In a special episode of Shield of the Republic, Eric and Eliot discuss the Israeli military operation against Iran. They discuss the intelligence on Iran that purportedly prompted the decision to take military action against the Iranian program, the questions of whether the operation is really about regime change, if the US intervenes and bombs the facility at Fordow will it lead to a quagmire or endless war, the split inside MAGA over the President's apparent openness to using military force and joining the Israeli campaign against the Iranian nuclear program, the lack of staffing process and Trump's attempt to play an appropriate role as civilian leader in the "unequal dialogue" between political leaders and their military chiefs.
Eliot's latest in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/three-dramatic-consequences-israels-attack-iran/683235/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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58:46
What to Expect From the NATO Summit
Eric and Eliot welcome LTG (ret.) Douglas Lute, former Director of Operations for the Joint Staff, Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO to discuss the upcoming June 24-25 NATO Summit in the Hague. They discuss NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's formulas for reaching the Trump Administration target for NATO Members to spend 5% of GDP on Defense (Rutte has proposed a 3 1/2 % defense spending target with 1 1/2% spending on infrastructure counting toward the 5% objective). Lute highlights the unpredictability that Trump brings to NATO Summits recounting his own experience in 2017 with the unveiling of the Article 5 memorial commemorating the invocation of Article 5 in response to 9/11 which Trump used as an opportunity to excoriate Angela Merkel and other European leaders. They discuss European attitudes towards Trump 2.0 and whether the shock effect will lead to more effective European efforts on defense. They discuss intra-European dynamics at NATO, the role Ukraine will play at the Summit, Trump's aversion to using leverage against Putin, extended nuclear deterrence in Europe, the communique drafting process at NATO (spoiler alert: there will be no communique at this Summit), the NSC decision-making process and Trump's parade and the danger of politicizing the military.
Eliot's latest in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/cohen-military-parade/683143/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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1:00:52
America's Original Protest Movement (w/ Rick Atkinson)
Eliot and Eric offer up candidates for jackassery of the week before turning to a discussion of The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, (New York: Crown, 2025) the second volume of journalist/historian Rick Atkinson's monumental military history of the American revolution. They discuss Atkinson's background as a military journalist for the Washington Post who has written books about the Gulf War, the Iraq War and covered other late 20th and 21st Century conflicts before turning his attention to writing a trilogy on the US Army in Europe during the Second World War and now the American Revolution. They discuss the depth of his research in both archives in the U.S. and UK as well as his process for researching and writing these massive volumes (each of which has taken about 5-6 years to produce) and the decline of grand narrative history in the academy (despite the public demand for it). They consider how his own experience as a journalist affected his sense of the contingency of warfare and the fact that there are always tensions between the architects of war in capitals and the officers and troops on the ground. He explains how King George III and his ministers never understood the American drive for independence and were gripped by strategic misconceptions about how to fight the war, including the notion that there was a silent majority of North Americans who supported the monarchy despite the fact that the loyalists had mostly fled the colonies to Canada, the Caribbean or London. They discuss the star crossed career of Benedict Arnold, Washington's generalship at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania, and, finally, how Americans should think about the meaning of the American revolution today as we celebrate the sesquicentennial of the war for independence over the next 8 years.
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780: https://a.co/d/b6rFlQV
The Liberation Trilogy Boxed Set: An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, The Guns at Last Light: https://a.co/d/dWBRojr
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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56:18
What to Make of The Middle East
Eric and Eliot discuss this week's jackassery (Joni Ernst's dismissive attitude towards Medicaid cuts, Trump's obsessive posting on Truth Social and his disconnection from reality) before moving into a discussion of the Ukrainian drone attack on Russian Long-Range Aviation and the degree to which it represents an inflexion point in military affairs. How much will future wars in different parts of the world look like what we witnessed this past weekend? How will autonomy and AI combine to change the character of war? They also discuss the situation in Gaza, the difficulty of discerning a political objective in Israeli military operations, Israeli policy in Syria which may be self-defeating and its potential impact on how Bibi responds to what may be a Trump Iran deal that looks an awful lot like President Obama's JCPOA.
Eliot's Latest in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/ghosts-haunt-strategy/683004/
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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59:04
The Return of Jackassery and Eliot's Travel Report
Eliot returns from overseas travel and brings back the jackassery of the week segment with him. He and Eric discuss the President's reliance on totally fraudulent evidence while ambushing the President of South Africa with a video alleging genocide against whites in his country, the President's bizarre commencement address at the "Army Acadmey," the disembowling of the national security council staff, and the continued sniping in the immediate office of the Secretary of Defense. Eliot also reports on the "strategic ghosts" haunting the chanceries of Europe and his visits to Edinburgh, London, Tallinn, Stockholm and Warsaw. They discuss the UK Strategic Defense Review and Britain's post-imperial overstretch, Eliot's attendance at the Lennert Meri Conference in Estonia and that country's memories of absorption into the Soviet Union and its fears of Russian revanchism, Russian gray zone activity in the Baltic Sea, Russian troop movements in the north and the threat to the Nordics, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's unpublished threatening letter to the Swedes in 2021, Sweden's "armed neutrality" during the Cold War, the nuclear question that hangs over Poland as well as Polish resentments at past betrayals, Russia's evolution into a perpetual warfare state, and European efforts to both rearm, assist Ukraine and influence Trump (and their chances of success on the latter front).
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. We probe beyond the hive mind of Washington conventional wisdom on national security and foreign affairs.
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