Rational Security: The "Middle-Aged Dads" Edition

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Hey everyone, Scott, our handers in here.

As a senior editor with law fair, you might know me as the guy always rambling about treaties

and more powers, or perhaps as the host of rational security. What you might not know is that law fair has been a part of my life a lot longer than I've been contributing to it. Before I get to law fair, I was a national security lawyer, an occasional diplomat working for the government, both here in Washington DC and overseas. They were the sorts of jobs that wrestled with, hard, natural security choices of the type law fair specialized in,

which why law fair is one of the first things I opened when I got to my desk each morning. From Iran, to Venezuela, to back here at home, those questions haven't gotten any easier. Policy makers, journalists, and citizens all need the sort of deep, non-partisan expertise in law fair specializes in. Now, more than ever. The law fair is also a non-profit, meaning we're committed to keeping all of our core content from getting put behind a paywall.

We can't do it without help from the people who read and listen to us, people like you. So, if you can, visit law fairmedia.org/support and join our community of supporters. Just $10 a month will make a world of difference in helping us keep law fair free to everyone for a long time to come. Mike, I have to say, you know, for folks who listen to the podcast don't watch the video, they may not be aware that we've gotten to see the gradual evolution of your new home office since you've relocated.

And I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed. You got wooden shelves up that might be a drop-leaf table behind you.

“I think I'm seeing, and I will say, I'm particularly impressed slash a little embarrassed because I've been to my house for six years,”

and still have not really got effectively set up a home office, and yet you've beat me by a half a decade. So, congratulations on that front.

Well, what you find impressive, my wife finds infuriating because this is the room I set up first before our game.

And I don't think our listeners or viewers can tell, but these books are pretty facetidiously organized. I have a series of photographs of my bookshelves for every time I move, which I used to do fairly frequently, because, for example, with fiction, I organize it chronologically by date of the author's birth. Most movers are not sympathetic to that and willing to box off the book. And make sure that Milton is in the right place, vis-a-vis gertat, vis-a-vis antiquarians.

You know, this is where my overly organizational tendencies reveal themselves in the most obnoxious, pretentious way possible. And somehow you have it alphabetical while also extremely uniformly organized by height. It is just a straight line of hardcover speech. Well, yeah, that's another thing that infuriates my wife. This is matter of principle, I will not buy paperbacks unless there are no other objects.

I feel like I'm getting a full tour of your house at this point, Mike. I got to see you working on the garage earlier.

And we did look a little bit like the first 30 seconds of a hostage video.

We were just getting out of hot. It was Mike like drilling into a wall with an impact drill or some other impressive looking drill. It was a hammer drill there. I saw some regular equipment there. I know my driver array of drills at my garage shelf.

“But what is your ambition for the garage? What direction is that headed in?”

This is the first time we have ever owned a detached house with a pretty sizable garage. And it is large enough that it can fit one of our cars in terms of width. But it's much longer than it needs to be. It's much deeper. So I've actually turned the garage into a combination, you know, car port as it is supposed to be. But also woodworking shop and home gym.

Hopefully not all I want. That sounds dangerous. No, no, I'm not going to like do acrobatics with the table saw. I'm just leaning into the whole middle aged dad stereotype. I'm probably going to start listening to will coasting too, which I haven't done in years. I'm 10 years ahead of you, buddy. That's the way to do it.

It's not a bad way to live. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to rational security. We invite you to join members of the law fair team as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. Whether they are in our lane or not, I am your host. Got our Anderson thrill to be back this week with a pair of my law fair colleagues here.

And I'm thrilled to be joined first off by law fairs.

One of law fairs senior editors, my fellow senior editor here at law fair, Mike Feinberg. Mike, thank you for coming back on the podcast. Thanks for having me. And also joining us after a couple of months of unavailability because of his real job and day job. But we're thrilled to have back now that the summer months are upon us and all of our academic friends have a little more freedom and time in their schedule. None other than law fair for a policy editor, Dana Stooster. Dana, it's been a while. It's great to have you back on the podcast as well.

It's great to be back. It's a great to be done creating finals. Yeah, the fact that you're already done grading is really genuinely impressive. All my law professor friends are just entering into finals these and down. Every time I talk to them, it's all just that like impending dread of having how much grading they're going to have to do. We already had our graduation. We are off to the summer. Oh, there you go. There you go. That's a nice part about thing tank work is yeah. There's downsides and you don't have all that tuition and thing flowing in, but at the same time we don't have to grading anything unless we choose to.

“Well, I will say we have had a lot of things happening in the news in the world. We have a couple of pretty big stories. I think for this week to talk over.”

At least one of which we may also revisit last week for a little bit of an expost review of what's happened, but we're going to set the stage for it today. So let's go ahead and jump into our three topics.

Our first topic today. Mining your bees and teas.

President Trump arrived in China this week alongside top US officials and a number of top business executives. For a much anticipated summit with President Xi Jinping, US diplomats hope the summit will revolve around the five bees, meaning US beef soybeans, Boeing airplanes and proposed boards for both investment and trade. While Chinese officials want to talk about the three teas of Taiwan, technology and tariffs, which should our expectations be for the summit and how much will the Iran war move over the negotiations?

Our second topic, speaking of the Iran war, crew to awakening. This past week negotiations between Iran, the United States appeared to reach a standstill, but that any movement on reopening the straightaway moves or restoring the flow of oil and other goods that have driven crude oil prices, among other commodity prices to record highs, each side seems poised to try and wait out the other. But how long can they last before having to capitulate or escalate?

And what do these dynamics mean for the war of attrition that now appears to be holding up trade

“in the straightaway moves across the broader Middle East?”

On Tuesday, CNN reported that CIA has been conducting a covert campaign of assassinations in Mexico, targeting middle-level members of the country's drug cartels, despite these reports and the Trump administration's longstanding claims that it is at war with the cartels, but the Mexican government and CIA have denied any involvement in these operations. What does this all say about the Trump administration's plans for future democratic counter-narcotics operations,

as well as the broader US-Mexico relationship?

So for our first topic, Mike, I want to come to you first to kind of set the stage

for us for this region paying summit. This was supposed to happen a long time ago. Like six weeks ago was the last kind of target date. Frankly, it was supposed to happen a few months before that before it got postponed to the six weeks ago date.

It got postponed because of the Iran war. And at the time, there was this idea that, at least in some circles, mostly circles favorable to the administration, they were saying, "Oh, the Iran war is kind of an effort to gain leverage over China. We're pushing back against one of its main trading partners, we're like exerting US role. Now it seems like the tables have shifted a little bit.

