{"podcast":{"title":"Rational Security","slug":"rational-security-525411","podcast_index_feed_id":525411,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60427f9d34b9a27f4b6e3a8d","website_url":"https://www.lawfaremedia.org/podcasts-multimedia/podcast/rational-security","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/60427f9d34b9a27f4b6e3a8d/1713544365257-0f824289275f3526942871153b556a2c.jpeg","author":"The Lawfare Institute","episode_count":571,"summary":"A weekly discussion of national security and foreign policy matters hosted by Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-17T04:20:20.086606+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/rational-security-525411"},"episode":{"title":"The “Sects, Lies, and Twin Peaks” Edition","slug":"the-sects-lies-and-twin-peaks-edition","published_at":"2026-02-19T17:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/rational-security-525411/the-sects-lies-and-twin-peaks-edition","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/rational-security-525411","url":"https://shows.acast.com/rational-security/episodes/the-sects-lies-and-twin-peaks-edition","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/60427f9d34b9a27f4b6e3a8d/e/699729a8435569254b393f6d/media.mp3","summary":"This week, Scott sat down with his foreign-policy-minded colleagues Daniel Byman, Michael Feinberg, and Ari Tabatabai to talk through some recent big news stories around the world, including: “Beer Hall Push-back.” Over the weekend, a raft of bipartisan U.S. and European officials headed to Bavaria for the annual Munich Security Conference. Last year, Vice President J.D. Vance gave a barnburner of a speech, accusing European allies of restraining free speech and giving succor to the European far right. This year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a more conciliatory set of remarks that nonetheless signaled that there were some fundamental changes happening in the relationship. For their part, European leaders mostly seemed to be on board with that as they increasingly leaned into the public stance that it was time for the continent to stand on its own, independent of the United States, although how feasible that will be and on what timeline remain the big questions. What should we make of the different remarks we heard from the conference and the broader messages the two sides are sending to each other? And is this a sign of an impending divorce or a different sort of shift in the U.S.-European transatlantic relationship?  “Rial Talk.” American and Iranian officials met again this week in Geneva to negotiate an end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for an easing or elimination of U.S. sanctions on Iran. The negotiations took place amidst continued saber rattling by both President Trump and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who threatened in a speech ahead of the talks to sink U.S. warships in the region if Iran came under attack. Nonetheless, some participants in the negotiations—particularly the mediators from Oman—seemed optimist…","meta_description":"This week, Scott sat down with his foreign-policy-minded colleagues Daniel Byman, Michael Feinberg, and Ari Tabatabai to talk through some recent big news…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4632,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/rational-security-525411/episodes/the-sects-lies-and-twin-peaks-edition/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/rational-security-525411/the-sects-lies-and-twin-peaks-edition.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}