The Realignment

For Day 20 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine coverage, Marshall spoke with Jon Wolfsthal, a member of the Science and Security Board at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and a former adviser to President Obama. They discussed the past, present, and future of U.S. nuclear policy, Ukraine's history with nuclear weapons, whether nuclear weapons promote peace or not, and the future of disarmament after Iraq and Libya. SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 19 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine and beyond coverage, Marshall spoke with Dr. Jennifer Sciubba, author of 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World. They start by discussing the over-hyped idea in the American foreign policy community that Russia's declining population and rising mortality rate signaled the decline of its foreign policy ambitions and then engage in a broader discussion on the implications of lower birthrates in wealthy, industrialized countries and why left and right approaches to push replacement-level family sizes have failed. SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 18 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine and beyond coverage, Marshall spoke with Dr. Sean McFate, professor of strategy at the National Defense University and author of The New Rules of War: How America Can Win--Against Russia, China, and Other Threats. They discussed Dr. McFate's central argument that conventional warfare no longer furthers broad political objectives, why "peace" as we know it is over, and what Ukraine instructs about what's real and what's hype when it comes to predictions about the future of warfare. SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 17 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine coverage, Marshall spoke with William Drozdiak, author of The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World and Fractured Continent: Europe's Crises and the Fate of the West. They discussed the degree to which Putin's invasion of Ukraine has (and hasn't) unified a Europe fractured by Brexit, the Syrian refugee crisis, questions of identity, and economic stagnation and the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron's relationship with Putin and his broader project to reform France and revitalize Europe. SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 16 of The Realignment's daily coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Mark Valentine, Head of Federal at Scale AI and Air Force veteran/F-16 pilot, joins to discuss how artificial intelligence/machine learning tools teamed with human analysts will reshape the battlefield and scale the satellite-based reconnaissance that revealed Russia's pre-invasion buildup. SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 15 of The Realignment's daily coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Marshall spoke with Dr. Robert Farley, author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force and The Battleship Book. They discussed why Russia has failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine, the debates over No-Fly-Zones and MiG-29 deliveries to Ukraine, the evolving nature of air combat from WWII to today, and the evolution of fighter aircraft alongside the transition from Generation 4 to 5. NYT Article on Ukraine's Air Force: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/world/europe/ukraine-air-force-russia.html SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 14 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine coverage, Marshall talks with Dr. Amy Zegart, author of Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. Dr. Zegart discusses how the release of classified intelligence before Russia's invasion of Ukraine will reshape geopolitics, how to think about intelligence failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, and provides an overview of the structure and make-up of the U.S. intelligence community. SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 13 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine coverage, Marshall spoke with return Realignment guest Elbridge Colby, co-founder of The Marathon Initiative, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, where he served as the lead official in the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. They discussed what Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the increased focus on the European theater means for Taiwan and America's Pacific positions. For more on Elbridge's recent book: The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in the Age of Great Power Conflict, check out our episode with him last September: https://podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/158-elbridge-colby-welcome-to-the-era-of-great/id1474687988?i=1000535266823&l=cs SEND US A TIP: https://app.swapstack.co/tips/the-realignment REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 12 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine coverage, Marshall spoke with Ian Buruma, historian and author of The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, from Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit. They discuss how much our judgment of Zelensky, Biden, and Putin's performances are shaped by myths and lessons from Winston Churchill's leadership during World War II, along with mistakes made by the British and French when it came to confronting Hitler in 1938. SUPPORT/SEND US A TIP: https://buy.stripe.com/bIYdRx0gc6qjaE... REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment

For Day 11 of The Realignment's daily Ukraine coverage, Marshall spoke with Stanford University history professor Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now, War! What Is It Good For? and the upcoming Geography Is Destiny, joins to discuss his recent piece for Time : The Russian Strategy Guiding the Invasion of Ukraine. Ian's piece: https://time.com/6155129/russian-strategy-guiding-invasion-ukraine/ SUPPORT/SEND US A TIP: https://buy.stripe.com/bIYdRx0gc6qjaE... REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment