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, Michael Herson, President and CEO, American Defense International, 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 Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute.

Topics:

— Look ahead to House floor vote on National Defense Authorization Act and amendments including rejecting the $25 billion increase to Pentagon spending

— Senate continues markups with plans to vote next month

— Update on continuing resolution

— Implications and strategic messaging aspects of the new partnership among the United States, United Kington and Australia on technology development, including furnishing Canberra with eight new nuclear-powered attack submarines

— Whether Congress will endorse legislative changes to export nuclear submarine technology to Australia

— Paris’ rage in the wake of the surprise AUKUS deal and the abrupt cancellation of Canberra’s contract with Naval Group for a dozen conventionally powered submarines

— How the Biden administration can dispel the growing perception that it’s as unilateralist, unpredictable and America First as the Trump administration

— What Washington should do to mollify tensions with France, a key European and Pacific ally

— North Korea’s new missile tests

— Analysis of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley’s role in contacting China to reassure Chinese leaders as tensions rose after Trump’s November election loss