Rational Security: The “Tavern Style” Edition

saying Lewis or Chicago? I think it both a little bit? No. I mean, Chicago has all cuisines. Well, I know.

I know. I know.

“If you want to be really appropriate, tab and style sculpt.”

I know. That's what everybody says. I'm still deep-ditched. I'm not going to lie. Luma on out.

He's still got it. Still got it. You're, you're the soul-class against New York and things that, you know, the piece of art. Yeah.

That's the best. 100%. Yeah. 100%. You know, what's the other one?

Luma on is another is the other one. What's the other big one? Well, you, it's not just. Piquads is really in the place to go. Yeah.

I, I, I thought. Piquads is hard to get into. Sure. No. No.

Joel. Oh, come on. Melnades. No. Absolutely not.

Piquads all, by the way, Millie's pizza in a pan. New comment to the scene. Very popular. Yeah. What are you trying to get?

Indeed. I'm coming to visit you. Thank you. I know. This is a real.

You're being suffused with just Chicago information now. None of which have the signature accent, which does make a very good view very good using a less spread of all to be clear. But that's okay. If we were all talking like Mike Dica.

This would really, really come across a lot with credibility as to the best deep dish pizza. But, you know, that's okay.

“Have you been, how have you been preparing for Chicago?”

Are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you just on loop or y'all for seasons in? I have a map of Chicago that I'm gradually filling in. And with just restaurants and coffee shops and bars. So, jolt. Go ahead, go ahead.

I got you. I want you to hear. I'll, I'll sort you out with the best dive buzz. I do all of my best whack-up on senior Murphy's, which is my favorite dive book. That is where the neighborhood dies.

It's like, which is best. And it, what's very welcoming. This is where this is where peace in the Middle East is going to be negotiating. You joke. Yeah.

Trolls, local dive bar. There's a short economy that people buy shots. Over the phone with people. It works. Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to Rational Security. The show where we invite you to join members of the law fair team as we try to make sense of the week's big national security news stories. Whether they are in our lanes or not.

We have had as always a big week of national security news.

It is always a big week of national security news in these days. And I'm thrilled to have some of my colleagues joining me to walk through it all with you. And for you joining me first and all for a second or third appearance. Too many. But we're slowly roping him in.

It's done other than law fair contributing editor. Management director of the Center Project Joel Ronald Joel. Thank you for joining us. Scott. It's always a pleasure.

“I think this is my second rational security and deeply on it to be part of the rational security team.”

There you go. Usually you and I just sit together in chat for 90 minutes about national security affairs. And now we're bringing other people into the fold for about hours. It's great. We're mixing it up exactly.

And also joining us is another law fair contributing editor. Former public service fellow now contributing editor. Also the new vice president of research and security and defense at the Chicago Council. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for not firing me after I left as a public service fellow.

Really happy to be here. Hey. With the road to have you in the fold. Still coming on the podcast. I'm not a cast prep.

Most important for my perspective.

I'm excited to have you with us. And joining us as well is Mainstay. The mast on which our sales fly here at law fair. I think is a fair witness. It's not another.

I thought that would get you. It's the law fair. Exactly. Better than any. But Natalie thank you for coming back on the podcast.

Greatly appreciated. Oh, thank you so much. Got it greatly appreciate the mast. A sign met something like that. I don't think I'm not a clinical metaphors.

I don't know why. It just gets all together. It makes it all of my head. What can you do? We'll take it.

Regardless, we have a couple of big stories to talk about. So let us jump into them. Our first topic for this week. The art of the heel. As it approaches the 60 day mark the war in Iran appears to have entered the war

Patricia stage. The straight and four moves remains close by both Iran and the United States.

As each side waits to see if the other will capitulate first.

President Trump recently called off peace talks in Islamabad. Because of reported internal disarray on the part of Iran. Perhaps on surprising consequences of two-month campaign of regime change. Meanwhile, the White House appears to have successfully pushed for. And then extended a ceasefire in the related theater of Lebanon.

But it's already understrain from ongoing Israeli strikes. And a refusal on the part of his ballad to disarm at least thus far. Which we make of this new equilibrium. We have a new offer that Iran is able just in the last 24 hours. Since I wrote up this little blurb.

So I think we'll get into as well. And does it all suggest that there may be a way out the current morass in the near future? Topic two. Royally Falked. King Charles is the in the United States's week for the first state visit by British monarch since Queen Elizabeth the United States in 2007. But the Trump administration's latest round of antics toward the United Kingdom and other NATO allies may overshadow the trip.

Over the weekend, Reuters reported that the internal Pentagon email suggested that the administration should explore with

And to spend and to spend membership in NATO, not something that's clearly possible for the record, do their refusal to join in U.S. is really combat operation against Iran. Other consequences may yet be in the offing.

“How seriously should we take these threats towards NATO and how close are we to a permanent rupture in the United States preeminent alliance?”

Topic three ballroom blitz.

On Saturday night, President Trump with the target of a third assassination attempt of the last two years.

This time, a California teacher plotted to target Trump and some of his senior advisors at the annual White House Correspondence Association. Dinner here in Washington, D.C. In response, the administration quickly blamed Democrats for the heated sometimes violent rhetoric they use in criticizing Trump. But in particular, it seemed to focus attention on pressuring a federal court to end a civil case challenging the construction of the new White House ballroom sighting security concerns. What are some of our thoughts about this past week in the events and what does it tell us about the state of political discourse and violence here in the United States?

So for our first topic, I want to turn to you. It's been an eventful couple of weeks on the Iran front in the big Iran war, which has spread into multiple theaters.

And now just on Iran war, it's a Lebanon war. It is a series of ongoing hostilities with the Houthis and Yemen to some extent, although less than so many have expected. A bunch of other factors in play across the region really across the world. And it's a conflict that the consequences, certainly economically, and a lot of other fronts are being felt in lots of disparate corners of the world, really making it a global conflict to some extent. We have seen efforts to get a peace talks going last week in Islamabad by interlocutors on the part of Pakistan and Egypt and some extent Turkey who've been pushing for this kind of fall apart.

The Trump administration pull back its intent to send J.D. Vance, the Vice President J.D. Vance, and a Jared Kushner and Steve Woodcoff as on voice to participate in those talks, basically President Trump said over the weekend. We can do it all by phone Iran is not clear who's actually running calling the shots on Iran's part. They can call us when they're ready until then. We're going to keep the straight of our moves close and continue to cut off oil exports. Of course, straight of formuses also close on the Iranian side towards most transit. I think there are still some chips periodically able to get through, but largely shut down, certainly nowhere near the level of traffic that will be needed.

And access, I'll be needed to restore anything like the status quo xant that most people want to come out of this restoration of the more conventional normal global economy. The Iranians have now tabled an offer that the broad contours of it are being reported as, let's just get the straight or open. And then we can go on and we will commit to have some sort of talks about our nuclear program, but nothing about the substance at some later stage.

“The Trump administration, I don't think has received this very warmly as of yet. They've essentially said in the past, you have to, you know, if Iran locked out this nuclear weapon, it's a non-starter.”

Although I don't think we've actually seen a full informal response to the Iranian offer being that's been tabled as of yet. Maybe I missed in the last couple hours. But I don't think we've seen a formal, formal rejection of it necessarily by the Trump administration. Talk just about your sense about where we are in terms of this increasing war of attrition. That seems to be breaking down around the straight of her moves where each side essentially seems to be waiting out to see which one will find it more painful to maintain the status quo until the other capitulates.

Is that a fair way to characterize this? And what are the political and diplomatic dynamics that are contributing to this? Yeah, I think your summary here is pretty spot on as for recording obviously a lot can change between that when we go live and we'll probably change between that when we go live. In my mind, there has been really three potential outcomes to this conflict as of now. One is that we get some sort of a deal and we can talk about what that could look like. One is as the president had threatened as of last week, some sort of broader escalation where we go and hit a bunch of other targets.

And you know, I mean, the president a couple of weeks ago was threatening to essentially destroy the Iranian civilization.

