Episodes

  • Is American Decline an Illusion?

    Is American Decline an Illusion?
    Mar 6 2025
    Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Beckley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of Unrivalled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower, and co-author, with Hal Brands of Danger Zone. They discuss his article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Strange Triumph of a Broken America." They discuss the paradox of American power: Americans always think their country is in decline even when it is going from strength to strength economically and remains the most powerful and dynamic economy in the world. Michael recounts the many metrics that show that the American economy has vastly outstripped not only its autocratic rivals but its allies and the countries of the global south. They discuss the historical tradition of declinism in America and why it finds a ready audience. They also discuss America's great strengths --its geographical position, its relatively healthy demographics and its decentralized political institutions which have allowed the country to be a resilient source of innovation and dynamic economic growth. They also touch on how these strengths have also been, in a sense, liabilities. How they can lead to domestic political and social fragmentation as well as chronic strategic insolvency. They consider the danger of declining powers and how Russia and China fit into that framework, as well as relative versus absolute decline, what social psychology tells us about the propensity for risk taking when it comes to either holding onto what one currently has as opposed to seeking speculative gains as well as the degree of damage that the Trump Administration can do to the nation's traditional comparative advantages.

    Michael Beckley's Latest in Foreign Affairs:
    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/strange-triumph-broken-america-michael-beckley

    Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower:
    https://a.co/d/5bpnkN5

    Understanding America’s Contested Primacy:
    https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2010.10.21-Understanding-Americas-Contested-Supremacy.pdf

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia
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    54 mins
  • Emergency Podcast: An Oval Office Ambush

    Emergency Podcast: An Oval Office Ambush
    Mar 1 2025
    Eric and Eliot bemoan the shameful meltdown in the Oval Office between VP Vance, President Trump and President Zelensky. They discuss Vance’s ambush and whether he executed it alone or in concert with Trump and note that those who are blaming Zelensky for rising to the bait are objectively pro-Putin. They discuss Vance’s dark political views and they consider what Europeans can and should do. They also discuss Trump’s delegation of responsibility to others and his “Trump Gaza” AI generated video. Eric asks only partially tongue in cheek what the odds are on Trump declaring himself a god by the end of the term.

    Robert Harris' Cicero Trilogy:
    https://a.co/d/fHShy26

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    39 mins
  • A Disgraceful Episode of American Diplomacy

    A Disgraceful Episode of American Diplomacy
    Feb 27 2025
    Eric and Eliot mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine with a shout out to the brave Ukrainians who are resisting Russian tyranny. They discuss the Friday night massacre at the Pentagon, noting the remarkable personal qualities of General C. Q. Brown and his role as Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They touch on the role of the JAGS and the dangers to good order and discipline that will result from having pliant lawyers. They also discuss the very troubling U.S. vote in the UN General Assembly against the resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine putting us in the company of Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua and North Korea. They consider what kind of negotiators Trump and Steve Witkoff will be and how international negotiations differ from real estate transactions. Finally, they consider some of the intellectual currents swirling around Trumpism and agree that they merit careful consideration.

    Eliot on the Pentagon's Friday Night Massacre:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/lawful-enormously-destructive/681809/

    Eric on PBS News Weekend:
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-potential-consequences-of-trumps-unprecedented-pentagon-shakeup

    Gen. C. Q. Brown Amidst the Death of George Floyd (2020):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw4MI1v8I0k

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast cosponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    56 mins
  • An American Blunder in Munich

    An American Blunder in Munich
    Feb 20 2025
    Eliot and Eric discuss the Munich Security Conference including its background and history. They review the contradictory signals sent by the many Trump officials who have been in different parts of Europe in the run-up to and aftermath of the Munich conference. They discuss Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's comments, Vice President J.D. Vance's lamentable, off-key speech to the conference, the predatory agreement for the US to colonize Ukraine's raw materials that Secretary of the Treasury Bessent presented to Zelensky in Kyiv and the announcement of US-Russian talks (excluding Ukraine and Europe) to be held this week in Saudi Arabia. They discuss the dangers of a foreign policy carried out by Presidential whim and whether the potential Ukraine War ceasefire will be a bad deal or a catastrophic one and the knock on consequences in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and for the global nuclear non-proliferation order. They focus on the human consequences of the rampage through government that Elon Musk and his "muskovites" are conducting. They praise the conservative prosecutors in the Southern District of New York who have resigned rather than carry out instructions that they considered corrupt and offer advice to those in government struggling with the moral dilemmas that have been created by the current Trumpian chaos.

