Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider joins us to discuss her article, "Cyber Operations and Nuclear Stability: Networked Instability." Moving beyond Hollywood analogies and pop-culture fears, Schneider argues that common understandings of how cyber operations impact nuclear stability are often misguided.

Throughout the conversation, she unpacks three specific pathways to escalation—deliberate, inadvertent, and accidental—and applies percolation theory to explain how the structure of nuclear networks dictates their vulnerability. Schneider explores the critical trade-offs between centralization, efficiency, and resilience, warning that as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) networks become more entangled with artificial intelligence, the risks of data manipulation increase.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Michael Horowitz discusses his recent TNSR article, "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Strategic Stability." We tackle misconceptions about AI, how militaries have long used algorithms, and why use cases and data matter—especially when nuclear applications rely on simulated data. He examines human-machine teaming, automation bias and algorithm aversion, and risks from faster, "machine-speed" conflict, particularly for states with unstable second-strike capabilities.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Cameron Tracy joins to discuss his TNSR article on "technological surprise" and "normalization through use" in the Russo-Ukrainian war. He explains how forecasting about warfare often overweights extreme scenarios and is reinforced by professional and organizational incentives, producing hype with little accountability. We discuss drones, Russia's failure to gain air superiority, and four case studies: hypersonic-associated missiles (Kinzhal, Tsirkon) intercepted by Patriot systems, the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile's quick normalization after alarmist reactions, and Russia's effective UMPK glide bomb kits.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Political psychologist Rose McDermott discusses her article on how systematic judgment biases can undermine nuclear deterrence and strategic stability, especially under emerging technologies like AI. McDermott explains Kahneman's Type 1 (fast, intuitive) versus Type 2 (slow, analytical) thinking and how four biases—overconfidence, the planning fallacy, the illusion of validity, and the prominence effect—can distort leaders' crisis decisions, probability judgments, and security trade-offs.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Francis J. Gavin, chair of the TNSR editorial board, joins us to discuss his article, "Strategic Stability and Its Limits: Reflections on Schelling." Gavin explains why Thomas Schelling remains foundational to nuclear strategy despite being an economist, and argues that "strategic stability" is often invoked without clear definition. He highlights tensions between mutual vulnerability and US extended deterrence and nonproliferation goals, and describes contradictions between Schelling's writings on arms control and coercion.

Gavin critiques simplified historical lessons about surprise attack and inadvertent war shaping stability theory, traces how Cold War political constraints drove US nuclear posture, and urges policymakers to put politics and state interests first when assessing nuclear risks and emerging technologies such as AI, cyber, autonomy, and biotechnology.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Harold Trinkunas, the Deputy Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a senior research scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, recently helped assemble our special issue on emerging technologies and strategic stability. In this episode, he previews the issue by explaining how Cold War deterrence assumptions rooted in a bilateral US–Soviet relationship no longer hold amid more nuclear-armed actors, wider access to AI, cyber, hypersonics, and the possibility that these tools can threaten second-strike forces or create effects once associated with nuclear weapons. Our discussion highlights risks of preemption, inadvertent escalation driven by automation and bad data, and psychological and organizational biases intensified by time compression and increasingly personalist regimes.

Article: "Emerging Technologies and the Future of Strategic Stability"

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Melissa Chan joins to discuss her career reporting across Asia and why she pivoted from journalism to co-creating the graphic novel "You Must Take Part In Revolution" with activist-artist Badiucao. We discuss the book's visual style (Chinese watercolor influences, Frank Miller's Sin City palette, and manga elements), the subversive Mao-derived title, and a near-future plot spanning Hong Kong to a 2035 war over Taiwan amid surveillance, drones, and AI. Chan describes choices around depicting resistance, representation, and hidden "Easter eggs," and reflects on the book's strong reception.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

We host Shivshankar Menon to discuss his recent article, "A New World Order? Be Careful What You Wish For." Menon, the former national security advisor to the Indian prime minister, examines the historical rarity of stable world orders and the dangers of contemporary nostalgia for a perceived "golden age" of stability.

The conversation explores the tension between a globalized economy and fragmented local politics, questioning whether the current distribution of power can support a formal international order. Menon characterizes the present era as a "world adrift" and argues that progress often emerges from such periods of political disorder. We also address India's strategic role in navigating this environment through issue-based coalitions rather than traditional spheres of influence.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Francis J. Gavin

Producer: Jordan Morning

Nathan Wood, author of "Bombs, Bots, and the Principle of Distinction: The Law of Armed Conflict and Contemporary Warfare," speaks on the principle of distinction in an age of autonomous warfare. He argues that while some concerns about these technologies are valid, we must move beyond general debates to address the specific legal and operational realities of concrete systems. Our conversation explores how the US military can utilize these advancements while maintaining a fundamental, felt sense of human responsibility.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Eyck Freymann and Harry Halem, co-authors of "The Arsenal of Democracy: Keeping China Deterred in an Age of Hard Choices," join us to cover a range of topics, including US–China military balance, defense procurement, and the critical need for aligned industrial capacity, technological R&D, and military doctrine. Through historical models, potential reforms, and the importance of logistics and innovation, this episode offers a comprehensive look at how the US can strategically deter China into the 2030s.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning