The Burn Bag Podcast

In this week's episode, A'ndre and Ryan discuss U.S. foreign policy decisions by the Biden Administration and the coup in Myanmar (Burma). They also talk about the fate of Alexey Navalny and provide an update on the farmer protests in India. 

In this week’s episode of The Burn Bag Podcast, co-hosts A’ndre and Ryan speak to retired Four Star General and current Brookings Institution President John Allen about how we 'reopen' both the United States and the world, in a conversation oriented around Brookings' 'Reopening' project. General Allen discusses why a global approach to addressing the pandemic is necessary and why U.S. leadership is unique in its capability to build a global coalition to combat the crisis. We dig into what the General and the Brookings Institution mean when they refer to 'reopening' as opposed to mere 'recovery', why an 'America First' foreign policy hindered our response to the pandemic over the past year, and the opportunities the Biden Administration has in broader diplomacy in addressing the pandemic in a multilateral fashion. A'ndre and Ryan talked about several other issues with General Allen, including the future of the U.S.-China relationship, and why General Allen doesn't believe the recent tensions are necessarily indicative of a new Cold War. General Allen, the co-author of Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, also discusses artificial intelligence as a new medium through which war-fighting will take place, providing an insightful take on another huge challenge that will only rise in prominence in the years to come.

In this week's episode, Ryan and A'ndre discuss the threat of domestic terrorism and challenges posed by the intersection of social media and politics. They also talk about the arrest of Russian opposition politician Aleksey Navalny and a recent ISIS bombing in Iraq.

In this week's episode of The Burn Bag Podcast, co-hosts A'ndre and Ryan speak to retired Four Star General Stanley McChrystal about his views on leadership. We discuss the topic with the General by drawing on lessons in leadership from his own career, looking at how General McChrystal spearheaded the transformation of JSOC, or the Joint Special Operations Command, to effectively adjust to new battlefields and circumstances that insurgencies wrought. Under his leadership, JSOC went from conducting 4 raids a month to 300 raids a month, and captured Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein and killed Al Qaeda in Iraq Leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.  General McChrystal gives us his take on the leadership qualities that made both of these men so lethal and deadly to American forces, and digs into how al-Zarqawi's leadership in particular transcended his practical duties and made him in some ways more dangerous than Osama bin Laden -- even after death. We then bring the conversation to contemporary issues, getting the General's take on how COVID-19 and the fight against terrorism are similar, and how common failures have exacerbated the challenges associated with each. Lastly, General McChrystal outlines how the military needs to rethink what the 'traditional' soldier is in light of new challenges across a range of domains, that include cyberspace,  and how his work now with the McChrystal Group is furthering the 'battlefield to the boardroom' mentality.

In this special episode of The Burn Bag, Dr. Joyojeet Pal speaks to us about the intersection of social media and politics, especially in light of the spread of #FakeNews and the recent banning of President Donald Trump from Twitter. An Associate Professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, Dr. Pal starts out by giving us a primer on how politicians like Barack Obama first used social media, before digging deep into populist messaging on Twitter and other platforms by leaders like Donald Trump and Narendra Modi. Our conversation further dives into how #FakeNews and other extreme speech spreads so quickly, and why it’s so effective at infiltrating the minds of so many, giving us some key examples of how this has worked.  We then evaluate whether social media companies can actually fight the spread of misinformation, what the implications of the Trump social media ban are, and how Big Tech and Governments are not seeing eye to eye, and perhaps even may not see eye to eye in the future, given the interests of the tech companies.

In this special episode of The Burn Bag Podcast, we speak with Dr. Julia Nesheiwat, former Homeland Security Advisor (official title: Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security & Resilience) to President Donald J. Trump. Julia discusses the Administration's response to COVID-19 with respects to the domain of homeland security, in addition to discussing her prior experience in working on resilience, especially with regards to climate change. Having served as the Chief Resilience Office of Florida, Julia had a unique insight on responses to the unique challenges posed by climate change. We draw on Julia's expertise in her current position in getting her take on what the top threats to the United States are, and then we touch a bit on one of Julia's past lives, when she was a key official involved in hostage negotiation. Lastly, Julia gives us her take on whether the Trump Administration achieved the goals it outlined for itself in the 2017 National Security Strategy.

The January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol Building by a mob of far right extremists looking to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election was shocking to many, but not necessarily unexpected to some. A’ndre and Ryan speak to Janet Reitman, New York Times Magazine contributor, who is engaged in research on extremism, the far right, and domestic terrorism, to better understand why the events of the 6th happened, and why it’s *not* merely a one-off blip or a culmination of trends, but rather a new marker in the intensity of this threat. Janet provides her perspectives on what the ‘Far Right’ is, why it’s a threat (relative to the Far Left), and the complications in dealing with these domestic threats. Janet also discusses the lack of effort by the U.S. Government to adequately identify the radicalization of far right actors, but warns against “another War on Terror,” instead calling for a national conversation on this complicated topic to understand what is going on, and how we can halt radicalization.Link to Janet’s 2018 article is here.

In this week's episode, A'ndre and Ryan discuss the siege of the Capitol, more Biden Administration nominations, and some political crises in Europe. They also breakdown their recent op-ed in The Hill  which advocates for a rethinking of U.S. cyber strategy. 

In the latest edition of this mini-series, From the Director's Chair, Javed Ali (former NSC Senior Director of Counterterrorism) speaks with his old boss and mentor LTG James Clapper, who served as the Director of National Intelligence between 2010 and 2017, in addition to prior stints as Director of both the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. LTG Clapper discusses his long career in the military and in the intelligence community, providing his perspectives on the big changes in the intelligence community from Vietnam through the Gulf War through today, using his career as the lens with which to view these from. LTG Clapper also discusses the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the subsequent integration of the IC, and how the prior arrangement that required the Director of Central Intelligence to both oversee the CIA and other agencies was fundamentally difficult.

In this very special episode of The Burn Bag Podcast, A'ndre and Ryan speak with Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of the Eurasia Group, who is widely seen as bringing the trade of political risk to prominence as an academic discipline and to practical usage in financial markets, in addition to introducing a range of other concepts that are widely applied in geopolitical conversations today. Bremmer speaks with The Burn Bag about the Eurasia Group's newest annual forecast of the top political risks that may affect the world in 2021. In this conversation, Ian digs into what he sees as Risk #1: #46, U.S. President Joe Biden, and how the trends leading to the recent assault on the U.S. Capitol Building may complicate Biden's Presidency and the broader U.S. political situation. Ian also discusses the other major risks, including COVID, climate change, the U.S.-China relationship, technology, and the future of the European Union. You can find the link to the full "Top Risks 2021" report here.Additionally, subscribe to our brand new newsletter, here.