In the final episode of The Nuclear Threshold, A’ndre speaks with Alexandra Bell, President & CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and one of the leading U.S. diplomats behind recent efforts to strengthen arms control and reduce nuclear risks. Building on the technical and command-and-control foundations laid by Laura Grego and Steve Fetter, this conversation shifts to the political and diplomatic fault lines that make today’s nuclear landscape uniquely dangerous. Alexandra explai...

In the second installment of The Nuclear Threshold mini-series, we turn from missile defense to the human side of nuclear risk — the people, protocols, and split-second judgments that determine whether nuclear weapons are ever used. While deterrence is often framed as a stable system, history tells a far messier story: false alarms, malfunctioning sensors, training tapes mistaken for real attacks, and leaders operating under extreme pressure. Our guest, Dr. Steve Fetter — Dean of the Graduate...

The Nuclear Threshold is a three-part Burn Bag mini-series exploring how deterrence, defense, and diplomacy shape nuclear risk in the 21st century. Across three conversations with leading experts, we examine why technological optimism often outpaces reality, how fragile human systems sustain deterrence, and whether diplomacy can still prevent catastrophe in an increasingly unstable world. In this first episode, astrophysicist Dr. Laura Grego, Research Director at the Union of Concerned Scient...

As the fragile Gaza ceasefire wavers amid renewed airstrikes and mutual accusations of violations, President Donald Trump insists that “nothing will jeopardize” the truce his administration brokered with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. Yet the violence on the ground has cast doubt on whether this agreement marks a turning point or just another pause in a long and bitter conflict. To understand what’s at stake, The Burn Bag turns to Ambassador Dennis Ross — the veteran diplomat who helped shape the ...

RE-RELEASE: This episode was originally released in February 2025. In this episode, Dr. Anthony Fauci joins A'ndre for an in-depth conversation about his decades-long career in public health and his experiences leading the U.S. response to some of the world’s most pressing infectious disease challenges. Dr. Fauci reflects on his early work during the HIV/AIDS crisis, the evolution of treatments that saved millions of lives, and his role in launching PEPFAR, one of the most significant global ...

The Pentagon is one of the hardest customers in the world to win over. For startups, the barriers are steep: complex rules, unfamiliar offices, and a culture that doesn’t work like Silicon Valley. But the stakes couldn’t be higher—cracking the Department of Defense can mean scaling breakthrough technologies that shape national security. In this episode of The Burn Bag, A’ndre Gonawela speaks with two of the most influential voices in defense innovation: Steve Blank, the father of the Lean Sta...

In this episode of The Burn Bag, political violence expert Dr. Robert Pape joins us to unpack the alarming rise of political violence in America following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), argues the U.S. has entered a dangerous new phase—what he calls the “era of violent populism.” We discuss what’s fueling this crisis, from deep demographic change to growing public support for political violence on both the left and the...

In this episode, A’ndre Gonawela sits down with John McLaughlin, former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the CIA and now Professor of Practice at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Drawing on over three decades in intelligence leadership and his service as a U.S. Army officer in Vietnam, McLaughlin offers a wide-ranging assessment of the U.S. national security landscape. The conversation begins with the state of the intelligence community under the Trump administration, exploring the risks of politici...

Former U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns joins The Burn Bag to unpack the fragile U.S.–China tariff truce, the state of ongoing trade negotiations, and how Beijing is recalibrating its diplomacy in response to President Trump’s return. Drawing on his tenure as America’s top envoy in Beijing from 2022-25, Ambassador Burns explains why he believes Trump is right to pressure China on tariffs—while offering a sharp critique of India’s retaliatory 50% duties and the broader reciprocal tariff...

Jim Hake, founder of Spirit of America, joins The Burn Bag to discuss why civilians matter in modern national security—and how his organization is filling gaps government can’t. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned national security innovator, Jim founded Spirit of America after 9/11 to bring a whole-of-society approach to U.S. missions overseas. In this conversation, Jim breaks down why he believes the U.S. has been “fighting with one hand tied behind its back,” what it means to be not neutr...

