Episodes

  • Trump's New World Order

    Trump's New World Order
    Apr 10 2025
    Eliot and Eric note this week’s jackassery—tariffing McDonald Island and Heard Island off Australia, almost exclusively inhabited by penguins, and Trump’s plan for a four-mile-long military parade to mark his birthday on June 14 and the anniversary of the United States Army. In a more sinister vein they discuss the absolute craziness of the NSC staff purge apparently orchestrated by conspiracy theorist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer and the subsequent cashiering of NSA Director and Cybercom Commander Gen. Timothy Haugh (as well as his deputy) and the firing of Adm. Shoshana Chatfield as the U.S. military representative to NATO for various imagined DEI sins.

    They also touch on the insane economic self harm of Trump’s trade war and the incompetence of the Trump team as they calculated the tariffs. Eric and Eliot diverge on the issue of how trade policy has migrated from the legislative to the executive branch and how the constitutional system set up by the Founders is out of balance. They also discuss Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, the prospect of U.S.-Iranian direct negotiations over the nuclear program, the larger crisis of democracy in Israel and the danger of Israeli overreach in attempting to reset the Middle East.
    Then they discuss the recent visit of Russian envoy Kiril Dmitriev and his discussions with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and what they might augur for the prospects of a ceasefire in Ukraine. Finally, in response to comments from viewers about Eric and Eliot’s criticisms of the history behind the New York Times’s 1619 Project, they provide the following commentary by several distinguished historians below:

    Sean Wilentz: https://philosophy.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/122/2013/10/oph_oph-202101-0005.pdf

    James Oakes: https://catalyst-journal.com/2021/12/what-the-1619-project-got-wrong

    Gordon S. Wood: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/wood-n28.html?mod=article_inline

    Leslie M. Harris: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Lessons From a Successful American Diplomat

    Lessons From a Successful American Diplomat
    Apr 3 2025
    Eric and Eliot discuss VP Vance's trip to Greenland and his appointment by the President to oversee the purging of American history at the Smithsonian and other museums. They also discuss who the biggest loser will be from Signalgate. They consider an excellent diplomatic memoir from the 1960s written by former Ambassador and Under Secretary of State Robert "Bob" Murphy -- Diplomat Among Warriors. Murphy pioneered the role of Political Advisor (POLAD) for military leaders working closely with Generals Dwight Eisenhower and Mark Clark on the invasion and subsequent governance of North Africa, Sicily and Italy and then worked with General Lucius Clay on the military government of Germany. They note Murphy's controversial role in maintaining diplomatic relations with the Vichy government of France and negotiating a deal with French Admiral Darlan to smooth the way for the invasion of North Africa. They also discuss critics like AJP Taylor who complained that the US had no policy during World War II and whether FDR's desire to postpone political decisions until after the war was naive or reflected a higher realism given the likely dominant role the US would have at the end of the war. They conclude that Murphy represents an important tradition of professionalism and subject matter expertise in government that is well worth preserving.

    Diplomat Among Warriors: The Unique World Of A Foreign Service Expert:
    https://a.co/d/742sKIz

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    58 mins
  • How Autocrats Use History

    How Autocrats Use History
    Mar 27 2025
    Eric and Eliot discuss the most recent example of jackassery by the Trump Administration national security team which appears to have conducted a sensitive Principals Committee meeting on bombing the Houthis in Yemen over Signal, an unclassified commercial phone app. To discuss this and much more they also welcome Katie Stallard, the Senior Editor for Global Affairs for the New Statesman magazine in the UK. They discuss Katie's book Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, North Korea and Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022) and how authoritarian regimes have used the history of World War II (and in China and North Korea's case the Korean War) to shore up their legitimacy and to short circuit criticism. They discuss how, as the late Alexei Navalny suggested, the focus on the past is used to "displace thoughts about the future and questions about the present." They discuss how the interpretation of WWII has changed over the years to suit the needs and interests of the ruling clique in all these countries and the resonance of Vaclav Havel's observations that these regimes falsify everything the past, present and future and the only way to combat such mendacity is "living in truth." Finally, they discuss the disturbing resonances of these discussions about history that are now manifesting themselves in the United States.

    Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea:
    https://a.co/d/iywWYPT

    Katie Stallard's latest in the New Statesmen:
    https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/geopolitics/2025/03/us-foreign-policy-return-of-america-first

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    58 mins
  • The Ongoing Vandalism of Our Government

    The Ongoing Vandalism of Our Government
    Mar 20 2025
    Eric and Eliot try to parse the firehose of insanity and self-harm emanating from the Trump Administration. They discuss the disestablishment of the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, a little known but important institution created during the Cold War. They also discuss the silencing of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Radio Marti despite the vital role these institutions played in the country's success in the Cold War. They discuss Eliot's Atlantic article on why invading Canada has not worked out well for the United States in the past and how the Trump Administration's policies are pushing the Canadians (among others) to contemplate canceling their order of F-35 fighter aircraft and joining the European Union. In addition they discuss Bibi Netanyahu's attempt to fire Ronen Bar, the head of Israel's internal security service the Shin Bet and whether or not BIbi needed Trump's example to go after the Israeli "deep state."

