Crashing the War Party

Washington is obsessed with reading tea leaves — on politics, policy, social cues, and diplomatic dances. And so is the case with the much anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive this spring. Will it happen? If so, would it change the course of the war? Does Russia have the juice not only to repel it but to launch its own successful bid for more territory? We talk again to Anatol Lieven , former wa...

The political and security situation in Sudan is melting down. In Burkino Faso this week, the military dictatorship has been blamed for the massacre of 60 people. Security vacuums in Chad and Mali are attracting business from the Wagner Group, the notorious Russian private military contractor. It seems all over Africa, especially in places where the West and the U.S. have their fingerprints, thing...

The New York Times recently declared that the Ukraine War had brought NATO back from the virtual dead. In other words, the alliance has new purpose, which means more troops, more weapons, and more U.S. leadership for the unforeseeable future. This week, Kelley and Dan talk to CATO's Justin Logan about why this is folly, and that there is no reason why Europe needs the U.S. or even an "emboldened N...

Washington's impulse to do something has created a foreign policy consensus that relies on the American military being everywhere, all at once, and all things to everyone in the world. Looking at today's headlines, it would be easy to see how the long arm of U.S. primacy is totally stretched — and becoming more ineffective every day. Syndicated columnist Daniel DePetris talks to us this week about...

Last week the Biden Administration authorized airstrikes on reported Iranian strongholds in eastern Syria in retaliation for an earlier drone attack that left one American contractor and several others — including U.S. servicemembers — wounded. There have been at least 80 attacks on U.S. military personnel there since 2021 and they don't seem to be stopping. We talk to (Ret.) Army Lt. Col. Daniel...

In recent days and weeks, we've seen what appears to be serious examples of Arab countries opening up geopolitical avenues — as well as relations — with rivals and even adversaries. This would include Iran and Saudi Arabia's announcement that they were not only talking but reopening embassies in each other's countries for the first time in over a decade, Arab normalization with Israel, and even br...

In this special episode, we talk to veteran, author, and professor emeritus Andrew Bacevich , who was an early critic of the Bush Administration's folly in Iraq. As a Vietnam veteran, he easily recognized the crusader path of contemporary military officials and the deployment of the American missionary ethos that kept us entrenched in that war for a decade (we still have troops there today). We sh...

Professor Chris Fettweis has spent the better part of his career studying and teaching about how great powers remain great powers and how hard they work to stay on top. He talks to Kelley and Dan this week about how dominant powers and empires get paranoid and worry about their reputations and credibility, and sometimes that skews their decision making skills. He discusses, too, his thoughts on th...

Author and columnist Bonnie Kristian joins us this week to talk about the prospects of a Ron DeSantis policy, and more specifically, what a Ron DeSantis foreign policy might look like. She did a deep dive on this for the New York Times , and addresses the Florida governor's recent comments on Ukraine, his set up as a potential "restraint" rival of Trump, and his questionable positions on other hot...

Over a year ago , Lyle Goldstein , director of Asian engagement at  Defense Priorities , came on Crashing the War Party and was one of the few foreign policy analysts warning that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine, pointing out that the seeming US-NATO resistance to a more diplomatic path could lead to what we are seeing today. He talks to Kelley and Dan on the anniversary of the Feb. 24 Russian...

In his recent book,  Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body: A Marine's Unbecoming , U.S. Marine Corps veteran Lyle J. Rubin threads his five-year experience — as a candidate in Marine officer school and serving in Afghanistan, as well as his shift in thinking about the Global War on Terror, the U.S. military as an institution, and his opposition to militarized U.S. foreign policy today — into a poigna...

A protracted war could end up destroying Ukraine. A wider confrontation between two nuclear powers — U.S. and Russia — could lead to World War III. So what to do to stop it? We talk to Rand Corp. grand strategist  Miranda Priebe , who just co-authored a powerful new paper promoting concrete measures for bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table in order to end the madness before th...

Journalist Ethan Paul answers his own question with an affirmative "yes!" on our show this week as we discuss the fever swamp of saber-rattling and chicken-littling in Washington today. What does it all mean? Where will it lead us? On the former, we talk about invested interests in ballooning the defense industry and Pentagon budgets, the political advantage of looking "tough on China," and the co...

The last two months have seen the U.S. cross what appeared to be its own lines against giving advanced weapons to Ukraine. First, the announcement to send a Patriot Missile battery to the embattled country; then this week, news that within a week, the administration seemingly changed its mind about sending its most sophisticated tanks — the M-1 Abrams — into the battlefield. Suzanne Loftus , autho...

There is no doubt that the war in Ukraine — as brutally destructive it has been for the Ukrainian people — is a boon to America's top defense contractors: think Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics. As our guest Bill Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military Industrial Complex , points out, the U.S. weapons pipeline to Ukraine has...

The war in Ukraine will end with a negotiated settlement (no one knows how  or when) but whatever it will be will likely forge the basis of a new European security order if not an international one, says Yale historian Michael Brenes . What would that order look like? He suggests it should be one in which the U.S. and other great powers play a role in eventually bringing the Global South into a mu...

The U.S. military has over 270,000 troops currently deployed across the globe, including in 17 countries that the public up until now didn't even know about . Our guest this week, Ben Friedman , a senior analyst with Defense Priorities, takes on the Washington shibboleth that we couldn't possibly start bringing any of those troops home — particularly the thousands in the Middle East and Europe — b...

Congress had a chance to assert its war powers and end U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen War. But President Biden helped to strangle the effort in the cradle and a vote in December was never held. Quincy Institute Middle East expert Annelle Sheline joins us this week to talk about what happened, and Senator Bernie Sanders' pledge to bring the issue back in early 2023. Kelley and Dan als...

On this episode, Kelley interviews the great podcast host, author, and anti-war activist Scott Horton. The two engage in a wide-ranging discussion about Ukraine, the war party in Washington, and why right-leaning combat veterans are increasingly joining efforts to hold the government Constitutionally responsible for sending men and women off to war. Always funny, but deadly serious, Scott uses his...

The Ukrainian people -- all of the Ukrainian people -- need catharsis and reconciliation before healing. When they can begin, in the face of ongoing war with Russia, is the question we put to Ukraine scholar Nicolai Petro, whose book, "The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution"   is released next week. We talk about the history, the competing ident...

Ever wonder what it takes to build an American empire? George Mason University professor and Chris Coyne , who just released his new Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace , talks to Kelley and Dan about the building blocks of the so-called US liberal world order, which he argues is powered by a leviathan of good soldiers — autocratic, authoritarian, conformist st...

We can finally say that Republicans will take the majority in the House of Representatives in January. So what does this mean for foreign policy — especially the new $37 billion package President Biden wants to push through the lame duck session this December? The Washington Examiner’s politics editor Jim Antle joins us to break down how this super-slim majority will actually give an edge to Repub...

What a week! As of right now it’s still not clear which party will be running the Congress after Tuesday’s competitive midterm elections. We talk to Just Foreign Policy’s Erik Sperling about the foreign policy implications of a new potential Republican majority in the House and/or Senate — and which issues might be affected by the change, including the hottest one of the moment, Ukraine. We also d...

Over 200 years ago, then-U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams warned how overseas militarism, even in the name of liberty, could change the very nature of the republic: "She (America) well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and...

This week, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman reiterated the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, which  states that "the United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners . Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks." Natalie Armbruster of Defense...