Shield of the Republic - The Bulwark

Georgia On My Mind Oct 31, 2024

Eric and Eliot try to explain (for a foreign audience and American expats) how it is possible that the election is so close. They discuss the role of inflation, the border, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as craziness on campus, and elite disdain for non-college educated Americans in fly-over country. They touch on Eric's article in the Bulwark that dissects efforts by former Trump Administration officials to put a patina of coherence and strategy to Trump's views on national security. They examine the objectives and success of Israel's recent retaliatory strike on Iran in response to the October 1 mass ballistic missile attack launched by Tehran as well as the prospects for the region in the aftermath and, in particular, the potential for Israel to reshape the region's politics (spoiler alert: color both Eric and Eliot skeptical). They also examine the dispatch of North Korean soldiers to Russia to fight in the Ukraine war and what that tells one about Putin's vulnerabilities and they discuss Russia's political warfare (with mixed results) in Georgia and Moldova. Finally they finish up with a discussion of recent readings on British naval history, FDR's efforts to mobilize the country for potential war in 1940 and the colonization of Mars.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

How Do You Adapt Under Fire? Oct 24, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome Australian MG (ret.) Mick Ryan to the show to discuss his new book, The War For Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation under Fire (Naval Institute Press, 2024). They examine the initial strategies pursued by Russia and Ukraine as well as the assumptions that underpinned those strategies as well as considering how the two sides have adapted to changing conditions on the battlefield. They discuss the role of leadership and Ukraine's demonstration of greater ability to implement innovation in tactics on the battlefield from the ground up. Eliot and Mick discuss the difference between the relatively unchanging nature of war as opposed to the evolving character of war and how new technology and doctrine can make a difference in comparative advantage between adversaries. They discuss civil-military strains in both Ukraine and Russia, Russian challenges with mobilization of manpower as well as Ukraine's difficulties with both manpower and training as well as absorbing some of the high end equipment they have received from NATO allies and other partners. They consider the current state of the battlefield, the Kursk offensive by Ukrainian forces and some of the flaws in US and NATO military advice and decision-making during the course of the war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/liz-cheney-on-american-authoritarianism-d00
War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict:
https://a.co/d/5LKv7m3
The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire
https://a.co/d/0AoPXRR
Mick's Substack:
https://mickryan.substack.com
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

October 7th: One Year Later Oct 10, 2024

Eric and Eliot note the sad commemoration of the Hamas attack on Israel and the consequences that came in its wake. They touch on the shocking nature of the sexual violence, the denial of the attack and the reality of the horrific violence as well as the explosion of anti-semitism internaionally and, in particular, on US college campuses, they discuss the Israeli successes in attacking the Hezbollah leadership and military infrastructure in Lebanon (and the blindspot with regard to Hamas that the successes against Hezbollah represent). They also assess the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel, what it reveals about the state of Israel's layered, integrated air and missile defense systems (Arrow, David's Sling, and Iron Dome) as well as the prospects for both Israel's and the U.S. responses. They discuss the impact of lame duck status on the Biden Administration's diplomatic efforts, the difficulty that the BIden team seems to have in moving to Plan B when their initial efforts are stymied, and the curious lack of empathy for allies and partners strategic circumstances despite the Administration's lauding of alliances in the abstract. Finally, they discuss Seth Jones's recent Foreign Affairs article on the PRC's industrial war footing, how easily military technology yields military capability and how America's adversaries might take advantage of a chaotic, post-election transition period.
Seth Jones on China's War Footing:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/china-ready-war-america-is-not-seth-jones
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

An Unlikely Network of Dictatorships Oct 03, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome back Anne Applebaum, Pultizer and Duff Cooper Prize Winning author of Gulag and Red Famine and currently staff writer with The Atlantic and senior fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. They discuss Anne's new book Autocracy Inc: The Dictators who Want to Run the World. They examine the threat that autocratic regimes represent to their own citizens at home and to liberal democracy abroad, the West's slowness to recognize the threat that the authoritarians represent, the excessive optimism that (after the end of the Cold War and with the advent of globalization) liberal democratic ideals would triumph without recognizing the danger that authoritarian, illiberal ideas might flow into democracies, whether or not the authoritarians think they are winning and how they measure success, Russia's role in prompting much of the authoritarian offensive and the role of western institutions in facilitating the emergence of Russia as a personalist, authoritarian mafia state, the weaknesses of the authoritarians and how the western democracies might go on the offensive against the political warfare being waged daily by the authoritarians against the democracies, and the effort to obliterate truth and promote hopelessness and cynicism in citizens in democracies and setting them against one another.
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World:
https://a.co/d/ifaCL3E
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

How WWII's Warlords Approached Strategy Sep 26, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome back Phillips Payson O'Brien to Shield of the Republic. Phil is the author of The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler - How War Made Them and How They Made War (New York, Dutton, 2024) as well as the co-author with Eliot of The Russia-Ukraine War and a Study in Analytic Failure, a new report from CSIS. They discuss Phil's earlier work on World War II that focused on air and seapower and the competition in industrial production between the Allies and the Axis, the formative role of World War I experiences on all of these World War II leaders, the role of will as opposed to a focus on material production as a differentiator between the two sides in World War 2, Hitler's (and others') "magical thinking" about strategy, Churchill's understudied role as Minister of Munitions during World War 1, FDR's role in 1916 Naval Preparedness program, Stalin's (and Putin's) historical mythologizing, the reasons for analytic failure at the outset of the Russia-Ukraine war, and prospects for escalation (and strategy) between Israel and Hezbollah/Iran.
The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler--How War Made Them and How They Made War
https://a.co/d/14ip0sY
How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II
https://a.co/d/erLbwrf
Report Launch: The Russia-Ukraine War and a Study in Analytic Failure
https://www.csis.org/events/report-launch-russia-ukraine-war-and-study-analytic-failure
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

How John Adams Established Enduring American Customs Sep 19, 2024

Eric and Eliot provide their thumbnail review of the Trump-Harris debate and then welcome their special guest Lindsay Chervinsky, the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon and the author the new book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged a Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024). They discuss the role of the January 6th insurrection in sparking her interest in the peaceful transfer of power in the United States and the first instance of a transfer via election in 1800. She discusses how this perspective provided new insight into understanding John Adams's Presidency which is frequently depicted as a failure but which successfully resolved the Quasi-War with France in the late 1790s, established the norms of civilian oversight of the military and Presidential command of foreign policy and control of the executive departments of government. They discuss the political intriguing of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson who sought to undermine Adams, the fears of a standing army, the extremism of the "Arch Federalists" and the violent rhetorical excesses of factionalism in the party, the role of the French Revolution and immigration in American politics in the early Republic, and ultimately how Adams put country over party and personal political success to establish the norms of a peaceful transfer of power. Finally, she discusses how the death throes of the Federalist Party (and later the Whigs) might shed light on possible futures for the GOP.
Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic:
https://a.co/d/3v539F7
What History Tells Us Might Happen to the Republican Party:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/history-political-parties-republican-gop
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Why We Should Be Worried About Iranian Nukes Sep 12, 2024

Eric and Eliot pay homage to Daily Telegraph journalist and podcaster David Knowles who was the driving force behind the podcast, Ukraine: The Latest, on which Eliot has appeared several times. They also discuss the intensifying cooperation among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea including the just announced intensified schedule of joint Sino-Russian military exercises and Iran's transfer of medium range Fateh 360 ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. They consider the historical analogies for this type of alliance/coalition and, in particular, the ideological underpinnings of the alignment, as well as the tightening institutional links among these nations. They discuss the new JINSA report on Iran's advancing nuclear program as well as the challenges facing U.S. extended nuclear deterrence. They also discuss increasing instances of state failure around the world in Sudan, Lebanon, Venezuela, Somalia, the Sahel and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the relationship of this phenomenon to the retrograde of American power and that of its allies in Britain and France around the world. Finally, they discuss the Marquis de Custine's writings on Russian national character as well as takedowns of Tucker Carlson's holocaust denying, Churchill bashing guest Daryl Cooper.
Eliot's Latest in the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/09/british-foreign-secretary-david-lammy-israel-speech/679729/
JINSA's Iran Nuclear Report:
https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/JINSA-Why-the-Next-President-Should-Start-Worrying-and-Fear-the-Iran-Bomb-2.pdf
Sergei Lebedev on Navalny:
https://libertiesjournal.com/articles/the-heroic-illusion-of-alexei-navalny/
Cathy Young on Tucker Carlson/Churchill:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tucker-carlson-and-the-beer-hall-putz-darryl-cooper
Andrew Roberts on Churchill:
https://freebeacon.com/culture/no-churchill-was-not-the-villain/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

What Would Kamala's Foreign Policy Look Like? Sep 05, 2024

Eric welcomes back Eliot from his trip to the High North in Svalbard, Norway where he was attending a workshop on Nordic-Baltic views on European security. Eliot discusses the views of the Nordic countries vis a vis Russia, the role of climate change in the Arctic, and great power competition in that region. They also discuss Eliot's recent Atlantic piece on What Kamala Harris might face with regards to foreign policy if she is elected in November notably including: the dangerous world we face, the chronic underfunding of the nation's defense budget, and the priors of the Obama and Biden alumni who will likely populate a Harris administration. They discuss the lack of debate about national security issues so far in the Presidential campaign and the Reaganesque "mood music" on defense at the DNC with speeches on Thursday night by the Bulwark's own Adam Kinzinger, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta quoting Reagan, and finally the Vice President's commitment to maintaining the strongest and most lethal military in the world. They discuss the British Foreign Secretary's statement announcing the suspension of some 30 odd licenses for British defense goods to Israel, its spectacular bad timing and what it might portend for the US-UK "special relationship." Finally, they discuss the situation in Ukraine including the Kursk incursion by Ukrainian forces, the marked but costly progress of Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine, the meaning of "strategic" terrain and what the Ukrainian theory of victory might be.
Eliot's Piece in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/kamala-harris-foreign-policy-challenge/679678/
Phillips OBrien on Strategy:
https://open.substack.com/pub/phillipspobrien/p/strategic-is-more-than-lines-on-a
Occupied Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfqRRHaFyJg
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Men Who Made a Century Aug 29, 2024

Eric welcomes back Michael Mandelbaum, author and Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Michael is the author of the new book The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History they Made (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024). His book is a study of the interaction between individuals and the structural forces of history with essays on Woodrow Wilson, Vladimir Lenin, Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill, FDR, Mohandas Gandhi, David Ben Gurion and Mao tse-Tung. They discuss the circumstances that allowed these figures to exercise enormous influence on the course of history in the 20th century, the role of will and will to power in driving historical change, the imprint that Lenin left on the Soviet Union, the continued influence of Woodrow Wilson on American internationalism of both the liberal and conservative variety, the role of ideas in politics and the danger of political figures committed to ideas and unrestrained by countervailing forces, the unique preparation of Churchill and FDR for wartime leadership, why these figures seem so much more substantive than today's political leaders and why all of the 8 leaders under consideration would likely see today's world as a failure of their efforts.
The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They Made: https://a.co/d/aylEsW4
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Lessons of '68 Aug 22, 2024

Eric and Eliot host historian Luke Nichter in a special convention episode that looks back at the last time the Democrats hosted a national convention in Chicago: 1968. Nichter is the James H. Cavanaugh Chair in Presidential Studies and Professor of History at Chapman University and author of The Year that Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023). The group discusses the dramatic circumstances of the 1968 election and the veracity of conventional wisdom about the consequential year. Additionally they cover the pall that the Vietnam War cast over the election and dissect the personal relationships between Johnson and Kennedy, Johnson and Eugene McCarthy, Johnson and his Vice President Hubert Humphrey and the wary, but respectful relationship between Nixon and Johnson. They cover the unique relationship that Billy Graham had with LBJ, Nixon, and Humphrey and probe the nuances of the Wallace phenomenon. They further discuss the difficulties that Humphrey had running as a sitting Vice President taking credit for the achievements of the Johnson Administration while at the same time distancing himself from an unpopular incumbent.
The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968:
https://a.co/d/9DO6moy
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

How to Kill a Democracy Aug 15, 2024

Eric welcomes historian Timothy Ryback, the Co-Founder and Director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in the Hague. He has been Director and Vice President of the Salzburg Seminar and a lecturer in History at Harvard University and is the author of Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). They discuss why Tim wrote this book and why it seems especially timely now, the political and historical contingency of Hitler's ability to seize power and why it resulted not just from large historical forces but by a series of decisions by individual players in the drama. The roles of President Hindenberg, Chancellor Franz Von Papen, Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, and media mogul and nationalist party leader Alfred Hugenberg in the decisions that led Hitler to the Chancellery and the fact that the Nazis never commanded more than 37% of the vote in Germany. They touch on the role of political parties, political violence and the role of big business in the rise of Hitler as well as the critique of liberalism that Hitler and others shared of liberal democracy in Weimar Germany and its resonance in contemporary U.S. politics with figures like Peter Thiel and JD Vance.
Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power:
https://a.co/d/4ZRUL5J
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/is-the-far-right-channeling-german
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Hostages, Assassinations, and the Future of National Defense Aug 08, 2024

