FDD's Foreign Podicy

Lord Andrew Roberts has written or edited 20 books which have been translated into 28 languages and have redefined our understanding of leaders and leadership, of empires and nations, of the forces that have shaped—and in some cases misshaped—the modern world.

He’s won many awards, including the Bradley Prize for which he was nominated by host Cliff May.

In 2022, he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Roberts of Belgravia.

His most recent work: Chairing the 7 October Parliamentary Commission report, the first publication aimed at establishing and preserving an accurate record of the barbaric pogrom carried out by Hamas and Hamas-adjacent Gazans against Israelis.

He joins Cliff to discuss.

The Indo-Pacific is one of the most consequential regions in the world. It’s home to economies, trade routes, and allies vital to American prosperity and security.

It is also a region where the Chinese Communist Party, building on decades of defense sector cooperation with Russia, has expanded its military capabilities at a breathtaking pace. The more capable the Chinese military has become, the more aggressively Beijing has acted to coerce its neighbors and undermine American interests.

Someone who grapples daily with this reality is General Ronald Clark, the Commander of U.S. Army Pacific, or USARPAC.

For those who are not denizens of the Department of Defense, USARPAC is the Army service component command within U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. In other words, you can think of him as the top American soldier in the Pacific. A combat leader with decades of experience, General Clark has led American soldiers in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific. He’s a veteran of Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom. But now he focuses full time on the Pacific.

He joins guest host Bradley Bowman, Senior Director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power, to discuss why the Indo-Pacific matters to Americans, the role of land power there, and what the Army is doing to deter and defeat adversaries—including forward-positioning forces, conducting rigorous training, and deepening cooperation with key allies such as the Philippines.

The Abraham Accords offer peace and prosperity, an era of repose from some of the constant warfare that plagues the Middle East.

The UAE, a signatory of the Accords, houses the Abrahamic Family House—a synagogue side-by-side with a mosque and side-by-side with a church. It’s a beautiful symbol of tolerance and peace between the world’s Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

But if Jihad against unbelievers is what Islam demands of the faithful, is it a paradox? On the contrary, say Amjad Taha and Ed Husain.

They tell Cliff May that warm relations between Muslims and Jews shouldn’t be considered breaking the norms of Islam, and recall when the Prophet saw a funeral procession go by in Medina and stood up. When his friends asked him, “Why are you standing up for a Jewish funeral?” The Prophet responds, “Is this not a human soul?”

“We are friends. We are cousins. We are brothers. We have the same father in Abraham. It’s not that we’re apostates—if anything, we’re family,” Ed says.

But given the mosaic of diversity that is the Muslim world—from North Africa and the Middle East to south and Southeast Asia—how widely (or not) are these sentiments actually held?

Episodes 1-3 of The Iran Breakdown drop on Wednesday, March 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

In this special edition of Foreign Podicy, we're excited to introduce FDD's new podcast series hosted by Mark Dubowitz: The Iran Breakdown. Episodes 1-3 drop on Wednesday, March 19, but Foreign Podicy followers can enjoy the below exclusive preview of The Iran Breakdown, Episode II. In this sneak peek, Mark gets a masterclass on the Iran nuclear file from his FDD colleague Rich Goldberg, who previously served as the White House National Security Council's director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Rich helped coordinate key elements of President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Tehran, aimed at denying the regime pathways to nuclear weapons. Like Mark, Rich is sanctioned by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Tehran’s fingerprints are on some of the most critical challenges that the world grapples with today. Because its illicit activity spans the globe, the Islamic Republic dominates international headlines. From exporting terrorism and racing for the nuclear bomb to brutal human rights violations, news on Iran is often dark and convoluted. Further widening this information gap, many consequential stories from inside Iran—like the regime's decaying legitimacy and the restless population's insatiable hunger for freedom— don’t always make it out of Iran. That has regime fingerprints on it, too. The international community's conflicting views on 'the Iran threat' also muddy the water. To make it make sense, Mark sits down with some of the top voices on Iran to unpack and explore the fundamental dynamics that shape it. In 10 episodes of The Iran Breakdown, viewers and listeners will build a sturdy foundation for responsible Iran-watching.

