School of War

Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition and the Tikvah Fund, joins the show to discuss Israel, Iran, and the new power dynamics in the Middle East. What new alliances have emerged since the chaos on October 7, 2023? How has the current war with Iran reshaped the region? With a storm of competing interests, fragile partnerships, and global stakes, can stability emerge, or is the Middle East heading toward an even wider conflict?

02:10 - Israel today

04:02- Israeli airport security

05:58 - Netanyahu’s domestic political situation

09:07 - Bibi’s secret visit to the UAE

10:15 - American military aircrafts in Israel

12:01 - Israel-UAE relationship

15:57- October 7th Middle East aftermath

17:17 - Erosion of Iranian proxies

19:20 - Israeli-Saudi relationship

20:27 - Egypt’s global decline

22:24 - Turkey’s role

29:09 - Israel-Lebanon relationship

28:30 - Hezbollah factor

32:25 - How to handle Hamas

36:31 - Iran and the future of the Strait of Hormuz

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Sam Brownback, former Kansas senator and governor, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit, and author of China’s War on Faith, joins School of War to discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of religious minorities and how its domestic oppression shapes America’s broader strategic posture toward China. How is Beijing using the digital revolution as a tool of political control? Should freedom of religion be treated as a central front in the U.S.-China rivalry? With President Trump currently in China for a summit with President Xi Jinping, the world is watching a clash that extends beyond economics and military power into a conflict over faith, freedom, and the moral future of humanity.

Times:

03:25 - Trump’s China summit

05:25 - Clash of civilizations

06:18 - History of Christianity in China

08:41 - Governor’s transformative past

11:07- Systems of communism

15:53 - Chinese surveillance technology

17:22 - Peter Xu history

19:40 - Dangers of the CCP

20:53 - Treatment of religious minorities

26:12 - Technologies for oppression

29:00 - Trump’s handling of disentanglement

32:25 - American religious freedom

35:20 - The Falun Gong

37:46 - Confrontation vs. accommodation 

42:59 - Story of Wang Chun Yan

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Dan Blumenthal, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joins the show to discuss the president’s upcoming summit in Beijing with President Xi Jinping. What are President Trump’s goals? How will war with Iran affect the meeting? And what do these discussions mean for the future of conflict in the Indo-Pacific?

02:12 Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping

03:38 Trump’s goals at summit

04:48 China’s leverage over Iran

05:57 China’s principal interest in the Middle East

08:14 U.S. sanctions on Iran and China

10:22 China’s diversified energy imports

13:05 American-Chinese competition

15:34 Defense industrial base issues

16:03 AI factor

16:34 China’s industrial leverage

19:05 Economic showdown

24:43 The Taiwan issue

26:22 Global conflict lessons for Taiwan

28:46 Division of Taiwanese politics

31:46 Stakes for the future

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Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, joins School of War to discuss global population decline. What does a shrinking and aging population mean for the United States? What does it mean for China, whose demographic crisis may be even more severe? How could population decline reshape economic growth, military power, and geopolitical competition? And what happens to the international order when the world stops growing?

03:02 Population decline in America

006:15 Deaths exceeding births in the US

07:31 Global birth crash

14:49 Grounds for optimism

17:12 Small family trend

18:17 GDP relationship with population size

19:23  Individual prosperity vs. National strength

21:24 Rise in human life expectancy

24:36  Ben Carson’s prediction

27:11 Ukraine’s military revolution 

30:47  American bad habits

33:48 AI and the labor market

37:25 Chinese depopulation crisis

48:50  What would a world war look like today?

51:48 US Alliance relationships

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Rich Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Garrett Exner, adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, return to School of War to discuss the complicated news out of the Strait of Hormuz. What is President Donald Trump’s new plan, “Project Freedom”? Does it put the ceasefire at risk? What’s really happening in this critical waterway?

Times:

02:31 - President’s statement

04:00 - Understanding Project Freedom

07:15 - Attacks against tankers

09:53 - Central Command statement

12:15 - Ceasefire breakdown

16:25 - Coordination cell or escort

18:00 - Trump buying time

20:40 - US Navy escort option

23:06 - Missile defense

24:45 - Economic impacts

27:01 - Iran under pressure

31:50 - Live news US vessel transit

34:15 - Human factor of outbound transit

37:30 - American gas production

39:28 - Predictions in America’s favor

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