Trump Needs Approval for This War (w/ Michael O’Hanlon)

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Eric welcomes Michael O’Hanlon, the Philip Knight chair in defense and strategy at the Brookings Institution, and author of To Dare Mighty Things, and a recent op-ed in the Financial Times on the Trump administration’s $200 billion supplemental budget request to fund the Iran War. They discuss whether there is a unique American “way of war” or “way of strategy,” and the accomplishments of U.S. grand and defense strategies in the post-World War II era and whether Trump is undoing those achievements. They also examine why limited force operations are sometimes hard to avoid, and the role of American pragmatism and innovation in allowing the U.S. to successfully adapt under fire on the battlefield. They close with a conversation about Congress’s role in setting defense strategy and the role it could play in setting limits to “boots on the ground” in Iran and investing in the defense industrial base to increase its productive capacity to replenish the enormous stocks of precision munitions and missiles that have been expended in the war.

Congress must not give Trump a blank cheque for the Iran war (Gift Link):

https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/ce6a9f97-9f47-414b-856b-ab82972c6c20

To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution:

https://www.amazon.com/Dare-Mighty-Things-Strategy-Revolution/dp/0300279930

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.