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In this episode of The Burn Bag, A’ndre welcomes former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman for a wide-ranging conversation on President Trump’s approach to diplomacy, the ongoing Iran War, the recent Trump–Xi Jinping summit, and the art of negotiating with America’s adversaries. Sherman, who led the U.S. negotiations that secured the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), assesses Trump’s negotiating style, the outcomes of his recent summit with Xi Jinping, and the implications for U.S.–China relations and Taiwan. She also takes listeners behind the scenes of the JCPOA negotiations, discussing Iran’s red lines, domestic political opposition, and her experience negotiating with current Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The conversation then turns to the ongoing Iran War, Tehran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, and whether a new diplomatic agreement remains possible. Sherman reflects on the lessons of past negotiations, the role of military pressure in diplomacy, and the challenges of rebuilding American credibility and alliances. Topics Covered: Trump’s negotiating style • Iran War • Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) • Trump–Xi summit • Xi Jinping • Taiwan • Abbas Araghchi • Strait of Hormuz • U.S.–Iran negotiations • American diplomatic credibility • U.S. alliances

Former U.S. National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton returns to The Burn Bag for a wide-ranging assessment of President Trump’s foreign policy nearly two years into his second term. Amb. Bolton discusses the Iran War seven months in, the state of the Iranian regime, the Strait of Hormuz, and whether the Trump administration has a clear end state for the conflict. He also weighs in on the growing China–Russia partnership, Trump’s relationship with Xi Jinping, the implications for Taiwan, and what Beijing may be learning about U.S. resolve. A’ndre and Amb. Bolton also discuss NATO and European defense spending, Greenland, America’s alliances, and how the approaching midterm elections and energy prices could shape Trump’s next moves in Iran. Topics Covered: Trump’s foreign policy • Iran War • Regime change • Strait of Hormuz • China and Russia • Trump–Xi relations • Taiwan • NATO • European defense spending • Greenland • U.S. alliances • Midterm elections

Drones have gone from a specialized tool of warfare to an indispensable feature of the modern battlefield. From Ukraine and Russia deploying millions of drones to Iran using inexpensive Shahed systems against far more sophisticated adversaries, cheap and disposable weapons are changing the economics of war. A’ndre sits down with Dr. Sarah Kreps, Professor of Government at Cornell University and a former U.S. Air Force officer, to break down how drone warfare has evolved — and where it is headed next. Sarah explains how the United States went from pioneering modern drone warfare during the War on Terror to playing catch-up as Ukraine, Russia, Iran, and others rapidly innovate and produce drones at scale. A’ndre and Sarah discuss Ukraine’s extraordinary wartime innovation cycle, Russia’s adaptation on the battlefield, and how Iran and its partners have used drones to threaten U.S. forces, infrastructure, and global shipping. They also examine whether America’s defense industrial base can produce cheap drones at sufficient scale, what China and Taiwan are learning from today’s conflicts, and whether the Pentagon could replicate Ukraine’s rapid innovation during a major war. The conversation closes with the growing intersection of drones, artificial intelligence, and autonomy — including what “human in the loop” actually means and whether AI-enabled warfare necessarily creates new risks or amplifies longstanding problems with intelligence and targeting. Topics: Drone Warfare • Ukraine • Russia • Iran • Shahed Drones • U.S. Military • Defense Innovation • Defense Industrial Base • China • Taiwan • AI • Autonomous Weapons • Future of Warfare

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joins The Burn Bag for a candid conversation about Donald Trump, China, AUKUS, Taiwan, and the future of America’s alliances. Having dealt directly with both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Turnbull offers a rare perspective on how U.S. leadership is viewed from abroad. He explains why he believes allies can no longer assume America will return to the foreign policy consensus of the past—and why countries like Australia need greater strategic autonomy. Turnbull also delivers a sharp critique of AUKUS, arguing that Australia could spend billions on a submarine deal that ultimately leaves it with no submarines. He discusses what a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan could mean for Australia, how Canberra should manage its relationship with Beijing, and why China may benefit from declining trust in the United States. The conversation also explores AI and technological dependence, the changing global order, and what future American leaders would need to do to rebuild credibility with U.S. allies and partners. Topics: Donald Trump • Malcolm Turnbull • Australia • AUKUS • China • Xi Jinping • Taiwan • U.S.-Australia Alliance • U.S.-China Relations • AI • Indo-Pacific • American Foreign Policy Copyright Code: XQJPFLF30YBXBOVG

What would American foreign policy look like if the progressive left were in charge? A’ndre is joined by Matt Duss, Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, to examine the left’s growing challenge to the Democratic Party’s foreign policy establishment. Matt traces Democratic foreign policy from the post-9/11 era through the Obama and Biden administrations, discusses Bernie Sanders’ alternative vision of American power, and explains why Gaza has become such a major dividing line within the Democratic coalition. A’ndre and Matt also debate what a progressive foreign policy would mean in practice: when the United States should use military force, support for Ukraine, competition with China, the future of Taiwan, and whether America can move away from primacy while protecting its security and alliances. Matt also discusses his forthcoming book, A World for All: New Visions of U.S. Foreign Policy.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, what did America’s War on Terror actually accomplish? Peter Bergen, one of the country’s leading experts on terrorism and national security, joins The Burn Bag to take stock of a quarter-century of American war and counterterrorism. Bergen produced the first televised interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997 and is the author or editor of ten books, including his newest, All the President’s Wars, which examines twenty-five years of the War on Terror. From the initial invasion of Afghanistan and the decision to go to war in Iraq to the rise of ISIS, the expansion of drone warfare, the raid that killed bin Laden, and the eventual U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, we look at what worked, what failed, and what the United States should have learned. We discuss what bin Laden hoped to achieve with 9/11; where the war in Afghanistan went wrong; whether Iraq was the defining strategic mistake of the post-9/11 era; how the United States became extraordinarily effective at disrupting terrorist organizations while struggling to translate tactical victories into political outcomes; and why four successive presidents struggled to bring America’s longest war to an end. Finally, we take stock of the War on Terror’s legacy 25 years later: Did it succeed? Is it actually over? And are we at risk of repeating its mistakes today? 📬 Get The Burn Bag in your inbox: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for analysis of the biggest stories in national security and foreign policy. 📖 Peter Bergen’s new book: Get All the Presidents’ Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America’s War on Terror here.

Immigration is often framed as a domestic political fight — about borders, jobs, identity, and security. But America’s immigration choices also shape how the world understands U.S. power, credibility, and values. In this episode of The Burn Bag, A’ndre Gonawela sits down with Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Global Refuge, to examine immigration as a foreign-policy and national-security issue. Drawing on her own family’s journey from Sri Lanka, her service at the State Department and Obama White House, and her work leading one of the country’s major refugee-serving organizations, Krish explains how U.S. policy toward refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants reverberates far beyond America’s borders. Krish discusses what gets lost when immigration is treated only as a domestic-policy debate, how restrictive policies can affect U.S. soft power and alliances, and why people fleeing conflict or persecution often see America’s immigration system as a test of its global leadership. Krish also discusses the strategic consequences of framing immigrants as threats, climate migration as a growing security challenge, and the role faith communities and civil society play in welcoming newcomers.

In this episode of The Burn Bag, Gal Beckerman joins us to explore what it means to be a dissident in an age of conformity, fear, and authoritarian drift. Drawing on themes from his new book, How to Be a Dissident, Beckerman reflects on the people who refuse to betray their conscience — from historic rebels and moral witnesses to ordinary individuals forced to decide whether silence is still an option. This conversation goes beyond the book to ask bigger questions about dissent itself: What separates genuine dissidence from performative rebellion? When does courage become recklessness? Why do authoritarian systems fear humor, memory, and witness? And how can acts of conscience become movements capable of changing history?

In this episode, The Burn Bag speaks with Dr. Gary Slutkin, a physician, epidemiologist, former World Health Organization official, and founder of Cure Violence Global, about a provocative idea: what if violence is not simply a problem of crime, morality, or politics, but a contagious epidemic? Drawing on his decades of work fighting tuberculosis, cholera, AIDS, and community violence, Dr. Slutkin explains how violence spreads through exposure, trauma, social networks, and norms — and how it can be interrupted using tools adapted from public health. We discuss why punishment-first approaches often fall short, how violence interrupters work on the ground, and what this model can teach us about community violence, political extremism, authoritarianism, and war. At a time when violence is shaping communities, politics, and conflicts around the world, Dr. Slutkin offers a different diagnosis — and a more hopeful path toward prevention. You can find Dr. Slutkin's book, The End of Violence, here.

In this episode of The Burn Bag Podcast, A’ndre Gonawela sits down with Zhengyu Huang — former President of the Committee of 100 and author of Rethinking China — to examine the assumptions driving U.S. policy toward China. The conversation covers U.S.-China competition across trade, technology, national security, and Taiwan, while examining where current policy debates may benefit from what Zhengyu believes are more evidence-based assumptions. Zhengyu also discusses economic decoupling, deterrence, the China Initiative, and the role of Chinese Americans in U.S. national security debates. Together, A’ndre and Zhengyu discuss how Washington can think more clearly about competition with China while avoiding overreach, miscalculation, and unnecessary escalation.

For decades, wars targeted oil fields, pipelines, ports, and power grids. But in March 2026, that logic appeared to change when Iranian strikes reportedly targeted commercial cloud infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, damaging data center facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and disrupting digital services used by millions. What happens when data centers become wartime targets? How vulnerable is the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the global economy? And what could attacks on commercial compute hubs mean for markets, businesses, and ordinary Americans? On this episode of The Burn Bag, A’ndre Gonawela speaks with Morgan C. Plummer about the growing strategic importance of AI infrastructure in an era of geopolitical conflict. They discuss why commercial cloud infrastructure is increasingly viewed as a high-value target, how disruptions to data centers could ripple through the global economy, and what governments can do to protect the digital backbone of modern life.

As geopolitical tensions spill into the Indian Ocean, smaller states in South Asia are finding themselves on the frontlines of crises they did not choose. From the sinking of an Iranian vessel off Sri Lanka’s coast to mounting pressure from major powers and a region-wide scramble for energy, countries like Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal are navigating an increasingly complex strategic environment. In this episode, Andre sits down with Nilanthi Samaranayake to unpack how these states are balancing great-power competition, maritime security challenges, and economic vulnerability. They explore how energy shocks spawned by the U.S.-Iran War are reshaping foreign policy decisions, the growing strategic importance of ports and sea lanes, and how smaller states are hedging to preserve autonomy amid intensifying rivalry between India, China, and the United States. The conversation also examines India’s evolving role as a regional crisis manager and what the future holds for smaller states navigating an Indian Ocean that is becoming more contested, more strategic — and more consequential than ever.

In this episode of the Burn Bag Podcast, A'ndre Gonawela is joined by Mira Rapp-Hooper, a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director at National Security Council, to break down the structural forces reshaping the global order. Rapp-Hooper explains how the international system is undergoing a fundamental transition driven not just by political leaders like Donald Trump, but by deeper shifts in global power, technology, and economics. These changes are unfolding as the United States and China compete for influence, while allies and emerging powers chart more independent paths. In this conversation, Rapp-Hooper explains: What the “international order” actually is—and why it’s so hard to defineWhy 2025 may mark the end of the post–Cold War global systemHow China’s rise and the diffusion of power are reshaping geopoliticsWhy U.S.–China competition is structural, but not a new Cold WarWhy there’s no going back to the pre-2016 or pre-2024 foreign policy status quoHow alliances are evolving beyond military cooperation into tech and supply chainsWhat burden sharing actually means—and why it’s often misunderstoodAs global tensions rise and the rules of the international system are rewritten in real time, this episode provides a clear framework for understanding where the world is headed—and how the United States fits into it.

Who is Mojtaba Khamenei — Iran's new Supreme Leader? Who was the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? In this episode of the Burn Bag Podcast, A’ndre Gonawela is joined by Vali Nasr, the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and one of the leading scholars of Iranian politics and Shia leadership structures. Nasr breaks down the power structure of the Islamic Republic following the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the rise of his son Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new Supreme Leader. The leadership transition comes as the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran continues to escalate, with Tehran threatening to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and expand attacks across the region. In this conversation, Nasr explains: Who Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was and how he shaped modern IranHow the Supreme Leader actually governs inside the Islamic RepublicThe role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran’s power structureWhat Mojtaba Khamenei’s leadership means for the regime and the warWho is making wartime decisions inside Iran right nowWhether the conflict represents an existential fight for the Islamic RepublicAs the war intensifies and global energy markets react to tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, this episode provides a clear guide to how Iran’s leadership thinks — and what it means for the future of the conflict.

As the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran escalates following the February 28 strikes, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper joined A'ndre for a quick chat to assess how the conflict is unfolding and what may come next. Esper discusses how President Donald Trump and his national security team may be evaluating the campaign, the strategic objectives behind the strikes on Iran’s leadership and military infrastructure, and what success might realistically look like for Washington and its partners. The conversation also examines the sustainability of the U.S.–Israeli air campaign, the role of munitions production and drone warfare, and how the United States can manage escalation as Iran retaliates across the region. Esper weighs in on the strategic implications of leadership decapitation following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the widening geographic scope of the conflict, including the U.S. strike on an Iranian vessel near Sri Lanka. He concludes with his assessment of how the conflict could end — and what advice he would give the president at this critical moment.