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Foreign Podicy

223 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★★ - 142 ratings

A national security and foreign policy podcast from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

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Episodes

So Many Wars, So Little Time

July 05, 2024 17:00 - 52 minutes - 42.3 MB

As the Israel Defense Forces appear to have almost completed their mission to defeat Hamas terrorists in Rafah, a Gazan city along the Egyptian border, the Islamic Republic of Iran is utilizing Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon, to attack – even more aggressively – Israel’s northern territories. Behind Hezbollah, behind Hamas, behind Islamic Jihad, behind the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and multiple Shia militias in Syria and Iraq is an expanding jihadist empire whose metropole is in Tehran. Seth...

Another Guest of the Ayatollah: The Kylie Moore-Gilbert Story

June 28, 2024 16:00 - 56 minutes - 45.5 MB

After attending a conference she was invited to in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2018, Australian-British academic Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert was arrested by the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of espionage which the Australian government rejected as "baseless.” Two years later, she was released in exchange for three convicted Iranian terrorists connected to a bomb plot in Bangkok in 2012.  Two years ago, she...

Out of South Africa

June 21, 2024 17:00 - 1 hour - 62 MB

South Africa has been in the news lately. Most recently, it had elections. There’s also this: The government of South Africa has filed a lawsuit under the Genocide Convention to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The indictment is not against Hamas whose terrorists invaded Israel and massacred more than a thousand men, women, and children last October, and which vows to repeat such massacres. Nor is it against Hamas’ patrons in Tehran who openly vow to exterminate Israel and I...

Turkey and the Neo-Sultan

June 14, 2024 20:00 - 45 minutes - 36.3 MB

Turkey is a NATO ally, but not a reliable one. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has developed close relations with authoritarian powers like Russia and China. Like his neo-imperialist friends, Erdogan longs for the resurrection of the Ottoman Empire which ruled much of the Middle East for centuries. But is that what the Turkish people want? And despite its regular illicit activity ranging from smuggling, sanctions evasion, and being a terrorist safe haven to unprecedented efforts...

What America Misunderstands About the Islamic Republic of Iran

June 07, 2024 20:00 - 1 hour - 65.5 MB

Filling in for host Cliff May this week is Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of FDD, and he’s joined by Karim Sadjadpour. They cover the full gamut of U.S. foreign policy on Iran, from looking back at President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic and President Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA to looking ahead and arguing for policies of maximum pressure on the regime and maximum support for the Iranian people. Karim is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Interna...

Talk Like an Egyptian

May 30, 2024 00:00 - 55 minutes - 44.7 MB

The first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state was Egypt. Following the Yom Kippur War of 1973, came the Camp David Accords of 1978 which provided both countries with tangible benefits. While the peace has never been warm, it has held. But since October 7, Egypt’s behavior has been distressing.  What’s more, there’s now evidence that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been deceiving Israel for years – allowing weapons and ammunition to flow freely to Hamas thro...

News from 1,000 BCE

May 24, 2024 17:00 - 58 minutes - 46.7 MB

Hamas called its October 7 terrorist attack “Operation al Aqsa Flood,” suggesting a religious – rather than nationalistic – motive. The al Aqsa compound, the third holiest site in Islam, sits atop the ruins of both the ancient temples of the Jews. The first was built by King Solomon and was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The second was built in the sixth century BCE and stood for nearly 600 years before it was destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 CE. But before there were mosques ...

Reviving the Arsenal of Democracy

May 17, 2024 18:00 - 1 hour - 52.5 MB

Americans and our allies confront an extraordinary array of threats from an emerging “axis of aggressors,” consisting of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. That’s the bad news.The good news? Americans have an unmatched network of allies and partners with whom we can work to defend our common interests and counter growing threats.Among our partners in that network are three beleaguered democracies: Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. The primary way we can help is by sending weapons. But is the U...

Saving Private Sinwar

May 10, 2024 17:00 - 1 hour - 54.4 MB

A war is being waged against Israel by Iran’s rulers and their proxies, and they don’t hide their goal — they boast of it: annihilation. Extermination. Genocide. Now seven months into Israel’s defensive war in Gaza following the heinous terrorist attacks of October 7, Hamas is down but not out. And they are literally down: its leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, are believed to be ensconced in an elaborate labyrinth of tunnels underneath Rafah in Gaza, wherein the last remaining Hamas battalio...

Turtle Baywatch

May 03, 2024 18:00 - 1 hour - 51.3 MB

In the aftermath of World War II, the establishment of the United Nations seemed like a promising idea: global unity in resolving conflicts peacefully while promoting human rights. Surely everyone in the new international community will support such efforts, right? Wrong. U.N. corruption is obvious to anyone willing to look, but most Americans and Europeans in positions of authority don’t look. And the problem has reached alarming new lows since the October 7 invasion of and attack on Isra...

The Road From Riyadh to Jerusalem

April 26, 2024 16:45 - 47 minutes - 38.1 MB

Ali Khamenei, Iran’s longtime ruler, saw the possibility of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia as a threat to his hegemonic ambitions. On Oct. 7, Hamas, one of Tehran’s proxies, invaded Israel and committed multiple acts of barbarism. That sparked a war and froze prospects for a new Saudi-Israeli relationship.   However, The Wall Street Journal reports that Washington is pushing for a “long-shot diplomatic deal” – one in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would “acce...

Jerusalem and Tehran Consider Their Options

April 18, 2024 22:30 - 59 minutes - 48.1 MB

Last weekend, Iran’s rulers launched a massive missile and drone assault on Israel. Though the attack was thwarted, it should be obvious that the Islamic Republic is willing to pursue its goal of “Death to Israel!” — not just by utilizing Arab proxies and pawns, but now also directly from within its own territory. We must assume that Iran’s rulers are also now adjusting their strategies for the jihad they are waging and the genocide they vow to carry out. A reminder: If Iran’s rulers acqui...

The Thickening Fog of War

April 12, 2024 19:00 - 55 minutes - 44.3 MB

Six months after Iranian-backed terrorists perpetrated the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Israel’s ground war against Hamas in Gaza, its conflict with Lebanon-based Hezbollah in Israel’s north, and Tehran’s multi-front shadow war against the Jewish state continue. For a status update, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues Bradley Bowman, senior director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power, and Brigadier General (Res.) Jacob Nagel, a visiting fellow at FD...

Israel's Shadow War

April 05, 2024 17:00 - 53 minutes - 42.7 MB

The Israeli airstrike next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus on April 1 targeted several high-ranking members of Iran’s Quds Force — an elite division of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which is designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Among those killed: top IRGC-QF commander in Syria and Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Zahedi.  The regime in Tehran has vowed revenge, and Israel is on high-alert for escalation by Iran’s proxies on seven possible fronts. To discuss the strate...

Ronald Meets the Donald

March 29, 2024 20:00 - 1 hour - 53.6 MB

President Reagan knew a detent with the Soviet Union wouldn’t win the Cold War. If we take off the gloves and force Soviet communism to compete with American democracy, he thought, the U.S. will prevail. In a phrase: “We win, they lose.” He was right. The U.S. won. The Soviet Union collapsed.  But in the decades since as America’s role in the world diminished and the rules-based order decayed, Russia relapsed. And as he puts back the pieces of a shattered Soviet Union one illegal land-grab ...

John Bolton’s New World Order

March 22, 2024 20:00 - 41 minutes - 33.6 MB

After World War II, the United States attempted to construct something new: a liberal, American-led, rules-based international order that would promote human rights, Enlightenment values, and democracy. Today, the dictatorial rulers of China, Russia, and Iran are attempting to establish something different: a world order that is radically illiberal with rules made in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran, and hostility regarding human rights, Enlightenment values, and democracy. This is one of the t...

Ali Khamenei’s Nuclear Ambitions and Weapons of Mass Distraction

March 15, 2024 17:00 - 56 minutes - 45.4 MB

In Gaza, Israelis are fighting a ground war – and an underground war – against Hamas, a proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Israelis also are responding to missile attacks from Hezbollah, Tehran’s Lebanon-based foreign legion. These are serious conflicts. But they are not separate conflicts. And they could be something else – something worse. Mark Dubowitz, FDD’s chief executive, worries that they could be what he calls “weapons of mass distraction” — a way to divert the attention of Isr...

