Horns of a Dilemma

As high-level meetings between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping keep regional security front and center, how do Taiwan and North Korea connect within China's broader strategic calculus? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Shuxian Luo to examine the concept of "issue linkage" connecting two of East Asia's most sensitive security flashpoints.

Drawing from primary Chinese-language sources, authoritative government reports, and high-level interviews, Dr. Luo breaks down her article featured in Volume 9, Issue 4 of the Texas National Security Review: "A Plum for a Peach: Taiwan, Issue Linkage, and China's Policy toward North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program." The conversation explores how Beijing leverages its influence over Pyongyang based on US assurances regarding Taiwan, tracing four distinct historical phases of issue linkage and evaluating a practical "middle path" for foreign policy strategy .

Guests:

• Dr. Shuxian Luo | Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa

Hosts:

• Sheena Chestnut Greitens | Editor-in-Chief of the Texas National Security Review
• Ryan Vest | Executive Editor of the Texas National Security Review

Producer:

• Jordan Morning | Digital and Technical Manager of the Texas National Security Review

Recorded at the Aspen Security Forum, TNSR Executive Editor Dr. Ryan Vest and Kennan Institute Director Dr. Michael Kimmage sit down with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, President-elect of Belarus and head of the United Transitional Cabinet.

Tsikhanouskaya details her transformation from a political outsider into the leader of the country's democratic forces following the contested 2020 presidential election. The conversation examines the distinction between the Lukashenko regime and the anti-war stance of the Belarusian public, the deepening political and military integration between Belarus and Russia, diplomatic tracks for releasing political prisoners, and why democratic transition in Belarus is critical to NATO's eastern flank and broader European security.

Guest: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya | President-elect of Belarus, head of the United Transitional Cabinet, and leader of the country's democratic movement

Hosts: Dr. Ryan Vest | Executive Editor of the Texas National Security Review (TNSR) Dr. Michael Kimmage | Director of the Kennan Institute and collaborator with TNSR

We examine China's space diplomacy across the Middle East and North Africa with the authors of their recent Texas National Security Review article, "Choosing Orbits: China's Space Diplomacy in the Middle East." The discussion analyzes how regional states—specifically Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran—utilize space partnerships with Beijing to serve distinct domestic, economic, and security imperatives . Our guests challenge assumptions that smaller powers are passive subjects in great power rivalry and detail how Middle Eastern states exercise strategic agency through hybrid alignment strategies .

Guests

• Lawrence Rubin | Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, co-director of the GTDC Pathways to Policy program, and associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies .

• Lincoln Hines | Assistant Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Fellow with the Carnegie China Fellowship at the University of Maryland .

• Dayana Alagirova | PhD student at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Fulbright Scholar, and space policy researcher .

Hosts:

• Sheena Chestnut Greitens
• Ryan Vest

Producer:

• Jordan Morning

In this episode, we speak with Paul Slovic, Rose McDermott, and Cmdr. Daniel R. Post about their recent TNSR article "When Our Minds Go Nuclear," arguing that nuclear strategy too often assumes rational, stable decision-making despite decades of psychological research on bounded rationality and bias.

Drawing on survey experiments based on the Sagan and Valentino Iran war scenario, they discuss how mechanisms like psychic numbing, affect, hot/cold empathy gaps, social contagion, and comparative framing can increase support for nuclear strikes, including through "virtuous violence" and the "better bomb" (lesser-evil) effect. They warn that modernization and expanded use concepts make non-use a "dangerous illusion," and recommend safeguards such as multi-person authorization, training, protocols, structured dissent, and deliberation—especially as AI increases information pressure.

Guests:

• Paul Slovic | Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon and Senior Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute
• Rose McDermott | David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University
• Commander Daniel R. Post | Permanent Military Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College

Hosts:

• Sheena Chestnut Greitens
• Ryan Vest

Producer:

• Jordan Morning

We are joined by Dr. Benjamin R. Young to discuss his TNSR article, "Saving Socialism: What North Korea Learned from the Collapse of the Soviet Union."

Dr. Young argues that the fall of the USSR profoundly influenced Pyongyang's grand strategy. Rather than embracing reform, he explains that North Korea interpreted the Soviet collapse as a failure of ideological fervor and leadership. He contends that this historical turning point catalyzed North Korea's shift toward "military first" politics (Songun), stricter information blockades, and the accelerated development of its nuclear weapons program. Join us for a fascinating conversation on regime survival, Stalinism, and the historical drivers of North Korea's modern security posture.

Guest:

• Dr. Benjamin R. Young (Assistant Professor of Intelligence Studies at Fayetteville State University)

Hosts:

• Sheena Chestnut Greitens
• Ryan Vest, PhD

Producer:

• Jordan Morning

This episode, we are joined by Charles Mok, author of the TNSR article "Toward Undersea Cable Resilience: The Case for Global Collaboration." He speaks on the rising pace of attacks on undersea cable infrastructure and why these vulnerabilities remain under-discussed despite carrying about 99% of intercontinental data.

Mok explains how growing geopolitical tension, choke points, and greater dependence on internet connectivity (including for AI) increase incentives for disruption, and argues resilience requires attention to supply chains, repair capacity, and cable routing—not just cable defense. He discusses industry concentration, aging repair fleets, the shift of investment to US big tech, legal and attribution challenges in international waters, recent policy responses in Europe and Taiwan, and why Washington must pursue allied cooperation beyond a China-focused, shore-centric approach.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

Twenty-five years after its founding, how has the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission shaped American strategic policy? In this episode, we feature a panel discussion examining the evolution of major power competition. Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens sits down with Randall Schriver (Chairman of the Board, Institute for Indo-Pacific Security) and Mike Kuiken (Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution and USCC Commissioner) to assess the shifting geopolitical landscape.

The guests argue that the strategic environment has transitioned from early debates over human rights and market access to intense military coercion and sophisticated cyber operations, such as Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon. They analyze the critical 2027 Taiwan timeline, evaluating the island's central role in global semiconductor supply chains. Furthermore, Schriver and Kuiken explore how Beijing has successfully leveraged state resources to leapfrog Western innovation in biotech, pharmaceuticals, and quantum computing. They assert that sustaining deterrence requires policymakers to look beyond immediate crises and proactively address over-the-horizon technological risks.

This event was co-sponsored by the Asia Policy Program, the Clements Center for National Security, and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law.

Related Links:

• Full author bios and event details: The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at 25: Still Crazy After All These Years

• Learn more about our research and analysis: Texas National Security Review (TNSR)

As the United States and Iran negotiate an end to recent hostilities, the strategic implications of Tehran's nuclear latency are more urgent than ever. In this episode of our podcast, Eric Brewer unpacks the realities of Iran as a nuclear threshold state. He argues that maintaining a threshold capability forces Tehran to walk a dangerous tightrope, balancing the perceived deterrence of adversaries against the severe peril of military escalation. The conversation offers a rigorous assessment of how nuclear latency alters conflict dynamics, shapes modern statecraft, and complicates regional stability in the Middle East.

Read his recent TNSR article on the topic "What Good Is a Nuclear Threshold Capability? Lessons from Iran's Nuclear Program and Recent Regional Conflict."

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning

National security scholar Herbert S. Lin joins us to discuss his latest TNSR article, "On Optimism About New Military Technologies." Lin argues that political incentives and cognitive traps like the "fallacy of the last move" often blind planners to the complex, systemic realities of new capabilities. He also maps out the crucial distinction between artifactual hardware and architectural technologies like AI.

Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Ryan Vest, PhD

Producer: Jordan Morning

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 & Ryan Vest

Producer: Jordan Morning