Show overview
Shield of the Republic has been publishing since 2021, and across the 5 years since has built a catalogue of 211 episodes. That works out to roughly 200 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 52 min and 1h — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-US-language History show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 2 days ago, with 33 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2025, with 50 episodes published. Published by The Bulwark.
From the publisher
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. We probe beyond the hive mind of Washington conventional wisdom on national security and foreign affairs.
Latest Episodes
View all 211 episodesShield of the Republic Says Farewell
Frank Kendall and the Weapons of Tomorrow
America's Critical Infrastructure is Under Attack
The Iranian Doom Loop (w/ Robert Parkinson)
Ukraine's Defense Shake Up
The Anti-Strategic President
NATO's Annual Circus Comes to Turkey
Rising Antisemitism is a Dark Omen for Society (w/ Deborah Lipstadt)
The Iranian Regime Isn't Going Anywhere (w/ Kenneth Pollack)
North Korea's New Nuclear Doctrine
The Never-ending Iran Negotiations
Trump's Regime Change Plan for Cuba
Ending the War Will Require Force
Trump is Destroying Our Diplomatic Corps
Pete Hegseth’s Long War Disaster
Can Iran Take More Pain Than Us?
Eliot's Return & Schrodinger's Strait
Trump's Path of Destruction (w/ Mona Charen)
The Cost of Boots on the Ground (w/ Mike Nelson)
Trump Needs Approval for This War (w/ Michael O'Hanlon) | Shield of the Republic
Eric welcomes Michael O'Hanlon, the Philip Knight chair in defense and strategy at the Brookings Institution, and author of To Dare Mighty Things, and a recent op-ed in the Financial Times on the Trump administration's $200 billion supplemental budget request to fund the Iran War. They discuss whether there is a unique American "way of war" or "way of strategy," and the accomplishments of U.S. grand and defense strategies in the post-World War II era and whether Trump is undoing those achievements. They also examine why limited force operations are sometimes hard to avoid, and the role of American pragmatism and innovation in allowing the U.S. to successfully adapt under fire on the battlefield. They close with a conversation about Congress's role in setting defense strategy and the role it could play in setting limits to "boots on the ground" in Iran and investing in the defense industrial base to increase its productive capacity to replenish the enormous stocks of precision munitions and missiles that have been expended in the war.Congress must not give Trump a blank cheque for the Iran war (Gift Link):https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/ce6a9f97-9f47-414b-856b-ab82972c6c20To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution:https://www.amazon.com/Dare-Mighty-Things-Strategy-Revolution/dp/0300279930