On Safari with Admiral Montgomery

March 08, 2024 19:00 - 58 minutes - 47.2 MB

Next month marks 30 years since the onset of the world’s worst mass slaughter since the Holocaust: the Rwandan genocide. Among the forces that ushered in an end to the conflict was a military officer who would ultimately become Rwanda’s president: Paul Kagame. FDD’s RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery recently met with President Kagame and other senior officials in Kigali. In addition to a debrief on his trip, Adm. Montgomery joins host Cliff May to discuss Russian and Chinese neo-imperialism in ...

View of the World from Boston

March 01, 2024 19:30 - 1 hour - 51.1 MB

Joining Cliff for this episode is Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, whose first column appeared 30 years ago this week. Jeff’s career as a journalist has included interviews with Elie Wiesel and Mikhail Gorbachev, and on-the-ground reporting from such exotic locales as Cuba, the Korean DMZ, and Gaza. Cliff asks Jeff how he came to his world view; what he saw in Gaza during visits from the 1970s to early 2000s; why a “Hitlerian” variant of antisemitism has reemerged; and what lessons might...

The UN’s Support for Hamas’ War On Israel

February 23, 2024 16:00 - 56 minutes - 45.2 MB

Given the mandate of the United Nations, you might think a genocide perpetrated by a terrorist organization against a democracy in the Middle East would be an opportunity for the UN to exercise its moral authority — perhaps even an obligation, considering the U.S. tax dollars that bankroll it. But you’d be wrong. The UN doesn’t recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Moreover, when the UN uses the word “genocide,” it’s not talking about the aims of Hamas per its charter nor what Hamas...

The Battle in Rafah, the War with Tehran

February 16, 2024 17:00 - 56 minutes - 44.9 MB

As Israel's defensive war in Gaza enters its fifth month, host Cliff May is joined by FDD experts retired Major General Amir Eshel and retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery to talk about the current state of the war including how many Hamas terrorists are thought to remain active on the battlefield in Gaza; the whereabouts of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif; and IDF efforts to reduce civilian casualties during what’s expected to be a major battle in Rafah. They also discuss the ...

A moment of decision for Americans

February 09, 2024 18:30 - 47 minutes - 38 MB

The U.S. is in a decisive moment. Harried by turmoil and challenges at home, many Americans look overseas and see a world on fire. Ukrainians are fighting for their lives against Putin, wondering whether the west will abandon them; Beijing is undertaking an unprecedented military expansion in preparation for potential aggression in the Taiwan Strait; Iran-backed terrorists are attacking U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, while waging the worst campaign against international shipping in...

Three Faces of Jew-Hatred

February 02, 2024 20:00 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MB

Jeffrey Herf has a new and timely volume on the current moment. It’s title: “Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left and Islamist.” He joins host Cliff May to discuss the multiple manifestations of Jew-hatred – a growth industry since the terrible pogrom of October 7, 2023. 

Colonel Richard Kemp on Israel's Long War

January 26, 2024 19:00 - 45 minutes - 36.6 MB

Colonel Richard Kemp has spent three decades fighting terrorists and insurgents around the world, including as commander of British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has been present during each conflict between Israel and Hamas since 2008 and has been in Israel since the beginning of the current Gaza war.    Col. Kemp joins Cliff to discuss why Israel is not guilty of genocide and why Hamas, Hezbollah, and their patrons in Tehran are; the measures taken by Israel to reduce civilian harm —...

Pacific Deterrence: An Update from Admiral John Aquilino

January 19, 2024 16:25 - 57 minutes - 52.2 MB

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Senator Roger Wicker (R-MI) are the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On January 11, they issued a noteworthy joint statement after receiving a briefing from Admiral John Aquilino, the commander of all U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific. The briefing’s topic? The threat from China and how we should respond.  The two senators called Admiral Aquilino’s briefing “sobering” and said “Failure to maintain deterren...

