Shifting Ground

In this episode of Shifting Ground, host Larry Rubin and guest editor Rachel Whitlark are joined by Dr. Amy Nelson, Director of the Future Security Scenarios Lab at New America .

Drawing from Dr. Nelson's recent commentary featured in the Orbis special issue on Challenges in the Second Nuclear Century, the conversation explores the concept of "phantom signaling," the role of intelligence and evidentiary support in maintaining nuclear credibility, and how states manage ambiguity as traditional arms control frameworks recede.

Nelson also shares insights from her book, The Arms Control Paradox: Managing Uncertainty in an Insecure World, examining how high uncertainty both necessitates and hinders nuclear negotiations, and introduces the forward-looking methodology behind the Future Security Scenarios Lab at New America .

Related reading

• Phantom Signaling: The Waning of American Nuclear Credibility

How can political science scholarship effectively inform real-world foreign policy during moments of global crisis?

In this episode of Shifting Ground, co-hosts Larry Rubin and Rachel Whitlark sit down with Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes, President of the National Democratic Institute. Drawing on her distinguished career spanning academia, think tanks, and high-level government service—including roles as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during the Arab uprisings and Director of Foreign Assistance at the US Department of State—Wittes offers unique insights on bridging the gap between scholarship and practice, navigating Middle East policy, and the ongoing struggles facing global democracy.

The discussion explores:

• Applied Political Science: Applying academic methods to practical statecraft and navigating careers for PhDs.
• Managing Regional Upheaval: Direct insights from the US State Department during the 2011 Arab uprisings.

• Democratic Resilience: Examining global polarization, economic scarcity, and oligarchic influence.

In this episode of Shifting Ground, hosts Nikolas Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Dr. Austin Long, Senior Nuclear Fellow at MIT, and Dr. Rachel Whitlark, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech and Associate Editor of Orbis, to explore the strategic landscape of the second nuclear century. Grounded in Dr. Long's recent commentary for Orbis, the conversation examines how emerging autonomous technologies and AI reshape nuclear deterrence, the concept of "conceal vs. reveal" capabilities, and the challenges of managing strategic stability in a tripolar environment among the US, Russia, and China.

Related Reading:

• History, Strategy, and Technology: Thinking About the Second Nuclear Century by Dr. Austin Long

Explore the special issue:

• Challenges of the Second Nuclear Century, Vol. 69, Issue 2

What prepares a leader for the high-pressure environment of the US government? In this episode of Shifting Ground, co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin sit down with The Hon. John Tien, Distinguished Professor of Practice at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Drawing on his extensive career spanning the military, the private sector, and high-level government service—including a tenure as Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security—Tien offers unique insights from four different presidential administrations.

The discussion explores:

• The Role of the Individual: How presidential leadership, personal networks, and human experience shape strategy at the highest levels of government.
• Evolution of Homeland Security: Reflections on how the mission has shifted from domestic concerns in the 90s to foreign counter-terrorism post-9/11, and the current challenges of politicization.
• Omnipolicy & Strategy: A deep dive into complex issues like the fentanyl crisis, illustrating how domestic and foreign policy goals are now inextricably linked.
• The Future of the Global Order: Perspectives on navigating a new global operating system, marked by transactional diplomacy and the rise of autocracy.

In this episode of Shifting Ground, Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Phil Wasielewski, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A veteran of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and the US Marine Corps, Phil brings a lifetime of experience—from the end of the Soviet era to the frontlines of Afghanistan—to a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of strategy in an unpredictable world. The conversation touches on the role of intelligence in modern warfare, the enduring need for human analysis, as well as reflections on Russia's war in Ukraine, and lessons learned from Afghanistan.

Related reading:

• Russia After Putin - Philip Wasielewski, Foreign Policy Research Institute

In this episode of Shifting Ground, Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Mohammed Soliman, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East. Soliman challenges our traditional geopolitical mental maps, arguing that the term "Middle East" no longer explains the realities of today’s integrated political and economic landscape. Instead, he proposes viewing the region from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean as a single, cohesive space: "West Asia". We dive deep into his thesis on how American grand strategy must adapt to an era where rigid, Cold War-style alliances are giving way to flexible, interest-based "minilateral" coalitions.

Explore more on orbisjournal.org

In this episode of Shifting Ground, hosts Larry Rubin and Nick Gvosdev are joined by Dmitri Alperovitch, Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, co-founder of CrowdStrike, and author of World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century. Alperovitch discusses the collision of cybersecurity and international affairs, arguing that the cyber "problem" is fundamentally a geopolitical issue driven by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

Geo-economic and country risk expert Rachel Ziemba joins Nick and Larry to discuss the intersection of government policy and global commerce. This episode explores how sovereign balance sheets and coercive tools like sanctions have become primary instruments of modern statecraft, fundamentally shifting the landscape of global commerce.

You can read Rachel's portion of the Global Order After Ukraine Symposium here: Reassessing Sanctions Amid Shifting Global Order: Responding to Experimentation

On this episode of Shifting Ground, Daniel Byman joins Nick and Larry to discuss the core challenge governments face in trying to regulate or shape emerging technologies today. The three discuss the national security risks associated with emerging technologies right now, and how policymakers think about the tradeoffs between innovation, economic competitiveness, and security.

Read Daniel Byman's essay Governing Emerging Technologies here.

On this episode of Shifting Ground, Admiral James "Sandy" Winnefeld introduces his concept of the "global operating system" (GOS)—which includes the rules-based international order and the global economy—explaining that its foundation of international stability is at risk of catastrophic failure due to geopolitical cycles, political polarization, and the overextension of the prevailing power. 

Read Admiral Winnefeld's essay The Principle Challenge: Arresting the Decline of the Global Operating System

Explore more on orbisjournal.org