Eric and Eliot discuss the multinational hostage return deal with Russia and talk about what it reveals about the Russia and the Putin regime, the diplomatic skill in pulling it off and the moral calculus between the imperative of getting wrongly accused American citizens home and the danger of political moral hazard by encouraging Putin to take more "hostages" in the future. They also discuss the Israeli strikes in Beirut and Tehran that eliminated Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr (one of the terrorists who carried out the Marine Barracks bombing in 1983) and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh as well as the news that military intelligence has now confirmed that an earlier strike in July killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif. They discuss what this reveals about Israeli intelligence capabilities as well as the prospects for Iranian retaliation and the possibility of a wider regional war. Finally, they discuss the recent release of the National Defense Strategy Commission (Eric served as Vice-Chair of the group) report on the 2022 Biden Administration National Defense Strategy. They discuss the Commission's criticisms of the strategy and the need for a force planning construct that foresees U.S. military presence in three key theaters (Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific) as well as the need for additional resources for defense to meet the most challenging international security environment that the nation has faced since the end of the Second World War.
Commission on the National Defense Strategy Report:
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/misc/MSA3057-4/RAND_MSA3057-4.pdf
Eric's SASC Testimony:
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-findings-and-recommendations-of-the-commission-on-the-national-defense-strategy

Paul Nitze: National Security's Forgotten Man Aug 01, 2024

Eric and Eliot host James Graham Wilson, an historian in the Department of State's Historian's Office to discuss his new book America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security From Roosevelt to Reagan. They discuss Nitze's background as an America First supporter between the wars, his anti-Semitism and his family's connection to the Black Tom sabotage incident during World War I. They talk about his pioneering work as a national security professional on the Strategic bombing survey during and after World War II as well as his role in drafting NSC 68 during the Truman Administration, his vexed personal relations with George Kennan (who he succeeded as Director of Policy Planning at State), Henry Kissinger, and Robert McNamara. His relentless focus on the strategic nuclear balance and the character traits that perhaps kept him from ever becoming the Cabinet Officer he longed to become while nonetheless serving and influencing national security policy for more than 40 years. They close noting that his concerns about nuclear self-deterrence seem eerily relevant in today's circumstances of great power competition.
https://a.co/d/5thvl34
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Is Trump 2.0 a Guaranteed Foreign Policy Disaster? Jul 25, 2024

Eric and Eliot debate the latter's Atlantic article arguing that a second Trump term might not be that catastrophic on foreign policy. They discuss why people shouldn't catastrophize the possible outcomes, the traditional continuity between Administrations on foreign policy despite overheated partisan campaign rhetoric and the inextricable links between domestic and foreign policy. They discuss potential dire outcomes for Ukraine (and Taiwan), the impact on NATO, possible "adults in the room" in a second term, JD Vance and Don Trump Jr.'s possible roles as gatekeepers and personnel gurus, and Trump's moment of grace after the assasination attempt. They look back on earlier episodes of violence and conspiracy mongering in American history in the 1960s and 1840s and 1850s. Finally, they discuss Kamala Harris's chances against Trump and the likely contours of foreign policy in a Harris Administration.
Eliot's Atlantic Article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/cancel-foreign-policy-apocalypse-donald-trump-ukraine/679038/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia

The Long Shadow of the Evil Empire Jul 11, 2024

Eric and Eliot host Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies based in Bologna, Italy. They discuss Sergey’s personal story of growing up in Sakhalin in the Soviet Union, living in China, becoming an historian and gaining access to documentary sources in both countries that were heretofore unavailable and which shed new light on the history of the Cold War. The discussion covers ideology vs. realpolitik in explaining Soviet foreign policy, the USSR as both a status quo and revolutionary power, the contingency of historical events, the psychology of Russian and Chinese leaders, the Sino-Soviet rivalry and competition for leadership of the communist world, who was responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War, and how Russia’s search for legitimacy, equality with the US and greatness, deeply rooted in Russian imperial and Soviet history has re-emerged in new forms under Vladimir Putin.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

What's at Stake in the Global 2024 Elections Jun 27, 2024

Eric is rejoined by Eliot who has been reconnoitering his old stomping grounds in Boston. They discuss a series of upcoming elections, including in the UK on July 4 where the Tory Party (the oldest political party in the world) looks to be obliterated by a Labour landslide, France where President Macron's "party" looks likely to be squeezed out by Marine Le Pen's renovated version of the old anti-immigrant National Front and a New Popular Front of Leftist parties, and in Iran where reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has emerged a real threat to conservative forces divided among Saaed Jalili, the former hard-line nuclear negotiator, Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Qalibaf, and a gaggle of other conservatives amidst broad public apathy and disinterest in the election. They discuss the factors underpinning what seems like a global anti-incumbent wave. They also discuss the prospects for a war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the prospects for a second Trump term as President. Eliot believes that while a terrible prospect a second Trump Presidency might not be totally catastrophic both domestically and internationally while Eric argues the case for pessimism.
Scheduling Note: Shield of the Republic will be taking a two-week break for the Independence Day holiday.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Was Machiavelli the Father of Modern Grand Strategy? Jun 20, 2024

Eric welcomes Professor Christopher Lynch, Chair of the Political Science Department at Missouri State University, the editor and translator of the most recent edition of Machiavelli's The Art of War and author of Machiavelli on War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023). They discuss Machiavelli as statesman, military leader and diplomat and Machiavelli as Political Philosopher, The Art of War as a treatise on combined arms warfighting, Machiavelli as the father of modern grand strategy, his views on war as revealed not only in the Art of War but his posthumously published works The Prince and The Discourses on Livy, whether Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil," his role as one of the progenitors of "realism" in international affairs, whether his teachings prefigure our modern notions of strategic competition between authoritarian states and liberal democracies and "the Prince's Dilemma" -- or what is the proper relationship between political authorities and military leaders, and both the time-bound and timeless nature of Machiavell's arguments.
https://a.co/d/0dxfml05
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Fallout From a Lost Decade Jun 13, 2024

Eric welcomes Eliot back from scenic Lake Champlain where Eliot communed with the spirit of Benedict Arnold. They host Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security and Ambassador (ret.) Robert Blackwill, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss Fontaine and Blackwell's new book Lost Decade: The U.S. Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024). They review the origins and history of "The Pivot" to Asia during the Obama Administration, the reasons that this rebalancing of U.S. power and policy to the East was not implemented, the various efforts to do so subsequently and the reasons that they too did not succeed, the trade-offs among U.S. responsibilities for security in Europe and the Middle East and re-orienting to the Indo-Pacific, the need for a substantial increase in defense spending, the lack of a real trade policy for East Asia, the balance between diplomacy and deterrence and whether or not productive diplomacy with an autocratic regime and leader like Xi Jinping is even possible.
https://a.co/d/3VvFaeh
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

David Sanger on the New Cold Wars Jun 06, 2024

Eric hosts New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent David Sanger, author of The Inheritance, Confront and Conceal, The Perfect Weapon and most recently New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion and America's Struggle to Defend the West. They discuss the underlying assumptions that led American policymakers to underestimate the rise and threat of great power competition, whether hawks or doves have been more correct in analyzing the course of events over the past 15 years, the tensions, both past and present, in the Biden-Zelensky relationship, the Biden Administration's efforts at "escalation management" during the war in Ukraine, Russian nuclear threats and how seriously to take them, the question of whether the US and China have been engaged in an action-reaction spiral of distrust or whether Chinese actions have unfolded against a backdrop of American complacency, the unprecedented challenge of deterring two nuclear peers and the Biden Administration's Iran policy which seems to be on autopilot.
New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West: https://a.co/d/9nTIoD3
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Shield of the Republic Crosses the Century Mark May 30, 2024

Eric and Eliot ruminate on the past 100 episodes of Shield of the Republic looking back retrospectively on big takeaways about US national security since the show began in September 2021 in the shadow of the catastrophic US withdrawal from Afghanistan. They talk about President Biden's limitations as a communicator and the broader difficulties of communicating a coherent strategic message in our current fractionated media and information ecosystem. They discuss the bandwidth difficulties for any American administration's dealing with more than one and a half crises at a time and the specific problem of dealing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza at the same time and touch on the issues left unaddressed -- like having a policy to deal with Iran's growing stock of low enriched uranium at the 60% level. They contrast the troubles on campus today with the university upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the decline of the academic discipline of history and the catastrophic collapse in history enrollments in Universities. They discuss Eliot's article in Foreign Affairs on a theory of victory for Ukraine and the dangers of a Trump election victory as well as the necessity of loosening the US (and German) imposed restrictions on the use of weapons by Ukraine against legitimate military and logistical targets inside Russia.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/theory-victory-ukraine

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/university-gaza-protests-squirm/678437/

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/ukraine-cant-win-if-it-cant-shoot?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Israel's Current & Future Conundrum May 23, 2024

Eliot returns from the Lennert Meri Conference in Tallinn, Estonia and he and Eric are joined by Bret Stephens, columnist for the New York Times, founding Editor-in-Chief of SAPIR: A Journal of Jewish Conversation, former Editor in Chief of the Jerusalem Post, Pulitzer Prize Winner for Commentary at the Wall Street Journal and author of America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder, (New York: Sentinel, 2014). They discuss the war in Gaza, Israel's apparent lack of a strategy, the ICC decision to seek warrants for PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant for war crimes, the anti-Israel bias of the UN system, the spread of anti-semitism on campus and beyond, the return of isolationism of both the left and the right, the prospects for this fall's election and the political failures of the Biden Administration, and the prospects for American resilience in the face of all this darkness.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Would China Risk it All? May 16, 2024

Eric hosts Dale Copeland, Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics at UVA and faculty senior fellow at the Miller Center. Dale is the author of A World Safe for Commerce: American Foreign Policy from the Revolution to the Rise of China, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024). They discuss Dale's dynamic realist theory of international relations which seeks to meld "offensive realism" which sees states as power maximizing entities in an anarchic world and "defensive realism" which sees states as acting to modulate power maximizing in order to avoid a spiral into conflict. Dale contrasts this theory to liberal institutional theories that see foreign policies as driven by internal dynamics including ideology. They discuss his account of American foreign policy which sees US statesmen as successful practitioners of realpolitik in a way that has advanced the U.S. national interest and created what Dale calls the "FDR legacy" or the liberal international order over which the U.S. has presided since the end of World War II. They talk about analysts who are either China "pessimists" who believe a conflict between the U.S. and China is unavoidable and China "optimists" who think it may be possible to avoid conflict. They discuss China's tightening relations with Russia, whether or not the U.S.-China relationship will be a bipolar one, whether or not we have seen "peak China," Xi's recent trip to Europe, how one would know enough to conclude that China was a threat that require containment and much more about the U.S.-China relationship.
A World Safe for Commerce: American Foreign Policy from the Revolution to the Rise of China:
https://a.co/d/8GWjZVd
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

A Resurgence of Antiliberalism May 09, 2024

With Eliot traveling, Eric welcomes back Robert W. Kagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor at large at the Washington Post, to the show to discuss Kagan's new book, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism is Tearing America Apart - Again (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). They discuss the origins of America's liberal tradition in the radicalism of the American Revolution. How the American Revolution differed from the French, the persistence of an anti-liberal tradition that from its inception was wrapped up with the defense of slavery and white supremacy. The persistence of that anti-liberal tradition in the 19th Century, today's Catholic integralism and Christian nationalism and the tensions between those schools of thought. The connections between anti-liberalism and America First and the connection to anti-semitism, left-wing anti-liberalism and the from whence the threat to American democracy is greatist, the stakes in the 2024 election and the global struggle against liberal democracy by Russian and Chinese autocrats.
Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart--Again:
https://a.co/d/hkh6fxJ
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Original America First Movement May 02, 2024

Eliot and Eric welcome Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, and author of America Last: The Right's Century Long Romance with Foreign Dictators. They discuss the origin story of "America First" during the First World War when critic and satirist H.L. Mencken and German-American propagandist (and paid agent) George Sylvester Viereck led the charge against American intervention in the Great War and how both played roles in the 30s and early 40s America First movement to prevent FDR from aiding the Allies. They discuss the hostility of America Firsters to the liberal tradition in America, its connection to anti-Semitism, William F. Buckley's role and evolution on anti-Semitism, Jeanne Kirkpatrick's views on authoritarianism and totalitarianism and the left's own tradition of admiration for tyrants as well as how these tendencies are reflected in today's MAGA movement.
America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators
https://a.co/d/91qv3YA
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Facing One of the Largest War Machines in Human History Apr 25, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome Illia Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian journalist, formerly with the Kyiv Post and Kyiv Independent (of which he was a founder), and the author of I Will Show You it Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024). They discuss how he came to write the book, the buildup to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia's over the top rhetoric and bad assumptions about the nature of Ukraine and the likely course of the war, the criminal nature of Putin's regime, the Russian failure at the battle of Kyiv and whether that means Russia has lost the war, the delay in U.S. assistance, his own experience in the U.S. and why it made him optimistic that the U.S. would do the right thing, the impact of U.S. and western assistance on the war, the Belarus and Istanbul negotiations in March 2022 that some have alleged might have ended the war (spoiler alert: the Russians were not negotiating in good faith), the current battlefield situation, and how this war ends. You can follow Illia on Twitter (X) @IAPonomarenko and you can support his work at http://buymeacoffee.com/saintanger.
I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv:
https://a.co/d/3QxgSKd
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

A Depressing Trip Across the Pond Apr 18, 2024

Eliot returns from his travels and provides a trip report on his visit to Ukraine. He and Eric discuss the state of the fight, the challenges that the Ukrainians face with a hiatus in U.S. assistance, the progress that Russia has made in battlefield adaptation, Ukrainian defense innovation, the U.S. efforts to limit Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries and military bases inside Russia proper, and the recent article in Foreign Affairs that outlines the April-May 2022 negotiations between Russia and Ukraine that failed to yield an end to the war. They discuss Iran's massive, complex uav and missile assault on Israel, the deterioration of deterrence and Israeli options for resetting deterrence in response.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-could-have-ended-war-ukraine

https://x.com/dszeligowski/status/1780183950507262201

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/04/kyiv-spring-ukraine-military-aid/678013/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/iran-israel-coalition-malevolent/678069/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/12/10/the-kind-of-thing-crisis/

https://archive.org/details/the-weekly-standard-2014-03-17/page/n11/mode/2up
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The New Fractured World (with Hal Brands) Apr 11, 2024

Eric welcomes friend of Shield of the Republic Hal Brands back to the show. Hal is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the editor of a new book, War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy and the Return of A Fractured World (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), a weekly columnist at Bloomberg.com and also has a recent article on the Foreign Affairs website. They discuss the origins of the new book and 6 overarching themes that emerged from the essays by the distinguished contributors to the volume. They also discuss why America's unique system of alliances may obscure for Americans the potential for disruption that tightening relations among authoritarian regimes presents to the global order and the rise and future of isolationism in the Republican party.
https://muse.jhu.edu/book/122782/pdf
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_edited_volume/chapter/3881912/pdf
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/new-autocratic-alliances
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

What's Going on in Afghanistan? Apr 04, 2024

Eric welcomes Will Selber, Military Affairs Fellow with the Bulwark and a 20 year veteran of U.S. military intelligence with multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to his writing at the Bulwark, you can read Will's substack - Grumpy Combat Veteran - and listen to the podcast he co-hosts, Shoulder to Shoulder. They discuss the recent IS-KP attack on the Crocus City Theater in Moscow, the terrorist threat from both IS-KP and al Qaeda operating from Afghanistan, the difficulties of establishing an over-the-horizon counter-terrorist capability for CENTCOM, the Trump and Biden decisions to withdraw from Afghanistan, the failure to hold the Taliban to the terms of the Doha agreement, the repetition of US failures in VIetnam in training the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), a post-mortem on the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the reputational damage to the U.S. for abandoning its Afghan allies, the importance of military introspection and accountability for some of the failures in Afghanistan, and the ongoing impact of the Afghanistan debacle on military recruiting for the all volunteer force (AVF).
https://grumpycombatveteran.substack.com
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/al-qaeda-in-afghanistan-how-serious-threat
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/president-biden-should-talk-about-afghanistan
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/deeper-reason-for-military-recruitment-woes

The National Security Beat with Jim Sciutto Mar 29, 2024

Eliot and Eric welcome CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto to the show. The recipient of multiple awards for his journalism, including the Emmy, Edward R. Murrow, and George Polk awards he is also the author of The Shadow War, The Madman Theory, and recently The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War (New York: Dutton, 2024). They discuss why as a journalist he writes books, how the shooting war in Ukraine changed the perspective of both journalists and government officials about the danger of great power competition, the role of frontline states like Finland and Estonia and understanding the threat of Russian revanchism, Jim's reporting on the potential for Russian use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield in the fall of 2022 and whether the threat was genuine or an example of Russian use of information operations for "reflexive control," the transformation of Taiwan's defense posture and the threat of disruption and damage to US alliances in a second Trump Presidency.
The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War:
https://a.co/d/1RVHvZ4
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Nuclear Iran, NATO's Future, and America First Isolationism Mar 21, 2024

Eliot grills Eric on three recent articles identifying some big problems in U.S. foreign policy. What will happen once Iran is nuclear armed? Will the Ayatollahs undergo "nuclear learning" as some political scientists suggest or will they become more emboldened (not to seek a suicidal nuclear armageddon but to unleash their proxies -- Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, the Houthis, etc)? Should the U.S. be ready to launch a pre-emptive or prevent strike? Should it accelerate covert efforts at regime change? What about NATO decision-making? Now that the alliance is made up of 32 rather than 12 members should the decision-making move away from the consensus rules that have governed it since 1949? What should be done to avoid Hungary, Turkey or Slovakia from blocking consensus and acting as a Trojan horse inside the alliance? How tough should the U.S. be willing to be with putative allies, particularly in a wartime scenario? Finally, has the Trumpist turn to "America First" isolationism in the GOP rendered it unfit as a political instrument for conservatives who remain committed to internationalism and the US role in upholding the global order? Is it time for a new conservative internationalist political party?
https://thedispatch.com/article/when-iran-goes-nuclear/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-protesters-want-regime-change
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/natos-decision-process-has-an-achilles-heel/
https://sapirjournal.org/friends-and-foes/2024/03/republican-isolationists/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Art of Propaganda with Peter Pomerantsev Mar 14, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome Peter Pomerantsev, British journalist, senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, television producer and author of Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible, This is Not Propaganda, and his most recent book How to Win An Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2024). They discuss the story of Sefton Delmer, the bilingual British journalist who headed up covert propaganda operations for the Political Warfare Executive during World War II. They touch on what makes for effective propaganda, whether idealistic appeals or trying to reach people via crasser motives is more effective, the morality of counter-propaganda efforts, distinguishing fact from fiction, people's desire to escape responsibility for government policies, creating permission structures for people subject to effective propaganda to think differently about what they are being told and the lessons from Delmer's efforts for today's world -- defeating Putin's propaganda in Russia and abroad and breaking through the cult-like propaganda of MAGA.
How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler:
https://a.co/d/8LbiEqJ
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

How Finland Escaped Stalin's Grasp Mar 07, 2024

Eric welcomes Finnish Professor Kimmo Rentala, Emeritus Professor of Political History at the University of Helsinki to the show to discuss his recently released book, How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War(Yale University Press, 2024). The discuss Stalin's plans for Finland, Finnish resistance to the Soviet Union, Sweden's role in Finland's survival during the twentieth century, changes in access to Russian archival material from the immediate post-Soviet period to Putin's Russia, and what Ukraine can learn from Finland's experience with a large hostile neighboring country.
How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War
https://a.co/d/hz6MDU5

Liz Cheney on American Authoritarianism Feb 29, 2024

Eric and Eliot inaugurate the first video episode of Shield of the Republic by welcoming former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) to discuss her New York Times best-selling book Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning (New York: Little, Brown, 2023). They discuss her assessment of the impact on public discourse and public perceptions of the hearings and final report of the Congressional committee to investigate the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. They discuss the domestic and international consequences of a potential second Donald Trump Presidency, particularly its impact on the ability of the US to exercise international leadership in a world beset by aggressive, authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. They talk about the intellectual corruption on display at CPAC where would-be dictators were welcomed and the prospective end of democracy in America was cheered by the participants. Finally they consider the future of conservative internationalism and the Republican Party and whether or not the GOP is salvageable or whether a new conservative party needs to arise.
Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning
https://a.co/d/aTTN4iF
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

What Happens if the House Fails in its Obligation Feb 22, 2024

Eric and Eliot bemoan the death/murder of Alexei Navalny, Tucker Carlson's performative buffoonery in Moscow, and the irresponsibility of the Republican House of Representatives. They also welcome Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at St. Andrews University and author of How the War Was Won, The Second Most Powerful Man in the World, and the forthcoming book The Strategists. They discuss the reasons for overestimation of Russia at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the prospects for Ukraine with and without US aid, what a Ukrainian victory would look like, the situation in Avdiivka, whether Russia is getting stronger or weaker and what a Russian defeat would entail. They also discuss the prospects for the transatlantic alliance if Trump is re-elected, the recent change of command in Ukraine and Phil reflects on what historians bring to the discussion of war today.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric and Eliot Look at the Bright Side Feb 15, 2024

Counter to type Eric welcomes Eliot back from his travels with a discussion of the positive things going on in the world. They discuss the strong response of the European allies to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, including the German Zeitenwende and the increase in German defense spending, they discuss the Franco-American relationship and the fact that France has emerged over the past twenty years as a much stronger and capable ally, the discuss the Ukrainian naval performance in the Black Sea and the return of grain exports to almost pre-war levels, they talk about Tucker Carlson beclowning himself in his interview with Putin and that latter's unconcealed contempt for his interviewer, they talk about the PRC's muted reaction to President Lai's election in Taiwan and the seeming slight and perhaps transitory improvement in US-China relations, as well as the good work of the Biden Administration in strengthening the links among U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. They discuss the indictment of Jair Bolsonaro and the success of Ecuador's President in fighting drug cartels and gangs. Eric also apologizes to Foreign Affairs editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan for misattributing an article to his journal that actually appeared on the Council of Foreign Relations website.
https://www.ft.com/content/51cf54ed-55df-4369-bdef-6f98be17d26c
sonofadiplomat.substack.com
https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/files/files/20240212_NP_SGDSN_VIGINUM_PORTAL-KOMBAT-NETWORK_ENG_VF.pdf
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

This War is Going to End Exactly How the West Decides it Will Feb 08, 2024

Eric welcomes former Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) of NATO General Philip Breedlove. General Breedlove is one of the nation's preeminent military strategists having served as commander of US Air Forces in Europe as well as Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Practice at the Sam Nunn School at Georgia Tech (General Breedlove's alma mater). They discuss the state of play in Ukraine, the successes and failures of Ukraine's counter-offensive (including successes in the air and naval domains), the prospects for renewed Russian offensive operations in the direction of Kupyansk, the longer term trajectory of the conflict absent the supplemental aid bill currently before the U.S. Congress, the role that different weapons systems can make on the battlefield, how the U.S. administration has assessed the escalation risks, the long term consequences of defeat and the prospect of a reconstituted Russian threat to NATO, as well as the travails of Israel fighting in Gaza.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia

We Need a Zero Tolerance Iran Policy Feb 01, 2024

Eric and Eliot (joining from the Iberian Peninsula) discuss the Iranian strike on US soldiers located at Tower 22 in Jordan and the Administration's options for retaliation. They consider the argument's in Eliot's Atlantic piece suggesting that the US needs an entirely new strategy for Iran, the nature of the regime, and the difficulty American government officials have with ideological antagonists motivated by religious impulses. They discuss the current situation in Ukraine and the divisions between President Zelensky and Commander of the Armed Services General Zaluzhny as well as the Russo-centric assumptions of American politicians and policymakers. They discuss the potential for European states to fill the gap in material support to Ukraine created by the US political stalemate. They also consider the ICJ genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel and the scandal surrounding UNWRA workers participating in the Hamas October 7 assault and hostage taking in Israel. Finally they discuss the role of Antonio Salazar's corporatist, authoritarian (but not Fascist) dictatorship in Portugal.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/iran-problem/677282/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2015-12-14/time-get-tough-tehran
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2020-04-13/next-iranian-revolution
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-protesters-want-regime-change
https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Aftermath-Forging-Strategy-toward/dp/0817921540#customerReviews
https://www.amazon.com/Salazar-Dictator-Who-Refused-Die/dp/1787383881
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

David Petraeus & Andrew Roberts on War Jan 25, 2024

Eric and Eliot are joined by General David Petraeus and historian Andrew Roberts to discuss their New York Times bestselling book Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine (N.Y.: Harper, 2023). They discuss how and why the two authors came together to write the book, the link between the causes of war and the manner in which wars are waged, the nature of regimes and the advantages that authoritarians have when fighting against liberal democracies, the challenge of maintaining liberal values in the midst of intense warfare, the influence of history on the waging of war and vice-versa, the way in which military commanders should provide their best military advice to Presidents, and the necessity and likelihood of fielding a generation of general/flag officers who are intellectually equipped to deal with the extraordinarily complex and dangerous international environment that the nation faces in the remind of this century.
Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine:
https://a.co/d/aNagP0I
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Barbarossa: The war in the east Jan 18, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome David Stahel, Senior Lecturer at the University South Wales, Canberra and author of a multivolume history of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and other works on World War II on the eastern front. They discuss the historiography of World War II on the eastern front, the new primary sources he has tapped for his historical work, the sheer scale of the combat operations and the virtues of writing operational military history (as opposed to concentrating at the grand strategic level), the tensions inside the German high command between Hitler and the Army command as well as the rivalries among the army commanders on the eastern front. They cover the issue of how professional vs. how ideologically committed to Nazism the military commanders were, how the war turned from a war of maneuver to a war of attrition that doomed Nazi Germany to military failure and the echoes of history that can be found in the war that Russia is waging in Ukraine today.
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East:
https://a.co/d/egI7OKv
Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East:
https://a.co/d/5xRmorZ
Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded:
https://a.co/d/8d3Xw2F
The Battle for Moscow:
https://a.co/d/h9Idyjf
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

What happens when the Russians come to your country Jan 11, 2024

Eric and Eliot welcome Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent of the Wall Street Journal and author of the new book Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence (N.Y.: Penguin Press, 2024) released on January 9, 2024. They discuss Putin's rationale for the war, his long-standing views (shared by many Russians that are dismissive and disdainful of Ukrainian national identity), why some Russians (like Igor Girkin and Yevgeniy Prigozhin who had some actual knowledge of Ukraine) had more realistic views of Ukraine's ability to inflict damage on the Russian army, the potential of a negotiated settlement in the spring of 2022 and why negotiations failed, the tensions between President Zelenskiy and Commander of the Armed Forces General Zaluzhny, the fate of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the role of the high command in making decisions like the defense of Bakhmut, the views of the Ukrainian military about U.S. military advice and training, the Biden Administration's self-limiting fears of potential nuclear escalation by Putin and the consequences of the hesitant provision of advanced military equipment to the Ukrainians as well as the likely consequences and dangers of failing to pass the Supplemental Aid legislation currently before Congress and resuming the flow of military aid to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Enemies-Will-Vanish-Independence/dp/0593655184
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Price of Strategic Slovenliness Jan 04, 2024

Eric welcomes Eliot back from his long travels who reports back on his trip with a bipartisan delegation of national security experts to Israel and recounts the ongoing trauma that both the Israeli public and national security elite are experiencing over the attacks on October 7 and the ongoing saga of the hostages. He describes the comprehensive nature of the failures (intelligence, political, operational and tactical) that Israel experienced that day and over the next several weeks as well as the resilience with which Israeli society and the IDF have reacted. They discuss the adjournment of politics in Israel while the war is underway, how long that will last and Bibi's political prospects in the long run (spoiler alert: Eliot thinks Bibi will go at some point). They discuss the rules of engagement, how Israel is fighting the war, the prospects for a ceasefire and hostage exchange, the dangers of escalation in the north with Hezbollah, and the links that Eliot believes exist between the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the prospective conflict over Taiwan.
https://sonofadiplomat.substack.com/p/2024-a-year-of-global-consequence
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Live from the Miller Center Dec 21, 2023

Eric visits the Miller Center and joins John Owen IV, the Amb. Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs and Marc Selverstone, the Miller Center's director of presidential studies, co-chair of the Center’s Presidential Recordings Program, and professor of presidential studies. They discus John's new book The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023) and Marc's book The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam (Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022). They discuss tensions in JFK's commitment to Vietnam and the question of whether or not he would have withdrawn US forces from SE Asia had he lived, the role of botched withdrawals in Vietnam and Afghanistan on US standing in the world, America's diminished reputation for competence and the defense of global order, the relationship between American democracy and the state of democracy in the international order with the rise of populism globally and much else.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+kennedy+withdrawal&hvadid=676976545333&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9051515&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1675637251603091413&hvtargid=kwd-1935195859327&hydadcr=22165_13517535&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_4mgav3wic7_e
https://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Nations-American-Democracy-Politics/dp/0300260733/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SZU0KJM5NX1F&keywords=the+ecology+of+nations&qid=1702755136&sprefix=the+ecology+of+nation%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Is America about to abandon Ukraine? Dec 14, 2023

While President Zelensky is meeting in the White House on Dec. 12, Eric welcomes former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor to Shield of the Republic. They discuss the state of play on the supplemental aid legislation, the causes for the Ukrainian Counter Offensive's "failure" this summer, the search for a new strategy, General Zaluzhny's ideas about the changing character of warfare, the stresses and strains of domestic Ukrainian politics, the prospects for negotiations, the consequences of failure to get the assistance money and Plan B if the effort on the Hill fails.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Understanding Hamas with Jonathan Schanzer Dec 07, 2023

Eric welcomes Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to discuss the war in Gaza. Jonathan Schanzer was a terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department and holds a BA from Emory University, a Masters degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a Doctorate from Kings College London and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo. He is the author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine, State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State, and most recently Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War. They discuss the broader regional context of the war including Iran, Turkey, Qatar and internal Palestinian conflicts. The different reaction of the Israeli Arab community to the war in 2021 and today's conflict, Jonathan's methodology for analyzing the war, the role of tunnels in Gaza and the difficulties Israel faces in both fighting an urban war and following the law of armed conflict, Hamas's responsibilities under the LOAC as well as the intelligence and policy failure that appears to have handicapped the Israeli response to the horrific attack on October 7, 2023.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2021/11/10/gaza-conflict-2021/
https://www.amazon.com/Hamas-vs-Fatah-Struggle-Palestine/dp/0230609058/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5Z9D6BBJ0KWE&keywords=Jonathan+Schanzer&qid=1701730624&sprefix=jonathan+schanzer%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/State-Failure-Mahmoud-Unmaking-Palestinian/dp/1137278242/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1C24RRJCRPFTS&keywords=jonathan+schanzer&qid=1701730653&sprefix=%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-3
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

National Security with Secretary Gates Nov 30, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome former Secretary of Defense and former CIA Director Robert M. Gates to discuss his article in the current (November-December) issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Dysfunctional Superpower: Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia." They touch on the unprecedented threats (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, violent Islamist extremism) confronting the United States, the role of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and their motives for undermining the U.S. led international order, their predisposition to miscalculation, the suitability of the current national security decision-making system for the current moment, the consolidation of the defense industrial base, the damage done to national defense by repeated Congressional failure to pass a budget and reliance on continuing resolutions and gimmicks like the Budget Control Act, and the necessity of national leadership to spell out for the American people the threats to our security and prosperity and the reasons why the costs of preserving the U.S. led order are worth the candle.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/robert-gates-america-china-russia-dysfunctional-superpower
https://www.amazon.com/Exercise-Power-American-Successes-Post-Cold/dp/B0862HDR6F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZNQW9YTL1GCH&keywords=the+exercise+of+power&qid=1700510748&sprefix=The+Exercis%2Caps%2C203&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Duty-Memoirs-Secretary-at-War/dp/030794963X/ref=monarch_sidesheet
https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Leadership-Lessons-Change-Service/dp/0307949648/ref=monarch_sidesheet

A French Perspective Nov 16, 2023

Eric and Eliot host Bruno Tertrais, the Deputy DIrector of France's Fondation Pour La Recherche Strategique, one of the country's leading think tanks and author of the recent book La Guerre des Mondes: Le Retour de la geopolitique et le choc des Empires (War of the Worlds: The Return of Geopolitics and the Shock of Empires). They discuss historical analogies that shed light on the current geopolitical moment including the pre-World War II, interwar, and early Cold War periods, the Korean War and the emergence of the bipolar world, the role of nuclear deterrence and alliances in today's geopolitical strategic competition among the US, Russia and China. Bruno describes the contemporary global order as less a world of blocs and than families of nations that cluster around the West or the authoritarian powers of Russia, Iran and China. They discuss the re-emergence of geopolitical concepts like "heartland" continental powers focused on land power and rimland maritime powers focused on naval power. They also touch on French policy under President Macron and the impact of US domestic political dysfunction on European views of international security.
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/new-cold-war/
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Entangling_Alliances__Europe_the_United_States_Asia_and_the_Risk_of_1914_.pdf
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-role-of-security-guarantees
https://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=1570
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Great Teachers and Two Wars Nov 09, 2023

Eliot and Eric talk about great teachers including Eric's undergraduate mentor at Cornell, the late Walter LaFeber and Eliot's Harvard mentor Samuel Hungtington. They talk about the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic history -- its strengths and weaknesses, the nature and progress of historiography, the qualities that made LaFeber and Huntington such compelling scholars and instructors as well as the contemporary "over professionalization" of disciplines in the humanities. They also talk about the war in Ukraine, including the Time magazine article on Zelensky that depicts him as "delusional" as well as the Economist interview with Gen. Zaluzhny and the latter's paper on the evolution of modern warfare in Ukraine. They cover the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and discuss how much time Israel has to accomplish its strategic objectives and the difficulties Israel faces in securing those ends as well as the fascinating and disturbing profile of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Financial Times. Finally, Eliot talks about the World War II museum and memorial in New Orleans and why the memory of World War II remains important for Americans to maintain.
https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/
https://www.economist.com/zaluzhny-transcript?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gclid=CjwKCAiA3aeqBhBzEiwAxFiOBo4yIlOigMyAgtSawUcFpE1YiJO_4tllqqrM1suZ_qDfbQbmtad_uBoCVIoQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/for-israel-a-war-unlike-any-other-b8160908
https://www.ft.com/content/de78c7a0-f8f0-403e-b0db-eb86d6e76919
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Everything is Going to Hell Part II Nov 02, 2023

Eric and Eliot talk about what is perhaps the most complex and dangerous moment in national security since the end of World War II. They discuss the explosion of vile anti-semitism globally and particularly on U.S. university campuses and the failures of higher education that this reveals. They discuss the Israeli operations in Gaza, the likely course of the war there and the prospects for escalation. They note the linkages between the war in Gaza and the ongoing war in Ukraine and make a sober and sobering assessment of the successes and failures of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the lingering questions about U.S. supply of weapons to the Ukrainians, the need for the U.S. to be the arsenal of democracy, the investments that will take and the worrisome developments in Congress as the people's representatives deliberate on the supplemental aid package proposed by the Biden Administration.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/prepare-for-an-iranian-escalation-gaza-israel-23cdc9af
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/decolonization-narrative-dangerous-and-false/675799/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/robert-gates-america-china-russia-dysfunctional-superpower
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/strategy-not-tactics-israel-hamas-war/675863/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-semitism-poisons-america-israel-jews-domestic-politics-violence-6a83136b
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/20/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-unites-states-response-to-hamass-terrorist-attacks-against-israel-and-russias-ongoing-brutal-war-against-ukraine/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The Hollow Crown: Eliot's latest book is out now! Oct 26, 2023

**NOTE** For a limited time, Shield of the Republic listeners can receive a 20% discount on The Hollow Crown. Use code HLLW23, at checkout at https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eliot-a-cohen/the-hollow-crown/9781541644861/. Offer valid through November 2nd, 2023.
Eric welcomes Eliot back on publication day for Eliot's new book, The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall (N.Y.: Basic Books, 2023). Ken Adelman, former Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) under President Reagan and National Editor of The Washingtonian for 20 years joins them to discuss Shakespeare and leadership. Ken has taught Shakespeare at Georgetown and George Washington University and is Vice President of Movers and Shakespeares, a consultancy that provides executive training using leadership lessons from Shakespeare. Eliot discusses how he came to study Shakespeare and political leadership and the origins of the title "The Hollow Crown". He and Ken discuss the performative elements of political leadership, the corrosive effects of hatred and ambition on politicians' character, as well as their favorite scenes and lines from Shakespeare's body of work.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

We Need a Renaissance in Deterrence Policy Oct 19, 2023

Eric welcomes Franklin C. Miller, a Principal at the Scowcroft Group and long time public servant at the Department of State, Defense and the White House with deep expertise on nuclear strategy, escalation dynamics and deterrence. They discuss the loss of intellectual capital in the nuclear strategy arena after the end of the Cold War, the numerous panels and reports that have testified to that loss, the nature of Putin and other Russian officials nuclear threats in Ukraine war context, traditional Russian attitudes towards and compliance with arms control agreements, steps that NATO can take to enhance its deterrent posture in the face of Russian nuclear sabre rattling, the challenges of deterring both Russia and China (the so-called 3 body problem) as nuclear peers, and a precis of the just released (Oct. 12) report of the congressionally mandated Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.
America's Strategic Posture Commission Report:
https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/A/Am/Americas%20Strategic%20Posture/Strategic-Posture-Commission-Report.pdf
https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2023/09/29/the-urgent-imperative-to-maintain-natos-nuclear-deterrence/index.html
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Edelman-Miller%20Opening%20Statement%20SASC%20Hearing%20Sept.%2020%2020225.pdf
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/us-nuclear-arsenal-can-deter-both-china-and-russia
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Civilization vs. Barbarism Oct 12, 2023

Eliot joins Eric from his walking tour in the Cotswolds to discuss the horrifying Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. They discuss the intelligence and policy failures that allowed Israeli officials to be taken by surprise, the introspection and self-criticism that Israelis had applied in the past when these kinds of things have taken place (the Agranat Commission after the 1973 war and the Winograd Commission after the 2006 Lebanon War). They commend Biden’s speech and the White House spokesperson’s denunciation of “the Squad’s” equivocations about Hamas violence. Eliot previews his forthcoming Atlantic article on civilization vs. barbarism and they speculate on how Israel will proceed and whether we are facing a larger regional war.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-israel-was-duped-hamas-planned-devastating-assault-2023-10-08/
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB9900/RB9975/RAND_RB9975.pdf
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

China's Two Sets of Books Oct 06, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome Leland Miller, a non-resident senior fellow at the Asia Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on Strategy and Security and co-founder & CEO of China Beige Book International. Lee explains how China Beige Book acquires data on the PRC economy as well as the pitfalls of using official Chinese government data. They discuss both the short and longer run prospects for China’s economy, the specific dysfunctions of one man rule of managing a large economy, the question of whether or not we have seen “peak China” and if that will make the PRC more or less aggressive vis a vis Taiwan. They consider whether an invasion or blockade of the island is more likely and why any of this should matter to the broader American public.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

If You Have a Book, You'll Never Be Alone Sep 28, 2023

Eric and Eliot take a break from the depressing flow of international news and talk about books. They discuss their favorite bookstores, favorite historical memoirs, books that influenced them, cherished but unread books, greatest works of history, what they are reading now and what is sitting in their night side table waiting to be read.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Everything is Going to Hell Sep 21, 2023

