Shifting Ground

How can political science scholarship effectively inform real-world foreign policy during moments of global crisis?In this episode of Shifting Ground, co-hosts Larry Rubin and Rachel Whitlark sit down with Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes, President of the National Democratic Institute. Drawing on her distinguished career spanning academia, think tanks, and high-level government service—including roles as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during the Arab uprisings and Director of

In this episode of Shifting Ground, hosts Nikolas Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Dr. Austin Long, Senior Nuclear Fellow at MIT, and Dr. Rachel Whitlark, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech and Associate Editor of Orbis, to explore the strategic landscape of the second nuclear century. Grounded in Dr. Long's recent commentary for Orbis, the conversation examines how emerging autonomous technologies and AI reshape nuclear deterrence, the concept of "conceal vs. reveal"

What prepares a leader for the high-pressure environment of the US government? In this episode of Shifting Ground, co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin sit down with The Hon. John Tien, Distinguished Professor of Practice at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Drawing on his extensive career spanning the military, the private sector, and high-level government service—including a tenure as Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security—Tien offers unique insights

In this episode of Shifting Ground, Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Phil Wasielewski, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A veteran of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and the US Marine Corps, Phil brings a lifetime of experience—from the end of the Soviet era to the frontlines of Afghanistan—to a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of strategy in an unpredictable world. The conversation touches on the role of intelligence in modern warfare, the enduring need

In this episode of Shifting Ground, Nick Gvosdev and Larry Rubin are joined by Mohammed Soliman, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East. Soliman challenges our traditional geopolitical mental maps, arguing that the term "Middle East" no longer explains the realities of today’s integrated political and economic landscape. Instead, he proposes viewing the region from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean as a

In this episode of Shifting Ground, hosts Larry Rubin and Nick Gvosdev are joined by Dmitri Alperovitch, Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, co-founder of CrowdStrike, and author of World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century. Alperovitch discusses the collision of cybersecurity and international affairs, arguing that the cyber "problem" is fundamentally a geopolitical issue driven by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

Geo-economic and country risk expert Rachel Ziemba joins Nick and Larry to discuss the intersection of government policy and global commerce. This episode explores how sovereign balance sheets and coercive tools like sanctions have become primary instruments of modern statecraft, fundamentally shifting the landscape of global commerce.You can read Rachel's portion of the Global Order After Ukraine Symposium here: Reassessing Sanctions Amid Shifting Global Order: Responding to