Shield of the Republic

Eric and Eliot are joined by General David Petraeus and historian Andrew Roberts to discuss their New York Times bestselling book Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine (N.Y.:  Harper, 2023). They discuss how and why the two authors came together to write the book, the link between the causes of war and the manner in which wars are waged, the nature of regimes and the advantages that authoritarians have when fighting against liberal democracies, the challenge of maintaining liberal values in the midst of intense warfare, the influence of history on the waging of war and vice-versa, the way in which military commanders should provide their best military advice to Presidents, and the necessity and likelihood of fielding a generation of general/flag officers who are intellectually equipped to deal with the extraordinarily complex and dangerous international environment that the nation faces in the remind of this century. Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine: https://a.co/d/aNagP0I Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric and Eliot welcome David Stahel, Senior Lecturer at the University South Wales, Canberra and author of a multivolume history of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and other works on World War II on the eastern front. They discuss the historiography of World War II on the eastern front, the new primary sources he has tapped for his historical work, the sheer scale of the combat operations and the virtues of writing operational military history (as opposed to concentrating at the grand strategic level), the tensions inside the German high command between Hitler and the Army command as well as the rivalries among the army commanders on the eastern front. They cover the issue of how professional vs. how ideologically committed to Nazism the military commanders were, how the war turned from a war of maneuver to a war of attrition that doomed Nazi Germany to military failure and the echoes of history that can be found in the war that Russia is waging in Ukraine today. Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East: https://a.co/d/egI7OKv Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East: https://a.co/d/5xRmorZ Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded: https://a.co/d/8d3Xw2F The Battle for Moscow: https://a.co/d/h9Idyjf Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric and Eliot welcome Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent of the Wall Street Journal and author of the new book Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence (N.Y.: Penguin Press, 2024) released on January 9, 2024. They discuss Putin's rationale for the war, his long-standing views (shared by many Russians that are dismissive and disdainful of Ukrainian national identity), why some Russians (like Igor Girkin and Yevgeniy Prigozhin who had some actual knowledge of Ukraine) had more realistic views of Ukraine's ability to inflict damage on the Russian army, the potential of a negotiated settlement in the spring of 2022 and why negotiations failed, the tensions between President Zelenskiy and Commander of the Armed Forces General Zaluzhny, the fate of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the role of the high command in making decisions like the defense of Bakhmut, the views of the Ukrainian military about U.S. military advice and training, the Biden Administration's self-limiting fears of potential nuclear escalation by Putin and the consequences of the hesitant provision of advanced military equipment to the Ukrainians as well as the likely consequences and dangers of failing to pass the Supplemental Aid legislation currently before Congress and resuming the flow of military aid to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. https://www.amazon.com/Our-Enemies-Will-Vanish-Independence/dp/0593655184 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric welcomes Eliot back from his long travels who reports back on his trip with a bipartisan delegation of national security experts to Israel and recounts the ongoing trauma that both the Israeli public and national security elite are experiencing over the attacks on October 7 and the ongoing saga of the hostages. He describes the comprehensive nature of the failures (intelligence, political, operational and tactical) that Israel experienced that day and over the next several weeks as well as the resilience with which Israeli society and the IDF have reacted. They discuss the adjournment of politics in Israel while the war is underway, how long that will last and Bibi's political prospects in the long run (spoiler alert: Eliot thinks Bibi will go at some point). They discuss the rules of engagement, how Israel is fighting the war, the prospects for a ceasefire and hostage exchange, the dangers of escalation in the north with Hezbollah, and the links that Eliot believes exist between the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the prospective conflict over Taiwan. https://sonofadiplomat.substack.com/p/2024-a-year-of-global-consequence Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric visits the Miller Center and joins John Owen IV, the Amb. Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs and Marc Selverstone, the Miller Center's director of presidential studies, co-chair of the Center’s Presidential Recordings Program, and professor of presidential studies. They discus John's new book The Ecology of Nations:  American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2023) and Marc's book The Kennedy Withdrawal:  Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam (Cambrdige, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2022). They discuss tensions in JFK's commitment to Vietnam and the question of whether or not he would have withdrawn US forces from SE Asia had he lived, the role of botched withdrawals in Vietnam and Afghanistan on US standing in the world, America's diminished reputation for competence and the defense of global order, the relationship between American democracy and the state of democracy in the international order with the rise of populism globally and much else. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+kennedy+withdrawal&hvadid=676976545333&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9051515&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1675637251603091413&hvtargid=kwd-1935195859327&hydadcr=22165_13517535&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_4mgav3wic7_e https://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Nations-American-Democracy-Politics/dp/0300260733/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SZU0KJM5NX1F&keywords=the+ecology+of+nations&qid=1702755136&sprefix=the+ecology+of+nation%2Caps%2C93&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.

