Counterbalance

With Mike Doran on leave, host Peter rough sits down this week with Hudson Institute colleague, Rebeccah Heinrichs, as she talks about her career in foreign policy and her primary area of study: nuclear weapons and deterrence theory. Heinrichs illustrates how the U.S. stacks up globally in terms of nuclear capabilities and missile defense innovations. 

The Korean War is often referred to as the “forgotten war” by Americans, happening somewhere between World War II and Vietnam. But the one belligerent who hasn’t forgotten about the Korean War is China. Congressman Mike Gallagher and FDD Senior Fellow Aaron MacLean sit down with co-hosts Peter Rough and Mike Doran to talk about their recent Foreign Affairs article, “Why America Forgets—and China R...

Co-hosts Mike Doran and Peter Rough are joined by Tablet’s Liel Leibovitz and Jacob Siegel to discuss their recent article, “End U.S. Aid to Israel,” which contends that this aid has become a tool to hamper Israel and a cudgel for Israel’s opponents. The article has caused quite a stir, generating thoughtful responses from prominent figures on the left and the right.  Tune in with Peter and Mike t...

This week, Peter and Mike are joined by their Hudson Institute colleague Can Kasapoğlu, who specializes in open-source defense intelligence, geopolitical assessments, and the international arms market, for a discussion on the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. The trio discuss why the offensive has been slow to take off, the state of the front lines, and the fallout from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s June...

Father John Sawicki joins hosts Mike Doran and Peter Rough this week to discuss Catholic teachings and US foreign policy. In this episode, the trio discuss how to reconcile the pursuit of national strategic interests with Christian moral principles, as well as how prudence can guide decision-making and the complex interplay between ethics and power.

Prominent Israeli intellectual Gadi Taub joins hosts Mike Doran and Peter Rough for an update on Israel’s judicial reform, the uproar it has caused in Israel, and the attacks it is receiving from President Biden and his friends in the American press. The trio discuss whether those attacks are truly over the substance of the judicial reform or whether they are actually a stealthy means of pursuing...

This week, Peter Rough and Mike Doran welcome Yuri Sak, senior advisor to Ukraine’s minister of defense, to the podcast. Yuri is the brains behind the social media and messaging operation of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, and he tells Peter and Mike about the dynamics of communicating to friendly and hostile audiences alike during a time of war.

Counterbalance is back and welcomes new co-host Peter Rough, Director of Hudson Institute's Center on Europe and Eurasia. In this episode, Peter interviews returning co-host Mike Doran about his recent trip to Saudi Arabia. A longstanding pillar of American security architecture in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is increasingly demonstrating autonomy in foreign policy. Peter and Michael discuss the...

Ahmed Obali, founder of Gunaz TV and human rights activist for the Iranian Azerbaijani people, joins Mike and Marshall to discuss the on-going protests in Iran. The death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini on September 16 provoked unprecedented protests and riots against the Islamic Republic. Obali offers his insights on the current demonstrations, on the ethnic divisions that might l...

Australian Shadow Defense Minister and Member of Parliament, The Hon. Andrew Hastie, joins Mike to about the West’s strategy toward China as well as the importance of the US-Australia alliance. Chinese leader Xi Jinping clearly seeks to dethrone the United States as the leader of the international order, he does not hesitate to threaten Australia in pursuit of that goal. Hastie offers his views on...

Michael Doran hosts Hudson Institute Adjunct Fellow, Michael Roberts, to investigate the place of the United States in the global commercial maritime industry. Not only does China dominate the production of ships, but also largely controls shipping operations around the world. Doran and Roberts discuss the roots of the imbalance, its significance for American national security and the economic hea...

This week's episode features audio from a public event hosted at Hudson Institute where Hudson Institute Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead and Senior Fellow Michael Doran discussed Mead’s new book on the history of U.S.-Israel relations, "The Arc of a Covenant." Mead and Doran discussed, among other things, the themes of the book, the current trajectory of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle...

On June 20, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced their intention to dissolve the Knesset, teeing up the fifth round of elections in four years and setting the state on a course for the formation of a new government. Until the elections, Yair Lapid will serve as Interim Prime Minister while parties attempt to cobble together another governing coalition, i...

This week, Amos Hochstein, the Senior Advisor for Energy Security in President Biden's State Department, travelled to Lebanon where he attempted to broker an agreement between Lebanon and Israel over their maritime boundary. If successful, Hochstein's mediation will potentially allow Lebanon and Israel to exploit the offshore gas fields in currently disputed waters. Tony Badran, a research fellow...

Host Marshall Kosloff is joined by Senior Fellow and Director of Hudson's new China Center, Miles Yu, and Distinguished Fellow, Ken Weinstein to react to the Biden administration's new China strategy and refreshed comments claiming the US would defend Taiwan. China will use all means necessary to gain and maintain regional power, but what is on the table for the US response, and what should be? Yu...

Svante Cornell joins the Counterbalance hosts to discuss the recent unrest in Kazakhstan and to argue that it’s in the best interest of the U.S. to engage with countries of Central Asia and the Caspian regions. If we are now in an era of competition with Russia and China, we should care about the interests of the countries sandwhiched between these two powers. Too few people look at this region as...

With the world still reeling from the fall of Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine, Host Marshall Kosloff talks with Hudson Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs to evaluate the state of American grand strategy. Moscow is acting. Europe is responding. Beijing is watching. But, is the United States leading? Heinrichs explains how the two monumental events are in fact closely linked, and together pain...

Hosts Marshall Kosloff and Mike Doran are joined by Visiting Fellow, Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, to evaluate how the U.S. strategy has evolved (or devolved) in the Middle East. Malign actors have been on the rise from Russia's involvement in Syria to a resurgent Iranian Regime empowered by the prospect of a new nuclear agreement with the Biden administration. Alyahya explains why U.S. engagement and...

Host Marshall Kosloff talks with Hudson Institute Research Fellow, James Barnett, about his recent trip to western & southern Ukraine to discover what life in embattled Ukraine is like amidst the ongoing Russian invasion. Barnett’s dispatches from his stay in the country reveal that morale remains high among Ukrainians, and that (contrary to Putin’s desire) the war is becoming a nation-defining mo...

The Counterbalance Podcast returns with hosts Marshall Kosloff and Mike Doran assessing the state of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with Iran in the Middle East. Primarily, Doran dismantles the politically trendy idea that the U.S. doesn't need explicitly military tools to deter global threats anymore. This modern philosophy of deterrence centered around economics and "moral s...

Host Marshall Kosloff talks with Erich Schwartzel, author of a new book titled "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy." The Chinese film industry has risen to become a lucrative market, but Communist Party control and censorship has Hollywood movie-makers caught between big payouts and blatant infringement on free speech. Schwartzel explains how this tension pl...

Estonian Foreign Minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, visited Hudson Institute last week to meet with experts in the midst of the crisis developing with Ukraine and Russia, and sat with host Mike Doran to discuss how the conflict is seen through the eyes of the neighboring Baltic states.

Hudson Senior Fellow, Bryan Clark, joined Marshall and Mike to analyze the military developments surrounding Ukraine. Bryan explains why Putin's Ukraine strategy is an effective example of "decision-centric warfare" and what the U.S. can learn from the Russian military's reformed structure. The episode also examines what the conflict could mean for China-Taiwan tensions, and how the U.S. military...

Russia is on the doorstep of Ukraine and testing the Transatlantic Alliance more than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Counterbalance returns in 2022 with host Mike Doran explaining in depth why he believes Azerbaijan can help the United States meet the twin imperatives of respecting an electorate that has grown weary of far-flung military adventures and of meeting the responsibilities o...