On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute, Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO who is now with the Center for a New American Security and Michael Herson of American Defense International.

Topics:

— Potential defense budget impact of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s promises to win the gavel as well as new committees and cardinal assignments

— Whether Senate will follow House on everything from defunding the IRS to Pentagon spending

— How the revelation of that classified documents were found at President Biden’s former post-vice presidential office as well as his Delaware home will impact congressional political dynamics

— After Washington, Paris and Berlin agree to equip Ukraine with armored fighting vehicles, Washington and London consider sending tanks to bolster Kyiv’s capabilities

— Claim by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group to have taken the tiny Ukrainian town of Soledar, a claim Ukraine rejects

— Vladimir Putin fires Gen. Sergey Surovikin, replacing him with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff

— How the most muscular US and Allied approach in supporting Kyiv is being received in Beijing

— Issues that are consuming Chinese leadership bandwidth aside from coping with a devastating covid infection and death rates

— Japan’s accelerating drive to improve its defense and deterrent capabilities, including building its own capabilities and working more closely with partners across the Indo-Pacific

— Warning by the FBI of the role of Chinese police stations in areas with large Chinese populations whether in the United States or around the world 

— Suggestion by Seoul that it would consider developing nuclear weapons

— What to expect from summit between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida 

— National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s comments in Mexico City that Washington is not making revival of the Iran nuclear deal a priority after Tehran’s military support for Russia in its war on Ukraine