Eliot grills Eric on three recent articles identifying some big problems in U.S. foreign policy.  What will happen once Iran is nuclear armed? Will the Ayatollahs undergo "nuclear learning" as some political scientists suggest or will they become more emboldened (not to seek a suicidal nuclear armageddon but to unleash their proxies -- Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, the Houthis, etc)?  Should the U.S. be ready to launch a pre-emptive or prevent strike? Should it accelerate covert efforts at regime change? What about NATO decision-making? Now that the alliance is made up of 32 rather than 12 members should the decision-making move away from the consensus rules that have governed it since 1949? What should be done to avoid Hungary, Turkey or Slovakia from blocking consensus and acting as a Trojan horse inside the alliance? How tough should the U.S. be willing to be with putative allies, particularly in a wartime scenario? Finally, has the Trumpist turn to "America First" isolationism in the GOP rendered it unfit as a political instrument for conservatives who remain committed to internationalism and the US role in upholding the global order?  Is it time for a new conservative internationalist political party?

https://thedispatch.com/article/when-iran-goes-nuclear/

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-protesters-want-regime-change

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/natos-decision-process-has-an-achilles-heel/

https://sapirjournal.org/friends-and-foes/2024/03/republican-isolationists/

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.