The grand opening of the Cheap Talk shop at https://cheaptalk.shop; cheating at really fast chess; yet another panda update—this time from Scotland; video games as the solution to polarization and international peace; video games to strike fear into your hearts; Biden skips the climate summit; and Marcus is nothing if not consistent

Holiday shopping? Check out the brand new Cheap Talk shop!

Panda diplomacy revisited; the State Department’s dissent channel; whether dissent cables matter; Xi and Biden meet without a a joint statement; resuming military-to-military communication; managing competition between China and the United States; the missing agreement on AI; and Marcus contemplates his Thanksgiving menu

Panda diplomacy; conservation versus paranoia; the correlates of the panda presence abroad; China’s intentions with regard to large bears; the effectiveness of the panda signal; the causal mechanisms behind panda diplomacy; soft (and cuddly) power; distinguishing public diplomacy from propaganda; cute animals as grand strategy; and Marcus is not a zoologist

Who is Hamas; US ideas about who governs Gaza; Israel signaling to adversaries; the US signaling to allies; Saudi Arabia may still be seeking normalization with Israel; China’s presence at an AI meeting; and Marcus wants to turn the tables

Vicarious trauma from the Israel-Hamas conflict; traffic maps and other consumer data with international security implications; reasons to delay an invasion of Gaza; the risk of a wider war in the Middle East; linking military action and political goals; the challenges of fighting in an urban environment; and Marcus would like you to follow him on Strava

What’s going on in Israel and Gaza; President Biden’s visit to Israel; analogies to 9/11 and other past events; the benefits of a biased mediator; securing humanitarian aid for Gaza; the competing Putin/Xi summit; the value of export controls on technology; and Marcus shuts the barn door after the cows or the horses have gotten out

The war in Israel; it is ok to turn off the newsfeed; intelligence and security failures; why Hamas conducted this attack at this time; normalization with Israel; the role of Iran; US deterrence and military aid; Israel’s impending ground war; the tragedy of civilians caught in conflict; broader implications for international security; deterring terrorism; and Marcus is not doing well

Birthday wishes; US political dysfunction and international politics; the second image reversed; the Trump candidacy and foreign policy; space diplomacy; anti-satellite weapons; cross-domain deterrence; the McDonalds peace theory; and Marcus has read a Tom Friedman book

The dysfunction of the UN Security Council; how various IR traditions look at international institutions; why measuring the UN’s effectiveness is difficult; structural problems with the UN; where UN decisions are actually made; the UN is more than the Security Council; the value of diplomacy; potential UN reform; international security forum shopping; and Marcus struggles to summarize a Sherlock Holmes story

Analyzing a possible US defense alliance with Saudi Arabia; sports diplomacy and sportswashing; Zelensky’s speech at the UN General Assembly; and Marcus is confused

Kim Jong-un takes the slow train to Russia; a refresher on the value of high-level summitry; Russia’s need for military supplies and what this says about the effectiveness of sanctions; the signal sent by Ukraine’s counteroffensive; setting expectations for military operations; and Marcus is impressed by the train

Cheap Talk’s Season 4 Premiere: The trilateral alliance visits Camp David; US reassurance and nuclear proliferation in Asia; AI and international crises; computers can be biased, three not-very-persuasive arguments against US support for Ukraine; and Marcus racks up the frequent flier miles

A special summer episode of Cheap Talk: Hypersonic missiles and missile defense in Ukraine; signaling and the defense of Bakhmut; Ukraine’s path to NATO membership; alien spacecraft on earth; Apple’s Vision Pro announcement; diplomacy in virtual reality; military applications of augmented reality; and Marcus sympathizes with alien whistleblowers

Social identity theory and international relations; the behavior of rogue states; US nuclear assurance to South Korea; the risk from deepfakes and how to address them; the current state of sports diplomacy; and Marcus is a complicated individual

The Discord intelligence leak; what we learned from the information; Egypt’s plan to sell weapons to Russia; China’s plan to sell weapons to Russia; US restraint and China’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict; how the leaker’s motives compare to other famous leaks; how the internet makes intelligence releases more damaging; assessing the intelligence impact of the leaks; the trade-off between intelligence sharing and the risk of leaks; and Marcus is a big lover of humans

Looking back on the Iraq war after 20 years (and 1 month); lingering uncertainty about the reasons for the US invasion; the role (or lack thereof) of groupthink in that decision; the intelligence community’s judgment that Iraq had WMD and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program; why the intelligence community got it wrong; lessons learned for intelligence analysis; the long-term repercussions of the Iraq war; and Marcus puts his cards on the table

Nikki Haley’s experience at the United Nations; what it means to be a US ambassador; Russia’s statement about nuclear weapons in Belarus; the ICC’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin; credibility in international institutions; the power of international law on the margins; and Marcus considers future podcast guests

The TikTok situation escalates; Russia pulls a reverse TikTok; the first image of the state; what is a state, anyway; AI tools are lying to us; Xi goes to Moscow; Russia harasses a US drone; and Marcus believes states are disembodied people with feelings and emotions

Russia’s international status and reputation after the invasion of Ukraine; TikTok and Huawei as threats to US national security; the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons development; and Marcus has too many distractions in his life