The United States is engaged in this conflict that it is having trouble ending on the term that it would like to see it end on, but also is constrained in how it can escalate that. We're going to talk about that for the second topic. But that's where it's led us to this timeline now and this kind of agenda.

“This five B's, three T's formula that we're seeing everywhere. I think traces back to”

some, I don't think specifically sourced, but generally sourced statements by people within the administration. I'm looking at it shows the extent to which we're having kind of a different agenda. The five B's are really discrete sort of deliverable ideas, all which hit on like very specific takeaways. The Trump administration seems to take on.

When you're talking about beans, beef and Boeing, there's a whole bigger relationship and set of issues that aren't captured by that. And I don't think they're the two boards. The two remaining B's are going to cover that either. But meanwhile, the Chinese agenda really seems pretty broad. We're talking about Taiwan, the perennial issue between these two countries.

Really one of the findings is the relationship for, you know, the last 70 years. Technology, we're all talking about AI in that context primarily in chips and semiconductors and everything that feeds into the AI stack. And then tariffs, the defining Trump administration policy that has kicked off this round of practically economic tensions with China.

Although notably tariffs not a strictly Trump administration policy, the Biden administration kept a lot of the first Trump administration's tariffs on China on as well. So talk to us about what you see going into this. I mean, what, where do you see the two sides positioning themselves in this relationship that you have watched for a long time both inside a government and out?

And what does it tell you about what we should be expecting coming out the other end in terms of deliverables progress, anything like that? Let's start with the final part of your question in terms of what we could

But I think there's a couple of very clear signals

that China hawks, like myself, to be frank, should steal themselves to be immensely disappointed by anything that results from these meetings.

“And I think the real skeleton key to understanding this”

is not actually what either country wants to be the main topics of discussion, but rather looking at the people who the Trump administration has chosen to bring with them from the private sector as part of an official delegation. You are essentially looking at a

codery of Silicon Valley tech type and CEOs. And as somebody who worked in Chinese intelligence matters and was engaged for the better part of two decades in trying to use law enforcement and intelligence techniques to stop China from gaining sensitive technology, their accompaniment to the president really

read some alarm bells to me. It is of course the sort of thing that always happens

in public where these companies play nice with the US government and say that they support its goals in terms of preventing other countries from getting

“technologies. But the fact is, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, pick whatever CEO you will,”

their primary loyalty is not to the United States or the Department of Defense or the Intelligence Community, they have legitimate legal loyalty to provide quarterly shareholder earnings. And as a result, while they may pay lip service to sort of the United States's grand strategic goals, what they really want is two things. Access to the

Chinese market to sell their goods and access to the Chinese labor pool to make those goods more cheaply. And the fact that they're going with Trump says to me that they're going to have a seat at the table and that their views and their goals are going to be largely in lockstep with the administration. And given that we know the Trump administration sort of at all levels in

terms, takes a very transactional view towards international relations. I'm more inclined to believe that the Trump administration is taking the CEO's points of view than the CEOs have all of this sudden become fans of a militaristic build up in case we need to defend Taiwan. And as a result, I have a lot of concern that we are going to give up

larger strategic priorities and potentially abandon guarantees that may even only be half-hearted, but guarantees nonetheless to help our allies in East Asia should eryzing China be convoluted and that we're going to give those things up in favor of market considerations. And there's a legitimate argument to be made for that.

“I think it's not a very persuasive one because it's”

very short term focused. And I think a China that rises further could have a larger negative economic impact on the United States's growth and influence than one that is contained. But it doesn't seem to me that the Trump administration is trying to hide its cards with this particular play.

The fact that they've selected a group of CEOs rather than a group of diplomats or intelligence officials or department defense officials to be the public face of this trip to me very much signifies that they are going to do everything and anything they can to help American business interests

possibly to the detriment of our larger geo strategic interests. Then let me come to you on that because I think that's an interesting little bit provocative take, but a one that you can see a little bit in this trajectory that the Trump administration is taking around China.

Because it's been a weird one, right? I mean at the end of the first Trump administration

we were at a level of just maximum peak in the relationship, right? We had the president mouthing off about China accusing it of starting the global pandemic and threatening it a variety of kind of veiled ways. Not just on trade measures on a variety of measures. Very aggressive on Taiwan as well, rhetorically, which is something that a lot of people in

this party, but plenty of people across the aisle as well, are particularly sensitive about particularly pointed about. The Biden administration carried a lot of that forward. I think in ways that were more calibrated and more balanced, at least from their perspective,

to try and not, you know, make it sound too much like a zero.

Some games it to make clear there was some relationship and cooperation to be how with China, but nonetheless, very clearly label them strategic competitor and acted a whole range of policies, particularly in the economic state-class space aimed at constraining their ability to be more effective competitors, not just around AI, but around a number of other areas.

And then you saw cases like the famous weather balloon incident, we talked about a lot on Russia Security at the time, where clearly the Biden administration was nervous about not looking hard enough on China and ended up leaning in a way that may have been, at least from my perspective, pretty counterproductive,

even further because they felt like they need to look strong of that. And President Trump, as it has in a way that only frankly Donald Trump can play the pivot away from that. In this term of this administration, we have seen him soften on China.

To the point that the National Security Strategy is administration released,

doesn't even really use the language of strategic competition or major power rivalry. It talks about serious influence, suggesting that in some extent, we are actually trying to reach an accommodation with China and Russia as the two other major powers that will concede a lot to them,

as long as they concede what we have for them. It acknowledges our points of tension, particularly around Taiwan, particularly around economic ties to Taiwan. But it's a very different framing and think about that. So which of these different lenses, which of these different Donald Trump's

“and Trump administrations, are we seeing caring forward into this?”

And what does that tell us about how they're setting the agenda? Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned those strategy documents because I think that is a real indicator of the shift that we're seeing. And this is a major test of whether that's going to be rhetoric, sometimes those strategy documents can be super detached from reality

and actual policy. But it seems like with the way the administration has talked about other foreign policy issues, especially in the Western Hemisphere, they are really moving in the direction of a spheres of influence of approach where rather than being confrontational with China,

it's having some level of interdependence that allows for greater Chinese independence in ways that then start to impinge on US partners, whether it's Taiwan or potentially other countries that feel threatened in East Asia. And so with the United States and Trump, the Trump administration

talking about the Don Road doctrine, how the United States is going to focus more on the Western Hemisphere and really exert US influence in North America, Latin America, and increasingly South America. It's carving out this is where we really exert greater influence and China may have greater freedom from maneuver in East Asia,

which to my point, like this is a real cause for concern for Taiwan. And what comes out of this meeting will really determine whether how much of this is right or how much of this is actual policy. What I've read has suggested that a lot of Taiwan experts are not expecting some sort of grand bargain to be struck in this meeting in particular

that but we're going to see a lot of pressure from China to try to get the United States to reduce arms deliveries to Taiwan. As a sort of gradual process of pushing the United States out of Taiwanese defense. Yeah, and you know, this suggestion that Donald Trump has said in media remarks that the idea of arm sales and security assistance generally to Taiwan is on the table.

