Trip the Beltway Fantastic With Kelley Vlahos and Friends

After months of what seemed to be a stalled if not utterly failing Trump effort to end the Ukraine War, developments on this front have been hurtling at a breakneck speed this week. As of Tuesday there was still an expectation that the President might be able to announce something big as America’s turkeys and pumpkin pies were landing on groaning holiday tables this Thursday.To say there is a lot to do before such an event could take place is an understatement. First, the backlash against Trump’s 28-point peace plan has been swift and vitriolic. Remember, the forces lined up to reject any plan that offers Russia concessions are at the levers of legacy mainstream media and in concert with Congressional megaphones and both are already promoting a narrative of appeasement and capitulation. For many Americans, this is the only message they are receiving from the media on ongoing negotiations this week.Nevertheless, the 28-point plan has already shrunk to a 19-point plan after the Trump team met with Ukrainians in Geneva Monday. Trump officials, including fresh envoy, Secretary of Army Dan Discroll, have been meeting with Russians, too, trying to gauge what measures in either plan they will ultimately agree. It is fluid and fraught, and social media is covering it minute-to-minute so gossip, scoops, fake news and spin are all on the menu. Here to discuss all of this are two of the best analysts on the war and the potential end to it, Mark Episkopos and Mike Vlahos. Mark is a colleague of mine at Quincy where he is a research associate in our Eurasia program. Mike is a retired professor of military strategy and history and author of “Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change.”

This week marked one month since Donald Trump got both Hamas and Israel to agree to a 20-point peace plan for Gaza. Phase one was supposed to cease the fighting, see the exchange of hostages, flood the Strip with aid, and begin the process of Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza.By all accounts it’s not going so well. While the exchanges of live and dead hostages continue, the aid is not getting into the war- and famine-plagued population, which is now suffering from conditions not heard of since the turn of the last century, like scabies and scurvy (and much worse), as tons of uncollected refuge piles up and all drinking water is contaminated. Meanwhile, according to Al-Jazeera, the Israel government has violated the ceasefire 282 times as of Nov 11. Israel has shot at civilians 88 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 12 times, bombed Gaza 124 times, and demolished people’s properties on 52 occasions, according to Al Jazeera.Israel still occupies 58% percent of the Strip and is hardening its presence behind the “yellow line” with what looks like permanent structures. Israeli-backed militias continue to skirmish with Hamas. News of talks about the second phase have dwindled,and Hamas seems no closer to disarmament or giving up governance, yet. This puts the progress of the agreement at a virtual standstill, since Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm before it leaves the territory.Americans meanwhile have been standing up a multinational Civil-Military Coordination Center on the ground to help oversee the mandated flow of international humanitarian and security assistance into Gaza, and to monitor the ceasefire agreement. Details are scarce. Israeli and American media have reported that the Israelis are being sidelined a bit due to frustration with the fact that they have only let in a fraction of the aid that was agreed upon in Trump’s plan.Meanwhile there are reports that Arab nations in the region will not participate in an international stabilization force planned for Gaza (even if it gets a UN blessing) because the conditions are too chaotic and violent in the strip today. There are also rumors of the U.S. building a base at the center, which is 20 miles outside of Gaza, and housing American troops there, a story that was quickly denied by the Pentagon.If Washington was sidelining or pressuring Israel, it has yet to have an effect, and time is of the essence as more and more Palestinians are in mortal danger, if not by direct Israeli attacks but unsafe buildings at risk of collapse, disease, lack of food, medicine, and proper health care. More than 69,000 Palestinians have died in the war — that we know of — and this number is likely much, much higher and growing.Here to talk about the deal, its failures and what might be next are my two Quincy Institute colleagues, Annelle Sheline and Khaled Elgindy. Annelle is a research fellow in the Middle East program, and Khaled Khaled Elgindy is a new senior fellow at Quincy and an adjunct instructor at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

