It’s hard to overstate how much arms trade and aid factor into US foreign policy. Missiles, aircraft, guns, and more — we sell and give them to others as a way to exert global power without ever putting boots on the ground.

It’s a trend Congress has passively greenlit for years. But every deal comes with risk.

US weapons have a history of ending up in the wrong hands. Or disappearing entirely. Other times, the “right” hands use weapons to perpetuate devastating civilian harm.

On this episode of Things That Go Boom, we dive into the complex world of arms transfers to ask, “Where does Congress fit into scrutinizing US deals?”

The short answer is…it generally doesn’t. That is, unless it wants to.

GUESTS: Lauren Woods, Center for International Policy; Jodi Vittori, Georgetown University

ADDITIONAL READING:

Human Rights, Civilian Harm, and Arms Sales: A Primer on US Law and Policy, Center for Civilians in Conflict.

The Hidden Costs of US Security Cooperation, Lauren Woods, Responsible Statecraft.

Sending Weapons To Ukraine Could Have Unintended Consequences, Jordan Cohen, Inkstick.

Mitigating Patronage and Personal Enrichment in US Arms Sales, Jodi Vittori, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

At their core, sanctions are a way for countries to say, “We don’t like what you’re doing, and we’re going to make your life harder for it.” When they’re at their best, sanctions can isolate corrupt financiers, stigmatize human rights violators and even get entire countries to change their behavior.

But they don’t always work that way.

Economic sanctions are really hard to do right. They have to be precisely gamed out, or they can backfire in any number of ways. They're often hard to get rid of. And, more often than not, they hurt real people.

But the US likes sanctions. Congress likes sanctions.

On this episode of Things That Go Boom, what does all of this mean for some of our oldest sanctions? And some of our newest?

GUESTS: Jason Bartlett, Center for a New American Security; Ricardo Herrero, Cuba Study Group; Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Artist and Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts, Vanderbilt University; Inna Melnykovska, Central European University; Paul Carroll, Charity & Security Network; Konrad Körding, University of Pennsylvania; Elnaz Alikarami, McGill University; and Nosratullah Mohammadi, University of Geneva (formerly Zanjan, Iran)

ADDITIONAL READING:

Can Sanctions Stop Russia?, Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic.

The Russian Sanctions Regime and the Risk of Catastrophic Success, Erik Sand and Suzanne Freeman, War on the Rocks.

The Impact of Western Sanctions on Russia and How They Can Be Made Even More Effective, Anders Åslund and Maria Snegovaya, Atlantic Council.

Boxing Cuba In Benefits No One, Christopher Sabatini and Lauren Cornwall, Foreign Policy.

Special thanks to Maria Snegovaya.

Long lines at ATMs and gas stations. The constant blare of air raid sirens. Military jets scrambling across the sky. Eurasia expert (and for the first time, war reporter) Terrell Jermaine Starr is in Ukraine witnessing all this and more.

On this special bonus episode of Things That Go Boom, he argues that we can’t understand Russia’s full-scale invasion — or the man behind it — without examining the country’s imperialist history. It’s a story President Vladimir Putin is leaning on today.

Things That Go Boom will be back with our regularly-scheduled programming on March 21.

GUESTS: Terrell Jermaine Starr, Journalist, and Nonresident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council

DONATE TO:

World Central Kitchen

Kyiv Independent

Voices of Children

Direct Relief

ADDITIONAL READING:

Why Progressives Should Help Defend Ukraine, Terrell Jermaine Starr, Foreign Policy.

Ambassador Michael McFaul on Ukraine-Russia Relations, Black Diplomats.

The Putin Doctrine, Angela Stent, Foreign Affairs.

Congress hasn’t passed a significant immigration bill in decades, but the demands on the immigration system today are very different than they were in the ’90s. So, what’s a president to do? With asylum seekers facing a militarized border and millions of undocumented immigrants already inside the country, recent presidents have used their executive authority to try and shape the system to meet the needs of the day. But, more and more, the courts are stepping in. Today, lawsuits drag on, Congress remains deadlocked, and millions of people are caught in the middle.

GUESTS: Dr. Jorge Castañeda, former Foreign Minister of Mexico and Global Distinguished Professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University; Cristina Rodríguez, Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School; Theresa Cardinal Brown, Managing Director, Immigration and Cross-Border Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center; Juan Pablo Barrios, asylum seeker from Venezuela (interpretation by Gustavo Martínez).

RESOURCES FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS:

American Immigration Council: Asylum Resources

Asylee Eligibility for Resettlement Assistance Guide, CLINIC

Getting Asylum, Protection in The United States, Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School, 2017

Para Obtener Asilo, Protección en los Estados Unidos, Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School, 2017

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

The President and Immigration Law, Adam B. Cox and Cristina M. Rodríguez

Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants, Jorge G. Castañeda

This Week in Immigration, The Bipartisan Policy Center, Theresa Cardinal Brown

Lake Maracaibo: an oil development sacrifice zone dying from neglect, Mongabay

Special thanks to Professor Jennifer M. Chacón.

