Radio War Nerd EP #560 — Trump v. The World, feat. Derek Davison
Guest: Derek Davison, American Prestige & Foreign Exchanges
Recorded: November 6, 2025
A year after Trump's election victory, Derek Davison helps us try to make sense of Trump-2's foreign policy.
Check out Derek's podcast American Prestige, and his newsletter Foreign Exchanges. Follow Derek on Twitter.
Buy John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War
Total time: 1:10:18
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Sound production by Telescope Audio
Comments (36)
Late to the party on this one but this was a great ep. Mark and Derek have a great dynamic.
Great episode! Next world of wars should touch on Tanzania and East Africa more broadly. Things are very tense there, my family in dar es salaam spent 2 weeks sheltered in place with no internet and no power hearing choppers, gunshots and the only news making it through was fake or embellished. A “stable” African country that seems very much on the brink. Please cover it!
Derek Davison is one of my favorite people to read and listen to, I read FX religiously, so happy you guys have him on.
The Inebriated Past, that's what it was called
God damn this episode was HILARIOUS I was fucking cackling throughout
The recent interview on America Prestige with Spencer Ackerman assessing the career of Dick Cheney was really, ready excellent— I wish it could be made public.
has anyone considered that Venezuela and Nigeria being targets might involve them both being oil rich? especially if Trump is looking for any leverage he can use against, say Putin or China, or to keep Europeans groveling? this feels like a room temperature IQ kind of insight but nobody is fucking mentioning it, am i missing something foundational?
It's definitely been mentioned in the context of Venezuela, including by Derek on AP. Nigeria being next does definitely seem to reinforce that angle though you're right.
Russia needs to go full Total War, March to the Dniper Sherman March. If they don’t, they are going to be fighting this miserable war for years only to get the same result with more casualties. And I will bet all the money in my pockets that Putin and Russians actually care about the fact that as it stands, the Ukrainian population has no future and the west not only doesn’t care but is already making plans to replace the losses with foreign workers who, if they’re lucky, will be treated like those in the west and not slaves in the gulf states. I hate that it makes sense why the U.S. wages war in such a manner and front-loads all the horrors at the onset. The military seems to genuinely believe that their actions reduce casualties, and God help us, they may be right in campaigns like this. If Russia had annihilated Ukraine's infrastructure and logistics thoroughly and immediately like the U.S. would have, I don’t think these neo Nazis and oligarchs would have been able to coerce and manipulate the people into fighting this fucking war for four years. So, now Ukraine will be lucky to suffer through the worst winter social conditions in nine decades so they can finally oust these demons and end this goddamn fucking war when there are still Ukrainians left.
Nobody who matters cares about stuff like that because it's not about winning or losing the war (at least, not now that the initial invasion that was supposed to overthrow the government in Kiev overnight was a total failure). Russia has no interest in occupying Ukraine and dealing with an insurgency for the rest of eternity. For that reason, I doubt they're all that motivated to actually seize territory for its own sake. This is all about positioning for a better peace deal. Russia can afford to wait and see. They aren't under the same sort of pressure that Trump or Zelenskyy feels. The invasion was a stupid idea to begin with, but now that they're stuck in the best move is to take their time and see what concessions (if any) they can squeeze out of Ukraine. The only thing your "total war march to the Dniper Sherman's March" strategy would do is, maybe, result in fewer casualties, and the very grim reality is that no one in power cares in the slightest about how many people die in this war. As Dolan has pointed out, Slavic lives are worth even less to the Blob than sub-Saharan Africans.
for some reason now on facebook I'm getting news from a maritime news journal and they cover the speedboat bombings and the comments are nuts, I tried to push back and I got called a drug trafficking lover, people are absolutely terrifying
The hogs are bloodthirsty, gotta find some way to fight the obvious signs of imperial decline
Lmao Derek was cooking on this one. Love AP but it seems Mark is a way better foil to Derek's deadpan Eore style than Danny. Great ep.
Yeah, Derek was great here because Mark actually gave him room to speak. I listen to AP a lot but Danny sure does love the sound of his own voice.
I know he’s not necessarily involved with foreign policy but the boat strikes have Stephen Miller fingerprints all over them imo, especially with the “these people are trying to poison our society and must be killed” rhetoric.
Stephen is an asshole but he is still a boy from Santa Monica who lacks any sort of bloodlust necessary for this.
Fantastic episode, very excited for that crossover
it’s crazy you cant genocide any christian except the first ones
I’m sure they are grateful that a future pope will honor the Catholic ones as martyrs.
Totally unrelated: Anyone know where the old essay on the Orange Order is? I think it was written under John Dolan instead of Gary Brecher (iirc it was somewhere that he also wrote under the nom de guerre). Instantly bought the Civil War essay collection in print & digit btw, need more of the scattered essays somewhere accessible!
Heartfelt best wishes to John and I’m looking forward to the crossover episodes
Not gonna lie, in a fight between DJT and the world, my money's on Trump. I mean he's made it this far.
The boondoggles must flow
Listened while on a walk to the library where I checked out Norwood. You are in our thoughts, John.
Matt Christman had some interesting things to say about the great awakening and the eerie canal. I can’t remember where he said it - maybe his VLogs?
Maybe Hell of Presidents?
No Democrat really buys this No Kings shit the DNC is pushing because they will eventually hold the White House again and they want to and will wield that power as hard as Trump could ever imagine using it and then expand it further like every Democrat has since LBJ or FDR. They will just never use it in ways that would be red meat for their base like Trump uses ICE and the military to ego stroke MAGA. The next Democratic president will still use every extralegal measure and theory imaginable to enrich Wall Street and Silicon Valley and themselves and the Blob/MIC in new and exciting ways. The ratchet only ever turns one way and the uniparty makes hay to rile up the yokels until it’s their turn at the handle
yeah, they'll tell themselves they have every institutional justification they need though.... and/or "we have to take these extreme measures to stop anyone else from being the king"
Remember, Maher’s entire view of the world outside the U.S. is “Islam is bad”
But in the grand scheme, the GWOT is evil and I saw a headline yesterday that Islamic terrorism increased 100,000% since the GWOT began. We made the crisis. Again.
Arnaud Bertrand and that section of Maoist third worlder twitter has made a convincing argument that Trump only respects strength and the Europeans being lapdogs has earned them nothing but further contempt and has allowed Trump to get them, not force them, even, but to let them self immolate, to continually shoot Europe in the face over and over again like with the Nexperia deal. He told the Dutch to seize Nexperia. They did. China responded by pushing the entire auto industry to the brink of shutdown AND the rare earth restrictions were coming. Trump then rescinded everything to net reduce tariffs and made the Dutch action totally self destructive. And that hasn’t even ended, although China will not ask for the full reckoning the Dutch deserve for its piracy. There is no fucking way Trump respects anyone who eagerly eats shit as much as the European elites do. Anyway, the Europeans aren’t managing shit. They are doing what their master tells them to do no matter has harmful to Europe because Europe’s rulers hate their people and ultimately the continent is more dependent on the U.S. and Ukrainians and Russians continue dying and the empire reigns supreme. It is amazing how powerful the U.S. is that it can shock doctrine itself for the last 17-18 years and will not be unseated for at least another 50-75 years no matter how successful China or any other country becomes.
Good points. Trump likes when people grovel to him, but only so much. China seems to have a good approach, you don’t “talk shit” to trump openly (like EU did) , but you do stand your ground, then you publicly throw him a bone and continually “negotiate” and make deals.
Big hate on American prestige because they banned me for criticizing their shilling for the state dept on the Ukraine war history. Like literally refused to let me be a patreon subscriber
It's never been on Patreon dummy lol
It's like MCU, but for my podcast feed.
🧎WE’RE NOT WORTHY, WE’RE NOT WORTHY🧎