Sirens: A Bombshell production

Loren, Radha, and Erin traveled to Maxwell AFB for a special live year in review episode at the Air Command and Staff College. Come for their thoughts on the biggest national security stories of the year and stay for an extended Q&A with ACSC students (starting around 39:00). Plus, bonus Star Wars commentary.

This week Susanna Blume joins to tell us how the sausage is made on Capitol Hill - the defense budget, continuing resolutions, and other congressional hijinks. And Radha returns from maternity leave! Then we wade through the president's Jerusalem announcement and recent Brexit breakthroughs, before dissecting the new National Security Strategy. And of course we discuss Season 2 of "The Crown" - and our new gift guide! Episode Reading: Susanna V. Blume and Lauren Fish, "A Brief History of Defense Budget Instability," CNAS Susanna V. Blume and Lauren Fish, "Congress, cut the continuing resolutions so Defense can do its job," CNAS Max Fisher, "The Jerusalem Issue, Explained," New York Times Ishaan Tharoor, "The many casualties of Trump's Jerusalem move," Washington Post Tony Connelly, "Brexit and the Irish Border: How the deal was salvaged," RTE BBC, "Theresa May says Brexit deal 'good news' for all voters," BBC Alex Hunt and Brian Wheeler, "Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU," BBC Kate Brannen, "Trump's National Security Strategy is Decidedly Non-Trumpian," The Atlantic Salman Ahmed and Alexander Bick, "Trump's National Security Strategy: A New Brand of Mercantilism?," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Ilan Goldenberg, "The Selfish Motive Behind Trump's Jerusalem Decision," Slate Kori Schake, "The North Korea Debate Sounds Eerily Familiar," Atlantic Mira Rapp-Hooper, "America Is Not Going to Denuclearize North Korea," Atlantic

This week on Bombshell we talk with Mieke Eoyang about, well, basically everything. We take a rapid fire tour of political dramas in Zimbabwe, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. Stop for a bit to bask in the crazy sunshine of Turkish plots and then return to the United States just to ask: Exactly how many troops do we have overseas? Then just for kicks, we debate what a lawful order for a nuclear first strike would look like. We wrap up with Mieke's Twitter conversation with John Cusack and Erin's dream for a Master and Commander sequel. Episode Reading Ben Freeman and Mieke Eoyang, "Public Opinion and Narrowing the Security Gap in 2016," Third Way Sisonke Msimang, "The Fall of Africa's Most Hated First Lady," New York Times Von Marcus Gatzke and Marlies Uken, "Relax, Germany Is Not Facing a State Crisis," Zeit Online Andreas Rinke and Madeline Chambers, "Merkel's CDU agrees to pursue grand coalition in Germany," Reuters Marwa Eltagouri, "What we've learned about the North Korean soldier whose daring escape was caught on video," Washington Post Erin Cunningham and Louisa Loveluck, "Hezbollah, on the rise in Lebanon, fends off Saudi Arabia," Washington Post Thomas L. Friedman, "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, at Last," New York Times Borzou Daragahi, "Saudi Arabia Has Shaken Up The Middle East - This Is How," BuzzFeed News Reuters Staff, "Turkey has completed purchase of Russian missile defense: defense minister," Reuters Alex Horton, "The Pentagon struggles to provide accurate numbers for deployed troops," Washington Post Luis Martinez, "Thousands more US military service members in Iraq and Syria than believed," ABC News Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, "The Uncounted," New York Times Magazine Michael Barbaro, "Targeting ISIS, and Killing Civilians," New York Times, 'The Daily' Karoun Demirjian, "Trump's nuclear authority divides senators alarmed by his 'volatile' behavior," Washington Post Stewart Baker, Jim Lewis, and Brian Egan, "Interview with Mieke Eoyang and Jamil Jaffer," Steptoe, The Cyberlaw Podcast Chris Evangelista, "'Master and Commander' Sequel Still A Possibility, Says Russell Crowe," Slash Film Disney-Pixar, "Incredibles 2 Official Teaser Trailer," Disney-Pixar

This week on Bombshell, Quinta Jurecic of Lawfare (and Washington Post!) fame joins us to break down the Mueller investigation, AUMF debate, and whether Mike Flynn is really a character from a Coen Brothers' movie. We also discuss the president's trip to Asia and do our best to understand the drama in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which is all happening without the benefit of a functioning State Department. Quinta confesses her love of James Comey's Twitter account, while Erin and Loren do their best cosplay courtesy of Rag and Bone.

Episode Reading:

• Quinta Jurecic, "Robert Mueller can't save us," The Washington Post
• Benjamin Wittes, "The Lawfare Podcast, Special Edition: A Person of Flynnterest," Lawfare
• Julia Ioffe, "The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks," The Atlantic
• James V. Grimaldi, Shane Harris, and Aruna Viswanatha, "Mueller Probes Flynn's Role in Alleged Plan to Deliver Cleric to Turkey," The Wall Street Journal
• Daniel W. Drezner, "Why Donald Trump's foreign policy ambitions will always collapse," The Washington Post
• Zeeshan Aleem, "8 photos that sum up Trump's rollicking Asia tour so far," Vox
• Anne Barnard, "Where's Saad Hariri? Lebanon Wants to Know," The New York Times
• Louisa Loveluck and Suzan Haidamous, "Lebanese prime minister whose resignation shook the region says he will return 'very soon,'" The Washington Post
• The Economist, "Saudi Arabia's unprecedented shake-up," The Economist
• Zack Beauchamp, "The purge in Saudi Arabia, explained," Vox
• Amb. Barbara Stephenson, "Time to Ask Why," American Foreign Service Association
• Charlie Savage, "Will Congress Ever Limit the Forever-Expanding 9/11 War?," The New York Times
• Scott Anderson and Sabrina McCubbin, "Summary: Senate Foreign Relations Committee's AUMF Hearing," Lawfare
• Rag & Bone, Star Wars Collection (December 1, 2017)

This week on Bombshell, Alice Hunt Friend joins us to talk all things Africa and civ-mil. We dive into U.S. operations in Niger and the Kenyan elections reboot. Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping get new mandates while preparing for the president's big trip to Asia, along with the rest of us. And we all wait for the fallout from the Mueller indictments.

Episode Reading:

• Alice Hunt Friend, "What Does Niger Have to Do with the AUMF?" Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Alice Hunt Friend, "Trump wrongly ignores Africa," The Hill
• Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, "Amid Niger ambush chaos, the White House first thought several Americans were missing," Washington Post
• Thomas E. Ricks, "An Old Colonel Looks at General Kelly," Foreign Policy
• Loren DeJonge Schulman, "The Necessity of Questioning the Military," The Atlantic
• David Dollar, "Reading the tea leaves of China's 19th Party Congress," Brookings Institution
• Simon Denyer, "China's leader elevated to the level of Mao in Communist pantheon," Washington Post
• Robert Burns, "Pentagon Chief Says North Korea Engages in 'Outlaw' Behavior," NBC News
• Vikram Singh and Lindsey Ford, "China Is Looking Forward to Trump's Truancy at the East Asia Summit," Foreign Policy
• Daniel Kliman and Zack Cooper, "Washington Has a Bad Case of China ADHD," Foreign Policy
• Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm Tour Dates
• Erik Pedersen, "'The Alienist' Premiere Date & Trailer: Bruhl, Evans, Fanning & TNT Trek Back to 1890s New York," Deadline

This week on Bombshell, special guest Elizabeth Rosenberg explains the art of unmaking the Iran deal and the consequences of the Trump administration's Iran 'strategy.' Foreign relations are keeping us busy with a tinderbox in Kirkuk at the worst possible time, and a new lens on the Pentagon's under-scrutinized advise and assist efforts in Africa that resulted in four soldier's killed in an ambush this month. Mattis and the White House are sending mixed signals on transparency and democratic accountability on the Hill and in the press (what else is new?). Erin, Radha, and Loren are as usual looking out for budget deals, new and potentially harmful MAVNI guidelines, and Trump appointees. And yeah. Us too.   Episode Reading:  Radha Iyengar and Rebecca Friedman Lissner, “,” War on the Rocks Angela Dewan, “,” CNN “,” BBC “,” Al Jazeera Colin Cookman, “,” Colin Cookman Sarah Polley, “,” New York Times Ilan Goldenberg and Elizabeth Rosenberg, “,” Foreign Policy Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt, “,” New York Times Phillip Carter, “," Slate