Everything You Wanted to Know About Qatar But Were Afraid to Ask

January 12, 2024 19:00 - 1 hour - 55 MB

Host Cliff May is joined by FDD experts Jonathan Schanzer and Richard Goldberg to discuss Qatar donning the facade of ‘mediator’ and ‘peacemaker.’ The reality is rather different. They unpack Doha's bad behavior, including how a plethora of bad actors — e.g., Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Islamic Republic of Iran (or, as Jon calls it, “the cantina scene from Star Wars”) — are aided and abetted by Qatar; the historical context of Qatar’s rise to a “permi...

Strait Talk on the Houthis

January 05, 2024 16:30 - 57 minutes - 45.9 MB

The October 7 attack against Israel was carried out by Hamas with support from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Other Tehran proxies include Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen-based Ansar Allah, better known as the Houthi rebels. Although President Trump designated them as a foreign terrorist organization, President Biden removed them from that blacklist. Since November, the Houthis have used Tehran-supplied weapons to attack more than 20 commercial vessels traveling through the Bab al-Mandeb S...

Schadlow’s Strategies

December 29, 2023 16:00 - 44 minutes - 36 MB

Dr. Nadia Schadlow previously served as the U.S. national security advisor for strategy, and she led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy (and in record time). She shares what it was like to formulate such a strategy while in the Trump White House and while her predecessors rejected much of it, she shares one Strategy “core which is very, very important” reiterated by the Biden administration. She expands on her sentiment in the Wall Street Journal that the up...

How Warfare Evolves

December 22, 2023 19:00 - 49 minutes - 39.8 MB

General David Petraeus joins the show to discuss his new book (co-authored by Andrew Roberts, our recent episode with him here), Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. Primarily through the lenses of Ukraine and Israel, Cliff and the General examine what has evolved into modern-day warfare. They discuss the status of Ukraine's defensive war against Russia, including criticism that the U.S. provides only enough assistance to prevent Kyiv from losing the war but not enough ...

Dan Senor Calls Me Back

December 11, 2023 19:00 - 1 hour - 48.5 MB

Podcast host and author Dan Senor joins Cliff to discuss his new book, The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World, and Israel's defensive war in Gaza. Among the complexities they ponder: How does Hamas continue to rain rocket fire across Israel — do they have that many weapons stockpiled, or are they being resupplied? Is Israel achieving its militarily objectives? And how is it performing on the communications battlefield? Will Palestinians se...

Pizza, Policy, and Helicopters: A Conversation with Rep. Jason Crow

December 08, 2023 18:00 - 54 minutes - 44 MB

Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO) represents Colorado’s Sixth Congressional District, encompassing Aurora and adjacent areas. He's a former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient who deployed to combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now in Congress, he serves on the important House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Foreign Affairs Committee. He's also co-chair of the For Country Caucus, a bipartisan group of veterans in Congress fighting polarization and working together to get ...

What Hamas believes

December 01, 2023 17:00 - 52 minutes - 42.5 MB

During its October 7 invasion, Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than one thousand civilians in Israel. Its horrific acts of terrorism on that day also included mass rape, pillaging, the desecration of corpses, hostage-taking, and other unspeakable atrocities. Hamas has openly stated that it aims to repeat these atrocities and war crimes again and again and again until Israel is annihilated and Israelis exterminated. In a word: genocide. As for a two-state solution, Hamas has consistently ...

Dispatches from the Ongoing 10/7 War

November 24, 2023 18:00 - 49 minutes - 39.9 MB

Though the fighting is paused, Israel’s defensive war against Hamas continues. FDD Chief Executive Mark Dubowitz and former Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata — now a senior international fellow at FDD — just returned from Israel. Host Cliff May asks them what they saw, heard, and learned about Israel's ongoing war against Hamas, about Hamas’s allies – in particular Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah – and of course about the wizard behind the curtain: Iran’s rulers. They discuss known ...