I think is one of those things that if you haven't followed the history of US China, Taiwan relations, you may not get the significance of that. But, you know, the security assistance relationship is just the foundational tenet in a lot of ways of the post-1979 post-normalization with Beijing to security relationship with Taiwan.

Taiwan relations act does not make any hard commitment for the United States to come to the defense of Taiwan and the defense of a tack by China. It's very carefully doesn't, very deliberately doesn't. It maintains what has become to be known as these policy of strategic ambiguity as to what the United States would do in such a circumstance.

“But the only thing it does say is we're going to give substantial security assistance.”

And we're going to try and give enough security assistance to keep Taiwan ability to resist any sort of effort to forcefully change the status in the straight. That's not quite the exact language, but that's kind of the logic behind it. And we saw this issue revisit in the 1980s by the Reagan administration where we saw this sets of communicates with Beijing

and the set of commitments to Taiwan and assurances. They've kind of defined the parameters of this relationship,

which basically boils down to hate China as long as you give compelling, credible assurances

that you will not be using force to normalize or trying to change the status or garsing Taiwan, but that you engage in a peaceful process. We will consider adjusting security assistance accordingly. Where if it looks like you're approaching Taiwan peacefully, then you don't need security assistance and we'll adjust that accordingly.

And then the opposite implication is true. And there's also commitments about not directly allowing Beijing to check security assistance things like that. This really drives at the heart of a lot of that.

“That's why it has, I think, people in Taiwan pretty nervous.”

And Trump is one of these people, one of these presidents, that in part because he is, he is, he is, at least for who far is this term, not been constrained by his party. Although we can talk about whether that's still the case the way it used to be.

And these points, it should be noted, are like particularly important

to Republican congressional Republicans in particular, who really care about Taiwan. And have been some of the most vocal proponents of the U.S. Taiwanese relationship. But I'm not sure that doesn't mean you couldn't see Trump pivot away from that in a way that other presidents wouldn't be able to do for political reasons or not willing to anyway. Mike, am I being too alarmist about this about what, you know, this hint that security assistance

might be on the table, could be getting in? I'm a little concerned you're not being alarmist enough.

“And I say that because I think you are attributing a greater constancy to the Republican”

thinking on Taiwan than really exists in this present day and age. I mean, this isn't different debate at a different time, but like,

the Republican party has become personalists to a degree it never has been before.

And I think that a lot of the individuals in Congress, former Senator Marco Rubio's transformation being just one example, are very anti-China, very pro-Taiwan, until Trump decides it is no longer in our interest to be such. And I don't see a really robust intellectual debate going on between the two branches,

at least the Republican side of the two branches, if he does flip that switch.

“I think Taiwan has a real reason to be worried.”

First of all, I think the hawkishness of the Trump administration during its first time around with respect to China has been greatly inflated. We talk about the rhetoric and it certainly was at times frankly off the reservation. But there were also a real lot of concessions made to China economically and in terms of trade and in terms of leniency on law enforcement and intelligence matters that didn't get the same amount of press

because they're simply not as offensive, for example, as calling COVID kung flu.

But the notion that Trump has always been a China hawk, I think, is just false.

And the second cause for concern actually focuses on someone you guys will of course know, but I think it's a rather minor figure for the American public.

“And that's what if Hagset's deputies, Elbridge Colby.”

Elbridge Colby wrote a book during the Biden administration called The Strategy of Denial, which was very much one of the most I think well fought out arguments as to why the United States needs to defend Taiwan, what it should do in order to do that, and what was really the crux of his argument, why the United States should do everything under its power to avoid any conflict that might drain or deplete resources needed to defend violent.

But since that book was published, he has become one of the most virulent shareholders in public of our Iranian excursion. And there has been massive amounts of public reporting at how much our munitions have just been quite frankly drained by that, and that we don't have the artillery and missile capacity to engage with A2AD weapon body. Anti-area access Denial weapon read that really forms the backbone of a lot of the PLA Navy strategy. Like we're not well suited to combat them right now.

And if Elbridge Colby, who was one of the most visciferous defenders of Taiwan independence in US history, has been willing to make that shift, what does that say about everybody else in the administration? Yeah, and it's a really compelling point, Dana. Yeah, and I think the direction of the Republican Party generally should make Taiwan more and more nervous about this, because we're seeing this with the Iran War.

There's a strong contingent within the Republican Party that sees that conflict as the United States being dragged into some other countries war into a war that was primarily driven by Israel. And there has been a current to the Republican Party for a long time now that has said that like, well, Taiwan isn't our fight. And it's not worth escalating with a nuclear power over Taiwan. And I think that current is only getting stronger.

It's got to kind of make one final point on this. Please, then just sort of harkings back to what we were saying about the various strategic doctrines that seem to be backing away from traditional great power rivalry in favor of this almost. Nineteenth-century spheres of influence policy.

Because I'm really a hard pressed to think of a time where the spheres of influence theories did not ultimately result in much greater conflict.

Then might have been possible had we stood up to rising powers when they were still vacant. I hear spheres of influence.

“I think of the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere that Japan was very much pushing in the 30s.”

And you don't have to be a diplomatic historian to know how well that worked out. I think of the various wars that still managed to occur despite the concert of Europe. And while none of them resulted in a content until conflagration, a lot of people still died and there was a lot of economic damage.

And I worry that they're using the spheres of language vocabulary to justify what is really a neo-isolationism.

And history has just shown that that doesn't actually solve problems. It just kicks them down the road when they are more intractable. So I do want to put out a hypothetical or a question, which is, I think there is a case to be made. I'm not driving by into it. But I think there is a reasonable case to be made about there is the juice versus the squeeze around Taiwan for the United States.

There is a differential there. You know, the sheer scale of a conflict the United States is risking with China. If China really went to bore there, is dramatic. And you have to ask about whether the, you know, interest United States are substantial enough to war that. At the moment you have semiconductors, semiconductor industry, there's kind of these deep economic alliances.

That's true. There's also an effort for a variety of unrelated reasons and probably, in part for this reason, to offer impact. Right? Like there's effort to build domestic production in the United States and find other supply chains. Not realistically going to be to play the next 10 years, but you can see an offer him towards there. So, you know, what is it that we could see?

What would you want to see if there were a reasonable de-escalation around Taiwan?

“What would that look like if that's what the Trump administration wanted to pursue?”

Because I think there are reasonable voices you can see about that. Saying, maybe Taiwan is not the hill we want to die on. Maybe it's the rest of Asia. Maybe it is, you know, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, other traditional UD allies, but it's Taiwan really the one that we have to go on. And are there other tools to deploy?

What would you expect to see if the administration were pursuing that tack in a responsible manner? And what are we missing from the current status quo if that's the direction they're headed in that that we would want to see? I don't think there is a responsible way. I'm going to use provocative language here. I don't think there is responsible way to give up or advocate our responsibility to Taiwan.

Most synologists whose research and writings I really value are all firmly of the opinion that Xi Jinping is going to use or is willing to use military force to overtake the island. If you can do it diplomatically, so much the better, but the point is, there is not a world I think where Xi Jinping leaves power without having tried to reintegrate the two countries. And there are two countries. I defy you to find a seismal group of Taiwanese citizens who want to be reunited with the mainland. Many of them are in Taiwan precisely because recent ancestors did not want that.

So there is a moral argument.

I think is the United States as what is still if fleetingly the world's most powerful nation.

We should at least pay lip service to the ideals of democracy and self determination. So there is a moral argument for not abandoning Taiwan. There is an economic one. And at the risk of being reductionist, you know, if Taiwan sent a conductor manufacturing.

“If there are fabrication facilities where the only thing on Taiwan, that would still be a reason to defend it.”

It is difficult to overstate how reliant we are on that single company's ability to engage in free and very commerce with us. And if China takes over the island, they have zero incentive to continue allowing us to do that. And the last reason is not moral or economic, but just geostrategic or geopolitical. If we don't defend Taiwan, a whole lot of other nations in East Asia, by which I mean almost all of them,

And if they do that, they have no choice but to allow themselves to fall into the PRC's orbit.

Because that's the only other game in town. And if that happens, the economic effects on the average American are going to be deleterious. We're worried about the streets of Hormuz now. 70% of the world's international commerce goes through the South China Sea. If all of a sudden we have no allies who are helping promote freedom of navigation and freedom of this season that area,

there is not going to be freedom of navigation. And the marginal increase in cost of literally 90% of what America consumes is going to go through the roof. I can't see any world in which not defending Taiwan, redowance to the United States is benefit.

“I think there is a fundamental premise, a question to say, for all the horrible things I could flow from this,”

is the ultimate question of like going to a hot war ultimately worth it.

Like there's hugely devastating consequences to that. That's a bit of conditions far, far down the line really for either party. I mean, I think where I come out on this is that if you were to want to de-escalate around Taiwan, frankly, I think there are reasons to want to find ways to de-escalate. That may not mean walking back to security commitments, but to find ways to de-escalate

and make it less of a hot point of tension, you would want to see a process that accounts for all these other interests. It would be a process. This is like the most deployment speak thing you can do, which is that you would set up a process where you set up broad principles, broad objectives, you set a timeline for it and you have a whole process to de-escalate.

And those things really only work when you have that desire on both sides.

They can be really useful because they don't require any immediate concessions. But it would require like a genuine sign that like both sides will want to step back from this little bit. That's not what we're seeing, the Trump administration may posture to be. The Trump administration, I don't think there's a ton of signs of a desire to de-escalate on the part of Beijing. They're facing economic headwinds.

The reason why they may not want to face like, and pursue a deep immediate imminent military buildup. But it does different from saying we want to de-escalate the situation. But even that aside, you would want to say, instead of the Trump administration, seems to be poised if they're having this on the table, as horse trading with all these other interests. And those other interests are so discreet.

Particularly if you are focusing around these five bees that, again, are largely symbolic. I mean, two of them are boards, are process things on totally unrelated sets of issues. Three of them are like discreet, industry-specific, or even the case of Boeing, like company-specific concessions that are significant, but do not get at the overall underlying broader relationship. If that's where you're coming into horse trade, that is a real problem.

“And I think as you open at the top, Mike, that's what I'm worried about here.”

The administration is like highly transactional, and this administration is under a lot of political pressure, and really like symbolic victories. They are very happy to take something that they can have talking points around, because it delivers or it could deliver domestically at a short time for that matters for them, even if the broader online interest aren't there. And that's what concerned me more about this.

I am genuinely torn on the time on quite a time. I think it's actually probably the hardest or among the absolute hardest questions that policymakers have to wrestle with. That contingency of what would happen in the worst case scenario. That's why we have the strategic ambiguity policy and have had it for so long across the administration. But even to get at that, you just have to wrestle with all these other things.

You can't come in with such a narrow frame, and they just drop on the table. Oh, and we're talking about removing this tenet of this relationship. Even if you don't make concessions around other allies, even if other allies can distinguish between themselves and Taiwan, there are lots of ways they could and might and other circumstances, it just belies a lack of seriousness on the part of the United States. It's a lack of understanding of the broader inner connectivity of all this stuff.

And that's what's concerning. Now, hopefully this is just an errand comment, Trump dropped, and it's not actually going to manifest.

“And I think he would, there's a good chance he would get pushed back from his party on this particular moment going into this election.”

I mean, we're seeing the President facing pushback on the East Ballroom, right at this point. Like, there's a serious chance he will not be able to get money for his Ballroom innovation. And through reconciliation, I mean, a straight majority vote in a Congress, his party controls. That's not a great sign. But who knows exactly?

You're right, Mike. I think that the Republican party is a little more of all over this on this than they used to be. And Democrats are have mixed feelings as well.

It is a little disconcerning to see things staged this way. But we'll have to wait and see. And I have a feeling we'll probably be revisiting this topic next week to talk about what exactly has come out of this particular summit. So we already mentioned the elephant in the room hanging over the China summit. And that's the Iran War.

Dana, I want to come to you first on this.

We've seen a dramatically undramatic two weeks. I think of around Iran politics. Or week, you know, one week ago, we saw this moment where the United States launched a military operation to try to reopen the straightaway moves. It's a very good project for you. And then wound it up in 48 hours after it seemed to be on the verge of breaking down the ceasefire because of exchanges of fire between US crafts and Iranian vessels and a number of commercial vessels getting caught in between and captured by the Iranians.

