{"podcast":{"title":"The Chuck ToddCast","slug":"the-chuck-toddcast-1551191","podcast_index_feed_id":1551191,"rss_url":"https://www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c749d540-b5b7-42b1-a855-b33100f844fa/8e017e60-9c2d-418d-97bb-b33100f84504/podcast.rss","website_url":"https://www.iheart.com/podcast/552-the-chuck-toddcast-28968989","image_url":"https://www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c749d540-b5b7-42b1-a855-b33100f844fa/8e017e60-9c2d-418d-97bb-b33100f84504/image.jpg?t=1754492636&size=Large","author":"iHeartPodcasts","episode_count":502,"summary":"The Chuck ToddCast is back! If you're looking for smart, no-nonsense political conversation, you've come to the right place. The Chuck ToddCast goes beyond the headlines, featuring conversations with top reporters, insiders, and newsmakers from D.C. to the heartland. No scripts, no spin—just real discussions about what’s shaping our politics and why it matters.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-27T16:20:42.153803+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chuck-toddcast-1551191"},"episode":{"title":"Interview Only w/ Elliot Ackerman & James Stavridis - Imagining the Worst to Prevent It From Happening","slug":"interview-only-w-elliot-ackerman-james-stavridis-imagining-the-worst-to-prevent-it-from-happening","published_at":"2026-05-28T09:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chuck-toddcast-1551191/interview-only-w-elliot-ackerman-james-stavridis-imagining-the-worst-to-prevent-it-from-happening","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chuck-toddcast-1551191","url":"https://omny.fm/shows/the-chuck-toddcast/interview-only-w-elliot-ackerman-james-stavridis-imagining-the-worst-to-prevent-it-from-happening","audio_url":"https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/claritaspod.com/measure/pscrb.fm/rss/p/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/p57137/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c749d540-b5b7-42b1-a855-b33100f844fa/a349573e-cc32-4909-a3fa-b45701245b85/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8e017e60-9c2d-418d-97bb-b33100f84504","summary":"Novelist Elliot Ackerman and retired Admiral James Stavridis — the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander — join the Chuck Toddcast to discuss their new novel 2084 and to deliver some deeply uncomfortable warnings about where war, technology, and great-power competition are actually headed. The duo, whose previous collaboration 2034 imagined a U.S.-China war, are quick to clarify that their work isn't predictive fiction — it's cautionary fiction, written from the conviction that major disasters almost always stem from a failure of imagination, and that the only way to prevent the worst-case scenarios is to seriously imagine them first. Ackerman and Stavridis argue that war has fundamentally changed, that superpowers are now uniquely vulnerable to asymmetric warfare, and that victors are made or unmade by their willingness to adapt to new technologies — pointing to the Ukraine war as a real-time revolution in drone combat and AI-driven battlefield decision-making. They raise the hardest moral question facing modern militaries: do you always need a human in the loop of the kill chain, and if not, who is morally responsible when something goes wrong? Different countries are answering that question in different ways, with profoundly different ethical and strategic consequences. The conversation broadens into the deeper structural concerns animating 2084 . Ackerman and Stavridis warn that one of the gravest threats to the international order is the rise of corporations whose power is beginning to rival that of nation-states — and they argue the defining feature of a nation-state has always been its monopoly on violence, meaning governments will eventually be forced to ensure corporations can't apply violence at scale (a fight that has already beg…","meta_description":"Novelist Elliot Ackerman and retired Admiral James Stavridis — the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander — join the Chuck Toddcast to discuss t…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2446,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-chuck-toddcast-1551191/episodes/interview-only-w-elliot-ackerman-james-stavridis-imagining-the-worst-to-prevent-it-from-happening/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chuck-toddcast-1551191/interview-only-w-elliot-ackerman-james-stavridis-imagining-the-worst-to-prevent-it-from-happening.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}