Eric and Eliot host long-time friend and colleague Professor Aaron Friedberg of Princeton to discuss Aaron’s new book Getting China Wrong. They cover why we have persistently underestimated China’s rise as a revisionist power, the failures of the West’s “engagement” strategy, the elements of a different approach to China, dividing Russia and China, and the sorry state of academic political science.
The hooligans talk major takeaways from the spicy Summit in Madrid and if the new Strategic Concept delivered on its promise to guide NATO through unprecedented security challenges. That and more with inputs from Dr. Katherine Elgin, Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Savanah Lane, Executive Director at the Turkish Heritage Organization hosted by Roger Hilton of GLOBSEC.
Eric and Eliot return with special guest David Kramer, the Managing Director of Global Policy at the George W. Bush Institute and former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and who incidentally has just been sanctioned by the Russian government (wear it as a badge of honor David!). They discuss the status of the war in Ukraine, the nature of the Russian regime, the prospects for change in Russia, the economic state of the war, and much more.
By sending messages of weakness and irresolution, Biden’s national security team are making nuclear use more likely.
Seeking concessions to support Finland and Sweden joining NATO has done damage to Turkey’s standing in Europe and its long-term security interests.
As the deadly Russia-Ukraine conflict moves to new phases, the U.S., its allies, and partners must heed critical and emerging insights from this hot war. After more than one hundred days of high-intensity conflict, some clear and compelling initial insights for the U.S. and Allied Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) are emerging. The effectiveness of IAMD systems in countering both missiles and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have been critical elements in this conflict–with a continued evolution in competition between fires and the defender. A clear understanding of these dynamics and the key lessons they provide will be vital for the U.S. and its allies to mitigate capability and capacity shortfalls while enhancing and revising operational approaches in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and elsewhere around the globe. These are initial insights and preliminary lessons learned, developed using open-source information, so additional insights and revisions are expected later, with the benefit of in-depth evaluation(s) and more complete data.