JIM WEBB PODCAST

Tactical nukes shouldn’t show up in a PowerPoint like they’re just another tool, but that’s where the conversation has drifted and it tells us something ugly about the moment we’re living in. We sit down with Buck Johnson of Counterflow to unpack the fast-moving Iran conflict, the whiplash of headline-driven escalation, and the creeping sense that America is sleepwalking into choices most citizens never imagined would be on the table.

We dig into the arc of the war and why “we’re stuck” can be the most honest summary: bad assumptions, contested intelligence, and leaders trying to save face after promising quick outcomes. From there, we zoom out to the constitutional crisis underneath it all: Congress losing its war powers, the executive branch acting as the permanent engine of conflict, and what that does to the republic over time. If you care about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, natural law, and the long-term cost of the military-industrial complex, this conversation stays grounded in those stakes.

Then we go where most geopolitics talk never goes: the moral and spiritual roots of all of it. Buck connects nuclear rhetoric, cultural decline, and the “Acknowledge Me” validation economy, arguing that a society trained on immediate gratification struggles to practice restraint, sacrifice, or humility. We talk Orthodox Christianity, fasting, self-denial, real leadership, and why refusing to put faith in princes might be the first step toward rebuilding a healthier center of gravity.

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• 0:00 Hard Questions To Start
• 2:11 Iran Escalation And War Confusion
• 7:20 Bad Intel And No Exit Plan
• 10:12 Faith Over Ideology In Politics
• 15:49 Tactical Nukes Enter The Conversation
• 24:20 Who Refuses An Unjust Order
• 30:31 Leadership Decline And Idiocracy Fears
• 31:48 The Acknowledge Me Culture
• 38:52 Discipline Through Training And Sacrifice
• 43:02 From Atheism To Orthodox Christianity
• 51:03 Tradition, Home, And Faith Practices
• 55:46 Burning Ego Away To Rebuild Culture
• 59:11 Where To Follow Buck

Six months into a war with Iran and still no authorization, no real debate, and no clear off ramp. That fact alone should stop you cold, because it points to something bigger than any single conflict: a Congress that is no longer acting like a co equal branch of government, even as the US stacks blockade style actions, sanctions threats, and “maximum pressure” messaging that may not be enforceable in the real world.

Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, joins me to connect the dots between war powers, congressional oversight, and the incentives that keep elected officials quiet. We also dig into the growing anxiety around economic warfare and the US dollar, including the idea that recent moves could be setting up a dangerous kind of devaluation. Along the way we talk stablecoins, T bills, the national debt, and why interest payments are becoming the silent monster that can consume everything from the military budget to Medicare and Social Security.

The thread running through it all is credibility, at home and abroad. When Washington makes sweeping threats it cannot fully enforce, rivals adapt and allies take notes. We close with a grounded question: how does the next generation break through barriers like donor machines and party gatekeepers without getting absorbed by the system, and what does a Thomas Massey style model look like in practice?

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• 0:00 War Timeline And Cold Open
• 2:07 Sanctions And A Dollar Crash Theory
• 5:58 Congress As A Weak Co Equal
• 9:19 Six Months Into Iran Without AUMF
• 13:22 When American Power Starts Melting
• 15:19 Allies Watch Cracks Spread In Asia
• 18:35 Can Congress Take Authority Back
• 24:21 How The Next Generation Breaks Through
• 29:09 Ron Paul Institute Conference Pitch
• 31:16 Host Recap And Weekend Sign Off

A CIA director flies into Moscow on a C-17, and the move feels anything but routine. We talk through what that kind of high-profile visit can realistically accomplish, why the loudest rumors don’t hold up, and what Russia would actually want to hear from Washington after years of broken assurances and escalating strikes.

Larry Johnson joins me to map the Russia Ukraine war as it looks right now: pressure along the line of contact, the possibility of a renewed push toward Kyiv, and why Odessa remains a strategic north star for Moscow. We also react to the St. Petersburg car bomb and what it says about escalation, retaliation, and the limits of “messaging” when the battlefield timeline keeps moving.

Then we pivot hard into economics and national security: Iran sanctions, secondary sanctions, and the risk of weaponizing the U.S. dollar into irrelevance. We get specific about de-dollarization, SWIFT vs China’s CIPS, why more countries are buying gold, and how rising U.S. debt depends on global confidence that can disappear faster than policymakers expect. If you care about foreign policy, reserve currency status, and what happens when strategy turns into improvisation, this conversation is for you.

