Hudson Senior Fellow and former Australian national security advisor John Lee sits down with Mike and Marshall to discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific and across the globe. The trio examines what drives Xi Jinping to exercise power the way he does, how the U.S. and China view alliance-building in the region, and the evolution of the Sino-Australian relationship.

Mike brings Ed Husain back to the show to discuss the author’s new book, Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain. Husain takes Mike on a journey into different mosques throughout Britain to see how various Muslims are wrestling with issues such as free speech and gender equality. The interview explores how British Muslims are finding their place is Western culture, and how they’re reckoning with more extreme views within the global Islamic movement.

Matt Kroenig of the Atlantic Council and Georgetown University has written a new book, The Return of Great Power Rivalry, which lays the basis for a very optimistic view of how America's competition with China will unfold. He joins Mike and Marshall to explain his argument in detail and defend it against alternative views.

Fred Starr, the former president of Oberlin College and Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, joins Mike and Marshall to discuss the role that Central Asian countries might play in stabilizing Afghanistan after the American military withdrawal. Starr is the foremost proponent of the idea of Central Asia a strategic concept in American foreign policy. He describes and defends the idea.

Mike and Marshall take a step back to evaluate where the foreign policy apparatus stands today on issues like the Middle East, the China question, multi-lateral institutions, Russia and more. They also reflect on what topics and issues they're looking to cover next on Counterbalance.

Co-host Mike Doran fills the roll of "guest" this week to detail what he saw and learned during his travels in Central Asia and the South Causasus earlier this month. Mike discusses how a region of the world positioned between Russia and China has been overlooked, and why the U.S. and other international players are beginning to notice its importance.

Host Michael Doran returns this week to join Marshall for an interview with Hudson Senior Fellow, David Asher, who has found himself in the middle of the national debate over the origins of COVID-19. Asher, who was an integral piece of the State Department's investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology details his findings and lays out what the U.S. should do in response to the CCP's incompetencies and cover-ups.

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, Rebeccah Heinrichs, joins the show to compare and contrast the foreign policy agendas of the Trump and the Biden administrations. Rebeccah addresses the shortfalls in President Biden's approach to multi-lateral institutions, alliance-building, and global strategic deterrence in the face of an encroaching Chinese Communist power.

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, Peter Rough, joins the show to look at the world through the lens of our European counterparts. What is the state of the European project in the midst of Brexit and the election of Joe Biden? How is the continent adjusting to a world increasingly dominated by geopolitical competition rather than globalization? Marshall finds Peter’s answers to these questions and more.

Rich Outzen, career military officer and senior State Department advisor on the Middle East, sat down with Mike and Marshall to discuss the challenge that geopolitics in a multipolar world poses for the United States.