Security scholarship, argued in full.
New Books in National Security brings scholars and authors into careful conversation about books on war, policing, surveillance, nuclear status, and international relations. Its register is measured and research-forward, with room for methodological detail and policy consequence.
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New Books in National Security is an academic interview channel built around recent books on security and international relations. Its terrain is broad. One recent conversation follows Arctic governance through climate change, shipping lanes, resources, fishing grounds, indigenous partnerships, and the Arctic Council. Another works through civil war recurrence, peace agreements, military victory, power sharing, and the fit between political compromise and military power. A discussion of the Church Committee places surveillance, privacy, civil liberties, and the national security state inside a historical investigation. NATO stability policing brings the show into rule of law, legal culture, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the difficulty of translating policy across societies. The Political Economy of Security pushes toward method, variables, trade-offs, interstate war, terrorism, and civil war. Other recent titles touch nuclear status, countering violent extremism, and America's relationship with war since 1945. The common thread is not a single ideology or news cycle. It is the habit of taking security concepts apart carefully, then asking what the evidence can actually support. The conversations are usually book-led and author-led. They give space to definitions, cases, disagreements in the literature, and the limits of simple storylines. That makes the show more like an audio reading room than a rapid commentary feed. It can be dense. It can also be unusually useful for listeners who want to hear how scholars build arguments before those arguments are compressed into headlines. The tone is collegial and precise, with hosts often situating a guest's book before moving into research questions. The show is strongest when complexity is the point: Arctic governance is not only geography, civil war peace is not only victory or compromise, and national security is not only military force. It suits a listener who wants security studies with context, caveats, and case material. It is less about instant takes than durable frameworks for understanding power, conflict, law, and institutions.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants national security and international relations through serious author interviews, not rapid news reaction. Best for people comfortable with academic vocabulary, historical context, and detailed case discussion.
What sets it apart: Unlike personality-led geopolitics shows, it uses recent books as the organizing spine and lets scholars work through evidence, concepts, and competing explanations. The range runs from Arctic governance and NATO policing to surveillance history, nuclear status, and civil war peace.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
The Church Committee's FBI files are waiting for your 'surely they couldn't' phase.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear guide to Arctic governance, Asian involvement, Indigenous partnerships, and the pressures reshaping the region.
The Arctic becomes a useful lens for how regional institutions handle climate change, geopolitics, and growing outside interest. Mia Bennett's Unfrozen gives Jessica DiCarlo and Seth Schindler a steady frame for discussing the Arctic Council, shipping lanes, polar science,…
A measured episode on how military power and political compromise can shape peace after civil war.
This episode works through a difficult problem in post-civil-war governance: whether stable peace is built through military victory, or through compromise between former opponents.
A focused account of how the Church Committee turned fears of domestic surveillance into a public record of government abuse.
The Church Committee investigation lands here as the moment when long-suspected domestic surveillance became part of the public record. The episode follows how federal agencies infiltrated left-wing movements, read mail, monitored communications, used break-ins and bugs, relied…
NATO stability policing meets law, culture, history, and local loyalty in a focused security-policy discussion.
NATO stability policing is framed as a practical answer to the security gap: a way to help create safer conditions while rule of law takes root.
Stephen Brooks makes complexity the point in a careful discussion of economics and security.
Security can sound tidier than it is when economic causes get pressed into a single theory. Eleonora Mattiaci's conversation with Stephen Brooks works in the other direction, tracing 16 ways economic variables may shape interstate war, terrorism, and civil war.
An interview with Brian Blankenship about NATO, the Indo-Pacific, and the future of burden-sharing.
Tyler Jost discusses his book on how bureaucratic structures lead to miscalculations in war, using historical case studies including China.
New Books Network’s Jessica DiCarlo and Seth Schindler interview Mia Bennett about Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic, a Yale University Press book co-written with Klaus Dodds.
New Books Network host Sidney interviews Torsten Gromis about Sustaining Peace After Civil War, a book built from an original dataset of 48 recent cases.
Matthew Guariglia and Brian Hochman say most Americans in 1975 had never heard of the NSA, even as the Church Committee was uncovering surveillance, wiretapping, and black-bag break-ins.
["Steven Sikiewicz notes that Dr.
["On New Books in National Security, Eleonora Mattiaci asks Stephen G.
Sidra Hamidi distinguishes nuclear capability from status, which depends on how other states recognize a country's program.
Aaron Donaghy’s The Second Cold War traces how Carter and Reagan shifted their foreign policies between 1977 and 1985.
Amos Fox says multidomain operations began as a response to Russia’s 2014–2015 actions in Ukraine and the reconnaissance-strike complex.
A discussion with John Holmwood critiquing the concept and implementation of Countering Violent Extremism programs.
An interview with historian Gregory Daddis about his book exploring how faith and fear have shaped America's military engagements since 1945.