FDD's Foreign Podicy

Once again, there is conflict and carnage in Syria. The media calls it “sectarian strife,” but that phrase may obscure more than it reveals. Islamists have been slaughtering those they deem infidels—with Syria’s Druze and Christian communities hardest hit. The U.N. and the “international community” have been useless as usual. Israel, which has a significant Druze minority of its own, has taken act...

Woke ideology, anti‑Americanism, Islamism and antisemitism have gripped America’s elite campuses. How? Follow the money. Researchers at the Middle East Forum have been doing exactly that, and the result is a new report that's shocking but not surprising. It’s titled: “ Beachhead: Georgetown University: How Foreign and Domestic Radical Actors Captured a U.S. University .” Host Cliff May is joined b...

Just as Putin launched the largest drone assault of the war, President Trump overruled an order from the Pentagon that had halted the delivery of munitions to Ukraine. And despite what pundits say, new polling says his base isn’t mad about it. Cliff May is joined by Carrie Filipetti of the Vandenberg Coalition to break down its polling data that shows most of Trump’s base back peace through streng...

Guest host Bradley Bowman is joined by U.S. Air Force pilots Lt. Col. Brian “Bud” Leitzke and Lt. Col. Kevin “Rowdy” Murphy for an exclusive firsthand account of April 13, 2024, when Iran launched over 300 drones and missiles at Israel. Bud and Rowdy's squadron scrambled into the night sky in one of the largest U.S. air combat missions in years. What followed was a high-stakes, real-time defense o...

NATO summits are usually dry and wonky affairs. This one was different. To unpack what was said, what wasn’t, and what actually matters, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman to discuss alliance politics, military power projection, strategic signaling, and more.

Israel and Iran are at war. To break down what’s happening and what could come next, host Cliff May is joined by Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Behnam Ben Taleblu. They dissect Israel’s targeted strikes on IRGC assets, the strategic pause before a possible U.S. strike on Fordow, and why this war isn’t just Israel vs. Iran. It’s the free world vs. the axis of aggressors. And it’s about finishin...

Host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman to assess the growing cooperation among adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—also know as the 'axis of aggressors.' From the Kremlin's efforts to manipulate perceptions in the West, particularly regarding NATO, to Iran's nuclear ambitions and the geopolitical implications of its relationship with China an...

Thirty-six years ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square with tanks and bullets. The death toll? Certainly in the hundreds, probably in the thousands, and deliberately hidden by the Communist Party of China. How did that massacre reshape China’s path, and what did it mean for Beijing’s relationship with the U.S. and the West? Host Cliff May sit...

Is Iran on the brink, or is the West getting played again? Filling in for host Cliff May, Behnam Ben Taleblu is joined by Andrea Stricker and Saeed Ghasseminejad to discuss Trump’s renewed demand for full nuclear dismantlement, the regime’s internal weakness, and why half-measures won’t cut it. From stalled negotiations to nationwide strikes and the case for a “strike fund,” they unpack how to con...

President Trump’s May 19 phone call with Vladimir Putin does not appear to be two hours well-spent. According to readouts, the Russian ruler agreed to continue talking about talking. Around the same time, Putin launched a massive drone strike against Ukrainian soldiers defending their country and civilians attempting to survive the long war waged against them by an enemy seeking to destroy their f...

Following the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel and the pogrom carried out by terrorists from Hamas and affiliated Islamist organizations, and some Gazan civilians as well, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opined that the attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” Well, he’s correct just not in the way he intended. Hebron is an ancient city 20 miles south of Jerusalem in Judea, now more usually refer...

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster, and author. Her weekly column currently appears in The Times of London. She’s a regular panelist on BBC Radio’s The Moral Maze and speaks on public platforms throughout the English-speaking world. Her best-selling book, “Londonistan,” about the British establishment’s capitulation to Islamist aggression, was published in 2006. She followed thi...