This week the U.S. military buildup off the coast of Venezuela continued, with two B-1 bombers flying as close to land as any have come in previous flights, according to Air & Space Force Magazine. This is a transparent  “show of force” as the B-1s did not turn off their transponders, wanting everyone, especially Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, to know exactly where they are. The bombers are capable of carrying cruise missiles and guided bombs that could be used in possible strikes on land and aren’t the first buzzing the area in recent weeks.They certainly aren’t the only assets in the region either. The USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group is on its way down to the region from the CENTCOM area of operations in the Middle East. It brings a host of weapons systems, not the least of which are F-35 and F-18 fighters with a range of missile capabilities, and accompanying destroyers that can fire Tomahawks and a likely Virginia class submarine also with the ability to launch Tomahawks.According to the Washington Post:The carrier will join an armada that has been assembled in the Caribbean. Other vessels there include the destroyers USS Jason Dunham, USS Gravely, USS Stockdale, the guided-missile cruiser Lake Erie, and the littoral combat ship Wichita. The Navy and Marine Corps also have combined to deploy the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group, a three-ship task force that includes additional sailors and Marines, off the coast of Venezuela.The Marines are with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. It includes Harrier fighter jets, helicopters and a battalion with hundreds of infantry Marines.The Pentagon in recent weeks also has deployed the MV Ocean Trader, a civilian ship converted into a floating Special Operations base that can dispatch troops on short notice.The ship’s presence in the Caribbean coincided with the deployment of select aircraft from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, an elite helicopter unit that supports the most dangerous missions in the world.Visuals analyzed by The Washington Post showed helicopters, including MH-6 Little Birds that commanders favor for Special Operations ground assaults, flying less than 90 miles from Venezuela’s coastline in early October.When the USS Gerald Ford arrives there will be more than 10,000 U.S. military personnel in the region. Not enough for a proper invasion, but a growing footprint nonetheless, and no doubt troubling for Maduro and Venezuela’s neighbors who are now getting a sense of what Trump’s effort to revitalize the Monroe Doctrine is shaping up to look like. Is this war? Maximum pressure? Regime change (pushed by one of the most powerful people in his cabinet, today, Marco Rubio?). Here to talk to us this week are two informed critics of the U.S. moves in the region, which also include U.S. military strikes on 12 alleged narco boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and at least 50 dead that we know of, as of Tuesday. Jen Kavanagh is a senior fellow & director of military analysis at Defense Priorities and Dan DePetris  syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune, a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek, and a fellow at Defense Priorities.More from Jennifer:After strong-arming a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump tries to do it again in UkrainePushing regime change in Venezuela is a terrible ideaMore from Dan:Trump’s Foreign Policy of Short-TermismDonald Trump brings the war on terrorism to the Caribbean

On Monday President Trump signed an agreement with Arab leaders that has been called a “miracle” and “historic.” It has largely (so far) paused the Israeli onslaught in the Gaza strip and served to release the remaining live Israeli hostages held by Hamas and upwards of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.Before attending the signing ceremony in Egypt, Trump was feted in triumph by Israeli officials at the Knesset. Aside from bestowing on him the moniker “President of Peace” they said he would be remembered “as a giant of Jewish history, one for whom we must look back two and a half millennia into the mists of time to find a parallel. Cyrus the Great. Donald J Trump, you are a colossus who will join the pantheon of history,” said Amir Ohana, Speaker of the Knesset. He referred to the 6th century BC Persian King who liberated the Jews from Babylonia to create their own self-governing province in the Persian Empire, also known as the Second Temple period.Benjamin Netanyahu was also met with thunderous applause and a long standing ovation, as was Steve Witkoff, whose name was even chanted. In his own remarks Trump went on for nearly an hour, charting the litany of things he had done for Israel since his first presidency, including recognizing the Israeli capital in Jerusalem, and acknowledging right there that it was due to the aggressive lobbying of the billionaires Miriam and Sheldon Adelson. They were strange speeches overall, in that the word “Palestinians” only came up once, even though the deal was to eventually afford the Palestinian people the same self-rule the Jewish people had enjoyed thanks to Cyrus in 540 BC.The speeches, too, mentioned very little about the United States, other than Washington had given everything it could — including $21.7 billion in taxpayer dollars — to the Israeli cause over the last two years. Trump even boasted that he had approved every weapon Netanyahu had asked for, even ones he never knew existed.This week I brought in my friend Ret. Col. Doug Macgregor to the show, because after the dust settles, one wonders what any of this has to do with America and the vaunted America First foreign policy that Trump had been promising since 2016. For the last two years, Americans have been told this was “our fight too” but it was never properly explained. It’s been clear in polling that Americans haven’t been convinced either, even Republicans are waning more visibly in their support for giving Israel everything it wants in order to wage a war that has resulted in the collective punishment and deaths of more than 67,000 Gazans, most of them civilians. Today, Gaza is in ruins and we are being told it was worth it. Was it?

This week Secretary of State Pete Hegseth called every single admiral and general to Virginia where the Pentagon is located for a meeting. It turned out to be a pair of speeches from Hegseth and President Donald Trump about what they are declaring to be the new American military era.In his own words, Hegseth described it as “no more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for war fighters.” “We are warriors. We are purpose built, not for fair weather, blue skies or calm seas. We're built to load up in the back of helicopters, five tons of zodiacs in the dead of night, in fair weather or foul, to go to dangerous places to find to find those who would do our nation harm and deliver justice on behalf of the American people, in close and brutal combat, if necessary. You are different. We fight not because we hate what's in front of us. We fight because we love what's behind us.”OUT are rules of engagement that restrict the necessary force, DEI, and “fat generals” walking the halls of the Pentagon. IN is a warrior ethos that only focuses on the “M” (military) and builds pride in that ethos. OUT is the word “defense.” IN is “killing and breaking things.”Trump followed with a much less cogent speech, at one point saying he wanted to make American cities National Guard training grounds and talked about the “enemy within.” Given that he has or is threatening to send troops to a number of U.S. cities over crime and anti-ICE “rioting” this immediately sparked another wave of panic in the press and among American Constitutionalists. This also comes as the president and his administration appears to be leaning into a renewed Drug War, particularly military action against Venezuela, and proposals for a new Authorization for Military Force targeting “narco-terrorists” that could, in practice, see U.S. military force used in upwards of 60 countries if not the homeland itself. And, according to the New York Times this week, not only are there Marco Rubio-efforts within the administration to engage in a regime change operation in Venezuela, but on Thursday the paper reported that the administration has decided that the U.S. is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels that his team has labeled terrorist organizations, and that suspected smugglers for such groups are “unlawful combatants.” This was conveyed by the administration in a confidential notice to Congress this week. There have been plenty of calls for military reform, even shaving the top officer ranks and instituting radical reforms to the culture of the institution, which has become sclerotic in its thinking, detached from American life and people, and unaccountable for its failures and corruptions.But is what Trump is doing the right way to go? I put this question to two veterans I most respect. Brandan Buck is a scholar and fellow at the CATO institute and an Afghanistan veteran. Dan McKnight is the founder and director of “Bring Our Troops Home” and also a veteran of the Afghanistan War.