This week, the Bombshell squad goes shoulder to shoulder into the fray of referenda for the Iraqi Kurds and the Catalans in Spain, alongside a recap of the German general election.  Like many women have before us, we ask "Why Chad?" and explore the merits of the new Trump travel ban. We wonder if it was painful for Secretary Tillerson to get cut off at the knees over North Korea, and contemplate the interagency fun of  the Puerto Rico relief efforts.  Finally, we spend some quality time pondering the existential crises brought on by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's Vietnam documentary on PBS - and also our love of Ross Poldark.   Episode Reading: Lauren Frayer, “,” NPR  Lauren Theisen, “,” Deadspin Julie Smith, “,” Foreign Policy Kevin Sieff, “,” Washington Post Helene Cooper, Michael D. Shear and Dionne Searcey. “,” New York Times Charlie Savage and Eric Schmidt, “,” New York Times Dana Milbank, “,” Washington Post Malcolm Gladwell, , The Revisionist History Podcast  Alyssa Rosenberg, “,” Washington Post Nicole Cliffe, ”,” Vulture

Erin, Radha, and Loren get the band back together and invite Laura Rosenberger to dish about the launch of the Alliance for Security Democracy (her new project aimed at countering Russian efforts to undermine democratic institutions), her love of the Steelers, and our open invitation to military listeners to help us land on a carrier. Then it's Groundhog Day in Keeping of Foreign Relations, with new antics and new histrionics around North Korea and Iran, and White House mayhem heads to New York for the U.N General Assembly. Finally, we look forward to the NDAA and the Red Sparrow movie. Episode Reading: "," Mira Rapp-Hooper, War on the Rocks "," Vipin Narang, The Washington PostT "," Josh Rovner, War on the Rocks "," Richard Nephew and Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy "," Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy "," Dan Benaim, Foreign Policy "," Hannah Beech, The New York Times "," Hannah Beech, The New York Times "," Nicole Cliffe, Vulture

This week, Bombshell bids farewell to summer with our final distributed ops episode, closing out what has been a nice, quiet August (ha. ha). Afghanistan is, as usual, still a thing, but this time President Trump - or his teleprompter - actually gave us some thoughts on the matter. We lament waking up to a nuclear test in North Korea and the latest chapters in the Kenyan election and China-India border disputes, and drill down on how everything became about readiness and readiness became about everything: the Seventh Fleet, the Army, DACA, you name it. Finally, we give our take on John Kelly's efforts at discipline in the West Wing and the continuing parade of White House departures, as well as views on Back to School reading and "book dates" with your partner. Readings: "," M. Taylor Fravel, War on the Rocks "," Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang, War on the Rocks "," Lousie Watt, AP "," Alex Horton and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Washington Post "," by David Larter, Defense News "," Wesley Morgan, Politico "" Julie Moreau, NBC News Back to School Reading: , by Sarah Helm , by Walter Isaacson , Michael Lewis , Amor Towles , Zia Haider Rahman , Mike Duncan , Debby Applegate , Kate Quinn

This week the Bombshell crew preps for the eclipse from opposite corners of the world to ask why we haven't all perished in the Fire and the Fury (alternate title for our next romance novel). Along with North Korea we talk India-China donnybrooks, military 'options' in Venezuela, and are somehow not overwhelmed by all the mayhem emanating from the White House. We go once more with feeling in Afghanistan, ask what Bannon's departure will mean for foreign policy, and debate the Chiefs subtweets on Charlottesville. Loren heads off to Porto, Radha chases the totality, and Erin enjoys the second order effects of good cocktails. Reading: Robert Windrem and Corky Siemaszko, ”,” NBC Robert Kelly, “,” National Interest Robert A. Manning and James Przystup, “,” Foreign Policy Nicola Smith, “,” The Telegraph Ben Westcott, “,” CNN Declan Walsh, Raphael Minder, Eric Schmitt and Rukmini Callimachi, “,” New York Times Dan Deluce, “,” Foreign Policy Andrew Exum, “,” The Atlantic Terrence McCoy, “,” The Washington Post Alan Sepinwall, “,” Uproxx