Foreign Policy Focus from The Libertarian Institute

The Fourth of July is supposed to feel like a reset, but it hits differently when people look around and see a country that can fund anything abroad while families cut back at home. We start with a viral political message about America’s contradictions, then challenge the instinct to turn Independence Day into a scolding session. For us, the better move is to separate the ideals worth celebrating...

Putin says Russia is in a “challenging period,” but the more revealing question is what comes next when a war stops feeling like a crisis and starts running on autopilot. We unpack why Russia can look simultaneously steady and stuck: not prone to emotional swings, yet still locked into a slow, costly grind where drone strikes reach deep targets, NATO proximity raises the stakes, and every month of...

Calling everything “communism” might win a news cycle, but it doesn’t explain why so many Americans feel the ladder to a stable life is disappearing. Kyle sits down with Jim Webb to sort propaganda from incentives, starting with Trump’s warnings about socialist takeover and asking the blunt question: are there even enough communists in the United States to matter? We argue the bigger threat looks...

A ceasefire memo is supposed to stop wars, not rename them. We start with the weekend’s flashpoint in the Strait of Hormuz and ask a blunt question: if the MOU bans initiating military operations and the threat or use of force, how do we end up with drone attacks, retaliation, and Washington “making rough rules as it goes along”? Larry Johnson walks us through Iran’s claimed legal authority to reg...

Tucker Carlson saying “I’m out” on the Republican Party is not just a headline, it is a stress test for how American voters think about loyalty, war, and who our politics actually serves. I walk through why his break is landing with millions of people, how Israel and Gaza are reshaping old partisan habits, and why the only real leverage in a democracy is the willingness to withhold your vote when...

Something big is shifting in the Middle East, and you can hear it in the gap between what US officials say publicly and what regional actors are doing quietly. We walk through the latest reporting and remarks around Iran, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and a possible new security framework that could sideline the Abraham Accords model of Gulf-Israel alignment. From our perspective, the key qu...

Trump says Iran is “being very nice” and “agreeing to everything,” but that sales pitch doesn’t survive contact with the actual reporting. We sit down with Antiwar.com’s Dave DeCamp to sort out what the US Iran memorandum of understanding seems to concede, why both governments are trying to frame the same document as a win, and how the memory of being bombed during earlier negotiations hangs over...

Netanyahu says Israel will stay in a security zone in South Lebanon as long as it takes. That single line turns out to be a stress test for everything else happening at once: the Trump administration’s Iran talks, the push for a Lebanon ceasefire, and the question of whether Washington can restrain an ally when the price shows up in casualties, oil markets, and diplomatic credibility. We walk thro...

The Iraq War didn’t just “happen” it was sold with a storyline, staffed by specific operators, and justified by a strategy that had been circulating for years. I’m joined by Scott Horton of the Libertarian Institute to unpack the Clean Break doctrine, what it tried to achieve for Israel’s right wing security vision, and how a set of wildly wrong assumptions helped push the US into a war that ended...

Trump says he wants a deal with Iran. Netanyahu hints the real goal is regime change anyway. That contradiction is where diplomacy goes to die, and it is also where Americans get dragged into a war they did not vote for. We roll solo and ask the blunt question a lot of people are thinking but few say out loud: is Trump still representing the United States, or is he effectively acting as Israel’s p...

Trump didn’t just get “frustrated” with Netanyahu. He confirmed he told him, “Are you effing crazy,” and that single moment raises a bigger question: if the White House is truly fed up, why does the region still look like it’s sliding toward wider war? Jim Webb joins me to break down what matters beneath the gossip-cycle headlines. We talk about Israel’s expanding operations in Lebanon, Iran’s pro...

A deal with Iran sounds simple until you read the fine print. We dig into the reports of a memorandum of understanding that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lift parts of the pressure campaign, then ask the uncomfortable question: is this “freedom of navigation,” or is it a new normal where Iran and Oman set the rules and the fees at the world’s most important oil chokepoint? From there, we g...

