Avoiding Strategic Insolvency at the Pentagon

Watch this episode on YouTube.LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman join host Cliff May to explain why diplomacy only works when backed by force. From Gaza to Ukraine, they trace how strength — not illusions — shapes outcomes and frustrates the ambitions of the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

Watch this episode on YouTube here.From China’s stranglehold on critical minerals to the coming AI power crunch, an energy arms race is underway. Rich Goldberg, on loan from FDD to the White House, helped establish a new National Energy Dominance Council. He’s now building a program at FDD that will focus on energy as a key component of national security. Rich, who has served as a Navy Intelligence Officer and National Security Council official, joins host Cliff May to discuss.

Born into a well-educated and well-off Syrian family, Ahmad al-Sharaa – also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani – joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq, after the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003. Following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, he established al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria: Jabhat al-Nusra. In 2016, he severed ties with al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra evolved into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — the force that in 2024 toppled Bashar al-Assad’s Tehran-backed regime.Today, the former terrorist is the interim president of Syria. With the U.S. bounty on his head gone, he last week became the first ex-al-Qaeda member to address the UN General Assembly – in a suit and tie, no less.The U.S., the Turks, the Saudis, the Qataris, the Israelis, and others want to influence him. FDD’s David Adesnik and Ahmad Sharawi join host Cliff May to discuss.

America’s military faces extraordinary threats — and when resources lag, missions can fail. Guest host Bradley Bowman is joined by Krista Auchenbach of CSIS to discuss her forthcoming report, alongside Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, as they unpack how presidents convey orders, how the Pentagon manages risk, and how to avoid a dangerous ends-means mismatch.

On the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Cliff May sits down with Amb. Edmund Fitton-Brown, former British ambassador to Yemen and UN terrorism monitor, now a senior fellow at FDD, to assess what we’ve learned — and failed to learn — about global jihad.From Hamas leaders living lavishly in Qatar, the Houthis’ missile attacks, al Qaeda’s quiet alliance with Tehran’s rulers, and the West’s waning influence in Africa to the Taliban’s return to Kabul and the UN’s support for Hamas, Cliff and Edmund warn that the Long War Against the West is far from a conclusion.

For fifty years, the United Nations has waged a war on Israel—not with rockets or tanks, but with words: resolutions branding Zionism as racism, false charges of apartheid, fabricated famine, and now even cries of genocide. It’s a propaganda war that empowers Hamas and delegitimizes Israel on the world stage.On this episode of Foreign Podicy, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleague Rich Goldberg to pull back the curtain on the UN’s alliance with Hamas, expose how disinformation became a weapon of war, and lay out what America and Israel must do to finally break this toxic “business model” of lies and terror.

The world’s most endangered democracies—Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, and Ukraine—face relentless threats from the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and Moscow. With Ukraine locked in an existential war, host Cliff May welcomes British historian Mark Galeotti, host of In Moscow’s Shadows, for an unflinching look at Russia’s ambitions, Putin’s imperial drive, and what it all means for the future of the free world.

Not every U.S. strategic partner is a democracy, but those receiving American aid should not trample such basic freedoms as religious liberty. Years ago in Egypt, Coptic Patriarch Pope Tawadros II told host Cliff May that discrimination was diminishing under President Sissi. Today, USCIRF reports show the opposite: systemic repression of religious minorities.FDD’s Mariam Wahba, writing recently in The Free Press, calls out the “brazen attacks on Christianity” in Egypt and beyond. She joins Cliff to discuss what’s gone wrong — and why it matters — on Foreign Podicy.

America’s edge in artificial intelligence may rest on one decision now facing Washington: whether to keep our most advanced chips out of Beijing’s hands. President Trump has moved to lift the export ban on Nvidia’s H20 processors—a move some warn could supercharge China’s AI ambitions and military power—arming the Chinese Communist Party for dominance in the AI age. Cliff May and Matt Pottinger pull back the curtain on the high-stakes race, the players vying for advantage, and what’s really at risk if America loses its lead.

Adm. Mark Montgomery has been on the road again – along with Craig Singleton and Matt Pottinger. All three FDD scholars just returned from a visit to Japan and Taiwan, two American allies increasingly threatened by Xi Jinping, the very ambitious Chinese Communist ruler. Mark joins host Cliff May for a debrief.