ChinaTalk

Jordan Schneider
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Conversations exploring China, technology, and US-China relations. Guests include a wide range of analysts, policymakers, and academics. Hosted by Jordan Schneider. Check out the newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media/

  1. 22 hr ago

    WarTalk: Jack Murphy of Team House on Donahue + SOF

    Jack Murphy — former special forces and Ranger Regiment, co-founder of The Team House, and author of the new novel The Most Dangerous Man — joins WarTalk to talk about the strangest corners of special operations history and what the war on terror generation does next. Jordan is joined by hosts Tony Stark, Justin, and Bryan Clark. We discuss… Why the military selects its generals like a company that promotes its best plant manager to CFO — and why the people you'd actually want as leaders are quietly opting out The Green Light teams: the suicidal one-way logic of hand-delivered nuclear demolition, from the Fulda Gap to mountain passes in Iran The difference between a Ranger tab and the Ranger Regiment — and why "is he a real Ranger" is a perennial fight every time a candidate runs for Congress Battlefield medicine as live experimentation — walking blood banks, French plasma you had to sign a waiver for, and why a stateside paramedic needs a doctor's permission to do what a SOF medic does on instinct The tech-CEO-as-villain premise behind The Most Dangerous Man, Nick Land's archaeofuturism, and the disturbing real Sarajevo "safari" case winding through the Italian courts The SOF celebrity-industrial complex — Lone Survivor, Joe Rogan, Tim Kennedy, January 6th, and the cultural fallout of two failed wars we haven't begun to reckon with suno song: https://suno.com/s/Nw18Ns8p0CK9Blrd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1hr 10min

  2. 3 days ago

    Economic Security Megapod!

    Earlier this year, we ran an essay contest on economic security. We gave entrants two prompts: What are the most important high level KPIs that policy should aim for? What is the analogy of the Fed’s ’2% inflation and full employment’ target for economic security? Where today would you put $10-50bn to get the most for your investment in economic security? Feel free to propose both defensive and offensive ideas, and either a portfolio of ideas or the one large idea you think will deliver the most value. We ended up with a literal four-way tie for first place, with each judge giving a different essay top marks. We heard from Farrell Gregory earlier about how to spend rare earths money, and here, we’ll be spotlighting the three others who went into the framework question. Joining us today — ⁠Jahara Matisek⁠, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and fellow at the U.S. Naval War College; ⁠Naveen Krishnan⁠ at the Belfer Center and an intel officer in the Navy Reserve; and ⁠Guy Ward Jackson⁠, senior policy analyst at the Tony Blair Institute in London. No one is speaking for the Air Force, the Navy, Harvard, the Naval War College, the Tony Blair Institute, or the Department of War. I’m speaking for ChinaTalk. Our conversation covers: Why economic security is really an insurance problem — you’re paying people to keep factories warm, workers trained, and capacity idle for a war that may never come — and why no democracy likes paying that bill. Why the U.S. can’t China-proof its economy alone — the case for a distributed allied industrial base and using allied leverage and counter-coercion as an offensive tool. What $6 billion and four years bought in artillery production, why it still wasn’t enough, and how Patriot missile economics expose the danger of having exquisite weapons without industrial depth. Why you can’t science your way out of a volume problem — AI, robotics, and frontier R&D are caffeine, but the U.S. is still short on food and water. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1hr 20min

  3. 5 days ago

    Rare Earths: What is To Be Done?

    To discuss, we have Farrell Gregory, a researcher at the Foundation for American Innovation and winner of ChinaTalk’s Economic Security essay competition, and Joris Teer, a policy analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies who authored Beijing’s critical raw material weapon – and how to dismantle it. Co-hosting is ChinaTalk’s Aqib Zakaria. Our conversation covers... China’s critical mineral weapon — How Beijing turned its dominance over rare earths into a tool of economic coercion and why the West is struggling to respond. 25 minerals that actually matter — Why policymakers should focus on the specific materials China can weaponize rather than spreading resources across broad critical mineral lists. Why subsidies alone won’t fix the problem — How China’s industrial policy, overcapacity, and ability to flood markets make it nearly impossible for Western supply chains to compete without coordinated action. Reshoring the industrial base — The tradeoffs behind rebuilding domestic capacity: higher end-product costs, environmental NIMBYism, skilled labor shortages, and the need for deeper US-European cooperation. The next resource race — How defense, AI, robotics, and energy demand are intensifying competition for critical materials and what the future of allied industrial power might look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 hr

