Shield of the Republic

Eric and Eliot welcome back friend of the show Kori Schake, the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a veteran of government service at the White House, Defense Department and State Department (where she served as Deputy Director of Policy Planning). They discuss Kori's recent visit to Ukraine, the Biden Administration's management of escalation dynamics in the Russo-Ukrainian war and whether the administration's rhetoric has undercut their professed objectives. They also discuss the appointment of a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the controversy over the Marine Corps' recent overhaul under Commandant General David Berger, as well as the importance of diversity of service views in senior DoD leadership. They wrap up with a discussion of Kori's essay on "Strategic Excellence" that examines the strategy of Tecumseh and the Shawnee Confederation and which was recently published in The New Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 2023).  https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/05/russia-ukraine-war-escalation-biden-us-risks/674220/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/biden-ukraine-moscow-attack-drone-white-house/674254/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=true-anthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter https://www.amazon.com/New-Makers-Modern-Strategy-Ancient/dp/0691204381/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VZ1OC2MKVC0&keywords=the+new+makers+of+modern+strategy&qid=1686158772&sprefix=The+New+Makers%2Caps%2C244&sr=8-1 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eric and Eliot share reflections on Memorial Day (and the proper way to observe it), analyze the Turkish election results and Turkey's future course as a regional power, discuss the rise of religious authoritarianism and populism around the globe, and mark Henry Kissinger's one hundredth birthday with a discussion of his complex and complicated legacy as a statesman. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eric and Eliot mark the latter’s return from his European travels with dark musings about why they have not yet been sanctioned by the Russian government. They also discuss Finland’s adaptation to NATO membership, the differing perspectives of the Nordic and Baltic states, whether or not the neutrality of the “global south” in the Russo-Ukraine war is consequential, and Ukraine’s post-Bakhmut prospects. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/ukraine-victory-russia-defeat/674112/ Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Will Inboden, the Executive Director of the William Clements Center for National Security and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas Austin (and editor of the Texas National Security Review) joins Eric to discuss the alleged "October Surprise" in 1980 -- the long bruited charge that Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey colluded with Iranian intermediaries to forestall the release of the U.S. hostages until after the election. The original allegation, made by former Carter NSC staffer Gary Sick, resurfaced this spring after former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes gave an interview to Peter Baker of the New York Times alleging that he and the late John Connally travelled the Middle East in 1980 to pass the word to the Iranians that they would get a better deal from Reagan than they would from Carter. One month later Gary Sick (along with Jonathan Alter, Kai Bird, and Stuart Eizenstat) argued in The New Republic that the matter is "All But Settled." Will and Eric discuss the historical evidence (or lack thereof) that supports the theory and compare it to Nixon's efforts to affect the Vietnam negotiations during the 1968 Presidential Election and the collusion between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign that was revealed in the Mueller and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Reports. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html https://warontherocks.com/2023/04/be-skeptical-of-reagans-october-surprise/ https://thedispatch.com/article/smears-and-myths-the-october-surprise-revisited/ https://newrepublic.com/article/172324/its-settled-reagan-campaign-delayed-release-iranian-hostages https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Shadows-Chennault-Watergate-Presidency/dp/0813937833 https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While Eliot is still in Europe, Eric welcomes former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000) Stephen Pifer to the show. Steve is affiliated with the Stanford Center on International Security and Cooperation and is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has served at the US Embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London, was senior director at the NSC and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Russia and Ukraine, as well as an advisor to Amb. Paul Nitze during the INF Treaty negotiations. They discuss VE Day in Europe, the drone attack on the Kremlin, the prospects for the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the types of military equipment that would be most useful for the Ukrainians. They also discuss the promise (or lack thereof) of potential Chinese mediation of the conflict and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict.  https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Trident-U-S-_Ukraine-Relations-Turbulent/dp/0815730403 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A solo Eric welcomes Gönül Tol, the founding Director of the Turkey Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC to discuss her new book, Erdogan's War: A Strongman's Struggle at Home and in Syria, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023) and her perspective on the upcoming Turkish elections on May 14. They discuss the complex inter-relationship between Erdogan's foreign policy and his domestic aspirations to move Turkey in an authoritarian direction, Erdogan's thirst for power and his pragmatism in pursuing Islamist, socially conservative and Nationalist constituencies as circumstances have changed, the impact of 20 years of AKP rule on Turkish society, and the prospects for the united opposition "Table of Six" in the election. They also touch on the potential for election fraud and Erdogan refusing to leave office despite the outcome of the vote. Finally, they touch on the reaction of civil society and the mess that the opposition will inherit if they win the elections. https://www.amazon.com/Erdoğans-War-Strongmans-Struggle-Syria/dp/0197677320 https://www.mei.edu/blog/turkish-election-watch-week-april-23-30 https://www.ft.com/content/fd31eff7-b5e2-4424-82ed-215a93837c27 https://www.politico.eu/article/turkeys-gandhi-sets-his-sights-on-strongman-erdogan-kemal-kilicdaroglu-peoples-republican-party-tayyip-erdogan-development-party-akp-deniz-baykal/ Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Eliot traveling for both business and family celebrations, Eric hosts historian, journalist and novelist Owen Matthews whose new book, Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia's War Against Ukraine, has just been published in the US by Harper Collins. Owen has been a journalist with The Moscow Times and served as the Newsweek Bureau Chief in Moscow and Istanbul. He is author of several works of history about Russia and the thrillers, Black Sun, Red Traitor, and White Fox. They discuss Owen's family connections to Russia and Ukraine, the backstory of the war, Putin's decision to invade in 2022, the role of the intelligence services in Putin's rise, and the prospects for war termination. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com https://www.amazon.com/Overreach-Inside-Russias-Against-Ukraine/dp/0008562741/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TUERNR9JJG81&keywords=overreach+the+inside+story+of+putin%27s+war+against+ukraine&qid=1682532898&sprefix=Overreach%2Caps%2C331&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Black-Sun/dp/0552176575/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= https://www.amazon.com/Red-Traitor/dp/0552178357/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= https://www.amazon.com/White-Fox-Novel-Owen-Matthews/dp/0385543441/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While Eliot is on travel Eric welcomes LTG Sami Sadat whose poignant op-ed in the New York Times in August 2021 about the fall of Afghanistan described his personal feelings of betrayal by the US. He is a major figure in the National Geographic documentary Retrograde now airing on Disney+. They discuss the Biden Administration's recent "Interim Report on Lessons Learned from the Afghanistan Withdrawal" and the contrast between it and the report of the Special Inspector General on Afghanistan, the relative responsibility of the Trump and Biden Administrations, the flaws in the Doha Agreement and the role that contractors played in sustaining Afghan National Security Forces. They also discuss the current humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan and the country's future prospects. Lt. Gen Sami Sadat's 2021 Op-Ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html Biden Administration Interim Report the Afghanistan Withdrawal: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf SIGAR Report on the Afghan Security Forces Collapse: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/evaluations/SIGAR-23-16-IP.pdf Retrograde Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CufeaxpsTTQ 1208 Foundation Website: https://www.1208foundation.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eliot and Eric welcome Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). One of America's most distinguished public intellectuals he is the author of several books including the End of History and the Last Man and, more recently, Liberalism and its Discontents. They discuss the impact of the war on Ukraine on the future of liberal democracy and the rules based international order, the drivers of populism and nationalism, the rise of illiberalism in both theory and practice, as well as the state of the academy and the situation in Georgia under the influence of Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili. https://www.ft.com/content/d0331b51-5d0e-4132-9f97-c3f41c7d75b3 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/francis-fukuyama-still-end-history/671761/ https://thebulletin.org/premium/2022-11/its-a-different-kind-of-world-were-living-in-now-interview-with-political-scientist-francis-fukuyama/ Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eric and Eliot host Melvyn P. Leffler, the Edward Stettinius Professor of History at the University of Virginia to discuss his new book, Confronting Saddam: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq. Mel describes why he decided to write the book and his findings that Bush rather than a cabal of neoconservatives was that key decision maker and that he adopted a strategy of coercive diplomacy to deal with the ongoing threat of Saddam's regime. He discusses the Bush team's motivations which he ascribes to fear, power, and hubris. He provides a critique of the decision-making and discusses the difficulty of writing contemporary history and alternative courses of action that Bush ought to have considered. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/bush-911-and-roots-iraq-war https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Saddam-Hussein-George-Invasion/dp/0197610773/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1YI8C4LFC6B4E&keywords=mel+leffler+book&qid=1680643956&sprefix=Mel+Leffler%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-2 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at shieldoftherepublic@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices