Counterbalance

Host Marshall Kosloff is joined by Senior Fellow and Director of Hudson's new China Center, Miles Yu, and Distinguished Fellow, Ken Weinstein to react to the Biden administration's new China strategy and refreshed comments claiming the US would defend Taiwan. China will use all means necessary to gain and maintain regional power, but what is on the table for the US response, and what should be? Yu and Weinstein analyze what the Biden administration's recent comments mean for our relationship with the CCP, and how Xi Jinping is really looking at Taiwan in light of lessons learned in Ukraine and values established from a long line of communist dogma.

Svante Cornell joins the Counterbalance hosts to discuss the recent unrest in Kazakhstan and to argue that it’s in the best interest of the U.S. to engage with countries of Central Asia and the Caspian regions. If we are now in an era of competition with Russia and China, we should care about the interests of the countries sandwhiched between these two powers. Too few people look at this region as the economic and security asset that it could be. In light of the war in Ukraine, now might be the time to shift our eyes to new partnerships in Central Asia.

With the world still reeling from the fall of Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine, Host Marshall Kosloff talks with Hudson Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs to evaluate the state of American grand strategy. Moscow is acting. Europe is responding. Beijing is watching. But, is the United States leading? Heinrichs explains how the two monumental events are in fact closely linked, and together paint a worrying picture of American commitment to allies and security agreements in the face of Russian and Chinese aggression.

Hosts Marshall Kosloff and Mike Doran are joined by Visiting Fellow, Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, to evaluate how the U.S. strategy has evolved (or devolved) in the Middle East. Malign actors have been on the rise from Russia's involvement in Syria to a resurgent Iranian Regime empowered by the prospect of a new nuclear agreement with the Biden administration. Alyahya explains why U.S. engagement and cooperation with partners like Saudi Arabia and Israel are crucial to establishing order in the divisive region.

Host Marshall Kosloff talks with Hudson Institute Research Fellow, James Barnett, about his recent trip to western & southern Ukraine to discover what life in embattled Ukraine is like amidst the ongoing Russian invasion. Barnett’s dispatches from his stay in the country reveal that morale remains high among Ukrainians, and that (contrary to Putin’s desire) the war is becoming a nation-defining moment for the Ukrainian people as they unite against the oppressive and brutal actions of their neighbor.

The Counterbalance Podcast returns with hosts Marshall Kosloff and Mike Doran assessing the state of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with Iran in the Middle East. Primarily, Doran dismantles the politically trendy idea that the U.S. doesn't need explicitly military tools to deter global threats anymore. This modern philosophy of deterrence centered around economics and "moral suasion" dominates the Biden administrations foreign policy, but at what cost? Doran argues that we are doomed to think that we will deter Putin from war by embarrassing him. Instead, a more traditional approach of military deterrence paired with strategic ambiguity could have possibly spared us the current war in Europe.

Host Marshall Kosloff talks with Erich Schwartzel, author of a new book titled "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy." The Chinese film industry has risen to become a lucrative market, but Communist Party control and censorship has Hollywood movie-makers caught between big payouts and blatant infringement on free speech. Schwartzel explains how this tension plays out with your favorite movies, and what American legislators should do to push back on China's attempts to control the Hollywood culture machine.

Estonian Foreign Minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, visited Hudson Institute last week to meet with experts in the midst of the crisis developing with Ukraine and Russia, and sat with host Mike Doran to discuss how the conflict is seen through the eyes of the neighboring Baltic states.

Hudson Senior Fellow, Bryan Clark, joined Marshall and Mike to analyze the military developments surrounding Ukraine. Bryan explains why Putin's Ukraine strategy is an effective example of "decision-centric warfare" and what the U.S. can learn from the Russian military's reformed structure. The episode also examines what the conflict could mean for China-Taiwan tensions, and how the U.S. military needs to adapt to the new-age reality that it could be trading paint with near-peer competitors like Russia & Ukraine on multiple fronts.

Russia is on the doorstep of Ukraine and testing the Transatlantic Alliance more than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Counterbalance returns in 2022 with host Mike Doran explaining in depth why he believes Azerbaijan can help the United States meet the twin imperatives of respecting an electorate that has grown weary of far-flung military adventures and of meeting the responsibilities of global leadership. Thanks to its capable military, abundant energy resources, and nimble diplomacy, Azerbaijan, in return only for diplomatic support, could help the United States perform the hard work on the ground of containing Russia.