How Hamas Co-opts the Media

November 20, 2023 19:00 - 1 hour - 48.7 MB

Although six weeks have passed since Iran-backed Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and butchered more than 1,200 innocent civilians while taking hostage another 240, this is just the beginning of Israel’s multi-front defensive war. One key battlefield: the information space. Historically, the odds of winning in this arena have not been in Israel’s favor. They don’t seem to be now, either. To understand why, host Cliff May and Israeli journalist and author Matti Friedman dissect both past an...

Israel’s War on Terrorism

November 17, 2023 19:30 - 50 minutes - 40.5 MB

For an update on Israel's ground offensive in Gaza, AKA Israel's War on Terrorism, host Cliff May is joined by FDD experts Jonathan Schanzer — FDD Senior Vice President for Research and author of Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War — and FDD Senior Fellow Jacob Nagel, who previously served as Israel's National Security Advisor under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They unpack IDF findings from inside (and underneath) the Shifa hospital complex in Gaza. They discuss t...

Shattered Peace

November 10, 2023 17:38 - 1 hour - 52.4 MB

The October 7 atrocities committed against Israel and by Hamas terrorists with support from the Islamic Republic of Iran has frozen the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, as the clerical regime in Tehran doubtless anticipated. Now, the future of Saudi-Israeli relations may well depend on the outcome of Israel's war against Hamas.  Host Cliff May is joined by top experts Bernard Haykel and Mark Dubowitz to discuss the status of Israeli-Saudi relations on October 6 versus now, inc...

The War to End All Wars Against Hamas

November 03, 2023 20:00 - 42 minutes - 33.9 MB

Nearly a month ago, Hamas invaded Israel and murdered over 1,400 men, women, and children. It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since World War II, which was also a war against the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. The Israel Defense Forces are now in Gaza aiming to cripple Hamas’s military capabilities, and it’s a challenging mission. To discuss, host Cliff May is joined by three FDD experts: Bradley Bowman, Hussain Abdul-Hussain, and Retired Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel (former co...

The (Against-the-Odds) Fight for Human Rights

November 01, 2023 12:00 - 27 minutes - 21.8 MB

Two of the world's top experts on human rights join host Cliff May to discuss the October 7 massacre in Israel — the atrocity carried out by Hamas and backed by Iran’s jihadi rulers — and about all that has followed since, in the Middle East, the US, Canada, and elsewhere.  They discuss inaction by the United Nations and other international bodies charged with championing human rights not just in the aftermath of 10/7 but throughout recent history, a refresher on why calling Israel an apart...

Studying War Some More

October 27, 2023 23:38 - 58 minutes - 46.6 MB

It is the opinion of your Foreign Podicy host, Cliff May, that Andrew Roberts is the world’s greatest living historian. In recent years, he has written groundbreaking biographies of Churchill, Napoleon, and King George.  He’s a Bradley Prize winner, and Cliff is the one who nominated him. However, Cliff was outdone by His Majesty Charles the Third, as Andrew is now Lord Andrew Roberts — the sovereign has conferred upon him the title of Baron Roberts of Belgravia. Lord Andrew Roberts joins...

Penetrating the Fog of Israel’s War

October 20, 2023 23:20 - 45 minutes - 36.2 MB

Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel has led to war. We have to think that’s what Hamas and its patrons in Tehran expected and very likely wanted. Is that because they believe they can win on the Gazan battlefields? Does Hezbollah, Tehran’s Lebanese foreign legion, plan to open a second front? Or do Israel’s many enemies in the Middle East, Europe, and here in America believe they can make Israel back off, agree to a ceasefire, and let Hamas live to kill Jews another day? What are Israel’s o...

The 10/7 War

October 14, 2023 03:55 - 42 minutes - 33.9 MB

Israel is at war with Hamas — a real war, not another “mow the grass” conflict. Hamas is one of the terrorist groups funded, armed, trained and instructed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. This war began on Saturday, October 7 when Israel was invaded by Hamas barbarians who mass-murdered young people attending a peaceful music festival, raped women, slaughtered babies, and took hostages, dragging them back to dungeons in Gaza. The list of Hamas atrocities and war crimes goes on and on. Ove...

