Eric welcomes Professor Christopher Lynch, Chair of the Political Science Department at Missouri State University, the editor and translator of the most recent edition of Machiavelli's The Art of War and author of Machiavelli on War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023). They discuss Machiavelli as statesman, military leader and diplomat and Machiavelli as Political Philosopher, The Art of War as a treatise on combined arms warfighting, Machiavelli as the father of modern grand strategy, his views on war as revealed not only in the Art of War but his posthumously published works The Prince and The Discourses on Livy, whether Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil," his role as one of the progenitors of "realism" in international affairs, whether his teachings prefigure our modern notions of strategic competition between authoritarian states and liberal democracies and "the Prince's Dilemma" -- or what is the proper relationship between political authorities and military leaders, and both the time-bound and timeless nature of Machiavell's arguments.
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.