So kind of really expanding the the targets set from military and political regime targets to potentially striking more critical infrastructure bridges, et cetera.

The third, which is that we kind of continue on this path until either somebody gets bored. You know, the president gets bored of this and moves on to another issue set or, you know, some sort of kind of combination of these different potential courses of action. And it seems like we're kind of in the combination where we're continuing on this path until we potentially get a deal. And look, the fact that the Iranians have come in with some sort of sequencing proposal to try to end this actually does indicate that there's some serious thinking going into this, which is not a bad thing.

“I think, and I want to caution folks not to kind of get too much into the weeds of right now there is, you know, this pause here the vice president is going the vice president is not going.”

If you start to read every tea leaf in any negotiation, you know, there's just like there's too much that can happen and these are complicated complex issues.

And that was just on one of the issues that the administration says it wants to tackle with Iran.

And I think the fact that we had proxies and missiles and UAVs and Naval capabilities, plus obviously the ongoing events industry of foremost, these are very complex issues that need to be sequence that will take a long time to basically to get two sides that one have deep distress and are very far apart from one another, not to mention the nuclear issue to come together and actually be able to agree to some sort of framework of an agreement that they can then implement.

“You know, I think the fact that we're where we are that Iran is proposing something, I think Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio had said this is a better proposal than what we thought Iran was going to submit.”

I think in just the past couple of hours the president has said he's not too pleased with what he's receiving, but there is, you know, I think we're seeing at least some. The two sides closed becoming a bit closer than they were just a few days ago. So again, it's not the best place to be at. It's not the worst place to be at and the other piece I should add and we'll talk more in detail about this is kind of how the NATO allies play into some of this. We saw I think it was yet it was just in the past few hours again that the that Germany has said that they would be willing to contribute some mind sweeping capabilities in the aftermath of a ceasefire being extended.

You know, the NATO allies and to your point Scott of this conflict is really affecting everybody are also trying to kind of meet the administration halfway when they we know they've been very opposed to this war.

There's been tensions brewing within the alliance not just due to the war, but you know exacerbated by the war.

So there are also taking steps to try to kind of bring the side that these two sides together and try to get some sort of solution here, which I think is all pointing and the right direction is probably going to take quite a bit of time. We might see some kind of little bits of escalation here and there before we get there, but I think we're on a pretty decent trajectory as far as we can be in the middle of this conflict that is really spelling over all around the region. It's really fascinating because of the global pressure element seems to be entering into the calculus here.

I mean, like what is the tool that either both Iran and the United States hopes is going to push the other ones towards capitulate in the status quo. Not changing the status quo, if I can directly direct economic impact on them, well that's significant. I mean, in Iran, you're saying Iran that some vet, a lot of it's also the fact that the other global powers involved will bring additional pressure to bear. I'm sure they're on and dropping the Europeans and others will put and frankly, the domestic political situation in the United States will pressure the Trump administration to budge.

And the United States is hoping China will eventually come in, which is suffering substantially.

We'll come in and push Iran to capitulate and take some other steps, which as reportedly it did in first embracing the ceasefire.

The one part that probably not interested in seeing a cessation of any of this is Russia, which is benefiting from high oil prices at a general distraction from the war in Ukraine. But on that, mostly enough for me, they probably would like to see a resolution of at least the straight from a moves part of this.

“Your whole question then comes in, well, what does that do to the pressure brought to brother from parties?”

But among all of this, there's another really interesting front where we have seen motion, a lot of motion. So, might even call it progress of a sort. And that is in Lebanon. Lebanon, a conflict where we saw Hezbollah and Israel come to blows pretty early after the start of the Iran conflict. It has been Israel's now occupying and pursuing operations in a good stretch of southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah primarily operates.

But we saw Hezbollah get negotiated by some accounts to see really kind of push on, particularly these railways, by the Trump administration, a 10 day ceasefire, or I think about two little more than two weeks ago, this point, three weeks ago. And now we see an extension of that ceasefire last week announced at near the White House.

“I think technically at the former US Institute of Peace last week by the Trump administration, a three week extension.”

Joel talked to us about the dynamics of the ceasefire. Why are we seeing progress on the Lebanon front when we're seeing such a lock in the Iran front of these very interrelated conflicts? And is that because of the indigenous factors that make the Lebanon situation just kind of different with different interests? Are they related somehow? And is there some degree to which progress on the Lebanon front could help on the Iran front or not?

So there's a real dispute about whether there is progress on the Lebanon front. You know, the President Trump had the ambassadors and included ambassador Mike Haccaby in it, actually meet in the White House in front of him where he broke it, though on the Israeli and the Lebanese delegations, it was still at the level of ambassadors. The reason is that President Trump is pushing for President Unknown to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu,

President Unknown once a conclusion of this war before he would give that to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu once that before his election to demonstrate that he's had a historic victory, vis-a-vis Lebanon and a breakthrough diplomatically.

“As I think we've mentioned before, Scott, I think last week when we spoke about Lebanon a bit more,”

Lebanon and the role of his bill are as a real critical part of the Iranian conflict both for the region and specifically for Israel.

If we look at the Iran conflict being a conflict around nuclear missiles, nuclear material, ballistic missiles and proxies, the real proxy that still has a punch from the Iranian sense, at least in a geostrategic ability to make the region go into flames, it's really his billar. So does Iran control the fate of the Lebanese Israeli relationship or does Beirut and that sort of the big question? As we mentioned last time, I actually thought it was a deft political maneuver when President Trump

and the Trump administration negotiated a ceasefire through the Lebanese government with his well rather than allowing Iran to dictate terms. And whether that was just a base saving maneuver or not, and it came after horrendous blows by the Israelis and Beirut on April 8 and a few other things. But his billar hasn't felt bound by this, even though there's been an extension for three weeks,

the level of missile attacks on his billar and Israeli reprisals has gone up.

“There was some disturbing footage, I think two days ago of says billar luncheon, first person drones,”

add Israeli targets and Southern Lebanon, despite the fact that President Trump said that as well as prohibited from blowing up buildings, we've seen, as well continue to blow up buildings in South Lebanon and in sort of what they see as a buffer area.

So there's a big question about, if the first ceasefire in their own day while there's still continues and the Israelis

are very much saber-atling saying that if his billar continues, we're going to just basically fire not just north of the Latini bit in Beirut again, which just shatters the whole consensus. And Prime Minister Netanyahu is under deep, deep, deep political pressure to continue the war from the north of Israel, is also in the election year. They'll be going to the ballots in October, and the north has been underinvested in. They felt like they've been forgotten victims since October 8, the day after October 7,

and their kids had, even though the home front said that school should be open in the north, local security councils have closed them, to say it's just not safe enough, given the missile, so there's a huge domestic push. But there is another story that is going on with Lebanon that is under-reported in the US press,

“but I think is just as important as what's happening on Washington, and that is what's happening in Saudi Arabia.”

So today in Saudi, the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Speaker Berry was meeting with Prince Farhan, the Saudi Foreign Minister, and what you've got behind the scenes is that the Israelis and the Saudis actually share a common interest in a strong Lebanon. Right? They don't want to see it as below that. But the Saudis also don't want to see the Lebanese bullied into normalisation with Israel, absent a solution on the Palestinian file. You know, the Saudis want to very much gather the whole Arab world.

And they also don't want the Americans and the Israelis to push strong enough, that the entire terrier agreement that basically has governed post of all Lebanon,

and comes apart. Because if you push too hard and because Billa feels like it needs to collapse to stay, in order to prevent their red lines being pushed, it could collapse Lebanon, which is very much not in anyone's interest, though, you know, the Trump administrations, general postures, push, push, push, push, push, and then say, look, we've done well. So behind the scenes, you've got the Saudis also trying to work out, also using their own back channels with the Iranians, what could be done to try and settle this down, can we prevent an undone Netanyahu meeting, so that's not gifted before progress on the Palestinian file.