And at the request of diplomats trying to facilitate the ceasefire. The president threatened as he has done so many times at this point to restart large scale hostilities.

“I think this time was something about glowing rubble Iran.”

That would be a glow coming from rubble in the direction of Iran. Has not manifested probably for the better. The president's willingness to not deliver on his ludicrous threats is a good thing. I think a good thing in the general world. And now in the last week we talked about debate.

We've seen proposals go back and forth. We've seen the president be pretty dismissive of Iranian counter proposal. The Iranians be frankly fairly dismissive of the US proposal. We've seen talks fall apart. It's not clear we're getting anywhere.

The fundamental lines haven't moved. The Trump administration says we want to see an end of Iran's nuclear program. They haven't really defined what that means, though notably.

And the Iranians have basically said we don't want a nuclear program.

Or we want to retain some degree of capacity. And they throw in a bunch of other terms, like, you know, control of the straight reparations. Occasionally come up things like that. So talk to us a day and a mix around this because as this is happening, we are in a status quo that is injuring both parties.

The directors around the rest of the world. So talk to them about what that means in terms of timeline.

“When we're in these, what I think with, like,”

the most logic gay modelers would call a war of attrition. We're each side strand out with the other. What are the timelines we're working with here? Yeah. So we are in this prolonged ceasefire phase that's starting to feel sort of like a phony war happening

as these negotiations play out with radically this divergent bargaining positions for both sides. And nowhere, like, there's not an overlapping bargaining range that they're both comfortable reaching at this point. As you said, Trump administration wants to see major concessions for Iran, including giving up its nuclear program.

It wants to pull out all the in-risk uranium that is still buried and has been buried for about a year now in Iran's nuclear facilities. It also wants other concessions. The Iranians are saying that what we won the war and we should get something out of this. So they want sanctions relief.

They want control of the straight of her moves. They want recognition that they have sovereignty over it. Which is a huge concession, not just from the Trump administration, but under international law, that would completely shift the idea of freedom of navigation in that water. Part of what this means is that Iran wants,

seems to want to be able to continue to charge tolls for ships transiting the straight of our moves. In addition to reparations, which would be a huge concession on the Trump administration's part. So neither side is willing to budge at this point,

“because I think the Trump administration doesn't want to admit the concessions that would look like a defeat.”

And the Iranians want to be able to demonstrate that they actually won something in this conflict. What this means is that we're now playing economic chicken. And the United States is bearing costs of increasing oil prices. And Iran is was in terrible economic strates before the war, which have only gotten worse.

There in a recession there have been huge unemployment and skyrocketing. But the major pressures are so far happening other countries. The US has a lot of partners in Asia that are being hit a lot harder by the, the closure of the straight of her moves than the United States at this point. The Philippines has been in a national energy emergency for a month and a half.

And other countries are also really feeling this. China is also feeling this and it is closer to Iran. They are, I think, the larger, the larger consumer of Iranian oil.

And so there is this question of who is going, like, which partners are going to pressure the United States and Iran to blink first.

This is also coming up against where this crisis will sort of escalate. And they're supporting that, you know, maybe by mid-June. This is really going to start to hit the US energy market a lot harder. And if that's the case, I mean, there's already reporting about how this will affect gas prices into the midterm elections. Gas prices are correlated with midterm reduction results pretty significantly.

And that's going to hit not just the United States but Europe as well. And so there are a lot of pressures that are occurring now that are sort of indirectly pressuring the United States and Iran. But they're going to be a lot more direct real soon. Yeah, it is a real fundamental math problem that the United States and Iran are facing.

“Just what is the timeline that they can sustain this?”

And the pressure points on the sustain this. There's a really, really good piece that I'll recommend from William Usher or former CIA analyst, who now has a sub stack called fault lines that I interviewed him chip usher. He goes by on the offer podcast made three weeks ago.

But he wrote a good piece on May 1st called two clocks where he crunched some numbers and basically gave,

I think a timeline similar to what you just gave down. It basically the United States has then 45 to 60 days from May 1st of mid June. And he gave the Iranians, you know, an extra basically like two to three weeks. It seems like for they're really going to face major economic pressure and window to capitulate. No doubt those are all gross estimates.

We don't know what they are. A lot of it is contingent upon the actions of outside actors, China in the particular case of Iran. At a certain point, oil prices are going to go high enough. It will really affect China's bottom line, which is facing our economic headwinds.

In the United States case, it's Europe.

Its Asian allies, although there is this question about is the Trump administration as sensitive to pressure to them as the United States has been in the past. So what exactly does all come out? Mike, I want to come to you on this because, you know, the economic conversation dominates in this case. I think it's important.

We have to bear this in my net. It probably is the thing driving the big policy contours. But it's not the only source of pressure these parties can bring.

“You know, what is the risk of other domains and sources of pressure?”

One other one chip mentions is arms applies in the United States. The impact has happened, particularly the mass disparity between the rate of production and cost of production of, you know, Iranians, Shaheds versus the interceptors. The United States uses to bring them down. You know, this is a well documented and acknowledged by the administration dynamic.

That it comes very expensive to sustain this war. But what are the other pressure points that might come into play here? And how do we see them being activated? It's a really good question. And I'll confess.

I'm not so much thinking about this in terms of pressure points. It's very difficult for me to view this conflict now in the -- through any sort of rubric other than the fallacy of some costs. All the reporting that we have seen in reputable media indicates that we have not met our strategic objectives that we had in embarking on this conflict.

I'm going to get to that in a second.

“The most saline one is the recent New York Times article, I think, from yesterday, which shows that of the 33 missile launch sites,”

we set out to destroy as one of our purported goals of this war. 30-hour operation. That is not a very good return on investment to deplete the majority of your military resources. The majority of your large-scale ammunition. So I really question if our initial salvos failed to do what we wanted.

And we are not able to produce our munitions at the rate we are expanding them. What are we getting on at this conflict at this point? And that sort of begs the question, like, what did we expect to get out of it at the beginning? I'm still not quite sure why we began this work. There was talk initially about needing to support Taranian protesters who were trying to overthrow the regime,

the language that Trump had set and their compatriots have been using lately. There's not really a Vince, a lot of concern for the average Taranian civilian who might still have those views. Their viewed as expendable chess pieces that we can drown beneath glowing rubble, as was said the other day. Are we trying to stop them from getting a bomb? It's a good goal. It's one I whole heart of the support.

But I point out that the Trump administration's stated goal is a return to the status quo that we had under the joint comprehensive plan of action, which Trump himself abrogated because he didn't like the deal that the Obama administration had made. Like, this is military adventurism, not of like the Roger Kipling sort, but like almost of the Flashman sort for those who know the reference.

We are not fostering regime change.

We are seeing the Straits of Hormuz essentially go to a total channel. We are not winning hearts and minds in the Middle East. And we are doing things that antagonize our strategic rivals at a time Trump is trying to get economic concessions from them. Like, explain to me how there is any conclusion to this conflict that does not result in the United States being in a materially worse position than it was before we get.

“Dan, how do you respond to that provocation? What are your thoughts about that?”

I completely agree. I think trying to back out some sort of coherent rationale to this conflict is becoming increasingly difficult.

It was difficult at the start of this conflict and it has only gotten more difficult because all the reporting indicates that the available intelligence suggested that any type of major operation like this was only going to empower more hardline elements of the Iranian regime that it was going to be difficult to actually achieve the other objectives. I think they like how limited the effectiveness of these strikes has been is still surprising, but this is something that Trump's advisors are around him told him when this was being considered.

Marco Rubio, according to the New York Times, Marco Rubio said, "These assessments that these realities are giving us, this is going to be a cakewalk to a regime change operation is bullshit." And Trump said, "No, it will be over two weeks."

And so trying to like there was no contingency planning for this type of outcome.

And so now we are trying to put some of the other. The Trump administration is also imposed a limit on itself that this is going to be no boots on the ground entirely in air campaign. It probably would have been more effective and way, way more costly boots on the ground and to do a major operation that would have benefited from a coalition of partners that were supportive of this. And it would have required a public case that this is worth doing, not of which was present. So there's one perspective that I think sees what's come out of this as kind of a win. And it's the one that we hear at in that cakewalk anecdote from I believe was in New York Times reporting about the discussion around this, which again, as I've talked about the podcast before,

“I think we have to get a little great assault because it's very lionizing report for a particular vice president who's working on the president in a few years.”

But if we take it as there's a good chunk of reality behind it, what's happening in Iran fits with the current Israeli government strategic vision, I think, which is that their vision has been the region's hostile. We just need to keep it off balance disabled, keep other regional actors that are hostile to us disabled and underpowered. And while in Lebanon and in Gaza, you can march in an occupied territory, you're not realistically going to do that in Iran. And Iran, from a distance the one thing you can do is kick as many of their capacity that can hit us.

I suspect there is Iran is going to be on an uphill battle of doing at scale support of the proxies that Israel is traditionally been worried about, which we're down to the benefit of certain others, like, you know, Lebanon's government other than his balla, right, and come others in the region. There are advantages of that Syria is the current Syrian government is benefiting from that to some extent, right?

“The real question though, becomes, "Hey, is that a good strategic vision even for Israel? I have real issues with it. It sounds a lot like what the plan was for Gaza for a long time up to October 7th essentially.”

You know, keep it down, keep hostile actors suppressed, and then, you know, don't worry about relations democratizing. We've just got to keep it managed to lower threat level if it's spread out. And obviously, that is like a disaster and horrifying, a disastrous case. And you know, bringing that strategy to the region is concerning one of the variety of fronts. If the U.S. perspective, the U.S. screen interests are so much broader than that. You know, when you have golf allies suffering the way they have, in ways that might not be reparable. I mean, and it's hard to underscore what a huge loss that is.

I mean, the golf allies, as problematic as they are in lots and lots of fronts, have been a pillar of U.S. policy in the Middle East for the last few years. They were the wedge that's trying to be used to, you know, normalize relations with Israel. They are backing and funding reconstruction of Gaza and a variety of other projects at both the administration and the wind administration were working on in the Middle East and other parts of the world as well. So you really are hitting a lot of issues, and that's before you even get to the broader global economic ramifications.

So I do think like the case for this being in the U.S. strategic interest is just really, really factationally, we get this point.

Are you going to put the regime that's more or less willing to actually use weapons? Are there going to be developing different house to weapons? Are there going to be more intent on developing weapons if in a covert manner that they can pull off under whatever scheme the Trump administration agrees to? And as our colleague Ari is flagged like this administration, as I mentioned before, likes symbolic victories and had a lot of political incentive to accept what might ultimately be less than credible assurances if it gets them an apparent end to the conflict less than credible assurances of the nuclear profile.

So yeah, it's really concerning. I'm just shocked the administration doesn't get hit harder by this yet on the political front.

And I kind of think it's just because no one wants to look like they are coming to Iran's defense, but the strategic case is really bad. I have to agree with you. That's as good as I can do as a devil's advocate on the other side.

“I don't know, guys, am I missing anything like other other pro points that we should be throwing in here?”

I don't think it's been a success even on those objectives because Israel by most reporting what it wanted out of this was if not a positive regime change that at least regime collapse.

It wanted to destroy all this infrastructure, as you said, like this is a potentially mowing the grass type of thing where we're going to reduce capacity so it can't actually support the proxies and threaten Israel. But if Iran still has 70% of its missiles and it still has access to all these launch sites and it still has its enriched uranium and a breakout time equivalent to after the 12 day war, year ago. And the regime has only shifted more into the hands of the RGC than this was not a victory on those merits either.

Totally for a point. I will say, I think those were mostly selling points to the Americans. I don't think these really bought that. They did not argue when they killed a son that's a lot that they were going to moderate and lead to modern regime change of him has ballad.

“I think that's basically would be the same market. You were they were making here.”

I was on with they really bought that. But you're on the capacities front there's still lots of capacity to be really concerned about and maybe more willingness to actually use it now or less centralized control and less predictable environment like that is really with the United States is going to wrestle with here is that it's not clear who you're negotiating with Iran.

And we're seeing that these negotiating dynamics it's part of the reason why CCCs fired negotiations keep hitting these walls is because Iran isn't there's an a Iran anymore.

There are a lot of different Iran's and you've got to find some way to get them kind of all on board all these different centers of gravity. That's a much harder lift than it is corning with one government even a hostile one. Well, let us now turn our view away from the Middle East away from East Asia here to our native western hemisphere are sphere of influence if you will. At least the Trump administration has it's away because there was a pretty big story that broke in CNN yesterday. I'm not entirely surprising but kind of surprising in the details report has Natasha Bertrand is the reporter whose name I'm recalling off of that apologies to our co-authors because our couple reporters listed on there and attaches a wonderful national security reporter who does great work in the space and she came up with a story describing a set of operations to CIA has been pursuing in Mexico.

