You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense and Foreign Affairs.

My name is Ryan Evans.

I'm the editor-in-chief of Warren the rocks.

If you followed foreign policy during the late Obama administration,

you've heard of the blob.

This is the word Ben Rhodes, a senior Obama advisor, used to describe the foreign policy establishment.

In a New York Times magazine profile last spring, Rhodes said the blob includes,

quote, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, and other Iraq war promoters from both parties who now

whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle

East, end quote.

Since then, the term has become a commonly used slang word, used as a shorthand to either

derived roads who comes off as a real twerp in the profile, or support his description of Washington's

foreign policy establishment.

I met up this week with Frank Gavin, Jim Steinberg, and a mystery guest.

We knew we were going to chat over drinks and record a podcast, but we didn't decide what

about until I was setting up the recording equipment.

Jim had a suggestion. Why not speak out in defense of the blob?

Jim and Frank are the exact right people to do this.

Our mystery guest too.

Jim is a professor at the Maxwell School at Syracuse and has been a member of the blog for decades.

He worked on the Carter campaign, was the State Department Director of Policy Planning,

and then Deputy National Security Advisor in the Clinton administration, and was Deputy Secretary

...