Hosted by Jeff Kaplow and Marcus Holmes · 🇺🇸 US · EN · 125 episodes
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Cheap Talk is an every-week-or-so international relations podcast with Jeff Kaplow and Marcus Holmes, professors of government at William & Mary.
Jeff Kaplow and Marcus Holmes hosts Cheap Talk, a government show with 125 episodes published.
Cheap Talk ends season 6 with listener questions: Control of the Strait of Hormuz; an arrest for trading on classified information on Polymarket; Thucydides and parallels to current US foreign policy; does face-to-face d
The current state of US-Iran negotiations (or lack thereof); escalation and mixed signal-sending in the Strait of Hormuz; multiple veto players on each side; Pakistan’s interesting role; the shadow of President Obama and
Excitement in the world of digital diplomacy; face-to-face diplomacy to end the Iran war; blockading Iran as a plan B and its prospects for success; Anthropic’s Mythos and AI that is too dangerous to release; the offense
Trump’s threats against Iranian civilization; nuclear threats and the risk of nuclear use in Iran; threatening war crimes is both bad and bad policy; the prospects for the ceasefire and remaining challenges to overcome;
How Russia benefits from the Iran war; President Trump’s recent statements about how the war is going; China is both helped by and hurt by the Iran war; prediction markets as an aggregation mechanism for the wisdom of cr
Uncertainty about the state of US-Iran peace talks; the challenges of US military operations in the Strait of Hormuz; getting nuclear material out of Iran; whether the United States needs a negotiated settlement to end t
Washington’s allergy to the “w”-word in describing the conflict in Iran; the Trump administration seems to have been caught off guard by some aspects of the conflict; what we have learned about the real drivers of the co
Failed diplomacy in the lead-up to the conflict; rationales for military action; windows of opportunity and the road to war; the prospects for regime change in Iran; the track record of strategic bombing campaigns; the e
The State of the Union foreign policy lightning round; the possibility of imminent war with Iran; confusing signals from the US; strategic clarity and the effectiveness of deterrent threats; the challenges of finding ano
The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty has expired; the beneficial side effects of arms control; the value of treaty-breaking as a low-cost signal in international relations; the decline of arms control as an int
Cheap Talk takes a break from IR to discuss vibe coding; the CheapTalkBot origin story; new opportunities to express creativity via vibe coding; mid-century modern architecture in Palm Springs; whether non-programmers ca
It is 85 seconds to midnight (according to the Doomsday Clock); evaluating the risk of catastrophe; the latest Board of Peace developments; another speech pointing to the end of the international system as we know it; wh
Cheap Talk returns from winter break to discuss the Venezuela situation; what is driving US Venezuela policy; implications of the US capture of Maduro; signaling US seriousness in international affairs; similarities betw
The degradation of the State Department’s official correspondence due to font choice; the Trump Administration releases its National Security Strategy; the return of spheres of influence and the primacy of the Western He
The US plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine; what Putin wants out of a settlement; the wider effects of the war on Europe; Jared Kushner is back; what AI is actually good for (according to a new study); gifts for th
Cheap Talk Live! The students of William & Mary’s “Introduction to International Politics” course join the podcast to discuss drug boats; the UN-approved peace plan for Gaza; an AI arms race; the intersection of IR theor
Strikes by the United States military on suspected drug boats in the Pacific; the legality of these strikes; why it might matter if the US is violating international law; building pressure on Venezuela; the US strategy (
Dick Cheney’s outsized foreign policy role in the George W. Bush administration; what President Trump is talking about when he talks about nuclear testing; the nuclear testing announcement as diplomatic leverage; US read
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary. Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be
Ceasefires are good; Trump’s personal stake in Middle East diplomacy; the implausibility of the AI apocalypse; the incremental ceding of human control over autonomous systems; plausible mechanisms for AI control of nucle
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Cheap Talk is hosted by Jeff Kaplow and Marcus Holmes. The show is categorised under government (history) and has published 125 episodes.
Cheap Talk has published 125 episodes.
Cheap Talk regularly covers government, history, news. It sits in the government category, with a history focus.
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Episodes of Cheap Talk average 58 minutes. a focused format where a clear narrative arc and tight preparation matter most.
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