Shield of the Republic

With Eliot traveling Eric welcomes Eugene Finkel, the Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to discuss his recent book Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (New York:  Basic Books, 2024). They discuss the long-term Russian effort to dominate, subordinate and eliminate Ukrainian nationality, culture and language. They touch on the pillars of Russian national identify and how Russians came to see Ukraine and Ukrainians as inferior members of a hierarchy of Russian-ness and how the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism in Poland and later the Austro-Hungarian empire came to represent an existential threat to Russian ethnic domination of St. Petersburg's multinational empire in the run up to world war one. They discuss the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of an independent Ukraine, the reasons for its failure and Stalin's efforts to destroy Ukrainian nationalism, his drive for collectivization of agriculture and the ensuing Holodomor -- a man-made famine that cost perhaps as many as 5 million lives. They also discuss Ukraine during World War Two, caught between the Wehrmacht and Red Army. The collaboration of some Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis and the guerrilla war to prevent Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine which lasted into the early 1950s, cost perhaps 100 thousand lives and gave birth to the Russian notion that Ukrainian nationalism was inherently fascist. They consider Ukraine's independence in 1992, the negotiation of the Budapest Memorandum and the myth that Ukraine "gave up nuclear weapons, as well as the cultural shift that will have to take place in Russia if there is to be lasting peace that ends the current war. Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine: https://a.co/d/5fsdy8L 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 Professor H. W. Brands, the Jack S. Blanton Chair in History at the University of Texas, Austin and the best-selling author of more than a dozen books on American History. They discuss his book America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War (New York: Doubleday, 2024) touching on what drew him to the subject of the America First movement, the nature of the national debate on radio from 1939-1941, the transformation of the nation's default foreign policy of non-interventionism to globalism, the role of the Congressional fight over repealing the Neutrality Acts, Lindbergh's racialized thinking and anti-semitism, how the speech he gave in Des Moines at an America First rally in fall 1941 destroyed his national image and reputation, Lindbergh's personal character (and his multiple affairs with German women in the last twenty years of his life, the transition in elite thinking from hemispheric defense to a global posture of forward defense, the British and German influence operations to shape American public opinion before Pearl Harbor and the contemporary overtones of Lindbergh's non-interventionism, focus on future technology, and political naivete that are visible in Donald Trump and Elon Musk. America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War: https://a.co/d/4Lr9jmh 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 welcome Drew Lichtenberg (resident dramaturg at the Shakespeare Theatre Company) and Deborah Payne (Professor of Literature at American University), authors of Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company. They discuss the long history of Washington’s fascination with and interest in Shakespeare. They talk about the tensions inside the Folger Library with regard to studying or performing Shakespeare’s plays, the political and economic changes that explain Washington’s evolution from sleepy Southern city to a more vibrant cultural center, changing interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays as a proxy for debates over representation and America’s changing demography, and avant garde interpretation with a political spin versus more traditional classical approaches to the texts. Eric and Eliot also provide their first blush takes on Trump 2.0’s first 48 hours. Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company https://a.co/d/cGaM5zO 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 friend of the show Kori Schake back to Shield of the Republic. Kori is Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign Policy and Defense Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2017). They discuss her recent retrospective article in Foreign Policy on the BIden administration's foreign policy. She critiques the Biden team's failures on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, trade policy and the broader decline of America's margin of deterrence and in particular the failure to keep military spending at an appropriate level given inflation. She also credits the Biden Administration with using the intelligence community's insights into Russia's plans for invading Ukraine appropriately to undo some of the damage done by the Iraq war and its alliance management after the Russian invasion in 2022. She discusses how much of the failure can be laid at Biden's feet personally and how much lies with his national security team. Finally, Eric and Eliot discuss the prospects for the new Trump team that appears to be brimming with self-confidence. They dissect the prospects for Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing as well as Trump's fixation on Greenland and