Thursday Screening: March 28, 2024
War gaming China's invasion of Taiwan & remembering Joe Lieberman
Happy Thursday and welcome back to Son of a Diplomat’s weekly video recommendation series. If you haven’t yet checked out Shield of the Republic on YouTube, I highly recommend it. Since debuting with guest Liz Cheney, we’ve had a superb run of shows discussing topics like the ethics of propaganda with Peter Pomerantsev, and upcoming problems that U.S. foreign policy will have to tackle. Yesterday we taped an excellent show with CNN’s Jim Sciutto that should be dropping some time in the coming days—definitely keep an eye out for that one.
On to today’s screening. This week we have a look at the art of war gaming and a remembrance of the late Joe Lieberman.
Wall Street Journal: This is the Most Likely Scenario for a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan
As a cartography enthusiast I’m a sucker for a good grand strategy game. RISK, Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings—if it’s about rolling dice and painting a map I’m there for it. But map-based strategy gaming has more utility than passive entertainment; there’s an entire cottage industry in Washington, D.C. that’s dedicated to gaming out potential future conflicts using computer-driven data processing and real human actors. The Wall Street Journal filmed a recent war game at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that played out how China might go about invading Taiwan and the results are very much worth your time:
PBS NewsHour: Cheney vs. Lieberman: The 2000 Vice Presidential Debate
As I was putting Thursday Screening together yesterday news broke that former senator Joe Lieberman had died at the age of 82. The late Connecticut senator leaves behind an enormous legacy but the thing I will always remember him for most is his part in one of the most civil and serious national debates in our nation’s recent history. The 2000 vice presidential debate was the platonic ideal of aspiring leaders exchanging ideas in a national forum. Two men who loved their country and respected each other while disagreeing about tax rates and entitlement spending sat down with Bernard Shaw for an hour and a half and made the case for why their ticket should win in November while earnestly wrestling with the problems facing the country at that time. We should be so lucky to have leaders like this again some day—rest in peace, Joe Lieberman:
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