FDD's Foreign Podicy

Before Matt Pottinger was a reporter in China, he served as a U.S. Marine, deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He then spent four years in senior roles on the White House National Security Council, including as senior director for Asia, and deputy national security advisor. Now, he’s a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and he’s Chairman of FDD’s China Program. And he’s the editor of a new book: “The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan.” He joins host Cliff May to discuss Xi Jinping’s Stalinist efforts to usher in “the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” — and its possible consequences for Taiwan.

Taiwan is a vibrant democracy in the western Pacific just east of Communist China where Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong, is the decider. His intentions toward Taiwan are imperialist and predatory. But it’s not just Taiwan that is in his crosshairs — he also seeks to displace the United States as the preeminent global power.

An FDD delegation led by RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, Craig Singleton, and Cliff May recently visited Taiwan. They discuss their visit and what Taiwan is doing to defend its homeland and its freedom.

Growing up a religious Muslim in Saudi Arabia, Loay Ahmed Alshareef believed that Jews descended from pigs and apes and Israelis lived on stolen land. Later in his twenties, he went to study abroad in France where his homestay family turned out to be… Jewish.

Despite initially contacting his school to be moved, he stayed put. Eventually his views evolved and he became a “proud Muslim Zionist.”

Loay joins FDD’s Hussain Abdul-Hussain and host Cliff May to discuss the ancient roots of antisemitism, its modern application on college campuses, how it fuels the war on Israel being waged by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies, why Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to reform Saudi Arabia could make the Kingdom ripe for peace with Israel and more.

In response to an attack last weekend that killed 12 Israeli children playing soccer in the Golan Heights, a top Hezbollah commander was killed in Beirut. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was also killed this week in Tehran. In response to the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist leaders meeting their demise, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei threatened “severe punishment,” while Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah suggested he wants “a real response, not a performative response.” The region is teetering on the brink of a major escalation.

To discuss the events that unfolded this week and what could happen next, senior director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power and guest host Bradley Bowman is joined by his FDD colleagues Jonathan Schanzer and Behnam Ben Taleblu.

Daniel N. Hoffman spent decades as an officer in America’s “clandestine services.” He was a station chief in Moscow and Baghdad, and he was chief of the CIA's Near East Division. He also did a tour of duty in South Asia. He’s now a Fox News contributor and a columnist for the Washington Times where host Cliff May writes the weekly “Foreign Desk” column.

They discuss some of the many conflicts and crises underway, including Russia's illegal war in Ukraine and Israel's defensive war in Gaza.

When we talk about ‘hostage diplomacy’, it’s almost like we’re normalizing and legitimizing hostage-taking and admitting that American policy is not to deter hostage-taking or punish hostage-takers but simply to manage the criminals’ demands for ransom and the release of their terrorists and other rewards – and to do it with respect and civility.

Vladimir Putin is among the autocratic world leaders who understand how much benefit – and how little risk – is involved in taking hostages from countries that respect international law and then offering to trade them for something or someone he wants. 

Since March of last year, his regime has incarcerated and just sentenced to 16 years in prison Evan Gershkovich, a fully accredited foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, on what are obviously baseless and bogus charges.

But Putin also is holding another American journalist: Alsu Kurmasheva with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

Her husband, Pavel Butorin, also an RFE/RL journalist, joins host Cliff May and his FDD colleague Rich Goldberg to tell her — and his — story.

NATO is 75 years old. It was founded to “deter” the expansion of the Soviet Union, “forbid” the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong American presence on the continent, and “encourage European political integration.” Today, there is a European Union, reasonably integrated politically, nationalist militarism is not a serious European problem, and the Soviet Union lies in the “dust heap of history.” 

But the successor state to the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, is right now waging a brutal and criminal war against Ukraine which is not a NATO country but which has borders with NATO countries. 

So, how is NATO holding up after all these years? What else should it be doing? Is it addressing Moscow’s alliance with Beijing and Tehran?

To discuss, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman.

As the Israel Defense Forces appear to have almost completed their mission to defeat Hamas terrorists in Rafah, a Gazan city along the Egyptian border, the Islamic Republic of Iran is utilizing Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon, to attack – even more aggressively – Israel’s northern territories. Behind Hezbollah, behind Hamas, behind Islamic Jihad, behind the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and multiple Shia militias in Syria and Iraq is an expanding jihadist empire whose metropole is in Tehran.

Seth Cropsey, former naval officer and deputy undersecretary of the Navy, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Israel faces a tough choice: to go to war directly against the Tehran regime now, or to go war against the Tehran regime later. 

He joins host Cliff May along with FDD’s RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery to discuss his article and Tehran’s war strategy, the Houthi chokehold on commercial shipping, and Beijing’s threat to Taiwan.

After attending a conference she was invited to in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2018, Australian-British academic Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert was arrested by the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of espionage which the Australian government rejected as "baseless.” Two years later, she was released in exchange for three convicted Iranian terrorists connected to a bomb plot in Bangkok in 2012. 

Two years ago, she published a memoir which became a bestseller: The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison. 

From her forced confession and kangaroo court sentencing presided over by Tehran’s notorious “hanging judge” Salavati to her solitary confinement and near-escape at the infamous Evin Prison and successful Australia- and UK-led efforts to free her in a prisoner swap, Kylie joins host Cliff May and his FDD colleague Behnam Ben Taleblu to discuss how her time in captivity shaped her current views on Iran’s regional aggression, the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests, and hostage diplomacy — and how the West can help the Iranian people by not helping the regime. 

South Africa has been in the news lately. Most recently, it had elections. There’s also this: The government of South Africa has filed a lawsuit under the Genocide Convention to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The indictment is not against Hamas whose terrorists invaded Israel and massacred more than a thousand men, women, and children last October, and which vows to repeat such massacres. Nor is it against Hamas’ patrons in Tehran who openly vow to exterminate Israel and Israelis, and are using multiple proxies in pursuit of that goal.

No, the South African lawsuit is against Israel, the world’s one and only Jewish-majority state.

To understand the motivations behind this blood libel, host Cliff May is joined by Dr. Frans Cronje, former CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, and current chair of the Social Research Foundation, who described the South African lawsuit as a significant contribution to the “ideas war” being waged by Iran’s jihadist rulers. Also joining the conversation is Connor Pfeiffer, Director of Congressional Relations at FDD Action. 

They also discuss how South Africa has evolved since the end of apartheid and its possible future trajectory.