Episodes 1-3 of The Iran Breakdown drop on Wednesday, March 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Back when host Cliff May was an exchange student at Leningrad State University in 1972, he believed that if the Soviet Union ever collapsed that Russia would become a free country. Well, that’s not how things turned out. 

Peter Pomerantsev has a book on Russian propaganda: “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia.”

He joins Cliff along with Ivana Stradner, a research fellow with FDD’s Barish Center for Media Integrity, to discuss.

Some might think of veterans issues and national security issues separately, but they are intricately intertwined. There's a moral imperative to care for those who have risked their lives to defend freedom. There's also a national security imperative to do so.

This fact raises several questions: How are America’s veterans doing? How well are we taking care of those who have served our country in uniform? How can we do better?

To discuss these questions and more, as well as some new research, guest host Bradley Bowman is joined by Marcus Ruzek and retired Navy Captain Dan Goldenberg.

Marcus is Senior Program Director at The Marcus Foundation. The Marcus Foundation is a leader in philanthropy, specifically in the areas of military and veterans’ support. He has worked at The Marcus Foundation for over 10 years, supporting its Free Enterprise initiatives, National Security/Foreign Policy, and Free Market Ideals programs. An infantryman and combat veteran, Marcus deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq. He commanded a Special Forces “A Team” which partnered with Kurdish Peshmerga in the fight against Islamic State terrorists (aka: ISIS). 

Dan had led the Call of Duty Endowment or CODE since 2013. During his tenure there, the Call of Duty Endowment has become the largest philanthropic funder of veteran employment, backing more than 150,000 high-quality job placements and driving more than $9 billion in economic value for veterans and their families. Dan is a retired Navy Captain. His military service includes four tours as a commanding officer, as well as serving as a carrier-based naval flight officer, and special assistant to four Secretaries of the Navy. He also has two decades of business experience.

CODE Report

H.R. McMaster's article "Preserving the Warrior Ethos"

A two-state solution was first offered to Palestinian leaders as early as 1937. 

Israel offered two-state solutions again in 1947, 1967, 1978, 2000, 2001, and 2008. 

Palestinian leaders declined each and every such offer. They have proposed no alternatives. 

Their grievance, it should by now be clear, is not the absence of a nation-state called Palestine but rather the existence of a nation-state called Israel: the resurrected homeland of the Jewish people, a tiny island in an ocean of Arab and Muslim states. 

Yet within the foreign policy establishment in the U.S. and Europe, there has for generations been an unshakeable belief that there must be a two-state solution. President Trump has shaken that belief, changed the debate, and widened what’s known as the Overton Window, the range of policy proposals considered acceptable. 

To discuss, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues Jonathan Conricus and Rich Goldberg. 

In 2019 after serving as deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, Victoria Coates was promoted to Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa, overseeing the Maximum Pressure campaign against Tehran and initiating the negotiations for the Abraham Accords. She joins Cliff to discuss her new book: “The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—And America—Can Win.”

The war that Yahya Sinwar launched on Oct. 7, 2023 was meant to profoundly restructure the Middle East. And that is happening – although not in the way the late Hamas leader envisioned.

It’s not easy to discern the emerging new realities; to understand the rivalries among the many jihadi groups and leaders, Sunni and Shia; the shifting threats to Israelis, Kurds, Druze, Christians, and those Arabs who are not eager to sacrifice their children to the cause of Islamic supremacy. 

David Wurmser is attempting to comprehend and explain these realignments and to suggest responses that would further American interests. He joins host Cliff May to discuss these issues as well as his recent essay for The Editors: “Prepare for Disintegration of Syria and Rise of Imperial Turkey​​​​​​​.”

Watch this episode on YouTube.

As President Trump returns to the White House, he has no more important task than defense of the homeland and ensuring “peace through strength,” because U.S. national security is threatened by the Axis of Aggressors in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang and their Star Wars cantina of terrorist group friends. 

How should Trump prioritize? And what should he do? Host Cliff May discusses with his FDD colleagues RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman.