Many who follow Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have come to the same conclusion: Russia can defeat Ukraine with its “incredible” strength. However, Russia is much weaker than even many in the American media let on. The Russian military is bleeding troops for minor gains on the battlefield, running out of men to fight, and has so little equipment it’s turning to movie studios to recoup donated Soviet military equipment from the 1950s. How long can Putin continue his illegal war on Ukraine? How can Trump leverage Russia’s weakness to bring Putin to the negotiating table?

George Barros is the Russia Team & Geospatial Intelligence Team Lead on the Russia and Ukraine portfolio at the Institute for the Study of War. George’s work focuses on open-source research and geospatial analysis of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Russian information operations, and Ukrainian politics. Prior to joining ISW, he worked in the U.S. House of Representatives as an advisor on Ukraine and Russia for a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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While many understand the failures of the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency, he is often referred to as our “best ex-president” because of his humanitarian and diplomatic efforts following his loss to President Reagan. However, the rose-colored glasses through which many Americans view his post-presidency ignore his disastrous meddling in foreign affairs and blatant antisemitism since leaving office. Despite his humanitarian efforts, Jimmy Carter was not the elder statesman his allies alleged him to be. Rather, Carter’s true legacy is that of someone who wished to remain president without the constitutional fetters of the office, undermining his successors of both parties.

Steven Hayward is the Edward L. Gaylord Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University and a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He was previously a resident scholar at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Hayward is the author of The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry (Regnery 2004).

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In this episode of WTH Extra! Dany and Marc discuss Marc’s column in the Washington Post, Does Trump want Putin to get Ukraine’s $26 trillion in gas and minerals? Ukraine is a mineral superpower, with some of the largest reserves of 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals in the world. And with the help of U.S. assistance, Ukraine has successfully defended roughly 80 percent of its known mineral deposits. If the U.S. continues to help Ukraine secure and develop its natural minerals, we can not only deal a strategic blow to Beijing and Moscow, but also bring enormous financial benefits back to the American people.

Read Marc's article in the Washington Post here.

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Americans have lost faith in the expert class, and in some cases, for good reason. So-called “experts” didn’t just destroy livelihoods during the COVID pandemic or make China rich through normalized trade relations, they also looked down upon and antagonized the American people in the process. What role will experts play in the second Trump administration? And how can the expert class begin to regain the trust of the American people?

Robert Doar is the president of the American Enterprise Institute. While at AEI, Mr. Doar has served as a co-chair of the National Commission on Hunger and as a lead member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity. He first joined AEI in 2014 to lead the Institute’s opportunity and mobility studies program after serving for more than 20 years in leadership positions in the social service programs of New York State and New York City. He is the host of the podcast One on One with Robert Doar.

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In roughly ten days, opposition forces in Syria were able to accomplish more than they did in a decade and topple the tyrannical Assad regime. But as the dust settles, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – the U.S. designated terrorist organization that led the march to Damascus – will have to prove that it has moved on from its anti-Western Jihadist ideology and is committed to rebuilding a Syrian state that meets the needs of its people. Why did Assad’s regime collapse so quickly? And what does the future of Syrian governance look like?

Hassan Hassan is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of New Lines Magazine, an initiative of the New Lines Institute, and the founder of the institute’s Human Security Unit. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (2016, Reagan Arts).

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After repeatedly pledging to the American people that he would not pardon his son Hunter, Joe Biden gave his son one of the most sweeping pardons in presidential history. The presidential pardon power has a long history of abuse, but never before has a pardon been so broad, over such a long period of time, and issued by someone possibly implicated in the case. Why did Biden choose to pardon his son now? And what does the pardon mean for the future of political lawfare?

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. At GWU, he is also the Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center, and Executive Director of the Project for Older Prisoners. Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades including the representation of whistleblowers, military personnel, judges, and members of Congress, and has testified before Congress over 100 times. His latest book is The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (Simon and Schuster, 2024).

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Late Tuesday night South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, accusing the opposition party of “legislative dictatorship” and vowing to eradicate “pro-North Korean anti-state forces.” Almost as suddenly as martial law was declared, the legislature voted unanimously for it to end – sending the very military forces that attempted to lock down the National Assembly packing. What do Yoon’s actions mean for the future of South Korean politics? How might a collapse of South Korea’s conservative party affect U.S.-Korean relations? And what are the broader implications for American allies and partners in Asia?

Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including alliance dynamics and U.S.-China competition. He also teaches at Princeton University and serves as chair of the board of the Open Technology Fund. Zack previously served as the assistant to the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism at the National Security Council and as a special assistant to the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense. His upcoming book is Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries (Yale University Press, 2025).

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For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the world is heading towards an era of depopulation. And for the first time in human history, this era of depopulation will be by choice. All over the world, women are choosing to have fewer and fewer children even as medical advances continue to prolong life. The result will be that people born today will live in graying societies in which the elderly and retired vastly outnumber the young and employed who are critical in supporting older generations. Why are people around the world choosing to have fewer children? And what do graying societies mean for the global economy?

Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute where he researched demographics, economic development, and international security in the Korean peninsula and Asia. He is also a senior advisor to the National Bureau of Asian Research, a founding board member of the US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea, and has served as a consultant or adviser to the US Government and international organizations. His most recent book is the Post-Pandemic Edition of Men Without Work (Templeton, 2022).

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Read Eberstadt's Foreign Affairs article here.

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Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s announced cabinet nominees are well respected and will likely have an easy path to Senate approval. Others, not so much. So Trump has proposed doing something no president has ever done before: Skirting the Senate approval process altogether via recess appointments. This appointment scheme delegitimizes Trump’s cabinet picks, sets a dangerous precedent for future administrations, and is likely unconstitutional.

John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University. Yoo was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the general council of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. His most recent book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court (Regnery, 2023) with Robert Delahunty.

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President Donald Trump made gains among nearly every single demographic group in his historic victory, particularly with Hispanic and young voters. As the Democratic Party asks itself how it lost to Trump – a man they cast as a dictatorial threat to Democracy itself – it will have to look inward and realize it has moved from being the “party of the kitchen table” to the “party of the faculty lounge.” Working middle-class voters don’t identify with a party that spends more time criticizing anyone who disagrees with them as bigoted than working to make peoples’ lives better. Will Democratic leaders learn from their mistakes and move to the center on cultural issues? Or will the Democrats continue to pander to their progressive base?

Ruy Teixeira is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the transformation of party coalitions and the future of American electoral politics. Before joining AEI, he was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Teixeira is co-founder of the Liberal Patriot Substack and co-author of the books The Emerging Democratic Majority (Scribner, 2002) and Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes (Henry Holt & Company, 2023).

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