The Trump Administration reportedly has a plan to reconstruct Gaza into a Riviera on the Mediterranean. What does that mean? According to reports, President Trump, with the help of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner, have laid out details for the total real estate redevelopment of the war torn Gaza Strip. This of course would require the relocation of the two million people, or what is left of the Palestinians after two years of war, who live there.According to the Washington Post this week, it is euphemistically called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust.The proposal “was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)” which is operating the Hunger Games-like food distribution centers at which more than 2000 Gazans have been killed, mostly from getting shot or shelled from Israeli military tanks. The financial planning and prospectus was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group, which has now distanced itself from the project. The plans, according to Washington Post, call for “a temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls ‘voluntary’ departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.”“Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new ‘AI-powered, smart cities’ to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food.”The plan estimates that every individual departure from Gaza would save the trust $23,000, compared with the cost of housing them somewhere in the Strip while the reconstruction takes place — so a financial incentive to push as many Palestinians out of Gaza as possible.Gaza’s western waterfront would be reserved for the “Gaza Trump Riviera,” boasting “world-class resorts” with the possibility of artificial islands similar to the palm-shaped ones built off the UAE city of Dubai.For many who have been watching this nightmare in Gaza unfold, the details of the plan do not come as a surprise. Not only did Trump announce something like this was coming shortly after his inauguration, Kushner was interviewed at Harvard in March 2024 before Trump was elected saying there was “very valuable” potential in Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip. Since then of course, tens of thousands more Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli forces and they are being deliberately starved as the Netanyahu Government makes it untenable to live there. Families are being forced completely from the North of the Strip and from Gaza City as a military incursion began in earnest this week. There are no serious signs of the war abating or a ceasefire agreement coming into fruition.The prospects of Kushner leading a real estate bonanza in this hellscape is, even beyond what we’ve seen over the last 22 months, a little hard to swallow. Here to talk about it with me are Jon Hoffman, a Middle East research fellow at the CATO Institute, and Rawan Abhari, who serves as an advocacy associate at the Quincy Institute.

The big Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, followed by the extraordinary convocation of European leaders, along with Ukrainian President Zelensky and Trump’s team on Monday at the White House, signaled that something is finally happening. The War in Ukraine may be finally coming to an end.Of course the fighting on the battlefield hasn’t stopped and all parties appear to acknowledge that an immediate ceasefire is not in the cards, at least not until some sort of framework with terms can be sealed. There is also a broad recognition that there will have to be some territorial concessions by Ukraine, which is losing on the battlefield, and some sort of security guarantees for Ukraine after the war short of NATO membership.But as they say the devil is in the details. The mainstream press was as always skeptical of Trump’s approach but assessed that in a “master class in diplomacy” (I’ll call it butt kissing) Europe had largely gotten what it had wanted — that Trump was listening, and the so-called adults in the room had been heard. Others saw things a bit differently. They surmised that Putin would never go for the “Article 5” like guarantees that Trump and the Europeans had been banging on about in front of the press, and certainly Western peacekeepers in Ukraine was a no go. They guessed that Trump was being deliberately vague. Moreover, word on Wednesday was that Putin may never accept a “bilateral” meeting with Zelensky, despite Trump’s assurances that it would happen.In short there was little substance to come out of the meeting, just a lot of solid if not good vibes. While there is nothing wrong with a positive momentum, the lack of detail could cause a whole lot of crossed wires and given the mistrust and hostilities built up over the years, it wouldn’t be too difficult to see this going south if given certain triggers. Two of the best analysts on the Ukraine war joined us this week to sort this all out. James Carden is a writer and publisher of the Realist Review. Mike Vlahos is a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a weekly contributor on the John Batchelor Show. More from Carden: Sixty-Three Years, Nothing Has ChangedPresidents Trump and Putin Must Seize the Moment in AlaskaMore from Vlahos:Accepting the Truth About Ukrainian Casualties is the Only Real Path to PeaceAmerica's Military Is in Big Trouble

