Statecraft

In April and May 1979, between 66 and 300 people died from anthrax in the Russian city of Sverdlovsk, now called Yekaterinburg. The Soviet authorities seized doctors’ records and quickly rolled out an explanation: the deaths were an accident caused by contaminated meat. But American intelligence agencies suspected a more nefarious explanation: the Soviets were secretly developing biological weapon...

In 1969, President Nixon announced the end of all American offensive biological weapons programs, and renounced the first use of chemical weapons. But it wasn’t until several months later that Nixon confirmed that the U.S. would end all military research into toxins, which can be created either in nature or in the lab. Nixon chose to end that toxin research because of one man, our interviewee toda...

Most Americans have never heard of the Domestic Policy Council. What is it, and why does it matter?  Today, we interviewed Cecilia Muñoz , former Director of the Domestic Policy Council under President Obama. We cover: Why did the Biden presidential transition differ sharply from the Obama transition? How do you stop bureaucrats from slow-walking policies they dislike? What decisions never make th...

Today's interviewee, Professor Chris Snyder, is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for Progress (IFP). He teaches economics at Dartmouth College, where he specializes in industrial organization and microeconomic theory. He is also a research associate at the NBER, treasurer of the Industrial Organization Society, and a faculty director for the University of Chicago's Market Shaping Acce...

Today, we talked to Laura Thomas , a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and Chief of Base in Afghanistan. She has served over 17 years in national security and leadership roles. We discuss: 00:00 How a CIA station operates 8:46 What kind of intelligence failure was October 7th? 24:39 Why did intelligence agencies predict Kabul would fall quickly to the Taliban? 30: 09 The holes...

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, hundreds of tons of nuclear materials were suddenly unsecured. The new, fragile Russian government had no ability or desire to claim facilities in formerly Soviet states, and it could no longer pay nuclear plant workers. Operatives from rogue states offered cash to purchase uranium and higher nuclear physicists. Today we talked to Andy Weber, one of the American...

Twenty years ago, the U.S. launched the largest, most successful global health initiative to ever address a single disease. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is credited with saving at least 20 million lives. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof recently called PEPFAR “the single best policy of any president in my lifetime.” By early 2002, HIV/AIDS was devastating sub-Sahara...