The International Security Podcast
by International Security
Leading scholars provide insight on urgent policy debates. Jeff Friedman of Dartmouth College interviews contributors to the premiere peer-reviewed journal of security studies. They offer sophisticated, authoritative analyses of contemporary, theoretical, and historical security issues from the role of China in the world and cyber in international security to the long history of ethnic cleansing in Europe. The podcast is produced at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. International Security is a quarterly journal edited at the Belfer Center and published by MIT Press.
Episodes
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11 - The Ideology Trap: China and the Limits of Cold War Analogies
Guests: Eun A Jo is an Assistant Professor of Government at William & Mary. Jessica Chen Weiss is David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. International Security Article: Eun A Jo and Jessica Chen Weiss, “The Ideology…
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10 – Why Populists Love Dead Soldiers and Hate Live Officers
Guests: Ron Krebs is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. International Security Article: Ronald R. Krebs, “Why Populists Love Dead Soldiers and Hate Live Officers,” International Security, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Winter 2025/26),...
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9 – The Rules-Based International Order
Guests: Marc Trachtenberg is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. International Security Article: Marc Trachtenberg, “The Rules-Based International Order: A Historical Analysis,” International Security, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Fall 2025), pp. 7–54,...
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8 – Airpower and the Sino-American Contest for Military Primacy in Asia
Guests: Nicholas Anderson is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Daryl Press is Faculty Director of the Davidson Institute and Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. International Security Article: Nicholas D. Anderson and...
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7 – The Realist Debate over How to Respond to China
Guests: Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. International Security Article: Stephen M. Walt, “Hedging on Hegemony: The Realist Debate over How to Respond to China,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Spring 25), pp....
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6 – Putin’s Preventive War
Guests: Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the MIT Security Studies Program, which he directed from 2006 to 2019. International Security Article: Barry R. Posen, “Putin's Preventive War: The 2022…
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5 – Competing Visions of Restraint
Guests: Miranda Priebe is a senior political scientist and director of the Center for Analysis of U.S. Grand Strategy at RAND. John Schuessler is Associate Professor of International Affairs and Co-Director of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at the Bush School of Government and Public...
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4 – Do Autocrats Need a Foreign Enemy?
Guests: Henry Hale is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. Adam Lenton is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. International Security Article: Henry E. Hale and Adam C. Lenton, “Do Autocrats Need…
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3 – Fatalism and War
Guests: Dominic Tierney is Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College. International Security Article: Dominic Tierney “The Iron Dice: Fatalism and War,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Summer 2024), pp. 51–90. Originally released on October 10, 2024
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2 - Clerics, Monarchs, and the Ethnoreligious Cleansing of Western Europe
Guests: Şener Aktürk is Professor of International Relations at Koç University in Istanbul, Türkiye. International Security Article: Şener Aktürk, “Not So Innocent: Clerics, Monarchs, and the Ethnoreligious Cleansing of Western Europe,” International Security, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Spring 2024), pp....
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1 - A ‘Nuclear Umbrella’ for Ukraine?
Guest: Matthew Evangelista is President White Professor of History and Political Science at Cornell University. International Security Article: This podcast is based on Matthew Evangelista, “A ‘Nuclear Umbrella’ for Ukraine? Precedents and Possibilities for Postwar European Security,”…
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16-Concealing and Revealing Clandestine Military Capabilities
Guests: Austin Long is Vice Deputy Director for Strategic Stability in the Joint Staff J5 at the U.S. Department of Defense. Ernest J. Herold is Executive Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies—Americas and a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army. He was previously the Deputy...
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17-The Little-Known History of Radiological Weapons
Guests: Sarah Bidgood is Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Usha Sahay is Senior Editor at POLITICO Magazine, where she focuses on foreign affairs and global...
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15-Technology, Diplomacy, and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis
Guests: Christopher Lawrence is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology and International Affairs at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace....
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14-Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Cheater’s Dilemma
Guests: Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, where she also directs the Oslo Nuclear Project and the Peace and Conflict Studies Master’s Program. Kori Schake is Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.…
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13-What Allies Want: A Look at East Asia
Guests: Iain D. Henry is a Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. Abraham M. Denmark is the Director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School…
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12-Liberal Values, Material Interests, and the Inconsistencies of U.S. Democracy Promotion
Guests: Arman Grigoryan is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University. Sarah Sewall is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center and Executive Vice President for Policy at In-Q-Tel. She previously served as the Under Secretary of State for...
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11-Rethinking the Norms and Practices of U.S. Civil-Military Relations
Guests: Risa Brooks is the Allis Chalmers Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University and a non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Joseph L. Votel is a retired four-star general in the U.S. Army and previously served as Commander…
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10-Great Power Politics in the Middle East and Arab-Israeli Conflict—Détente to 2020
Guests: Galen Jackson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Williams College. Aaron David Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Between 1978 and 2003, Miller served at the State Department as an historian, analyst, negotiator, and advisor to...
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09-U.S. Electoral Constraints, Military Strategy, and the Iraq War
Guests Andrew Payne is the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Oxford. Emma Sky is the director of the Yale World Fellows Program and a Senior Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Sky served as the Governate Coordinator of…
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08-Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation
Guests: Fiona Cunningham is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Admiral Cecil Haney (ret.) previously served as the Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, as well as Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Admiral Haney is...
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07-The Post-Conflict Politics of Migration and Refugee Return
Guests: Stephanie Schwartz is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. Anne C. Richard served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration in the Obama Administration (2012-2017). She is currently an Adjunct…
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06-Deterring Wartime Atrocities and the Yugoslav Tribunal
Guests: Jacqueline R. McAllister is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College. Wesley K. Clark is a retired four-star general in the U.S. Army and was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO during the Kosovo War. He is currently a Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center....
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05-Domestic Politics, Nuclear Choices, and the Iran Deal
Guests: Elizabeth Saunders is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a faculty member in the Security Studies Program. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution....
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04-How to Enlarge NATO
Guests: Mary Elise Sarotte is the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Douglas Lute is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at...
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03-Debating ‘The End of War’
Guests: Michael Mousseau is a professor in the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. Graham Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, and former Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School. International Security...
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02-Chinese Coercion in the South China Sea
Guests: Ketian Zhang is an Assistant Professor of International Security in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Scott Swift is a retired admiral with nearly 40 years of experience in the U.S. Navy. Swift is a former commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet and was...
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01-Weaponized Interdependence
Guests: Abraham Newman is a professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University. He currently serves as the Director of the Mortara Center for International Studies. Elizabeth Rosenberg is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Energy,...
About this show
Leading scholars provide insight on urgent policy debates. Jeff Friedman of Dartmouth College interviews contributors to the premiere peer-reviewed journal of security studies. They offer sophisticated, authoritative analyses of contemporary, theoretical, and historical security issues from the role of China in the world and cyber in international security to the long history of ethnic cleansing in Europe. The podcast is produced at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. International Security is a quarterly journal edited at the Belfer Center and published by MIT Press.
Hosted by
International Security