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:

— Update on authorization and appropriations, reconciliation, BBB and USICA

— Latest on Russia’s war on Ukraine as Moscow grinds ahead while using energy and food as weapons to divide the Western alliance

— The need to accelerate weapons shipments to Ukraine while also helping speed training

— China’s increasing propaganda campaign to undermine US leadership in Asia against Beijing

— Japan’s security agenda in the wake of LDP victory and the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

— President Biden’s warm welcome to Israel and pledge with Prime Minister Yair Lapid to prevent a nuclear Iran

— What Biden can achieve in Saudi Arabia

— Concerns among America’s allies on slow pace of arms exports