Caitlin Talmadge

Putin Is Turning Eighth-Grade Classrooms Into Army Training Grounds A vast militarization of the education system is gathering pace in Russian classrooms, where students are trained to handle weapons by active soldiers.

Much scarier than the Burevestnik test
www.wsj.com/world/russia...

Memo Blessing Boat Strikes Is Said to Rely on Trump’s Claims About Cartels

Quite a double standard here: "Despite concluding that an armed conflict is underway, the memo also says the operation is not covered by the War Powers Resolution" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

Xi’s Military Purges Show Unease About China’s Nuclear Forces

Civil-military relations again rears its head as a key variable in the generation of authoritarian military power...
Good quotes from @josephtorigian.bsky.social here
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/w...

Significant development-- could pave the way for introduction of U.S. nuclear weapons to Japanese territory
www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Debating Damage Limitation Charlie Glaser joins us to reprise a recent debate on damage limitation

Great debate on "gulf" between academic community that believes in "theory of the nuclear revolution, strategic stability, counter-population or minimum deterrence & US gov't...who saw enduring value in damage limitation strategies or counterforce" strategicsimplicity.substack.com/p/debating-d...

Trump may strike Venezuela. His team makes that very risky. Take a close look at who is advising the president on U.S. policy.

🧵New piece from me @goodauth.bsky.social on risks of striking Venezuela, focused on the added risk from Trump team of loyalists. Hint: it has to do with centralized role of Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, and the incompetence of advisers like SecDef Hegseth. 1/
goodauthority.org/news/trump-m...

The Regime Change Temptation in Venezuela If past is prologue, a U.S. attempt to overthrow Maduro would not end well.

Brilliant and deeply researched essay by Lindsey O'Rourke and Alex Downes on the many dangers of regime change operations.
www.foreignaffairs.com/venezuela/re...

Trump Weighs Options, and Risks, for Attacks on Venezuela

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/u...

One of those rare times the President should trust his instincts

Pentagon’s policy shop is a ‘Pigpen-like’ mess: Sen. Cotton Senate Armed Services Committee members from both parties question DOD missteps, actions that contravened president’s foreign-policy positions.

Rare MAGA on MAGA violence over Congressional control of defense policy
www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/...

Bombing Venezuela Won’t Solve the Maduro Problem Historically, even overwhelming air and missile attacks rarely achieve strategic objectives.

My latest with Mike O'Hanlon on why a military campaign against Venezuela will likely fail:
nationalinterest.org/feature/bomb...

US, China reportedly agree to set up military communication channels Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, late Saturday on the sidelines of a regional security meeting.

Good development but need more details to know what it really means. Who can actually connect rapidly with whom here is a big deal....
www.militarytimes.com/news/pentago...

Do Madman Tactics Work? Featuring Samuel Seitz and John Glaser

Sam also recently discussed this research with the Cato Institute: www.cato.org/multimedia/p...

And if you want more, check out our 2020 research article on this topic in the Washington Quarterly: ssp.mit.edu/publications...

Does acting like an irrational maniac make Trump a more effective negotiator?

In a word, no.

My new @lawfaremedia.org piece with Samuel Seitz explains why.
www.lawfaremedia.org/article/why-...

Why Trump’s Madman Act Doesn’t Work The administration’s approach of “strategic uncertainty” is unlikely to produce better deals.

History demonstrates why the administration’s approach of “strategic uncertainty” is unlikely to produce better deals, write Samuel Seitz and @proftalmadge.bsky.social.
www.lawfaremedia.org/article/why-...

Billboards outside US Southern Command urge troops not to 'break the law’ in Caribbean strikes “Don’t let them make you break the law,” reads a billboard along the road to U.S. Southern Command, one of several set up by veterans.

This is good.
taskandpurpose.com/news/vet-gro...

I never knew Halloween could feel heavy, but it's hard to slap on a smile and gear up for a holiday about gorging on candy when millions of kids are about to lose SNAP benefits.

Why America Stands to Lose If It Resumes Nuclear Testing China and Russia would finally be able to catch up.

Last year, I wrote an article for @foreignaffairs.com on why the US stands to lose the most from a resumption of nuclear testing.
www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

As I was saying… 👇🏻

Trump continues to be both arsonist and fireman.

The issue isn't ownership of the shipyard, it's industrial base capacity to build incredibly complex nuclear-powered submarines, something this shipyard has never done before.

Donald Trump says South Korea can build nuclear-powered submarines in US Announcement could rattle China and follows pressure from Seoul to build up its nuclear capacity

Wut. This is actually way more puzzling than Trump's tweet. 🤔 How on earth are we going to build ROK nuclear-powered subs in... *checks notes*... Philadelphia? If it were that easy we wouldn't be having so much difficulty building our own and the ones we owe Australia.
www.ft.com/content/a6ee...

Senators challenge Hegseth’s bottleneck on communications with Congress The Senate Armed Services chairman said new limits in a recent memo “may need to be clarified.”

Congress pushing back against Hegseth attempts to restrict military communications with Congress, a bedrock of healthy civilian control of the military. 👏👏👏
www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/...

Ordering now. Huge congrats! Teaching an entire civil-military relations course this term...

Can't wait to read this!

Agreed and well stated

But again, FWIW, we already test delivery vehicles regularly, so who knows. 🤷‍♀️ But the reference to Pentagon doing it (not DOE) and the fact that Russia conducted a notable missile test last week lead me to this interpretation.

FWIW it's not in US interest to normalize nuclear testing. We have the data we need from many earlier tests, but China doesn't, so China has the potential to gain much more than we do from resumption of testing. But I suspect POTUS was referencing testing *delivery vehicles* anyway-- not warheads.