The DSR Network

The past two weeks have revealed that the Israel-Palestine conflict remains far from a solution. Indeed, of the two most likely solutions discussed--a two-state "solution" or a one-state "solution"--both seem impossible. But the problem is a real one with profound human consequences in Israel and Palestine and great resonance in the US (often for the wrong reasons). We discuss the situation and ou...

Former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was praised in a multitude of articles and broadcasts marking the 10th anniversary of the elimination of Osama Bin Laden earlier this month. But in an hour long interview with Jeff Stein, he described a major failing of US intelligence during his watch. Listen to it here.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See aca...

CIA clandestine services veteran and longtime Middle East hand Marc Polymeropoulos tells Jeff Stein that the CIA no longer prizes regional expertise, instead opting for spy corps “generalists” who can be shifted from region to region. In this Special Edition of the SpyTalk podcast, Polymeropoulos laments the passing of Charlie Seidel, who he calls the CIA’s “last great Arabist.” Support this show...

The Biden Administration is working hard to maintain a fairly traditional front for US-Israel relations during the current crisis. Which is to say they are essentially following the playbook the Obama Administration would have followed (Trump's bromance with Bibi was an outlier). But times are changing, the views of Democrats are changing, the generational outlook is changing, and don't forget Bib...

It was Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who popularized the phrase "states are laboratories of democracy." That has never been clearer than at this moment when some of the most important innovation in governing is coming from states...and some folks, notably on the right, are working on experiments that may end up crippling democracy or even killing it. To get a sense of what is going on at th...

In the fourth edition of the SpyTalk podcast, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen talks with co-host Jeanne Meserve about combatting “psychological warfare” disinformation attacks from Russia, China, Iran and even Venezuela, and former top CIA analyst Mathew Burrows tells her that US intelligence is so busy coping with immediate threats they “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Le...

On this special episode of Deep State Radio, we discuss the Covid-19 crisis in India with Washington Post Global Opinion Columnist, Rana Ayyub, who is covering the crisis from the front lines from her home in Mumbai and describes unimaginable suffering, both personally and across her country. Rana is joined by Edward Luce of the Financial Times and practicing physician and former Obama health advi...

The US could be back in the Iran nuclear accord by the end of the month. There are plenty of hurdles to that, of course, but it is not impossible. And if not by then, then perhaps it will happen by Fall. We discuss why that is likely to be a good thing with the Quincy Institute's Joe Cirincione, the American Enterprise Institute's Kori Schake, and Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University Law School. W...

Ronald Reagan would not have been president nor would he have enjoyed the successes he had as a politician without the active role played by his wife, Nancy. Often underestimated, sometimes the subject of gossipy slights, this woman was really one of the principle architects of a watershed presidency, among the very top advisors in an era in which some of the others including Washington titans lik...

In an important ruling this week, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote a scathing assessment of the Barr Department of Justice's efforts to rationalize their handling of the serial obstruction of justice within the Trump Administration. This may have been another significant step toward getting some accountability for the last administration's serial abuses. The decision came in a case brought by Citize...

Jeanne Meserve looks into the mysterious directed-energy attacks on officials in Washington with Mark Zaid, lawyer for CIA and State Department victims. Then Ronen Bergman, author of a groundbreaking book on Israeli assassination operations, talks with Jeff Stein about the effect of Mossad’s hits on Iran’s nuclear scientists and uranium facilities. Last but hardly least, Jeanne talks at length wit...

Joe Biden is doing a remarkable job. Public support for Biden's bold economic initiatives is exceptionally high. But there are warning signs about what may be around the next bend in American politics. The GOP is punishing those in its ranks who dared to speak the truth. The most extreme actors on the right seem to have the best prospects. Republicans are posed to do well in the 2022 mid-terms. An...