Hello and welcome to Trip the Beltway Fantastic. On July 17, the only Catholic church in Gaza - the Holy Family Catholic Church – was hit by Israeli fire, killing three, wounding scores of others including the parish priest. Israel says it was a mistake,  a stray tank shelling, igniting a firestorm particularly among American Catholics and Christians, many who had already been shifting support away from Israel on the issue of Gaza.Catholics including Sohrab Ahmari, who joins us here today, jumped on comments by people like Luke Moon of the Catholic Philos Project, who  lashed out against critics of Israel in the wake of the Holy Family church attack. In comments called “unacceptable” and a “bridge too far,” Moon said ““Church leaders are quick to blame Israel (and Israel has apologized),” he added. “They never speak so clearly about Islamists. They’re afraid to. It’s not courageous to attack the Jews. It’s easy. It’s been easy for almost 2000 years. One would think that the leaders of a billion member Church might not be so afraid, and yet they are.”Meanwhile Evangelical Christian Joe Berry,  managing editor of the conservative Onion, the Babylon Bee, is probably regretting comments he made about the outcry after the church shelling. He went on a rant saying “this won’t be easy for people to hear, but there are only 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza and they all support Hamas.” “I don’t know about anyone else, but as a Catholic who supports and prays for my persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in Gaza and the Holy Land, I won’t be sharing or boosting anything produced by the Babylon Bee or its anti-Catholic, dispensationalist editors ever again,” wrote author and Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson.Berry doubled down suggesting this was all an effort to turn Christians against Israel, calling it “​​evil forces trying to break up MAGA along racial and religious sectarian lines and it’s encouraging to know some people of wisdom and discernment see right through it.”While polling still shows strong Republican support for Israel overall, there is a discernible drop overall of Americans’ tolerance for its war in Gaza after more than 22 months of civilian death, destruction and starvation. There is a notable shift in attitudes, even among Republicans, of Americans under 30. MAGA, which includes a strong faith based element, has been divided over the issue, as Berry said, but the blame, my guests here today are likely to say, are Israel actions and the Trump administration’s inability to stop them, more than “evil forces” trying to systematically divide the coalition.The disillusionment of course goes far beyond the Catholics. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an Evangelical Christian, has come out to call what is going on in Gaza a genocide and has specifically invoked her faith to explain why she is speaking out so vociferously against the Israeli government on this front. “Yesterday I spoke to a Christian pastor from Gaza. There are children starving. And Christians have been killed and injured, as well as many innocent people. If you are an American Christian, this should be absolutely unacceptable to you,” he posted on X this week. Online outrage included Erik Prince, no pacifist or even critic of Israel, who actually accused Israel of taking “pot shots” at the cross on the top of the Holy Family Church. He too said he was finished supporting American funding for Israel’s war on Gaza. He said Hamas “need to die” but "But the real losers are the normal people in Gaza just trying to live.” So what is going on here? I wanted to drill down on how Christians and particularly Catholics on the conservative end of the spectrum are part of the backlash against Israel and may play a bigger role in potential policy change where the war is concerned — and what that might look like.Joining me are the aforementioned Sohrab Ahmari, who is the US bureau chief of Unherd magazine, and author of Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty – and What to Do About It (2023).Dave DeCamp, new editor of Antiwar.com and host of Antiwar NewsAnd Andrew Day, writer and editor at the American Conservative magazine

According to the UN this week, some 1054 civilians have been killed trying to get food in Gaza since May. Some 766 of them were killed at food distribution points operated by the Global Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by the U.S. and Israel and uses private military contractors for security. These contractors are beginning to come forward with horror stories about their colleagues using live ammunition, stun grenades, and pepper spray in crowd control and may be responsible for shooting civilians. This is vehemently denied by the GHF and the American contracting companies — Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions — but the the reality is that armed American mercenaries are working alongside Israeli military in a combat zone and in a situation in which scores of civilians, desperate for food, are being shot at with guns, tanks, pepper spray and tear gas.So whatever gave the U.S. government the idea that sending U.S. contractors to do this would be a good thing? While hired guns had been an integral part of U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror, and have worked with governments across the globe on humanitarian and rescue missions, even humanitarian work, this feels different. Biden and now Trump have vowed to keep U.S. military boots off the ground in Israel-Gaza, so is this a way to keep that pledge while assisting Israel directly in its military aims? Does that still make us co-beligerents? What happens if these contractors get hurt or killed while they are there, what if they kill Palestinians? What happens then?Here to talk about all of this and more this week is Morgan Lerette, a former Blackwater contractor who worked for the company during its infamous time in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and later went back to Iraq as a commissioned Army intelligence officer. Lerette has since written a critical memoir called “Guns, Girls, and Greed: I Was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq”#USmilitary #USmilitarycontractors #Gaza #Israel #GHF #foodaidGaza #MiddleEast #foreignpolicy #nationalsecurity #Blackwater #IDF