Former NSC official Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander Vindman joins The Burn Bag to break down the fallout from the Trump–Putin summit in Alaska, the Monday meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy, and European leaders at the White House, and the dangerous trajectory of U.S. diplomacy on Ukraine. A former NSC Director for European Affairs and key Trump impeachment witness, Lt. Col. Vindman argues that Trump’s ad hoc engagement with Putin diminished U.S. credibility, granted Putin international legitimacy, a...

The war in Ukraine didn’t start in 2022—it started in Crimea in 2014. In this episode, we sit down with University of Michigan professor and anthropologist Dr. Greta Uehling to explore the story of the Crimean Tatars, Ukraine’s Indigenous people and one of the first communities to resist Russian occupation in 2014. Drawing on years of fieldwork and personal testimony, Greta shares how Crimean Tatars have faced erasure, exile, and repression—yet continue to preserve identity, community, and re...

In this episode of The Burn Bag, A’ndre sits down with retired CIA analyst Gina Bennett, who famously authored the first classified warning about Osama bin Laden in 1993. A key voice in the fight against al-Qaeda — and featured in the Netflix documentary Manhunt — Gina reflects on her decades in intelligence and how the U.S. national security system has long understood the nature of threats. Now, she’s pushing for a paradigm shift with her Hunter-Gatherer National Security theory — a bold fra...

Dr. Kurt Campbell, former Deputy Secretary of State and an architect of the U.S. “Pivot to Asia,” joins the Burn Bag to unpack the strategic crossroads the United States faces in the Indo-Pacific. In a wide-ranging conversation, Campbell discusses the Trump administration’s ongoing tariff negotiations with key allies and partners, the shifting contours of U.S.-China competition, and why he believes the United States is underestimating Beijing’s long-term scale and capacity. Drawing from his r...

In this episode, we’re joined by Shubhi Mishra, founder and CEO of Raft, to talk about what it takes to become a new defense prime. Shubhi challenges the dominance of legacy primes and makes the case for smaller, faster-moving companies that can deliver what the warfighter actually needs. Through her work at Raft — a defense technology company building agile, AI-driven solutions for data fusion and rapid decision-making — she’s tackling one of the most urgent problems in defense: integrating ...

On this episode of The Burn Bag, we unpack the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites—marking a sharp escalation in the Israel-Iran conflict and raising fears of a wider regional war. National security expert Javed Ali joins us to trace the timeline from the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel to the Israeli strikes deep inside Iran and the decision that brought U.S. forces directly into the fight. We discuss the key turning points that drove the escalation, the role of Iran’s nuclear program i...

In this episode, A’ndre speaks with retired four-star General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Widely recognized for revolutionizing modern counterinsurgency strategy and interagency counterterrorism operations, McChrystal reflects on a lifetime of leadership, failure, resilience, and personal growth through the lens of his new book, On Character: Choices That Define a Life....

In this episode, A’ndre speaks with his old boss Dr. Paul Staniland, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a leading authority on political violence and South Asian security, for an in-depth conversation on the recent confrontation between India and Pakistan. Dr. Staniland analyzes the strategic logic behind India’s Operation Sindoor, launched in response to a deadly terrorist attack in Kashmir that killed 26 civilians. The conversation explores the evolving nature o...

In this episode, A’ndre speaks with Mark Linscott, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative and one of Washington’s most experienced trade negotiators, for an in-depth discussion on the logic and implications of President Trump’s "reciprocal" tariffs. With decades of experience leading U.S. trade policy across multilateral institutions and bilateral platforms, Linscott offers expert analysis on how tariffs are being used as both an economic and geopolitical tool. The conversation covers the...

In this episode, A’ndre speaks with Dr. Yousef Munayyer, Senior Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, about recent U.S. policy developments affecting pro-Palestinian activism, including efforts by the Trump administration to deport foreign students and activists involved in campus protests. The conversation explores how the war in Gaza is shaping political expression in the United States, particularly in the context of university activism, and examines broader questions around immigration ...