4 – Do Autocrats Need a Foreign Enemy?

Guests: Nicholas Anderson is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Daryl Press is Faculty Director of the Davidson Institute and Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.International Security Article: Nicholas D. Anderson and Daryl G. Press, “Access Denied? The Sino-American Contest for Military Primacy in Asia,” International Security, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Summer 2025), pp. 118–151, https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC.a.7.Originally released on October 10, 2025

Guests: Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.International Security Article: Stephen M. Walt, “Hedging on Hegemony: The Realist Debate over How to Respond to China,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Spring 25), pp. 37–70, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00508.Originally released on June 24, 2025

Guests: Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the MIT Security Studies Program, which he directed from 2006 to 2019.International Security Article: Barry R. Posen, “Putin's Preventive War: The 2022 Invasion of Ukraine,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Winter 2024/25), pp. 7–49, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00501.Originally released on March 31, 2025

Guests: Miranda Priebe is a senior political scientist and director of the Center for Analysis of U.S. Grand Strategy at RAND. John Schuessler is Associate Professor of International Affairs and Co-Director of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.International Security Article: Miranda Priebe, John Schuessler, Bryan Rooney, and Jasen Castillo, “Competing Visions of Restraint,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Fall 2024), pp. 135–169.Originally released on February 19, 2025

Guests: Henry Hale is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. Adam Lenton is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University.International Security Article: Henry E. Hale and Adam C. Lenton, “Do Autocrats Need a Foreign Enemy? Evidence from Fortress Russia,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Summer 2024), pp. 9–50.Originally released on November 7, 2024

Guests:Dominic Tierney is Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College.International Security Article: Dominic Tierney “The Iron Dice: Fatalism and War,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Summer 2024), pp. 51–90.Originally released on October 10, 2024

Guests:Şener Aktürk is Professor of International Relations at Koç University in Istanbul, Türkiye.International Security Article: Şener Aktürk, “Not So Innocent: Clerics, Monarchs, and the Ethnoreligious Cleansing of Western Europe,” International Security, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Spring 2024), pp. 87–136.Originally released on June 18, 2024.

Guest:Matthew Evangelista is President White Professor of History and Political Science at Cornell University.International Security Article:This podcast is based on Matthew Evangelista, “A ‘Nuclear Umbrella’for Ukraine? Precedents and Possibilities for Postwar European Security,” International Security, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Winter 2023/24), pp. 7–50, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00476.Originally released on March 20, 2024.

Guests:Sarah Bidgood is Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.Usha Sahay is Senior Editor at POLITICO Magazine, where she focuses on foreign affairs and global issues. She is also the host of “A Most Terrible Weapon,” a podcast produced by War on the Rocks about the dawn of the nuclear age. Previously, she was Managing Editor of War on the Rocks.International Security Article:This podcast is based on Samuel Meyer, Sarah Bidgood, and William C. Potter, “Death Dust: The Little-Known Story of U.S. and Soviet Pursuit of Radiological Weapons,” International Security, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Fall 2020), pp. 51– 94.Related Readings:Alex Wellerstein, “Death Dust, 1941,” Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, March 7, 2014. Usha Sahay, “A Most Terrible Weapon,” War on the Rocks, 2020. Sarah Bidgood, Sam Meyer, and William Potter, “It’s Time to Prohibit Radiological Weapons,” European Leadership Network, February 1, 2021. Kyle Mizokami, “Russia Is Still Testing Its Terrifying Apocalypse Torpedo,” Popular Mechanics, April 14, 2021.Originally released on June 22, 2021.

Guests:Austin Long is Vice Deputy Director for Strategic Stability in the Joint Staff J5 at the U.S. Department of Defense.Ernest J. Herold is Executive Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies—Americas and a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army. He was previously the Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment at NATO and Business Development Executive for NATO, U.S. European Command, and U.S. Africa Command at IBM.International Security Article:This podcast is based on Brendan Rittenhouse Greene and Austin Long, “Conceal or Reveal? Managing Clandestine Military Capabilities in Peacetime Competition,” International Security, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Winter 2019/20), pp. 48–83.Related Readings:Robert C. Toth, “Change in Soviets’ Sub Tactics Tied to Spy Case: Material Reportedly Available to Walkers May Have Tipped Kremlin to Vessels’ Vulnerability,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1985. Erica D. Borghard, “Chinese Hackers are Stealing U.S. Defense Secrets: Here is How to Stop Them,” Net Politics blog, Council on Foreign Relations, March 11, 2019. Daniel Gonzales et al., “Unclassified and Secure: A Defense Industrial Base Cyber Protection Program for Unclassified Defense Networks” (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2020).Originally released on June 22, 2021.