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, Byron Callan of the independent equity research firm Capital Alpha Partners, Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute and Michael Herson, President and CEO, American Defense International.

Topics:

— How President Biden may have jeopardized the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal by retroactively linking the measure to other legislative priorities favored by progressives

— House Armed Services Committee, appropriations and continuing resolution deliberations

— Why climate change-driven damage to military infrastructure may be worse than anticipated and could require dramatically more spending to address

— Whether the Biden administration’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative is up to the task of deterring China from regional aggression

— China’s largest ever intrusion into Taiwanese airspace and maneuvers near Hawaii

— How to deter Russia in the wake of recent incident involving HMS Defender in the Black Sea

— Secretary Austin and Chairman Milley push back on GOP questioning over efforts to better understand and counter racism and extremism

— What the election of Tehran’s new hard-line leader Ebrahim Raisi means for efforts to restart the Iran nuclear deal and expand it to cover bad Iranian behavior and ballistic missiles

— Implications of Biden administration decision to retain 650 US troops in Afghanistan and allow up to 100,000 Afghans to helped American and coalition forces to resettle in the United States