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• 0:00 Cold Open On Moscow Visit
• 1:14 Welcome And Setting The Stakes
• 2:15 Why Fly A C-17
• 9:04 Car Bomb And Escalation Fears
• 10:21 Russia’s Offensive Outlook And Trust Gap
• 15:43 Kyiv, Odessa, And Endgame Scenarios
• 19:39 Drafting Ukrainian Women Into Combat
• 25:32 Iran Sanctions And Dollar Threats
• 31:16 De-Dollarization, Debt, And Gold
• 39:51 Planning Failures And What Comes Next
• 47:18 Closing And Conference Promo

A primary win in South Carolina kicks off a bigger question we can’t ignore: if voters keep saying they’re sick of endless wars and DC corruption, why do the same pro-war operators keep rising to the top? We unpack what the turnout numbers and candidate messaging suggest about a brewing “blue” shift, and why a populist economic message paired with anti-war clarity is landing with independents who feel squeezed by inflation, gas prices, and grocery bills.

From there, we go deeper than campaign headlines. We argue about what changed in the American system when senators stopped being chosen by state legislatures, and why the 17th Amendment debate matters for federalism, lobbying influence, and who government actually serves. We also confront the modern surveillance state with plain language: FISA 702, hop analysis, Patriot Act logic, and how tools like Flock cameras and massive data platforms normalize warrantless tracking in everyday life, colliding with the Fourth Amendment’s original purpose.

We then connect campaign finance and foreign influence to policy outcomes, including Citizens United, super PAC power, and the incentives that keep Washington addicted to escalation. Finally, we lay out why sanctions and “economic warfare” often operate as collective punishment that hardens resolve abroad while expanding state power at home, with Iran as the immediate case study and BRICS realignment and de-dollarization as long-term risks. If you care about US foreign policy, civil liberties, and how elections actually work, you’ll leave with sharper questions and clearer lines between cause and effect.

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• 0:00 Welcome And What’s At Stake
• 1:55 South Carolina Primary Shockwaves
• 7:54 The 17th Amendment And Lobby Capture
• 13:52 FISA, Flock Cameras, And The Fourth
• 20:12 Citizens United And Foreign Election Money
• 25:27 Sanctions As Collective Punishment
• 34:43 Blue Wave Talk And Impeachment Risks
• 43:29 Iran War Fallout And Tulsi’s Role
• 48:12 Leadership, Pardons, And JFK Files
• 53:47 Zionism Through An Orthodox Jewish Lens
• 57:11 Where To Find Dave And Wrap

“Leave the dollar system” is the kind of tough talk that sounds powerful right up until you ask what it breaks and who it benefits. We dig into the idea of an “economic D-Day” aimed at Iran and why weaponizing secondary sanctions can undermine the very advantage the US thinks it’s using. The key distinction we keep coming back to is simple: the US dollar is one thing, but access to the US-led financial system is another, and threatening the “tracks” can push the world to lay new ones.

We walk through SWIFT, OFAC, and the growing ecosystem of SWIFT alternatives and parallel payment rails, including China’s CIPS and broader BRICS-style efforts. We also get blunt about why sanctions regimes repeatedly fail to achieve political goals when targeted states are food self-sufficient, fuel self-sufficient, and able to sustain national security production. Add in China’s leverage through rare earth supply chains and refining capacity, and the downside risks start to look less theoretical and more like self-inflicted damage.

Then we bring it home to US politics. We connect foreign policy escalation to midterm election dynamics, voter realignment, and the “kitchen table” effects that show up fast in consumer confidence, prices, and trust. We also argue that resilience is not just bombs and bases, it’s incentives: fixing corruption-driven procurement, reducing monopoly bottlenecks, and defending food freedom so people can buy directly from farmers and ranchers without needless barriers.

If you’re worried about de-dollarization, sanctions backfire, and what all of this means for 2026 and beyond, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review if you want more clear-eyed analysis like this. What’s the bigger risk right now: overusing sanctions or underestimating the political blowback?

• 0:00 Tech Trouble And The Big Warning
• 1:26 Economic D-Day And Dollar Threats
• 4:35 SWIFT Alternatives And De-Dollarization
• 6:02 Weaponizing Financial Rails Backfires
• 10:28 Why Iran Sanctions Won’t Work
• 19:35 New Middle East Power Alignments
• 25:40 Midterm Map And Voter Realignment
• 30:35 Corruption Incentives And Food Freedom
• 47:50 Odds Of Course Correction And Removal
• 51:00 Third-Party Pressure And Closing CTAs

Iran says it wants an off ramp. Washington says it wants a deal. Then Washington also says it wants regime collapse. That gap between messaging and policy is where wars start, and it’s exactly what we unpack with Kyle Anzalone of the Libertarian Institute and The Kyle Anzalone Show.

We walk through Iran’s latest public statements about negotiations, why Tehran may believe American promises expire with the next administration, and how the JCPOA still hangs over every “better deal” claim. Kyle breaks down the logic of sanctions as economic warfare and why attempts to financially strangle Iran can push the conflict into the military domain, where retaliation becomes more likely and harder to control.

Then we zoom in on the real-world pressure points: oil shipping, tanker movements, and what a serious confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz could mean for energy markets and regional bases. We also look at China’s role, strategic reserves, and the limits of the popular idea that the US can simply cut off Beijing’s oil.

Finally, we pivot back home to the politics driving it all: the report of Israeli government-linked ad spending tied to Ted Cruz’s podcast and PAC activity, what Citizens United enables, and why foreign influence and campaign cash keep showing up in places voters actually feel, like the price and quality of beef at the store.

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• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Catch Up
• 3:03 Iran Signals A Negotiation Off Ramp
• 6:47 Economic War And Regional Retaliation
• 9:12 Peace Messaging Through Religious History
• 13:32 Why Tehran Stops Trusting Washington
• 24:08 Strait Of Hormuz Oil Leverage
• 33:58 China’s Tanker Shield And Limits
• 34:02 Israel Sponsoring Ted Cruz’s Podcast
• 39:14 Citizens United And Voter Power
• 44:14 Argentina Beef Imports Hit US Ranchers
• 50:20 Where To Find Kyle And Closing

A courthouse killing lights the fuse, and suddenly thousands of coal miners decide the only way to be heard is to march. We sit down with Darryl Cooper, author of Rough Extraction, to track how the West Virginia Mine Wars escalate into the Battle of Blair Mountain, a fight so large it forces the federal government to pay attention. This is not folklore or a vague “labor clash” story, it is trenches, machine guns, prisoners taken on both sides, and a state government openly admitting it cannot control its own territory.

We dig into what pushes people past normal politics: martial law enforced along class lines, miners jailed without charges, tent colonies raided, and the shock of Sid Hatfield being gunned down on courthouse steps in front of his wife. Then we follow the march itself, including how World War I veterans bring leadership and small-unit discipline that turns a mass of angry men into something closer to an organized force. Along the way we talk about solidarity across race and nationality, the miners’ belief that “Uncle Sam” simply hasn’t been told the truth, and why figures like Mother Jones fail to stop what’s already in motion.

Finally, we break down the decisive shift when Washington gets the call: the threat of U.S. Army intervention, early use of aircraft in domestic conflict, and the moment the uprising ends. We also wrestle with the long aftermath, what reforms actually change in the 1920s and 1930s, and the bigger question Blair Mountain leaves behind: what makes a government feel legitimate to the people living under it. If this episode hits you, subscribe, share it with a friend who loves American history, and leave a review telling us what you think the miners should have done instead.

• 0:00 A Century Later At Blair Mountain
• 2:16 Martial Law Targets The Miners
• 12:57 Sid Hatfield’s Murder Ignites Everything
• 14:29 Veterans Turn Rage Into Organization
• 19:03 When Justice Depends On Rifles
• 25:41 On To Mingo The March Builds
• 29:43 Blair Mountain Fortifies For War
• 32:54 Mother Jones Tries To Stop It
• 37:30 Washington Gets The Emergency Call
• 42:18 Blair Mountain Becomes A Battlefield
• 49:43 The U.S. Army Ends The Uprising
• 55:35 What Changed After Blair Mountain
• 1:20:06 Wrap Up And Conference Plug

Watching someone run for the US Senate and casually admit they are “not informed” on national security should stop you cold, because the Senate doesn’t vote on vibes. We dig into that moment and what it reveals about how war gets normalized in American politics: “support the military” quietly becomes “ship them off,” and propaganda does the rest.

From there, we zoom out to the machinery that makes candidates like that possible. I talk through why Congress looks so inept, why the balance of power feels broken, and why I’d seriously consider repealing the 17th Amendment. We also pull back the curtain on corporatized elections, where Super PAC money, consulting firms, and turnkey campaign operations can plug candidates in and yank them out like parts in a machine.

Then we get into the defense industrial base and the munitions story that TV loves to soften with buzzwords. We break down a Fox News segment line by line, question the “unlimited weapons” narrative, and do the uncomfortable math on Tomahawks, Patriot interceptors, THAAD, and 155 artillery shells. The big takeaway is simple: you cannot spin your way out of depleted stockpiles, and you cannot rebuild real capacity on a timeline that matches cable news outrage.