The Trump administration is reeling from a potential disaster but one of its own making. After months of roiling criticism over DOGE cuts and deportations, Trump has found himself in a situation in which his loyal base is revolting over his refusal to release the Epstein files. Not only that, his administration — including Attorney General Pam Bondi — has gone from saying an infamous Epstein client list does not exist, to asserting the files themselves were “created” by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and that there is essentially “nothing to see here” but more left-wing attacks whipping up against him.It would seem that this time, the spin job is not working with MAGA. This follows what is becoming a long hot summer in which the president has seemingly taken a number of foreign policy turns against what many in his base had been expecting: he is now threatening Russian President Putin with tariffs and even bombing him, while pledging more weapons to Ukrainian president Zelensky and in June, decided to bomb Iran and boasted he destroyed its nuclear program when there is no evidence to support that claim. Essentially, no ending the war in Ukraine as promised, and no diplomacy over war in the Middle East as promised. In particular, the base sees deference to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel as the curious common denominator here, given his insistence on an ‘America First’ foreign policy. For many, it just doesn’t feel like it.Here to talk with me about this are two of the most persistent and capable investigative reporters I know — Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil of the Grayzone. Max, the editor of the Grayzone, has had a long career in journalism publishing widely in the The Nation, Daily Beast, New York Times, Salon, and more, he has also written several books, including the latest The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump Anya is a journalist  for Greyzone and a documentary filmmaker whose reporting has taken her to a number of international hot spots and conflict zones including Honduras, the Palestinian territories, the Korean Peninsula and Venezuela. Her  book, Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire was published in 2024.

As the West focuses on and indulges Israel’s wars in the Middle East, U.S. security policy toward China, supposedly the ‘pacing threat’ , seems neglected. Is that such a bad thing?One of the most interesting threads to come out of the last six months of new Trump foreign policy is that China has not been the focus, other than a tariff war which as of this writing, does not appear to have blown up in the catastrophic ways predicted in the press, at least not yet. While Trump has been perceived as “bullying” other countries into not doing business with Beijing, the U.S. and China last week came to an important trade agreement aimed at deescalating the tensions.What has been missing is the escalation on the security front. Aside from boilerplate pronouncements by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that China may be an imminent threat to Taiwan and ongoing efforts to rally allies and partners in the region like the Philippines and Pacific Islands to the cause of playing hedge against Beijing, there seems to be a lagging interest in picking a fight with China on that level today.One could say the administration has its hands full with Ukraine and the Middle East. The first Trump administration identified China as the “pacing threat” and began to shift all of the resources and energy of the military industrial complex in that direction. Realists now in the administration, like Elbridge Colby, now Undersecretary for Policy Planning at the DoD, have charged that the U.S. must extricate from the Ukraine War to focus on maintaining our interests in the Indo Pacific. So what happened? And more importantly, have the events of the last several months, including the decision to bomb Iran, changed the dynamics of the U.S. posture in other parts of the world, and, just as importantly, how China views the Trump administration strategically? Much has been written on trying to assess the impact of the Ukraine War on China’s calculations vis–a-vis the U.S. — so what is Xi Jinping thinking today?We talk to two informed analysts on this topic: Ali Wyne, Senior Research and Advocacy Adviser, U.S.-China, at the International Crisis Group, also author of America’s Great-Power Opportunity, and Dan Grazier, director of the  National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center. More from Wyne:Three Potential Pitfalls of Trump’s Approach to ChinaDebating Whether China Is Getting Stronger or Weaker Won’t Make U.S. Policy More SoundMore from Grazier: Taiwan Up Close: Why Geography Complicates InvasionWhy US shipbuilding is the worst and more money won't save it

News is moving so rapidly in the Middle East right now. Israel launched strikes against Iran on June 13, the Iranians have been retaliating in kind, and then the U.S. jumps in with its own strikes against Iran’s nuclear program on June 21. On Monday the Iranians engaged in limited retaliatory strikes on the U.S. military base in Qatar and by the end of the day Trump announced a ceasefire which was barely holding Tuesday morning.Wow, my head is spinning. I am lucky to have Retired Col. Douglas Magregor here to sort this all out for us and give us his always astute, always realist and common sense perspective. For some context, Col. Macgregor was the "squadron operations officer who essentially directed the Battle of 73 Easting" during the first Gulf War. He was also a military planner during the NATO intervention in the Bosnian war in 1999 and one of the most important critics of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad in 2003. He has been a solid voice for military reform and restraint for the last 25 years and is invaluable in his military and geopolitical analysis today.