whether his enthusiasm is getting in the way of actual strategic accomplishments given the increasing strategic importance of the Arctic. https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/07/biden-foreign-policy-record-failure-success-national-security/ https://www.amazon.com/Safe-Passage-Transition-American-Hegemony/dp/0674975073 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/trump-bluster-foreign-policy-greenland-canada/681268/ 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 are back from the break and have lots to discuss. They note the anniversary of January 6th and the somewhat successful efforts by MAGA types to rewrite its history in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Eric talks about the world that Trump will inherit which will be much more disorderly and dangerous that what he inherited in his first term as President, including an Iran on the cusp of having a nuclear weapons capability, the largest land war in Europe since World War II with battlefield situation for Ukraine looking grim even as Russia faces catastrophic losses of men and material, and Russia and China escalating an increasingly aggressive hybrid war of sabotage in the Baltic, off Taiwan and farther afield. They discuss turbulence of politics in the democratic world and the various causes of the rise of populist nationalism which has affected not just the U.S. but democracies around the world. They discuss Elon Musk's unprecedented role as an agent of political disruption around the democratic world and its byproducts in the UK, Germany, and Canada. Finally, they reprise their discussion of the futile efforts by members of the Biden Administration to polish and shape its foreign policy legacy through interviews and speeches when the final verdict will be rendered by historians likely to be unaffected by these transparently self-interested efforts. Eric on Conversations With Bill Kristol: https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/conversation/eric-edelman-on-the-world-trump-inherits/ JINSA Iranian Nuclear Report: https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Day-1-Strategy-to-Defeat-Iran-12.19-Compressed.pdf Phillips OBrien on Biden's legacy burnishing:  https://substack.com/home/post/p-154316690 Secretary Blinken Interview: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-lulu-garcia-navarro-of-nyts-the-interview-podcast/ Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

With Eliot traveling, Eric welcomes back prolific historian and author Hal Brands to the show to discuss his forthcoming book The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2025) which will be published in mid-January. They discuss the ideas and careers of geopolitical thinkers Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Nicholas Spykman whose views about the influence of geography on international affairs became enormously influential among political leaders of all stripes in the early to mid-Twentieth Century. They touch on the costs of deterrence versus the much higher costs of great power wars, the breakdown of the international trading system in the 1930s and how it presaged military conflict, why regional crises in the interwar period rapidly metastasized into the most costly global conflict in history and how our contemporary world resembles the world of 1940-1941. They also discuss the rise of China and the bipartisan consensus it has spawned on diagnosing our current international environment but has not yet led to a bipartisan execution of policies to remedy the situation. They also discuss the rise of geopolitical super predators in the 1930s, the evolution of "Fortress Eurasia" -- the emerging alliance among the PRC, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Senator Mitch McConnell's recent Foreign Affairs article arguing against retrenchment, and why it is hard to imagine a future conflict not becoming a global conflict today. Shield of the Republic will be taking a break for the holidays and will return in early January. The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World: https://a.co/d/2XQ7lWa The Price of American Retreat: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/price-american-retreat-trump-mitch-mcconnell 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 discuss the rapidly unfolding events in Syria and examine the causes and consequences of the collapse of Bashar al Assad's regime in Syria. They discuss the big winners (Turkey, Israel, the Syrian people and to a lesser extent the U.S) and the big losers (notably Russia and especially Iran). They discuss the timing of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham offensive, how to interpret the claims of HTS leader abu Mohammed al Jolani that the group has moderated, the prospects for Russia maintaining its Khmeimim Air Base and its naval base at Tartus, as well as the future of Iranian national security policy. In particular, they discuss whether the Iranians will have incentives to sprint to a nuclear weapon or whether they will temporize and seek to embroil the incoming Trump administration in an endless negotiation over the nuclear program. They discuss the Biden Administration's efforts to polish its reputation in the aftermath of recent events and the waxing and waning of leadership reputations including former President Barack Obama and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They consider what effect events in Syria might have on Trump's approach to the war in Ukraine. They also touch