NATO summits aren’t usually headline material. This one was. To unpack what was said, what wasn’t, and what actually matters, host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman to discuss alliance politics, military power projection, cyber threats to strategic signaling, and more.
Israel and Iran are at war. To break down what’s happening and what could come next, host Cliff May is joined by Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Behnam Ben Taleblu. They dissect Israel’s targeted strikes on IRGC assets, the strategic pause before a possible U.S. strike on Fordow, and why this war isn’t just Israel vs. Iran. It’s the free world vs. the axis of aggressors. And it’s about finishing the job—or risking another historic failure.
Host Cliff May is joined by his FDD colleagues H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman to assess the growing cooperation among adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—also know as the 'axis of aggressors.' From the Kremlin's efforts to manipulate perceptions in the West, particularly regarding NATO, to Iran's nuclear ambitions and the geopolitical implications of its relationship with China and the continuing threat from North Korea, they discuss why a robust U.S. response to these challenge...
Thirty-six years ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square with tanks and bullets. The death toll? Certainly in the hundreds, probably in the thousands, and deliberately hidden by the Communist Party of China. How did that massacre reshape China’s path, and what did it mean for Beijing’s relationship with the U.S. and the West? Host Cliff May sits down with his FDD colleague Matt Pottinger, Chairman of our China Program, to discuss Tiananmen’s ...
Is Iran on the brink, or is the West getting played again? Filling in for host Cliff May, Behnam Ben Taleblu is joined by Andrea Stricker and Saeed Ghasseminejad to discuss Trump’s renewed demand for full nuclear dismantlement, the regime’s internal weakness, and why half-measures won’t cut it. From stalled negotiations to nationwide strikes and the case for a “strike fund,” they unpack how to confront the Islamic Republic in 2025.
President Trump’s May 19 phone call with Vladimir Putin does not appear to be two hours well-spent. According to readouts, the Russian ruler agreed to continue talking about talking. Around the same time, Putin launched a massive drone strike against Ukrainian soldiers defending their country and civilians attempting to survive the long war waged against them by an enemy seeking to destroy their freedom and identity. Despite President Trump’s multiple threats to impose “devastating” sanctions on...
Following the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel and the pogrom carried out by terrorists from Hamas and affiliated Islamist organizations, and some Gazan civilians as well, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opined that the attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” Well, he’s correct just not in the way he intended. Hebron is an ancient city 20 miles south of Jerusalem in Judea, now more usually referred to as the West Bank. Hebron is the burial place of Abraham, and Jews and Muslims lived there mos...
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster, and author. Her weekly column currently appears in The Times of London. She’s a regular panelist on BBC Radio’s The Moral Maze and speaks on public platforms throughout the English-speaking world. Her best-selling book, “Londonistan,” about the British establishment’s capitulation to Islamist aggression, was published in 2006. She followed this in 2010 with “The World Turned Upside Down: the Global Battle over God, Truth and Power.” She has ...
China is conducting what a top US military officer called a breathtaking expansion and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces. An October 2024 Defense Intelligence Agency report estimated that by 2030, “China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads, most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the continental United States.” Meanwhile, Russia maintains the largest foreign nuclear stockpile in the world and is actively modernizing its arsenal to be able...
Last week, Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that talks with the Trump administration appear to be going well. This tells host Cliff May that from an American perspective, the talks are going badly. President Trump has said that America’s goal is the “full dismantlement” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program, including its capacity to produce missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads to targets anywhere in the world. Mr. Araghchi’s goal is to prevent...
According to host Cliff May, "Mark Montgomery is an admirable admiral. Another adjective I’d use to describe him: peripatetic. Which is a fancy way of saying he’s on the road more than Willie Nelson—whom he does not otherwise resemble." Most recently the retired flag officer has been in Lithuania, which on the east shares a border with the Russian vassal state of Belarus, and on the southwest has a border with the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad, which was called Königsberg until Russia took it fr...
If you were to visit Turkey years ago, it might’ve felt both Middle Eastern and European. It was Muslim and secular. It was, more or less, free and democratic. Host Cliff May says the food was great, too. Now? Well, he’s told the food is still great. To explain what has happened and what is happening in Turkey, Cliff is joined by his FDD colleague Sinan Ciddi. About Sinan Sinan is also an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at the Marine Corps University in Quantico. Earlier, Sinan ...
Filling in for host Cliff May is FDD CEO and host of The Iran Breakdown, Mark Dubowitz, joined by former Israeli national security advisor Jacob Nagel, now a senior fellow at FDD. Following President Trump’s recent signaling that he's open to nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic, Mark and Jacob revisit the flaws of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the general complexities of Iran's nuclear program. They discuss Iran's current nuclear capabilities and the implications of the program for r...
Lord Andrew Roberts has written or edited 20 books which have been translated into 28 languages and have redefined our understanding of leaders and leadership, of empires and nations, of the forces that have shaped—and in some cases misshaped—the modern world. He’s won many awards, including the Bradley Prize for which he was nominated by host Cliff May. In 2022, he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Roberts of Belgravia. His most recent work: Chairing the 7 October Parliamentary Commis...
The Indo-Pacific is one of the most consequential regions in the world. It’s home to economies, trade routes, and allies vital to American prosperity and security. It is also a region where the Chinese Communist Party, building on decades of defense sector cooperation with Russia, has expanded its military capabilities at a breathtaking pace. The more capable the Chinese military has become, the more aggressively Beijing has acted to coerce its neighbors and undermine American interests. Someone...
