I Asked a Former Trump Official to Justify This War

Summary

The Ezra Klein Show – Episode Summary

Episode Title: I Asked a Former Trump Official to Justify This War
Release Date: March 10, 2026
Host: Ezra Klein
Guest: Nadia Schadlow, former Deputy National Security Advisor under Donald Trump, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute

---

Overview

In this consequential episode, Ezra Klein sits down with Nadia Schadlow, a key architect of the Trump administration's National Security Strategy, to grapple with the deeper ideas and realpolitik animating the dramatic American military intervention in Iran—an action that signals a profound transformation in U.S. foreign policy. The discussion dives into Trump’s evolving doctrine, the assumptions justifying this war, competing visions of America’s global role, and the tension between action and deliberation in a high-stakes world.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine

• Conservative Realism → Flexible Realism

  • Schadlow: Trump’s approach has shifted from what she once called “conservative realism” to what’s now described as “flexible realism.”

    “Today, in the current national security strategy of 2025 … they use the term flexible realism. So I might actually say that that might be more accurate today.” (03:15)

• Comparison to Other Republican Strains

  • Schadlow delineates how Trump’s philosophy differs from both neoconservatism (“reshaping the world in America’s image” through intervention) and isolationism (“pull back, focus on home”). Instead, Trump's approach is about recognizing competition among nation-states, putting interests first, and expending American power judiciously.

    “He came from a world in which said, well, why do we need these institutions? What have they done? What are they doing for us?” (07:33)

---

2. The Rationale for War with Iran

• A Disruption in Promised Restraint

  • Klein highlights a perceived contradiction: Trump who campaigned on ending “endless wars” and avoiding regime change has, in this term, overseen two regime decapitations (Venezuela and Iran) and escalated military action.

    “In the second term. We’ve now deposed two heads of state in eight weeks. … How do these things fit together for you?” (09:39)

• Schadlow’s Defense: Changed Threats Require Different Tools

  • Schadlow claims Trump views the dangers to American security as having escalated during his absence—open borders, drugs, Iranian nuclear advancement—and thus, force became necessary:

    “He would say that things got worse in the four years he was out of office, and he had to use different tools and different set of actions to move in a different direction.” (11:46)

• Was Preceding Diplomacy Possible?

  • Schadlow argues Trump lost faith that negotiations (like the JCPOA) could restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, so military action was a decisive preemptive tactic.

    “If Iran’s nuclear weapons were going to pose a threat to the United States, it was better to do something about it now rather than wait until it got to a point where it was imminent.” (22:31)

---

3. Risks, Planning, and the Lessons of Regime Change

• Klein’s Skepticism: Lack of Planning, Democracy Bypass

  • Klein raises serious concern about hasty escalation and insufficient planning for Iran’s post-strike future. He compares it to Iraq and Libya, warning of unintended chaos:

    “We’re committed to war. That feels like it’s going to escalate and that there was not a significant deliberation of that in the United States.” (41:50)

• Schadlow’s Response: Willingness to Risk, Aftermath Uncertain

  • Schadlow admits the risk of chaos, but argues degraded adversaries may benefit U.S. security. She references her own research on the U.S. military’s political stabilization failures post-conflict:

    “There’s always friction, there’s always uncertainty. So you don’t know. … I personally would worry more about the post war planning and thinking about it.” (46:13)

  • On support for Iran’s opposition without U.S. troops:

    “There are a lot of things we can do and others can do in supporting other forces in Iran.” (49:15)

---

4. Process vs. Presidential Action: The Role of Congress & International Institutions

• Bypassing Congress

  • Klein forcefully insists Congressional and public engagement are constitutional and wise before war—Trump has deviated from precedent.

    “Past presidents have gone through Congress much more significantly than Trump did with this. Iran. I don’t think that’s arguable.” (35:46)

  • Schadlow maintains the President has the constitutional authority to act rapidly for operational security, with Congress’ power lying principally with the purse:

    “Congress’s fundamental role in war is that it has the power of the purse and it controls the money that you need to execute wars.” (39:26)

• Critique of Multilateralism & Global Institutions

  • Schadlow describes a Trumpian worldview skeptical of “global-first” institutions, arguing that nation-states—and coalitions of like-minded allies—are the true engines of problem-solving:

    “To Trump and those around him, that’s a good thing … the nation state is [the] primary source of power in the world and of action in the world.” (30:33)

  • She’s critical of the UN’s process-orientation and its ability to effectively constrain aggressors, favoring more regional or bespoke coalitions:

    “What was really key to preserving peace in Europe at least, was NATO. … we would be better off refining, reducing, peeling back a lot of those layers, looking at more of the essentials.” (58:19)

---

5. What Makes America Strong? Competing Visions

• Klein: Raises the classical question: Is American strength based on its military and economic might, or its ability to organize a rules-based order?
• Schadlow: Reaffirms her fundamental faith in America’s values:

  “What makes America strong is our republic, freedom, liberty, what we stand for, what we are as a country. … But combined with that, what makes our country great are certain capabilities to ensure that we can protect that greatness over time.” (60:04)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Trump’s Own Words:

  “I’m going to be the one that keeps you out of war. I’m going to keep you out of war. No wars.” – Donald Trump, on the campaign trail (01:13)

  “We’ve spent $8 trillion in the Middle East and we’re not fixing our roads in this country. How stupid? … It’s crazy.” – Donald Trump (09:21)

  “Most of the people we had in mind are dead ... so I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” – Donald Trump, referring to Iranian leadership (26:08)

• On Action Without Deliberation:

  “He’s willing to take risk and he’s basically elevating a willingness to take risk over process.” – Nadia Schadlow (36:56)

  “There’s always friction, there’s always uncertainty. … I would worry more about the post war planning.” – Nadia Schadlow (46:13)

• On International Institutions:

  “Trump is just willing to call out many hypocrisies ... in many ways he doesn’t see these institutions as necessarily necessary to solving problems.” – Nadia Schadlow (32:13)

• On America’s Strength:

  “What makes America strong is our republic, freedom, liberty, what we stand for, what we are as a country.” – Nadia Schadlow (60:04)

---

Key Timestamps

• 03:08 – Schadlow defines “conservative realism” and discusses new “flexible realism”
• 09:07–09:39 – Trump and Klein on Trump’s anti-regime-change campaign rhetoric vs. current actions
• 12:09–13:33 – Discussion of consistency/doctrine vs. improvisation in Trump’s approach
• 22:31 – Schadlow on rationale for preemptive strikes against Iran
• 25:52–26:39 – How much planning? Is this war strategy or improvisation?
• 29:17–32:13 – Role and critique of global institutions
• 35:23–39:21 – Debate around constitutional/operational grounds for bypassing Congress
• 46:13–51:32 – Risks of regime change, post-war chaos, and lessons from U.S. interventions
• 54:00–58:19 – Are we entering a new era? International order, rules, and national sovereignty

---

Book Recommendations (60:57)

1. America in the World by Robert Zoellick
2. The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
3. The Reagan Biography by Will Inboden
4. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (fiction)

---

Tone and Closing Thoughts

The episode is a rigorous, challenging, occasionally sobering debate between Klein’s democratic, deliberation-centered skepticism and Schadlow’s pragmatic, risk-accepting defense of the Trump administration’s “act first, secure later” approach. Both display deep knowledge and respect; neither yields much ground. The stakes—a potentially transformed world order and future American wars—are never in doubt.

---

For listeners seeking to understand the logic, perils, and consequences of America’s new foreign policy posture under Trump, this thoughtful exchange is indispensable.

Transcript

[Ezra Klein]

This podcast is supported by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

[Freedom From Religion Foundation Announcer]

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion and protects us from government imposed religion. But across the country, officials are pushing prayer into public schools and blurring the line between church and state in ways the Constitution doesn't allow. The Freedom From Religion foundation exists to hold the government to the law to keep public institutions neutral on religion. Visit FFRF US NewYear or text NYC to 511511 NYC to 511511 Text fees may apply.

[Ezra Klein]

SA. This is not the presidency many Americans thought they were voting for. It is not the presidency that Donald Trump and the people around him claimed they would get.

[Donald Trump]

I'm going to be the one that keeps you out of war. I'm going to keep you out of war. No wars. I had no wars. They said he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars.

[Ezra Klein]

I think what was most surprising to me over the last couple of days was seeing that at least one red line many assumed Trump and his administration had no ground troops in Iran. Even that was no longer holding. Trump gave this interview to the New York Post where he said, quote, I don't have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like every president says, there will be no boots on the ground. I don't say it. I say, probably don't need them. Probably don't need them. I am obviously opposed to this war. I think there was not consultation with the American public. I don't think there was consultation with Congress, obviously not with the U.N. i don't think they are prepared for what they might unleash. But I wanted to try to understand this not from my perspective, but from the perspective of somebody much friendlier to Donald Trump's foreign policy, somebody who has tried to think about what his doctrine and approach might mean, who even helped craft it in his first term. Nadia Shadlow is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. She served as a deputy national Security Advisor during Trump's first term. She led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States. And so I wanted to see how she understood Trump's foreign policy in his second term, the risks he is now taking, the philosophy that can be pulled out of it, and what that might mean for the American people in the world. As always, my email ezrakleinshoneytimes.com. Nadia Shadlow, welcome to the show.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Thanks so much, Ezra. Pleasure to be here.

[Ezra Klein]

So, in 2018, you described Donald Trump as a conservative realist. What did you mean by that?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, realism essentially means that you look at the world the way it is, not as you wish it to be. And I think Donald Trump is someone who sees the world in a particular way. It's a world that's competitive. It's a world in which power matters. It's a world in which nation states matter, interests matter. So that's what I meant by the realism part and the conservative part. I guess that's something. Today, in the current national security strategy of 2025, which I'm sure we'll get into, actually, they use the term flexible realism. So. So I might actually say that that might be more accurate today. You don't want to do everything everywhere. You will take risks, but essentially you want to make sure that American power is preserved and not expended unnecessarily.

[Ezra Klein]

So how did that, in your conception, differ from maybe the Republican leaning schools of thought people are more familiar with, which is neoconservatives, the George W. Bush era, and then paleo conservatives or isolationists, which is often how people have at least framed Donald Trump.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Yeah, I mean, liberal internationalism, some people use the term neocons, essentially has a more interventionist philosophy, a sense that America can go in and should often try to reshape the world in its image. This is the classic definition that that's a good thing. And it's probably more optimistic about a sense that all countries can adopt democracy and maybe democracy that looks like us. We want to promote human rights around the world. We want to promote liberal values around the world, and we are open to interventions around the world to do that. The sort of more isolationist wing of the Republican Party, usually, frankly, it's not just the Republican Party. Right. I think you have to see that in the progressive left, too. A sense of let's pull back, we have problems at home. But some people call that group retrenchers. I think the left sometimes adopts that view with the rationale that America is a cause of problems. And by going abroad, by being abroad, we sort of create antibodies and we shouldn't be messing around in those places. There's a little bit of that on the right, too. But on the right, I think the retrencher, isolationist view is that we have to focus on our problems at home. What happens in the rest of the world really doesn't matter. And we need to consolidate kind of our power here at home first and grow our economy. And that the two, I think, wrongly, are mutually exclusive. Right. I think they're interlinked so when I

[Ezra Klein]

hear that definition of conservative realism, and often when I hear definitions of realism, it feels to me a lot can hide in two particular parts of it. One is the way the world is, the world as it is, people disagree with how the world really is. So when you say that, either for Donald Trump, how do you think he really understands the world to be? And then, of course, our interests. I think you would often hear the term America first. Right. So what are our interests? How do you think about those two sides of Trump's foreign policy?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Right. So I think that you're right. The assumptions are different. So, for instance, when Trump came into office in 2017, he was focused, I think, on three kind of broad themes. One, this idea that America was in decline and had been in decline for some time, and he was going to fix that. He was going to, too, help to. To renew it. And as part of that, he was going to do some significant reordering of institutions. So for President Trump first term, and I think continuing, he saw the roots of that decline in several areas. Decline due to the effects of globalization and the disindustrialization of the United States, decline due to trade imbalances that harm the United States and had been harming the United States for quite some time. Declined due to a lack of pride in what America stood for and what America was. Decline due to other countries taking advantage of our security guarantees. I'm giving you examples of the reasons now. I think probably if you had a different guest on the show, there might be an agreement. Yes, we were in decline, but the reasons would be different. On renewal, the way that President Trump saw sort of beginning that renewal was addressing those trade imbalances, making sure that allies and partners did more for their share of security burden, institutions, reinvigorating a sense of pride in America, putting that first and foremost. I mean, there are a list of policy issues, and then third, on reordering, he was very comfortable in not beginning with the existing set of institutions. He came from a world in which said, well, why do we need these institutions? What have they done? What are they doing for us? And what have they done overall? What outcomes have they achieved? I still think we're seeing this today in many ways. We're seeing it as sort of playing out in what's happening in Iran, but I'll leave it there.

