In this episode, Garrison is joined by Dr. Wess Mitchell, who serves as cofounder and principal at The Marathon Initiative, and who also served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs during the first Trump administration. The two discuss Mitchell's brand new book "Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger." They discuss the historic scope, perennial meaning, and vital importance of rediscovering the great tradition of statecraft, and deep dive the example of Otto von Bismarck. They also discuss the efforts of the current Trump administration to serve as peacemakers in this era of great power rivalry.

You can purchase Great Power Diplomacy from Princeton University Press, or wherever books are sold.

Dr. A. Wess Mitchell is a principal and co-founder at The Marathon Initiative, which he created in 2019 with Elbridge Colby. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs under the first Trump administration. In this role, he was responsible for diplomatic relations with the 50 countries of Europe and Eurasia and played a principal role in formulating Europe strategy in support of the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy.

Mitchell is the author of four books, including Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger (Princeton Press, 2025), The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton Press, 2018), and Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton Press, 2016 – co-authored with Jakub Grygiel). His articles and interviews have appeared in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, National Interest and National Review.

Prior to the State Department, Mitchell served as President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), which he co-founded in 2005 with Larry Hirsch. In 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appointed Mitchell to co-chair, with former German Minister of Defense Thomas de Maizière, the NATO 2030 Reflection Group, a ten-member consultative body charged with providing recommendations on the future of NATO.

Mitchell is a Non-Resident Fellow in the Applied History Project at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center, a member of the International Security and Foreign Policy Grants Advisory Committee at the Smith Richardson Foundation, a member of the International Advisory Council at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mitchell holds a doctorate in political science from the Otto Suhr Institut für Politikwissenschaft at Freie Universität in Berlin, a master’s degree in German and European Studies from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Texas Tech University. He received a 2020 prize from the Stanton Foundation for writing in Applied History (with Charles Ingrao) and the 2004 Hopper Award at Georgetown University. He is the recipient of the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary, and the Gold Medal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. He is a sixth-generation Texan.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States. He has been published in RealClearDefense, and Pacific Forum International's "Issues & Insights", among other publications.  He is the author of Distant Shores on Substack.

Guest opinions are their own.

All music licensed via UppBeat.

In this episode, Garrison is joined by Dr. Emma Ashford, a Senior Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center. The two discuss Dr. Ashford’s new book, “First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy In A Multipolar World.”  The discussion touches upon the end of the Unipolar Moment, the emerging schools of thought on the future of American power, “unbalanced multipolarity,” the argument for free trade, and what a realist internationalism approach means for American involvement in Europe and the Middle East, as well as great power relations with China, India, and Russia. 

You can purchase First Among Equals from Yale University Press, or wherever books are sold.

-Emma Ashford is a Senior Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center. She works on a variety of issues related to the future of U.S foreign policy, international security, and the politics of global energy markets. She has expertise in the politics of Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. Ashford is also a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. 

Her first book, Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates, was published by Georgetown University Press in 2022, and explored the international security ramifications of oil production and export in states such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela.  

Prior to joining the Stimson Center, Ashford was a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s New American Engagement Initiative, which focused on challenging the prevailing assumptions governing US foreign policy. She was also a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, where she worked on a variety of issues including the US-Saudi relationship, sanctions policy, and US policy towards Russia, and US foreign policy and grand strategy more broadly. 

Ashford writes a bi-weekly column, “It’s Debatable,” for Foreign Policy, and her long-form writing has been featured in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Texas National Security Review, Strategic Studies Quarterly, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the National Interest, and War on the Rocks, among others. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds a PhD in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. 

-Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States. He has been published in RealClearDefense, and Pacific Forum International's "Issues & Insights", among other publications.  He is the author of Distant Shores on Substack.

Guest opinions are their own. 

All music licensed via UppBeat.

Greg Lawson is a realist thinker, a history buff, and a geopolitical analyst. He joins the podcast to discuss the legacy and meaning of former Secretary of State, the late Dr. Henry Kissinger, as well as the problem of Russia, and the urgency of China.

There has never been a more urgent time for prioritization in American foreign policy; Greg lays out a clear vision on what he sees as the realist way forward.