Eric and Eliot discuss the growing global disorder starting with the potential for a genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the degree to which events in the Caucasus and Central Asia are related to Russia's involvement in Ukraine, the Iranian angle in the Caucasus and the recent release of unjustly detained Americans by Iran (and whether or not ransom was involved), the Biden Administration's apparent interest in a sweeping diplomatic deal that would bring normalization between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Israel but would require a mutual security treaty with formal U.S. security guarantees for the KSA, the situation in the Western Hemisphere (including the possible killing of an Sikh separatist in Canada which PM Trudeau has alleged was carried out by the government of India) assassinations in Ecuador, drug and immigration issues and American political dysfunction in the face of all of this.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

A Trip to Taipei Sep 15, 2023

Eliot returns with a debrief from his trip to Taiwan and Japan. He and Eric discuss the coming Presidential election in Taiwan, the disingenuous nature of much of our discourse about the Taiwan issue that results from our "One China" policy, the reason it is wrong to think of China as a "pacing threat," the dangers of a blockade rather than an invasion of Taiwan, the things that Taiwan and the US need to do in order to deter China, and how Eliot and Eric grade the Biden team's approach to China overall.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The New Useful Idiots Sep 07, 2023

Eliot's road trip continues but Eric welcomes syndicated columnist, Bulwark Policy Editor, and host of the Beg to Differ Podcast Mona Charen. They discuss Mona's 2003 book Useful Idiots describing the left's Cold War and post-Cold War passion for anti-anti Communism and indulging in apologetics for Communist regimes including the Soviet Union, the PRC, Cuba, and others in search of a utopian socialism that never quite met expectations and ended up excusing some of the world's worst human rights violators. They discuss the honorable tradition of cold war liberal anti-communism embodied by Harry Truman, Hubert Humprey and Henry Jackson and the alt-right's attraction to and apologias for Viktor Orban's Hungary and Vladimir Putin's Russia in pursuit of a critique of contemporary America. They touch on the ongoing Republican debate on foreign policy, the Republican Party's historic tradition of isolationism, the role of Wendell Wilke and Arthur Vandenberg in constructing a Republican internationalism and the prospects for a return to a Reaganaut foreign policy. They talk about the responsibilities of Reagan Republicans to call out the authoritarianism of Trumpism and Trumpists. Finally, Mona gives the speech Joe Biden should give to persuade the American people to continue supporting Ukraine and to give himself a political boost.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Republicans for Ukraine Aug 31, 2023

With Eliot on the road Eric welcomes Bulwark Editor at Large Bill Kristol to the show. They discuss the prospects for a Supplemental Appropriation for Ukraine aid in the Congress, the state of public opinion on the war in Ukraine, the impact of the Republican Presidential debate on support for Ukraine, the effort that Bill and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell have launched to highlight Republicans for Ukraine, the key role of Senator McConnell and other supporters of traditional conservative internationalism in this effort, the seeming cluelessness of some folks in the Biden Administration about the information dimension of the War in Ukraine and the damaging role that "armchair generals" have played in carping about Ukrainian performance in the current counter-offensive.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/let-ukraine-direct-its-own-counteroffensive-russia-war-weapons-military-kyiv-bd360796
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/ukraine-doesnt-need-armchair-generals
https://gopforukraine.com/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

Thanks for Your Service Aug 25, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome back Peter Feaver, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University, to the show. They discuss Peter's new book Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the U.S. Military (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). Along the way they touch on the causes of public confidence in the military, the social desirability bias that makes people feel that it is right to have confidence in the military, politicization of the military, the blame game between civilians and senior military officers who seem to have public immunity from criticism because of high public confidence, whether or not confidence in the military has crested, the role of partisanship in public support, the impact of Republican critiques of "wokeness" in the military on recruiting, the lack of public support for traditional norms of civil-military relations and what it is like to teach at a university in the age of CHATGPT.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

Israel's Divisions and the Challenges Ahead Aug 17, 2023

Eric and Eliot are joined by Isabel Kershner, the New York Times Jerusalem correspondent and author of The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss the division and polarization in Israeli society and the cleavages between the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi populationns, as well as between secular and Haredi Jews, the emergence of identity politics and populism in Israel and, of course, the current struggle over judicial reform. They consider the judicial crisis in the context of Bibi Netanyahu's political predicament and ruminate on whether Israel's greatest challenges in the future will come from within the country or from the external security environment.

https://www.amazon.com/Land-Hope-Fear-Israels-Battle/dp/1101946768

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Christopher Miller's Life and Times in Ukraine Aug 03, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome Financial Times Ukraine correspondent Christopher Miller, author of The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine (London: Bloomsbury, 2023). Chris describes his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bakhmut and his transition to journalism as a reporter for the Kyiv Post exposing corruption and self-dealing in Ukraine before the "revolution of dignity" at the Euromaidan in 2014. He talks about his coverage of the fall of Ukrainian President Yanukovych, the Russian seizure of Crimea, the outbreak of the 2014 war in Donbas, his encounters with Igor "Strelkov" Girkin (now under arrest in Moscow for criticizing Putin's conduct of the current war) and the "Cossack Bomb Squad," the wartime leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky and the dilemmas that await him as well as the course of the current Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Shield of the Republic will be on a short summer break next week.

https://www.amazon.com/War-Came-Us-Death-Ukraine/dp/139940685X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1690910070&sr=8-1

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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What's Happening on the Battlefield? Jul 28, 2023

Eric welcomes Eliot back from Edinburgh where it was not all Walter Scott tourism and Scotch sipping. They discuss the project that Eliot and Phillips O'Brien have undertaken to analyze the failures of Russia experts to correctly assess the run up to and the course of the war in Ukraine, the ongoing state of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the lingering political repercussions in Russia of the Prigozhin mutiny and how it might affect the battlespace, the Biden Administration's nomination of Derek Chollet as Under Secretary of Defense for policy and the current hold that Sen. Tommy Tuberville has placed on the confirmation of senior military and civilian defense officials, as well as the troubling state of Israeli democracy.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Toomas Ilves on NATO's Vilnius Summit Jul 20, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome former President of Estonia (and SotR fan) Toomas Ilves to the show. They do a post-mortem on the Vilnius NATO Summit. How did the Biden team perform? What are the prospects for European security with a revanchist Russia? How should NATO approach Ukraine's future association with Alliance? They also discuss the importance of Finland and Sweden in NATO and much more.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Don't Give the Bastards Any Sanctuary Jul 13, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Vickers, the author of By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations and Strategy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss his role in overseeing the CIA's covert assistance program to the Afghan resistance in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, how his experiences as a Green Beret impacted his approach to policy making as a senior official, his academic work at the Office of Net Assessment and CSBA on the revolution in warfare, his return to government in the Bush 43 Administration orchestrating the intensification of the war against Al Qaeda and his role in the bin Laden raid, as well as his thoughts on the endgame in Afghanistan and the lessons of earlier proxy wars for the current fight in Ukraine. They also discuss the delicacy of working with nuclear land mines as a special forces officer.

https://www.amazon.com/All-Means-Available-Intelligence-Operations/dp/1101947705/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1689088835&sr=8-1

https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-shadow-wars-of-michael-vickers

https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/the-revolution-in-war/publication/1

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Reporting from the Front Jul 06, 2023

Eric and Eliot dig in to Eliot’s recent travels to Poland and Ukraine. They discuss the future of European security relations with Ukraine, Kyiv’s understandable neuralgia about steps short of NATO membership, the meaning and impact of Prigozhin’s rebellion in Russia and on the battlefield, the prospects for Ukraine’s counter-offensive and Ukraine’s ongoing requirements for long range strike, short-range air defenses and cluster munitions.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Give Me the Gun Big Guy Jun 29, 2023

Eric welcomes back Eliot to host Stephen Sestanovich, the George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the Council on Foreign Relations and Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor at the School of International Political Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University to discuss the short-lived semi-farcical mutiny in Russia led by Evgeniy Prigozhin, the proprietor of the Wagner Group private military company. They discuss the backstory of Wagner and the legal limbo in which it operates, how its business model benefits members of Putin’s kleptocratic elite, whether Putin has emerged weaker or stronger from this affair and the impact that Prigozhin’s actions may have on the stability of Russia and the ongoing war effort on Ukraine.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/three-logics-russias-prigozhin-putsch/674538/

https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110854/witnesses/HHRG-116-FA14-Wstate-MartenK-20200707.pdf

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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The New Makers of Modern Strategy Jun 22, 2023

With Eliot still on the road, Eric welcomes back Hal Brands, the Henry A. Kissinger Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and introduces Thomas Mahnken, the President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) to discuss The New Makers of Modern Strategy, published by Princeton University Press in May. They discuss the backstory of the Makers of Modern Strategy franchise, the purpose and themes of the current volume, arms races and arms control in peacetime competition between nations, the Anglo-German naval arms race before WWI, the US-Soviet arms race in the Cold War, the role of Andrew Marshall as both a strategist and patron of strategy and much more.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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A New Age of Danger Jun 15, 2023

With Eliot on the road again Eric hosts Andrew Hoehn, Senior VP and Director of Research at the RAND Corporation, and Thom Shanker (formerly New York Times national security reporter and editor) Director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University. The authors of Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats (New York: Hachette Books, 2023) discuss why we are entering an age of greater danger than we have known since the end of the Cold War, the nature of the government's machinery for warning and action in the national security realm, the feasibility and desirability of "whole-of-government" and "whole-of-society" solutions to these looming national security challenges, the legacy of Andrew Marshall (the director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment for 40 years), the role of cost-imposing strategies and the use of attritable unmanned aircraft and sensors for deterring the PRC in the Taiwan Strait, the nature of "unobtanium", and the Russian war on Ukraine.

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Danger-Keeping-America-Superpowers/dp/030682910X

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Escalation, Deterrence, and Leadership Jun 08, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome back friend of the show Kori Schake, the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a veteran of government service at the White House, Defense Department and State Department (where she served as Deputy Director of Policy Planning). They discuss Kori's recent visit to Ukraine, the Biden Administration's management of escalation dynamics in the Russo-Ukrainian war and whether the administration's rhetoric has undercut their professed objectives. They also discuss the appointment of a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the controversy over the Marine Corps' recent overhaul under Commandant General David Berger, as well as the importance of diversity of service views in senior DoD leadership. They wrap up with a discussion of Kori's essay on "Strategic Excellence" that examines the strategy of Tecumseh and the Shawnee Confederation and which was recently published in The New Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 2023).

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/05/russia-ukraine-war-escalation-biden-us-risks/674220/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/biden-ukraine-moscow-attack-drone-white-house/674254/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=true-anthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

https://www.amazon.com/New-Makers-Modern-Strategy-Ancient/dp/0691204381/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VZ1OC2MKVC0&keywords=the+new+makers+of+modern+strategy&qid=1686158772&sprefix=The+New+Makers%2Caps%2C244&sr=8-1

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Memorial Day, Election Day, and a Birthday Jun 01, 2023

Eric and Eliot share reflections on Memorial Day (and the proper way to observe it), analyze the Turkish election results and Turkey's future course as a regional power, discuss the rise of religious authoritarianism and populism around the globe, and mark Henry Kissinger's one hundredth birthday with a discussion of his complex and complicated legacy as a statesman.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Eliot Cohen: Foreign Correspondent May 25, 2023

Eric and Eliot mark the latter’s return from his European travels with dark musings about why they have not yet been sanctioned by the Russian government. They also discuss Finland’s adaptation to NATO membership, the differing perspectives of the Nordic and Baltic states, whether or not the neutrality of the “global south” in the Russo-Ukraine war is consequential, and Ukraine’s post-Bakhmut prospects.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/ukraine-victory-russia-defeat/674112/

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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The October Farce May 18, 2023

Will Inboden, the Executive Director of the William Clements Center for National Security and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas Austin (and editor of the Texas National Security Review)joins Eric to discuss the alleged "October Surprise" in 1980 -- the long bruited charge that Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey colluded with Iranian intermediaries to forestall the release of the U.S. hostages until after the election. The original allegation, made by former Carter NSC staffer Gary Sick, resurfaced this spring after former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes gave an interview to Peter Baker of the New York Times alleging that he and the late John Connally travelled the Middle East in 1980 to pass the word to the Iranians that they would get a better deal from Reagan than they would from Carter. One month later Gary Sick (along with Jonathan Alter, Kai Bird, and Stuart Eizenstat) argued in The New Republic that the matter is "All But Settled." Will and Eric discuss the historical evidence (or lack thereof) that supports the theory and compare it to Nixon's efforts to affect the Vietnam negotiations during the 1968 Presidential Election and the collusion between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign that was revealed in the Mueller and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Reports.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html

https://warontherocks.com/2023/04/be-skeptical-of-reagans-october-surprise/

https://thedispatch.com/article/smears-and-myths-the-october-surprise-revisited/

https://newrepublic.com/article/172324/its-settled-reagan-campaign-delayed-release-iranian-hostages

https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Shadows-Chennault-Watergate-Presidency/dp/0813937833

https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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The Next Phase of War May 15, 2023

