Episode
The "Tavern Style" Edition
- Podcast
- Rational Security
- Published
- Apr 30, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 5050
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Contributing Editors Ariane Tabatabai and Joel Braunold, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “The Art of the Heel.” As it approaches the 60-day mark, the war of Iran appears to have entered the “war of attrition” stage. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed by both Iran and the United States, as each side waits to see if the other will capitulate first. President Trump recently called off peace talks in Islamabad, in part because of purported internal disarray on the part of Iran—a perhaps unsurprising consequence of a two-month campaign of regime change. Meanwhile, the White House appears to have successfully pushed for and and then extended a ceasefire in the related theater of Lebanon, but it is already under strain from ongoing Israeli strikes and Hezbollah’s ensuing refusal to disarm. What should we make of this new equilibrium? And does it suggest that there is any way out of the current morass in the near future? “Royally Falked.” King Charles is in the United States this week for the first state visit by a British monarch since Queen Elizabeth in 2007. But the Trump administration’s latest round of antics toward the United Kingdom and other NATO allies may overshadow the trip. Over the weekend, Reuters reported that an internal Pentagon email suggested that the administration should explore withdrawing U.S. recognition of British control over the Falkland Islands and suspending Spain from NATO due to their refusal to join U.S.-Israeli combat operations against Iran. Other consequences may yet be in the offing. How seriously should we take these threats from the Pentagon? And how close are we to a permanent rupture in the United States’s…