ChinaTalk

An F-15E is down in southern Iran. Justin, Tony, Eric and I talk through what combat search and rescue actually looks like, how a captured pilot changes the politics of ending this war, and why a hostage makes the "pack up and go home" play functionally impossible. Then: the AWACS that "only" lost a third of itself on a Saudi tarmac, why CENTCOM is still parking high-value aircraft like it's 2003, and what Operation Spiderweb and three years of Ukrainian drone warfare should have taught us but didn't. Plus Pete Hegseth's ongoing purge of the officer corps, the Enron theory of Pentagon innovation, and why the War of 1812 is the best analogy for where this is all heading. Tony's article on CENTCOM sucking: https://www.breakingbeijing.com/p/what-did-we-learn-centcom Justin on just war: https://justinmc.substack.com/p/just-war-theory song: https://suno.com/s/vroapDDimBnmCxdO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history of the American federal civil service — what can we learn from its past glories and failures, and where should we take this next? We have ⁠Kevin Hawickhorst⁠ of the Foundation for American Innovation to discuss: The Pendleton Act myth — Why civil service reform didn’t begin or end with Pendleton, and why starting the story there misses what actually made the system work. The rise of the subject-matter state — How early 20th-century agencies staffed with real experts — entomologists, engineers, agronomists — made the U.S. bureaucracy arguably the most capable in the world. From expertise to org charts — How mid-century functional reorganization hollowed out mission-driven agencies and replaced subject knowledge with process management. What competence delivered — From agricultural breakthroughs to infrastructure build-out, what a serious, technically grounded civil service was able to accomplish. Whether we can rebuild — DOGE, the abundance movement, state capacity, and why this might be the best time in decades to make the government work again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jen Pahlka is an American Hero, in a past life the US Deputy Chief Technology Officer and member of the Defense Innovation Board. She wrote Recoding America and the wonderful Eating Policy substack (https://www.eatingpolicy.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full house with Bryan, Eric, Tony and Justin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ and Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ catch up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The administration is reportedly considering seizing Kharg Island, and the global economy is beginning to buckle under the pressure of disrupted energy flows. Eric Robinson is a lawyer now who worked in NCTC, a veteran of Joint Special Operations Command. He joins Second Breakfast regulars Bryan Clark, Tony Stark, and Justin McIntosh to break down the military and strategic realities of America's latest Middle Eastern war. We discuss… The Kharg Island fantasy and why a coup de main three weeks too late is a recipe for catastrophe "How are you going to take Kharg Island? You have no ships in the Persian Gulf." Why "lethality maxim" is not a theory of victory and the Iranians know it "A focus on a gunfight is why we're in this strategic mess to begin with. There's no amount of successful engagements that will become strategically meaningful if you don't have a vision of victory." The NCTC resignation, its anti-Semitic undertones, and the hollowing out of American counterterrorism infrastructure "An institution that was designed to fix the leaks that gave rise to 9/11, staffed with extraordinary analytic capacity, started chasing the Sinaloa cartel." Whether Iran can strike the US homeland — and why the dog hasn't barked "Did we build a titanium golem that was really a clay monster? Did we dramatically overestimate this operational capacity?" The naval escort nightmare: how keeping the Strait open would consume the entire destroyer fleet and gut Pacific deterrence "If you do this escort operation, it's going to take every available destroyer on the East Coast and in Europe for the duration." DHS corruption, Corey Lewandowski's hundreds of millions, and why American grift has graduated to a new level "Even in somewhere like China, you still have to kind of hide it. You can't just be tweeting out the deals that you're making to make yourself billions of dollars." Song: https://suno.com/s/FK4kifdAbVykiRax Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A century-old toy company has taken down Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs with a self-funded lawsuit. But how? Today’s guest is Rick Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, creator of Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog, and a successful Supreme Court plaintiff in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. Co-hosting is Peter Harrell, who submitted an amicus brief on the tariff case that shook the world. Our conversation covers: David v. Goliath — Why a mid-sized toy company sued when industry giants stayed silent, and what that says about incentives and courage in corporate America. The Existential Math — How tariff costs were set to jump from $2 million to $100 million, putting 500 jobs and a century-old family business at risk. Why Manufacturing Stays in China — The hard economics of toy production, supply-chain concentration, and why moving to Vietnam, India, or Mexico isn’t a simple fix. Rule of Law and Refunds — What it means to win at the Supreme Court, what should happen with the overcollected tariffs, and the constitutional guardrails around taxation. Legacy and Responsibility — Why taking a stand was necessary to protect this company’s mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices