Shield of the Republic

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

**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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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/Erdo?ans-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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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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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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected]

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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 [email protected].

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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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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 [email protected].

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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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 [email protected].

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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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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