While Eliot is still in Europe, Eric welcomes former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000) Stephen Pifer to the show. Steve is affiliated with the Stanford Center on International Security and Cooperation and is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has served at the US Embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London, was senior director at the NSC and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Russia and Ukraine, as well as an advisor to Amb. Paul Nitze during the INF Treaty negotiations. They discuss VE Day in Europe, the drone attack on the Kremlin, the prospects for the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the types of military equipment that would be most useful for the Ukrainians. They also discuss the promise (or lack thereof) of potential Chinese mediation of the conflict and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict.

https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Trident-U-S-_Ukraine-Relations-Turbulent/dp/0815730403

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.co

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Potential for Regime Change in Ankara May 04, 2023

A solo Eric welcomes Gönül Tol, the founding Director of the Turkey Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC to discuss her new book, Erdogan's War: A Strongman's Struggle at Home and in Syria, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023) and her perspective on the upcoming Turkish elections on May 14. They discuss the complex inter-relationship between Erdogan's foreign policy and his domestic aspirations to move Turkey in an authoritarian direction, Erdogan's thirst for power and his pragmatism in pursuing Islamist, socially conservative and Nationalist constituencies as circumstances have changed, the impact of 20 years of AKP rule on Turkish society, and the prospects for the united opposition "Table of Six" in the election. They also touch on the potential for election fraud and Erdogan refusing to leave office despite the outcome of the vote. Finally, they touch on the reaction of civil society and the mess that the opposition will inherit if they win the elections.

https://www.amazon.com/Erdoğans-War-Strongmans-Struggle-Syria/dp/0197677320

https://www.mei.edu/blog/turkish-election-watch-week-april-23-30

https://www.ft.com/content/fd31eff7-b5e2-4424-82ed-215a93837c27

https://www.politico.eu/article/turkeys-gandhi-sets-his-sights-on-strongman-erdogan-kemal-kilicdaroglu-peoples-republican-party-tayyip-erdogan-development-party-akp-deniz-baykal/

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Piecing Together Russia's Road to War Apr 27, 2023

With Eliot traveling for both business and family celebrations, Eric hosts historian, journalist and novelist Owen Matthews whose new book, Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia's War Against Ukraine, has just been published in the US by Harper Collins. Owen has been a journalist with The Moscow Times and served as the Newsweek Bureau Chief in Moscow and Istanbul. He is author of several works of history about Russia and the thrillers, Black Sun, Red Traitor, and White Fox. They discuss Owen's family connections to Russia and Ukraine, the backstory of the war, Putin's decision to invade in 2022, the role of the intelligence services in Putin's rise, and the prospects for war termination.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

https://www.amazon.com/Overreach-Inside-Russias-Against-Ukraine/dp/0008562741/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TUERNR9JJG81&keywords=overreach+the+inside+story+of+putin%27s+war+against+ukraine&qid=1682532898&sprefix=Overreach%2Caps%2C331&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Sun/dp/0552176575/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Traitor/dp/0552178357/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://www.amazon.com/White-Fox-Novel-Owen-Matthews/dp/0385543441/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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It's Our Country, We Want it Back Apr 21, 2023

While Eliot is on travel Eric welcomes LTG Sami Sadat whose poignant op-ed in the New York Times in August 2021 about the fall of Afghanistan described his personal feelings of betrayal by the US. He is a major figure in the National Geographic documentary Retrograde now airing on Disney+. They discuss the Biden Administration's recent "Interim Report on Lessons Learned from the Afghanistan Withdrawal" and the contrast between it and the report of the Special Inspector General on Afghanistan, the relative responsibility of the Trump and Biden Administrations, the flaws in the Doha Agreement and the role that contractors played in sustaining Afghan National Security Forces. They also discuss the current humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan and the country's future prospects.

Lt. Gen Sami Sadat's 2021 Op-Ed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html

Biden Administration Interim Report the Afghanistan Withdrawal:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf

SIGAR Report on the Afghan Security Forces Collapse:

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/evaluations/SIGAR-23-16-IP.pdf

Retrograde Official Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CufeaxpsTTQ

1208 Foundation Website:

https://www.1208foundation.org/

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The Drivers of Illiberalism Apr 13, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). One of America's most distinguished public intellectuals he is the author of several books including the End of History and the Last Man and, more recently, Liberalism and its Discontents. They discuss the impact of the war on Ukraine on the future of liberal democracy and the rules based international order, the drivers of populism and nationalism, the rise of illiberalism in both theory and practice, as well as the state of the academy and the situation in Georgia under the influence of Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.

https://www.ft.com/content/d0331b51-5d0e-4132-9f97-c3f41c7d75b3

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/francis-fukuyama-still-end-history/671761/

https://thebulletin.org/premium/2022-11/its-a-different-kind-of-world-were-living-in-now-interview-with-political-scientist-francis-fukuyama/

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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They Weren't Stupid and They Weren't Criminals Apr 07, 2023

Eric and Eliot host Melvyn P. Leffler, the Edward Stettinius Professor of History at the University of Virginia to discuss his new book, Confronting Saddam: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq. Mel describes why he decided to write the book and his findings that Bush rather than a cabal of neoconservatives was that key decision maker and that he adopted a strategy of coercive diplomacy to deal with the ongoing threat of Saddam's regime. He discusses the Bush team's motivations which he ascribes to fear, power, and hubris. He provides a critique of the decision-making and discusses the difficulty of writing contemporary history and alternative courses of action that Bush ought to have considered.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/bush-911-and-roots-iraq-war

https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Saddam-Hussein-George-Invasion/dp/0197610773/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1YI8C4LFC6B4E&keywords=mel+leffler+book&qid=1680643956&sprefix=Mel+Leffler%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-2

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com

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Presidential Transitions & the Freedom Agenda Mar 31, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome back Duke Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the Program on American Grand Strategy, Peter Feaver, pinch-hitting for Meghan O'Sullivan (whose illness prevented her from joining us) to discuss Hand Off, a book that Peter and Meghan (along with SOTR guest Will Inboden) edited consisting of all the Bush 43 Administration's NSC transition memos prepared for the Obama Administration. They touch on Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia and China and whether or not "the Freedom Agenda" serves as a coherent framing of the Bush Administration foreign policies, the opportunity costs with Russia and China that resulted from the focus on the War on Terror, and much more.

https://www.amazon.com/Hand-Off-Foreign-Policy-George-Passed/dp/081573977X

https://halbrands.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/12___20___2017_The-case-f.pdf

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

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The Endgame in Afghanistan & Christian Nationalism Mar 23, 2023

Eric flies solo in this episode (while Eliot is traveling in Europe) and hosts guest Paul D. Miller, Professor of Practice in International Affairs at Georgetown University and former NSC Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Bush 43 Administration. They discuss the recent Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report on the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) in August of 2021 and attempt to assess the roles of the Trump and Biden Administrations in the debacle. They cover the diplomatic malpractice involved in reaching and implementing the Doha Agreement between the US and the Taliban, the repeated failure of US efforts to train foreign military forces to be self-sustaining, and the possible alternatives that might have been pursued to hold the Taliban at bay. They also discuss Paul's new book, The Religion of American Greatness: What Is Wrong WIth Christian Nationalism? (InterVarsity Press, 2022) and touch on American identity and the US role in the world, the universalism of the American creed, how Christian nationalism is related to isolationism, democracy promotion and the role of history and heritage in American life.

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/evaluations/SIGAR-23-16-IP.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/Religion-American-Greatness-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1514000261

https://www.thebulwark.com/afghanistans-terrorist-future/

https://www.thebulwark.com/the-catastrophic-u-s-exit-from-afghanistan/

https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/eric-edelman-v/

https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/transcript/eric-edelman-v-transcript/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2016.1145588

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2013.857935

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The Russo-Ukrainian Race For Adaptability Under Fire Mar 09, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan, author of The Future of Warfare, Futura Doctrina newsletter on Substack, and former head of the Australian War College. They discuss the ongoing fighting around Bakhmut, the prospects for both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries respectively in the weeks and months ahead, how this conflict might end, and the utility of science fiction for understanding the evolving character of war.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Mick Ryan’s War Transformed (https://www.amazon.com/War-Transformed-Twenty-First-Century-Competition-Conflict/dp/168247741X)

Mick Ryan’s Twitter: @WarInTheFuture (https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/)

Mick Ryan’s Substack, Futura Doctrina (https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut)

Mick Ryan’s Substack Post, “The Battle of Bakhmut” (https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut)

Mick Ryan’s Column, “The Battle of Bakhmut has come at immense cost to both sides” (https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/the-battle-of-bakhmut-has-come-at-immense-cost-to-both-sides-20230307-p5cq25.html)

Eliot’s The Atlantic Article on Tactics Used by the Russian Military, “Military History Doesn’t Say What Ukraine’s Critics Think” (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/russia-ukraine-war-wwii-comparison/673053/)

Sir Michael Howard’s “The Use and Abuse of Military History” (https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&context=parameters)

Mick Ryan’s Forthcoming Novel, White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan, Pre-Order NOW! (https://www.amazon.com/White-Sun-War-Campaign-Casemate/dp/1636242502)

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Both Victory and Security Guarantee for Ukraine Mar 02, 2023

Eliot and Eric chew over the developments in Ukraine. They consider divisions within and among West European governments, the question of what defeat of Russia and victory for Ukraine means in practical terms, the lingering overestimation of Russian possibilities and underestimation of Ukrainian potential on the battlefield, and the potential role of China providing lethal aid to Russia. They conclude with a discussion about making the U.S. the arsenal of democracy in the West and globally and the use and abuse of historical analogies.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

HMS Belfast

“NATO’s Biggest European Members Float Defense Pact With Ukraine” by Wall Street Journal

“How Putin blundered into Ukraine — then doubled down” by Financial Times

Timothy Snyder’s Essay Debunking Vladimir Putin’s Essay Written After Consuming Hallucinogens, “How to think about war in Ukraine”

Eliot’s Article on the False Historical Lessons from World War II, “Military History Doesn’t Say What Ukraine’s Critics Think”

“Every Man His Own Historian” by Carl L. Becker

Eliot’s Foreign Affairs Essay, “Move Fast and Win Things”

Thinking In Times by Ernest May and Richard Neustadt

Eric’s Article with David Kramer and Vlad Kobets, “Ukraine and Belarus Are Fighting the Same War”

Eric’s Article with David Kramer and Ben Parker, “Moldova Is Putin’s Next Target”

“After the Fall. Must We Prepare for the Breakup of Russia?” by Bruno Tertrais

Senior Policy Analyst

Jewish Institute for National Security of America

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The Missing Element Feb 23, 2023

Eric and Eliot are joined by former New York Times reporter and editor Philip Taubman, current lecturer at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the author of In The Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (Stanford University Press, 2023). They discuss the character of George Shultz, his role in executing the Reagan Administration's strategy towards the Soviet Union, the internecine bureaucratic infighting that characterized the Reagan years, the Shutlz-Weinberger and Shultz-Kissinger relationships, and the end of the Cold War.

In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz by Philip Taubman (https://www.amazon.com/Nations-Service-Times-George-Shultz/dp/1503631125)

The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb by Philip Taubman (https://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Five-Warriors-Their-Quest/dp/0061744077)

The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War by James Mann (https://www.amazon.com/Rebellion-Ronald-Reagan-History-Cold/dp/0670020540/)

“The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by “X” (George Kennan) (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct)

"Reagan's Piece:" The SotR Episode with Will Inboden (https://www.thebulwark.com/podcast-episode/reagans-peace/)

National Security Decision Directive 75 (https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-75.pdf)

“A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” by George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn (The Four Horsemen Op-Ed)

Eric’s Tribute to Shultz: “Secretary of the American Century” (https://thedispatch.com/article/secretary-of-the-american-century/)

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Erdoğan’s Earthquake Feb 17, 2023

Eliot and Eric host Henri Barkey, the Bernard and Betha Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and adjunct fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss Henri's recent article on Turkey's forthcoming election, the nature of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism, the impact of the recent earthquake on Erdogan's standing with the Turkish electorate, the mismanagement of earthquake relief, and Henri's own more than Kafkaesque treatment by the AKP government with regard to the attempted military coup in 2016 against Erdogan's government.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

“Turkey Is Out of Control. Time for the U.S. to Say So.” By Eric and Jake Sullivan (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/13/turkey-us-trump-policy-syria-216972/)

“Fight for these State Department workers detained in Turkey” by Eric and Henri Barkey (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/fight-for-these-state-department-workers-detained-in-turkey/2018/07/29/2be2ecf4-91e4-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html)

“Turkey’s Turning Point” by Henri Barkey (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/turkey/turkeys-turning-point-erdogan)

Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk (https://www.amazon.com/Nights-Plague-novel-Orhan-Pamuk/dp/0525656898)

Why Erdoğan Is Accusing Me of Starting a Coup by Henri Barkey (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/henri-j-barkey-why-erdogan-accusing-me-starting-coup/620643/)

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The Looming Balloon Gap Feb 10, 2023

Eric and Eliot are on their own. They talk about Ukraine, the China Balloon episode, and developments in Turkey and whether or not that relationship is a harbinger of a new day in U.S multilateralism. They ask if the U.S. find new mechanisms like AUKUS to supplement its bilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific and will it resort to "mini-lateralism" in Europe with countries in the East who are becoming more influential in NATO? They conclude with talking about the ongoing protests in Iran.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

NATO’s Electoral Message for Erdogan by John Bolton (https://www.wsj.com/articles/natos-electoral-message-for-erdogan-elections-president-membership-russia-middle-east-weapons-expulsion-11673903724)

Turkey’s Turning Point by Henri Barkey (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/turkey/turkeys-turning-point-erdogan)

Iran’s Protesters Want Regime Change by Eric and Ray Takeyh (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-protesters-want-regime-change)

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Neglect of Responsibility Feb 03, 2023

Eliot and Eric host Robert W. Kagan, the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Of Paradise and Power, The Return of History, The World America Made, and The Jungle Grows Back to discuss his new book The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941. They discuss the irresponsibility of American policy making after World War I, whether or not a more robust U.S. commitment to European security could have produced the kind of security order that the U.S. helped create after 1945, the ambivalence of American thinking about the necessity of global order and a reluctance to play a leading role in securing it, and the role of moral and ideological impulses in U.S. policy making. They also assess Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt as statesmen and the state of the study of diplomatic history in the academy today.

Dangerous Nation by Robert Kagan (https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Nation-Americas-Earliest-Twentieth/dp/0375724915)

Ghost at the Feast by Robert Kagan (https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Feast-Collapse-1900-1941-Dangerous/dp/0307262944/)

“The America trap: Why our enemies often underestimate us,” by Robert Kagan (Excerpt from Ghost at the Feast) in Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/19/robert-kagan-america-trap-world-war-hitler-japan/)

The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker (https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010)

“The End of History?” by Francis Fukuyama (https://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184)

The Change in the European Balance of Power by Williamson Murray (https://www.amazon.com/Change-European-Balance-Power-1938-1939/dp/0691101612)

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Losing Sleep Over Germany Jan 27, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome Constanze Stelzenmuller, the Director of the Center on the United States and Europe and the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and Transatlantic Relations at the Brookings Institution. They discuss the current row over Germany providing Leopard Tanks to Ukraine, the political constraints on German Chancellor Olof Scholz, the role of Cold War ostpolitik on contemporary policy debates, the intellectual impact of Carl Schmitt and Victor Klemperer on elite German thinking, and the Hitler-Putin comparison. They end with a discussion on the late Judith Shklar as a political philosopher and teacher of political theory and her writings on power and cruelty.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder (https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471)

“Scholz is a wartime chancellor, whether he likes it or not” by Constanze (https://www.ft.com/content/d2fdb3cc-de73-4ad5-85fa-b48a6408f669)

“A Wartime President” by Eliot (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704107104574571444249809148)

“Obama does not accept war for what it is” by Eliot (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eliot-cohen-obama-does-not-accept-war-for-what-it-is/2014/07/31/8f27346e-1830-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html)

The Treaty Offered by Russia in December 2021 (https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790803/?lang=en)

Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (https://www.amazon.com/Language-Third-Reich-Lingua-Imperii/dp/0826491308)

Spiegel Report on Bundeswehr (https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-bad-news-bundeswehr-an-examination-of-the-truly-dire-state-of-germany-s-military-a-df92eaaf-e3f9-464d-99a3-ef0c27dcc797)

Helmut Schmidt’s 2014 Interview with Bild (https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/helmut-schmidt/bild-interview-altkanzler-europa-ukraine-krise-36003626.bild.html)

“Liberalism and Fear” by Judith Shklar (https://philpapers.org/archive/SHKTLO.pdf)

Ordinary Vices by Judith Shklar (https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Vices-Belknap-Judith-Shklar/dp/0674641760)

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Superpowered Arms Jan 19, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome John Maurer, Professor of Strategy and Security Studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Air University in Alabama and author of Competitive Arms Control, Nixon, Kissinger and SALT, 1969-1972 (Yale University Press, 2022). They discuss the competitive and cooperative approaches to arms control, interagency deliberations and conflicts in the Nixon Administration, the motivations and policies of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and especially Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. They also talk about the action-reaction model of the arms races and the role of arms control in providing arms race stability and crisis stability to the superpower nuclear arms competition. They conclude with a discussion about how the Nixon Administration's experience with arms control illuminates the subsequent history of Cold War arms control, as well as how that history augurs for the future of arms control in the very different circumstances of today's great power competition.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Competitive Arms Control: Nixon, Kissinger, and SALT, 1969-1972 (https://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Arms-Control-Kissinger-1969-1972/dp/0300247559)

Book Review Roundtable: Cult of the Irrelevant by John Maurer, et al (https://tnsr.org/roundtable/book-review-roundtable-cult-of-the-irrelevant/)

John Maurer in War on the Rocks (https://warontherocks.com/author/john-maurer/)

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The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy (with Michael Mandelbaum) Jan 13, 2023

Eric and Eliot welcome their SAIS colleague Michael Mandelbaum to talk about his recent book, The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy. Among other topics, they discuss realism and idealism in U.S. policy, the historical origins of American policymakers’ traditional reliance on the economic instruments of national power, the prospects for U.S. policy towards Russia-Ukraine, China, and Iran, baseball, and mystery fiction.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Links:

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Divided They Stood Jan 06, 2023

Eliot and Eric welcome the husband and wife team of Peter Baker of New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker to discuss their new book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2022. They discuss the chronic dysfunction of the Donald Trump national security team, the relationships among James Mattis, H.R. Master, John Kelly, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and other senior officials, Trump’s fixation on Vladimir Putin and other strongmen, and civil-military relations under Trump. They conclude with discussing Trump’s foreign policy legacy.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser (https://www.amazon.com/Divider-Trump-White-House-2017-2021/dp/038554653X)

Sarah Longwell’s Focus Group Podcast (https://thefocusgroup.thebulwark.com/)

Tom Wright’s Politico Essay on Trump and Bob Taft (https://app.slack.com/client/TF4LKCU3G/D03NJE7BA83)

January 6 Committee Report (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6-REPORT.pdf)

Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony’s Transcript (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23506946-cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6-committee-transcript)

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A Good Year For Authoritarians? Dec 23, 2022

Eliot and Eric look forward to the holidays and review the last year. They talk about the historical significance of the war in Ukraine, the current situation, and possible outcomes. They discuss whether or not this has been a good year for authoritarians around the world and review the situation in China, the prospects for U.S.-China relations (specifically concerning Taiwan), and the popular uprising and revolutionary situation in Iran. They also thank their production team for a great year of Shield of the Republic.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Financial Times’s Report about Iranians’ Harassments of the Clerics (https://www.ft.com/content/3b6c241c-e792-4970-957b-556a1088d9a8)

Lawry Freedman’s Substack Post on Security Guarantee for Russia (https://samf.substack.com/p/who-can-guarantee-russian-security?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2)

Henry Kissinger’s Peace Plan (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-push-for-peace/)

Fred Kaplan’s Critique of Henry Kissinger (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/12/henry-kissinger-ukraine-peace-plan-vladimir-putin.html)

Supreme Command (https://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Command-Soldiers-Statesmen-Leadership/dp/1400034043)

Institute for the Study of War (https://www.understandingwar.org/)

Julia Davis’s Twitter (https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)

New York Times Report about the War(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html)

New York Times Report about U.S.’s Attempt to Save Valery Gerasimov’s Life (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/17/world/europe/russia-war-putin-facts.html)

Congressional Commissions on the National Defense Strategy’s Report (https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/providing-for-the-common-defense.pdf)

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Reagan's Peace Dec 09, 2022

Eric and Eliot welcome William Inboden to discuss his new book, The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War and the World on the Brink. They discuss the existing historical literature on Reagan's Presidency and foreign policy, this new book's contribution to the literature, the complexity of the world that Reagan and his colleagues faced in the 1980's, the role of individuals like Secretaries of State Alexander Haig and George Shultz, as well as National Security Advisor Judge William Clark in advancing the Reagan agenda, and the role of ideas—especially democracy promotion in Reagan's approach to national security as well as his nuclear abolitionism. All three reflect on the nature of the relationship between policy process and policy outcomes.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Eric’s tribute to George Shultz (https://thedispatch.com/article/secretary-of-the-american-century/)

Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok - (https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Soviet-Vladislav-M-Zubok/dp/0300257309)

Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War by Ken Adel (https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Reykjavik-Forty-Eight-Hours-Ended/dp/0062310194)

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The World Order Nov 23, 2022

Eric and Eliot welcome Georgetown Professor Emeritus Robert Lieber to discuss his new book, Indispensable Nation. They discuss the nature of the "rules-based" international order, the unique role that U.S. policy plays in sustaining the order, the true disruptive challenges to the order, the nature of political opposition to a robust U.S. foreign policy, political "realism" and its flaws, as well as the increasing challenges for teaching of international relations in the academy.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Eliot's “Cut the Baloney Realism” or “Stop Talking About Talking" (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/russia-ukraine-negotations-mark-milley/672198/)

Robert Lieber’s Indispensable Nation (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B5MH82TV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0)

Robert Lieber’s Retreat And Its Consequences (https://www.amazon.com/Retreat-its-Consequences-American-Foreign/dp/1316506711)

Team America: World Police Hans Blix Scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TEvacFETvM)

Andrey Sushentsov and William Wohlforth’s "The tragedy of US–Russian relations: NATO centrality and the revisionists’ spiral” (https://www.proquest.com/docview/2405756420)

John Mearsheimer’s Revealing Interview With The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war)

“Yes, It’s Anti-Semitic:” Eliot’s Review of The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/04/05/yes-its-anti-semitic/e7de5f13-60d5-4567-9090-8d24c8237801/)

Robert Lieber’s Review of John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (https://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=14655)

Eric and David Kramer’s “Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate with Putin” (https://www.thebulwark.com/now-is-not-the-time-to-negotiate-with-putin/)

Eric and David Kramer’s “Don’t Go Wobbly on Ukraine" (https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/dont-go-wobbly-on-ukraine/)

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Revolution Nov 10, 2022

Eric and Eliot welcome Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Ray Takeyh to discuss the ongoing popular uprising in Iran. They talk about Ray’s article on Iran’s next revolution in the current issue of Commentary, the state of play in the protests, the weaknesses of the regime, comparisons between the 1979 Revolution, the 2009 election protests, and the current situation. Along with political dissident from Iran and SotR producer Shay Khatiri, they also touch on the prospects for regime change, Iran’s role as a weapons supplier to Russia, and what the Biden Administration should do about all this.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

The Last Shah by Ray Takeyh (https://www.amazon.com/Last-Shah-America-Pahlavi-Relations/dp/030021779X)

"Iran’s Hard-Liners Are Starting to Crack" by Ray and Reuel Marc Gerecht (https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-hardliners-khomeini-supreme-leader-protests-larijani-rouhani-morality-police-newspaper-chief-justice-criticism-regime-change-1979-11667410559)

"A Second Iranian Revolution" by Ray Takeyh (https://www.commentary.org/articles/ray-takeyh/second-iranian-revolution/)

Revolution & Aftermath by Ray and Eric (https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Aftermath-Forging-Strategy-toward/dp/0817921540)

The Next Iranian Revolution” by Ray and Eric (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2020-04-13/next-iranian-revolution)

"The Self-Limiting Success of Iran Sanctions” by Ray and Suzanne Maloney (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-self-limiting-success-of-iran-sanctions/)

Shay Khatiri’s Substack The Russia-Iran File (https://shaykhatiri.substack.com/)

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Civilian Control Oct 27, 2022

Eric and Eliot welcome Duke University professor, Peter Feaver, to discuss the state of civil-military relations, the recent statement on the subject by former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretaries of Defense, the damage done to civil-military relations under Trump, and how to repair the damage. They also discuss with Peter, who drafted the 2006 National Security Strategy document issued by the Bush 43 Administration for his views on the Biden National Security Strategy as well as the utility of publicly published strategy documents as a genre.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Statement by Former Chairmen of the Join Chiefs of Staff and the Secretaries of Defense (https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/to-support-and-defend-principles-of-civilian-control-and-best-practices-of-civil-military-relations/)

The Soldier and the State by Samuel Huntington (https://www.amazon.com/Soldier-State-Politics-Civil-Military-Relations/dp/0674817362)

Report by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy (https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/providing-for-the-common-defense.pdf)

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Happy Birthday Mr. Dictator Oct 13, 2022

Eric and Eliot discuss Ukraine’s birthday gift to Vladimir Putin, likely Russian responses, and Eliot’s Atlantic article on Putin’s nuclear threats. Eric eats his words about Liz Truss, and they discuss the relative merits of Nero Wolfe and Daniel Silva for escapist reading.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Eliot's Essay (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/putin-nuclear-weapons-threat-us-sanctions-military/671642/)

Orlando Figes’s The Story of Russia (https://www.amazon.com/Story-Russia-Orlando-Figes/dp/125079689X)

Yulia Latynina’s The Hill Article, “Will Putin use tactical nukes?" (https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3673163-will-putin-use-tactical-nukes/)

NUKEMAP (https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)

Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin Biography, Volume 1 (https://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Paradoxes-1878-1928-Stephen-Kotkin/dp/0143127861)

Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin Biography, Volume 2 (https://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Waiting-1929-1941-Stephen-Kotkin/dp/1594203806)

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Wolfe)

Daniel Silva’s Portrait of an Unknown Woman (https://danielsilvabooks.com/books/portrait-of-an-unknown-woman/)

Daniel Silva’s The Cellist (https://danielsilvabooks.com/books/the-cellist/)