  4. 19 Jun

    WarTalk with Ely Ratner on Iran War Peace + the 'BS' US-China Stalemate

    Ely Ratner, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs and now a principal at the Marathon Initiative, joins Jordan, Bryan Clark, and Justin to make sense of the Iran ceasefire and where US-China competition goes next. We discuss: Why the MOU reads as a loss: the blockade comes down first, Iran keeps its missiles and its "nuclear dust," and a younger, harder regime learns it can take American firepower and wield an oil weapon The "bullshit détente" with Beijing and whether reindustrialization can carry a China-competition message without sounding hawkish Output metrics over input metrics, the seven-year force-posture problem, and what Ratner wishes he'd moved into the "break glass" category at the Pentagon RoboCom: the pros and cons of standing up a new combatant command Plus Crassus at Parthia, and why chasing parades is a bad idea unless you're the ny knicks suno song: https://suno.com/s/scu8twGj01AIOYSL Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1hr 18min

  5. 17 Jun

    AI for Science!

    AI will make ideas cheap. What does that mean for sicence? Charles Yang is a fellow at Renaissance Philanthropies and writes about AI and science here: https://republicofscience.substack.com. We discuss… Why AI will crack math but not science, and what Mendel's peas sitting ignored for 60 years says about a model that's smarter than everyone Why China never caught the West's lone-genius bug, and why that's about to pay off Tools over ideas, from Warren Weaver's six instruments to the thousands at CERN who proved a Higgs boson three guys took home the Nobel for How do spend a billion dollars to save higher education AI, souls, and whether your Claude gets into heaven Suno song: https://suno.com/s/3Q11kw74vQmH7eLN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    49 min

  6. 15 Jun

    Emergency Pod: Claude Fable Fried + What's Going on at BIS?

    Chris McGuire, former civil servant in State and the Biden White House now at CFR, talk about the export control craziness of these past two weeks. We discuss: The 5:21 PM letter that took the world's most powerful model offline Why the "let it rip" administration pivoted to mandatory AI regulation overnight The incoherent export-control regime: regs that still say one thing while policy says another The overseas-subsidiary loophole, the Sunday emergency fix, and the foundry gap still left open outtro music: https://suno.com/s/UVeDiboPyj0jvIgO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1hr 10min

  7. 12 Jun

    ModelTalk: Claude Fable (Nathan's pissed), is AI actually productive, advice for graduates

    Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/, Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/, and guest Ethan Ding of https://ethanding.substack.com/ check in Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    56 min

  8. 11 Jun

    Sen. Slotkin on NDAA, AI Nukes, Chinese Cars, and Taiwan

    The NDAA is two thousand pages of strategy, pork, and the occasional genuinely big idea — this year including a new robotics combatant command and the first legislated guardrails on AI in the kill chain. Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who served in OSD Policy and three terms in the House before joining the Senate Armed Services Committee, joins ChinaTalk to break down what got in, what got voted down, and why markup days are the only two days a year the Senate acts like a functioning institution. We discuss… Why NDAA markup is the Senate's best two days of the year — and what it would take to make the rest of the institution work like that, The AI Guardrails Act, the Anthropic debate, and why no one SecDef or AI company should set the rules for the kill chain, Her bipartisan bill with Bernie Moreno banning Chinese connected vehicles — and the BYDs now streaming over the Canadian border, Why Michiganders care deeply about China but not (yet) about Taiwan, The Democratic playbook if the party flips a chamber in November, Data ownership, the Midwest's data center revolt, and why a healthy democracy would be talking about AI every single day. song: https://suno.com/s/HdtwRInfqQsDTVMq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    32 min
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Hosts & Guests

About

Conversations exploring China, technology, and US-China relations. Guests include a wide range of analysts, policymakers, and academics. Hosted by Jordan Schneider. Check out the newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media/

Information

  • Creator
    Jordan Schneider
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    541
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jordan Schneider
  • Show Website
    ChinaTalk

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