Cheap Talk

Deemed Persona Non Grata

Ukraine access to Starshield is at least temporarily restored; Austria expels suspected Russian spies; the rational calculus of declaring someone persona non grata; ratio

There's Something Different About Them

New items in the Cheap Talk shop, including a Mathpocalypse t-shirt and AI sticker packs; placing blame about Ukraine’s access to Starshield; whether polling is damaging

Weeping for the Mathematicians

A series of unfortunate events in the Russia/Ukraine conflict; the effect of domestic politics on US assistance to Ukraine; the ability of Europe to provide intelligence

Envoys of Friendship

AI agents are like middle schoolers; assessing progress from the Trump/Xi summit; combatting the security dilemma with summitry; creating new communication channels for A

Humans Make Mistakes Too

A big week for face-to-face diplomacy; the UN as a safe forum for high-level visits; the importance of side-meetings outside the General Assembly Hall; another Trump-Zele

The Lingo of Our AI Tech Overlords

The public debate over AI and the end of humanity; proposals to slow down AI development and improve safety; the challenges of coordinating domestically and international

Not Routine at All

The international security implications of the Hugging Face hack; rogue AI agents and cyberattack attribution; competing explanations for the CIA Director’s recent visit

This Could Result in an International Incident

The fascinating story of OpenAI’s rogue models and the HuggingFace hacking incident; turning a mirror on our humanity; the natural inclination to cooperate and communicat

Twice as Popular as Taylor Swift

Remembering Dolly Parton, global icon; US military capacity and the readiness costs of extended deployments in the Iran conflict; the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation

All of This Has Been Done

Cheap Talk’s triumphant return for season 7: Our favorite international news stories of the summer; cutting short military exercises with South Korea; AI models hacking t

Other Forms of Dust

Cheap Talk ends season 6 with listener questions: Control of the Strait of Hormuz; an arrest for trading on classified information on Polymarket; Thucydides and parallels

Waiting at the Airport

The current state of US-Iran negotiations (or lack thereof); escalation and mixed signal-sending in the Strait of Hormuz; multiple veto players on each side; Pakistan’s i

It's Real and It's Dangerous

Excitement in the world of digital diplomacy; face-to-face diplomacy to end the Iran war; blockading Iran as a plan B and its prospects for success; Anthropic’s Mythos an

Something Revolutionarily Wonderful

Trump’s threats against Iranian civilization; nuclear threats and the risk of nuclear use in Iran; threatening war crimes is both bad and bad policy; the prospects for th

Seems Like a Bad Idea

How Russia benefits from the Iran war; President Trump’s recent statements about how the war is going; China is both helped by and hurt by the Iran war; prediction market

15 Points of Agreement

Uncertainty about the state of US-Iran peace talks; the challenges of US military operations in the Strait of Hormuz; getting nuclear material out of Iran; whether the Un

Had You Asked Us, We Would Have Said No

Washington’s allergy to the “w”-word in describing the conflict in Iran; the Trump administration seems to have been caught off guard by some aspects of the conflict; wha

Analysts Are Fairly Skeptical

Failed diplomacy in the lead-up to the conflict; rationales for military action; windows of opportunity and the road to war; the prospects for regime change in Iran; the

Those Secret Words

The State of the Union foreign policy lightning round; the possibility of imminent war with Iran; confusing signals from the US; strategic clarity and the effectiveness o

Pro-Peace and Prosperity

The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty has expired; the beneficial side effects of arms control; the value of treaty-breaking as a low-cost signal in internationa