Security Dilemma
U.S. foreign policy for the future. Security Dilemma brings you conversations with the experts, policymakers, and thinkers charting new paths forward from the wreckage of recent decades and toward a national security and defense policy guided by prudence and restraint. Cohosts John Allen Gay and A.J. Manuzzi bring you the information you need to shape a wiser approach. Security Dilemma is a podcast of the John Quincy Adams Society, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing a new generation of foreign policy leaders.
Episodes
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with Dr. Michael Neagle about his book Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror (https://uncpress.org/9781469691046/chasing-bandits/) and why America's 21st century "bandit wars" resemble previous bouts of American war and expansionism. Dr. Neagle is a Professor of History at Nichols College. In addition to Chasing Bandi...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with Dr. Albert Wolf. Dr. Wolf is Research Fellow at Habib University in Karachi. His research focuses on security studies, with particular attention to the Middle East, the relationship between domestic political survival and international relations, as well as nuclear proliferation. He has served as a foreign policy advisor to several presidenti...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay invited Curt Mills, Executive Director of The American Conservative, back on the show to discuss the Iran War's reception in Trumpworld and on the Hill.
Listener Questions:
We are opening up SD to listener-submitted questions! Submit questions you'd like to ask future guests here. Please specify the episode pertaining to the question ...
On this episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay are joined again by Jennifer Kavanagh. Jennifer is a Senior Fellow & Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities. Her research focuses on U.S. military strategy, force structure and defense budgeting, the defense industrial base, and military interventions and alliances in Asia and the Middle East. She is also the former director of RAND’s Army Stra...
On this week's special, quick-hit edition of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with John Byrnes, Strategic Director of Concerned Veterans for America about the risk of American ground forces entering the war in Iran. Mr. Byrnes joined the Marine Corps in 1991 out of high school and served four years, deployed to Somalia in 1993. He joined the New York National Guard, serving at Ground Zero after the Sep...
On this episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay are joined by Sina Toossi, a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, as they have a conversation about the ongoing U.S.-Iran war and the new Supreme Leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei. Sina has a professional background in producing research and analysis on U.S.-Iran relations, U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East, and nuclear po...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay were joined by Dr. Michael Desch, the Packey J. Dee Professor of International Relations at the University of Notre Dame and founding Brian and Jeannelle Brady Family Director of the O'Brien Notre Dame International Security Center to discuss Dr. Desch's new Foreign Affairs article "Ukraine is Losing the War."
Listener Questions...
In a special, quick hit edition of Security Dilemma, John Gay and A.J. Manuzzi spoke with Dr. Michael Desch, Professor of International Relations at the University of Notre Dame and the Director of the O'Brien Notre Dame International Security Center, about the early course of the American war with Iran.
Listeners also won't want to miss our regularly scheduled episode coming out on Tuesday with Dr. Desch, in which we d...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay discussed the state of arms control after the expiration of New START, nuclear proliferation cascades, and whether sanctions can prevent nuclear proliferation with Dr. Ariel Petrovics. Dr. Petrovics is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a visiting scholar at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of Inte...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, co-hosts A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with Dr. Rose Kelanic, Director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities about how the Trump Administration is addressing Iran policy. Dr. Kelanic spent 10 years teaching political science at the University of Notre Dame and Williams College prior to entering the policy world and is the author of Black Gold and Blackmail: Oil and Great ...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Allen Gay are joined by Ashleigh Subramanian-Montgomery, the Senior Director for Policy and Advocacy of the Charity & Security Network, a resource and advocacy center for nonprofit organizations to protect their ability to carry out effective programs that support peace and human rights, aid civilians in areas of disaster and armed conflict, and build democratic ...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Allen Gay are joined by Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities. They discussed the Trump Administration's Latin America policy in light of the operation that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and reports that the Administration is seeking regime change in Cuba by the end of the year. Dan also has a new explainer out with Defense Priorities ...
In this special Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay discuss the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient's most famous foreign policy speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" (1967), in which Dr. King explains why he must speak out against the Vietnam War and why America needs a "revolution of values" to defeat the three interconnected perils of racism, ...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay were joined again by Chris Shell, a Fellow at the American Statecraft Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dr. Shell researches how American communities view foreign policy issues, as well as issues related to Latin America and the Caribbean. He is also an alum of the Society’s Strategic Leaders Fellowship, which is currently accepting a...
On this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay offered their reactions to the Trump Administration's new 2025 National Security Strategy (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf). In this conversation, A.J. and John discussed the strategy's recommendations as they relate to (or conflict with) realism and restraint, whether this is still a primacist...
In this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with Sahar Khan, an independent national security analyst who focuses on nonproliferation, strategic stability, counterterrorism, and crisis management in Southern Asia. Previously, Dr. Khan was the Deputy Director and Senior Fellow of South Asia at the Stimson Center, a Research Fellow in the Defense and Foreign Policy Department at the Cato Institute,...
In this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with Dr. Sumantra Maitra about what an "America First" nuclear strategy might look like. Dr. Maitra is the Director of Research and Outreach at the American Ideas Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Renewing America. He is also the author of The Sources of Russian Aggression. You can check out his article on the contours of an &quo...
In this week's episode of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with Mariya Grinberg about her new book Trade in War: Economic Cooperation Across Enemy Lines (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501782442/trade-in-war/), why states may trade with their adversaries during wartime, and the relationship between economic interdependence and conflict.
Dr Grinberg is an Assistant Professor of Political Scien...
In this week's edition of Security Dilemma, A.J. Manuzzi and John Gay spoke with William Hartung and Ben Freeman of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft about their new book The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home.
You can buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Trillion-Dollar-War-Machine-Bankrupts/dp/1645030636
Listener Questions:...
On this special Armistice Day/Veterans Day episode of Security Dilemma, the Society's John Gay, Scott McCann, and Julie Thompson-Gomez discussed their experience as part of the Society's Strategic Leaders Fellowship study trip to World War I sites in France, as well as what lessons the First World War has for contemporary statecraft.
Listeners can learn more about the Strategic Leaders Fellowship and apply for the progr...
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