The Abraham Accords offer peace and prosperity, an era of repose from some of the constant warfare that plagues the Middle East. The UAE, a signatory of the Accords, houses the Abrahamic Family House—a synagogue side-by-side with a mosque and side-by-side with a church. It’s a beautiful symbol of tolerance and peace between the world’s Christians, Jews, and Muslims. But if Jihad against unbelievers is what Islam demands of the faithful, is it a paradox? On the contrary, say Amjad Taha and Ed Hus...
Episodes 1-3 of The Iran Breakdown drop on Wednesday, March 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including on Spotify , Apple Podcasts , and YouTube . About this exclusive sneak peek In this special edition of Foreign Podicy, we're excited to introduce FDD's new podcast series hosted by Mark Dubowitz: The Iran Breakdown. Episodes 1-3 drop on Wednesday, March 19, but Foreign Podicy followers can enjoy the below exclusive preview of The Iran Breakdown, Episode II. In this sneak peek, Mar...
Back when host Cliff May was an exchange student at Leningrad State University in 1972, he believed that if the Soviet Union ever collapsed that Russia would become a free country. Well, that’s not how things turned out. Peter Pomerantsev has a book on Russian propaganda: “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia.” He joins Cliff along with Ivana Stradner, a research fellow with FDD’s Barish Center for Media Integrity, to discuss.
Some might think of veterans issues and national security issues separately, but they are intricately intertwined. There's a moral imperative to care for those who have risked their lives to defend freedom. There's also a national security imperative to do so. This fact raises several questions: How are America’s veterans doing? How well are we taking care of those who have served our country in uniform? How can we do better? To discuss these questions and more, as well as some new research, gue...
A two-state solution was first offered to Palestinian leaders as early as 1937. Israel offered two-state solutions again in 1947, 1967, 1978, 2000, 2001, and 2008. Palestinian leaders declined each and every such offer. They have proposed no alternatives. Their grievance, it should by now be clear, is not the absence of a nation-state called Palestine but rather the existence of a nation-state called Israel: the resurrected homeland of the Jewish people, a tiny island in an ocean of Arab and Mus...
In 2019 after serving as deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, Victoria Coates was promoted to Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa, overseeing the Maximum Pressure campaign against Tehran and initiating the negotiations for the Abraham Accords. She joins Cliff to discuss her new book: “The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—And America—Can Win.”
The war that Yahya Sinwar launched on Oct. 7, 2023 was meant to profoundly restructure the Middle East. And that is happening – although not in the way the late Hamas leader envisioned. It’s not easy to discern the emerging new realities; to understand the rivalries among the many jihadi groups and leaders, Sunni and Shia; the shifting threats to Israelis, Kurds, Druze, Christians, and those Arabs who are not eager to sacrifice their children to the cause of Islamic supremacy. David Wurmser is a...
Watch this episode on YouTube. As President Trump returns to the White House, he has no more important task than defense of the homeland and ensuring “peace through strength,” because U.S. national security is threatened by the Axis of Aggressors in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang and their Star Wars cantina of terrorist group friends. How should Trump prioritize? And what should he do? Host Cliff May discusses with his FDD colleagues RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman....
A few facts central to any discussion of a deal between Israel and Hamas: On Oct. 6, 2023. Gaza was not occupied. No Israelis lived there. No Israeli soldiers patrolled there. Gaza was not an open-air prison. It had schools, malls, libraries, hospitals, restaurants, sandy beaches. Hamas initiated a war on Oct. 7, 2023 by staging the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas could have brought a halt to this war at any time by releasing the hostages and laying down their weapons. They refus...
“Artificial intelligence is the future… Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” — Vladimir Putin The Russian president-for-life and neo-tzar waging a terrible war of conquest against Ukraine is evil but he’s not stupid, certainly not when it comes to artificial intelligence. Americans don’t want to rule the world. But neither do most of us want the world to be ruled from Moscow, Tehran, or Beijing. So, we have to get smart. We have to run an arms race — or ...
Just hours into the New Year, we were reminded that the Jihad against the West is not over. It’s not even taking a winter break. A man inspired by the Islamic State drove a pickup truck into a crowd in the French Quarter of New Orleans, murdering at least 15 people and injuring dozens more. Hours later in New York City, demonstrators chanted: “There is only one solution – intifada revolution!” and “No war on Iran!” Meanwhile, Iran’s ruler, Ali Khamenei must be pondering whether Hezbollah and Ham...
What does regime change in Syria change? The overthrow of longtime, mass-murdering dictator Bashar al-Assad is a good thing. But those who did the overthrowing? Not good. The most important rebel group involved in this revolution is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, better known as HTS. It has roots in both al Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Its leader’s nom de guerre is Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. He and HTS have been officially designated as terrorists by the U.S. government. The fall of Ass...
It seems a favorite pastime of leaders in Washington is telling us — Americans — what we believe and what we want. Such assertions by politicians are sometimes true, but they inevitably reflect the policy the politician is attempting to promulgate. So what do Americans actually believe when it comes to key defense and foreign policy issues? We don’t have to guess, thanks to the Reagan National Defense Survey. The Washington Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, Rog...
Another day, another blood libel against the Jewish state. What’s new but certainly not surprising is that Amnesty International (a lavishly well-funded organization and one that has long been viciously anti-Israel) has published a report accusing Israelis of genocide in Gaza. What evidence do they have? They don’t need evidence. Why bother when they knew from the get-go what their verdict would be. To discuss the Amnesty report, host Cliff May is joined by FDD’s David Adesnik . David is also a ...
Last week, President Biden finally (belatedly) allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike military targets in Russia. This made Vladimir Putin very angry. Some argue that we should be careful not to anger or provoke Putin and that if he issues threats, then we had better back down. But such weakness only emboldens Putin and his axis of aggressors in Tehran, Beijing, and Pyongyang who are helping him wage his illegal war in Ukraine. In exchange for Russian weapons that can...
