America's Empty Arsenal

Politicizing The Pentagon

On July 3rd, C.Q. Brown, the Air Force general Trump fired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs in February 2025, published an essay in Foreign Affairs with Duke political scientist Peter Feaver, warning what happens when a country asks too much of its military. He never names Trump or Hegseth. He doesn't have to. In the sixteen months since Brown's dismissal, Pete Hegseth has fired or forced out more than a dozen general and flag officers, most recently Chris Donahue, the commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, in June. The American civil-military canon is built on a different kind of crisis. Truman and MacArthur, Lincoln and McClellan, Obama and McChrystal. Those were fights over strategy, with generals straining against civilian control. What's happening now is a different and potentially more serious problem. Nobody disputes that the Secretary of War has the authority to fire whomever he wants. The question is what it means when the firings are about composition rather than competence, and when the officers being removed keep turning out to share certain demographic characteristics. Hegseth has been explicit that his priority is getting wokeness out of the military. But the deeper worry has less to do with him than with three conditions stacking up at once. First, a force that fewer than one percent of Americans serve in; second, a hyperpolarized country that has lost faith in nearly every other institution; and third, a formerly ironclad norm that the military should be apolitical that the civilian side keeps bending. The military is the last American institution both parties still respect. That is precisely what makes it worth capturing. We discuss Hegseth’s 2025 Quantico spectacle and the silence that met it, why Huntington's clean separation of soldier and state was always something of a fiction, and why the thing to fear isn't a man on horseback but a citizenry that invites him in. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit globaltantrum.substack.com [https://globaltantrum.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Hezbollah's Still Here

The Iran war is winding down, but one front never closed. In southern Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah are still trading fire, and it’s become one of the biggest sticking points left in the deal between Iran and the United States. The old question is back: what do you actually do about Hezbollah? What CAN you do? Here’s what’s hard about Hezbollah: it is two things at once. On the one hand, it’s a Lebanese political party that holds seats in parliament and runs the clinics and schools the failing Lebanese state can’t. On the other, it’s an Iranian-built army sitting on tens of thousands of missiles, many now cheaply upgraded with GPS guidance, pointed at northern Israel. You can’t bomb away the second without reckoning with the first. In the last few years, Israel has hit Hezbollah harder than ever: the 2024 pager attack, the assassination of longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, supply lines severed when the Assad regime fell in Syria. And yet the organization persists. The only durable fix is political, and Lebanon’s sectarian deadlock makes that nearly impossible. So Israel is left “mowing the grass,” racking up tactical wins that never add up to a strategic one. We trace Hezbollah from the rubble of Lebanon’s civil war to the Party of God of today, why Iran built it and won’t let go, and why beating Hezbollah on the battlefield may not be the same thing as winning. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit globaltantrum.substack.com [https://globaltantrum.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Is Israel Losing USA?

On June 14th, the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to end the Iran War. The Strait of Hormuz reopens, sanctions lift, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund is on the table. Iran got nearly everything it wanted. America got out. Trump marked the same day by turning 80 and hosting a UFC card on the White House lawn. Iran is off his radar, and he’s turned the keys over to JD Vance. But the deal’s biggest loser isn’t Washington, it’s Jerusalem. Like the U.S. Israel got exactly none of its war aims: nothing on Iran’s regime, missiles, proxies, or uranium enrichment. And Vice President Vance followed up by delivering the bluntest public rebuke of an Israeli government in living memory. So if JD Vance is now holding the keys, Benjamin Netanyahu, titan of modern Israeli politics, is holding the bag. Why does this matter? It’s very simple: the U.S. has an ocean and can (in theory) afford to not pay close attention to who is in charge of what in the Persian Gulf. This is very much not the case for Israel, whose mortal regional enemy has just been empowered. Plus, as American public opinion turns, with 60% now viewing Israel unfavorably, and young voters in both parties leading the shift, the strategic, political, and moral cases for continuing unconditional U.S. support for Israel are all eroding at once. We dig into Netanyahu’s shrinking options, the precedents from Eisenhower to Bush that show how these U.S.-Israel breaches usually end, and why this one might be the first that actually sticks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit globaltantrum.substack.com [https://globaltantrum.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

America's Empty Arsenal

Trump’s recent military excursion against Iran wins several awards from the Global Tantrum Academy: 1) Most Declarations Of Victory, 2) Best Maritime Rescue By A Supporting Autonomous Boat, and 3) Largest Expenditure Of Ultra-Rare Munitions In A Losing Campaign. Depending on what happens over the next three to five years, while the US defense majors crank into gear replacing said munitions, that last one might become the most significant outcome of the conflict. The US blew a quarter to a half of its stockpile of its advanced offensive and defensive missiles trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, leaving our armories depleted and our allies scrambling for options. The door for a certain near-peer competitor to make trouble has opened a little wider. Why in the world would it take the US that long to restock its arsenal? Part of the issue is that the American defense majors have had little meaningful domestic competition for decades, leaving them slow, flabby, and unable to innovate. Another issue is that America globalized away its critical defense supply chains, leaving it something like 2 million skilled tradesmen and defense industrial workers short. And a third problem involves the Pentagon’s procurement strategy, which is now somewhere between one and three decades behind current battlefield needs. So, we’ve got some problems. But as they say, war reveals truth, and the US might now have an opportunity to make the necessary reforms… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit globaltantrum.substack.com [https://globaltantrum.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

America's Debt Trap

Most Americans don’t know this: the United States technically defaulted on its debts not once but twice in the last century: once in 1933 and again in 1971. Luckily, the country won World War 2 in between those two incidents, which counted for a lot in terms of international credibility and creditworthiness. However, as any consumer currently out over his or her skis will know, lenders do not make a habit of propping up unsustainable borrowing forever. Not even the most powerful and successful country in world history can ignore this law of financial gravity forever. But the U.S. certainly seems to be trying, especially since the turn of the 21st century. The country’s debt to GDP ratio shot past 100% recently, and it’s now spending more on interest payments than defense. That’s never a good sign. In this episode, we discuss the history of sovereign fiscal crises and debt defaults, the various pathways out of a looming debt trap, and where we think the US might be heading in the decades ahead. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit globaltantrum.substack.com [https://globaltantrum.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]