ChinaTalk

An all-star cast today with:

Emmy Probasco, a fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and former Navy officer with deep expertise in autonomous weapons and military AI adoption;

Michael Horowitz, a University of Pennsylvania professor who previously ran the Pentagon office that rewrote U.S. policy on autonomy in weapons systems;

Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute and retired Navy officer specializing in naval warfare and military technology; and

Henry Farrell, a political scientist and writer focused on the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and economic coercion.

[00:00] America's First Precise Mass Campaign Against Iran
The U.S. debuts the Lucas drone — a sub-$100K system reverse-engineered from Iran's own Shahed 136 — alongside legacy Tomahawk strikes in a campaign of unprecedented scale and velocity.

[10:00] Regime Change Without a Plan
The panel debates the theory of victory when you decapitate leadership but have nobody to pick up the pieces, with implications for nuclear proliferation, Gulf stability, and the Strait of Hormuz.

[18:00] Weapons Stockpiles, Air Defense, and What China Is Learning
Burning through expensive interceptors against cheap drones risks drawing down Pacific stockpiles, while China gets a front-row seat to how American air defenses operate at scale.

[25:00] Claude Enters the Chat: AI in Military Operations
Claude's integration into CENTCOM's Maven Smart System prompts a discussion on what military AI actually does — mostly boring bureaucratic tasks — and why the Terminator narrative misses the point.

[46:00] The Anthropic–Pentagon Fight
Mike argues the dispute is about personality and politics, not policy — Anthropic never refused a government request, and the real clash is over who gets to decide future use cases.

[56:00] Treating a U.S. Company Like Huawei
Threatening Anthropic with supply chain risk designations — tools built for foreign adversaries — could chill the entire tech sector's willingness to work with the Pentagon and poison allied trust in American tech.

If we're doing emergency pods once a week now should I stop calling them emergency pods?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

what a mess!

Wario Amodei's slow jam vibe: https://suno.com/s/cf3KDdVQ5F0KCjow
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawrence Freedman is the dean of strategic studies. He’s written books about the Falklands War, nuclear strategy, political-military relations, Kennedy’s foreign policy, the revolution of military affairs, and (my personal favorite) the history of strategy.  

Freedman is now part of the father-son writing duo samf.substack.com.

Note: we recorded this in the summer of 2023. Thanks to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this conversation.

In this far-reaching conversation, we discuss:

How the Falklands saved Thatcher’s premiership, making her the Iron Lady,

Why the great strategic decisions of history rarely have clear, pivotal moments,

Parallels between Putin, Xi, and the Argentine junta — what the Falklands campaign tells us about Ukraine, Taiwan, and the future of war,

How nuclear war went from being a “winnable” geopolitical contest to the apocalyptic dog that didn’t bark,

What Cold War arms control treaties can and can’t tell us about AI,

The best strategists not covered by last week's interview with Hal Brands,

Lawrence Freedman's recipe for wide reading and prolific writing.

Outro music: Oh! It's a Lovely War (1918) · Courtland & Jeffries (Youtube Link)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Harrell drops in, attorney who served in the Obama and Biden admins and submitted a brief in this case
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Clark opens the show talking Iran. Recurring cohosts include Justin Mc, Tony Stark and Eric Robinson.

Eric Slesinger of 201 Ventures drops in https://ericslesinger.com/

outtro music: rubio's speech https://suno.com/s/KnIpTyZIU7iJSeIf
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices