Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org, I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the challenge of defending democracy at home and abroad

and examine the possibilities of alternative approaches

since American military power is not deterring Iran, Russia or China, and even North Korea,

which is threatening war with South Korea.

Joining us is Stephen Wirtheim, a senior fellow at the American Staircraft Program at the

Kenea Dammit for International Peace and a visiting lecture at Princeton University.

He's the author of Tomorrow of the World, the birth of U.S. global supremacy in World War II,

and we will discuss his article at

the Atlantic, Biden's defense of democracies isn't delivering. Then we'll get an update on life

in Russia as the country becomes a garrison state with a wartime leader who started a war. He has

no intention of stopping. Joining us is Nina Khrushcheva, a professor in the graduate program of international affairs at the

New School and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.

She is also an editor of and a contributor to Project Syndicate and the author of the Los Khrushchev,

a journey into the gulag of the Russian Mind,

and her latest book co-authored with Jeffrey Taylor is in Putin's footsteps,

searching for the soul of an empire across Russia's 11 times zones. We will discuss

her article at Project Syndicate, preparing Russia for permanent war. Then finally we'll go to Argentina, which faces a

general strike in opposition to the slash and burn policies of the chainsaw-wielding

Uber Libertarian new president, Javier Mili, who was recently elected promising a painful cure

for the country's ills, which he blames on Marxist, communist, and leftists in general.

...