Daniel Silva’s English Spy (https://danielsilvabooks.com/books/the-english-spy/)

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The Liz Truss Buttress Sep 29, 2022

Eric welcomes Eliot back from his sojourn in Poland and Ukraine. They discuss U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss’s early appointments on national security and the review of Britain’s defense policy she has ordered, Biden’s appointment of a new Ambassador to Russia, Eliot’s impressions of Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky. They also analyze Vladimir Putin’s speech and mobilization order and discuss Eric’s testimony on nuclear strategy to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Eric and Frank Miller’s testimony written before the Senate (https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Edelman-Miller%20Opening%20Statement%20SASC%20Hearing%20Sept.%2020%2020229.pdf)

Their article on the second nuclear era for The Bulwark (https://www.thebulwark.com/is-the-united-states-ready-for-the-next-nuclear-era/)

Eliot’s Ukraine article for The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/zelensky-ukraine-west-military-aid-supplies/671485/)

Friend of the podcast and former guest Anne Applebaum’s article for The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/putin-speech-delay-ukraine-world-leaders/671495/)

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Why Russia's Military Got Ukraine So Wrong Sep 13, 2022

Eric and Eliot discuss what they have been writing lately (links below), the situation in Ukraine, the reasons for why Russia analysts got things wrong while military historians got them right, prospects for a renewed Iran nuclear agreement, and whether or not the the United States can handle two near peer adversaries at the same time.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Links:

Eliot’s Rough Magic Lecture Series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lfcEzFWztU)

First Makers of Modern Strategy (https://www.amazon.com/Makers-Modern-Strategy-Military-Machiavelli/dp/0691069077)

Second Makers of Modern Strategy (https://www.amazon.com/Makers-Modern-Strategy-Machiavelli-Nuclear/dp/0691027641/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ALK0J51PARKY&keywords=paret+makers+of+modern+strategy&qid=1662946787&s=books&sprefix=paret+makers+of+modern+strategy%2Cstripbooks%2C58&sr=1-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc)

The New Makers of Modern Strategy (Including Eric’s Essay) (https://www.amazon.com/New-Makers-Modern-Strategy-Ancient/dp/0691204381/ref=asc_df_0691204381/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=598250015901&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16909503583947157478&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008163&hvtargid=pla-1720916906283&psc=1)

Eric’s Testimony on JCPOA (https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Edelman_08-04-15.pdf)

Shay Khatiri’s Article on Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program (https://www.thebulwark.com/irans-nuclear-sites-are-vulnerable-and-iran-cant-deter-an-attack-for-now/)

Eric, Eliot, and Ray Takeyh’s 2016 Essay on Iran (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2015-12-14/time-get-tough-tehran)

Eliot’s “The Return of Statecraft” (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2022-04-19/return-statecraft)

Eric’s 2010 CSBA Paper on Primacy (https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/understanding-americas-contested-primacy)

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Imperial Russia, Past and Present (with John Herbst) Aug 27, 2022

Eric welcomes back Eliot from travels and illness to host John Herbst who was the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine during the Orange Revolution. They discuss Russia’s imperial past and present, the Biden Administration’s 3 billion dollar military assistance package, the course of the war, the assassination of Darya Dugina, and the prospects for diplomacy and grade the Administration’s efforts to manage the Ukraine crisis.

Links:

Eric’s article co-authored with Daniel Fata, David Kramer, and Stephen Biegun

The open letter organized by John Herbst and signed by Eric

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

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Peak China and the Lessons of the Cold War (with Hal Brands and Michael Beckley) Aug 11, 2022

While Eliot is away on vacation, Eric hosts authors Hal Brands and Michael Beckley whose new book, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, drops next week. They discuss the concept of "peak China," why conflict with China may be coming sooner than we think, and what lessons for strategic competition with China we can learn from the U.S.-Soviet Cold War experience, and they evaluate the Biden team's approach to China.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

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Did America Get China Wrong? (with Professor Aaron Friedberg) Jul 29, 2022

Eric and Eliot host long time friend and colleague Professor Aaron Friedberg of Princeton to discuss Aaron’s new book Getting China Wrong. They cover why we have persistently underestimated China’s rise as a revisionist power, the failures of the West’s “engagement” strategy, the elements of a different approach to China, dividing Russia and China, and the sorry state of academic political science.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

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High Stakes in Ukraine (with Bill Kristol and Daniel Fried) Jul 15, 2022

Eric and special guest host Bill Kristol discuss the war in Ukraine with former Ambassador to Poland and former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried. They assess the military situation, the economic dimension of the conflict, what more can be done on sanctions, the prospects for European unity, and the danger of Putin deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus and the stakes of the conflict.

Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Wearing Russian Sanctions like a Badge of Honor (with David Kramer) Jun 30, 2022

Eric and Eliot return with special guest David Kramer, the Managing Director of Global Policy at the George W. Bush Institute and former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and who incidentally has just been sanctioned by the Russian government (wear it as a badge of honor David!). They discuss the status of the war in Ukraine, the nature of the Russian regime, the prospects for change in Russia, the economic state of the war, and much more.

Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Hiatus Jun 10, 2022

Eric and Eliot will be taking a short hiatus to travel.

In the meantime, please send us your feedback and suggestions at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com.

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Putin's War and European Politics (with Nick Cohen) May 23, 2022

Eric and Eliot welcome Guardian columnist and Spectator blogger Nick Cohen (no relation to Eliot) and author of the several books including What's Left? They discuss the impact of Putin's war on Ukraine on European politics, the role of anti-Communism and anti-Fascism in post-war Europe, the transformation of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer, why Russian money in London was unable to purchase durable policy outcomes from the Conservative government under Boris Johnson, the prospects for democratic politics, and the likely outcome of the war in Ukraine.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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The War's Decisive Moment May 04, 2022

Eric and Eliot dissect the war in Ukraine and discuss Eliot's articles in the Atlantic and Foreign Affairs. What is the new phase of the war? Are Russian forces exhausted, what is their strategy? How will the Ukrainians counter? Is the Biden package enough? Eliot asks Eric about the lessons of Ukraine for other parts of the world and his Bulwark article on ending the policy of strategic ambiguity for Taiwan. Should we settle in for a long war of attrition?

Articles Discussed:

The Return of Statecraft: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2022-04-19/return-statecraft
This Is the War’s Decisive Moment: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/ukraine-russia-war-consequences/629541/
The Lessons of Ukraine for Taiwan—and the U.S.: https://www.thebulwark.com/the-lessons-of-ukraine-for-taiwan-and-the-u-s/

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Security in the Indo-Pacific (with Charlie Edel) Apr 28, 2022

Eliot and Eric welcome Charlie Edel, Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss security in the Indo-Pacific, the role of Australia, the AUKUS partnership, John Quincy Adams and U.S. foreign policy—do the "restrainers" read Adams correctly?—and the role of literature in understanding history.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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War, Myth-making, and Democracy (with Elizabeth Samet) Apr 12, 2022

Eliot and Eric host Professor Elizabeth Samet of the US Military Academy to discuss her new book Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness. They examine the role of mythology in justifying US military action.

Was World War II the "Good War" and was the "Greatest Generation" different from subsequent generations of Americans caught up in fighting the nation's wars? Does de-mythologizing war lead to moral equivalence? Is there a role for myth-making in democracies in wartime to inspire the sacrifices necessary to fight wars and to console the families of the fallen?

A spirited discussion of very difficult topics.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The views Elizabeth Samet expresses on this podcast do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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The Ancients Illuminate Modern Statecraft (with Barry Strauss) Mar 31, 2022

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eliot and Eric talk with ancient historian extraordinaire Barry Strauss. They discuss his new book on Antony, Cleopatra, Octavian, and the Battle of Actium which served as the foundation of the Roman Empire. They discuss what a study of the ancients can tell us about statecraft in general and specifically how it can illuminate statecraft today as well as the current state of intellectual life in the academy.

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Why can’t we admit that Ukraine is winning? Mar 24, 2022

Eric and Eliot consider the first month of Russia-Ukraine War and Eliot's Atlantic article on why it has been so hard for some observers to admit that Ukraine is winning. They also talk about how the Russian military's failures to achieve its objectives might lead to stalemate, and how we should think about the risks of escalation and what is a theory of victory.

Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Zelensky, Churchill, Reagan (with Andrew Roberts) Mar 17, 2022

Eric and Eliot host British author and historian Andrew Roberts and discuss his revisionist account of King George III and how a good man was nonetheless the monarch under whom the American colonies were lost.

They discuss his new podcast Secrets of Statecraft, the most important characteristics of leadership in wartime, and the role Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is playing today and its Churchillian and Reaganite overtones. They also talk about Vladimir Putin, the role of individuals in history, and more.

Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Joe Biden, War President (with Kori Schake) Mar 03, 2022

Eric and Eliot host Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss civil-military relations, Joe Biden as a war President, the struggle over foreign policy in the GOP, and the impact of the war in Ukraine on the trajectory of U.S. national security policy. All three endorse a trillion dollar defense budget.

Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Russia As a Pariah State Feb 25, 2022

Eric and Eliot discuss Putin's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, what Eliot heard at the Munich Security Conference and in Poland last week, as well as what the West's theory of victory should be in the conflict over Ukraine, and how should the U.S. and the West more broadly should treat Russia now that it has become a pariah state.

Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Neo-Maosim in China (with Jude Blanchette) Feb 15, 2022

Eliot and Eric host CSIS's Jude Blanchette to discuss Neo-Maosim in China, the impact of Xi Jinping's personalistic authoritarianism on China's domestic and foreign policy, the Xi-Putin joint statement last week, and prospects for Sino-Russian relations, as well as Chinese science fiction and what it might tell us about Chinese society.

Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Secret Origin Story Feb 02, 2022

Eliot returns from travels to discuss the secret origin story of the Shield of the Republic podcast, a review of the Biden administration's national security policy in its first year, the difficulties that the President has faced in articulating a foreign policy, the deficiencies of his national security apparatus, the impact of the catastrophic departure from Afghanistan, the AUKUS decision, and the effort to deter Russian President Putin. Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Heeding the Lessons of the Cold War (with Hal Brands & Bill Kristol) Jan 20, 2022

Mystery guest host (Bill Kristol) joins Eric for a discussion with Johns Hopkins SAIS Professor Hal Brands about his new book the Twilight Struggle. They discuss the lessons of America's cold war strategic competition with the USSR for today's era of strategic competition with China and Russia—the role of strategy, economic competition, political warfare, and more. Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Why the Bad Guys are Winning (with Anne Applebaum) Jan 04, 2022

Historian, journalist, and essayist Anne Applebaum joins Eric and Eliot from Poland. They discuss Vladimir Putin's grand strategy, the conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, why the "bad guys are winning," as well as the state of American democracy and the January 6 insurrection. We hope all our listeners had a safe, healthy and happy holiday season and a happy new year. Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Brian Katulis: Public Opinion & Foreign Policy Dec 08, 2021

Guest Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute and Center for American Progress joins Eric and Eliot to discuss public opinion and foreign policy, the lack of support for policies of "restraint" in polling, American exceptionalism, connecting policy debates to the concerns of everyday Americans, the deficiencies of the Biden Administration's "technocratic managerialism" and the need for a new inclusive narrative to frame strategic competition with China. Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Three Dangerous Men (with Seth Jones) Nov 24, 2021

Eric and Eliot discuss three dangerous men (Russian General Valeriy Gerasimov, the late Iranian IRGC leader Ghassem Soleimani and PRC Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia) with Seth Jones who has written a new book on irregular or, if you prefer, political warfare. They discuss the active conflict in this domain in which the US finds itself with Russia, China, and Iran as Russia's use of private military companies to serve as proxies in conflicts around the world. They examine what alternative options existed to the Biden Administration's approach to Afghanistan, the role of public opinion and the future trajectory of the country. Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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There is Nothing For You Here (with Fiona Hill) Nov 09, 2021

Former National Security Council Senior Director for Europe (and star impeachment witness) Fiona Hill is this week's guest discussing her book, There is Nothing For You Here, her service in the Trump Administration, the mortification of Trump's press conference with Putin at Helsinki (and transient thoughts of faking a seizure to make it stop) as well as the causes of and remedies for authoritarian populism. Eric Edelman's essay for the Ronald Reagan Institute: The Great Communicator and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Woodrow Wilson and the Great War (with Philip Zelikow) Oct 26, 2021

In this episode Eliot and Eric explore why Woodrow Wilson was unable to end World War I in 1916 despite the exhaustion of Britain, France, and Germany (the main combatants on the Western Front), how the lack of an adequate staffing may have contributed, the rise of a staffing culture inside the US government and the more recent loss of staffing and strategic competence, the role of reviewing past policy failures, the work of the House January 6 Committee investigation, and prospects for an Afghanistan and COVID-19 independent commissions. Our special guest is Philip Zelikow, the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia, the former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission and author of the recent book, The Road Less Travelled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917 (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2021). Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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"A Strategic Failure": The War in Afghanistan with Carter Malkasian Oct 08, 2021

A discussion of why the war in Afghanistan was in General Mark Milley’s words “a strategic failure,” why the Afghan government failed to inspire Afghans to fight for their own country, and the legacy of former ambassador and peace agreement negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad. Our special guest is Carter Malkasian, who was a political advisor to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commanding General of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and is the author of The American War in Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center.

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