[Ezra Klein]

Well, let me see how this fits into it. I think the impression many people have had from things Donald Trump has said has been that, among other things, he feels that George W. Bush, for that matter, Past democratic governments have been acting as the world's policemen. They have been deploying US Forces all around the world. The rest of the world is not paying its fair share for security. Security. They're acting under our umbrella without giving us all that much back. And that it has reflected an inattention to our own people and our own problems and our own interests. And instead too much of us becoming the enforcer of either international institutions or others. He has been within that, extremely critical of regime change and regime change wars.

[Donald Trump]

We believe that the job of the United States military is not to wage endless regime change wars around the globe, senseless wars.

[Ezra Klein]

He's talked about their stupidity. He's talked about their wastefulness.

[Donald Trump]

We've spent $8 trillion in the middle east and we're not fixing our roads in this country. How stupid? How stupid is it? And we're not fixing our highways, our tunnels, our bridges, our hospitals, even our schools, even. It's crazy.

[Ezra Klein]

And one thing that many people said about his first term was that there was a restraint to him, whatever his braggadocio and his saber rattling that you didn't see with some other presidents. He himself bragged that he was one of the first presidents in a very long time to have not started any new wars. People can argue about to the degree which that was true, but it's somewhat true in the second term. We've now deposed two heads of state in eight weeks. We've captured Nicolas Maduro, we're bombing Iran, we killed the supreme of Iran. How do these things fit together for you?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Yeah, well, that's why, I think when we started the conversation, flexible realism conceded as probably the better term today in that the 2025 National Security Strategy that came out, I worked on the 2017 one, but the 2025 one actually uses the term flexible realism. And I think that that is probably accurate, I would say, I mean, realistic, in that he's seeing certain dangers in the world, and his White House sees certain dangers in the world for the United States and they' flexibility to deal with those dangers. So I see it as essentially, he saw threats growing to the United States that had grown. Actually, he would probably put it, I don't know. No one can speak for Trump, certainly not me, But I think he would put it as, in the four years that I was gone and I was out of office, certain key threats grew over time. He would say the Biden administration watched these threats grow over time. And now that I'm back in office, I had to do something definitive about them. And he would point to open borders. He would point to, you know, the millions of undocumented migrants that came through our borders. He would point to the strength of the drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, which is why he designated many of them transnational terrorist organizations. Because that actually gives the government more authority, more legal authorities to do things in different ways. You take it out of just the pure law enforcement. He would say, and this is interesting because I know that a recent guest of yours, Ben Rhodes, had a different interpretation. But he would say that Iran continued to develop its nuclear weapons program. I mean, the Israelis would agree. He would point to evidence over the years, and most recently the past few weeks before the strikes, Iran's unwillingness to essentially agree to giving up that program. So I think he would say that things got worse in the four years he was out of office, and he had to use different tools and different set of actions to move in a different direction.

[Ezra Klein]

I guess the thing that has been confusing or disturbing to me is that he was very clear coming in. You know, he said, we're tired of fighting. I'm the only president in the last 84 years that didn't start a war. He said, under Trump, we will have no more wars. He said that obviously Russia would have never invaded Ukraine if he had been in charge, that Hamas would have never launched the attack on Israel. He said, at the beginning of this administration, we will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but, but also by the wars we end and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. And something feels like it has changed in him with his relationship to military force. I can't tell if he thinks he has found a way to use military force in a limited way that does not open up the kinds of dangers that previous presidents got into of escalation and occupation. Although now he's talked about being more comfortable with boots on the ground in Iran, if you such a thing is needed. I guess to you, is this the same theory we were hearing from him and it's just being applied in a different way, or has something dramatically changed because Iran was not in a dramatically different place two weeks ago than it was two years ago? We were also told we had obliterated their nuclear weapons program in the bombings. I guess to you, is there a doctrine here, or are there impulses that are somewhat at war with each other?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I mean, I think from the outside, everyone, all throughout, you know, at least the past 50 years of history or more, 75 years, there's always a tendency to say what is a doctrine to look for perfect consistency, to look for an overarching architecture that fits all the time. I don't think any president can hold to that standard. We can talk specifically about Iran, but a lot of people would disagree and say that there are a combination of factors that led the Israelis and the Americans to think that they had a window of opportunity that they needed to take now. And I think partly it was who was going to be targeted, a sense that we needed to do more in the ballistic missile threat, taking out more launchers. The fundamental goal was to remove Iran as a consistent terrorist power in the Middle East. Now, people won't agree with that. So I think because people don't agree with the rationale doesn't mean that there isn't a rationale. It's just one they don't agree with. And the idea for years that Iran had been a threat since 1979, and if not, if you want to use 1983, the killing of the Marines, 241 Marines in Beirut. And I think what's interesting as an example of, like, nice debate is Ben would say, you know, the problems began with Trump's withdrawal from the jcpoa. Right. And. And which is the.

[Ezra Klein]

The nuclear deal the Obama administration had negotiated.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

Which gave us more inspection and more,

[Nadia Schadlow]

which aimed to give us more inspection and oversight. So, but I think it's actually really interest interesting because people are looking at the world in a different way. And so Ben's view was that the problems began when President Trump withdrew from this deal, and that led to the Iranians actually accelerating their nuclear program, whereas President Trump and many people in the first Trump administration argued, no, the Iranians weren't actually abiding by the deal fully. Inspections weren't allowed. There were many military facilities that did not allow inspections, and Iran's fundamental intentions hadn't changed. So these are different viewpoints, and that's why we're not going to come to agreement, necessarily, because the assumptions behind them are different. And as you pointed out, Ezra, you know, we're beginning this conversation with a sense of different assumptions.

[Ezra Klein]

I agree we're beginning with different assumptions. But I think what I'm actually trying to understand is the assumptions from the Trump administration side. So you mentioned the national security strategy in 2025. And so that document says the purpose of foreign policy is a production of core national interests. That is the sole focus of the strategy. So to you, what are America's core national interests when it comes to Iran?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I'd like to start by talking about the core national interests overall, those core interests, when I articulate them this way, I think would be ones that President Biden would have agreed with and Obama. Why? Because all presidents want to protect the American homeland. All presidents want to grow American prosperity, economic growth, preserve peace through strength, meaning essentially have a strong military to deter and advance American influence. So I think those interests are actually kind of unchanging. It's in the interpretation of how you, how you get to those interests. So obviously for President Trump, a key part of protecting the homeland was shut down the border, right? That was key to him build a missile defense system. And also in terms of preserving peace through strength, strong military, but also deterrence. And part of deterrence. And I think part of what President Trump is doing now in his actions, or at least the effect of them, will be seriously strengthened deterrent posture for the United States. No one is going to think that we're not going to act when we say we're going to act. I think he saw it as his mission to kind of restore red lines that had not been respected. When he had said it was about two months ago that he was going to back the Iranian protesters, people were very upset because nothing then happened. I think that that was in the back of his mind and did not go away, that he didn't want to be seen years later as criticized in the way that Obama was critic for not backing the red line when Syria used chemical weapons against its own people. So I think that that was always in the back of Trump's mind. I think he's sensitive to that.