While President Zelensky is meeting in the White House on Dec. 12, Eric welcomes former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor to Shield of the Republic. They discuss the state of play on the supplemental aid legislation, the causes for the Ukrainian Counter Offensive's "failure" this summer, the search for a new strategy, General Zaluzhny's ideas about the changing character of warfare, the stresses and strains of domestic Ukrainian politics, the prospects for negotiations, the consequences of failure to get the assistance money and Plan B if the effort on the Hill fails. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric welcomes Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to discuss the war in Gaza. Jonathan Schanzer was a terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department and holds a BA from Emory University, a Masters degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a Doctorate from Kings College London and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo. He is the author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine, State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State, and most recently Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War. They discuss the broader regional context of the war including Iran, Turkey, Qatar and internal Palestinian conflicts. The different reaction of the Israeli Arab community to the war in 2021 and today's conflict, Jonathan's methodology for analyzing the war, the role of tunnels in Gaza and the difficulties Israel faces in both fighting an urban war and following the law of armed conflict, Hamas's responsibilities under the LOAC as well as the intelligence and policy failure that appears to have handicapped the Israeli response to the horrific attack on October 7, 2023. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2021/11/10/gaza-conflict-2021/ https://www.amazon.com/Hamas-vs-Fatah-Struggle-Palestine/dp/0230609058/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5Z9D6BBJ0KWE&keywords=Jonathan+Schanzer&qid=1701730624&sprefix=jonathan+schanzer%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/State-Failure-Mahmoud-Unmaking-Palestinian/dp/1137278242/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1C24RRJCRPFTS&keywords=jonathan+schanzer&qid=1701730653&sprefix=%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-3 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric and Eliot welcome former Secretary of Defense and former CIA Director Robert M. Gates to discuss his article in the current (November-December) issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Dysfunctional Superpower: Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia." They touch on the unprecedented threats (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, violent Islamist extremism) confronting the United States, the role of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and their motives for undermining the U.S. led international order, their predisposition to miscalculation, the suitability of the current national security decision-making system for the current moment, the consolidation of the defense industrial base, the damage done to national defense by repeated Congressional failure to pass a budget and reliance on continuing resolutions and gimmicks like the Budget Control Act, and the necessity of national leadership to spell out for the American people the threats to our security and prosperity and the reasons why the costs of preserving the U.S. led order are worth the candle. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/robert-gates-america-china-russia-dysfunctional-superpower https://www.amazon.com/Exercise-Power-American-Successes-Post-Cold/dp/B0862HDR6F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZNQW9YTL1GCH&keywords=the+exercise+of+power&qid=1700510748&sprefix=The+Exercis%2Caps%2C203&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Duty-Memoirs-Secretary-at-War/dp/030794963X/ref=monarch_sidesheet https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Leadership-Lessons-Change-Service/dp/0307949648/ref=monarch_sidesheet

Eric and Eliot host Bruno Tertrais, the Deputy DIrector of France's Fondation Pour La Recherche Strategique, one of the country's leading think tanks and author of the recent book La Guerre des Mondes:  Le Retour de la geopolitique et le choc des Empires (War of the Worlds: The Return of Geopolitics and the Shock of Empires). They discuss historical analogies that shed light on the current geopolitical moment including the pre-World War II, interwar, and early Cold War periods, the Korean War and the emergence of the bipolar world, the role of nuclear deterrence and alliances in today's geopolitical strategic competition among the US, Russia and China. Bruno describes the contemporary global order as less a world of blocs and than families of nations that cluster around the West or the authoritarian powers of Russia, Iran and China. They discuss the re-emergence of geopolitical concepts like "heartland" continental powers focused on land power and rimland maritime powers focused on naval power. They also touch on French policy under President Macron and the impact of US domestic political dysfunction on European views of international security. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/new-cold-war/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Entangling_Alliances__Europe_the_United_States_Asia_and_the_Risk_of_1914_.pdf https://samf.substack.com/p/the-role-of-security-guarantees https://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=1570 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eliot and Eric talk about great teachers including Eric's undergraduate mentor at Cornell, the late Walter LaFeber and Eliot's Harvard mentor Samuel Hungtington. They talk about the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic history -- its strengths and weaknesses, the nature and progress of historiography, the qualities that made LaFeber and Huntington such compelling scholars and instructors as well as the contemporary "over professionalization" of disciplines in the humanities. They also talk about the war in Ukraine, including the Time magazine article on Zelensky that depicts him as "delusional" as well as the Economist interview with Gen. Zaluzhny and the latter's paper on the evolution of modern warfare in Ukraine. They cover the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and discuss how much time Israel has to accomplish its strategic objectives and the difficulties Israel faces in securing those ends as well as the fascinating and disturbing profile of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Financial Times. Finally, Eliot talks about the World War II museum and memorial in New Orleans and why the memory of World War II remains important for Americans to maintain. https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/ https://www.economist.com/zaluzhny-transcript?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gclid=CjwKCAiA3aeqBhBzEiwAxFiOBo4yIlOigMyAgtSawUcFpE1YiJO_4tllqqrM1suZ_qDfbQbmtad_uBoCVIoQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/for-israel-a-war-unlike-any-other-b8160908 https://www.ft.com/content/de78c7a0-f8f0-403e-b0db-eb86d6e76919 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.