Well, at the same time, respecting the agreement that was forged in Saudi Arabia in 1989, the terrier agreement that ended the civil war. So, look, there should be one person, one gun, we need to respect that the president of the armed forces is the president of Lebanon. And that, you know, we need to do that while also maintaining that there is still a role for the Shiite community within Lebanon, without taking apart the civil war. And is that also a way that we can maintain a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and not give the Iranians the ability to dictate terms,

but also not allow the Trump administration and this current government of Israel to push the Lebanese so hard that it shatters the country. And so there are two different things where the objectives actually are the same, which is to create a ceasefire, but on what terms, right, other terms there. And so, you know, we heard from Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor yesterday that Israelis are not going to get to permanently occupy southern Lebanon. And that, you know, once there is a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon, the territories and the borders will be set, and that the Israelis, at least, are calling to Marco Rubio have no intentions of having a permanent buffer zone.

So you get back to the questions, who's there and who's not. The Israelis have banned the French from these negotiations. One, they don't have a particularly good relationship with President Macron after the whole push for two states.

They're trying to work out and, well, there'd be an international force, and the Israelis going back to international monitoring of the ceasefire, what they felt that the Hezbollah just does what it wants against uniform and uses uniform as a shield, isn't an answer for them.

“But there are sort of parallel tracks trying to work on this to keep things calm. So I've got to answer your question from that very long answer. I think there is progress, but it's progress in two different ways.”

Is it progress, the Trumpian way, which is pressure pressure pressure? Yes, we'll help the Lebanese down forces, but, you know, get rid of the anti-normalization law of now, do all these things that are very difficult in a society that is where it is. Or is it also the stuff that's going around behind the scenes with the Saudis and how does that work and who has given political gifts before said elections? It's going to be an important part of this as well. Yeah, I want to just make a sort of general thematic comment, which is that in each of these sort of topics, sub topics that we've been talking about, the general theme is that the administration, the Trump administration, I should say, is continually moving the goalposts and re-articulating what the goal is.

And, you know, some goals have been consistent throughout, we're going to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear program, but even what that means has has varied somewhat depending on who's commenting. And it sort of gets emphasized or de-emphasized depending on the context and the timing and what is going on in the conflict with respect to Lebanon. It's, you know, when we're talking about a ceasefire with Israel, are we talking about the government of Lebanon, regardless of the extent to which it has real authority over what happens in Lebanon, views of Israel.

We have a nice piece of paper signed, does that accomplish the goal or is the goal really to disable and disarm Hezbollah, that who's sort of shifted and been implied differently depending on the moment and who's talking. And then there's, you know, the pressures with allies that we will talk about in the next segment as being a symptom of our allies opposition to the war and Iran, but it's also continuing from many other contexts, as you said Scott, and I have to think is really exacerbated right now because one of the primary tensions that had been provoking tensions before was the US response to the war and Ukraine.

And Russia is now literally benefiting from the war in Iran, so it's not only that from the NATO allies perspective that US is not doing its part with respect to Russia's war in Ukraine, it's also that now it's legitimately benefiting and making Russia stronger, which has immediate security impacts for, for Europe, of course. But I think the, you know, the changing all posts, the defining the problem differently is sort of stylistically consistent with the way that the Trump administration runs foreign affairs and even some of its domestic policies, which is if you keep changing what the problem is, you can redefine what the proper solution is.

So, you know, will Iran get wrapped up when the Strait of Formus is opened, whatever opened means in scare quotes, you know, the last time I was on rational security, we were. It was just after Trump said that we were going to go in on some deal where both Iran and the United States would benefit from the tolls that would be charged for ships to go through the state of Formus.

Remember, the Strait of Formus was only closed because the US initiated strikes on Iran and started this whole conflict in the first place.

“So, I think the, the commentary has to take into account the fact that we are dealing with moving targets all the time, and I think the, the continual question being, how is this going to wrap up?”

It feels to me like, okay, well, from whose perspective, because from the Trump administration's perspective, I continue to think there's a very real possibility that for whatever reason. The administration wants to move off of this topic, whether it's domestic political pressures and the upcoming elections, whether it's because of the deep on popularity, generally of the war, whether it's because there are other more pressing issues that come up on the agenda.

That whatever point we are in time, the problem such as it is for any of these three things can be redefined and thus the solution deemed success.

It's just hard to really have sophisticated analysis when it's a rhetorical exercise.

“We're just just building off that. I think we've seen now that we are, God, it feels like we've been here for years, but like a year into Trump too.”

We've got a year in four months under a bell, sir. Please don't cut us. Don't cut us short on that.

There we go. So, a year in four months, I think we're seeing a foreign policy doctrine, which is extreme pragmatism with no sacred cows.

Suddenly says, "Well, this is going to have to be submitted to Congress."

I'm like, okay, and I have a horse to sell you. Like, what are you talking about? President Trump doesn't feel constrained by any of the sacred cows. That means, you know, whatever it is, the easiest way, I think that it helps overcome some of the structural deficiencies that has been the U.S. policy in the Middle East. But the embrace of Alshara can't imagine another administration having done that. And one could argue, actually, it was derived move. I'm not going to debate that right now. But on the other hand, you don't build anything.

So, to build the Lebanese Armed Forces capacity, and you want the U.S. to participate in that, you know, you now have to go through U.S. allies to do that, because the U.S. has no capacity to do it itself. And we're seeing that, whether it's on the Gaza file and board of peace or whatever else it might be, the traditional tools or stakecraft have been hollowed out. And so, it's very easy to reframe if it's just pressure, quick hit, make a deal move on, but if it requires a sustained effort, and like a leave behind, it's not the U.S. who's going to do that leave behind.

“And that's why, you know, going into the traditional allies model becomes very complicated.”

Yeah, and I think the piece of that, though, as you say, it's pragmatism with no sacred cows, I think that's a suit, but it's also pragmatism in the interest of a very short term goal and a goal that is changeable. And so, you know, as we've been talking about, it turns out that the situation in Lebanon is very complicated. It's there all sorts of domestic political pressures. Economic pressures has below versus the Lebanese government. Turns out that's a really complicated problem that's going to require a lot of sustained engagement.

We're not going to worry about that. It turns out that making sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear program is incredibly complicated. I mean, guys, this is so obvious. There's no one in their right mind who would think that this would be an easy fix. No matter what sort of show of force there would be.

And that turns out to be too complicated. It's, I mean, this should be not a surprise to the extent it is a surprise, my God. And to the extent it's not, that just means that the short term goal, whatever it may be, is the only focus of all of this action. So, I let's turn to that because the nuclear file is the big outstanding issue with Iran as it has been for two decades now, more than two decades probably.

We know the president has said on the record, that doesn't always necessarily mean that much.

That Iran can't have a nuclear weapon, right? And currently Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon.

“It's close to a nuclear weapon or it might be or is proximate, at least if a conventional, not of a non-curddy sort, right?”

So, I think Natalie's point is really well taken on this one. Like negotiating what it means to end a nuclear program is technically incredibly complicated. Because you're talking about, well, all these different capacities, some of which are dual-use, sort of multiple uses, multiple applications, some of legitimate, like civilian nuclear energy, some not. How do you evaluate them, how do you weigh them, what sort of credibility regime is affecting regime? This is why you had the JCPOA, the robot administration negotiated was hundreds of pages long. I think 150 pages plus annexes, I recall, give or take. And the length of the annexes, it's not short annexes.

It was very, very complicated as somebody who tried to figure out what was happening with it after the fact. So, you know, it's hard to envision Steve Wittkov and Jared Kushner hashing that out. And, but if you're really talking about stopping progress in a raw nuclear program, we're having real credibility there, anything short of, like, complete handover of nuclear material, which just does not seem like it's on the table for the Iranians, you need to have those technical details, you need to be able to assess how effective they are or else you don't know how credible this one is you're getting are.

“So, what does this transactional, moving targets dynamic, I think Joel and Natalie have captured really well, mean for the nuclear file, like, what do you think might come out of this?”

And how does it compare to, you know, the JCPLA or other potential arrangements we could have had to try and rain in the genuine concern of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon?

So, that's the kind of big challenge we've had since the first Trump administration, right?

President Trump withdrew from the JCPLA, which he claimed was a very bad deal, one of the worst he'd ever seen. And that was in 2018, then his first administration basically started to build out what it called the maximum pressure campaign, which was sanctions anchored, let's say, campaign on Iran. And at the time, there was, to Natalie's point, there was a lot of back and forth about what the administration meant when it said Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. And which aspects of the nuclear program that you've just described for us would be allowed in which ones wouldn't be allowed, and depending on who you asked in the administration, the narrative changed a little bit.

And now we're seeing the same thing happen here, where initially when the administration decided to go into Iran and face following the conflict, the nuclear program wasn't really stated as an objective.

Are we talking about them not being able to have enrichment?

“Are they supposed to ship out the highly enriched uranium that they have in country when the administration talks about degrading or destroying the nuclear program?”

What do they actually mean? We don't really know. And, you know, both Joel and Natalie talked about the administration is kind of focused on these short-term objectives. It mirrors its military approach, right? And we saw this over the summer with Operation Midnight Hammer, where the administration is consistently kind of taking these tactical or operational successes, which are undeniable, and then trying to frame them as big strategic successes. And they are decidedly not big strategic successes. So one of the concerns that I think I and many in the kind of non-colliferation community have is that actually what we will see after the shooting stops is an Iran that is more inclined and more willing to acquire nuclear weapon than it was before.

Because it has now been communicated to Iran via the particular campaign via the campaign over the summer that the deterrence posture that currently has without a nuclear weapon is not sufficient for it. And so I am deeply concerned that we have one, a much more radical regime in place than we did just six months ago or even three months ago. And two, we have a regime that has a very different threat perception than the one that was previously in place, and I just want to be clear, it is the same regime.

The president keeps saying it's not the same regime, it's just different individuals within the regime just to be extremely clear about this. But what I'm concerned about is that what will happen after everything, after the settles, is that Iran decides to actually acquire nuclear weapon. And by the way, we should also restate this that the intelligence community under the Trump administration led by Tulsi Gabber, the Director of National Intelligence, appointed by the president, had stated as of last March, this was during the hearings on the annual threat assessment that was not in the process of acquiring a nuclear weapon at that point, right.

So, you know, this is an assessment that has held for years and years at this point. So, all of this to say, again, negotiations on a nuclear program are incredibly complicated, incredibly technical to your point Scott. When we've done these things in the past, we've had dozens of technical experts, legal experts, folks who understand Iran, folks who understand the threat perceptions and issues and interests of other partners. We've done this with other allies and partners who have similar capabilities and can contribute to that discussion, and we replaced that whole structure with two people who have no background whatsoever in nuclear issues on Iran on sanctions, frankly, which is another very important and very technical piece of this.

So, it's not surprising that a couple, you know, a few weeks ago there was reporting that Steve Woodcoff and Jared Kushner did not understand what the Iranians were proposing, which is how we are where we are today.

“So, there are just so many different pieces here that I think are tricky.”

One is that threat perception from Iran that I described second is that we just are not posture does a government to be able to really grapple with this problem at the way it's currently staffed.

And three is the fact that, yeah, these are very complex issues that take a long time and you cannot, and the president doesn't seem to have the patience for this, he wants to have a deal pretty quickly. You can't wrap up something like this really quickly, not unless you're willing to take a deal that is just not going to address all of the challenges that are associated with the nuclear program. All right, can I ask you one question on your point with regard to Iran's calculations after this? I've been wondering, so I remain confused about why anyone is surprised that Iran used the straight-of-form moves as a significant point of leverage.

“But it does seem to me that it's been very clearly demonstrated that it is also a very complex problem and that Iran genuinely does have what I think a lot of experts expected long before this happened.”

A really significant ability to paralyze things that's not easily resolved even with immense force. It's just to the logistics of it purely are just too complicated.

So I've been wondering if there will always be a fear of Iran's nuclear capacity is, but is what's happening now a reason that Iran may also change its security calculus for going forward.

To really emphasize what it can do with respect to the straight, such that nuclear power becomes maybe a little bit less important, although undoubtedly not negligible, but might this be another area that it really focuses on for deterrence.

I think what we saw happen was actually a bit more tailored a bit more thought through than the scenario that we had envisioned, which was that they were just going to close the straight and that was it. And initially when they decided to disrupt the freedom of navigation and through the choke point, it was a much more tailored with this kind of toll system that that they imposed.

“So clearly a bit more, I don't want to say it's thoughtful because that has a positive connotation, but it basically was a more tailored approach to it than I think we had previously assumed.”

And I do think that they will probably continue to refine the way they, they weaponize the straight and will continue to incorporate it into their military doctrine. And I think that will be part of kind of a wholesale rethinking of the military doctrine coming out of this conflict. The last time they really did this was after the Roderack War where they kind of intervolumes and volumes of studies and assessments that the IRGC put out right after the Roderack War where they rethought through what had worked and what hadn't worked during the conflict, I think we'll see something like that after this one where they will kind of take stock of the different kind of courses of action, the different techniques, tactics and procedures.

“And we'll think through what worked and what didn't work, clearly the straight has demonstrated and the ability to control it has demonstrated its value for them.”

I would say, and I would be curious what Joel thinks here, but you know, I would say that proxies probably haven't actually been as as effective for them, and this is largely because Israel has really been degrading the Iranian proxy network after October 7th. So really interesting counterfactual would actually have been what would this conflict look like if his bola had the capabilities that it had three years ago, what would it have looked like if Israel hadn't actually engaged in this campaign.

“So I think coming out of this, I don't foresee them entirely for going proxies as a tool, but I think they will probably be a bit less inclined to kind of pin their security on it.”

So much more interested in pursuing organic capabilities, so that does include maritime naval capabilities, but also missiles and drones to be able to protect themselves as well as of course the nuclear program that we've talked about. I think that the Israeli Post-October 7th security posture of destruction rather than deterrence and acting in other states territories that non-state actors are active there has been a successful strategy against pushing back against Iranian or other state proxies and the Israeli demand to do so regardless of whatever else that entails is something that I think has been a lasting mark since October 7th.

And as being extended for the past three years, I do think we're seeing the limit of that when it comes to, for example, Lebanon and his bola, whether it's to tolerance of the region, the Trump administration, the international community, and the need to also have a diplomatic solution and finding what that looks like also within a domestic political context.

But this concept that Israel will not act against proxies that are being built up is, I do think a lesson and the fact that the Iranian homeland has been hit so hard.

Is it worthwhile doing it if the Shibalith has been broken that you can now hit on each other's home soils? I could imagine that if there was a real feeling that for whatever constraint that is always feeling and there were real serious proxies being built up close to that territory, I do think they'd have a problem in hitting the Iranian homeland again if they felt that that was necessary to redemonstrate the lesson. Also say that we did see reports come out of Axis last two days ago or something that I was expecting to see, which is for the first time you've seen Israeli missile defenses deployed on UAE territory with Israeli soldiers operating iron down.

So when you thought you know these are not proxies, these are Israeli forward bases that are doing missile defense, but you could imagine scenario especially as the UAE unit is our father deep in the strategic cooperation after this, we saw today the UAE exit in OPEC and others that you could see Israeli forward bases, far closer to Iran. And what would that look like? So there's been a consequence of their regional strategy that I'll have to rethink and the last thing I'll say about the streets for commos unlike the nuclear program that are worker ants.

So maybe not on like fertilizer, but when it comes to oil and energy, whether it's iMac, whether it's other pipelines, the Turks are trying to, you know, there are very heavy logistical but solvable problems to overcome that as a strategic leverage point.

In many ways they're going to have to find an equilibrium that works and even if you've got the formal ending of state to state literal bombing runs, I'd do imagine that the sub-defeuge, whether it's Israeli or Iranian intelligence or whatever else will continue until, you know, there's an ideological shift one way or the other. Well, we are going to have to shift away for this topic. I have more opportunities to talk about it in the future. But let's move to a very closer related topic that's already come up a bit and that is our NATO allies as I think it was already somebody mentioned.

We have the beginnings of a nascent plan for European involvement potentially in opening the street of foreign moves UK, France are involved in discussions along these lines potentially some willingness by Germany and other European powers who have been very reluctant and in some ways critical of these really US military operation this time around, in some departure from the earlier and more limited strikes in 2025 of which a number of at least the major European powers were more supportive of, and that's been a source of tension with the Trump administration.

“We know Donald Trump was angry about it. We know two or three weeks ago, there were reports that he was considering withdrawing from NATO as punishment. He was certainly uping the rhetoric as senior officials in his administration saying,”

"Well, good is NATO for if they're not going to deliver here, although notably there's no treaty obligation to do anything in this particular situation, because it's not what the NATO- North Atlantic Treaty is supposed to cover it to say to least.

But regardless, senior alliances not worth the US costs and burden they take on, now we are hearing these new reports about their being planned to punish NATO to exact a sort of cost on NATO.

About, you know, here is the consequences of certainly certain, I should say, those NATO allies who were less supportive of what the United States was doing, others were more supportive of, or at least passively accepting of it. You know, US over flights of Germany for example, critical to US military operations in Iran and Germany didn't make enough for it to stop those, it's from other European powers did, or other more restrictive measures. So, I want to turn to you because I know you have been looking at our treaty relationships and alliances for the last one once you were with Laugh Fair and a lot of your research and your work.

“Talk to us about where this idea of sanctioning certain of these NATO allies fits into the broader picture of this sort of relationship. In some ways, it's a step down, right?”

The demonstration does appear to have walked away from the idea that's going to withdraw from NATO at least for the moment. That really was never actually even expressly said that is just an inference that people withdraw when the president starts criticizing NATO at this point. But we have these other sorts of measures, including some of that don't seem that realistic being discussed in the Pentagon again, there's no way to suspend Spain's membership in NATO that I'm aware of having read the North Atlantic Treaty quite closely a number of times.

As recently as I think yesterday, there's nothing there in there for that that I can think of. Although, notably, there are actually cooperative mechanisms and implement agreements built on the North Atlantic Treaty that you could suspend different types of cooperation coordination.

“There's like a pretty dense network of theirs that is mostly voluntary stuff. So I think you actually could, I think you'd have to get a lot of other NATO members on board with that though.”

Other things like changing recognition of the Falcon Islands, typically in the president's authority. That president has to exclude authority of recognition.

So if a Tuskegee V carry in 2015 Supreme Court case said that quite unequivocally, what how big a difference would that make in the end is it more than just a spit in the eye to the UK? I don't think Argentina is going to watch a new military offensive. I'm not sure. So talk to us about it. I mean, are you like, what is motivating these sorts of discussions of these sanctions? I guess we know what's motivating it. What does it tell us about what the actual repercussions are like to be for the North Atlantic relationship?

So here I should start by giving credit to my co-author, John Jenin, who has written a bunch of co-authored a bunch of things with me for law fair on this topic. And our kind of fundamental one assumption and also argument is that the Trump administration is using coercion and consistent coercion as a tool of alliance management with NATO in a way that no president had in the past. Presidents and administrations in the past had use coercion at different points with allies. There are a few historical examples. We can point to including the Swiss crisis for example, but no administration had really used coercion in the same way with allies. And actually if you look at the scholarly literature, it's all about how we use coercion with adversaries. It doesn't really think about how you use coercion with allies because it, you know,

as you and Natalie can talk much more to this than I can, alliances have these mechanisms that are built into them to be able to manage disagreements within the alliance, right?

We've seen the administration use coercion with allies who were complying with its demands as was the case with South Korea, but maybe too slow to kind of, you know, do what the administration wanted.

We've seen at use coercion to go after allies like Spain, for example, who are fundamentally saying, "No, we disagree with this policy position. We are not going to enable it and everything in between."

“And so I think if you're the allies you're looking at this and you're thinking, "I'm going to end up on the kind of, you know, on the bad list here, and I'm going to end up having coercion levied at me."”

So why should I comply with something? So there is that piece of it. There's a second piece where, with regard to the wrong word specifically, this is, again, deeply unpopular.

This is not something that the administration had actually consulted the allies with, and then it came out and said, "We didn't consult you. We didn't ask you about your opinions on this conflict, even though it's going to affect you in some ways more than it's going to affect us, because we do actually have quite a bit of distance with Iran.

“And so, you know, what it comes to potential migration, second order effects, potential range of Iranian missiles that can actually reach Europe, can't really reach the United States."”

So it's going to affect them and it has been affecting them in many ways more so that it has the United States. We're not going to ask your opinion on it, but we're going to come to you and say, "We need you to kind of chime in and help us." Even though you didn't support this conflict and, you know, we didn't care what you had to say about it. So, you know, this is just kind of this broader picture right now of US intranetotentions that started really acutely with Greenland this year. And then has, and we forget about Greenland because it now feels like so long ago, but, you know, it's not completely forgotten in Europe. It also, by the way, pokes its head out every so often, I wouldn't be surprised if we went back to another Greenland crisis after this war is over, for example, we have had the United States and this administration trying to interfere in the domestic affairs of its European allies.

We saw it most recently in the case of Hungary, but it's not the only example. And then, of course, we have the tensions around this war. Now, adding to all of this is the fact that we also have an administration that does not share Europe's threat perception when it comes to Russia. Russia, which is, you know, normally the kind of main res on debt for the alliance, the chief objectives of NATO are to deter Russia and protect and defend NATO sovereignty and territory. And we have an administration that doesn't share that threat perception.

So, you know, I think all of these different dynamics come together. They all of them are sort of separate, but they all feed into one another. And so where we are, and this is something that John and I talked about in one of the pieces, is that there are different scenarios that can happen here. The reason is, and Scott, you mentioned this, a collapse of the alliance, the United States withdrawing from it. That is not the likelyest, although I probably like clear today that it was two months ago and probably like clear two months ago that it was six months ago, but still not the likelyest scenario.

The likelyest scenario is actually that all of these different tensions from Iran to Greenland to domestic affairs to the Falklands, all of these continue to feed into the international dynamics and ultimately serve to make the alliance less effective when it comes to meeting its missions and both operationally and politically. And that in itself would be a really bad thing, because if the alliance becomes an effective, then it doesn't really serve a purpose, right? And I think we are really on that trajectory. And by the way, we have another two and a half years of this administration with this approach.

And my concern is that when all is said and done, that it will be actually really hard to go back to the status quo, okay, that we won't be able to go back to the way things were a few years ago. And this is partially why in that piece, we argued that we should be really rethinking about the alliance, we should be recasting the alliance, because there is just no point in trying to roll back the clock to 2024 or 2019 or 2015.

“And there's a compelling argument about, maybe we've already passed the kind of cross the Rubicon on a fundamental change in the alliance.”

So the alliance is a dynamic entity, like NATO has served a different purposes over the years. It's at a foundational treaty purpose, but in practice has served as an organizing mechanism for things like intervention Afghanistan and a bunch of other measures, who's next is to at least the original conception of the NATO mission is really quite different in the threat it's intended to address.

Then it seemed to be given that was the original bookvading impetus of NATO to some extent.

“Joel, let me come to you on this and get your sense of these things. I'd be kind of curious by your, you know, insofar as we are looking for the possibilities of fundamental reset on NATO, what are the indicators we would look like?”

I mean, we're not going to recast the treaty, right? People either are going to stay in the treaty, they're going to exit it. But the treaty is very broadly worth it. There are a fallen agreements or something more technical and nobody really knows. Follows those straight closely and let's you really in the weeds. It really comes down to where do people assign forces? What are the types of cooperation activities that we see? Where is the United States have forces in Europe in particular would be particularly instrumental here, but also how other countries cooperate host, you know, what did overall posture of the alliance looks like and how interconnected that is from their independent foreign policies?

Do you see signs of that, do we expect to see signs of that? And what do you think that would look like if we do see a sort of major change in the alliance? You know, I think that it's been very clear that unlike Trump on NATO is not going to snap back after Trump too to what it was before, I very much agree with Ari.

“I think that leaders in Warsaw, in Berlin, in Paris, in Brussels, in London are not going to allow voting machines and cops counted to take the future of their survival as a country.”

Anyway, that's they shouldn't, right? And, you know, you could play the 12-D tech chess, but I do think that Trump deserves credit from Trump one about pushing people to pay their cash at. I think the free rider system was not going to survive. The American population is not willing like it wasn't the Cold War to make the the actual necessary political space that is needed for NATO to actually function. I don't think that if you pulled people in America, do they want to go to war for Ukraine? I think Ukraine is not even a part of that, but should Russia have hit Poland as part of it and therefore technically breached the NATO treaty is America's supposed to declare war on Russia right now.

I just don't think that you would have seen the populace support. The really is a necessary underpinning to make this work. And I think what we've seen on the Iran conflict is that having U.S. troops stationed in these far-flung places is a security threat rather than a security deterrence. Now, if you just look at the excuses, but the Trump administration has made now, I think even just this past week about why we went to war in Iran, or what we're calling it, a significant military maneuver or whatever bizarre linguistic legal lingo were doing.

The fact that there are U.S. bases that made it an necessity of imminent threat rather than prevented it. So my expectation is by the end of Trump too, we're seeing a withdrawal of troops from many bases from around the world. I don't think probably in Asia, but I think from parts of Western Europe, I think from parts of the Middle East. I think we finally saw the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, and my expectations, but I see that elsewhere, and there are going to be lots of consequences, but I do think that that also fits into the why the trends I'd argue in a bipartisan consensus.

I think that when you look at the restraint crowd in the Republican Party, there was no desire to have this massive force projection everywhere because it creates a need to go to war rather than a need to restrain oneself. I think Democrats look at the size of the Pentagon budget and they're like, this isn't the same.

“Like, this is just completely unsustainable, and the best way of cutting it, you know, and especially with new technologies and cheaper drones, why do we have tanks stationed in front of it?”

And Ramstein app, like, what's the point in all of this? And so I actually think that there's a consequence of this administration, we're going to see a withdrawal of U.S. troops for many different places.

And the Trump administration supporters will give a 12-D chest, that was always his intent, and this was just how he got there.

But I actually think it opens space for a new, re-examined, where should we really be putting our force assets? Should we be concentrating more in our own sphere of influence? Is it more about the Arctic? You know, is it more about Asia? Is it more about new drone technology and other things that come from that? And I think that's going to really radically change how people see this stuff, but, you know, with my own sort of, expertise in the Middle East, the reason that China's mediation between, for example, Iran and Saudi or whatever else,

isn't seen as that serious as ultimately there aren't aircraft carriers there, the Chinese aren't setting an aircraft carrier there.

And as long as the aircraft carriers aren't there, you know, the lack of force projection, the real player in China's U.S. If you do remove U.S. force projection from the Middle East, what happens? Like, we could play out the scenario and we'll gain it in multiple different directions, but it will be a pretty radical change. And I think that given the, as we spoke before about these quick hits that the administration keeps doing and slaughtering sacred cows and empowering our show and telling the types to do what they're doing,

and the studies operating around policy and the Israelis trying to force project and the Iranians trying,

Does it stabilize? Does it force different ally ships? What happens?

“And I think there's, it's going to be a very confusing time, but I do think that one of the consequences of the threatening of allies.”

And this way in a coercive mechanism is just, I also think from an American tolerance, like, why should we have troops in these places? Okay, a NATO will exist, but does it really prevent or does it provoke by having U.S. bases and force operating stuff? Doesn't mean that you remove the nuclear umbrella or anything else, but just having tens of thousands of U.S. troops in these places, is it just in an acquinism, and it's, it's actually not needed. And I think that's going to be a very interesting question moving forward.

So, this idea of a reset of this potentially ushering in a moment of a different sort of NATO alliance,

and really maybe more specifically, a different sort of transatlantic relationship, both in ways that are NATO related and separate from it,

although the two of us blend it together and sometimes convenient, something convenient ways. A big question comes on, the other element of the reset isn't on the U.S. posture. It's really kind of on the European posture, and we're really seeing signs of this already about the idea of Europe really taking early, but still significant and meaningful steps towards an greater Indigenous defense capacity, and interoperability among European components, and less reliance upon American components of their droters at Curious System.

And, you know, to some extent, remobilizing in a way that some countries haven't fully sensed what we're doing, including Germany and the Nordic countries,

a number of other countries, an idea that we are actually going to have a military culture that needs to be part of our defense posture,

“moving forward in part because America looks unreliable. So, now, what I want to ask you about is, what does that mean for the nature of the bilateral relationship?”

Because the United States, the alliance with the Europe, you can see it as costly from one perspective in that. The United States does bear the burden of majority of security costs, has historically, and the risks attendant with that of getting sucked into a war over Europe. To some extent, that maybe it would be fine without getting sucked into, although, I think you can question that assumption, depending on, in a lot of scenarios. But there has been a payoff that people don't talk about enough, which is that European has got along a lot with a lot of American weirdness.

Americans just do some weird things in the world. That a lot of Europeans probably don't feel the need to play along with, but they do nonetheless. I suspect the strikes on Iran last year on Iran's nuclear program fit into that bucket, and we're representative of the significant, but still kind of constrained compared to the current Iran operation thing that even in these late stage, a lot of European governments were willing to go to a border with them back the United States on and cooperate on.

“I think the Greenland experience between the two has really served to sever the willingness to do that.”

I'm curious what European posture towards this latest Iran operation would look like if there hadn't been that Greenland kick up. I suspect this would not be a wholehearted embrace, but I think it would be less confrontational. Then this has been or less openly a departure. So I want to put it to you, Natalie, like, what does that look like if Europe gets an independent defense copy? What does that capacity, where doesn't need, you know, the United States?

What does that lack of leverage look like for the translator relationship? Does it necessarily, might it not be a bad thing? If you sometimes think the United States as a superpower, the superpower has overreached, does maybe having a more independently minded European ally make that less likely? And maybe in some domains, maybe other domains. I'm curious what the pros and cons of this might be.

Yeah, I mean, I think I actually want to refer people to some work that Ari has done to articulate what the benefits of the alliance have been to the United States. Beyond, you know, NATO has primarily with respect to affirmative uses of force benefited the United States. And it's weird campaigns at various stages. I think, you know, the assumption is, but, and I think it's a fair one, that the primary benefit to Europe of the NATO relationship has been deterrence, because the threat of the United States and all of its military might has been a significant deterrent.

There's any controversy in that. But, you know, Ari has written really well and maybe can speak here a little bit about the other sort of less visible benefits of the NATO relationship to the United States. So I think, you know, I think Joel's thought experiment is an interesting one of what does it look like if we just totally rethink some of the assumptions that we have, like how important is it really to have forward operating bases all over the world. Do we really need to have major military installations in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, would it actually be feasible on the international level on the domestic level in the United States to just fully reinvision that and perhaps withdraw?

I think that the costs to the United States would be really dramatic, but maybe it's hard to articulate exactly what those would be if we're thinking about them in the context of a full reset of every country and the world orders sort of security arrangements as they have been. So I sort of frankly now that I've talked to myself in a circle, I'm not sure exactly what further analysis there is to be done in the thought experiment land, but if we're if I return to the question of what the costs would be to the United States or what the impact would be to the United States.

Can I also take this opportunity to say that the president cannot withdraw unilaterally from NATO thanks to the what I like to call Scott our Anderson act of whatever year that legislation was passed because I fully credit Scott with coming up with the idea I'm sure no one else that thought of it. I say no Congress, it's a very original idea perhaps maybe not the most deep legal insight, but you know nothing else it got things across across the plate eventually exactly, but the the question as you asked of what will happen as Europe continues to look toward building its own indigenous security apparatus and whether that will be within the auspices of NATO.

Are we in vision NATO query a lesson to us role or even withdrawal from NATO versus whether it will be under the auspices of the European Union, which I think is still sort of a possibility on the table, but it's still such early days in all of this that it's hard to know. I think there's the threshold question of what that looks like and how domestic politics in Europe feeds into that because I think there's going to have to be a major major cultural shift among voters let alone the political leadership of countries and regional leadership because.

There has I think, I mean, I'm thinking back to my somewhat anecdotal, but I think representative experience when I studied abroad at Sjonspo and Paris, which is a very international affairs minded place that is magnet for students who come in from all over the world's many, many from Europe and you know think big thoughts about politics.

“And a lot of the people legitimately do go into positions of leadership and government in their country, so it's not this is not merely academic, but there really was a widespread understanding that.”

Frankly, I think there was an under appreciation of the effect of deterrence because there was really such a spirit of cooperation and almost this notion that the threat of military force was in outdated construct that wasn't as necessary in the modern era, which I think, you know, given the war in Ukraine given other things that have happened since low those many years ago that I was at Sjonspo. I suspect that even my peers at the time have changed their opinions on that, but what they how much they prioritize the build up of European defense capacity, what that looks like, what the timeline is and what obstacles they will face both domestically and purely logistically, I think is very much uncertain right now.

I think it also changes, for example, the European Turkish relationship and it also, by the way, challenges some of the posture of the EU towards Israel and towards Ukraine, like the need for having weapons manufacturing that you feel that you can rely on because the US lead times to get some of these weapon systems is so long and you seemingly keep jumping around. What does that mean and it gives leverage to Turkey where the EU has many challenges with the Turkish government, but yeah, we put it all aside for national security and, you know, when people look at the doomsday snires, for example, the Israeli's being kicked out of the EU Association agreement, given their policies towards the Palestinian's.

What does that mean if the Israeli's therefore also say well we weren't selling weapons technology? Are European leaders willing to go in that direction or not? I don't know the answer to that, by the way, I'm not saying that that's a trump card that the Israelis have or not, especially if they can buy Turkish and Ukrainian technology and others, but it does scramble if you realize that you need to build your own domestic arsenal in a really serious way and that we're moving to a point where domestic, as you said, Indigenous security doctrine requires you to have not just an umbrella, but your own roof over your head.

Some of the countries that make some of these weapons are not people that you have policy agreements with and what does that mean if they therefore challenge that and that's going to be very interesting in terms of domestic politics and what does that look like? Hopefully a challenge there on the road to a little more autarkey in international relations. We're running low on time, but we have one more topic. There will be bereft of us not to touch on that. In fact, of course, there is another assassination attempt on the president this past weekend at the so called Hinkley Hilton because of the last attempt on a president that was made there.

You know, this has been kind of a weird assassination attempt I will say because I feel like it hasn't gotten quite the echo in the media that we've seen of other ones apart because it was not only unsuccessful did not appear to have killed anyone alone the target. Once it was also a shot but was not injured was blocked by bullet professed. The suspect was detained. It appears to be a manifesto where you are skeptical of the administration and president Trump and many of these officials and clearly targeting them.

But it does read this question about okay what does it mean when we have these sorts of actions now has very interesting because this time we have heard the usual ramp up which is people as we saw particularly after the Charlie Kirk assassination where people who are sympathetic to the party that was targeted accused the other party of using heated rhetoric that drives violence. That did happen in this case in a handful of cases is still happening and that always happens it's also something to some extent is often true and some extent is always strategic or stated I think that's our fair dynamics to understand you can disagree about the extent of which by the happens after all these sorts of incidents for reasons out of completely good faith and also sometimes strategic by people.

But it's really interesting is here we saw a multi-media pivot by the administration towards a fairly reduced in credit issue which is the ballroom issue. Now there is a clear nexus here to some extent at least or maybe clear is a quite right there is a nexus here.

“The president wants the ballrooms we can do large events at the White House larger than these we will do at the White House up to this point that prior presidents were able to do with this point.”

I think this is the White House correspondence center this never happened at the White House I don't believe and is traditionally been done independently organized by the independent organization the president's invited to speak and by the way yes the president will still be speaking independent events.

Certainly as part of campaign so building a ballroom wouldn't necessarily mean the president wasn't at this event this past weekend but nonetheless there's been a clear nexus there.

So let me start with you Natalie on this like you know what do you make us what does this tell us about the extent to which these incidents still or don't anymore shock the conscience that we see such an instrumental turn in the way it's being used rhetorically even by people who are you know at least ideologically like most most likely to feel targeted and feel affected by it.

“Is that a sign of growing cynicism as a criticism that we're being a little bit inoculated to these sorts of things and is that a good thing or a bad thing.”

It's definitely a sign that we have gotten used to this I mean even as you said this is the third assassination attempt we assume that Trump was the ultimate target here although the suspects manifesto didn't specifically name them but sort of applied and was obviously very critical of Trump administration policies. Yeah, we're talking about it of like this is the latest one and there's definitely as compared to the previous two attempts much much less in the public discussion about the urgent need to tone down rhetoric with respect to political violence and the very real threat that that.

Poses and and realistically the fact that it has already increased so dramatically over the last four or six eight years that's really missing right now and I don't know if it's just because.

People feel like there's not a whole lot more to say than this is really bad we should do something to stop it and no one knows exactly what that looks like other than sort of frankly at this point pretty pat statements from. politicians saying you know we really need to tone this down without any real progress on that front.

“I think that the other piece of it if I can pivot a little bit on on topic is.”

The shift to talking about the ballroom I'm finding problematic for all sorts of reasons but.

The first one that I just want to put out there is as you said there's no indication that this event would have happened at the ballroom if it were made.

And in fact if the assumption as seems to exist among those who are using it to tie this event to the necessity of having a ballroom. out of the need to have an association that presses back against suppression by the presidency would have its event in a ballroom at the White House. I think that it sort of speaks to an assumption that seems to be unstated in some circles that the best thing to do is to advance the president in an impenetrable fortress of security and have everything come to him in the interest of protecting him and that is not what a democracy is supposed to look like.

You'll be kind of curious by your view. I mean you spend a huge amount of your time studying in operating and interacting with people in Israel country that. The old political violence at a density that Americans have not quite encountered with a frequency. I mentioned many other country the Middle East for that's a reality. How exceptional or unacceptable does kind of the U.S. response of this event seem like against that broader context. I didn't think we even need to guess in a Middle East we can just look at our own history.

“I think one of the challenges is that America has a ubiquity of weapons.”

So we'd have to go through the gun prevention violence prevention conversation again. And I think it's very difficult to talk about turning down rhetoric when you want to create radical change. And this is not just an attack on Trumpian policy. We could see this during a civil rights era where we saw a huge object in political assassinations. Just to think about how we'd be in our modern technology world.

If we had the president, the president's brother and the leader of the civil rights movement all assassinated within sort of a two-year span. I mean the country almost did tear itself apart the seams then and you know it's a very worrying time.

So I think that there is always attention where you have an angry populace on one side or the other who want to see quick and radical change.

And you're governing basically 50 different countries from Washington, D.C.

“And how do you do that effectively and create that change without shattering parts of the domestic tranquility?”

I often say that peace isn't the absence of violence, it's a resiliency against violence. And our entire federal system is meant to design slow change because it recognises that governing so many people in so many different spaces at the same time is a complicated situation. And so if you try and radically change something, it disrupts the system and this move to executive power enables people to think if I just knock off the executive then I'll stop the change. And the other thing that so I do think we need to calm down the rhetoric but then how do you do that if people are still pushing for major structural changes in the country, it's a very difficult thing.

So I think there's a structural problem that I don't know how we overcome and it's something we all need to think about more. I will say that on the ballroom, Mattley going back to something we spoke about before. I think President Trump sees his legacy in terms of what he's built in the physical architecture of what he's built. And I wouldn't put that aside as just like a throw away or like a hysterical heart that I actually genuinely think, you know, he's not building international institutions. He doesn't have a signature policy, I mean he's got tax cuts, but there's nothing there that's not how he sees his legacy just isn't.

