Welcome to the president's inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.

I'm Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This week's topic is America's new Cold War.

With me to discuss how the post-Cold War era ended and the new era of geopolitical

competition rivalry began is David Sanger.

David is the White House and National Security correspondent for the New York Times.

He has covered presidential administrations from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden. Over that time, he has been a part of three

reporting teams that were awarded Pulitzer Prizes, with the most recent being for uncovering

Russia's interference in the 2016 election. David has written four books,

the most recent being New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to

Defend the West, which just came out. David, thank you for joining me on the president's inbox.

Jim, great to be with you in working on this book and doing my work at the New York Times,

I can't overstate how much I rely on what comes out of CFR and out of your studies department.

So I owe you a huge debt of gratitude.

Well, it's very kind of you to say, David, may I say, we owe you a huge debt of gratitude. Well, it's very kind of you to say, David, may I say, we owe you a great debt of gratitude

for writing New Cold Wars. It's gotten a lot of praise. I have seen it described as cinematic,

a must read, exceptional, and provocative. Having read the book, I agree with all of the superlatives, and I imagine

those are all descriptions that you as an author are glad to hear. Indeed. It's gotten a good reception,

and it was meant to provoke some debate about what it is we should be discussing and not discussing

as we head into this election year and beyond. So I hope it's fulfilled that mission.

So let's dive into that very debate, David. And let's begin with the title. I notice that

there's an S there in the title. It sort of jumps out. Tell me about it.

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