We are in the middle of an economic sea-change in the United States. The prevailing views of the past 40 years--call them Reaganomics or neo-liberalism or the Washington Consensus--are being pushed aside. The inequality they left in their wake are being addressed by new policies that focus on investing in the middle class and the most vulnerable. The leader of this revolution is not some young fir...

Joe Biden spoke to a joint session of Congress and outlined an economic plan that exceeds in scope anything we have seen nearly a century. It was specific, doable, and would be paid for simply by restoring taxes to levels they were at past periods of American prosperity and growth. He framed it as not just urgent from a domestic perspective but critical to "winning the 21st Century", to our compet...

In this week’s edition of the SpyTalk podcast, Jeff Stein goes deep on the CIA’s looming eviction from Afghanistan with Lisa Curtis, a longtime former CIA, State Department and White House National Security Council expert on the region. And then co-host Jeanne Meserve conducts a lively interview with a former senior CIA and NSA analyst, Alma Katsu, about her new, post-government-service thriller, ...

Going from Donald Trump to Joe Biden has been as striking a political shift as most Americans have encountered in their lifetimes. But the shift has sent shockwaves around the world. America's allies are cautiously optimistic. Autocrats not so much. We discuss the first 100 days of Biden foreign and national security policy and their implications with Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institu...

In the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict, while there was a consensus that a degree of justice was achieved, that a massive job of work remained to end the long history of systemic racism in US law enforcement and throughout society. The question is how do we get there from here? Will government have the courage to stand up to special interests and produce the kind of real structural change that i...

This week, in the debut edition of the SpyTalk podcast, co-host Jeff Stein talks to the Washington Post’s Joby Warrick about an extraordinary CIA operation in Syria, as told in his new book, Red Line. Jeff and co-host Jeanne Meserve also discuss the Biden administration’s recent expulsion of suspected Russian spies, then Jeanne talks with former NSA Director and Cyber Command chief Admiral Mike Ro...

Last week, President Biden announced the US would be pulling our last troops out of Afghanistan by September 11 of this year. At the same time, leaders in the Intelligence Community met with Congress to discuss emerging threats--from China to tech war. Our experts discuss these developments as well as new developments concerning Russia, a bilateral meeting with Japan and an outbreak of diplomacy i...

On the one hand, America's vaccine roll out is making great progress. On the other, in the last week COVID cases are on the rise in 38 states. On the one hand, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are working remarkably well. On the other hand, Astra Zeneca and perhaps Johnson and Johnson not so much. (Or maybe the government is over-reacting to a very tiny number of problem cases with the J&J vaccine....

Two time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof has set himself from other columnists by virtue of his deep reporting into the subjects about which he writes. In this exclusive conversation, Deep State listeners and host David Rothkopf pose questions on the subjects that have dominated his work over the years--from China to conflict zones, from social problems in America to protecting t...

Rep. Eric Swalwell of California has emerged as one of the most important voices in the Democratic Party. From his presidential campaign to his work during last year's impeachment hearings, he has stood out for both tough-mindedness and clarity. As the son and brother of police officers, he has strong views on how we need to reform policing in America in the wake of the abuses we have seen, especi...

The ancient Aztecs referred to the headache and misery following drunken debauchery as the "curse of 400 rabbits." Presidents need to try to avoid policies that produce similar reactions. So far the Biden Administration has been deft at doing so. Where might they go wrong? And what domestic policy priorities should they pursue to strengthen the US internationally? We discuss with Ed Luce of the Fi...

By this time during the presidency of the former guy, his national security advisor had been booted, the Muslim ban had been tried and Comey was days from getting fired. We also knew that the GOP was simply not going to do anything about even the worst things Trump was doing. So it's not too early to make some prognostications about about the political weather we can expect in the Biden Era. The b...

The US is making great progress on vaccine distribution and national death tolls are falling. But new variants are spreading and some states are seeing disturbing spikes in infection. The world is itching to re-open post pandemic but the very of "post-pandemic" may be illusory with out of control COVID in many parts of the world and unsatisfactory government responses in many others. What should w...