He's renamed the Institute of Peace in the Kennedy Center. I would expect that to be taken down when a democratic president comes up, what is his legacy? He's going to permanently change the White House. Right, you know, he is going to have, it will be the Trump ballroom. He's paved over the rose garden. He's changed the overlap of some rather than being like, oh, that's just an egoism for him. I think if you look at President Trump and him as a personality as a property developer, that is an expression of himself.

So it does not surprise me that the Trump administration thinks saying, this is why we need a ballroom. It's not just a vanity project, but it's actually something important is actually think a part of his psychology is that that's his legacy. And rather than, you know, I don't mock that.

“I think it's important to understand that, you know, in many ways, that's key sees that as part of his legacy as well as slaughtering all of these policy cows.”

But how much that lasts, you know, he's shifted the over to the window, but what he's foundationally built is something that every time you look at the White House, you know he was there. Or when he gets to the arch, then we'll really know.

And then anyone coming in to DC, we'll never return.

Same thing, same thing. We are out of time for today's episode, but this would not be ratchett security. If we didn't leave you with some object less to ponder over in the week to come. Ari, why don't we start with you, talk to us about what you have for us to ponder over. Alright, I think this is the second video game I'm going to recommend on the podcast.

And it is a game on the switch to called split fiction. It is a wonderful two person co-op game where you enter the world of two fiction writers. And they basically have to become the protagonist of their stories.

And so you basically move from one universe to another.

And some are very elaborate and complex and interesting. And others are just insane. And the best way possible. So you go from racing each other, you know, in a sci-fi kind of, you know, post modern worlds. And then you are a hot dog in the next scene.

And then you're dancing with this monkey king who is going to let you through. If you manage to actually replicate his steps, which if you don't have any rhythm, like me, is really pretty challenging. So anyway, it is a really, really fun game.

Highly highly recommend. Well, I love it.

We need a good video game correspondent here.

We hopefully can continue to recruit you as it's even when you have sadly left us in that regard. But uh, there we go. That's all we can ask. Now, what did you bring for us this week? Okay.

I'm going to just preface by saying that I do not apologize for how enthusiastic I am about this. I will note I'm talking about. There is a bakery that has opened right across the street from eastern market. A couple of locks from my house. This bakery has been in the works for, I don't know, like 18 months or something.

Um, Ari is from my neighborhood too until she relocates to Chicago, the best city. So she has also been waiting with baited breath. I believe for this bakery to open. And by bakery, I mean, a bono shui, it is called bono shui sanjosh. Every time I say it, my friends judge me because I refuse to say it in not a French accent.

I went there on the opening day.

It opened at 8 o'clock in the morning. I got there at 8 o'clock 3. And the line was all the way down the block. I waited in line with my dog for an hour and a half. Again, I do not apologize because it was so good and so worth it.

And even though they were out of plain crosswalk, I got a lot of other things and some pastries. And I have since gone back three or four times despite having been out of town for a week and a half. The people in there are all French speaking. And so I have a little moment where I feel returned to what is I don't know. Sometimes Paris is my favorite city, but then I feel like I'm betraying Chicago.

So it's very confusing. But it's a delight. Two cities, everyone kind of agree, have a ton in common. Listen, don't get me started. There's a beautiful river that goes through both of them.

Anyway, both cities.

Sister say our sister city is true.

Oh, that's true. Okay, fair enough. So anyway, I love it so much. Are you when you come back to visit DC? We will go together and speak pretentious French with the pretentious French people.

And eat our pretentious pastries that are, oh, I forgot to say this bakery. I would say, like to advertise that it imports all of its butter and flour from France. So.

“I think you've actually said the name of it yet.”

There you go. St George. St George. St George is. For those of you who would like to say, and American Transliteration.

It's really good. Go try it out. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, for my object lesson, I will endorse some competition in the podcast department.

I think competition is probably not quite what this is doing. I think two years ago were so. One of my prior object lessons was a phenomenal podcast, the folks at the telegraph. I think the daily telegraph from print just the telegraph online. I have thrown together on Ukraine.

They did a Ukraine colon the latest podcast, not a great original title. But phenomenal daily podcast really, really bringing up to date information with really, really great high profile, very interviews with people with like real technical, knowledge and experience. And they've been doing the same thing with Iran, much to my ignorance until a few days ago.

They've a really, really good podcast. They've put together a daily basis every weekday called Iran colon the latest again. Come with better names, guys. But it's really, really useful. I let's go a bunch of back episodes over the last few days. They had an interview.

“I think on the last episode of Listen to what I think was just yesterday with David Satterfield,”

a legendary US ambassador who I worked with briefly once upon a time. Mark Kancy in a, you know, a CSIS researcher's done some really great work with. I think one of his research assistants on, you know, US arms, supplies and the impact they run conflict really pulling together like a lot of important substantive threads. In a way, I have not seen both done many other places.

Maybe law firm will we try. We can't even do Iran every day. So a wonderful inclusion in your podcast consideration. If you're working or thinking about these issues, check it out around the latest on the telegraph podcast that work or whatever they call it. Joel, bring us home. What do you have for your object lesson today?

So firstly, Arya, I welcome you to the ubiquity of Chicago bank race. I know that DC might have one decent French bakery, whether it's Filipino French, America, and we are the James beard capital of America for this very good reason. So be prepared to eat many. It's all about the ratio of butter.

That's the thing that you can't compare. It's not most important. One way you can attack bokeh quest zones.

“Does everything you could possibly want to Chicago more?”

So it's a very exciting food city. I'm actually, you know, I was very struck like for the 680,000 people who turned up to Pittsburgh to listen to the NFL read out a list of names. The NFL throughout this weekend. I was struck by how many of the international fans and how much the US,

the NFL was leading into its Mexican contingent. It was really, really, pretty much in every team have like a Mexican club

I think at a time where there's been so much tensions specifically with Mexico.

And you know, I know that we've got the nightmare that will be the FIFA World Cup. I mean, the political nightmare, not the sports nightmare.

“I think it is very interesting that despite everything we spoke about in this podcast,”

I'm always struck. But when you actually take ourselves out of the DC National Security Thought Bubble, you put yourself in America's past times and you look at whether it's the amount of South American and Asian players in MLB or when you look at the NFL's expansion into Mexico. American soft path through sports and stuff is still a real thing.

And it's still an attractive thing. And people judge us more than just who our government is. Just as we should be judging other countries more than just who their governments are.

“And I think it's very grounding that should all of our talking heads in our country”

also find a passionate sports time, whether it's golf, NFL, MLB, grants, Olympics, whatever it may be. There's really an opportunity to understand that we are more than just our governments. And it's an objective lesson that the NFL drafts, which is the most pointless sport event that brings so much hope that it could have been an email.

There was no sporting event more than it could have been an email than the NFL draft. And it takes up, I don't know, 15 hours over three days. That it reminds us that the international community is really obsessed with one of our great past times that bonds us. And that's a good thing.

There you go. There you go.

Football, bringing peace, one, concussion and do some second attempts.

But, well, there you go. Well, with that, that brings us to the end of this week's episode.

“But remember, National Security is a production of Laugh Fair, so be sure to visit LaughFirmity.org”

for our show page for linked to fast episodes for our written work and the written work for the Laugh Fair contributors and for information on Laugh Fair's other phenomenal podcast series. While you're out to be sure to follow Laugh Fair on social media, wherever you socialize your media, be sure to leave a rating or a view wherever you might be listening. And sign up to become a material supporter of Laugh Fair on Patreon for an ad

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Our audio engineer producer this week was Nome Osband of Go rodeo and our music as always was performed by Sophia again.

And we were once again edited by the wonderful Jen patcha. But have my guest Joel, Ari, and Natalie. I am Scott, our Anderson, and we will talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye.