Shield of the Republic

Eliot and Eric talk about great teachers including Eric's undergraduate mentor at Cornell, the late Walter LaFeber and Eliot's Harvard mentor Samuel Hungtington. They talk about the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic history -- its strengths and weaknesses, the nature and progress of historiography, the qualities that made LaFeber and Huntington such compelling scholars and instructors as well as the contemporary "over professionalization" of disciplines in the humanities. They also talk about the war in Ukraine, including the Time magazine article on Zelensky that depicts him as "delusional" as well as the Economist interview with Gen. Zaluzhny and the latter's paper on the evolution of modern warfare in Ukraine. They cover the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and discuss how much time Israel has to accomplish its strategic objectives and the difficulties Israel faces in securing those ends as well as the fascinating and disturbing profile of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Financial Times. Finally, Eliot talks about the World War II museum and memorial in New Orleans and why the memory of World War II remains important for Americans to maintain.
https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/
https://www.economist.com/zaluzhny-transcript?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gclid=CjwKCAiA3aeqBhBzEiwAxFiOBo4yIlOigMyAgtSawUcFpE1YiJO_4tllqqrM1suZ_qDfbQbmtad_uBoCVIoQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/for-israel-a-war-unlike-any-other-b8160908
https://www.ft.com/content/de78c7a0-f8f0-403e-b0db-eb86d6e76919
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Vickers, the author of By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations and Strategy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss his role in overseeing the CIA's covert assistance program to the Afghan resistance in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, how his experiences as a Green Beret impacted his approach to policy making as a senior official, his academic work at the Office of Net Assessment and CSBA on the revolution in warfare, his return to government in the Bush 43 Administration orchestrating the intensification of the war against Al Qaeda and his role in the bin Laden raid, as well as his thoughts on the endgame in Afghanistan and the lessons of earlier proxy wars for the current fight in Ukraine. They also discuss the delicacy of working with nuclear land mines as a special forces officer.

https://www.amazon.com/All-Means-Available-Intelligence-Operations/dp/1101947705/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1689088835&sr=8-1

https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-shadow-wars-of-michael-vickers

https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/the-revolution-in-war/publication/1

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at [email protected]

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Eric welcomes Eliot back from Edinburgh where it was not all Walter Scott tourism and Scotch sipping. They discuss the project that Eliot and Phillips O'Brien have undertaken to analyze the failures of Russia experts to correctly assess the run up to and the course of the war in Ukraine, the ongoing state of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the lingering political repercussions in Russia of the Prigozhin mutiny and how it might affect the battlespace, the Biden Administration's nomination of Derek Chollet as Under Secretary of Defense for policy and the current hold that Sen. Tommy Tuberville has placed on the confirmation of senior military and civilian defense officials, as well as the troubling state of Israeli democracy.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at [email protected]

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Eric and Eliot host Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss civil-military relations, Joe Biden as a war President, the struggle over foreign policy in the GOP, and the impact of the war in Ukraine on the trajectory of U.S. national security policy. All three endorse a trillion dollar defense budget.

Shield of the Republic is co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Eric and Eliot are joined by Isabel Kershner, the New York Times Jerusalem correspondent and author of The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss the division and polarization in Israeli society and the cleavages between the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi populationns, as well as between secular and Haredi Jews, the emergence of identity politics and populism in Israel and, of course, the current struggle over judicial reform. They consider the judicial crisis in the context of Bibi Netanyahu's political predicament and ruminate on whether Israel's greatest challenges in the future will come from within the country or from the external security environment.

https://www.amazon.com/Land-Hope-Fear-Israels-Battle/dp/1101946768

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Email us with your feedback at [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices