Lawyers, Guns & Money

On the latest LGM Podcast I had the good fortune to interview Dr. Tim Benbow, Professor of Strategic Studies at King’s College London. Tim has recently been researching the history of the Royal Navy’s decisions to keep, and then to give up, its battleships after World War II. We talk through the role of the battleship in Royal Navy doctrine prior to and during the war, tracing changes in attitudes as the course of the conflict brought other technologies to the fore. Give it a listen. Transcript available here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music The post LGM Podcast: Twilight of the Battleship appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

On the latest LGM Podcast I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Kate Epstein of the Rutgers University Department of History. We talked through her two books, Analog Superpowers (about fire control equipment) and Torpedo (about, well, torpedoes), the latter of which I reviewed here. We discussed the mechanics of fire control and the history of theft, plagiarism, and legal dispute in the UK and the US, talked about how to build a legal regime that can support an innovative defense industrial base, worked through how these legal structures created the environment in which the Manhattan Project prospered, compared the “young and hungry” versus the “old and established” military organization in terms of innovation, and finally made some observations about the state of the modern defense patent regime. If any of that sounds interesting, tune in! Transcript available here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music The post LGM Podcast: Analog Superpowers appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Dean Spears, an economist and author known for his research on demographic change, joins the discussion on global depopulation. He explains the significance of declining fertility rates and dispels myths surrounding population growth fears. Spears analyzes the relationship between cultural narratives, climate policy, and immigration's role in innovation. He emphasizes the ethical challenges of coercive population policies and the value of creating good lives over merely increasing population size. This insightful conversation reshapes our understanding of the future.

Here’s the second half of our NFL preview podcast, where Scott, Erik, and I talk about the NFC. And for posterity, this is who we picked for the conference finalists: Erik: Ravens over the Bills, Lions over the Eagles Rob: Bills over the Broncos, Lions over the Buccaneers Scott: Bills over the Ravens, Lions over the Buccaneers Transcript available here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music Photo Credit: By All-Pro Reels – https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeglo/52379080723/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123777148 The post LGM Podcast: 2025 NFC Preview appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Are you ready for some football? We are. As has become an annual tradition, Erik, Scott and myself previewed the NFL season. The first half of the podcast concerns the AFC. We’ll publish the second half on Thursday prior to the Cowboys-Eagles season opener. Transcript available here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music Photo Credit: By All-Pro Reels – https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeglo/51529935401/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=111523310 The post LGM Podcast: 2025 AFC Preview appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

This last week (as consequence of the LGM Silent Auction) I had the opportunity to speak with Ed Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, host of the Autonocast, and general thinker of large thoughts. We talked through the history of Tesla, its unique corporate culture, the role of Elon Musk, the complications of autopilot and autonomy, and finally the unsustainability of the stock price. Transcript available here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music Photo Credit: By Norio Nakayama – https://www.flickr.com/photos/norio-nakayama/5240830220/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107793270 The post LGM Podcast: The Past and Future of Tesla appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Last week Dan, Cheryl and I talked through the implications of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Cheryl gave us a damage assessment, we worked out the domestic politics, and Dan gave some thoughts both on Trump and on the broader international implications. I talked the airpower angle, contrasting the Israeli performance with Russia’s air campaign in Ukraine. Some links of note: Details of the strike. Jeffrey Lewis on Iran’s trajectory towards a bomb. Ankit Panda on the flagging non-proliferation regime. When the cards were down, Moscow and Beijing were nowhere to be found. Speaking of cards, Tulsi folded like a house of them… Israeli success has made the Saudis nervous. As a policy matter, I think Trump officials are smart to lie about the destruction of Iran's nuclear program to avoid being drawn further into this shit show. As a professional with a reputation to uphold, I have to point out that these statements are untrue. It's a weird time.— Jeffrey Lewis (@armscontrolwonk.bsky.social) 2025-06-29T19:03:38.299Z Transcript is here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music The post LGM Podcast: In the Wake of the Iran Strikes appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

On the latest LGM podcast I had the good fortune to speak with Dr. Ian Ona Johnson about his book Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War. The subject is interwar cooperation between the Red Army and the Reichswehr, a subject near and dear to my own academic interests. Ian and I talk through the origins of the cooperation, the organizational dynamics at play in both the Reichswehr and the Red Army, the nature of the technical and intellectual collaboration, the German experience living in the Soviet Union, and finally the long-range outcomes of the cooperative projects. From the cold open: They want to test this new mustard gas equivalent, and they have 800 young conscripts march down a road and then an aircraft flies over them and sprays them. I don’t know if they’re briefed. Only the front row are given protective equipment. And then doctors come and they take a look at them. Even the Germans, who are using, interestingly enough, graduate students in some instances to do smaller scale testing voluntarily, they comment. They said, “The Soviets, you require extraordinary discipline of your soldiers.” Transcript is here. The Vladimir Putin op-ed on the interwar period (referenced in the podcast) is available here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music The post LGM Podcast: Faustian Bargain appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Dave and I had a terrific discussion with UMich Law’s Leah Litman about her terrific new book, Lawless. We discuss (truth in subtitling!) how conservative jurisprudence runs on vibes and resentments rather than the grand theories it claims, how much Republican doctrine derives from the principle that being accused of discrimination is infinitely worse than invidious discrimination, how the brief and aberrational Warren Court era has inexplicably dominated the public’s perception of the Supreme Court for decades, how Neil Gorsuch resembles Patrick Bateman, and many other topics. Enjoy, and consider buying or borrowing Leah’s book. Transcript is here. Apple Podcasts Android Youtube Podchaser Podcast Index Subscribe by E-mail Audible Spotify Amazon Music The post LGM Podcast: Leah Litman appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.