The Counterbalance Podcast returns with hosts Marshall Kosloff and Mike Doran assessing the state of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with Iran in the Middle East. Primarily, Doran dismantles the politically trendy idea that the U.S. doesn't need explicitly military tools to deter global threats anymore. This modern philosophy of deterrence centered around economics and "moral suasion" dominates the Biden administrations foreign policy, but at what cost? Doran argues that we are doomed to think that we will deter Putin from war by embarrassing him. Instead, a more traditional approach of military deterrence paired with strategic ambiguity could have possibly spared us the current war in Europe.
About Counterbalance:
Counterbalance is a foreign policy podcast that embodies Hudson’s tradition of challenging conventional wisdom. The Trump era attacked the elite consensus regarding several key issues, including the rise of China, American policy toward the Middle East, and the compartmentalization of domestic and foreign policy. Many observers in the media and in establishment foreign policy circles are presenting the advent of a Biden presidency as a total repudiation of President Trump’s policies and a return to “normalcy.” But, regardless of how one feels about the Trump era or any of his specific policies, there is no turning back the clock. The elite foreign policy consensus will never be the same. Counterbalance will reckon with what’s next.