Shield of the Republic

Eric welcomes Eliot back from his recent trip to Israel. They discuss the election results, whether or not it represents a mandate for Trump, why the Dems lost, and what the initial signals from the Trump transition augur for national security. Will the normie Republicans control the cabinet positions with MAGA true believers taking the second and third tier positions? They touch on the role of Don Jr,, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson in making personnel selections, the likely clash of egos to come as well as the policy contradictions that are likely to plague the Administration and the knock-on consequences of mass deportation and tariffs that are likely to roil the nation if the Trump team implements them. They talk about the prospects for a Lebanon cease-fire, Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer's trip to Moscow and how the Trump transition hangs over policy in the Middle East. Eliot reports back on his trip and discussions with Israeli military leaders who see themselves as facing a multi-front war with Iran. They discuss the destruction of Hamas's military capabilities in Gaza, the ongoing guerrilla war there and the difficulties that Israel may face in finding a political authority to rule over Gaza in the near future. They also discuss the much more precise campaign waged against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the damage that has been done to Iran's position in the region (and at home) by Israeli military success. They also discuss the tensions in Israeli society between secular and orthodox Jews on the one hand and the ultra-orthodox on the other. Finally, they touch on the prospect for civil-military tensions in the US as a consequence of Trump's return to office.Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

With Eliot traveling, Eric welcomes John Bolton, former Ambassador to the United Nations, National Security Advisor to Donald Trump and author of Surrender is Not an Option and The Room Where it Happened. They discuss why Trump is so susceptible to the blandishments of foreign dictators like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un as well as his abysmal level of basic knowledge of how the U.S. government actually works and international affairs more broadly. They discuss the likely makeup of a Trump national security team in a putative second Trump term and what a Trump victory would mean for Ukraine and the future of NATO. They also discuss what a Harris team might look like and whether a Harris foreign policy would be a continuation of the Biden policies or whether it might be more reflective of the more Reaganite rhetoric she has used on the campaign trail. Finally, they discuss the two or three international security issues that Ambassador Bolton believes will require the most urgent attention from whoever wins the election. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Note: This was recorded prior to the results of the 2024 presidential election.With Eliot traveling, Eric welcomes John Bolton, former Ambassador to the United Nations, National Security Advisor to Donald Trump and author of Surrender is Not an Option and The Room Where it Happened. They discuss why Trump is so susceptible to the blandishments of foreign dictators like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un as well as his abysmal level of basic knowledge of how the U.S. government actually works and international affairs more broadly. They discuss the likely makeup of a Trump national security team in a putative second Trump term and what a Trump victory would mean for Ukraine and the future of NATO. They also discuss what a Harris team might look like and whether a Harris foreign policy would be a continuation of the Biden policies or whether it might be more reflective of the more Reaganite rhetoric she has used on the campaign trail. Finally, they discuss the two or three international security issues that Ambassador Bolton believes will require the most urgent attention from whoever wins the election.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 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.

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.

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-jonesShield 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 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.

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.

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/3v539F7What History Tells Us Might Happen to the Republican Party:https://www.thebulwark.com/p/history-political-parties-republican-gopShield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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.

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-aOccupied Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfqRRHaFyJgShield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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.

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/9DO6moyShield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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/4ZRUL5Jhttps://www.theunpopulist.net/p/is-the-far-right-channeling-germanShield 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 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.pdfEric'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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-ukrainehttps://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=reader2Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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.

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.

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/hkh6fxJhttps://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.

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.

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.

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.

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/pdfhttps://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_edited_volume/chapter/3881912/pdfhttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/new-autocratic-alliancesShield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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.comhttps://plus.thebulwark.com/p/al-qaeda-in-afghanistan-how-serious-threathttps://plus.thebulwark.com/p/president-biden-should-talk-about-afghanistanhttps://plus.thebulwark.com/p/deeper-reason-for-military-recruitment-woes

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/1RVHvZ4Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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.

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/8LbiEqJShield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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

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 Warninghttps://a.co/d/aTTN4iFShield 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-6f98be17d26csonofadiplomat.substack.comhttps://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/files/files/20240212_NP_SGDSN_VIGINUM_PORTAL-KOMBAT-NETWORK_ENG_VF.pdfShield 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-tehranhttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2020-04-13/next-iranian-revolutionhttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-protesters-want-regime-changehttps://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Aftermath-Forging-Strategy-toward/dp/0817921540#customerReviewshttps://www.amazon.com/Salazar-Dictator-Who-Refused-Die/dp/1787383881Shield 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/aNagP0IShield 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/egI7OKvKiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East:https://a.co/d/5xRmorZHitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded:https://a.co/d/8d3Xw2FThe Battle for Moscow:https://a.co/d/h9IdyjfShield 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-consequenceShield 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_ehttps://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=8-1Shield 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=8-1https://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=8-3Shield 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-superpowerhttps://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=8-1https://www.amazon.com/Duty-Memoirs-Secretary-at-War/dp/030794963X/ref=monarch_sidesheethttps://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_.pdfhttps://samf.substack.com/p/the-role-of-security-guaranteeshttps://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=1570Shield 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.