Most consequential figures of 2025

In this special bonus episode, the Net Assessment crew – Chris, Melanie, and Zack - looks back on the highs (and lows) of 2025, and makes a few predictions for 2026. Thanks all around to our listeners, the Stimson Center, and University FM for their fantastic production.

• Hadeel al-Salchi, "Search for Body of Last Hostage Held by Hamas in Gaza is Delayed Due to Bad Weather," NPR, December 16, 2025.

• "Armitage's Story," Last Days in Vietnam, PBS.

• Justin Bronk, "America's Drone Delusion," Foreign Affairs, December 15, 2025.

• Christopher Clary, "Four Days in May: The India-Pakistan Crisis of 2025," Stimson Center May 28, 2025.

• Zack Cooper, "Trump's Strategic Choice: Prioritization or Retrenchment," The American Enterprise, March 5, 2025.

• The Daily, "Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?", March 20, 2025.

• Aude Darnal and Christopher Preble, "Conventional Wisdom: The War on Terror Is Over," in "Testing Assumptions About US Foreign Policy in 2025," Stimson Center, February 14, 2025.

• Jeffrey Friedman, "The World Is More Uncertain Than You Think: Assessing and Combating Overconfidence Among 2,000 National Security Officials," Texas National Security Review (Vol 8, Iss 4, Fall 2025, 34-48), https://doi.org/10.1353/tns.00011.

• Jonathan Guyer, "Donald Trump's Cowboy Diplomacy," The New York Times, December 15, 2025.

• "In Pursuit of Peace: The Life and Legacy of Barry Blechman," Stimson Center, September 29, 2025.

• Jennifer Lind and Daryl G. Press, "Strategies of Prioritization: American Foreign Policy After Primacy," Foreign Affairs, July/August 2025.

• Aaron Maclean, "A Warning to the Young: Just Say No to AI," Engelsberg Ideas, July 9, 2025.

• Michael Nienaber, "Germany Powers Ahead With Record Push for Military Buildup," Bloomberg, December 17, 2025.

• Persuasion, "Frances Lee and Stephen Macedo on Why Institutions Failed During Covid," May 17, 2025.

• Christopher Preble, X, 1:55 am, October 18,2025.

• "Prediction Is Hard, Especially about Confidence Levels," Net Assessment, October 2, 2025.

• Joanna Stern, "We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars," Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2025.

• "Sweden Plans Largest Military Buildup Since the Cold War Amid Russia Threat and Uncertain US-EU Ties," AP, March 26, 2025.

• "What's the Plan for AI?", Net Assessment, August 7, 2025.

• Nancy A. Youssef, "So This Is What 'America First' Looks Like," The Atlantic, December 11, 2025.