[Ezra Klein]

This podcast is supported by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

[Freedom From Religion Foundation Announcer]

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion and protects us from government imposed religion. But across the country, officials are pushing prayer into public schools and blurring the line between church and state in ways the Constitution doesn't allow. The Freedom From Religion foundation exists to hold the government to the law to keep public institutions neutral on religion. Visit FFRF US New Year or text NYC to 511511 NYC to 511511 Text fees may apply.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one motorcycle insurer. Did you know? Riders who switch and save with Progressive save nearly $200 per year. That's a whole new pair of riding gloves and more. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12 month savings of $197 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between October 2024 and September. Potential savings will vary.

[LifeLock Announcer]

It's tax season and at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers. But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money in refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it, guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com specialoffer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.

[Ezra Klein]

So I think that to get to your point about how there's consensus on part of this, I think you will find a lot of consensus among Democrats and Republicans that it would be in the national interest of America for Iran not to have nuclear weapons. As you note, the Obama administration created the jcpoa. That was their version of trying to pursue that national interest. The fear many people have, the fear I have, is that when you engage in this kind of bombing campaign, when you kind of destroy the existing government, that what can come after it is very unpredictable. And it is outside America's national interest to have responsibility for an Iran that has descended into civil war, an Iran that might have spaces where terrorist groups are now being formed, and an Iran that has created a refugee crisis throughout the Middle eas. And it isn't clear to me how much planning they've done for that. It isn't clear to me that they have. I mean, it's clear to me that they have not prepared the American people for an extended commitment to that. I think the surprise many people have had is the sense that Trump, Vance, that other people in that national security team had become very skeptical of what America could achieve through force in countries we did not understand, in countries that were not near us, and in countries where we could get bogged down for very long periods of time. I mean, Afghanistan, we were there for decades and ended up handing it back to the Taliban. So I take your point that the national interest is not always that controversial, but the question of should force be used. Many people had understood the answer Donald Trump had given to that as, no, do not go around messing around in the Middle east and getting yourself engaged in countries where you cannot control outcomes. But that now appears to be what we are doing. So how do you think they understand that?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Yeah, I think what's happening today is that there was a decision that was made that Iran wasn't going to change with the current regime. There's always uncertainty. There's always uncertainty. But fundamentally, Iran's nuclear program was growing. The IAEA had said that Iranian enrichment was up to 60%, and it's pretty quick to go to 90%. The negotiations that I think Trump went into with good faith, I think he sincerely wanted to avoid this. He likes to negotiate. He wanted to negotiate.

[Ezra Klein]

He bond them while negotiating.

[Nadia Schadlow]

He bond them while negotiating to show them. I mean, this, like, basically. I mean.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, that feels like an alternative to negotiations, not a tactic within them.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Yeah. I think if you look, though, at the pattern of negotiations, negotiations over the years, they haven't resulted in any fundamental change to the Iranian nuclear program. And so ultimately, the decision was if Iran's nuclear weapons were going to pose a threat to the United States, it was better to do something about it now rather than wait until it got to a point where it was imminent. And there's doctrines in war about preventive war. Those decisions are pretty tough decisions. If you're dealing with a problem of a nuclear weapon being targeted at you, I don't know what's gonna happen. You know, North Korea, we can have

[Ezra Klein]

an imminent threat of a nuclear weapon target at us.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Not yet. Nobody believes that. But the idea was that there was a window of opportunity to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, and that was the decision that was made. And then people can and will argue about whether or not that was the right decision. But there is a rationale there, that the Iranian nuclear program was progressing, and they had an opportunity to both target the regime, perhaps get a better regime in. We don't know. And this is a moment where we can decisively do the best we can to destroy the nuclear program, but also the ballistic missile threat posed in the region. I mean, he's. You know, he had the four points that have been consistently stated. Destroy Iran's nuclear missile program, ballistic missiles, reduce the role of it as a regional terrorist actor through proxies, and remove the Khamenei regime and then. And then destroy the Iranian navy. Those points were articulated, I think, from the start.

[Ezra Klein]

So. But I think the thing I'm trying to zoom in on here a little bit is that I think we all agree there are. And the Iranian regime was one of these many regimes in the world that we don't like that are tyrannical, repressive, even murderous to their own citizens that pose a threat to our allies. I think the threat Iran posed to us was less, but it certainly did pose a threat to Israel. And in an ideal world, we would like to get rid of those regimes, or we'd like those regimes to change into something that we could work with better, and that the reason we don't do that that often, and that Donald Trump himself has criticized that is that when you undergo regime change, what comes after can be very unpredictable, can be dangerous, can lead to tens of or hundreds of thousands of people in those countries dying in civil war. As we've seen this in Libya, we saw this in Iraq. And so I guess the question I'm asking you isn't whether or not the Iranian regime was bad or whether or not there was an opportunity to strike it. It was bad. There was an opportunity to strike it.

[Nadia Schadlow]

And they were developing nuclear weapons which they have said they would use to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

[Ezra Klein]

People and people have an argument and people have an argument, as, as you've noted, on whether or not we could have handled that diplomatically.

[Nadia Schadlow]

We didn't have. But that's key because Trump didn't believe that we could handle that.

[Ezra Klein]

I. Trump didn't believe. But as you say, Ben and others believe that it was handleable under the jcpoa. But let's take, I take the premise that you don't believe it was and that Trump doesn't believe it was.

[Nadia Schadlow]

The IAE didn't believe. I mean, they.

[Ezra Klein]

Well, so the head of the Atomic Energy Agency just said that we don't see a structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons. But let's agree, we disagree on this. The question I'm asking you is regime change poses dangerous.

[Nadia Schadlow]

But we're not talking about regime.

[Ezra Klein]

I mean, they just killed that leader of that country.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Yes. Okay.

[Ezra Klein]

I mean, what would you. We could call it not regime change. We can call it the. I agree that we decapitated the leader as opposed to change the regime, but we have heavily destabilized that regime. Trump himself has said, well, most of

[Donald Trump]

the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead, and now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon we're not gonna know anybody.

[Ezra Klein]

I guess my question is, are they planning for this? Like, do we have a theory of events? Or we just, we've, we've started something and now we're just reacting and hoping for the best.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, I'm not in the Situation Room, not in the.

[Ezra Klein]

Fair enough.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Okay. Fair enough. So I don't know, but if you read press reports, I imagine they are speaking to opposition figures. I don't know. But there's absolutely is a huge amount of uncertainty. So I don't know. Right. I'm not inside in this situation Room. But my sense is people are thinking about it pretty carefully.

[Ezra Klein]

So your view is that the way to understand this is that within this sort of broad space of the Trump administration's foreign policy is, yes, they are skeptical of American getting involved in wars that will lead to the collapse of regimes and being committed to that. But to them, Iran's nuclear program was such a distinctive threat, they needed to do this. Yes, I can understand that. I really worry about this world in which it just doesn't seem to me we have done the planning or talked to the American people or Congress to get them committed to this plan of action. How do you think about that dimension of it? Even in the Iraq war, there was a lot more public debate. We had people testifying about how many troops we would need. In the State of the Union, there are only a couple sentences on Iran. It feels to me like a larger commitment than the American people were quite prepared for.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, I don't think it's over. And I think we've seen press conferences almost every day by Secretary Hegseth.

[Ezra Klein]

The terms of this war will be set by us at every step. The mission is laser focused. Obliterate Iran's missiles and drones and facilities that produce them. Annihilate its navy and critical security infrastructure and. And sever their pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb. Not on our watch. Not ever.

[Nadia Schadlow]

By Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Kaine.

[Ezra Klein]

The operation was again launched with clear military objectives designed to dismantle Iran's ability to project power outside of its borders, both today and in the future.

[Nadia Schadlow]

And we've seen the president speak and articulate over and over and over his four objectives. So I don't think it's over. Congress just debated the War Powers Resolution, so I don't think it's over. I think it's unfolding now. And certainly the President talks a lot. But I think to go back to the overall discussion here about fundamental shifts in Trump foreign policy, I think they would argue that part of the strikes on Iran illustrate the failure of global institutions to actually deal with threats to U.S. security or what they see as threats to U.S. security. And so it's a broader critique and a broader set of actions designed to pushback on the way that those institutions tend to act or not act.

[Ezra Klein]

This actually gets to an argument you've made recently that I think is important for thinking about here. You wrote a piece in Foreign affairs called the Globalist Delusion. Tell me about the argument of that.

[Donald Trump]

Sure.

[Nadia Schadlow]

The argument there was that There are two competing ways of looking at the world and how to approach problems in the world. One is a more traditional globalist approach to those problem sets. So essentially that means there are global problems that unfold all around the world, and we need global solutions. There was a phrase that UN Secretary General used, problems without passports. The sense that these problems unfold around the world, whether it's carbon emissions or migration or poverty, and they happen all around the world. And so we need global solutions to those problems. But there's another way of looking at the world which might acknowledge that there are problems. Sure, there are problems that exist around the world, but the best way to approach them is not with a global mindset, but with a mindset that puts the state first. It's clearly, I think, the proclivity of the Trump administration, both Trump 1 and Trump 2, to put the state first as kind of the key operating force in the world. And to Trump and those around him, that's a good thing, right? In the 2025 National Security Strategy, they state it pretty clearly. The nation state is primary source of power in the world and of action in the world.

[Ezra Klein]

So one argument I've heard that actually feels to me like it's splitting the right much more than the left is that they bought this right, they are full in on America first. We have to put the state first. And they feel that this is less about America's direct interests and Israel's direct interests. How do you think about that argument that has seemed to be splitting MAGA I think it's.

[Nadia Schadlow]

It's in America's best interests, also stated interests. And I think the president has made it clear that he sees this in both America's interests and Israel's interests.

[Ezra Klein]

So then you have this argument that one thing happening when you go through the United nations is it instead of getting action, what you get is process. You get bureaucracy. You get. I mean, this is a longtime critique of the United Nations. It's a critique you're making in the article. Tell me a little bit about this thinking here, because even kind of previous Republican presidents like Bush, they certainly made a big show of going to the UN eventually went into Iraq with, I think it was a coalition of the willing. It got called back then. And different presidents has happened with Obama too, would eventually go around it. But there was a feeling that there was a value in trying to make the case to the international community, trying to bring the international community along. It brought legitimacy. It maybe helped restrain others, created a sort of dimension. Everybody was supposed to go through why do you say that's not in America's interest?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I'm not saying it's not in America's interest. I'm saying that there are costs to just doing performative discussions. And essentially, I think Trump is much more willing to call out inaction, consistently doing the same things and to focus more on outcomes. So, yeah, we have an interest in communicating and sharing information with allies and partners, with like minded nations, but I don't know that we need to, to spend a lot of time with Cuba when Cuba's on the Human Rights Council. I think Trump is just willing to call out many hypocrisies and just ask, well, can't we do better here? And I think in many ways he doesn't see these institutions as necessarily necessary to solving problems. And so that's where I think we see some of the differences with our allies and partners. Our European allies. And I have great European friends and talk to a lot of the European ambassadors. They're uncomfortable with this in a sense. They start from a premise that we should be working through multilateral global first, generally. I mean, I'm generalizing generally. That's their starting point. And Trump's starting point is not that. It's what's the best way to solve this problem. Maybe it's two people at the table, maybe it's three people, but it's probably not 30. And I think my article really tries to go through and show how even in terms of the outcomes that global institutions want, the things that are important to them, whether it's eradication of poverty, food security, climate change, they haven't worked. So the article was broader than Trump. I think it's aligned with Trump's view of international institutions. But overall, we need a better operating system to get to better solutions.

[Ezra Klein]

So one thing I was thinking about around Trump and his preference for action, which I think is undeniably true to him, and I think in some ways to people is attractive. There's an upside and a downside to that. The downside of a lot of process is, of course, you just get weighed down in process and it happens all the time. The upside of some process, I mean, this is why we have deliberative institutions like Congress, is that they do force you to deliberate. They would force you to actually build support. They would force you to question your assumptions. Is your sense of America's interest immediately, right? Is your sense of what this might require fully vetted? Have you listened to voices that might know things that you don't? And I mean to what we were saying earlier. The thing I felt, I think is pretty clear is Trump made a call here. There's not been a huge amount of scenario planning. They've not done a tremendous amount of pre deliberation what's going to happen they're now reacting to and they're willing to be in this kind of ambiguous, reactive space. Is there not an upside to these different. Certainly Congress and the American people in terms of making sure that you actually have broad enough support for doing something like this and making sure you've thought through the things that might happen and you're not left holding the bag alone or just alone alongside Israel, things begin to go wrong.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, every president since 1973 has said the War Powers Resolution was unconstitutional. Every single president, no president wanted a constraint on his ability to declare war. And lots of conservative legal scholars. But others will argue that essentially Congress has power, it has power of the purse, but it does not. I mean, this is a longstanding constitutional debate that completely predates Trump.

[Ezra Klein]

But past presidents have gone through Congress much more significantly than Trump did with this. Iran. I don't think that's arguable. I mean, I watch Bush in Iraq.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Again, we're in the middle, we're five days into.

[Ezra Klein]

But Bush did that before he started the war. That's the point.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Trump absolutely should not have done that before the war. It is not. I mean, I just disagree.

[Ezra Klein]

That's fine. But then make that case.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, the case is that it would have given up huge operational insecurity. I mean, they would have. I mean, the whole point of the strike was to go in before the Iranians knew what was going to happen for operational security reasons. To set the conditions in the best way. That Washington phrase that I don't like, set the table in the best way for military success. I think Trump made the choice he did because he didn't want to give up that operational security. And the timing was so sensitive and so narrow that that's why I think he made that decision.

[Ezra Klein]

The reason I'm pushing on this is both with Venezuela and with here. He's making decisions to go very fast before he's built support among the American people or Congress. That is a change in the way America is acting. Whether that change is good or bad, I think will take time to understand, but that seems like a real change.

[Nadia Schadlow]

He's willing to take risk and he's basically elevating a willingness to take risk over process. If in two years, the situation in Venezuela is much better. Venezuelans who the millions who've left Their homeland. Go back. Will people say that's a mistake? Probably not. And in addition, he is speaking to the American people. I mean, Trump is on tv, he's giving press conferences. And as I said, the Department of War is on tv. They're explaining what's happening, they're explaining the course of action, they're explaining military targets, goals. It's happening.

[Ezra Klein]

So in general, you really don't believe there's a role for Congress before these conflicts?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I believe the President can make a case directly to the American people. And Congress's role is the power of the purse.

[Ezra Klein]

So the case for Congress is once we have gone to war, if they don't like it, they can remove the money.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Congress does not have a constitutional role in the declaration of war. Congress has a role in cutting off funds for wars, which it has threatened to do. And the President doesn't have to get permission, but yes, you can debate, you can decide that's his choice and how he wants to do it.

[Ezra Klein]

I mean, here I will quote the Constitution. The Congress shall have power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water. The President shall be the commander in chief of the army. But it is Congress that has the power to declare war.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Constitutionally, Congress has the power to declare war. But the issue is whether or not a president who deploys military force abroad needs to do so only after having Congress declare war. There are arguments by constitutional lawyers, which I'm not, like Robert Turner and John Yoo, who argue that the issue has to do with the term declaration and what was meant by declare versus the president's ability to deploy US forces around the world, which US presidents have done like 200 times, depending on when you start looking hundreds, at least dozens and dozens and dozens of times without a declaration of war. So the issue is more does the President have to go to Congress every time he deploys U.S. forces? And the debate is about what constitutes a declaration of war versus a deployment of US Troops or the use of US Military force abroad.

[Ezra Klein]

What to you is Congress's role in war? Congress does have the right to declare war.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Congress's fundamental role in war is that it has the power of the purse and it controls the money that you need to execute wars. And that's really, really powerful. Having said that, Congress often does not want to cut American soldiers off from funding. So I understand that right. It was part of the post Vietnam debacle of cutting money off completely. And a lot of people are very critical of that. And Say that the outcome, partly that we ended up with was because we couldn't support the government that we had put in and that all money was cut off. So Congress in the past has used that power of the purse to affect the outcomes of war. But Congress itself can be a forum for discussion if a president so uses it. But the president is not obliged to go to Congress to ask for a declaration of war.

[Ezra Klein]

I take your point that obviously presidents of both parties for a long time have done deployment of US Forces and application of force without declarations of war. You get into this, what is a war really? But I think the reason I am pushing on this is that it feels to me that there is wisdom in bringing the American people along into a war that they're going to have to fund and fight. And that when you cut, forget cutting the UN out of it, when you cut Congress and the public out of it for something that can be quite significant, going to war in Iran is not a small thing. And I don't think we just did a little strike here. We're being told there are multiple weeks of bombing coming and we're being told that Donald Trump is open to boots on the ground and doing that without the public being significantly consulted, which would typically happen through Congress. I wonder about its wisdom. I take that declaration of war power to be there in the Constitution for a reason. This was not like a little strike on a terrorist cell. This is America decapitating a foreign regime and possibly taking responsibility for what comes next.

[Nadia Schadlow]

I think there should be an explanation to the American people of what the President is doing and intends to do. But I think that that is going on now. So I think maybe our difference is the formality of through Congress. But you and how to actually do go to Congress and do another type of State of the Union. Maybe that that's probably something that you would prefer he didn't.

[Ezra Klein]

I think I would prefer that he makes the case and tries to bring the American people into what they are getting into. To me, we're not talking about a formality. I care less about the literal declaration than I do about the fact that we're committed to war. That feels like it's going to escalate and that there was not a significant deliberation of that in the United States.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Yes, But I think traditionally that deliberation, the nuts and bolts deliberation, happens at the White House in the Situation Room. I think the discussion and the rationale for the strikes were articulated over and over. I can see your point, Ezra, that explaining those going to Congress more. I can see your point of view, but I think it's not unconstitutional to do that. I think it's a president's choice. And I do think it's important to note again that I think there have been five declarations of war in American history. Very few, I think none since 1941. So I think it's a problem and a source of tension that we've seen for many, many years. My understanding, just from reading the news reports, is that Secretary Rubio did go to the Hill, there's the Gang of Eight, and he did speak with them. But I think there is a difficult tension between explaining too much of what you're going to do before you do it and then risking operational security, which really does risk American lives. So. So I don't think the dialogue is over. I think that the longer we're in this, the more we need, the more those conversations should be having explanations, you know, should be given. I think the American people are due that.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one motorcycle insurer. Did you know? Riders who switch and save with Progressive save nearly $200 per year. That's a whole new pair of riding gloves and more. Quote today, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $197 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between October 2024 and September 2025. Potential savings will vary.

[LifeLock Announcer]

It's tax season and at LifeLock. We know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com specialoffer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.

[Ezra Klein]

So what do you see as the downsides of this strategy where we are moving in and sort of decapitating regimes without a lot of sort of public debate beforehand? Is there a downside to it? Or is this just something that past presidents should have done but didn't?

[Nadia Schadlow]

No, of course there's uncertainty, but. But if you flip it and say what is the downside to a nuclear Iran? What is the downside to the continuing strength of drug cartels? My understanding and my interpretation is he's willing to take risks, to set conditions. Now to put the United States in a better place going forward. He's willing to take those risks. In addition, he is de facto hugely increasing deterrence, I think in terms of China, in terms of Russia, in terms of putting what people call the axis of aggressors sort of on their heels. And who knows, in several years we might be in a position where people say, okay, suddenly we're facing a much weakened axis of aggressors, looks totally different than they did a year ago.

