According to journalist Matthew Petti's number crunching, 31% of English-speaking media have been using the phrase "Hamas-led Health Ministry" since Oct. 17. Before that day, only 7% were using such a phrase. What happened? Petti points to the Oct. 17 explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, the perpetrator of which has not been independently con…

Experts are now speculating that America's reputation in the world, particularly in the Middle East, is taking a hit worse than when it invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. Giorgio Cafiero, head of Gulf State Analytics and a keen observer of politics in the region, tells the podcast this week that President Biden is becoming more hated than George W.…

A popular narrative after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and ensuing retaliation by Israel has been that the U.S. had dropped the ball because it had 'pivoted away' from the Middle East over the last three administrations. That is simply not true. According to our guests this week, CATO researchers Jon Hoffman and Jordan Cohen, Washington has maintained a…

There are currently 2,500 American troops in Iraq and another 900 in Syria. Their bases have come under repeated fire in both countries since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. According to Pentagon officials, Iranian-backed militias are to blame, and they expect more as fighting ramps up in Gaza and the West Bank. Adam Weinstein, a senior fellow …

In this special episode, Kelley and Dan update the headlines from the Gaza strip and talk about how U.S. policy in the region has become increasingly effective in terms of pushing for a two-state solution and helping to restrain the more extreme impulses of the Israeli government ahead of the Hamas attacks on Israel and retaliatory strikes in Gaza …

It took the Ukraine war to show how broken the U.S. war machine really is. President Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex in 1961 and we know that it is ten times as worse as he even imagined. But after almost two years of war in Ukraine and tens of billions of American weapons transfers, we now know how limited -- if not dysfunc…

The Ukraine War has exposed a lot when it comes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — otherwise known as NATO. Aside from the "renewed mission" and "unity" that has emerged to help Ukraine confront the Russian invasion, there are downsides. NATO has a limited capacity of weapons stores and manpower and the US is taking on a disproportionate s…

We welcomed back to the show this week the co-hosts of Conflicts of Interest podcast, Kyle Anzalone & Connor Freeman, who both write and edit and support the Libertarian Institute. We ask them about the rancorous split among libertarians over Ukraine, a fissure not seen in the Global War on Terror. We also talked about signs of fraying support for …

Ask anyone in Washington and they'll tell you, in varying levels of panic, that China is a threat to the United States. Some will say it's the greatest threat ever or, in military-speak, the "pacing threat." So who is right? And if China is a challenge or even a threat, to its neighbors if not America directly, then how does the Biden Administratio…

This week, President Joe Biden announced that he was unfreezing $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds as part of a broader deal that involves an important prisoner swap. The deal has drawn howling from the usual suspects, those who believe any diplomatic course with Iran spells weakness and blunder. Sina Toossi, an expert in U.S.-Iran relations and se…

We are excited to sit down (metaphorically) with veteran, whistleblower, peace activist, and foreign policy dissident Matthew Hoh. He has spent the last few years helping to build the Eisenhower Media Network, which is designed to promote and give voice to veterans with a critical point of view of U.S. wars, foreign policy, and the military-industr…

For the last two decades, the U.S. military has been heavily invested in Africa — in training, weapons sharing, and basing — per its "war on terrorism." Unfortunately, the places in Africa that have had the most U.S. investment in this regard are now among the most unstable on the planet. Somalia continues to be wracked by militia violence and a fr…

Eighteen months into the war in Ukraine and the picture is grim. After so many US officials — including former military — pumped up the prospects of the Ukraine counteroffensive — it looks like the conflict is headed into a bloody stalemate if not a Russian rout. Lyle Goldstein, Director of the Asia Engagement program at Defense Priorities, has bee…

Last week, the Biden administration announced a deal with the Iranian regime that would free five Iranian-American prisoners in Tehran in exchange for several Iranian prisoners here in the U.S. The deal would also free up $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds to be used solely for humanitarian purposes in Iran. Brussels-based foreign policy analyst El…

Does Washington have a plan B if the Ukrainian counteroffensive doesn't work out? Kelley and Daniel talk to foreign policy and politics writer James Carden about continued maximalist talk in the Beltway, setting up the Ukraine war for another forever war. He also talks about the "peace conference" in Saudi Arabia last weekend and his disappointment…

The Senate just passed a defense spending bill with a top line of $886 billion. Added to other national security-related funds like nuclear weapons modernization and homeland security, the U.S. is poised to spend more than one trillion on defense in 2024, with more than half going to military contractors. Julia Gledhill, a Pentagon spending expert …

In lieu of promising Ukraine President Zelensky NATO membership, the alliance has promised 300,000 high-alert troops and a ton of new assistance and security guarantees. What kind of hole is the West digging here, for itself, and Ukraine? The CATO Institute's Justin Logan joins us again to talk about the quandary of dangling NATO and long-term secu…

The media distortion field and the fog of war. We hear these terms quite often but it's been a long time since we saw them both so fully in action. As a result, there is little known on the real casualty figures in the war in Ukraine, how much of American/Western weapons and equipment has been destroyed, and most importantly, whether Ukraine is "wi…

Despite all of his assurances to the contrary — that Washington would return to its role as a steward of global democratic reform — Biden has mostly continued what every previous American president has done: prop up autocrats to keep "stability" in the Middle East. Cato Institute policy analyst Jon Hoffman came on the show this week to point out on…

On Thursday, India's prime minister, Narendra Modi comes to Washington and will address a joint session of Congress. There are a lot of expectations for this visit, as Washington really wants India to be a strategic partner in its China containment strategy. But India has its own interests, and while it is more than happy to work with the U.S. on t…

There is no better time than now for the United States to start shifting responsibility for European security to where it belongs: Europe. While European states don't necessarily disagree, there's a lot of trepidation for change, given the war in Ukraine, the predominance of U.S. weapons and leadership, and the long-unused European defense muscle. …

In the latest issue of Harper's magazine, longtime foreign policy analysts and authors Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz make the argument that the United States basically set up the war in Ukraine through a series of its own foreign interventions and geopolitical meddling in pursuit of global hegemony and dominance that went well beyond NATO …

The United States has over 750 military bases, installations, and outposts across 80 countries in the world. For decades, Americans have been told that the bases were necessary to protect U.S. interests, defend our allies, and keep the liberal world order safe. After World War II and throughout the Cold War, those arguments resonated. But the Iron …

For a month now, the so-called Discord leaks have shown us a whole new dimension of the war in Ukraine — how Washington really feels about the much-anticipated Ukraine counter-offensive, how Zelensky has been trapped between hardliners and his Western patrons, and how not all of our partners and allies are on board equally in the US policy in Ukrai…

The US has hoped and wished and in the last 12 years backed armed opposition efforts to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad. After a bloody war that has left the country in virtual ruins, Assad remains in power. Not only that, but Arab leaders are now bringing him back into the regional fold. The U.S. isn't happy, but what can it do? Joshua Landis…

Washington is obsessed with reading tea leaves — on politics, policy, social cues, and diplomatic dances. And so is the case with the much anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive this spring. Will it happen? If so, would it change the course of the war? Does Russia have the juice not only to repel it but to launch its own successful bid for more ter…

The political and security situation in Sudan is melting down. In Burkino Faso this week, the military dictatorship has been blamed for the massacre of 60 people. Security vacuums in Chad and Mali are attracting business from the Wagner Group, the notorious Russian private military contractor. It seems all over Africa, especially in places where th…

The New York Times recently declared that the Ukraine War had brought NATO back from the virtual dead. In other words, the alliance has new purpose, which means more troops, more weapons, and more U.S. leadership for the unforeseeable future. This week, Kelley and Dan talk to CATO's Justin Logan about why this is folly, and that there is no reason …

Washington's impulse to do something has created a foreign policy consensus that relies on the American military being everywhere, all at once, and all things to everyone in the world. Looking at today's headlines, it would be easy to see how the long arm of U.S. primacy is totally stretched — and becoming more ineffective every day. Syndicated col…

Last week the Biden Administration authorized airstrikes on reported Iranian strongholds in eastern Syria in retaliation for an earlier drone attack that left one American contractor and several others — including U.S. servicemembers — wounded. There have been at least 80 attacks on U.S. military personnel there since 2021 and they don't seem to be…

In recent days and weeks, we've seen what appears to be serious examples of Arab countries opening up geopolitical avenues — as well as relations — with rivals and even adversaries. This would include Iran and Saudi Arabia's announcement that they were not only talking but reopening embassies in each other's countries for the first time in over a d…

In this special episode, we talk to veteran, author, and professor emeritus Andrew Bacevich, who was an early critic of the Bush Administration's folly in Iraq. As a Vietnam veteran, he easily recognized the crusader path of contemporary military officials and the deployment of the American missionary ethos that kept us entrenched in that war for a…

Professor Chris Fettweis has spent the better part of his career studying and teaching about how great powers remain great powers and how hard they work to stay on top. He talks to Kelley and Dan this week about how dominant powers and empires get paranoid and worry about their reputations and credibility, and sometimes that skews their decision ma…

Author and columnist Bonnie Kristian joins us this week to talk about the prospects of a Ron DeSantis policy, and more specifically, what a Ron DeSantis foreign policy might look like. She did a deep dive on this for the New York Times, and addresses the Florida governor's recent comments on Ukraine, his set up as a potential "restraint" rival of T…

Over a year ago, Lyle Goldstein, director of Asian engagement at Defense Priorities, came on Crashing the War Party and was one of the few foreign policy analysts warning that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine, pointing out that the seeming US-NATO resistance to a more diplomatic path could lead to what we are seeing today. He talks to Kelley and…

In his recent book, Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body: A Marine's Unbecoming, U.S. Marine Corps veteran Lyle J. Rubin threads his five-year experience — as a candidate in Marine officer school and serving in Afghanistan, as well as his shift in thinking about the Global War on Terror, the U.S. military as an institution, and his opposition to milit…

A protracted war could end up destroying Ukraine. A wider confrontation between two nuclear powers — U.S. and Russia — could lead to World War III. So what to do to stop it? We talk to Rand Corp. grand strategist Miranda Priebe, who just co-authored a powerful new paper promoting concrete measures for bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the negotia…

Journalist Ethan Paul answers his own question with an affirmative "yes!" on our show this week as we discuss the fever swamp of saber-rattling and chicken-littling in Washington today. What does it all mean? Where will it lead us? On the former, we talk about invested interests in ballooning the defense industry and Pentagon budgets, the political…

The last two months have seen the U.S. cross what appeared to be its own lines against giving advanced weapons to Ukraine. First, the announcement to send a Patriot Missile battery to the embattled country; then this week, news that within a week, the administration seemingly changed its mind about sending its most sophisticated tanks — the M-1 Abr…

There is no doubt that the war in Ukraine — as brutally destructive it has been for the Ukrainian people — is a boon to America's top defense contractors: think Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics. As our guest Bill Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military Industrial Complex, poin…

The war in Ukraine will end with a negotiated settlement (no one knows how or when) but whatever it will be will likely forge the basis of a new European security order if not an international one, says Yale historian Michael Brenes. What would that order look like? He suggests it should be one in which the U.S. and other great powers play a role i…

The U.S. military has over 270,000 troops currently deployed across the globe, including in 17 countries that the public up until now didn't even know about. Our guest this week, Ben Friedman, a senior analyst with Defense Priorities, takes on the Washington shibboleth that we couldn't possibly start bringing any of those troops home — particularly…

Congress had a chance to assert its war powers and end U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen War. But President Biden helped to strangle the effort in the cradle and a vote in December was never held. Quincy Institute Middle East expert Annelle Sheline joins us this week to talk about what happened, and Senator Bernie Sanders' pledge to brin…

On this episode, Kelley interviews the great podcast host, author, and anti-war activist Scott Horton. The two engage in a wide-ranging discussion about Ukraine, the war party in Washington, and why right-leaning combat veterans are increasingly joining efforts to hold the government Constitutionally responsible for sending men and women off to war…

The Ukrainian people -- all of the Ukrainian people -- need catharsis and reconciliation before healing. When they can begin, in the face of ongoing war with Russia, is the question we put to Ukraine scholar Nicolai Petro, whose book, "The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution" is released next week…

Ever wonder what it takes to build an American empire? George Mason University professor and Chris Coyne, who just released his new Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace, talks to Kelley and Dan about the building blocks of the so-called US liberal world order, which he argues is powered by a leviathan of good sol…

We can finally say that Republicans will take the majority in the House of Representatives in January. So what does this mean for foreign policy — especially the new $37 billion package President Biden wants to push through the lame duck session this December? The Washington Examiner’s politics editor Jim Antle joins us to break down how this super…

What a week! As of right now it’s still not clear which party will be running the Congress after Tuesday’s competitive midterm elections. We talk to Just Foreign Policy’s Erik Sperling about the foreign policy implications of a new potential Republican majority in the House and/or Senate — and which issues might be affected by the change, including…

Over 200 years ago, then-U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams warned how overseas militarism, even in the name of liberty, could change the very nature of the republic: "She (America) well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the powe…

This week, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman reiterated the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, which states that "the United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear s…