Second Breakfast: Colby's Pigpen, Counter-UAS, Training, Eat like a Trumper (or Iranian Spy?)
we cooked better than cafe milano
00:00 Colby's trainwreck of a hearing + right wing DC food
16:42 Countering Drones
35:32 How to train seriously
Guests include:
Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/
Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/
Eric Robinson, lawyer and Army vet who spent time in OSC, JSOC and the NCTC
Outtro music: more suno https://suno.com/s/hpZX8pdjirTsM5je
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1:05:38
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1:05:38
EMERGENCY POD: Tariffs on Trial
Peter Harrell and Oren Cass join the show to talk IEEPA at the Supreme Court and broader US grand strategy towards China.
03:01 IEPA Tariffs and Their Implications
17:27 Reciprocity and Trade Agreements
20:13 USMCA and Fortress North America
39:01 Decoupling from China: A Strategic Perspective
43:41 Trump's Economic Approach to China
47:48 The Chips Debate: National Security and Economic Interests
01:05:24 Reflections on Political Discourse and Legal Arguments
01:16:17 a ridiculous suno song
We discuss Oren's 'Grand Strategy of Reciprocity' https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/grand-strategy-reciprocity and 'Stop Selling the Rope' essays https://americancompass.org/stop-selling-the-rope/
Outtro music: Suno does Hamilton for this case https://suno.com/s/xPRkTjq5KQ4MPXLb
Peter's amicus brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-1287/380641/20251024173045050_24-1287%2025-150%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf
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1:21:01
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1:21:01
CCP Bureaucracies in War
Why do leaders with vast expert bureaucracies at their fingertips make devastating foreign policy decisions? Tyler Jost, professor at Brown, joins ChinaTalk to discuss his first book, Bureaucracies at War, a fascinating analysis of miscalculation in international conflicts.
As we travel from Mao’s role in border conflicts, to Deng’s blunder in Vietnam, to LBJ’s own Vietnam error, a tragic pattern emerges — leaders gradually isolating themselves from their own information gathering systems with catastrophic consequences.
Today our conversation covers…
How Mao’s early success undermined his long-term decision-making,
The role of succession pressures in both Deng’s and LBJ’s actions in Vietnam,
The bureaucratic mechanisms that lead to echo chambers, and how China’s siloed institutions affect Xi’s governance,
The lingering question of succession in China,
What we can learn from the institutional failures behind Vietnam and Iraq.
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1:21:22
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1:21:22
Second Breakfast: Xi-Trump, Taiwan Deterrence, Tibetan Buddhism, Antietam
Featuring the Kirsten and Charlotte Asdal alongside Tony (https://www.breakingbeijing.com/) Eric Robinson, Justin (https://justinmc.substack.com/) and myself
Chapters
02:55 US-China Relations: Punctuated Decoupling
05:52 Woo Trump didn't sell out Taiwan! But what if he did?
08:21 Xi Jinping's Confidence and Military Calculations
24:12 Blockades
28:54 Innovation vs. Production in Defense Technology
43:08 Book Recommendations and Cultural Reflections
44:57 Game of the Week: Historical Insights
Outtro music: suno' s version of bad bunny singing about antietam. I promise I won't do this for every episode outtro until the AI gets better.
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53:49
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53:49
Ukraine's Drone War with Shashank and Rob Lee
Joining the pod today are Rob Lee of FPRI, Shashank Joshi of the Economist, and Tony Stark of the Breaking Beijing substack.
We discuss…
Whether Ukraine represents a revolution in military affairs and what lessons the war holds for other theaters
Why roughly 80% of casualties in Ukraine are caused by UAVs, and the symbiotic relationship between artillery and drones,
The limits of FPVs and UAVs, tactics to counter UAV attacks, and the role of unmanned ground vehicles,
Institutional friction within the Ukrainian forces,
How Chinese components and commercial drones from DJI are shaping the battlefield.
Drone incidents over Europe, burden sharing, and the US policy climate.
Outro music: Leon Bridges and Khruangbin - Texas Sun, a song that made it onto a 2022 playlist a reporter made of songs they heard on the front in Ukraine (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72paG2c3VqKblZsZlsCBOx?si=ace9197c40c6440f)
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Conversations exploring China, technology, and US-China relations. Guests include a wide range of analysts, policymakers, and academics. Hosted by Jordan Schneider.
Check out the newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media/
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