    Eliot on SecDef Hegseth's Munich Speech:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/ukraine-trump-foreign-policy/681685/

    Eric on Bulwark on Sunday:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riuTJgMceZg

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    53 mins
  • This Time the Damage Will Be Permanent

    This Time the Damage Will Be Permanent
    Feb 13 2025
    Eric and Eliot try to parse the fire hose of news emanating from the Trump Administration. They discuss Eliot's Atlantic article on the American antecedents and causes of Trump's ascendancy and whether there is still some point in looking at the European autocrats like Viktor Orban on whom some Trumpists model themselves, as well as Ruy Texeira's article in the Free Press arguing that defending USAID is not the hill to die on for Democrats. They also discuss Richard Danzig's Washington Post article on how Elon Musk's DOGE might constructively help reform DoD's broken and dysfunctional acquisition process. They discuss the problems with Trump's Gaza proposal as well as the fact that it highlights how all other approaches to the issue of Gaza's relations with Israel have heretofore failed. They discuss Trump's executive order on Iran as well as General Keith Kellogg's preparations for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and Trump's offer to resettle White Afrikaaners who have been disadvantaged by majority rule in South Africa.

    Eliot's Latest in The Atlantic:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-historical-analogies/681561/

    Ruy Texeira on USAID
    https://www.thefp.com/p/defending-usaid-is-political-suicide

    Richard Danzig on Pentagon Reform
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/06/doge-pentagon-tech-innovation/

    Bret Stephens & Gail Collins on Trump's Second Term So Far
    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/opinion/trump-musk-cabinet-education.html

    Steven Levitsky on The New Authoritarianism
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/trump-competitive-authoritarian/681609/

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Russia's Long History of Subjugating Ukraine

    Russia's Long History of Subjugating Ukraine
    Feb 7 2025
    With Eliot traveling Eric welcomes Eugene Finkel, the Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to discuss his recent book Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (New York: Basic Books, 2024). They discuss the long-term Russian effort to dominate, subordinate and eliminate Ukrainian nationality, culture and language. They touch on the pillars of Russian national identify and how Russians came to see Ukraine and Ukrainians as inferior members of a hierarchy of Russian-ness and how the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism in Poland and later the Austro-Hungarian empire came to represent an existential threat to Russian ethnic domination of St. Petersburg's multinational empire in the run up to world war one. They discuss the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of an independent Ukraine, the reasons for its failure and Stalin's efforts to destroy Ukrainian nationalism, his drive for collectivization of agriculture and the ensuing Holodomor -- a man-made famine that cost perhaps as many as 5 million lives. They also discuss Ukraine during World War Two, caught between the Wehrmacht and Red Army. The collaboration of some Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis and the guerrilla war to prevent Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine which lasted into the early 1950s, cost perhaps 100 thousand lives and gave birth to the Russian notion that Ukrainian nationalism was inherently fascist. They consider Ukraine's independence in 1992, the negotiation of the Budapest Memorandum and the myth that Ukraine "gave up nuclear weapons, as well as the cultural shift that will have to take place in Russia if there is to be lasting peace that ends the current war.

    Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine:
    https://a.co/d/5fsdy8L

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    56 mins
  • Charles Lindbergh and the Ghosts of America First

    Charles Lindbergh and the Ghosts of America First
    Jan 30 2025
    Eric and Eliot welcome Professor H. W. Brands, the Jack S. Blanton Chair in History at the University of Texas, Austin and the best-selling author of more than a dozen books on American History. They discuss his book America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War (New York: Doubleday, 2024) touching on what drew him to the subject of the America First movement, the nature of the national debate on radio from 1939-1941, the transformation of the nation's default foreign policy of non-interventionism to globalism, the role of the Congressional fight over repealing the Neutrality Acts, Lindbergh's racialized thinking and anti-semitism, how the speech he gave in Des Moines at an America First rally in fall 1941 destroyed his national image and reputation, Lindbergh's personal character (and his multiple affairs with German women in the last twenty years of his life, the transition in elite thinking from hemispheric defense to a global posture of forward defense, the British and German influence operations to shape American public opinion before Pearl Harbor and the contemporary overtones of Lindbergh's non-interventionism, focus on future technology, and political naivete that are visible in Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

    America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War:
    https://a.co/d/4Lr9jmh

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    58 mins
  • The Intersection of Theatre and Politics

    The Intersection of Theatre and Politics
    Jan 23 2025
    Eliot and Eric welcome Drew Lichtenberg (resident dramaturg at the Shakespeare Theatre Company) and Deborah Payne (Professor of Literature at American University), authors of Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company. They discuss the long history of Washington’s fascination with and interest in Shakespeare. They talk about the tensions inside the Folger Library with regard to studying or performing Shakespeare’s plays, the political and economic changes that explain Washington’s evolution from sleepy Southern city to a more vibrant cultural center, changing interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays as a proxy for debates over representation and America’s changing demography, and avant garde interpretation with a political spin versus more traditional classical approaches to the texts. Eric and Eliot also provide their first blush takes on Trump 2.0’s first 48 hours.

    Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company
    https://a.co/d/cGaM5zO

    Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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    56 mins