Emma Ashford

He's the author of With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against the Evangelical Coup in the American Military, and No Snowflake in an Avalanche: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Its Battle to Defend the Constitution, and One Family's Courageous War Against Religious Extremism in High Places.

Then we'll speak with Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a visiting professor at Georgetown University, and a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

With expertise in the politics of the Middle East, Russia, Europe, her work focuses on questions of grand strategy, international security, and the future of US foreign policy.

She's the author of First Among Equals: US Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World and Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates, and she has an article at Foreign Policy we will discuss, Everyone Got Pete Hegseth Wrong.

You bring love to those who hate.

Welcome back.

I'm Ian Masters, and this is Background Briefing, available 24/7 at backgroundbriefing.org. And joining us now is Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a visiting professor at Georgetown University, and a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

With expertise in the politics of the Middle East, Russia, Europe, her work focuses on questions of grand strategy, international security, and the future of US foreign policy.

We're just going to have to wait and see what he does do.

But Emma Ashford's got an article at Foreign Policy that makes the point, the title of the article is, Everyone Got Pete Hegseth Wrong.

And she's arguing that the Secretary of Defense is now the most influential senior official in the Trump administration.

And of course, he's been dismissed as a complete incompetent and a reform drunk, although we're not entirely sure.

sure about how he has given up the bottle.

But nevertheless, there's been nothing but a stream of criticisms of how disastrous he's been.

Yet, according to Emma Ashford, he's the most influential guy in the administration.

So the thought that Trump might throw him under the bus because of the Iran war disaster, that doesn't look like it's happening.

Glad to be here.

And also joining us is Emma Ashford, senior fellow at the Stimson Center and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Great to be here.

Counterpoint is a production of Foreign Policy in partnership with Doha Forum.

Great conversation.

I appreciate it.

And Emma Ashford, senior fellow at the Stimson Center.

Thank you both.

Today, are the oil markets any longer influenced by the daily pronouncements of President Donald Trump regarding the future of the conflict in Iran? When the war began at the end of February, any indication that it may soon be over would lead to an immediate and sometimes precipitate fall in the oil price, only to see it bounce back when traders realized they had been sold a bill of goods.

Emma Ashford, senior fellow at the Stimson Center, says after six months of war, things have changed.

There is an incentives problem here for traders if they do not guess correctly what the White House is going to do, particularly if they guess that the price is going to go up and it doesn't, they may end up paying a pretty concrete cost for that.

But there is very much a catch-22 here.

I'm AJ Manuzi, joined as always by my co-host, John Gay.

We have a conversation today with Dr. Emma Ashford.

Dr. Ashford is a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, where her work focuses on questions of grand strategy, international security, and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

She's also a columnist at Foreign Policy, an adjunct assistant professor in the Security Studies program at Georgetown, and the author of First Among Equals and Oil, the State, and War.

In this episode, we discussed her recent piece for Reason Magazine on why 9/11 accelerated an already existing American pursuit of primacist grand strategy.

Join us as we have a conversation with Emma Ashford.

[upbeat music] Well, Dr. Emma Ashford, welcome to Security Dilemma once again.

Great to be back.