A French Perspective

Eric and Eliot host Bruno Tertrais, the Deputy DIrector of France's Fondation Pour La Recherche Strategique, one of the country's leading think tanks and author of the recent book La Guerre des Mondes:  Le Retour de la geopolitique et le choc des Empires (War of the Worlds: The Return of Geopolitics and the Shock of Empires). They discuss historical analogies that shed light on the current geopolitical moment including the pre-World War II, interwar, and early Cold War periods, the Korean War and the emergence of the bipolar world, the role of nuclear deterrence and alliances in today's geopolitical strategic competition among the US, Russia and China. Bruno describes the contemporary global order as less a world of blocs and than families of nations that cluster around the West or the authoritarian powers of Russia, Iran and China. They discuss the re-emergence of geopolitical concepts like "heartland" continental powers focused on land power and rimland maritime powers focused on naval power. They also touch on French policy under President Macron and the impact of US domestic political dysfunction on European views of international security.

https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/new-cold-war/

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Entangling_Alliances__Europe_the_United_States_Asia_and_the_Risk_of_1914_.pdf

https://samf.substack.com/p/the-role-of-security-guarantees

https://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=1570

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