David Sterman, senior policy analyst at New America’s Future Security Program, tracks U.S. counter-terrorism airstrikes, particularly with drones. He discusses the history of drone strikes in post-9/11 U.S. counter-terrorism policy from Bush to Biden, the issue of civilian casualties, Biden’s quiet use of drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia, the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the problems of threat inflation and secrecy in covert strikes, defining endless war, and reform proposals for how to rein in America’s unachievable objectives and make U.S. counter-terrorism operations more transparent. 

Show Notes

• David Sterman, “How Many People Does the US Assess it Killed in Somalia in 2023?,” NewAmerica.org, April 2, 2024
• David Sterman, “The United States Should Provide a Detailed Accounting of its Operations in Yemen,” NewAmerica.org, August 3, 2023
• David Sterman, “Endless War Challenges Analysis of Drone Strike Effectiveness,” Journal of National Security Law and Policy, May 6, 2023

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James Bosworth, founder of Hxagon and columnist at World Politics Review, discusses the various "push factors" throughout Latin America and the Caribbean driving the recent upsurge in migration to the US-Mexico border. He covers US-Mexico relations as well as gang violence, poor governance problems, and other instability in Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, and beyond. Bosworth also discusses the transnational network dynamics of criminal organizations throughout the region, including their involvement in human trafficking, and argues that only an internationally coordinated approach within the hemisphere can mitigate such problems. Finally, he explains why the US's drug war approach to the region is misguided and provides recommendations for how DC can better approach this hemisphere's problems.

Show Notes

• James Bosworth at World Politics Review

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Jon Hoffman, foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute and adjunct professor at George Mason University, argues for a fundamental reevaluation of the U.S.'s "special relationship" with Israel. He discusses the dire scale of Israel's siege of Gaza and why it qualifies as collective punishment, Israel's lack of clear military objectives in Gaza and plans to attack Rafah, and the widespread regional ramifications of the conflict. He also talks about the negative consequences of unwavering US support for Israel, the military-heavy US approach to the Middle East, the Abraham Accords and Biden's prospective normalization deal with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and explains what having a "normalized" U.S.-Israel relationship would look like.

Show Notes

Jon Hoffman bio

Jon Hoffman, "Israel is a Strategic Liability for the United States," ForeignPolicy.com, March 22, 2024

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Dale Copeland, professor of international relations at the University of Virginia and author of the new book A World Safe for Commerce: American Foreign Policy From the Revolution to the Rise of China, talks about his "dynamic realism" theory of great power war and peace, emphasizing the critical causal role of future trade expectations. Copeland discusses case studies from the American Revolutionary War to the Spanish-American War and the beginnings of the Cold War and then applies his theory to U.S.-China relations across a range of policy areas, with important insights into how to avert a catastrophic war. 

Show Notes

1. Dale Copeland bio
2. A World Safe for Commerce
3. Economic Interdependence and War
4. The Origins of Major War

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Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses the lack of strategic focus in the Biden administration's foreign policy and argues that genuine prioritization requires retrenchment. The U.S. should draw down from Europe and the Middle East, he argues, and step away from formal security commitments there in order to avoid getting entangled in conflicts where U.S. interests are not vital. He also discusses Biden's maladroit approach to East Asian security, particularly Taiwan, the failure of his "democracy vs autocracy" rhetoric, and the prospects for a negotiated resolution to the war in Ukraine, among other topics. 

Show Notes

• Stephen Wertheim bio
• Stephen Wertheim, "Why America Can't Have it All," Foreign Affairs, February 14, 2024
• Stephen Wertheim, "Biden's Democracy-Defense Credo Does Not Serve U.S. Interests," The Atlantic, January 23, 2024

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Paul Poast, associate professor of political science at University of Chicago, discusses the concept of hegemony in international relations and puts forth several models to explain a state's willingness to take on the global responsibilities of a hegemon. He also explains hegemonic stability theory, analyzes the Biden administration's democracy vs autocracy rhetoric, and suggests the United States may be a hegemon in decline. 

Show Notes

• Paul Poast bio
• Paul Poast, "Don't Blame Lack of Will for the United States' Waning Hegemony," World Politics Review, January 26, 2024
• Paul Poast, "Biden's 'Defending Democracy' Agenda is All Talk," World Politics Review, February 2, 2024.

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Elite politics shape and constrain democratic leaders in decisions about the use of force and tend to induce a hawkish bias into war-time foreign policy. So says Columbia University professor Elizabeth N. Saunders in her forthcoming book The Insider's Game: How Elites Make War and Peace. She explores how elite politics influenced presidential decisions in U.S. wars including Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. She also discusses the problems of the public's rational ignorance of foreign policy and the tensions between an elite-centric foreign policy and democratic values, among other topics. 

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• Elizabeth N. Saunders bio
• Elizabeth N. Saunders, The Insider’s Game: How Elites Make War and Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024). Forthcoming. 
• Elizabeth N. Saunders, “Elites in the Making and Breaking of Foreign Policy,” Annual Review of Political Science 25 (May 2022): pp. 219-240.
• Chaim Kauffman, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004): pp. 5-48.

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Robert Manning, distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, discusses the increasing instability in the Middle East stemming from the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, Russia's war in Ukraine and the implications for the US role in the world, and rising US-China tensions over Taiwan. He also talks about the risks of emerging economic nationalism, middle powers, the US addiction to primacy and American exceptionalism, and the problems of trying to manage global politics from Washington. 

Show Notes

• Robert Manning bio
• Matthew Burrows and Robert A. Manning, “The ‘New’ New Middle East and Its Consequences,” Stimson Center, October 11, 2023. 
• Robert A. Manning and Matthew Burrows, “Red Cell: The Fallacy of Perpetual US Primacy,” Stimson Center, February 7, 2023.
• Matthew Burrows and Robert A. Manning, “Is the US Getting Multilateralism Wrong?” Stimson Center, April 11, 2023.
• Robert A. Manning, “Is a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan the Most Likely Scenario?” Stimson Center, October 27, 2023.

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William Hartung of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft explains the problem of retired military brass working for the arms industry and how this revolving door tends to militarize U.S. foreign policy. He also discusses China's military buildup and why it shouldn't automatically translate to bigger U.S. defense budgets. Other topics include the military industrial complex, Eisenhower's Farewell Address, the Pentagon's inability to pass an audit, and threat inflation, among others.

Show Notes

• William Hartung and Dillon Fisher, "March of the Four-Stars: The Role of Retired Generals and Admirals in the Arms Industry, " Quincy Brief No. 47, October 4, 2023.
• William Hartung, "Reality Check: Chinese Military Spending in Context," Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute, December 5, 2023.
• William Hartung, "Good Times for the Military Industrial Complex," TomDispatch.com, November 12, 2023.

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Renewed conflict in the Middle East increases the costs and risks of America's entanglement in the region, and despite the strategic case for retrenchment, there is no sign of a substantial change to U.S. foreign policy there. Jennifer Kavanagh of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discusses America's costly, security-first approach to the Middle East, the Biden administration's support for Israel, policy inertia and the reluctance to change posture, the risks of escalation, backlash, and overstretch, and why the use of force in U.S. foreign policy is increasingly ineffective. 

Show Notes

• Jennifer Kavanagh bio
• Jennifer Kavanagh and Frederic Wehrey, "Washington's Looming Middle Eastern Quagmire," Foreign Affairs, November 24, 2023.
• Jennifer Kavanagh and Bryan Frederick, "Why Force Fails," Foreign Affairs, March 30, 2023

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Weaponizing global supply chains is self-defeating and alters supply chain networks in ways that accelerate, rather than slow China’s rise. University of Connecticut assistant professor Miles Evers discusses how business-state relationships affect international relations. He also describes how economic coercion drives away potential allies and business, which allows China to innovate and increase its share of global trade despite US sanctions.

Show Notes

• Miles Evers bio
• Ling S. Chen and Miles M. Evers, “’Wars without Gun Smoke’: Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft,” International Security 48, no. 2 (Fall 2023): pp. 164-204.
• Miles M. Evers, “Discovering the Prize: Information, Lobbying, and the Origins of US–Saudi Security Relations,” European Journal of International Relations 29, no. 1 (March 2023): pp. 104-128.
• Miles M. Evers, “Just the Facts: Why Norms Remain Relevant in an Age of Practice,” International Theory 12, no. 2 (2020): pp. 220-230.
• Geoffrey Gertz and Miles M. Evers, “Geoeconomic Competition: Will State Capitalism Win?” The Washington Quarterly 43, no. 2 (2020): pp. 117-136. 

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