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• 0:00 Bad Propaganda And War Porn
• 2:27 A Senate Candidate Shrugs At War
• 9:36 Why The Senate Became Trainable
• 14:15 The Election Machine Up Close
• 14:49 Fox Spins The Munitions Problem
• 24:23 Why Money Does Not Fix Systems
• 26:06 Stockpiles And Near Peer Reality
• 30:58 Seven Year Deals And Contractor Power
• 34:27 Tomahawk Math And Patriot Limits
• 39:50 End The War And Retool Smart
• 41:09 Wag Of The Finger For War Talk
• 45:47 Wrap Up And Tomorrow’s Preview

The fastest way to spot a leadership problem is to listen to how people talk about the troops who are actually doing the work. We start with the USS Abraham Lincoln and the strain of extended time at sea, then zoom out to the bigger issue: when deployments stretch, port calls vanish, and maintenance piles up, it is not just “part of the job” anymore. It becomes a signal that our commitments, our force structure, and our priorities are out of alignment.

Jim Webb Sr. joins us with a rare perspective, from Marine infantry in Vietnam to Secretary of the Navy to the US Senate, and he keeps coming back to a simple planning truth: you do not start with tactics, you start with strategy. We get into what real war planning considers first, endpoints, casualty estimates, medical capacity, sustainment, and why ignoring those basics shows up later as exhausted crews and brittle readiness. We also dig into dwell time, retention, and why the all-volunteer force breaks when leaders treat people like interchangeable parts.

From there, the map widens. We talk Indo-Pacific strategy, carrier availability, and what it means to pull attention from East Asia while China watches and Russia pressures Japan over the Kuril Islands. We cover South Korea’s role in deterrence, the danger of transactional alliance thinking, and the knock-on risk of nuclear proliferation. We also hit logistics and resupply realities, because strategy is only real if you can sustain it.

If you care about US Navy readiness, aircraft carriers, military leadership, deployment tempo, Indo-Pacific security, and avoiding another Middle East ground war, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with a friend who follows national security, and leave us a review with the question you want us to tackle next.

• 0:00 Opening And Why Leadership Matters
• 3:05 The Lincoln Deployment And Respect
• 8:40 Strategy First Not Tactics
• 14:55 Navy Force Structure After Vietnam
• 23:40 Dwell Time Burnout And Retention
• 31:40 Carrier Readiness And Asia Risk
• 37:55 Korea Alliances And The Kuril Islands
• 43:55 Nuclear Proliferation And Nuclear Power
• 49:55 Logistics Failures Resupply And Subic Bay
• 53:55 Iran Posture Avoiding Ground Wars
• 56:05 Where To Follow Jim Webb And Closing

Dr. Arta Moeini is an international political theorist and a scholar of modernity and geopolitics whose research spans questions of civilizational power and cultural renewal, the role of ideology in statecraft, realist approaches to foreign policy, and global cultural pluralism. He was previously a visiting senior fellow with the U.S. Global Engagement initiative (USGE) at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Relations.

Learn More Here: https://peacediplomacy.org

The fastest way to lose a war is to start one without a strategy, then pretend the other side will “capitulate.” That’s where we think U.S. policy toward Iran has landed, and jw Dr. Arta Moeini joins me to explain why the danger now is not just another round of strikes, but a widening escalation with fewer and fewer exits. We talk through how negotiations get teased, sabotaged, and replaced by coercion, and why that pattern convinces Iran the U.S. is an unreliable partner that only understands cost and force.

A big chunk of our conversation centers on “Fortress Iran” and autarky: the way decades of sanctions, isolation, and hybrid pressure can actually produce resilience. Instead of triggering sudden regime collapse, external aggression can tighten elite cohesion, expand internal control, and build redundancies that make Iran harder to coerce the next time around. We also dig into the credibility problem on all sides, including why nuclear sovereignty is not a side issue for Iran, and why offering fuel “for free” does not solve the trust gap when past deals get undercut.

We then zoom out to grand strategy: forward basing, exposed U.S. troops, naval blockades, and the alarming reality that tactical nukes are being discussed at all. Finally, we connect the Middle East to the China challenge, the limits of power projection, and a realist framework built around core national interests, industrial strength, and Washingtonian restraint. Subscribe, share this with a friend who follows foreign policy, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway or your sharpest disagreement.

• 0:00 Blowback From Regime Change
• 1:31 Meet Arta Moini
• 2:40 Why Escalation Looks Likely
• 10:05 Off Ramps Get Sabotaged
• 20:10 Nukes Talk And Bad Options
• 31:45 Forward Basing Starts Failing
• 40:50 Autarky And Iran’s Resilience
• 52:00 Nuclear Sovereignty And Credibility
• 1:02:10 China Reality And Spheres
• 1:08:45 Washingtonian Realism To Close