The DSR Network

At the end of the Cold War, the West triumphantly crowed that it was our open societies and the information revolution that ultimately defeated the USSR. They lost because people deprived of information simply couldn't compete. Now however, as we enter another stage of the information revolution, it may be that we celebrated yet another premature "mission accomplished" moment. It is now possible t...

On this special episode of Deep State Radio we get a sneak peak at the latest work of our own David Sanger (who we share with the New York Times and his students at Harvard's Kennedy School). The book, "The Perfect Weapon", is the definitive work on the state of cyberwar told compellingly in the real life stories of the unfolding of a new chapter in the history of global conflict. Join David, Geor...

As Deep State Radio's resident Constitutional scholar (and Associate Dean of Georgetown Law School) Rosa Brooks explains, the legal threshold for designating behavior as treasonous is quite narrow. But as she also points out, it would be up to Congress to define what was unacceptable in an impeachment hearing. As evidence mounts that the Trump campaign was deeply entwined with Russia and the Trump...

Deep State Radio's own Kori Schake wrote an important piece about the current threat to the international order posed by the Trump Administration. In this episode we discuss the article and just exactly how grievous the threat is and how we ought to characterize it. This takes us from John Locke to John Winthrop to Stephen Miller...(and we hope that's the last time you ever see those three names i...

The president salutes a North Korean general while praising that countries murderous leader. Babies are torn from their mother's breasts by our border police and children are housed in concentration camps. Loyalty lists are being compiled within the State Department. Our allies are turning away from us, alienated. Trade wars loom. Foreign attacks on our democracy are ignored. The president and his...

The U.S. has done plenty wrong in its history. There are millions around the world that have been victims of flaws in U.S. foreign policy. But since the early part of the 20th Century there has at least been a myth that Americans could cling to that we stood for what was right, for "the American way" and tried to shape the international system around those values. Now, in a week, the U.S. has atta...

The recent round of primary elections in the US don't seem to show a groundswell of public indignation over the fact that the president of the United States has obstructed justice, is a pathological liar, is profoundly corrupt and is, at the very least, surrounded by people and family members who may well have conspired with the Russians to tip the scales in the last election. So, that's a bummer....

On this, the historic, 100th episode of Deep State Radio (once called by Bridget Jones "the world's most important podcast") our usual band of troublemakers discuss just how much worse off the world is 100 podcasts later than it was we started. Could it all have to do with the man one NPR commentator referred to as "an escaped monkey from a cocaine study?" Which English monarch is most reminiscent...

Yes, this episode is about the rise of China and America's woeful unpreparedness for this epoch making event. But when guest Anna Fifield, Tokyo Bureau Chief of the Washington Post, sees a cockroach crawling through her Tokyo apartment during the broadcast, important lessons are learned. Tune in for the fun as Anna exits to another room and continues discussing the future of Asia and the world wit...

Their courtship will go down in history with those of Romeo & Juliet, Tristan & Isolde, and Goldman and Sachs. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have had their spats to be sure...but what's a little pre-nuclear foreplay between true loves. Now, all that is behind them it seems and we are heading for the steamy consummation of their relationship somewhere in Singapore...possibly, fittingly, in a a Sheld...

The president's wife carries industrial strength disinfecting wipes wherever she goes because her man is a germaphobe. But when it comes to the growing ebola outbreak in Africa, he seems anything but prepared. (Pro tip for POTUS: The wipes won't help.). In fact, when it comes to the big crises that might come from left field--epidemics, climate crises, cyber attacks, and the like, Trump's America...

One thing about the tough guys in the Trump Administration, when it comes to foreign policy they sure do have colorful fantasies. Mike Pompeo's wish list for Iran is as far fetched as a fairy-tale but less likely to come to life. In North Korea, the president's hopes and dreams are just as impossible. But some of his advisors have imaginations that run to the dark side and are served by the presid...

So much for the Nobel Peace Prize. So much for the celebration in Jerusalem. So much for teaching those Iranians a lesson. So much for witch hunts. So much for so much that our heads are spinning...much like this crazy world we all live on. On this episode of Deep State Radio Kori Schake, Rosa Brooks, Evelyn Farkas and Dan Benjamin discuss it all...and we have to be honest with you, the results ar...

With boatloads of trouble at home and a Congress unlikely to actually do anything between now and the election, Donald Trump needs to come up with some way to distract from the Mueller investigation and his deepening legal woes. Live Tweeting Fox & Friends is obviously not doing the trick nor is The Rudy Show. So why not blow up the Iran deal, open an embassy in Jerusalem and negotiate a nuclear d...

The president lies. He lies all the time. He can't help but lie. That's why his lawyers consider any move by Robert Mueller to be a perjury trap for Trump. Because any question Mueller and his team will ask is certain to produce over-heated prevarication, deception, and deception presented on a bed of utter bullshit. What does this mean for America? For our democracy? For our standing in the world...

It's a mad whirl these days with more mad than whirl going on. This week alone offers everything from the Iran deal (the one new NRA president Ollie North did back in the day) to the Iran deal (the one Donald Trump hates). It offers a debate about the use of torture (re: the Gina Haspel confirmation hearings) as well as a debate about the use of torture (having to watch Rudy Giuliani on television...

How are we supposed to concentrate on nuclear weapons dramas in the Middle East and the Koreas, new U.S. special forces deployments, Bibi Netanyahu doing his best Gallagher prop-comedy impression and all the other lunacy going on in the world with all the even more distracting lunacy going on in Washington? Can a strong mastery of acronyms help? Or is beer a better choice? Ploughshares Fund’s Joe...

Move are afoot--everywhere. In the Koreas, North and South are posturing pre-negotiations while back in the U.S. the president is writing his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. In the Middle East, Israel is working with the U.S. (and maybe the Saudis) to try to find a way to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal...and the Europeans are pushing hard in the other direction. Somewhere between the two U.S. policy...

Not since Chevy Chase's European Vacation has an American brought so much mayhem to U.S. Trans-Atlantic Relations. Perhaps new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo can start to make amends on his first trip as America's chief diplomat. But if the recent visit of French President Macron is any indication, it seems unlikely. For all the diplomatic foreplay between the two leaders, Macron achieved none of...

With John Bolton loose in the West Wing, what will happen to US foreign policy? Deep State Radio's Rosa Brooks hosts in David Rothkopf's absence, joined by regulars Kori Schake of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Ed Luce from the Financial Times, with a special guest appearance by Stanford University's Colin Kahl. Colin assures DSR listeners that Bolton's a nixer, not a fixer,...

When Donald Trump thinks about Kim Jong Un he sees Stormy Daniels. At least he sees what he saw that night long ago with Ms. Daniels, which is something that he wanted very very much, that he needed to the exclusion of everything else. He yearns for what Kim and Kim alone can give him. And that is a taste of historical redemption, something that might change the narrative that even Trump can see i...

The Syria strike was likely highly ineffective due to the fact that it was limited in impact, came without a long-term strategy or much likelihood of follow-up actions to end the use of chemical weapons or the wholesale slaughter of Syrians. But wait, it gets worse: It was also an illegal strike by almost every measure. But hey, that's not a bug it's a feature of the Trump approach to the presiden...

Every day in Trumpassic Era seems like a million years in geological time. Sex scandals, echoes of old pee tapes, pending missile strikes in search of a strategy, waves of national security experts leaving the White House, the president calling the former FBI director a “lying slimebag”, the FBI director launching a book that is the most stunning attack by a top former official on a sitting presid...

John Bolton’s first day as National Security Advisor presents him with the kind of opportunities he has waited his entire life for—a choice between worsening relations and possible military action against Syria, Iran and North Korea. Where will he succeed in making Trump’s terrible instincts worse? Or is there a chance he might become in his new role a more responsible voice creating a constructiv...

The day after Trump leaves office some things will change immediately (like a terrible management style or diplomacy via Twitter or bad relations with Mexico) and some things will take years to fix (like the institutions we have broken or repairing our standing as a reliable partner.). On this episode of Deep State Radio Kori Schake of the IISS, Rosa Brooks of Georgetown, Kelly Magsamen of the Cen...