China is conducting what a top US military officer called a breathtaking expansion and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces. An October 2024 Defense Intelligence Agency report estimated that by 2030, “China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads, most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the continental United States.” Meanwhile, Russia maintains t...

Last week, Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that talks with the Trump administration appear to be going well. This tells host Cliff May that from an American perspective, the talks are going badly. President Trump has said that America’s goal is the “full dismantlement” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program, including its capacity to produce missiles tha...

According to host Cliff May, "Mark Montgomery is an admirable admiral. Another adjective I’d use to describe him: peripatetic. Which is a fancy way of saying he’s on the road more than Willie Nelson—whom he does not otherwise resemble." Most recently the retired flag officer has been in Lithuania, which on the east shares a border with the Russian vassal state of Belarus, and on the southwest has...

If you were to visit Turkey years ago, it might’ve felt both Middle Eastern and European. It was Muslim and secular. It was, more or less, free and democratic.   Host Cliff May says the food was great, too.  Now? Well, he’s told the food is still great.   To explain what has happened and what is happening in Turkey, Cliff is joined by his FDD colleague Sinan Ciddi.   About Sinan Sinan is also an A...

Filling in for host Cliff May is FDD CEO and host of The Iran Breakdown, Mark Dubowitz, joined by former Israeli national security advisor Jacob Nagel, now a senior fellow at FDD. Following President Trump’s recent signaling that he's open to nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic, Mark and Jacob revisit the flaws of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the  general complexities of Iran's nuclea...

Lord Andrew Roberts has written or edited 20 books which have been translated into 28 languages and have redefined our understanding of leaders and leadership, of empires and nations, of the forces that have shaped—and in some cases misshaped—the modern world. He’s won many awards, including the Bradley Prize for which he was nominated by host Cliff May. In 2022, he was elevated to the House of Lo...

The Indo-Pacific is one of the most consequential regions in the world. It’s home to economies, trade routes, and allies vital to American prosperity and security. It is also a region where the Chinese Communist Party, building on decades of defense sector cooperation with Russia, has expanded its military capabilities at a breathtaking pace. The more capable the Chinese military has become, the m...

The Abraham Accords offer peace and prosperity, an era of repose from some of the constant warfare that plagues the Middle East. The UAE, a signatory of the Accords, houses the Abrahamic Family House—a synagogue side-by-side with a mosque and side-by-side with a church. It’s a beautiful symbol of tolerance and peace between the world’s Christians, Jews, and Muslims. But if Jihad against unbeliever...

Episodes 1-3 of The Iran Breakdown drop on Wednesday, March 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including on Spotify , Apple Podcasts , and YouTube . About this exclusive sneak peek In this special edition of Foreign Podicy, we're excited to introduce FDD's new podcast series hosted by Mark Dubowitz: The Iran Breakdown. Episodes 1-3 drop on Wednesday, March 19, but Foreign Podicy follow...

Back when host Cliff May was an exchange student at Leningrad State University in 1972, he believed that if the Soviet Union ever collapsed that Russia would become a free country. Well, that’s not how things turned out.  Peter Pomerantsev has a book on Russian propaganda: “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia.” He joins Cliff along with Ivana Stradner, a...

Some might think of veterans issues and national security issues separately, but they are intricately intertwined. There's a moral imperative to care for those who have risked their lives to defend freedom. There's also a national security imperative to do so. This fact raises several questions: How are America’s veterans doing? How well are we taking care of those who have served our country in u...

A two-state solution was first offered to Palestinian leaders as early as 1937.  Israel offered two-state solutions again in 1947, 1967, 1978, 2000, 2001, and 2008.  Palestinian leaders declined each and every such offer. They have proposed no alternatives.  Their grievance, it should by now be clear, is not the absence of a nation-state called Palestine but rather the existence of a nation-state...

In 2019 after serving as deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, Victoria Coates was promoted to Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa, overseeing the Maximum Pressure campaign against Tehran and initiating the negotiations for the Abraham Accords. She joins Cliff to discuss her new book: “The Battle for the...