This week on Bombshell we talk with Mieke Eoyang about, well, basically everything. We take a rapid fire tour of political dramas in Zimbabwe, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. Stop for a bit to bask in the crazy sunshine of Turkish plots and then return to the United States just to ask: Exactly how many troops do we have overseas? Then just for kicks, we debate what a lawful order for a nuclear first strike would look like. We wrap up with Mieke's Twitter conversation with John Cusack and Erin's dream for a Master and Commander sequel.

Episode Reading

• Ben Freeman and Mieke Eoyang, "Public Opinion and Narrowing the Security Gap in 2016," Third Way
• Sisonke Msimang, "The Fall of Africa's Most Hated First Lady," New York Times
• Von Marcus Gatzke and Marlies Uken, "Relax, Germany Is Not Facing a State Crisis," Zeit Online
• Andreas Rinke and Madeline Chambers, "Merkel's CDU agrees to pursue grand coalition in Germany," Reuters
• Marwa Eltagouri, "What we've learned about the North Korean soldier whose daring escape was caught on video," Washington Post
• Erin Cunningham and Louisa Loveluck, "Hezbollah, on the rise in Lebanon, fends off Saudi Arabia," Washington Post
• Thomas L. Friedman, "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, at Last," New York Times
• Borzou Daragahi, "Saudi Arabia Has Shaken Up The Middle East - This Is How," BuzzFeed News
• Reuters Staff, "Turkey has completed purchase of Russian missile defense: defense minister," Reuters
• Alex Horton, "The Pentagon struggles to provide accurate numbers for deployed troops," Washington Post
• Luis Martinez, "Thousands more US military service members in Iraq and Syria than believed," ABC News
• Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, "The Uncounted," New York Times Magazine
• Michael Barbaro, "Targeting ISIS, and Killing Civilians," New York Times, 'The Daily'
• Karoun Demirjian, "Trump's nuclear authority divides senators alarmed by his 'volatile' behavior," Washington Post
• Stewart Baker, Jim Lewis, and Brian Egan, "Interview with Mieke Eoyang and Jamil Jaffer," Steptoe, The Cyberlaw Podcast
• Chris Evangelista, "'Master and Commander' Sequel Still A Possibility, Says Russell Crowe," Slash Film
• Disney-Pixar, "Incredibles 2 Official Teaser Trailer," Disney-Pixar

This week on Bombshell, Quinta Jurecic of Lawfare (and Washington Post!) fame joins us to break down the Mueller investigation, AUMF debate, and whether Mike Flynn is really a character from a Coen Brothers' movie. We also discuss the president's trip to Asia and do our best to understand the drama in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which is all happening without the benefit of a functioning State Department. Quinta confesses her love of James Comey's Twitter account, while Erin and Loren do their best cosplay courtesy of Rag and Bone.

Episode Reading:

• Quinta Jurecic, "Robert Mueller can't save us," The Washington Post
• Benjamin Wittes, "The Lawfare Podcast, Special Edition: A Person of Flynnterest," Lawfare
• Julia Ioffe, "The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks," The Atlantic
• James V. Grimaldi, Shane Harris, and Aruna Viswanatha, "Mueller Probes Flynn's Role in Alleged Plan to Deliver Cleric to Turkey," The Wall Street Journal
• Daniel W. Drezner, "Why Donald Trump's foreign policy ambitions will always collapse," The Washington Post
• Zeeshan Aleem, "8 photos that sum up Trump's rollicking Asia tour so far," Vox
• Anne Barnard, "Where's Saad Hariri? Lebanon Wants to Know," The New York Times
• Louisa Loveluck and Suzan Haidamous, "Lebanese prime minister whose resignation shook the region says he will return 'very soon,'" The Washington Post
• The Economist, "Saudi Arabia's unprecedented shake-up," The Economist
• Zack Beauchamp, "The purge in Saudi Arabia, explained," Vox
• Amb. Barbara Stephenson, "Time to Ask Why," American Foreign Service Association
• Charlie Savage, "Will Congress Ever Limit the Forever-Expanding 9/11 War?," The New York Times
• Scott Anderson and Sabrina McCubbin, "Summary: Senate Foreign Relations Committee's AUMF Hearing," Lawfare
• Rag & Bone, Star Wars Collection (December 1, 2017)

This week on Bombshell, Alice Hunt Friend joins us to talk all things Africa and civ-mil. We dive into U.S. operations in Niger and the Kenyan elections reboot. Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping get new mandates while preparing for the president’s big trip to Asia, along with the rest of us. And we all wait for the fallout from the Mueller indictments.

Episode Reading:

• Alice Hunt Friend, "What Does Niger Have to Do with the AUMF?" Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Alice Hunt Friend, "Trump wrongly ignores Africa," The Hill
• Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, "Amid Niger ambush chaos, the White House first thought several Americans were missing," Washington Post
• Thomas E. Ricks, "An Old Colonel Looks at General Kelly," Foreign Policy
• Loren DeJonge Schulman, "The Necessity of Questioning the Military," The Atlantic
• David Dollar, "Reading the tea leaves of China's 19th Party Congress," Brookings Institution
• Simon Denyer, "China's leader elevated to the level of Mao in Communist pantheon," Washington Post
• Robert Burns, "Pentagon Chief Says North Korea Engages in 'Outlaw' Behavior," NBC News
• Vikram Singh and Lindsey Ford, "China Is Looking Forward to Trump's Truancy at the East Asia Summit," Foreign Policy
• Daniel Kliman and Zack Cooper, "Washington Has a Bad Case of China ADHD," Foreign Policy
• Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm Tour Dates
• Erik Pedersen, "'The Alienist' Premiere Date & Trailer: Bruhl, Evans, Fanning & TNT Trek Back to 1890s New York," Deadline