In some cases not entirely in coordination with the Mexican government but I think the piece is very cagey about the degree of consent or agreement by the Mexican government at least at the high levels of essentially targeted assassination against mid-level cartel members. This is to extent not that surprising because this administration has said since entering office we are at war with the cartels they have designated them terrorist organization including Mexican cartels while we don't see you know the equivalent of the boat strikes yet happening in Mexico.

There's a similar policy trajectory to do that it raises bigger international law questions or actually not bigger but different international law questions but nonetheless there is this there is a clear policy parallel logic there and it is a real escalation in sort of the way we approach cartels generally that's not surprising for the administration. We're doing it so close to the United States with a key ally in Mexico a place where lots of Americans live lots of American American Americans obviously raises in even bigger kind of risk question risk threshold than arguably the maritime strikes do in other parts of the Western hemisphere.

“So I want to come to you on this first obviously you were in federal law enforcement for fast majority of your career and that was the tool we use to tackle cartel problems for a long time.”

Talk to us about this general shift to the military and particularly the lethal military perspective military is played a role in counter-to-contract for a long time on a kind of sport role intelligence that you had it but this is different killing people is is the line that has traditionally not been part of the formula. So talk to us about how big a rate this is and how surprising it is and ways it may make sense of may not make sense.

So the brash young conservative I was I always dismissed those arguments on hand rarely even bothering to engage with them but what we're seeing happen in Mexico and to a certain extent also in the boat strikes is something that gives me real cause for cancer.

“I think a lot of this is changing I have no doubt we will eventually see here to for secret OLC opinions on this matter what have you.”

I suspect a lot of the authority for these actions is coming from the president's designation of the cartels is for terrorist organizations.

And I think a lot of people don't realize there is no real check or seriously involved process with countervailing interests that can strains the president's ability to really name anything of their terrorist organization.

“And what we are seeing now with the cartels can very easily be done to other organizations that quite frankly might not pose an actual threat to United States interests.”

And the FTO designation is essentially no pun intended a Trump card that does allow them within the norms of United States intelligence law enforcement and defense policy to do things like targeted assassinations. And targeted assassinations you know we use that term as if it refers to a single thing but it actually encompasses a lot that I don't think the administration is ready to debate with the American people.

“What is the process by which we identify these targets and guaranteed that we were getting the right person in minimizing collateral damage that's problem number one.”

Number two becomes that in the past decade or so the United States has very much become a fan of what is called signature strikes in other words you don't have a specifically identifiable person.

You have somebody who's behavior's finna matrix of a likely terrorist into a certain percentile you are authorized to kill them. I would hardly suggest that is not something we want to eventually be doing in a neighboring country with whom we are not at war. You're essentially using an algorithm to decide which of its citizens you can kill and that's a real escalation in terms of how you deal with a country that is a major trading partner and major source of labor and literally a neighbor somewhere people go vacation.

You can have a really seriously negative impact on our relationship with maximum. The second concern I have is that this assassination reveals that they're willing to use every tool in the toolbox that we've developed against a foreign terrorist organization. If they are willing to use something as extreme as a targeted killing. What is to stop them from using Pfizer on individuals they suspect might be in the drug trade simply because the cartels are now FTOs.

That designation did not get a lot of pushback from the Democrats which surprised me quite frankly and I worry nobody's thought about these contingencies.

Once you've designated an FTO what you are allowed to do to people even American citizens is immensely more concerning and aggressive than what you could do under ordinary criminal. So I want to drill a down on that a little bit because on a legal perspective from the use I think that's right from a surveillance perspective on the use of force perspective I mean the FTO designation doesn't authorize use of force for anything domestic or international law. Now I suspect it unlocks a bunch of like executive branch constructed policy assumptions right and that's shift a little bit across administrations we know what some of those look like most under the Obama administration because they were kind of like a little more transparent about this.

We get reports mostly from Charlie Savage and New York Times who says, hey the Trump administration has shifted this and we get a 10,000 foot sense of how it shifted but but we don't really know but that's that's terribly surprising.

You can actually see in some ways a bit of a stronger case here than you could in other counter narcotics context which I think a lot of people lose on this for two different angles and look a lot of people are going to take critics I'm not endorsing either of these I think there's criticism for both of them I think they are different dynamics than you see with things like the Venezuela and Cartel and tough like that.

“One is that Mexican cartel number of the Mexican cartels have involved actually an attacks on Americans and even American government facilities including shooting up American consulates and embassies and targeting American government employees.”

That's the sort of stuff for the sort of threads that have become very easy to make a self defense case out of you look at what was the self defense basis for US invasion of Panama.

The domestic law perspective of presence authority to take that action without Congress and from a international law perspective that's the argument they invoke people criticize it but the hook was. Frankly less than that. Other other things that were in the Panama case like a declaration of war but never regardless in terms of actual attacks and threats there's lower than what some of these cartels have done against Americans and Mexico. The other side of it is the fact that the Mexican government's role and this is the real question for me.

Which is how much the Mexican government is signing off on this even if they want to admit it publicly or giving some degree of cartplage.

The Mexican government I think has a case that they are in a non- or national arm conflict with some of these cartels. The sheer level of violence and militarization of the cartels is pretty extreme and like astounding and is more so than plenty of what we consider terrorist groups and other parts of the world. So the legal parts of the case are there particularly because it's consent of Mexico then you're in a lot more comfortable territory, right?

“Otherwise you have to use the unable or unwilling sort of template that we used in Syria that I think there's a hard case to make that about Mexico.”

You may not agree with all the steps they're taking but they're certainly doing stuff against the cartels.

So I want to lay a lot out there like I think there's actually a legal framework here that you could see other administrations even by into. It may be a really bad policy idea but particularly if you get the Mexicans on board with some of this. Maybe that's a legal framework that you could get other administrations combined to unlike the maritime strikes which are a much bigger issue. Although I will say we got to know what these middle-level guys are if they are actually like you know armed commanders equivalent of the.

The military structure of the cartels that's much more compelling if they are just mules like most of the targets of the maritime strikes seem to be at least according to reporting that raises a whole different set of issues. Sorry I had to do my international lawyer former State Department lawyer hat on this one is this is law fair after all I'm not trying to have time to write a piece on this so in case I don't this is it go ahead and copy and paste that into a into transcription. What do you want this talk about what your perspective on this is I mean like how how big shift is this in terms of how we think about regional politics how the United States is engaging and framing both around.

