Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

In the summer of 1914, almost no one in Europe expected a world war. A little more than a century later, one of the world’s leading historians sees unsettling echoes of that moment in our own time.

Jim Lindsay talks with Odd Arne Westad about his new book, The Coming Storm, why 2026 rhymes with 1914, how great powers sleepwalked into catastrophe despite deep trade ties and leaders who were literally cousins, whether nuclear weapons really restrain war, why Taiwan could be today’s Belgium, and the three things that could keep history from repeating itself.

💬 Is 2026 really echoing 1914, or is that the wrong analogy? Make your case in the comments.

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/rCr2RmoTM_8

#History #GreatPowerCompetition #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #WWI

4 days ago | [YT] | 4

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

More than thirty million Americans have already voted, and the national mood is sour. One week from the midterms, what are the polls actually telling us, and how much should we trust them?

Jim Lindsay sits down with Hannah Hartig of the Pew Research Center and Jessica Huseman of Votebeat to decode the electorate’s mood, the right way to read a poll, how much Americans trust the vote itself, and how foreign policy — from Iran to tariffs — is showing up at the ballot box.

📊 Which foreign policy issue will weigh most on your midterm vote? Vote, then tell us why below:

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/Hv3x_DAJiT8

#Midterms #Elections #Polling #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #ElectionIntegrity

1 week ago | [YT] | 27

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

Eight months into the war with Iran, the United States is stuck. Escalate, negotiate, or hold the line—every option on the table looks bad, and the clock is ticking toward the midterms.

Jim Lindsay talks with Cole Bucy (former CIA and NSC) and Nate Swanson (Atlantic Council) about the strategic stalemate: the siege squeezing Iran’s economy, why the regime isn’t cracking, what Trump might unleash after the vote, China’s role as Tehran’s lifeline, and what they’d actually advise the White House to do now.

💬 After the midterms, will Trump take the gloves off against Iran or find an off-ramp before the war widens? Pick a side and tell us why in the comments.

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/5gISw3NPRJk

#Iran #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #MiddleEast #Hormuz

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

You’ve probably heard that foreign governments “meddle” in U.S. elections. But “influence” and “interference” aren’t the same thing—and the difference turns out to matter quite a bit.

Jim Lindsay talks with Jessica Brandt, who ran the intelligence community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center, about Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence operations, why altering vote counts is a red line adversaries have avoided, what the Tenet Media case exposed, and what it means that federal election-defense teams have been scaled back heading into 2026.

💬 Federal election-defense teams have been rolled back since 2024. Are we more or less vulnerable to foreign influence heading into 2026? Make your case in the comments.

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/kXSrbEPK6Cg?si=Xm-_h...

#ElectionSecurity #ForeignInfluence #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #Disinformation

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

Almost no leader, Eliot Cohen observes, ever gets the war they expected. So is strategy actually possible? Or is war just a matter of chance?

Jim Lindsay talks with Eliot Cohen about his new book, The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics, what the word strategy really means, the seven deceptively simple questions every strategist must ask before starting a war, why Americans so often fail to understand their enemies, and what Clausewitz can still teach us about war and politics.

📊 Why do strategists get war so wrong? Vote, then tell us why below:

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/EKe3nOnTvfA

#Strategy #War #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #Clausewitz

1 month ago | [YT] | 33

Council on Foreign Relations

What do you think is the biggest threat to Ukraine as Russia continues to drive its campaign forward?

Listen to the latest episode of The Spillover to find out more: https://youtu.be/aYiJZ3QXhN8

1 month ago | [YT] | 31

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

The president doesn’t usually drive out to the airport. But if all goes to plan, Donald Trump will personally greet Xi Jinping on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews—a gesture Washington normally reserves for popes.

Jim Lindsay sits down with Julian Gewirtz and Bonny Lin to decode Xi’s first Washington visit in a decade: the lavish optics and what they signal, “constructive strategic stability” on Beijing’s terms, the fights over Taiwan, AI, and Iran, and the world order Xi hopes to build.

💬 Is Trump’s red-carpet courtship of Xi shrewd diplomacy or a giveaway of American leverage? Pick a side and tell us why in the comments.

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/kvtpAbWdalc

#China #USChina #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #XiJinping

1 month ago | [YT] | 4

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President’s Inbox.

In mid-August, a U.S.-Canada trade deal was reportedly all but done. Then, within days, it fell apart, and Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled Canada out of the talks.

Jim Lindsay talks with economist Rohinton Medhora about a U.S.-Canada relationship many Canadians now refer to as undergoing a “rupture”—the new 50 percent tariffs, Carney’s “elbows up” retaliation, messy federation politics from Doug Ford’s Ontario to Alberta and Quebec, and whether decades of North American integration are quietly coming undone.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation: https://youtu.be/PgdcOn2hyIM

#Canada #TradeWar #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #Tariffs

📊 Where is the U.S.-Canada relationship headed? Vote, then tell us why below:

1 month ago | [YT] | 22

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President's Inbox.

For a growing share of Americans, September 11 is something you learn about—not something you remember. Like Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination, it is passing into history. Twenty-five years after the attacks, Jim Lindsay sits down with Walter Russell Mead—who, like Jim, was at CFR the morning the towers fell—to reckon with the day’s legacy.

They trace how a nation gripped by anger and fear was drawn into the war on terror, why the United States proved so much better at fighting wars than at building order in their wake, and how 9/11 reshaped not only U.S. foreign policy, but the homeland itself through a vast national security state. With the midterms weeks away and the 2028 presidential election on the horizon, Mead asks what today's leaders should take from 9/11’s legacy.

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/YDU09xT86BY

#September11 #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #WarOnTerror #NationalSecurity

📊 A quarter-century on, what's the enduring lesson of 9/11? Vote, then share your thinking below:

1 month ago | [YT] | 24

Council on Foreign Relations

🟦 New episode of The President's Inbox.

It was supposed to be quiet. Instead, Russian Telegram channels lit up tracking a U.S. military transport plane as it crossed from Latvia into Russian airspace carrying CIA Director John Ratcliffe. So much for secrecy. The bigger question is what he was doing there at all.

Possible explanations are all over the map. Jim Lindsay talks with CFR's Steve Sestanovich about what Ratcliffe's Moscow trip signals, why the administration seemed to want everyone to know about it, and whether Trump's tangled mix of tough talk and diplomatic outreach toward Russia actually adds up.

📊 What was Ratcliffe's Moscow trip really about? Vote, then tell us why below:

🎧 Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/eVEr-YSGUJk

#Russia #Ukraine #ForeignPolicy #CFR #ThePresidentsInbox #CIA

2 months ago | [YT] | 24