Robert Wright's Nonzero

Mickey’s French election update ... What Macron and Biden (should) have learned re: Ukraine ... Bob’s brilliant idea for a Biden ceasefire proposal ... Bob vs. Anne Applebaum on negotiating with Russia ... How prolonging the war could make Putin more dangerous ... Will Elon Musk end Twitter’s reign of blue-check terror? ... Is AOC the 2024 candidate we’ve been waiting for? ... Bob comes to collect on his New Year’s covid prediction ... Disney’s “niche sexuality” promotion and other signs of Dem midterm doom ... Sarah Palin—and her totally human hands—run for congress ... Parrot Room preview: Bob and Mickey agree in disagreeing with a recent Richard Hanania essay, David McCormick campaign update, Jan. 6 seven hour gap discussion part two, are electric cars really the future?, the Tiger Woods comeback, mystery Ukrainian soldier rabbit hole, William Burns memoir, exercising cognitive empathy for Trump, Bob’s underappreciated Will Smith take, and does Ray Dalio pass Mickey’s BS test? ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Bob asks Joe: What are the chances this war goes nuclear? ... Joe lays out Russia’s and America’s nuclear arsenals ... What would make Putin roll the nuclear dice? ... Why atrocities in Bucha could make for a longer, bloodier war ... Joe: The US withdrawal from Cold War-era treaties led to the current nuclear arms race ... How US foreign policy laid the ground for Putin’s invasion ... Bob searches for silver linings. Joe sees a darkening cloud. ... Assessing the Biden administration’s foreign policy record ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Mickey admits he was wrong about everything ... Four takes on the Chris Rock-Will Smith Oscars incident ... Bob: Biden shouldn’t be riffing about regime change ... The Russian redeployment in Ukraine ... Attack of the (alleged) ATV-riding Ukrainian techies ... Will Biden try to draw out the war or push for a deal? ... The roadblocks standing in the way of a peace deal in Ukraine ... Mickey: The press is going easy on Biden because the alternative is Kamala ... Will Mitt Romney make Joe Manchin irrelevant? ... The growing movement to restore standardized testing in California schools ... Parrot Room preview: Should Mickey get the fourth Covid vaccine shot, the Bob Saget saga, Eric Schmidt takes over huge chunks of the government, ringing the dinner bell for the extraterrestrials, Eric Garcetti’s aborted ambassadorship to India, a survey of international elections, the Vladimir Putin bio, Bob’s two theories about what was going on in Will Smith’s head, and the gaps in Trump’s January 6 phone records ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Update: Nikita exits Russia ... How big and costly is the Russian exodus? ... The state of peace talks ... “Russian QAnon” and the landscape of lay opinion in Russia ... Lamenting the logic of great power competition in light of Ukraine ... Is Russian state media as tightly controlled as Westerners think? ... Is Putin's hold on power slipping? ... What remains of independent media in Russia? ... Nikita’s hopes (and fears) for the future of Russia ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

The righteous indignation of the blue checkmarkless ... Is Russia preparing the ground for a peace deal? ... Why didn’t the US try to broker a deal earlier? ... How much restraint is Putin exercising? ... What shapes US public opinion on foreign policy? ... Reasons to think peace may not be near ... Mickey’s sympathy for Ginni Thomas ... Bob and Mickey do their best to get each other arrested ... The alleged tensions between Team Biden and Team Kamala ... Trump’s dimming presidential prospects ... Parrot Room preview: Bloggingheads rebranding news, more questions about Bob Saget’s death, midterm trouble for Republicans, more theories about why preschool sucks, the origins of symmetry, Dave Rubin’s children, Zemmour falters in France, Oliver Stone’s Ukraine doc, the dangers of loose talk about chemical weapons, both Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hayes retweet Bob, how the Ukraine war is winning converts for the Blob, more OJ Simpson, and the documentary My Architect ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Kishore’s diplomatic career and recent book, Has China Won? ... Kishore: America is walking towards a cliff when it comes to handling China ... Is the US making a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely? ... China’s perception of the Uyghur situation ... How anti-China sentiment in America increases Chinese nationalism ... Diagnosing the degeneration of US-China relations since 2012 ... Bob: Has technology empowered the Chinese to petition their government? ... Good news! China has no plans to export its political system ... Assessing the threat Beijing poses to freedom in America ... China’s view of the Ukraine invasion ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Mickey engineers an unholy Bob Wright-Michael McFaul chimera ... Is Putin losing or winning slowly? ... What China stands to gain and lose from war in Ukraine ... Bob: Biden’s approach to China seems to be driven by politics, not diplomacy ... Is Xi’s leadership on shaky ground? ... Bob: China is not seeking to impose its political system on the world ... Climate change as the tip of the apocalypse iceberg ... Is Zelenskyy the hero US media makes him out to be? ... How Biden’s Ukraine policy may affect Democrats at the polls ... Iran nuclear talks enter the on-again part of the cycle ... Ten things we got wrong in the pandemic ... Parrot Room preview: Hunter Biden, anti-Asian hate crimes, civil service reform, the Michael McFaul Apology of the Week, OJ Simpson and Natalie Wood theories continued, Oliver Stone’s Ukraine doc, some mild venting about Timothy Snyder, Mickey reveals the results of his Jeffrey Toobin-Jeffrey Goldberg-Vladimir Putin poll, Steve Earle, Mickey’s favorite piece of writing of the week, some studies say preschool sucks, Ketanji Brown Jackson and pedophilia, and Bob talks about a dream ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Eli’s assessment of the Russo-Ukrainian War to date ... Is a negotiated end to the war in sight? ... Bob and Eli debate the implications of the leaked 2014 Victoria Nuland call ... Is the war in Russia’s interest? Or Putin’s? ... What options remain for more forceful intervention (that won’t lead to nuclear war)? ... Eli’s idea for a UN alternative sans Russia and (maybe) China ... Debating America's track record as keeper of the “rules-based order” ... Bob and Eli unite against the new McCarthyism ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Would Ukraine actually agree to cede the Donbas to Russia? ... Bob: Xi Jinping could end the war ... Is Putin using madman theory to his advantage, or is he actually going nuts? ... The pros and cons of regime change in Russia ... Is Ukraine becoming Syria? ... How George W. Bush helped alienate Putin from the West ... Russia’s new incentive to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal ... America’s curious policy on Ukraine and NATO ... Mickey: There’s no necessary link between populism and autocracy ... Parrot Room preview: Oren Cass’s revisionist account of Adam Smith, a relatively wholesome sex scandal at the Southern border, Mickey takes issue with “sneering, overconfident” legal scholar Akhil Amar, new evidence concerning Bob Saget’s death, old rumors concerning Natalie Wood’s death, the American trucker convoy flops, Bob plays damning audio from Jake Tapper, the hospital bombing in Mariupol, complaints about Michael McFaul, Putin, a reader’s question about Bob’s OJ Simpson theory, and Facebook and Twitter’s pro-Ukraine/anti-Russia stances ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Understanding the thought process that led Putin to invade Ukraine ... Could diplomacy have prevented the invasion? ... Imagining possible endings of the war – and what comes after ... Reviewing the events that drove the West and Putin’s Russia apart ... How Moscow viewed the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine ... Could a palace coup in Moscow reset US-Russia relations? ... Bob and Katrina worry that the planet can’t afford a second cold war ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe