Shield of the Republic

• 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Sea, Russian troop movements in the north and the threat to the Nordics, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's unpublished threatening letter to the Swedes in 2021, Sweden's "armed neutrality" during the Cold War, the nuclear question that hangs over Poland as well as Polish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.

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• How to Practice Productive Statecraft

  With Eliot still on the road, Eric welcomes Dennis Ross, Counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former Director of Policy Planning under James Baker, Special Middle East Envoy under President Clinton among several other high level national security positions at State, Defense and the White House under Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Obama. Dennis is also a prolific author including his memoir of Middle East diplomacy, The Missing Peace, Doomed to Succeed - a history of U.S.-Israel relations, and most recently Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025). They discuss why Dennis chose to update his 2005 book on Statecraft, his choice of case studies including German Reunification, the First Gulf War, Bosnia, the Iraq War and the Syria policy debacle under President Obama. He describes the contending schools of thought about America's role in the world, including America First, Restrainers, Realists, and Liberal Internationalists and their differences over the use of force, alliances, as well as the role of interests and values in American foreign policy. He outlines the habits of good statecraft, including proper assessments, use of leverage and coercion, Presidential leadership and empowering lower level officials while avoiding groupthink. Along the way they discuss Afghanistan, Libya, the war in Ukraine and Dennis's assessment of President Trump's trip to the Middle East and his policy approach to the war in Ukraine and changing Vladimir Putin's calculus about war termination. Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World: https://a.co/d/j8C7WcH 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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• The Man in Kissinger's Shadow

  With Eliot traveling abroad, Eric hosts Financial Times Washington commentator Edward Luce, author of Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet (New York, Avid Reader Press, 2025). They discuss Zbig's historical significance, why there have been more biographies of Henry Kissinger than Brzezinski and whether or not he was, in the long pull of history, more consequential than Kissinger. They also consider whether Brzezinski was a better National Security Adviser than Carter was a President. They talk about the very complicated Zbig-Henry relationship and the different styles they brought not only to their interpersonal exchanges but also their concern for reputation management in Washington. They touch on Zbig's contributions to the reorientation of nuclear strategy, nuclear command and control, undermining the Soviet Union with covert action and an emphasis on nationalities, the catastrophic collapse of the Shah's regime in Iran and the subsequent hostage crisis which sank the Carter Presidency, as well as arguably Zbig's finest moment after the 1980 election when the Carter Administration fended off a possible Soviet invasion of Poland. Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet: https://a.co/d/1BeHvGu 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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  59:13
• America is Torching Its Credibility

  Eliot and Eric welcome Larry Summers, former President of Harvard University and former Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton Administration. They discuss why his prescient advice about the dangers of inflation were ignored by the Biden Administration and whether or not Democrats have learned the lesson that inflation affects all Americans with corrosive political effects. They also touch on the prospects for the US economy given Trump's misguided and haphazard policies as well as the role they have played in the decline of the stock market and dollar and increase in bond yields and touch on the role that the loss of the US reputation for being a rule of law nation might have on long run prospects for the economy. They also examine his role as President of Harvard, his determination to participate in ROTC commissioning ceremonies, the danger of identity concerns devolving into a "victimization Olympics," his concerns about the decline of universities as an ivory tower where the search for truth goes on as well as the excesses of anti-Semitism that Harvard among other universities have suffered as well as more general reflections on the role of universities on the nation's public life. Larry Summers on Conversations with Bill Kristol: https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/conversation/larry-summers-trump-tariffs-threats-us-economy/ 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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  57:55
• A New Era of Economic Warfare

  Eliot and Eric welcome Edward Fishman, Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University's SIPA program and author of Chokepoints: American Power in The Age of Economic Warfare (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2025). They discuss the American tradition of reaching for economic sanctions as an alternative to kinetic military action or war and how U.S. policymakers have weaponized the role of the dollar in international finance to U.S. advantage as well as export controls like the Foreign Direct Product rule that weaponize U.S. cutting edge technologies. They discuss how these tools, if used inappropriately, can backfire as they arguably did in the early 1800s with the Non-Intercourse Act and the Embargo under Jefferson and Madison as well as the scrap metal and oil embargoes against Imperial Japan in 1940-1941. They consider the record of economic warfare in bringing Iran to the table for the negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), as a deterrent to Russian military action against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 and then as tools of attrition against the Russian war effort, as well as in the ongoing strategic competition with China. Finally, they consider whether we should see sanctions and economic warfare as limited tools that can achieve limited goals as opposed to fundamentally changing the behavior of America's authoritarian adversaries. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare: https://a.co/d/fFkgUq7

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