This week we talk to Fred Kaplan, the national security columnist for Slate and author of seven books, including The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (his most recent non-fiction), The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (which was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist), and his most recent, A Capital Calamity, a thriller-satire novel.
We discuss:
* The Venezuela “double tap” incident — why shooting survivors of a speedboat attack is literally the Pentagon’s textbook example of a “clearly unlawful order”
* The end of Pax Americana — Trump may have cultivated the appearance of power at a catastrophic cost to actual American power, and what happens when Europe no longer needs us
* Why no one is speaking out — the terrifying silence from military leaders and Republicans who know what’s happening is wrong, and what Trump’s threats against Mark Kelly reveal about the new rules
* Trump’s mob politics — how his favorite movie (The Godfather) explains his foreign policy better than any traditional framework, and why strongmen from Putin to the Saudis appeal to him
* What comes after — when other countries can finally “go their own way,” the resentment built up from decades of subjugation could leave America isolated and weakened
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