Encounters 1.9: Life as a Practitioner

Richard Gamble (Hillsdale College) joins Eric Adler (University of Maryland) and Bill Smith (CUA) to discuss the life and work of the twentieth-century scholar Irving Babbitt. We explore Babbitt's unique defense of the humanities, his views on the ethical life, the way his work intersects with foreign policy questions.

Author and editor Bill Kauffman discusses his work on "The Congressional Journal of Barber B. Conable, Jr., 1968-1984" (University Press of Kansas, 2021) and how this principled institutionalist approached the problems of his day and ours. Gil Barndollar joins.

We interview Charles McLaughlin, former Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council and a lifelong practitioner of foreign policy, about his own background and career path, what he has learned over the years, and his thoughts on some of the largest challenges facing the United States.

We're joined by Emily Finley of Stanford University and Arta Moeini of the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy for an "upstream" discussion on the deeper philosophical sources of our foreign policy dilemmas, with a particular focus on the question of democracy and elite leadership.

American foreign policy shifted dramatically in the middle of the twentieth century. What happened, and why? Stephen Wertheim, author of "Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy" explains. We're joined by Jonathan Askonas, Assistant Professor of Politics at CUA.

In this episode, we speak with Andrew Gilmour, a 32-year veteran of the CIA and author of "A Middle East Primed for New Thinking: Insights and Policy Options from the Ancient World." We're joined by CSS' own Gil Barndollar.

Our own Justin Litke joins Gary Gregg of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville and Aaron N. Coleman of the University of the Cumberlands to discuss their new, unique edition of the Federalist and the relevance of the debates over the Constitution's ratification to our time.

Can 'preventive war' succeed and is it justifiable? What if it had been employed against Germany in 1936, or at other moments against rising powers? Scott Silverstone, Professor of International Relations at West Point, joins CSS Senior Research Fellow Gil Barndollar and host Justin Logan to discuss.

On this episode, host Justin Logan is joined by CSS Senior Fellow Gil Barndollar and Professor of Politics Jonathan Askonas to examine what Joe Biden's appointments to his national security team might mean in terms of America's overall foreign policy. Will his administration see a return to traditional diplomacy, or embrace sweeping, potentially hubristic ambitions?

On this inaugural episode of the CSS podcast, host Justin Logan is joined by Claes G. Ryn, Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America and editor of the scholarly journal Humanitas, plus William S. Smith, Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship.