Cheap Talk

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

Learn to Code, Kids

Cheap Talk takes a break from IR to discuss vibe coding; the CheapTalkBot origin story; new opportunities to express creativity via vibe coding; mid-century modern archit

It's Doomsday Day!

It is 85 seconds to midnight (according to the Doomsday Clock); evaluating the risk of catastrophe; the latest Board of Peace developments; another speech pointing to the

Crazy Things in Foreign Policy

Cheap Talk returns from winter break to discuss the Venezuela situation; what is driving US Venezuela policy; implications of the US capture of Maduro; signaling US serio

Inherent Greatness and Decency

The degradation of the State Department’s official correspondence due to font choice; the Trump Administration releases its National Security Strategy; the return of sphe

A Living, Breathing Document

The US plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine; what Putin wants out of a settlement; the wider effects of the war on Europe; Jared Kushner is back; what AI is actually

Live from Williamsburg, Virginia!

Cheap Talk Live! The students of William & Mary’s “Introduction to International Politics” course join the podcast to discuss drug boats; the UN-approved peace plan for G

Wars on Things

Strikes by the United States military on suspected drug boats in the Pacific; the legality of these strikes; why it might matter if the US is violating international law;