Shifting Ground

In this episode of Shifting Ground, host Larry Rubin and guest editor Rachel Whitlark are joined by Dr. Amy Nelson, Director of the Future Security Scenarios Lab at New America . Drawing from Dr. Nelson's recent commentary featured in the Orbis special issue on Challenges in the Second Nuclear Century , the conversation explores the concept of "phantom signaling," the role of intelli...

How can political science scholarship effectively inform real-world foreign policy during moments of global crisis? In this episode of  Shifting Ground , co-hosts Larry Rubin and Rachel Whitlark sit down with Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes, President of the National Democratic Institute. Drawing on her distinguished career spanning academia, think tanks, and high-level government service—including roles...

In this episode of  Shifting Ground , hosts Nikolas Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Dr. Austin Long, Senior Nuclear Fellow at MIT, and Dr. Rachel Whitlark, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech and Associate Editor of  Orbis, to explore the strategic landscape of the second nuclear century. Grounded in Dr. Long's recent commentary for  Orbis , the conversation examines how emerging autonom...

What prepares a leader for the high-pressure environment of the US government? In this episode of  Shifting Ground , co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin sit down with The Hon. John Tien, Distinguished Professor of Practice at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Drawing on his extensive career spanning the military, the private sector, and high-level government service—includ...

In this episode of Shifting Ground, Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Phil Wasielewski, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A veteran of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and the US Marine Corps, Phil brings a lifetime of experience—from the end of the Soviet era to the frontlines of Afghanistan—to a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of strategy in an unpredict...

In this episode of  Shifting Ground , Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Mohammed Soliman, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of  West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East . Soliman challenges our traditional geopolitical mental maps, arguing that the term "Middle East" no longer explains the realities of today’s integrated political and econo...

In this episode of  Shifting Ground , hosts Larry Rubin and Nick Gvosdev are joined by Dmitri Alperovitch, Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, co-founder of CrowdStrike, and author of  World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century . Alperovitch discusses the collision of cybersecurity and international affairs, arguing that the cyber "problem" is f...

Geo-economic and country risk expert Rachel Ziemba joins Nick and Larry to discuss the intersection of government policy and global commerce. This episode explores how sovereign balance sheets and coercive tools like sanctions have become primary instruments of modern statecraft, fundamentally shifting the landscape of global commerce. You can read Rachel's portion of the Global Order After Uk...

On this episode of Shifting Ground, Daniel Byman joins Nick and Larry to discuss the core challenge governments face in trying to regulate or shape emerging technologies today. The three discuss the national security risks associated with emerging technologies right now, and how policymakers think about the tradeoffs between innovation, economic competitiveness, and security. Read Daniel Byman&#39...

On this episode of Shifting Ground, Admiral James "Sandy" Winnefeld introduces his concept of the "global operating system" (GOS)—which includes the rules-based international order and the global economy—explaining that its foundation of international stability is at risk of catastrophic failure due to geopolitical cycles, political polarization, and the overextension of the pr...

Stacey Dixon joins Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin to discuss the U.S. government's challenge of balancing national security interests by restricting sensitive technology exports with the need for American companies to compete globally and influence international technology standards.  The conversation highlighted "accelerants" like the democratization of conflict technology and the ero...