Statecraft – Details, episodes & analysis

Today's interviewee has been my white whale for a while. Edward Luttwak was born in 1942, and since then he's lived a wilder life than anyone I know. From Chairman Mao's funeral to late nights drinking with Putin, Luttwak's seen it all.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(1:30) How to stage a coup in the 21st century

(8:21) Why Luttwak is responsible for a global decline in coups

(16:57) Iran’s real goals in the Middle East

(27:30) Why the CIA can’t go undercover or recruit talent

(41:11) Staffing Reagan’s presidential transition team

(44:03) Why we need more waste at the Pentagon

(57:31) How the war in Ukraine will end

(1:03:47) China’s great military challenge

(1:07:46) Snorkeling in French Polynesia

(1:09:48) Working for a Kazakh dictator

For the full transcript, visit www.statecraft.pub.

Brief intros: Nicholas Bagley was General Counsel to Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Kathy Stack served almost three decades at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Jenny Mattingley also served at the OMB, focusing on hiring reform and workforce efforts.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(04:42) “I think all three of you have something to say about the Paperwork Reduction Act.”

(12:38) A one-way ratchet

(22:16) How to get a new form approved

(32:04) Why is there no natural constituency to improve this?

(42:14) Inheriting judicial review from the Civil Rights era

(59:13) What should be on the new administration’s agenda?

Today's episode is about how the government procures military equipment. There’s a growing Washington consensus that we simply can’t buy the weapons we need, in the quantities we need, on the timelines we need.

To better understand what’s going wrong, we talked to Dr. Arun Seraphin. Seraphin just finished serving as a commissioner on a 14-person “blue ribbon commission” to investigate reforms to the way Congress and the military coordinate to buy things.

We got into:

How to design a commission to matter

Why the Pentagon’s IT doesn’t work

The value of pork

Directed energy weapons

Is the Asian pivot happening?

Today’s interviewee, James Phillips, was formerly the science and tech adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. An acclaimed systems neuroscientist, Phillips helped develop the UK’s rapid COVID testing and helped create the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA).

We discussed:

Dominic Cummings’ band of “weirdos and misfits”

Red-teaming Westminster

Why you should always be willing to resign

The problem with the British civil service

Protecting ARIA from mission creep

Whether the UK can end economic stagnation

For the anniversary of the newsletter, I talk to Daniel Golliher of maximumnewyork.com about how Statecraft works, what we've learned, and the year ahead.

Today’s interviewee is Matt Lira, who has held a wide range of insider roles on the Hill and White House. Our topic: Why Congress is so technologically weak, and how that can change.

We discussed:

* Why is Congress so slow to adopt technologies that would significantly ease operations?

* How did a Congressman unilaterally introduce live-streaming of Congressional hearings?

* Would a Google Docs-style comment system for legislation ever work?

* What would Davy Crockett’s social media presence be like?

Russ Vought served as the director of President Trump’s Office of Management and the Budget (OMB). When the OMB under Vought withheld military aid from Ukraine, House Democrats initiated an investigation that ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Vought now leads a think tank, the Center for Renewing America, and is reportedly building a “180-day playbook” for implementing a policy agenda for a second Trump term. On Monday, the Associated Press claimed “Vought is likely to be appointed to a high-ranking post in a second Trump administration.”

Timestamps:

[00:00] Introduction

[00:18] How OMB works

[06:53] The two approaches to running the executive branch

[14:56] Why we have “an imperial Congress”

[20:12] The Ukraine impeachment

[33:21] Why there aren’t more conservatives in government

Today, I spoke to Ernie Tedeschi, former Chief Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers (These days he’s Director of Economics at The Budget Lab).

Timestamps:

[00:00]“Fighting the last war” in stimulus packages

[00:23] What’s driving inflation

[11:59] The tools CEA economists have

[16:45] The tools CEA economists wish they had

[33:50] Are high interest rates driving low consumer sentiment?

[38:39] Why men are dropping out of the labor force

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) helped bring Moderna’s mRNA vaccine through clinical trials to market. BARDA’s Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe) is its in-house biotech venture capital firm, charged with identifying and incubating technologies for U.S. biodefense and preparedness.

Today's interviewee is Dr. Sandeep Patel, the Director of DRIVe from March 2020 to March 2024. Patel helped architect the program’s VC-inspired model and led the organization through its COVID response. 

We covered:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:20) How cost-effective is BARDA?

(09:38) Venture-capitalism in government

(26:14) Hiring talent

(34:35) Question grab-bag

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world’s largest emergency supply of crude oil. In huge underground salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico, the American federal government can store up to 714 million barrels, more than what the country uses in one month. Historically, the SPR has been tapped at the discretion of the president when natural disasters or crises cause the price of oil for consumers to spike.

But when Russia invaded Ukraine and oil prices went haywire, Arnab Datta and Skanda Amarnath proposed a novel idea: what if the SPR wasn’t just used as a stockpile of a commodity? If it used its ability to acquire oil strategically, could it support American industry and calm oil markets? Today, we talked to both of them.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:40) How do oil markets work?

(02:25) How has the SPR been used historically?

(07:42) Why oil investment kept dropping

(16:53) Arnab and Skanda's big idea

(20:55) Convincing the Biden administration

(23:45) "Fixed-price forward contracts"

(34:54) Isn't the SPR too small to shape oil markets?

(42:10) The SPR pilot buy fails

(51:09) A more aggressive approach

(58:01) Keeping the political coalition together

(01:02:26) The importance of elite media

(01:09:43) Did the SPR "beat OPEC"?

(01:12:52) Lessons for policy advocates