on listener criticisms that calling for greater defense spending seems out of touch with today's American political scene. They consider the results of the recent Reagan National Defense Forum survey and the light those results shed on the question of public support for stronger national defense. Eliot's latest pieces in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/khamenei-iran-syria/680920/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/european-troops-ukraine-war/680928/ Eric & David Kramer's latest in Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/06/trump-ukraine-better-foreign-policy-00192415 Reagan Foundation Study on Public Perception of Defense Spending: https://www.reaganfoundation.org/media/363274/rndf-survey-nov-2024-memo.pdf Financial Times Retrospectives on Angela Merkel: https://www.ft.com/content/0a538c85-27fb-400e-ae8b-f13fb6ce4e72 https://www.ft.com/content/e82af5d9-32ea-444e-93e2-9e457d6a6796 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 return from Thanksgiving to discuss the Trump transition and its national security nominations so far. They talk about Kash Patel as FBI Director, the new allegations against Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, as well as the nepotistic nominations of in laws Charles Kushner, a convicted felon, as Ambassador to France and Massad Boulos as Middle East advisor. They discuss whether or not to take any solace from the nomination of General (ret.) Keith Kellogg as Ukraine Peace negotiator and the pluses and minuses of the America First Institute peace plan that Kellogg co-authored with Fred Fleitz in April. They also touch on the prospective challenges to civil-military relations that are likely to emerge early in the Trump Administration with mass deportation and prospective purges of the JCS and the senior officer corps more broadly. They discuss a series of developments in Europe and the Middle East that have not received as much attention as they deserve given the focus on the transition in the US including the Presidential election in Romania which was subject to Russian interference and the potential election of a populist, NATO skeptic as President, the rising protests in Georgia that eerily echo what happened in Ukraine with the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and finally the Syrian opposition offensive against the regime of Bashar al Assad and its capture of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city. Keith Kellogg and Ukraine: https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/america-first-russia-ukraine https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/42992 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 U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John J. Sullivan. John was Deputy Secretary of Commerce in Bush 43, Deputy Secretary of State under Secretary Pompeo and served as Ambassador to Moscow for both Presidents Trump and Biden. They discuss his terrific account Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir From the Front Lies of Russia's War Against the West (New York:  Little Brown and Co., 2024). They talk about the importance and difficulty of maintaining reciprocity in diplomatic representation with Russia the declassification of intelligence to deter Russia and DCI Bill Burns's role in the run up to Putin's invasion, the nature of Russian society and the national character and Russia's imperial hangover, Ambassador Sullivan's never sent valedictory telegram from Moscow and his final judgments about Russia and its war on Ukraine and the west, Putin' readiness to negotiate and his criticisms of the Biden Administration's approach to the war in Ukraine. 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 recent trip to Israel. They discuss the election results, whether or not it represents a mandate for Trump, why the Dems lost, and what the initial signals from the Trump transition augur for national security. Will the normie Republicans control the cabinet positions with MAGA true believers taking the second and third tier positions? They touch on the role of Don Jr,, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson in making personnel selections, the likely clash of egos to come as well as the policy contradictions that are likely to plague the Administration and the knock-on consequences of mass deportation and tariffs that are likely to roil the nation if the Trump team implements them. They talk about the prospects for a Lebanon cease-fire, Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer's trip to Moscow and how the Trump transition hangs over policy in the Middle East. Eliot reports back on his trip and discussions with Israeli military leaders who see themselves as facing a multi-front war with Iran. They discuss the destruction of Hamas's military capabilities in Gaza, the ongoing guerrilla war there and the difficulties that Israel may face in finding a political authority to rule over Gaza in the near future. They also discuss the much more precise campaign waged against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the damage that has been done to Iran's position in the region (and at home) by Israeli military success. They also discuss the tensions in Israeli society between secular and orthodox Jews on the one hand and the ultra-orthodox on the other.  Finally, they touch on the prospect for civil-military tensions in the US as a consequence of Trump's return to office. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.