Ukraine’s attacks on Russia bases and aircraft on June 1 has sent the media and Ukraine’s supporters in Congress and Europe into a flurry of triumphal metaphors and hyperbole, from “David and Goliath” to “daring”, “stunning”, “audacious” and one “bad-ass” operation. Ukrainian military officials said 41 Russian aircraft were hit, including strategic bombers and surveillance planes, with some destroyed and others damaged. This unfortunately has unleashed a week of attacks on both sides, but the most fierce from Russia, which over the course of Monday and Tuesday, launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Kviv, Karkhiv, and Odessa, hitting civilian areas including one administrative building of a maternity ward. If the gloves weren’t off, they are coming off now with a seeming vengeance.In a matter of days, the peace process, already struggling for oxygen, seems as if on life support. President Trump has threatened to walk away and has expressed his share of frustration with both Presidents Putin and Zelensky. The second round of talks in Istanbul seemed to have bore no fruit, with both sides issuing demands that the Quincy Institute’s Anatol Lieven called “completely mutually incompatible” suggesting “that at present neither side is in fact interested in an early peace.”So where does this renewed fighting leave efforts to end this war? Will the Russians choose to just keep fighting and taking territory through the summer? How much can Ukraine take? Will the US at some point cut off aid? Will Europe be able to step in and fill the gap?Here to talk about this on the show are two good friends and experts, George Beebe, the director of the Grand Strategy program at the Quincy Institute, and Mark Episkopos, Eurasia Research Fellow.More from George:What the giddy reaction to Ukraine's surprise attacks says about usTrump’s strategy of peaceMore from Mark:Despite war, Moscow is boomingFor US in Georgia, political meddling is a hard habit to break

Just before Memorial Day on Friday the Trump administration let go scores of staff from the National Security Council. The usual howling from the media and foreign policy establishmentarians ensued, but the Trump administration was signaling his intent to do this even during his first term. His point: that over the years — particularly in the Bush I and Obama administrations — the NSC has not only gotten bloated and unwieldy, but for President Trump in particular having much of the career staff burrowed in from the largely centrist/liberal foreign policy establishment, it was posing a real obstacle to his own agenda. The purge, or you can call it for dramatic purposes the Memorial Day weekend massacre, also comes on the heels of Trump re-assigning his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to represent the U.S. at the United Nations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been put into place as interim National Security Advisor and Andy Baker, foreign policy advisor to VP JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, who advises Trump, have been appointed NSC deputies. Alex Wong, who was serving as Waltz’s deputy, has been reassigned elsewhere.All of this is against the backdrop of international foreign policy developments of which the U.S. is at the center: a potential nuclear deal with Iran, ongoing attempts to bring the war to an end in Ukraine and a ceasefire and an end to the siege and killing in Gaza. To say that personnel is policy and that each hiring and firing of top people will have an effect on how each of these core issues is resolved is an understatement, especially when one considers the real split in the Trump base over what kind of approach the administration should take. On one hand, the Waltz’s of the world would rather Trump take a hard line on Putin, China, and even go to war with Iran. Vance’s orbit is more about clearly defining what the U.S. interest is in each — and then acting accordingly, preferably not rushing in with guns blazing and putting U.S. servicemembers in harm’s way.Here to sort out all of these dynamics is my good friend Curt Mills who is the Executive Director and Editor of the American Conservative magazine. He has written and spoken extensively about the Trump orbit and the dramatic shift in Washington when it comes to Republican politics and who is driving the conversation and policy here in the Imperial City.

This last week has been dizzying when it comes to Middle East news. As we speak the President is in the region and has already made a number of announcements regarding a massive arms deal for Saudi Arabia and another for Qatar. He announced lifting sanctions on Syria and even met with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new president of Syria, the first time leaders from the two countries have met in 25 years.Meanwhile, Trump has promised a huge announcement on Gaza (which as of this recording we have yet to hear) and his administration is engaged in ongoing talks with Iran over a possible new nuclear deal. This all comes a week after Trump announced a truce with the Houthis in the Red Sea.All of this is happening without direct input from Israel, by all accounts. In fact, the president and his team have made a number of statements over the last week that have the nerves of the Netanyahu government jangling. Perhaps the most telling was when Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador to the UN who is probably the most Zionist of his senior team, said bluntly to reporters, “The U.S. doesn’t have to tell Israel everything that it is going to do.” Both Witkoff and Trump have said they want the war to end, while the U.S. has been engaging in direct talks with Hamas, getting Edan Alexander, an American hostage from Oct. 7, released this week as well. Rather than criticized, Trump seems to be gaining a lot of steam from his base on these recent moves, which one could say is 180-degree difference from the deferential treatment he gave Netanyahu and his government during the first Trump term. MAGA is not only split, but the most vocal of them appear very much attuned to the narrative that blind and unconditional fealty to Israel is not America First, and that a more realist foreign policy, one that puts U.S. interests first, is the course that they voted for and want Trump to take. They are also, like Trump in his prepared remarks in Riyadh this week, outwardly eschewing the influence of the neoconservatives in U.S. foreign policy.This of course is the real “conservative foreign policy” — as my guests today will tell you. Please welcome Brandan Buck, senior fellow at the CATO institute, who will be soon publishing his PhD dissertation, Partisans of the Old Republic: Right-Wing Opposition to U.S. Foreign Policy; and Andrew Day, senior editor at the American Conservative magazine who is also a prolific writer and a PhD.More from Andrew:Trump’s Huge Middle East OpportunityTrump’s Russia-Ukraine ResetMore from Brandan: The Inspiring Legacy of Anti-War ConservatismThe Cognitive Shift: How the Terrorist Label May Lead to Another Forever War