    Eliot on invading Canada:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/us-canada-relations-trump/682046/

    New York Times report on DOGE cuts to the National Nuclear Security Administration
    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/federal-job-cuts-nuclear-bomb-engineers-scientists.html

    Eliot on the late Andrew Marshall:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/andrew-marshall-brain-pentagon-passed-away/588952/

    Axios report on Netanyahu firing Ronen Bar:
    https://www.axios.com/2025/03/16/netanyahu-fire-shin-bet-ronen-bar

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    57 mins
  • Russia Is a Habitual Treaty Violator

    Russia Is a Habitual Treaty Violator
    Mar 13 2025
    Eric and Eliot welcome Lt. Col. (ret.) Alexander Vindman, former director for Europe on the National Security Council during the first Trump term and author of The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself about Russia and Betrayed Ukraine (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2025). They discuss the U.S. government's prioritization of US-Russia relations over Ukraine policy across multiple Administrations and the tendency towards a transactional relationship with Ukraine as well as the degree of agency and responsibility of Ukrainian officials for this chronic state of affairs. They touch on the Obama Administration's underwhelming response to the seizure of Crimea and destabilization of Ukraine in 2014 as well as Trump's vulgar transactionalism and personal grudge against Zelensky as a motivation for the Oval Office meltdown two weeks ago. Eric and Eliot also discuss their respective articles in the Dispatch and the Atlantic on Russia's habit of violating agreements it has reached and Ukraine's success in fighting a war of attrition against Russia despite the media's misreporting of the state of the war. They also discuss the generational damage to American alliances and national security intellectual capital that the second Trump term is creating, Trump hostage envoy Adam Boehler's direct negotiation with Hamas terrorists, Trump's mistaken reference to Viktor Orban as the leader of Turkey, and Elon Musk and Marco Rubio's trashing of Poland's Foreign Minister on Twitter.

    The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine:
    https://a.co/d/dTa2qN8

    Eric & Frank Miller's latest on Russian treaty violations:
    https://thedispatch.com/article/russia-history-broken-treaties-agreements/

    Eliot & Phillips O'Brien's latest on the rate of attrition in Ukraine:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/03/russia-ukraine-war-status/681963/

    Eliot on the Trump administration's reputational damage to the U.S.:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/buzz-saw-pine-forest/681984/

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    57 mins
  • Is American Decline an Illusion?

    Is American Decline an Illusion?
    Mar 6 2025
    Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Beckley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of Unrivalled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower, and co-author, with Hal Brands of Danger Zone. They discuss his article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Strange Triumph of a Broken America." They discuss the paradox of American power: Americans always think their country is in decline even when it is going from strength to strength economically and remains the most powerful and dynamic economy in the world. Michael recounts the many metrics that show that the American economy has vastly outstripped not only its autocratic rivals but its allies and the countries of the global south. They discuss the historical tradition of declinism in America and why it finds a ready audience. They also discuss America's great strengths --its geographical position, its relatively healthy demographics and its decentralized political institutions which have allowed the country to be a resilient source of innovation and dynamic economic growth. They also touch on how these strengths have also been, in a sense, liabilities. How they can lead to domestic political and social fragmentation as well as chronic strategic insolvency. They consider the danger of declining powers and how Russia and China fit into that framework, as well as relative versus absolute decline, what social psychology tells us about the propensity for risk taking when it comes to either holding onto what one currently has as opposed to seeking speculative gains as well as the degree of damage that the Trump Administration can do to the nation's traditional comparative advantages.

    Michael Beckley's Latest in Foreign Affairs:
    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/strange-triumph-broken-america-michael-beckley

    Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower:
    https://a.co/d/5bpnkN5

    Understanding America’s Contested Primacy:
    https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2010.10.21-Understanding-Americas-Contested-Supremacy.pdf

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia
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    54 mins
  • Emergency Podcast: An Oval Office Ambush

    Emergency Podcast: An Oval Office Ambush
    Mar 1 2025
    Eric and Eliot bemoan the shameful meltdown in the Oval Office between VP Vance, President Trump and President Zelensky. They discuss Vance’s ambush and whether he executed it alone or in concert with Trump and note that those who are blaming Zelensky for rising to the bait are objectively pro-Putin. They discuss Vance’s dark political views and they consider what Europeans can and should do. They also discuss Trump’s delegation of responsibility to others and his “Trump Gaza” AI generated video. Eric asks only partially tongue in cheek what the odds are on Trump declaring himself a god by the end of the term.

    Robert Harris' Cicero Trilogy:
    https://a.co/d/fHShy26

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    39 mins
  • A Disgraceful Episode of American Diplomacy

    A Disgraceful Episode of American Diplomacy
    Feb 27 2025
    Eric and Eliot mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine with a shout out to the brave Ukrainians who are resisting Russian tyranny. They discuss the Friday night massacre at the Pentagon, noting the remarkable personal qualities of General C. Q. Brown and his role as Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They touch on the role of the JAGS and the dangers to good order and discipline that will result from having pliant lawyers. They also discuss the very troubling U.S. vote in the UN General Assembly against the resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine putting us in the company of Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua and North Korea. They consider what kind of negotiators Trump and Steve Witkoff will be and how international negotiations differ from real estate transactions. Finally, they consider some of the intellectual currents swirling around Trumpism and agree that they merit careful consideration.

    Eliot on the Pentagon's Friday Night Massacre:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/lawful-enormously-destructive/681809/

    Eric on PBS News Weekend:
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-potential-consequences-of-trumps-unprecedented-pentagon-shakeup

    Gen. C. Q. Brown Amidst the Death of George Floyd (2020):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw4MI1v8I0k

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast cosponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    56 mins
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