Sep 10, 2026
Multiple choice: Energy is (1) how we heat our homes, (2) a tool of malign influence, (3) an instrument of statecraft? And what about all those increasingly necessary critical minerals? Amb. Geoffrey Pyatt, top energy diplomat, helps us understand that diplomacy matters more than ever and that all diplomacy is based on...
Sep 3, 2026
Former Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton joins us with tales of negotiations to disarm North Korea’s nuclear arsenal – What could go wrong? Could anything go right? After chairs have been thrown, after the all-night negotiations, what was really hidden inside the secret mountain? And that’s just the...
Aug 27, 2026
In our third of three episodes honoring the lives impacted by the US departure from Afghanistan in 2021, we repost one of our most moving episodes. Consular officer Alan Eaton helped scores of Afghans at risk evacuate from Kabul, working from inside the Abbey Gate at the airport at exactly the moment when our friend...
Aug 20, 2026
In the second of our short series on Afghanistan five years after the US exit, Ken Handelman, former senior civil servant in the Department of Defense, reflects on the beauty, the weirdness and the tragedy of our 20 years in that country. What three institutions’ failings led him to believe that it was time to leave?...
Aug 13, 2026
Bill Burns says it best: "This is exactly the moment when you need to attract the best in our society to lives in public service, whether it's in the State Department, the US military or elsewhere. I am a passionate believer in that." We are, too! Uncle Sam needs you. (This is a repost from 2019, with a message that has...