Congress is hollowing out, and the consequences show up first in foreign policy. Dan McAdams returns to talk with us about what Thomas Massie’s primary loss signals for antiwar oversight, why the Ron Paul era of forcing floor debates through appropriations fights is largely gone, and how that vacuum makes it easier for Washington to slide into the next conflict without friction. We dig into Iran a...

A ceasefire is supposed to lower the temperature, not provide new vocabulary for the same war. We unpack reports that the U.S. bombed targets in Iran after a ceasefire and why calling it “self-defense” can still function as a direct escalation. I walk through what those strikes signal, how each side tries to define the rules midstream, and why Iran may tolerate only so many “limited” hits before c...

Memorial Day brings out a lot of scripted lines, but we want to talk about the part that gets avoided: what American wars actually cost, who pays, and how often the public is left holding the bill while elites chase ideology, influence, and profit. We start by looking at the human consequences for service members and veterans, and why so many deployments overseas end with the same problems still o...

Trump says he wants “few people killed,” then talks like bombing Iran is a weekly calendar event. That contradiction is where we start, because the public narrative around the Iran war keeps snapping from all-out threats to last-minute “negotiations” as deadlines magically extend. I walk through why that cycle looks less like strategy and more like a president boxed in by bad options, public messa...

A professor makes a $500 campaign donation and suddenly gets cast as the “most important man in America” pulling congressional strings. That absurd story is the perfect doorway into what we really care about here: how narratives get manufactured, why propaganda works, and what it’s doing to both domestic politics and foreign policy. We start with science diplomacy and cultural diplomacy, the old-s...

Trump’s China summit gets sold as strength, but the details tell a different story. We dig into what the U.S. says it achieved versus what China actually signals afterward, especially on Iran and regional security. From our seat, the big issue is leverage: if Beijing won’t bend and Washington can’t compel, the talking points don’t matter much. That gap shows up immediately in the most unglamorous...

A president calling reporters “treasonous” isn’t just a hot take, it’s a warning sign. Harrison Berger joins me to break down how that rhetoric is being used to police debate around the Iran war, and why it echoes years of reckless “traitor” accusations aimed at anyone who questions America’s national security consensus. We start with the Israel lobby and J Street, the organization often marketed...

Trump comes back from Beijing claiming he got a major concession from Xi on Iran, but what happens when the key details are private, unverifiable, and packaged for headlines? We walk through the public messaging, the contradictions, and the incentives on both sides, then ask the blunt question: was this diplomacy, or was it theater designed to look like leverage? We also dig into Xi’s unusually di...

Trump heads to China with a lineup of high-profile U.S. business leaders, but we can’t treat it like a normal trade trip. We dig into the uncomfortable reality underneath the photo ops: America’s dependence on rare earth minerals and specialized refining, including gallium used in key defense systems. When conflict drains equipment and replacement timelines stretch into years, “leverage” starts lo...

A president says he has “the best plan ever,” insists Iran is “defeated militarily,” and talks like one more strike package can end the problem. We slow that down and look at the actual mechanics of a modern Iran war: depleted standoff munitions, limited Patriot and THAAD interceptors, and an opponent that can keep producing missiles while the US waits years to scale replacement. When leaders beli...

A “ceasefire” that still includes ships getting shot at isn’t a ceasefire, it’s a pressure campaign with a short fuse. Kyle sits down with Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski to make sense of the newest swings in the Iran conflict, from limited strikes and fast Iranian responses to the bigger question nobody wants to answer: what is the actual endgame, and who is paying the price while leaders po...

Your phone buzzing with political ads the moment you step into a church parking lot sounds like satire, but the documents and contracts point to something very real. We sit down with Nick Cleveland-Stout of the Quincy Institute (and a writer at Drop Site News) to track a sweeping Israeli influence campaign in the United States that goes far beyond the usual Capitol Hill lobbying. The focus is Amer...

One bad assumption can start a bigger war, and nowhere is that clearer than the Strait of Hormuz. Kyle sits down with Larry Johnson to sort through the morning’s flood of claims and counterclaims: reported Iranian missile and drone attacks, damage to Gulf oil facilities, U.S. strikes at sea, and the growing risk that escalation turns into a sustained U.S. air campaign against Iran. We focus on wha...