[Ezra Klein]

One thing I definitely agree with you is he's very willing to take risks and he is willing to absorb risk in a way that other presidents are not. So if you were in the Situation Room around the NSC as you've been in the past, how would you have thought about the risks here? You've talked about the pros that we could get rid of the Iranian nuclear program, either topple or create a more pliable regime there. What would you worry about? What are you currently, as a foreign policy person, worried about?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, I think there's always uncertainty in war. And so I am worried even when we do get the briefings on TV that there's a sense of absolute certainty because war, as everyone knows and as the famous theorists say, there's always friction, there's always uncertainty. So you don't know. Yeah, I personally would worry more about the post war planning and thinking about it. I wrote a book about that called War and the Art of Governance, which looked at about 15 case studies of America's military interventions and how we always had to deal with problems of political instability and stabilization or not. So. So I personally would be wanting to think about that, but I don't know that they're not. And in the end, if the risk is higher of inaction rather than action, and clearly the White House thought that that's why they chose to go forward. We don't know what's going to happen in Iran. Things are playing out now. We don't know what's going to happen with the other populations. But in the end, the question is, is the regime going to be as terrible as the previous regime? We don't know.

[Ezra Klein]

What are some of the lessons of the book you wrote as you looked across those different interventions?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I argued that basically the U.S. military, whenever it had boots on the ground, essentially always had to deal with problems of political stabilization and economic reconstruction. Consistently, they didn't want to. The army never wanted to. So there was never actually great planning for it. But there were periods in American history where we did do more planning. And actually those cases are well known. The World War II cases, Germany, Japan, South Korea, unless they're known. Italy, we were very involved in post war Italy at the time. Without American involvement, the Communists would have taken over Italy. And so there was very deep political involvement. But these activities were always seen as what we called operations other than war. They were never consistently seen as a part of war. So I just looked at consistent lessons and themes and a consistent set of problems we dealt with, which probably is why they are very wary about putting boots on the ground, because we would end up probably having to deal with a lot of those problems.

[Ezra Klein]

I think Trump's view is that he has figured out a way to do this without boots on the ground. Certainly did that in Venezuela, and was able to identify a successor to Maduro, who we seem to have a lot of influence over. And I think certainly his hope was to do this without boots on the ground. Do you think he's right that we can do it without boots on the ground?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, I would be very surprised if he changed his mind about that. Right. I would be very, very surprised. But the question is, can we shape the next government of Iran without boots on the ground? I don't know. I think there are a lot of things we can do and others can do in supporting other forces in Iran. And I think we should be doing those things to support the good forces in Iran, better forces in Iran.

[Ezra Klein]

What would those things look?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I mean, everything from Starlink to providing the ability to communicate to providing economic resources as needed. And there's a whole host of things, probably in the intelligence domain, non intelligence domain, working with other allies and partners in the region, the Gulf states that now seem to be pretty upset at Iran. So I think there are a lot of things. I think the question is the Persians are about 60% of the Iranian population, so there are other significant populations. And what happens? I don't know what will happen.

[Ezra Klein]

Many of us are worried about a scenario like what happened with the Kurds in 1991, where America exhorted them to rise up and take back their government and take down Saddam Hussein after we had weakened the regime in bombings and he slaughtered them. And right now, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and others have the weaponry in that country. And even if we were giving people Starlink Internet access and giving them, you know, some intelligence sharing, the idea that unarmed, fractured opposition and ethnic movements could rise up against a very, very heavily armed state structure now fighting desperately to hold onto power certainly seems to raise the possibility of absolutely horrible violence. How do you think about that?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, it happened right, with 30,000, 40,000 Iranians dying in December, January. Those are the figures. It's happened under Obama. Many American presidents previously have exhorted the Iranian people to rise up and the Iranian people have been slaughtered. So there's a chance now that with a significantly weakened regime, there could be a different outcome. I still don't think American boots should be on the ground in Iran, but there are different ways to orchestrate a better political outcome. We have decided as a country not to really do the governance stuff well, very well, whether it's impossible or not. But I think the point of my book was to show that we haven't, as a country, decided that we want to really think about this after Those World War II cases in a consistent way that would give us a better chance of helping good forces in particular countries.

[Ezra Klein]

What do you think it means for American interests? If you have a scenario where you have a kind of fractured, maybe not even civil war scenario, but violence, parts of the regime trying to maintain power, a lot of kind of fighting in the streets, we don't want to put boots on the ground. I mean, is chaos in Iran in the way that we saw in, say, Libya?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Because, as you mentioned, well, Libya is a perfect example.

[Ezra Klein]

How would you think about that from the perspective of American interests or conservative realism?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Well, from a purely humanitarian perspective, it's not in anyone's interest, right? You have a lot of Libyans who've died. You've had migrants who've gone to Europe. You've seen total disruption for strikes that went in and led to chaos and continue to have these ripple effects and chaos. I don't think America wants to see that. I think for Israel, it's a different situation. But in the end, if Iran's military capabilities are degraded to such an extent that Iran does not present the kind of threat that it has presented to Israel and the US in the past, especially to Israel, but also other states in the region. Then it becomes a humanitarian kind of disaster. But Iran is a degraded military power that will take a long, long time to regroup, especially if we continue to be what seems to be pretty successful in removing their ballistic missile launchers and continuing to strike their key military targets. It's unfortunate. No one wants to see prolonged chaos, but it's also not guaranteed. I mean, there could be opportunities for a better outcome, more stability, maybe more involvement by the Gulf states and helping that stability emerge. They should be thinking about this two planning too, and thinking about what would a better outcome look like.

[Ezra Klein]

I want to talk a Little bit more about the international law dimension of this. And one thing that people, broadly speaking, I think sense is we are moving out of a period when even if it was not all his fault, the assumptions was you will not have great powers kind of reaching each other's borders. You will not have things like Russia invading Ukraine, America taking out the Venezuelan and Iranian leaderships. And we're moving into something else. In your view, what are we moving into? If the old order is dying, what is being born?

