Shield of the Republic

While President Zelensky is meeting in the White House on Dec. 12, Eric welcomes former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor to Shield of the Republic. They discuss the state of play on the supplemental aid legislation, the causes for the Ukrainian Counter Offensive's "failure" this summer, the search for a new strategy, General Zaluzhny's ideas about the changing character of warfare, the st...

Eric welcomes Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to discuss the war in Gaza. Jonathan Schanzer was a terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department and holds a BA from Emory University, a Masters degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a Doctorate from Kings College London and studied Arabic at the American University in Cai...

Eric and Eliot welcome former Secretary of Defense and former CIA Director Robert M. Gates to discuss his article in the current (November-December) issue of Foreign Affairs, " The Dysfunctional Superpower: Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia." They touch on the unprecedented threats (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, violent Islamist extremism) confronting the United States, the role of...

Eric and Eliot host Bruno Tertrais, the Deputy DIrector of France's Fondation Pour La Recherche Strategique, one of the country's leading think tanks and author of the recent book La Guerre des Mondes:  Le Retour de la geopolitique et le choc des Empires (War of the Worlds: The Return of Geopolitics and the Shock of Empires). They discuss historical analogies that shed light on the current geopoli...

Eliot and Eric talk about great teachers including Eric's undergraduate mentor at Cornell, the late Walter LaFeber and Eliot's Harvard mentor Samuel Hungtington. They talk about the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic history -- its strengths and weaknesses, the nature and progress of historiography, the qualities that made LaFeber and Huntington such compelling scholars and instructors as well as th...

Eric and Eliot talk about what is perhaps the most complex and dangerous moment in national security since the end of World War II. They discuss the explosion of vile anti-semitism globally and particularly on U.S. university campuses and the failures of higher education that this reveals. They discuss the Israeli operations in Gaza, the likely course of the war there and the prospects for escalat...

**NOTE** For a limited time, Shield of the Republic listeners can receive a 20% discount on The Hollow Crown . Use code HLLW23, at checkout at https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eliot-a-cohen/the-hollow-crown/9781541644861/ . Offer valid through November 2nd, 2023. Eric welcomes Eliot back on publication day for Eliot's new book, The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and F...

Eric welcomes Franklin C. Miller, a Principal at the Scowcroft Group and long time public servant at the Department of State, Defense and the White House with deep expertise on nuclear strategy, escalation dynamics and deterrence. They discuss the loss of intellectual capital in the nuclear strategy arena after the end of the Cold War, the numerous panels and reports that have testified to that lo...

Eliot joins Eric from his walking tour in the Cotswolds to discuss the horrifying Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. They discuss the intelligence and policy failures that allowed Israeli officials to be taken by surprise, the introspection and self-criticism that Israelis had applied in the past when these kinds of things have taken place (the Agranat Commission after the 1973 war and...

Eric and Eliot welcome Leland Miller, a non-resident senior fellow at the Asia Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on Strategy and Security and co-founder & CEO of China Beige Book International. Lee explains how China Beige Book acquires data on the PRC economy as well as the pitfalls of using official Chinese government data. They discuss both the short and longer...

Eric and Eliot take a break from the depressing flow of international news and talk about books. They discuss their favorite bookstores, favorite historical memoirs, books that influenced them, cherished but unread books, greatest works of history, what they are reading now and what is sitting in their night side table waiting to be read. Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by...

Eric and Eliot discuss the growing global disorder starting with the potential for a genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the degree to which events in the Caucasus and Central Asia are related to Russia's involvement in Ukraine, the Iranian angle in the Caucasus and the recent release of unjustly detained Americans by Iran (and whether or not ransom was involved),...

Eliot returns with a debrief from his trip to Taiwan and Japan. He and Eric discuss the coming Presidential election in Taiwan, the disingenuous nature of much of our discourse about the Taiwan issue that results from our "One China" policy, the reason it is wrong to think of China as a "pacing threat," the dangers of a blockade rather than an invasion of Taiwan, the things that Taiwan and the US...

Eliot's road trip continues but Eric welcomes syndicated columnist, Bulwark Policy Editor, and host of the Beg to Differ Podcast Mona Charen. They discuss Mona's 2003 book Useful Idiots describing the left's Cold War and post-Cold War passion for anti-anti Communism and indulging in apologetics for Communist regimes including the Soviet Union, the PRC, Cuba, and others in search of a utopian socia...

With Eliot on the road Eric welcomes Bulwark Editor at Large Bill Kristol to the show. They discuss the prospects for a Supplemental Appropriation for Ukraine aid in the Congress, the state of public opinion on the war in Ukraine, the impact of the Republican Presidential debate on support for Ukraine, the effort that Bill and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell have launched to highlight Republicans...

Eric and Eliot welcome back Peter Feaver, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University, to the show. They discuss Peter's new book Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the U.S. Military (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). Along the way they touch on the causes of public confidence in the military, the social desirability bias th...

Eric and Eliot are joined by Isabel Kershner, the New York Times Jerusalem correspondent and author of  The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss the division and polarization in Israeli society and the cleavages between the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi populationns, as well as between secular and Haredi Jews, the emergence of identity...

Eric and Eliot welcome Financial Times Ukraine correspondent Christopher Miller, author of  The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine  (London: Bloomsbury, 2023). Chris describes his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bakhmut and his transition to journalism as a reporter for the Kyiv Post exposing corruption and self-dealing in Ukraine before the "revolution of dignity" at the Euromaidan in 2...

Eric welcomes Eliot back from Edinburgh where it was not all Walter Scott tourism and Scotch sipping. They discuss the project that Eliot and Phillips O'Brien have undertaken to analyze the failures of Russia experts to correctly assess the run up to and the course of the war in Ukraine, the ongoing state of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the lingering political repercussions in Russia of the Pr...

Eliot and Eric welcome former President of Estonia (and SotR fan) Toomas Ilves to the show. They do a post-mortem on the Vilnius NATO Summit. How did the Biden team perform? What are the prospects for European security with a revanchist Russia? How should NATO approach Ukraine's future association with Alliance? They also discuss the importance of Finland and Sweden in NATO and much more. Shield o...

Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Vickers, the author of  By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations and Strategy  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). They discuss his role in overseeing the CIA's covert assistance program to the Afghan resistance in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, how his experiences as a Green Beret impacted his approach to policy m...

Eric and Eliot dig in to Eliot’s recent travels to Poland and Ukraine. They discuss the future of European security relations with Ukraine, Kyiv’s understandable neuralgia about steps short of NATO membership, the meaning and impact of Prigozhin’s rebellion in Russia and on the battlefield, the prospects for Ukraine’s counter-offensive and Ukraine’s ongoing requirements for long range strike, shor...

Eric welcomes back Eliot to host Stephen Sestanovich, the George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the Council on Foreign Relations and Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor at the School of International Political Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University to discuss the short-lived semi-farcical mutiny in Russia led by Evgeniy Prigozhin, the proprietor of the Wagner Grou...

With Eliot still on the road, Eric welcomes back Hal Brands, the Henry A. Kissinger Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and introduces Thomas Mahnken, the President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) to discuss  The New Makers of Modern Strategy , published by Princeton University Press in May. They...

With Eliot on the road again Eric hosts Andrew Hoehn, Senior VP and Director of Research at the RAND Corporation, and Thom Shanker (formerly New York Times national security reporter and editor) Director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University. The authors of  Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats  (New...