Since the beginning of the American experiment, presidents have tussled with Congress over how to handle foreign threats. That creative conflict is supposed to be the democratic ideal. But there were also moments when lawmakers realized it was easier to just… not do the job. In the best of times, Congress oversaw the president and pushed back on missteps — or prevented those missteps in the first place. In the worst of times, it checked out. Then, the dawn of the nuclear age blew up that precarious balance.

GUESTS: Kevin Butterfield, Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon; Kori Schake, American Enterprise Institute; Laura Ellyn Smith, University of Oxford; Jeremi Suri, University of Texas at Austin

ADDITIONAL READING:

The Presidency Is Too Big to Succeed, Jeremi Suri, The Atlantic.

The Runaway Presidency, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Atlantic.

Adults in a Room IV, Inkstick Media.

The Framers of the Constitution made sure Congress had a voice guiding our role in the world. Congress decides how much money we spend on everything from immigration to foreign aid. It has the power to declare war, approve treaties, and oversee how the Department of Defense handles troops in conflict zones.

But over the past few decades, our lawmakers’ hold on that responsibility seems to have slipped… into the hands of the president. It’s an outcome the Framers worried might come to pass. And its story goes all the way back to George Washington.

From Afghanistan to arms sales, Congress is losing its grip on our foreign policy. Why is that? And, as we make our way toward the midterms, what can be done to reassert Congress’ authority as a coequal branch of the government?

The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a speck of a country in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Population 60,000. But it has an outsized legacy as the place where the US military exploded dozens of nuclear weapons in the 40s and 50s, and brushed over the danger to local populations.

For decades the Marshall Islands has been fighting for the US to fully recognize the devastating health and environmental impacts from all those nuclear tests, without much success.

But skip forward to a recent congressional hearing and something seemed to shift — something that starts with C and ends with A, and rhymes with ‘pivot to Asia.’

GUESTS: Rhea Moss-Christian, chairwoman of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission

ADDITIONAL READING:

How the US Betrayed the Marshall Islands, Kindling the Next Nuclear Disaster, Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times.

‘They Did Not Realize We Are Human Beings.’ Dan Diamond, Politico.

(With reporting from Calvin Ryerse.)

Long before there was a catchphrase called “foreign policy for the middle class,” a Vermont mayor was on C-SPAN fighting for exactly that thing.

Now he’s a US Senator.

And Bernie Sanders has pretty much spent his entire career in Washington questioning whether government decisions really serve working people … or, the 1%.

On this episode of Things That Go Boom, we sit down with Sanders’ Foreign Policy Advisor Matt Duss, because we wanted to know, from the perspective of someone whose boss has been thinking about these ideas for such a long time...

Is Biden’s foreign policy for the middle class anything more than a slogan?

GUESTS: Matt Duss, Foreign Policy Advisor, Senator Bernie Sanders

ADDITIONAL READING:

Who Is Matt Duss, and Can He Take On Washington’s ‘Blob’?, David Klion, The Nation

Obaidullah Baheer has built his career promoting progress in Afghanistan: He’s a university lecturer on intractable conflicts and who advocates for women’s and minority rights online.

But his life could have wound up very different. As the grandson of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar — the leader of Islamist rebel group Hezb-i-Islami — he was once taught to hate the West and everything it stood for.

So how did he turn toward peace instead of war? And, as the Taliban take control of Afghanistan, what can his story tell us about the country’s future?

GUESTS: Obaidullah Baheer, Lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan

ADDITIONAL READING:

My Family Fought Alongside the Taliban. Now, I’m Afraid for My Friends, Obaidullah Baheer, The Economist.

What To Make Of the Taliban’s ‘Exclusive’ Caretaker Government, Obaidullah Baheer, Al Jazeera.

Bin Laden: The Road To 9-11, Tam Hussein, Channel 4.

We turn our attention to the narrow strait that divides China and Taiwan, which some analysts believe is the most likely flashpoint for another far-away conflict involving the US military.

If President Biden reconfigures foreign policy to focus more on threats at home, will that leave us unprepared to defend US interests abroad? Or should we rethink which battles we’re willing to fight?

GUESTS: Oriana Skylar Mastro, Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Michael Mazarr, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

ADDITIONAL READING:

The Taiwan Temptation, Foreign Affairs.

Time for a New Approach to Defense Strategy, War on the Rocks.

Biden Backs Taiwan, but Some Call for a Clearer Warning to China, New York Times.