[Nadia Schadlow]

I think we're moving into a period which recognizes that much of the old order was quite limited in what it could accomplish. And if you don't actually achieve outcomes across a range of areas that improve the lives of people, you end up creating cynicism, especially for democracies. So I think we're moving toward a period in which there's a recognition that you have to begin at the state level. I'm not against building coalitions. I think you do. But you build coalitions with like minded allies and partners, keeping open the option of increasing that pool and working on problems together. So we're moving from a period that doesn't default to a global approach, a global groupthink. And that's hard because there are many, many vested interests in that architecture. We went from a UN that was about 15 organizations to hundreds today. These are expansive entities that don't. They're not fundamentally democratic in the sense that it's very hard to have recourse. Right. That's part of the frustration that many Europeans are feeling. That's why you see the rise of populism in Europe. Huge frustration with the bureaucracy of the EU with their voices not being heard. It's a sense that it's back to this principle of. It's a kind of, you know, the word subsidiarity, where you go and try to solve problems at the local level. And I don't think that's a bad thing. And it's. I don't think it's a bad thing for democracies because most democracies want to improve not only the lives of their own citizens, but also they do care about other citizens.

[Ezra Klein]

Well, aren't we also moving away from a world here without. With rules? So I guess one question I often hear, and one question I wonder about is Vladimir Putin said the government of Ukraine is corrupt, it's full of Nazis, it poses a danger to Russia and we need to take it out. And that's how he justified his invasion of Ukraine. We are saying the government of Iran is bad and Dangerous. And I believe it actually is bad and dangerous. But we didn't go to the UN and try to convince other people of that or anything of that nature. If China says, hey look, the government of Taiwan poses a threat to us or plotting against us, are we not just moving into the way Mark Carney put it, quoting Thucydides, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

[Nadia Schadlow]

But that's happening anyway. The UN didn't constrain Russia. The UN doesn't constrain that kind of power. So this argument is recognizing that. It sort of goes back to our original discussion, recognizing that that's just a fact. The UN is not going to constrain China. What's going to constrain China if it decides to, decides to take Taiwan, is deterrence. Right. All the stuff that we're trying to build up these decades now, at least a decade of a serious consideration of how to deter China from doing that. It doesn't mean that you don't have discussions, bilateral negotiations, but having these expectations that the UN can really do a lot in that domain, I think ends up just being not realized and then ends up creating a certain type of cynicism and also just tends to empower Russia to do more. Their mind is not going to be changed by the United nations and wasn't.

[Ezra Klein]

So you don't buy what some people say, which is that in the aftermath of the World War is these various multilateral institutions, from the UN to the EU and others, NATO, were actually successful in reducing the amount of cross border conflicts of nations invading each other. Yes, it didn't prevent everything. But I do think there's good evidence that this became less of a normal part of human and international affairs than it was. It in some ways spoke to the success of that regime that what Russia did with Ukraine wasn't just considered the normal state of things. Strong countries invade weaker countries. It was understood as a profound violation of international law that we then assembled a large group of other countries to impose sanctions and to try to impose a cost on this. And the fear is that a world where you wipe out even something imperfect acts as a license for this to become the typical sequence and typical expectations. And that does matter.

[Nadia Schadlow]

No, I'm not arguing that the UN should go away, absolutely not. But I think the institution as it evolved from 1945, let's say 20, 30 years out, it's a large, sprawling overall bureaucracy. And it's not just the un, there's the who, it's more of an approach of A global first approach towards solving problems. The UN should exist as a forum for discussion, for information sharing. But I would argue that what was really key to preserving peace in Europe at least, was NATO. And NATO is exactly the kind of organization that we should be supporting, more of these regionally focused bodies and alliances where you're actually, you have some skin in the game, you're putting money into it. I mean, now the Europeans are putting more money into NATO, creating actual capabilities, and I think that that more at the state level. So I think we would be better off refining, reducing, peeling back a lot of those layers, looking at more of the essentials, but I would say having much less hope that you can actually get significant operational impacts from these organizations.

[Ezra Klein]

I want to end on what often seems to me to be the very fundamental disagreement in foreign policy, which is, what makes America strong? Is American strength a direct product of our capability for deterrence, of our weaponry, of our ability to project force? Is it a product of our ability to work with other countries inside a global order, that we are the strongest player within and sort of organize large groups of countries in our interests and have rules that sort of favor us? Is it both? What, in your view, makes America strong?

[Nadia Schadlow]

What makes America strong is our republic, freedom, liberty, what we stand for, what we are as a country. We are the greatest country in the world. We are flawed, we have problems. But I truly believe we are the greatest country in the world. And that's what is the core of American strength. Our Constitution, our standing up for liberty, for freedom, for being a force. I mean, Americans give more in terms of humanitarian aid than any other sort of polity in the world. Like, Americans are generous, but combined with that, what makes makes our country great are certain capabilities to ensure that we can protect that greatness over time. And some of that is very much military power, economic strength, too. So all of those things make America great, But it does start from what we are as a country, which I believe in then.

[Ezra Klein]

Now, as our final question, what are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

[Nadia Schadlow]

Okay. Well, they're not in any order of. Not in terms of publication, although I am reading right now a book, I think Published 2 years ago by Robert Zoellick called America in the World. It's a great book about America's diplomatic history. And it's nice because each chapter is short. So for those of you who like to read, you know, 10 pages before bed, it's perfect. You can actually feel like you've accomplished something, but it's really also pertinent to the 250 year, you know, celebrations we're having. You learn about all of the diplomatic successes and I am struck by how much of it early on really is about bespoke going to countries personalities. I think Salak in the beginning talks about the importance of personalities and emotion and I think it's obviously quite relevant to today where we see difficult personalities and a lot of emotion. A second book I just took back from my bookshelf because of Peru, but the Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto. And I think it's also interesting to remind us of, of sort of some perpetual problems in the Western hemisphere, the tension between socialism and capitalism. And Hernando de Soto specifically speaks about the importance of titles to land. So it's about private property ownership and some of the foundations of what makes capitalism work. And then third, the Reagan biography by Will Imboden because also Trump invokes Reagan a lot. Peace through strength, although actually peace restraint was I learned first a Nixon phrase which then Reagan used and now Trump is using. So those are three books. And then a fourth fiction book that I loved this summer was is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I love that book.

[Ezra Klein]

Nadia Shadlo, thank you very much.

[Nadia Schadlow]

Thank you, Ezra. Pleasure to be here.

[Ezra Klein]

This episode of the israel clancho is produced by annie galvin. Fact checking by michelle harris with kate sinclair and mary marge locker. Our senior audio engineer is jeff geld with additional mixing by amin sahota. Our executive producer is claire gordon. The show's production team also includes roland hu, marie cassion, marina king, jack mccordick, kristin lin, emma kelbeck and jan cobello. Original music by carol sabaro and pat mccusker. Audience strategy by christina semiluski and shannon busta. The director of new york times opinion audio is andy roy strasser.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one motorcycle insurer. Did you know? Riders who switch and save with Progressive Save nearly $200 per year.

[Ezra Klein]

Year.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

That's a whole new pair of riding gloves and more. Quote today Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $197 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between October2024 and September2025. Potential savings will vary.