Greg R. Lawson is a Contributing Analyst at WikiStrat and a Research Fellow at the Buckeye Institute. His opinions have been widely circulated in the foreign policy community amongst thought leaders in the field; his 2014 article "Avoiding America's Ultimate Geopolitical Nightmare" published in The National Interest was an insightful and landmark text on the burgeoning Sino-Russian axis. He is a graduate of Ohio State University.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States. He has been published in RealClearDefense, and Pacific Forum International's "Issues & Insights", among other publications.

Guest opinions are their own.

All music licensed via UppBeat.

In this episode Garrison speaks with Rory Truex of Princeton about China's domestic politics, the political nature of Xi Jinping, the domestic perceptions of the CCP, the threat of a Taiwan invasion, and the appropriate response from U.S. policy makers in this new Great Power era.

Rory Truex is an Assistant Professor in Princeton's Department of Politics and Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. His research focuses on Chinese politics and theories of authoritarian rule. His book Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China investigates the nature of representation in authoritarian systems, specifically the politics surrounding China's National People's Congress (NPC). He argues that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engineering a system of “representation within bounds” in the NPC, fostering information revelation but silencing political activism. Original data on deputy backgrounds and behaviors is used to explore the nature of representation, policymaking, and incentives in this constrained system. He is currently working on a new set of projects on repression, human rights, and dissent in contemporary China. His research has been published in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Comparative Political Studies, China Quarterly, among other journals.

You can watch Rory Truex's "Talks at Google" lecture from 2018: here.

More information on his publications and research can be found: here.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations, as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States. He has had the privilege of interviewing some of the leading policymakers, thinkers, and experts of our time, including Robert B. Zoellick, Elbridge Colby, Richard Fontaine, Andrew Roberts, Ivan Briscoe, Vishnu Prakash, Rajiv Bhatia, Aparne Pande, Mohammed Soliman, Rory Truex and others.

Guest opinions are their own.

Originally recorded March 15th, 2023.

On this episode Garrison interviews David Santoro, President of the Pacific Forum and an expert on strategic deterrence, stability, arms control and more. The two have an in-depth discussion regarding the Pacific Forum’s landmark 2022 publication “US-China Mutual Vulnerability: Perspectives on the Debate”. Santoro embarks on a wide-ranging discussion on the varying perspectives between Washington and Beijing on mutual vulnerability, factors influencing the discussions (and lack thereof), and the need for strategic dialogue across the Pacific and beyond (including with fellow nuclear power Russia). The two also discuss the issue of nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran and dawn of a multipolar nuclear world of crisis management/diplomacy.

The entire Pacific Forum report is available here.

David Santoro is President of the Pacific Forum. He specializes in strategic deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation. Santoro’s current interests focus on great-power dynamics and US alliances, particularly the role of China in an era of nuclear multipolarity. His new volume U.S.-China Nuclear Relations – The Impact of Strategic Triangles was published by Lynne Rienner in May 2021. Santoro also leads several of the Forum’s track-1.5 and track-2 strategic dialogues. Before joining the Pacific Forum, Santoro worked on nuclear policy issues in France, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the spring of 2010, he was also a Visiting Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and, in 2010-2011, he was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Santoro is co-editor, with Tanya Ogilvie-White, of Slaying the Nuclear Dragon (University of Georgia Press, 2012) and author of Treating Weapons Proliferation (Palgrave, 2010). His essays have been published in several foreign policy monograph series and journals, including The Nonproliferation Review, Proliferation Papers, Survival, and The Washington Quarterly, and his op-eds have appeared in The Bangkok Post, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Japan Times, PacNet, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations, as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States. He has had the privilege of interviewing some of the leading policymakers and experts of our time, including Robert B. Zoellick, Elbridge Colby, Richard Fontaine, Andrew Roberts, Ivan Briscoe, Vishnu Prakash, Rajiv Bhatia, Aparne Pande, Mohammed Soliman and others.

Guest opinions are their own.

Originally recorded Aug. 25th, 2022.

In this episode, Garrison is joined by Ali Wyne of the Eurasia Group, to discuss his landmark new book America's Great Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy To Meet The Challenges Of Strategic Competition.  The two discuss Wyne's background in the field, how he came to be interested with, at the forefront of, foreign policy discussions.  He discusses the meaning of great power opportunity, the benefits and drawbacks of historical analogies in foreign policymaking, and the role of human agency in history.  They also talk about the need for democratic revitalization at home, and renewing America's unique strengths abroad (and what those strengths are, in light of Russia and China). They close by discussing key strategies for escaping the reactionary trap of great powers, and implementing the principles outlined in his book for great power relations, particularly "Pursu[ing] cooperative possibilities that can temper the destabilizing effects of great-power competition."

Ali Wyne is a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice, focusing on US-China relations and great-power competition. He has served as a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research assistant at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. Ali has also been a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute. He received dual bachelor's degrees in management science and political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his master in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Ali is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a David Rockefeller fellow with the Trilateral Commission, and a security fellow with the Truman National Security Project. He also serves as a member of Foreign Policy for America's Board of Directors and as a member of the American Pakistan Foundation's Leadership Council. An avid coffee drinker, Ali continues to expand his collection of coffee mugs, cups, and tumblers.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States.  He h as had the privilege of interviewing some of the leading policymakers and experts of our time, including Robert B. Zoellick, Elbridge Colby, Richard Fontaine, Andrew Roberts, Ivan Briscoe, Vishnu Prakash, Rajiv Bhatia, Aparne Pande, and many others.

Guest opinions are their own. Originally recorded July 15, 2022

On this first of three "From the Archives" specials, The New Diplomatist is proud to present a never-before-released episode from March 30th of 2022 with Greg Lawson, discussing Russia's War in light of history and grand strategy.  In the sweeping conversation, Greg and Garrison trace the present war in Ukraine through the lens of theory and statecraft, past and present, to yield a fascinating dialogue on the deeper geopolitical realities and forces at work in the conflict raging in Eastern Europe.  From Kissinger to Kennan, the Mongols to Taiwan, its a discussion you won't want to miss.

Greg R. Lawson is a Contributing Analyst at WikiStrat; his 2014 article "Avoiding America's Ultimate Geopolitical Nightmare" published in The National Interest was an insightful and landmark text on the burgeoning Sino-Russian axis (click here to read). He is also a Research Fellow at the Buckeye Institute; his opinions have been widely circulated in the foreign policy community amongst thought leaders in the field, including by Elbridge Colby (author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy; author of Strategy of Denial).  He is a graduate of Ohio State University.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States.

Guest opinions are their own. 

In this episode, Garrison was joined by Elbridge Colby, author of The Strategy of Denial and key architect of the 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy.

They discuss an overview of Colby’s landmark book and its strategic approach to the rise of China and maintenance of U.S. national defense. In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two discuss the return of military hard power to European security and world order, including the drastic shift in Berlin and other European capitols towards enhanced defense, and implications for the idea of increased burden sharing. The position of denial is contrasted to the historic trend towards neo-conservative posture on one side or neo-isolationism on the other.

The two discuss the hypothetical fait accompli strategy of Beijing towards a war with Taiwan, and whether or not this describes Vladimir Putin’s intended plan for Ukraine (and lessons that holds for the PRC). Their discussion also focuses on potential pitfalls for US deterrence of a potential conflict in Taiwan given China's greater economic strength vis a vis Russia; the need to balance support for Europe while maintaining a clear higher priority for Washington to focus on China as the biggest national security challenge. The role of scarcity in defense strategy is discussed, with a key focus on the need to differentiate responses based on region, and to accommodate various allied and partner responses based on the immediacy of the respective regional threats. Further discussion focuses on the nature of the Russian military power in a ‘limited war’ and its implications for Moscow’s power projection capabilities; the warning the present crisis presents to Taipei (and questions surrounding stirring Taiwanese commitment to defense); whether taking Taiwan would be harder or easier based on geography when compared to Ukraine; and they close out the discussion on the Biden Administration's response and what must be improved towards both China and Russia.

Colby’s article from TIME Magazine can be found here:

https://tinyurl.com/colbyTIME

Elbridge Colby is co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative, a policy initiative focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. He is the author of The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (Yale University Press), which The Wall Street Journal selected as one of the top ten books of 2021.

Previously, Colby was from 2018-2019 the Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. Before that, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development from 2017-2018. In that role, he served as the lead official in the development and rollout of the Department’s preeminent strategic planning guidance, the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which shifted the DoD’s focus to the challenges to U.S. military superiority and interests posed by China in particular followed by Russia, prioritizing restoring the Joint Force’s warfighting edge against these major power competitors.

Prior to this, Colby was from 2014 to 2017 the Robert M. Gates Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and held numerous roles across the federal government. Colby is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States.

Guest opinions are their own. Originally recorded 2/28/22