The DSR Network

Russia has been trying to weaken the United States since the first days of the Cold War. But in that entire span of three-quarters of a century, even with the success of its spies and counter-espionage measures, it has never had a series of successes such as those it has enjoyed since 2016. As Tim Weiner, author of an important new book on Russia, "The Folly and the Glory," says, the reason for th...

One of our regulars, Ed Luce of the Financial Times, had an article in the Weekend FT called "Will America tear itself apart: The Supreme Court, 2020 elections and a looming constitutional crisis." It is an incisive look into a profoundly important set of challenges America faces in fixing elements of our constitutional system that are currently malfunctioning or a source of tension. Government by...

In Game of Thrones leadership decisions were made with the help of dragons and Moon Doors and Valyrian steel daggers. In America today, people play just as rough but their tools are cyber warfare, disinformation, mobilized extremist groups and court orders that suppress the vote. It is so sordid it makes you wish there were still a dragon or two available. But absent that, understanding and prepar...

Donald Trump has unleashed resources of his government to support his campaign against Joe Biden in a way that America would condemn were it the behavior of any foreign government. In fact, as David Sanger pointed out in a recent NY Times article, he has crossed lines that may damage America's standing for years to come. We discuss that article and a host of recent foreign policy developments with...

The increasingly erratic president was pretty erratic to begin with. Which has made the past week all the more unnerving. Throw in revelations about the unusual layers of secrecy and the cover ups surrounding the president's health and new revelations about one of the most disturbing policies of the Trump Era, the decision to tear families apart at the border and prosecute tiny children and this h...

The biggest national security story in America today is the biggest domestic story and the biggest political story and the biggest economic story and the biggest public health story. The COVID outbreak at the White House might have resulted in greater empathy for those who have suffered so due to the pandemic but the opposite seems to be happening. It seems to be leading to an effort by the presid...

The debate this week was a trainwreck inside a dog's breakfast wrapped in bad acid trip. It was, despite the best efforts of Joe Biden to discuss the issues, chaotic. But that's what President Trump wanted. Because it distracts from 200,000 dead from COVID, tens of millions unemployed and revelations about his taxes and his manifold failures as a business leader. We discuss those taxes, failings a...

The Constitutional rot of the past four years has set the stage for the corruption of our institutions and, equally importantly, for growing delegitimization of our government. This plays into the hands of a president who is ever more desperate to cling to power lest he lose his fortune and his freedom. This in turn has experts who are studying the preparations for the November 3 election to expre...

The President of the United States has deliberately raised questions about whether our democratic system will work properly while actively working to ensure it does not. From voting to the courts to the enforcement of our laws, our institutions seem more fragile and at risk than at any moment since the civil war. What does this mean for the remainder of this political campaign and its aftermath? W...

Is a resurgent COVID the October Surprise? Is it the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Will it be the nomination and approval of a replacement for her prior to the election? Will it be the announcement of a vaccine? Or is it tied to the president's reluctance to guarantee a peaceful hand-over of power if he loses. We discuss these options and others with Mimi Rocah, candidate for Westchester,...

Cecile Richards is the CEO and founder of Supermajority, a new organization for "women's activism, training and the mobilization of a multiracial, intergenerational community to fight for gender equality." She was previously president of Planned Parenthood and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and has been hailed as one of the foremost women's rights leaders in the country. We discussed with her...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a rarity in Washington, a true hero, one of those voices who would not be silenced by conventional wisdom or the zeitgeist or politics or the pushback of the powerful. Her loss therefore is not simply the loss of a dependably progressive viewpoint on America's highest court, it is of a true leader and individual of integrity at a moment when those are a rarity in Washington...

Michael Schmidt's new book "Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President" is one of the required reads of this moment in our history. It gets deep inside the effort to protect the president as the Russia investigation closed in around him. But it also underscores what that investigation did not uncover. Indeed the central question remains: What explains Trump's behavi...

Peter Strzok is one of America's most respected, experienced counterintelligence specialists. His career at the FBI reads like a thriller and as a consequence, so does his new book "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump." At the center of course, is Strzok's role in the investigation of Trump, the controversy that led to his departure from the FBI and, most importantly...

The divide between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and centrists has dogged the party for years and hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. Thanks to equal parts good planning, good will and the urgency of the threat America faces, that divide has been minimized this year with Biden working closely with progressive leaders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC. The question i...

The Republican Party not only produced the corrupt, failed presidency of Donald Trump, but it has supported Trump at every turn. What is to be done with a party that embraces a president who is a traitor, a con man, a racist, a serial abuser of women? We sat down with two notable former Republicans, Washington Post columnist Max Boot and political scientist and commentator Tom Nichols to discuss w...

The two defining crises of the past 40 years in the US have been the 9/11 attacks and the COVID crisis. In both cases, government lies and bad government policies made matters much worse. In both cases, hundreds of thousands died as a result. The wars that resulted from 9/11 still fester. And as for the COVID crisis, we could see the number of dead in the US double before the end of the year...bec...

Donald Trump doesn't think much of America's military and he thinks even less of its members who sacrificed their lives or freedom for the country. And, now he wants another four years as commander-in-chief of that military. And he's got a shot at getting re-upped for another tour. Because...what the fuck, America? We discuss the latest outrages with Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institut...

As former U.S. Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel says during this special podcast, when he interviewed Putin several years ago, the Russian president cited the collapse of the USSR as the greatest tragedy of the past century. And, as Richard notes, Putin has been on the attack against what he perceives as those that brought Russia down ever since. This led to his support for Donald Trump in...

After the lawlessness and lies of the GOP convention it is clearer than ever that another term in office for Donald Trump would be devastating for democracy in America. And given the willingness of the GOP to violate the law and the fragility of political leads in times like these, you would have to be, in the words of our regular Rosa Brooks, deranged to think Trump might not achieve victory in N...

Every four years a heated debate occurs among foreign policy and national security nerds about why foreign policy and national security just don't seem to be so important in our presidential campaigns. But 2020 will be different right? After all, Russia attacked our last elections, a global pandemic and economic crisis has paralyzed the country, China is a rising threat...wherever you look there a...

There is one and only one major hoax associated with the relationship between Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 elections. That's the hoax hoax, Trump's denials that he worked with Russian intelligence to get elected. This week's report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should finally set that hoax to rest. The bipartisan report not only documents in detail how...

As many US observers watched brave Belarussians take to the streets to protest the rigged election engineered by their autocratic president, they wondered aloud on social media whether the US would soon be going through the same thing. We too have an autocratic president. He too depends on the support of Vladimir Putin. He too has no respect for democracy and is working to rig our upcoming electio...

With the president making even more outrageous remarks about his desire to impede voting by mail and the GOP mobilizing more efforts to spread disinformation, it is clear the weeks before the election will be contentious and American democracy is at risk. But who are you gonna call if the guys who are supposed to be protecting that democracy are the greatest threats to it? We discuss this and the...

We summarize a busy and disturbing week of world events with a bit of free-association between Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law Center, Kori Schake of AEI and David Sanger of the New York Times. It takes us from Bill Barr suggesting Democrats were adherents of French enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the reality that Barr is much more a Hobbesian to other Hobbesians from Minsk to Hon...