something changes the calculus.
3. Strategic stability can coexist with tactical risk.
4. Watch the foundations of the stalemate, not the missile count.
I explain why, and then put you in the position of advising POTUS on what happens if one of the assumptions sustaining the stalemate suddenly breaks.
Read the article on X: nitter.net/BenjaminRadd/status/20…
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Appeared on NPR’s “Press Play” today to discuss latest on Iran, including the dramatic entry of Saudi Arabia into the war. kcrw.com/shows/press-play-wi…
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Last summer, when the US bombed Iran’s Fordo facility, it was premised on single goal: prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
But to do that would require not just crippling Fordo and similar installations, but also retrieving the HEU that lays within. Trump did not do the latter, and yet declared victory nonetheless.
This pattern has repeated throughout the latest incarnation of the war: Declare an objective, go halfway to meeting it, and then stop and declare this new midway point the threshold of success. The result has been inefficacious, to put it mildly.
The consequence is that, during the kinetic stages of this conflict, the US has found itself engaged in a non-traditional “interception war”: trading million-dollar Patriot missiles and other costly interceptors for garage-built drones. We have seen, especially most recently at the US base in Jordan, the devastating effect these low-cost Iranian munitions can have.
And therein lies the problem with Trump’s “half-commitment” approach. It does not portray caution or the shrewd use of diplomacy, but begets a scenario that becomes the most expensive option available, both in terms of lives and money. In other words, the US is now paying for both the war and the resulting failure of not having achieved its stated goals.
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I spent weeks designing a US-Iran diplomacy simulation for MIT's Wargaming Lab. It collapsed in 90 minutes.
The best performer never negotiated. She just listened — and her delegation tied for the highest credibility in the room.
Who's playing that role on your team?
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More details about this experience (and lessons learned!) can be found on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/benjam…
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Benjamin Radd retweeted
On @CNNTheStoryIs tonight from 9-11pm pacific:
Iran: @GeneralClark @BenjaminRadd
AI: @AndrewYang
Women's Sports: @FlavorFlav
Politics: @Susan_Shelley @IanCalderon
STEAM Education: @KikiAyers
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