Deep State Radio

In which we start with cricket get to Imram Khan, discuss how hunky he was as a young cricketer and how his populism and the nukes he now controls may make him somewhat less attractive. Then on to the expanding realm of hybrid warfare, what it means in Clausewitzian terms, what that may all mean in terms of Metternich and then of inevitably, on to the proliferation of vegetables of mass destruction (VMDs). Rosa Brooks, Kori Schake and Evelyn Farkas join and elucidate. Tune in!

In the latest Deep State Radio our friends Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University, Kori Schake of IISS and Evelyn Farkas of the Atlantic Council offer secrets into how they remain so well-informed. It all turns on fiction, apparently and those who remember what they read last will tell you what it was. Then we turn to Trump, Italy's new prime minister, a whole slew of lies and misstatements from Trump and the gripping prospect of a US-Italy strategic alliance which should come in handy should elephants ever start coming over the Alps again. Oh, and the decline of the West, again. But from a new perspective. What a great accompaniment for a summer barbecue.

If only someone had told us that Trump has distrusted alliances and the international order his whole life, that he was close to Russia and Russians, that he was unhinged and wholly unqualified for the presidency! If only we had known! Maybe then we would not be inviting Vladimir Putin to come to the White House to give him a hero's welcome commemorating his successful 2016 election hack...just in time for the 2018 elections which all signs suggest he will try to hack again. If only. Our panel including Laura Rosenberger of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, Loren DeJonge Schulman of the Bombshell podcast, Kori Schake of IISS and Ed Luce of the Financial Times discuss where we are and how we got here. Tune in!

A lonely old man wandering the White House late at night in his bathrobe, perhaps with a half-eaten McDonald's cheeseburger in his pocket gets angry at the world...so angry that he hits the ALL CAPS button on his cellphone and starts to Tweet out threats at a foreign nation. "ALL CAPS?," says his target, "this means WAR!" That's very nearly where we were this week when Donald Trump lashed out at Iran. Was a clever distraction? A mental misfire? We may never know, but we know this: as long as the president can Tweet, none of us are really safe. Our great panel including Loren DeJonge Schulman of of the Bombshell podcast, Kori Schake of IISS and Ed Luce of the Financial Times discuss this, playing politics with security clearances and the rest of the week's latest developments. Tune in!

As Richard Nixon might have said, "What are we going to do when we don't have Western Civilization to kick around any more?" Things happen fast in this bad old world and a few years is a enough time for the wheels to come flying off the damn cart. And if you don't get our point, that may have been a wheel that went flying by on Monday in Helsinki. Our panel of IISS' Kori Schake, Georgetown Law School's Rosa Brooks, the Financial Times' Ed Luce and New Jersey's own David Rothkopf, contemplate where we go from here and why recent experiences with bedtime stories are not altogether comforting. Tune in! (While you can.)

Donald Trump completed the most unsuccessful foreign trip of any president since Theodore Roosevelt, who took the first foreign trip, with a disastrous summit for the ages. Critics on the right and left called it an embarrassment, a disaster, or worse. And honestly, it was all that and more. A turning point in the history of US foreign policy perhaps. Our experts, Georgetown's Rosa Brooks, IISS' Kori Schake, the New York Times' David Sanger, and the Financial Times' Ed Luce, discuss...lament, wail, and generally gnash their teeth...but in constructive way. Listen in!

If, as Sarah Huckabee Sanders alleged, it was a lousy breakfast that had White House Chief of Staff squirm while President Donald Trump kicked off the NATO Summit with an attack on Germany, then someone needs to get a Denny's Grand Slam to Rosa Brooks, Julie Smith and Ed Luce pronto. Because as our great panel looked back on Trump's NATO performance, they certainly did more than just shift uneasily in their chairs and purse their lips. Join them for a discussion of what has already been one of Vladimir Putin's best weeks ever...and where things are as we prepare for the Helsinki love fest that will kick off the week ahead!

