The Realignment: Expanding the Show, Supercast Week One, Marshall and Saagar Debate Ukraine, and More...

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One quick thing before we get into the newsletter.

If you can, we’d appreciate if you closed out this week’s expanded coverage and the end of our Ukraine series by signing up to support our subscription at the link below:

We have three price points: $5 a month, $50 a year, or $500 for a lifetime membership (aka ten years of subscription paid upfront).

Here’s a quick excerpt from our launch release:

The time has come to take this show, this business, to the next level.

Our team, hosts Marshall & Saagar, plus producers Phil, Aaron, and Arman, have been working on plans to turn The Realignment a long-term journey to bring our conversations to more and more ears worldwide.

We can't pull this off with our current funding structure. To level up our production quality, post more episodes, and roll out new products, we need to professionalize The Realignment.

Now, before we turn on ads, or search out new sponsors, we're reaching out to our community for support. As we've said, we see this as a years-long journey together and want to incorporate our listeners into the process.

Different levels of support will give you different levels of access to The Realignment's catalog.

Supercast's subscription model is so important to us because our number one priority has been quality over clicks. Chasing advertising dollars without a proper base of audience support would not only limit us creatively, but it would force the show away from the fundamentals that make us unique. 

All this said, we are aware of the fact that we have a significant high school/college-age audience that isn't exactly rolling in dough. Our number one priority when we decided to expand our content was avoiding just throwing up a paywall and cutting off access to our work. So if you can afford to support our expanded work, know that doing so helps others who can't afford to do the same. 

Per the headline, this is a soft-launch before May. We'd appreciate your thoughts and feedback at realignmentpod@gmail.com.

Thanks so much,
Marshall & Saagar

As we said in the note, we’re still working on what’s next, so definitely comment below, reply, or do anything of the like if you have any thoughts on what we should do next.

Spotify Technical Difficulties

Supercast allows you to import a private feed so that one doesn’t have to use Apple Podcasts. We’re experiencing a couple problems setting up the feed but will have the issue fixed by next week.

Welcome Back to The Realignment

Now…back to our regular programming. Thanks for checking out The Realignment’s Substack newsletter.

If you’re new, hit subscribe to get future issues in your inbox every Friday.

What’s New at The Realignment

As everyone probably saw by now, we dropped the first of our expanded Marshall and Saagar episodes today. We recorded the episode at the same studio that we recorded the Breaking Points live show yesterday.

These Friday discussion episodes are going to be a staple from now on are directly supported by our Supercast subscribers.

233 | Saagar and Marshall Debate Finland and Sweden in NATO, Elon Musk & Twitter, Ukraine, and More

(Audio) (Video)

This time, we really suggest you check the video, since we recorded in a high production studio.

Aaron’s Response: Reflecting on Ukraine

Aaron Visser, the show’s researcher/producer offers his concluding thoughts on our Ukraine coverage.

Right now everything is about Ukraine. The situation in the Donbas or around Kyiv makes the front page of every newspaper. The topic dominates TV, social media, and any political discussion. I find most of it unhelpful, pointless noise that doesn’t actually increase our understanding of the world. Yet I think the last month of The Realignment, which has focused on the most mainstream topic, has been its best month so far. 

That’s because this series has used Ukraine as the prism through which other topics can be based. We’ve done four episodes on irregular warfare (I recommend Sean Mcfate and John Nagel)  and three on the future of conventional warfare (I particularly enjoyed Robert Farley on air combat). We’ve talked about Europe, intelligence services, and China. An event like this plays out on many dimensions, allowing us to learn about it and for it to teach us about everything else. It enters into a historical dialogue with events in the future and the past. Munich was the precedent for Ukraine and Ukraine will be the precedent for Taiwan.

The response to the show has been phenomenal. High engagement was expected at first, but while the war dragged on and the show got more in the weeds, you guys didn’t let up. The listeners of this show share its goal, which is to reach a better understanding of the world.

Too many people lead foreign policy discussions with thought-terminating cliches such as gesturing toward the “military-industrial complex” or “we need to be more skeptical.” Understanding is the prerequisite for action. If you oppose the military-industrial complex or the intelligence services, which I do, seek to understand how the military and CIA function and how we can improve them (getting rid of them isn’t an option). If you oppose war, as any reasonable person should, understand its causal mechanics. This war will continue and so will our discussion of it. Don’t worry, those of you who want something new (though judging by the numbers there aren’t many of you), we will branch out in new directions. So please, provide feedback in any form and if you’ve gotten value from the show, consider signing up for the Supercast. In the meantime, we’ll do our best.

Have a great weekend, Aaron.

The Realignment Bookshop

As a reminder, we’ve created a Realignment Bookshop affiliate store showcasing books by guests, what we’re actively reading this year, and deeper dives into the featured topic of an episode.

If you purchase a book using our link, the show gets a 10% commission, a local, independent bookseller gets support, and you get an awesome book!

We’re reorganizing our book lists over the next few weeks, so for now, check out our primary one:

Books by Realignment Guests

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Let us know what you think about this or any other week’s episodes. Please share The Realignment with anyone who’d enjoy the podcast.