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-a

Occupied Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfqRRHaFyJg

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