"Do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought"

That's one of the best lines from by General Jack Ripper, from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, a comedy, horror, and documentary film all rolled into one.

Today, the bomber fleets are active, and the targets are nuclear, and they're in Iran. With U.S. and Israeli planes bombing Iran, are we seeing a long-planned conflict play out? Or is this one of the most dangerous moments in world history?

To help us understand what is at stake, and maybe how to calm it all down, GDP welcomes Richard Nephew to the podcast.

Richard Nephew was the inaugural U.S. Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption at the Department of State (2022-2024). He was also elected as the President of the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption. During his government career, he has also served as the Deputy Special Envoy for Iran (2021), Principal Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy at the Department of State (2013-2015), and Director for Iran at the National Security Council (2011-2013), among other senior civil service staff roles from 2003-2011.

While a senior research scholar at SIPA since 2015, Nephew has written dozens of reports and articles for various publications focused on geopolitics and their intersection with energy markets, economic statecraft, nuclear topics, and sanctions. He is also the author of The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field, published by Columbia University Press in 2018.

In addition to his primary appointment at CGEP, he is an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and operates his own consulting LLC, “Go Beyond Compliance.” In the latter capacity, he acts as a nonproliferation consultant to Commonwealth Fusion Systems.