Counterbalance

Mike talks with Hudson Institute’s Rob Greenway to provide a regional diagnosis of the Middle East. Greenway demonstrates how important American leadership in the region is to building partnerships & managing a mixed bag of local interests. The pair show why the embattled region will remain a centerpiece of American interests & resources whether we like it or not. Even in the midst of a global shi...

Jonathan Schanzer, the Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has written the first book-length assessment of the latest round of fighting in Gaza. He joins Mike and Marshall to discuss, who won, who lost, and what is to come in the long running conflict between Israel and Hamas. v v

Professor Brenda Shaffer, Research Faculty Member at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Senior Advisor for Energy at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, joins Mike and Marshall to discuss the state of global energy markets, energy policy’s impact on geopolitics, and how global production impacts American domestic consumption and prices.

Elbridge Colby, author of The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, joins Marshall to discuss how great power competition in the Asia-Pacific will reconfigure the American approach to China, Taiwan, defense spending, and economic policy.

Mike & Marshall return from their fall break to reflect on how group-think within academia today has created a dangerous culture of consensus of analysis on American foreign policy. Additionally, they debate the pros & cons of isolationism versus a forward-leaning military presence around the globe.

Senior Fellow Husain Haqqani joins Mike & Marshall to reflect on how and why we misunderstood the Afghanistan project. Ambassador Haqqani details how ethnic, tribal and historical divides required greater emphasis in supporting the development of a national government in Kabul. Additionally, he forecasts the regional troubles on the horizon as an axis forms between the Taliban, Pakistan and China.

Ezra Cohen has served, among other roles, in senior intelligence and policy positions in both the White House and the Defense Department. He joins Mike and Marshall to discuss the role of intelligence in the miscalculations that marred the Afghanistan withdrawal, as well as the impact of the withdrawal on America’s intelligence capabilities.

Rich Outzen, career military officer and senior State Department advisor on the Middle East, rejoins the podcast to diagnose the politics, strategy and military realities that led to the current collapse of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Is the foreign policy establishment to blame? Does this blunder really compare to Saigon? Will the Taliban use the "Hezbollah-model" too find internati...

Dr. Thomas Lynch, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense University and a retired army officer with extensive experience in Afghanistan, joined Mike and Marshall to discuss the chaotic American withdrawal from that country and the swift return of the Taliban. What went wrong in American thinking? Dr. Lynch sees a set of multilayered mistakes made over the course of many years.

Mike and Marshall are joined by Ahmad Obali, founder of GunazTV, which broadcasts via satellite into Iran and primarily services the Azerbaijani ethnic community. Obali discusses how the Iranian regime’s hardline leaders rule a culturally and ethnically diverse population, and what the rise of the newly-installed President Raisi means for Iran and the world.

Hudson Senior Fellow and former Australian national security advisor John Lee sits down with Mike and Marshall to discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific and across the globe. The trio examines what drives Xi Jinping to exercise power the way he does, how the U.S. and China view alliance-building in the region, and the evolution of the Sino-Australian relationship.

Mike brings Ed Husain back to the show to discuss the author’s new book, Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain. Husain takes Mike on a journey into different mosques throughout Britain to see how various Muslims are wrestling with issues such as free speech and gender equality. The interview explores how British Muslims are finding their place is Western culture, and how they’re recko...

Matt Kroenig of the Atlantic Council and Georgetown University has written a new book, The Return of Great Power Rivalry, which lays the basis for a very optimistic view of how America's competition with China will unfold. He joins Mike and Marshall to explain his argument in detail and defend it against alternative views.

Fred Starr, the former president of Oberlin College and Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, joins Mike and Marshall to discuss the role that Central Asian countries might play in stabilizing Afghanistan after the American military withdrawal. Starr is the foremost proponent of the idea of Central Asia a strategic concept in American foreign policy. He describes and defends the idea.

Mike and Marshall take a step back to evaluate where the foreign policy apparatus stands today on issues like the Middle East, the China question, multi-lateral institutions, Russia and more. They also reflect on what topics and issues they're looking to cover next on Counterbalance.

Co-host Mike Doran fills the roll of "guest" this week to detail what he saw and learned during his travels in Central Asia and the South Causasus earlier this month. Mike discusses how a region of the world positioned between Russia and China has been overlooked, and why the U.S. and other international players are beginning to notice its importance.

Hudson Event:  Uncovering the Origins of COVID-19: A Scientific Discussion Hudson Event:  The Origins of COVID-19: Policy Implications and Lessons for the Future Memo:  A Just Response to Beijing’s COVID-19 Abuses

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, Rebeccah Heinrichs, joins the show to compare and contrast the foreign policy agendas of the Trump and the Biden administrations. Rebeccah addresses the shortfalls in President Biden's approach to multi-lateral institutions, alliance-building, and global strategic deterrence in the face of an encroaching Chinese Communist power.

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, Peter Rough, joins the show to look at the world through the lens of our European counterparts. What is the state of the European project in the midst of Brexit and the election of Joe Biden? How is the continent adjusting to a world increasingly dominated by geopolitical competition rather than globalization? Marshall finds Peter’s answers to these questions and mo...

Rich Outzen, career military officer and senior State Department advisor on the Middle East, sat down with Mike and Marshall to discuss the challenge that geopolitics in a multipolar world poses for the United States.

Efraim Inbar, the president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, talks to Mike and Marshall about the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Who's winning? Who's losing? Where do we go from here? His answers were bleak yet he remains an optimist.

Read Mike & Tony's article: https://www.hudson.org/research/16906-the-realignment

Princeton graduate student Wang Xiyue sat down with Mike and Marshall to discuss how being held hostage in the notorious Evin prison in Iran changed his worldview. In 2016 the Iranian authorities convicted him, on trumped up charges, of spying, purely in order to use him as a bargaining chip. The experience changed not only his view of Iran but of the Progressives on American campuses who are inca...

Marshall talks with Nate Sibley, host of the Making a Killing podcast (a project of Hudson's Kleptocracy Initiative), about KI's work investigating and exposing corruption across the globe. Nate goes over the tools kleptocrats use to steal and launder dirty money--including in the United States--and what the U.S. government can do to fight back. Listen and Subscribe to Making a Killing here: https...

Mohammed Alyahya, the editor in chief of AlAl Arabiya English, sat down with Mike and Marshall to discuss the impact of the Biden administration's Iran policy on Saudi Arabia and the entire Middle East.