With America's foreign policy savant, our president leaving the country this week it's easy to understand the fireworks and celebrations last week. Now we get to share him with the rest of the world--including our NATO allies, the keepers of our special relationship with England, the patrons of a Trump resort in Scotland (ancestral home of his immigrant mother) and then with the main man in his life, Vladimir Putin. Like US and UK politics at the moment, we can expect it all to be in the language of our own Ed Luce, shambolic, but who knows? It may even be worse than that! Ed, Rosa Brooks, Kori Schake and host David Rothkopf discuss all that...while educating Ed about Moose and Squirrel. Tune in!

The GOP could win in November and maintain its hold on both houses of Congress. Which Donald Trump would find encouraging. And might lead him to be even more like...himself. And that might lead his base to re-elect him. And we could have six and a half more years of Trump. So...what would that look like? Is there enough box wine in the world to help you get through this? Who knows? It can be an experiment. Join host David Rothkopf, Rosa Brooks, Kori Schake and Joe Cirincione for an episode that is scary as shit. Fun!

50 years ago the multilateral agreement that kept us all from blowing ourselves to smithereens was signed. And look, we're not smithereens, so that's good, right? On the other hand...North Korea. And Iran. And a president who wants new nukes that are smaller and easier to use. So, there's that. We discuss. You should listen. With Rosa Brooks, Joe Cirincione and Kori Schake. Tune in.

At the end of the Cold War, the West triumphantly crowed that it was our open societies and the information revolution that ultimately defeated the USSR. They lost because people deprived of information simply couldn't compete. Now however, as we enter another stage of the information revolution, it may be that we celebrated yet another premature "mission accomplished" moment. It is now possible that in the information-addicted world of today in which everyone is tethered to the Internet, the big winner may be Big Brother. State dominated information systems may be entering their prime and freedom and privacy may be the victims. David Sanger, author of the new book "The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age", Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University, Kori Schake of IISS and host, David Rothkopf join the discussion...which also explore recent spasms of ugly authoritarianism in the U.S. Tune in.

On this special episode of Deep State Radio we get a sneak peak at the latest work of our own David Sanger (who we share with the New York Times and his students at Harvard's Kennedy School). The book, "The Perfect Weapon", is the definitive work on the state of cyberwar told compellingly in the real life stories of the unfolding of a new chapter in the history of global conflict. Join David, Georgetown University's Rosa Brooks and IISS' Kori Schake for a discussion of one of the transformational issues of our time...and why the US is not prepared for the next big attack on our electoral system.

As Deep State Radio's resident Constitutional scholar (and Associate Dean of Georgetown Law School) Rosa Brooks explains, the legal threshold for designating behavior as treasonous is quite narrow. But as she also points out, it would be up to Congress to define what was unacceptable in an impeachment hearing. As evidence mounts that the Trump campaign was deeply entwined with Russia and the Trump Administration has been taking a straight Kremlin line on everything, we have clearly crossed the "this is not OK" threshold and we may be headed for something much more serious than that. Rosa, Kori Schake, Evelyn Farkas and David Rothkopf discuss this issue and the state of America's alliances with a NATO Summit and a potential meeting in Europe with Vladimir Putin loom in the next several weeks. Tune in.

Deep State Radio's own Kori Schake wrote an important piece about the current threat to the international order posed by the Trump Administration. In this episode we discuss the article and just exactly how grievous the threat is and how we ought to characterize it. This takes us from John Locke to John Winthrop to Stephen Miller...(and we hope that's the last time you ever see those three names in a sentence together.) Join Kori, Rosa Brooks, Evelyn Farkas and David Rothkopf for the discussion. But bring an adult beverage. It's not an easy discussion to hear.

The president salutes a North Korean general while praising that countries murderous leader. Babies are torn from their mother's breasts by our border police and children are housed in concentration camps. Loyalty lists are being compiled within the State Department. Our allies are turning away from us, alienated. Trade wars loom. Foreign attacks on our democracy are ignored. The president and his family are sued for wrong-doing by their non-profit. Investigations continue. New stories pile up so quickly we can barely consumed them before another lands. We are in uncharted and terrifying waters and Ambassador Nick Burns, Julia Ioffe, Ed Luce and host David Rothkopf get together to try to make sense of it on the latest Deep State Radio. Join us!