You know relationship with Mexico potential other countries as well but also around the the use of force dynamic use of forces to. Yeah I would just echo Mike's point that this is bringing this level of this use of force to a neighboring country that we are trying to have a positive diplomatic relationship with. And that we are relying on for trade and immigration is a huge risk to run and we don't from the reporting we don't have a good sense of how bought in the the administration at the Mexican administration is.

And some of it kind of reminds me of that famous with helix cable from from Ali Abdullah Sala where he says well we'll keep denying that you're doing the strikes in our country so long as you keep the whiskey flowing. Like are the great about that. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, there's an in cash Patel whiskey does move this over. But like how permissive is the Mexican government of this we're not really clear they're definitely not going to acknowledge it but in terms of the potential for escalation. God as you mentioned there have been attacks by cartel members on US diplomatic infrastructure before but I think of just a couple months ago when the Mexican military went after the head of the least go new generation cartel they'll mention there was a bunch of reprisal attacks.

If it's out in the open that the CIA is conducting a targeted assassination campaign and that we are in some sort of escalating shadow war with cartels.

“I think that's a real risk for US individuals in Mexico and for the United States, like within the borders of the United States, potential reprisal attacks.”

Something just sort of dawned on me. The three of us have very different backgrounds in terms of how we approach international relations and national security affairs. We have the practicing international lawyer who has been both in and out of government looking at these issues. We have an academic with significant think tank work I believe as well who has studied these probably more than both of us.

And what concerns me about this particular moment in American diplomacy and American defense policy is that that doesn't seem to be happening.

I don't think any of us think it was happening with respect to how this she summit is going to go in China. I don't think any of us see that happening in Iran and it sounds like none of us see it happening with respect to targeted assassinations of cartel members. It doesn't mean that nothing the administration is doing is correct. It doesn't mean that they haven't considered these things, but there hasn't been any explanation of how they're going to try and mitigate second and third order consequences.

“I think even to the public are Congress as far as we know and frankly that is that is as negative and home in for international relations as it is for democratic norms.”

I'm concerned. I think that is as good a point as any we can ask to wrap up this topic as conversation on severe just about out of time. But this would not be rash. It's great if we did not leave you some object lessons to ponder over in the week to come before we do though. I'm going to introduce a brief segment which I'm going to call the earnest please segment which I'll be doing for the next few weeks. Folks who have subscribed to Lovers newsletter or follow us on social media may have noticed we are doing a little bit of a fundraising drive at the moment and I am going to do my part to try and encourage you to throw some support our way.

I have been a law fair now for eight years. I have been reading law fair twice as long more than twice as long at this point since it started back in 2010. Hopefully I was reading Ben and Bobby and Jack stuff before law fair started back in the day and it is an incredible resource. I don't think I have to tell you the conversation we have here on rational security on the podcast are some of the best conversations I get to have and that I hear anywhere about the technicalities of national security law and policy with the broad aperture we bring to them whether it's trial coverage, whether it's war powers and treaties and the stuff I care about whether it's emerging tech and AI.

We are tackling all sorts of issues on an incredibly broad front. We're doing essential high impact work. It's what's kept me here for eight years kept me doing this sort of work.

Makes me look forward to the conversation I get to have with my colleagues every week here on rational security coming up on the five year mark in September and hopefully maybe I have five more years in me. I don't know but I enjoy it every week. It's energizing because it is so high value so substantive in a way that's really hard to find these days. But we can't do it alone. We are a small nonprofit. If you listen to rational security, if you listen to law fair podcast, if you read our writing, please consider going to lawfirmedia.org/support.

Throw some support our way. $10 a month. Make you a material supporter. Not only does it give us an immense amount of help. It also means you get access to special insider podcasts and conversations. And it changes in occasional events, things like that. We're broadening the different options and opportunities to engage our community there. We have other tiers as well that different levels of engagement.

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“But law fair is an incredible resource. It's incredibly valuable. That's why I made such a big part of my professional life.”

And I wanted to be here for many years to come because the hard natural security choices we tackle are not getting easier. And we still need to offer more than ever. So please throw us some support and help on that. So I will make that earnest plea my object lesson for this week. Dana, what did you bring for us? Hopefully something a little less a little less solicitous. And my fundraising plea.

So this is not particularly edifying, but I did want to share a G chat message that I got from my wife just before coming on, which said, "Do you have a mic in your office?" And I said, "I do not." And she said, "You cannot keep making me look bad. My wife is a podcast producer." She's an out to jungle often. She produces podcasts for defector media.

“She makes tri-hard and only if you get caught. And every time I go on a podcast, she goes, "Do you have a mic?”

Do you will you sound professional?" And I did not this time. And so my apologies, not only to the listeners for having a little bit lower fidelity audio, but especially to my wife for making her look bad. Dana, we will send you a mic. Tell your wife we're on it, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll get one in your office, your house, wherever you'll be. We'll get a mic there just in case we can count. I'll be ready next to you.

Mike, bring us home. What do you have for an object lesson this week? So one of the real joys of living in the DC area is being only a short driver metro trip from the American Film Institute.

It is called Bleak Week, the Cinema of Despair.

“And it is a week long festival of some of the most depressing and reprehensible movies ever made about the human condition.”

One of my favorite films, "Lars Vontriors Breaking the Waves" will be there. They're also showing the classic, not classic, but classic in terms of qualities. Film about the Russian Frontrying World War II, Common Sea.

And they are showing two films I have never had the intestinal fortitude to actually go see.

And I'm debating whether I should.

“One of them is Threads, a British film about the aftermath of a nuclear war, which is supposed to be one of the most disparate dosing films ever made.”

And the other is Pasalini's Sailow, which I'm not going to describe the details of because it would have the FCC come down on us. But it is what it's an adaptation of the marquee decide, reset in mid-century fascist Italy as a means of exploring the psychology of fascism. And it is supposed to be one of the most horrific, gory, difficult movies to watch. I'm debating whether to go see it. And I'm also debating whether to make it a date night, just not tell my wife what it's about.

Stay tuned. I do love living on the cusp of your marital sats. But fingers crossed on that one, hopefully there's a double feature, she can sneak across to the theater across the way when she catches on to this game. Well, regardless, that brings us to the end of this week's episode. It is of course a production of Lafaire, so be sure to visit LafaireMedia.org for our show page for links to pass episodes for our written work and the written work of other Lafaire contributors and for information on Lafaire's other phenomenal podcast series.

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Our audio engineer and producer this week was me of me and as always, our music was performed by Sophia Ann.

We're once again edited by the wonderful Jen Patcha, on behalf of my guests, Dan and Mike, I am Scott our Anderson. We will talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye.

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