Trump administration has worked doggedly to follow through on its promise to end the war. President Trump started talks with Moscow, which didn’t make the Ukrainians and the EU happy. He then worked to bring Zelensky into the fold after some tense moments in the Oval Office.Trump then tried to bring about a ceasefire, which really didn’t work as both sides blamed each other for not keeping it. Meanwhile, Europe is seemingly determined to undermine all of it by continuing to call for more weapons and aid to Ukraine, despite all evidence on the ground that this war cannot be won on the battlefield, and the longer the war continues, Ukraine will be in a worse position at the bargaining table.Most recently the Trump administration suggested a peace plan in which Russia would keep Crimea. This didn’t go down so well with the Ukrainians. More recently Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Luhansk, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as part of Russia is an imperative to a peace deal, along with lifting sanctions, withdrawing lawsuits and cancelling arrest warrants, as well as returning Russian assets subjected to the so-called freeze in the West. Anything else, Sergei?Everyone seemingly wants “to talk” but they don’t really want to talk, leaving Trump to say he will walk away from it all if he has to. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterating this said Sunday that the Trump administration will decide this week whether to continue pursuing a negotiated settlement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or to turn its attention to other matters.This week will be “very important,” Mr. Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have to make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in or if it’s time to sort of focus on some other issues that are equally if not more important in some cases.”“But we want to see it happen,” he added. “There are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic of course as well. We’re close, but we’re not close enough.”Are they over their heads, or are these just negotiating gambits? What are the prospects that the admin actually does turn away to other priorities if Trump can't see winning here? And if so, what would happen.Here to talk with us today are two extremely straight shooters on the subject of the Ukraine War, and have been from the beginning. Michael Vlahos, who has had a long career teaching military strategy and policy and has been a regular Sunday staple on the John Batchelor Show for over 20 years. James Carden is a writer and senior advisor to the American Committee for US-Russia Accord. Please check out their substacks!Where are the US-Russia and US-Ukraine peace talks going? For months now, the

Within just a year we have gone from government censorship of so-called disinformation, brought on by reactionary responses to COVID and Russia-gate, to foreign students literally being abducted off the streets and thrown into detention centers, without charge, for having the wrong attitudes (whether in op-eds, campus protests, or in the case of Badar Khan Suri, a father-in-law problem) about the Israeli government and the war in Gaza. The Trump administration has called this a threat to “US foreign policy” and claims the right to throw these scholars and students out of the country under the Immigration and Nationality Act.The Bill of Rights is being tested like nothing before in recent history. Critics wonder how far it will go until citizens, particularly those working in advocacy and media organizations that deal specifically in foreign policy and national security, are caught in the crosshairs. My guest this week needs no introduction. John Kiriakou was a career CIA officer who ran afoul of the agency when he divulged its water boarding practices as “torture” during the Global War on Terror. He did time in prison for this, and rather than dissolve into the shadows after his nearly 3-year stint, came out more emboldened than ever to speak the truth and fight for others’ right to seek it. He has been an integral part of the whistleblower community, a podcaster and radio host, author, intelligence expert, and staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution.We talked about the administration’s attack on free speech over the Israel issue, its attempts to deport Green Card and Student Visa holders, and what has happened to the once energized First Amendment movement on the Right. We also talked about President Trump’s moves to dismantle the Deep State, which John says is a good thing, and Trump’s seeming moves toward finding a diplomatic pathway, rather than war, with Iran.More from John:Gabbard Could Help Change US Foreign PolicyPardon Me for Being AngryDon’t miss Kiriakou on his new podcast with Michelle Witte and Ted Rall, the DeProgram Show

To say that the European debate over the war in Ukraine — at least in the elite halls of government, academia and the professional classes — is virtually non-existent, might be an understatement. For all of the grousing my friends in the realism and restraint world have done about the hive-mind thinking about Russia and the war since the 2022, it is nothing like the conformist strictures that exists in the European capitals of Brussels, UK, France, Sweden, Germany and elsewhere in the so-called transatlantic community.In recent months, as Trump has staked out a new direction for the U.S. policy on the war — toward a negotiated settlement and away from endlessly arming a war of attrition — the Europeans have dug further in.First, they were gobsmacked when they were not invited to initial talks with Russian leadership in the first days of the administration. Then they were taken aback by the Trump team’s insistence that Europe had to take more responsibility for its defense. Leaders like Emmanuel Macron of France and Keir Starmer of the UK used this as an opening to push for more military assistance and support for Ukraine, even proposing a peacekeeping force of European soldiers, as well as suggesting boots on the ground if the Russians became more aggressive. This, especially, has been dismissed widely as even supporters acknowledge much could not be done without the backing of the U.S. military.At the root of it all is that the majority of European leadership, particularly in the EU, has not moved very far, if at all, from their initial position that Vladimir Putin and the Russians pose an existential threat to Europe. That is much different from the Trump position that Russia needs to be brought in from isolation in order to end the war and plan for a new security reality in Europe that does not involve NATO closing in on Russia and leaving the region on a perpetual war footing.Here to talk with me about this and more are two prolific writers on European security, diplomacy, and politics, who have rare, alternative takes on current affairs relating to the Ukraine War, NATO and the elite foreign policy establishment in Europe. Please welcome Ian Proud, who was a member of His Britannic Majesty's Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019 and recently published his memoir, "A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019” and posts at his substack, The Peacemonger.Also, Eldar Mamedov, he has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and as a diplomat in Latvian embassies in Washington D.C. and Madrid. From 2009 to 2022, Mamedov has served as a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and was in charge of the EP delegations for inter-parliamentary relations with Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula.More from Ian: US-Europe divide on SWIFT could derail Ukraine peace talksEven if the war ended tomorrow, Ukraine could end up broke by 2026Once never-Trump, Britain's leaders scrambling to stay relevantMore from Eldar:What happens to EU's anti-war bloc without Marine Le Pen?Cracks in European ‘unity’ on UkraineMcCarthyism, European style: The elite crackdown on Ukraine dissent

We are into the second week of U.S. airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. U.S. warplanes have targeted Houthi infrastructure, weapons depots and leadership in the capital city of Sana’a as well as other towns and villages in northern Yemen, which have invariably caused civilian injury and death, though the actual numbers are hard to pin down.Not surprisingly, the Houthis have responded with their own attacks against U.S. warships in the Red Sea. Their missiles have been intercepted, but — like the last 17 months — the constant volley of missiles has kept the American Navy busy, in harm’s way, and exhausting a lot of expensive missiles, nearly $2 billion worth of arms, since the end of last year.Meanwhile, the Trump administration appears committed to fighting the Houthis in an open-ended exercise that looks and feels like a war, yet it has not been authorized by Congress and it has not been fully explained to the American people. To top it off, an embarrassing scandal exposing top officials’ use of a signal chat room to plan the initial attack on the Houthis in Yemen on March 15 has made the administration — in particular, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who appeared to let Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg “in” to the chat — amateurish and itching to flex militarily, even despite some push back from VP J.D. Vance.This all has a broken record feel to it. President Obama enjoined the Saudi war against the Houthis in 2014; the conflict there, which the U.S. supported with weapons and other military assistance, crushed the population and continued all through the first Trump and the early Biden administration. Airstrikes against the Houthi militants were resumed after the Houthis said it would attack Israel-connected ships in the Red Sea after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel spurred the Israeli war in Gaza, which has now killed over 50,000 people. International shipping has been disrupted — which the Trump administration is now using as an excuse to pummel Yemen. But is it our fight? Is it a useless one?Here to talk about this are my friends and experts Annelle Sheline, who is a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute, specializing in Middle East affairs, and Jennifer Kavanagh of Defense Priorities, who specializes in military affairs. More from Annelle:Trump appears all in for Netanyahu's political survivalJordan’s Abdullah at White House, looking down the barrel of a gunMore from Jennifer: US airstrikes against Houthis show there's 'free riding' in Red Sea, tooWashington must get out of Europe’s way on defense

“We Live in a Fascist Dictatorship”“Mad King Trump’s Tariff Disaster”“Trump’s neofascism is here now. Here are 10 things you can do to resist”“A Guide to Trump’s Fascist Presidency — From Ignoring Judge to Erasing History”“Fit for a king? Trump’s moves challenge world order and U.S. bureaucracy.”These are all headlines I found in five minutes this morning Googling “Trump fascist“ “Trump fascism” “Trump king” and “Is Trump a monarch?”For weeks, the legacy media and mostly the left side of the commentariat has been declaring the end of American democracy, invariably calling Trump the resurrection of Hitler, Mussolini and/or Mad King George. Most of these proclamations are steeped in a “we told you so” energy, as every day brings new outrage over executive orders, constitutionally questionable detentions, and Trump’s seeming expansionist ambitions. But honestly, when do we stop blaming the symptom without looking for the cause? If Trump is the new emperor, we, with our cult worship of the presidency, and Congress, with its corruption and spinelessness, have given the White House the extraordinary powers with which to eschew the checks and balances of our Constitutional republic. In other words, did we ask for this?Here to talk about this are two scholars in politics, history, and culture from two points on the political spectrum. Gene Healy comes from the libertarian perspective. He is vice president for policy at the Cato Institute and is a contributing editor to Liberty magazine. He is also the author of The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, which was updated in 2024. We also welcome Daniel Bessner of the American Prestige podcast. He is also the Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at the University of Washington and is the author of Rethinking U.S. World Power: Domestic Histories of U.S. Foreign Relations among other books.