Ukraine in the Balance: A Conversation with Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander

September 30, 2023 00:53 - 1 hour - 49.2 MB

Americans, our elected officials in Congress, and individuals aspiring to be the next U.S. president are debating whether the United States should continue to support Ukraine. Some Republican presidential candidates are arguing against aid for Ukraine, while several others warn that abandoning Ukraine would be a costly mistake. In Congress, Republican leaders of key committees continue to support aid for Ukraine, but a vocal minority faction of the Republican party in the House of Representa...

News Bulletin From Iran, 70 Years Late

September 23, 2023 02:32 - 1 hour - 48.6 MB

“What’s past is prologue,” Shakespeare informed us. But what if the past is misunderstood? Or misrepresented?  What if policy makers are making policies based on false historical narratives? In 1979, host Cliff May went to Iran to report on the revolution that was then underway. Cliff admits that he didn’t know much about the country. But neither did most of his colleagues, reporters from around the world who had parachuted in to cover this big story.  He was working on a documentary for ...

Guests of the Ayatollah

September 18, 2023 20:42 - 1 hour - 66.7 MB

“Hostage diplomacy” is a term you’ll frequently see in the media, but it's a misleading term. What we’re really talking about: Dictators kidnapping and torturing innocent foreign civilians.  In some cases, the leaders of free countries pay ransom to get them back. In some cases, the dictators also demand the release of convicted criminals who have been or can be of use to them. In some cases, both simultaneously. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism; in ...

The Polish Perspective

September 08, 2023 12:00 - 51 minutes - 41.4 MB

Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is illegal, immoral, brutal, and barbarian.  And if you agree that there is no good alternative to American leadership of the world’s free nations and those that aspire to be, then it follows that it would be a terrible mistake — strategically and morally — for Americans to turn their backs on Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedom, independence, homeland, and families. Whatever your think, you should be curious about the perspectives of America’s all...

Mexico Is Going South

August 30, 2023 22:45 - 1 hour - 51.5 MB

Host Cliff May lived in Mexico in the late 1970s. Back then, there were reasons to believe Mexico was moving in the right direction. That’s no longer the case. Mexico’s narco-cartels are not only growing in power but also making common cause with Chinese Communists. One result: fentanyl-laced drugs are streaming north where they are killing tens of thousands of young Americans annually. Is Beijing’s goal to destabilize Mexico? Does the Biden administration have a Mexico policy? If not, what s...

“No Freebies For Dictators” and other Abrams Doctrines

August 18, 2023 19:00 - 1 hour - 49.7 MB

Elliott Abrams has been in the foreign policy business for a rather long time. Years ago, he served on the staffs of Democratic Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He later served in the administrations of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. During the Trump administration he served as the State Department’s Special Representative for Venezuela and later, in addition, took on the position of Special Representative for Iran. He left the State Depa...

Ukraine: What comes next?

August 11, 2023 14:00 - 52 minutes - 42.5 MB

"It's not a sprint, it's a marathon." That was the reported assessment of a Ukrainian battalion commander recently describing Kyiv's counteroffensive against invading Russian forces. To be sure, the progress of the Ukrainian forces has been slow and the human cost incredibly high. Meanwhile, more than 40 countries — not including Russia — met in Riyadh last weekend to discuss the war.  At this point in the war, what are the strategies of the two combatants?  Is time on Kyiv's — or Moscow...

The Game of War: Part II

August 04, 2023 16:00 - 50 minutes - 40.5 MB

In Part II of the Game of War, host Cliff May is again joined by Dr. Ben Jensen and RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery to continue their discussion on wargaming. They discuss its application in both Taiwan and Ukraine.

Pacific Overtures

July 28, 2023 12:00 - 57 minutes - 45.9 MB

China’s rulers gaze across the Taiwan Strait and see an island where people are free, prosperous, and choose their leaders. They don’t like that. They insist that the people of Taiwan must be ruled by the Communist Party of China. They vow that this is the future and that they will make it happen through the use of military force if other approaches fail. But that’s not all Beijing wants in the vast region known as the Indo-Pacific. Not for the first time on this podcast, we suggest that y...

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