Podcast
China’s Bid for Space Supremacy in the Middle East
Lawrence Rubin, Lincoln Hines, and Dayana Alagirova examine China's space diplomacy across the Middle East and North Africa by analyzing how regional states—specifically Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran—utilize space partnerships with Beijing to…
Virtuous Violence and the Psychology of Nuclear Escalation
Paul Slovic, Rose McDermott, and Daniel R. Post argue that nuclear strategy too often assumes rational, stable decision-making despite decades of psychological research on bounded rationality and bias. Drawing on survey experiments based on the Sagan and…
How the Soviet Collapse Shaped North Korea
Dr. Young argues that the fall of the USSR profoundly influenced Pyongyang's grand strategy. Rather than embracing reform, he explains that North Korea interpreted the Soviet collapse as a failure of ideological fervor and leadership.
25 Years of the US-China Commission: Taiwan, Tech Competition, and Over-the-Horizon Risks
Twenty-five years after its creation, how does the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission evaluate the evolving threat landscape? TNSR Editor-in-Chief Sheena Chestnut Greitens hosts Randall Schriver (Chairman of the Board, Institute for Indo-Pacific…
The Balance of Control and Vulnerability: Cyber and Nuclear Risks
Dr. Jackie Schneider moves beyond Hollywood analogies and pop-culture fears, and argues that common understandings of how cyber operations impact nuclear stability are often misguided. She unpacks three specific pathways to escalation—deliberate,…
Challenges and Opportunities for AI in Military Systems
Michael Horowitz discusses his recent TNSR article tackling misconceptions about AI, how militaries have long used algorithms, and why use cases and data matter—especially when nuclear applications rely on simulated data. He examines human-machine teaming,…
Beyond the Hype: The Reality of Precision-Strike Weapons in Ukraine
Cameron Tracy joins to discuss his TNSR article on “technological surprise” and “normalization through use” in the Russo-Ukrainian war. He explains how forecasting about warfare often overweights extreme scenarios and is reinforced by professional and…
Psychological Biases in the Era of Nuclear Weapons and AI
Rose McDermott explains how common judgment biases can undermine nuclear deterrence and strategic stability, especially under time pressure and with emerging technologies like AI, using Kahneman’s Type 1 (fast, intuitive) and Type 2 (slow, analytic) thinking…
Understanding Schelling’s Nuclear Paradigms with Francis J. Gavin
Francis J. Gavin explains why Thomas Schelling remains foundational to nuclear strategy despite being an economist, and argues that “strategic stability” is often invoked without clear definition. He highlights tensions between mutual vulnerability and US…
Strategic Stability in a Rapidly Changing World
Harold Trinkunas previews our special issue on strategic stability by explaining how Cold War deterrence assumptions rooted in a bilateral US–Soviet relationship no longer hold amid more nuclear-armed actors, wider access to AI, cyber, hypersonics, and the…
A Dystopian Take on Rising Authoritarianism and Resistance
Melissa Chan joins to discuss her career reporting across Asia and why she pivoted from journalism to co-creating the graphic novel "You Must Take Part In Revolution" with activist-artist Badiucao. We discuss the book’s visual style, the subversive…
Navigating a World Adrift with Shivshankar Menon
Shivshankar Menon, a former national security advisor to the Indian prime minister, joins the podcast to discuss the mythology of world orders and why current global nostalgia for a "golden age" can be strategically dangerous. He analyzes how Indian and…