The Game of War: Part II

China is conducting what a top US military officer called a breathtaking expansion and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces. An October 2024 Defense Intelligence Agency report estimated that by 2030, “China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads, most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the continental United States.”Meanwhile, Russia maintains the largest foreign nuclear stockpile in the world and is actively modernizing its arsenal to be able to circumvent US missile defenses.North Korea and Iran have been busy improving their ballistic missile inventories, as the latter continues inching closer to a nuclear weapons capability.How can the United States deter these growing threats and protect American lives? 

Last week, Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that talks with the Trump administration appear to be going well.This tells host Cliff May that from an American perspective, the talks are going badly.President Trump has said that America’s goal is the “full dismantlement” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program, including its capacity to produce missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads to targets anywhere in the world.Mr. Araghchi’s goal is to prevent President Trump from achieving his goal. Who are you betting on?Cliff asks Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh, who just wrote a piece together in Politico arguing that sanctions and maximum pressure have never made the clerical regime abandon its nuclear ambitions.Which raises the question: What will?

According to host Cliff May, "Mark Montgomery is an admirable admiral. Another adjective I’d use to describe him: peripatetic. Which is a fancy way of saying he’s on the road more than Willie Nelson—whom he does not otherwise resemble."Most recently the retired flag officer has been in Lithuania, which on the east shares a border with the Russian vassal state of Belarus, and on the southwest has a border with the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad, which was called Königsberg until Russia took it from Germany following World War II.You start a war and lose that war, you may lose territory. Which is a good segue to Israel, another country Mark has recently visited. Also on the list is Taiwan.And, perhaps most mysteriously, he very recently spent time in an elaborate private wine cellar in California. Which is odd because he’s not much of a drinker. It had something to do with a cyber security conference and... The Godfather?So many mysteries, so little time. 

If you were to visit Turkey years ago, it might’ve felt both Middle Eastern and European. It was Muslim and secular. It was, more or less, free and democratic.  Host Cliff May says the food was great, too. Now? Well, he’s told the food is still great.  To explain what has happened and what is happening in Turkey, Cliff is joined by his FDD colleague Sinan Ciddi. About SinanSinan is also an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at the Marine Corps University in Quantico. Earlier, Sinan was Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, based at Georgetown University. He continues to serve as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He received his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He’s the author of Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People’s Party: Secularism and Nationalism.

Filling in for host Cliff May is FDD CEO and host of The Iran Breakdown, Mark Dubowitz, joined by former Israeli national security advisor Jacob Nagel, now a senior fellow at FDD.Following President Trump’s recent signaling that he's open to nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic, Mark and Jacob revisit the flaws of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the  general complexities of Iran's nuclear program. They discuss Iran's current nuclear capabilities and the implications of the program for regional security—and explain why addressing weaponization and delivery systems in any potential deal is of utmost importance.

Lord Andrew Roberts has written or edited 20 books which have been translated into 28 languages and have redefined our understanding of leaders and leadership, of empires and nations, of the forces that have shaped—and in some cases misshaped—the modern world.He’s won many awards, including the Bradley Prize for which he was nominated by host Cliff May.In 2022, he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Roberts of Belgravia.His most recent work: Chairing the 7 October Parliamentary Commission report, the first publication aimed at establishing and preserving an accurate record of the barbaric pogrom carried out by Hamas and Hamas-adjacent Gazans against Israelis.He joins Cliff to discuss.

The Indo-Pacific is one of the most consequential regions in the world. It’s home to economies, trade routes, and allies vital to American prosperity and security.It is also a region where the Chinese Communist Party, building on decades of defense sector cooperation with Russia, has expanded its military capabilities at a breathtaking pace. The more capable the Chinese military has become, the more aggressively Beijing has acted to coerce its neighbors and undermine American interests.Someone who grapples daily with this reality is General Ronald Clark, the Commander of U.S. Army Pacific, or USARPAC.For those who are not denizens of the Department of Defense, USARPAC is the Army service component command within U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. In other words, you can think of him as the top American soldier in the Pacific. A combat leader with decades of experience, General Clark has led American soldiers in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific. He’s a veteran of Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom. But now he focuses full time on the Pacific.He joins guest host Bradley Bowman, Senior Director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power, to discuss why the Indo-Pacific matters to Americans, the role of land power there, and what the Army is doing to deter and defeat adversaries—including forward-positioning forces, conducting rigorous training, and deepening cooperation with key allies such as the Philippines.

The Abraham Accords offer peace and prosperity, an era of repose from some of the constant warfare that plagues the Middle East.The UAE, a signatory of the Accords, houses the Abrahamic Family House—a synagogue side-by-side with a mosque and side-by-side with a church. It’s a beautiful symbol of tolerance and peace between the world’s Christians, Jews, and Muslims.But if Jihad against unbelievers is what Islam demands of the faithful, is it a paradox? On the contrary, say Amjad Taha and Ed Husain.They tell Cliff May that warm relations between Muslims and Jews shouldn’t be considered breaking the norms of Islam, and recall when the Prophet saw a funeral procession go by in Medina and stood up. When his friends asked him, “Why are you standing up for a Jewish funeral?” The Prophet responds, “Is this not a human soul?”“We are friends. We are cousins. We are brothers. We have the same father in Abraham. It’s not that we’re apostates—if anything, we’re family,” Ed says.But given the mosaic of diversity that is the Muslim world—from North Africa and the Middle East to south and Southeast Asia—how widely (or not) are these sentiments actually held?

Episodes 1-3 of The Iran Breakdown drop on Wednesday, March 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.About this exclusive sneak peekIn this special edition of Foreign Podicy, we're excited to introduce FDD's new podcast series hosted by Mark Dubowitz: The Iran Breakdown. Episodes 1-3 drop on Wednesday, March 19, but Foreign Podicy followers can enjoy the below exclusive preview of The Iran Breakdown, Episode II. In this sneak peek, Mark gets a masterclass on the Iran nuclear file from his FDD colleague Rich Goldberg, who previously served as the White House National Security Council's director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Rich helped coordinate key elements of President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Tehran, aimed at denying the regime pathways to nuclear weapons. Like Mark, Rich is sanctioned by the Islamic Republic of Iran.About The Iran BreakdownTehran’s fingerprints are on some of the most critical challenges that the world grapples with today. Because its illicit activity spans the globe, the Islamic Republic dominates international headlines. From exporting terrorism and racing for the nuclear bomb to brutal human rights violations, news on Iran is often dark and convoluted. Further widening this information gap, many consequential stories from inside Iran—like the regime's decaying legitimacy and the restless population's insatiable hunger for freedom— don’t always make it out of Iran. That has regime fingerprints on it, too. The international community's conflicting views on 'the Iran threat' also muddy the water. To make it make sense, Mark sits down with some of the top voices on Iran to unpack and explore the fundamental dynamics that shape it. In 10 episodes of The Iran Breakdown, viewers and listeners will build a sturdy foundation for responsible Iran-watching.Episodes 1-3 of The Iran Breakdown drop on Wednesday, March 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Back when host Cliff May was an exchange student at Leningrad State University in 1972, he believed that if the Soviet Union ever collapsed that Russia would become a free country. Well, that’s not how things turned out. Peter Pomerantsev has a book on Russian propaganda: “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia.”He joins Cliff along with Ivana Stradner, a research fellow with FDD’s Barish Center for Media Integrity, to discuss.