About this episode

Franz-Stefan Gady discusses strategies for Russia to potentially defeat NATO, the implications of a war over Taiwan, and how Ukraine has improved its military position.

Franz-Stefan Gady just played the Russian Chief of General Staff in a German war game — and won. He joins Dmitri Alperovitch to explain how he manufactured a NATO crisis in the summer of 2026, why the U.S. is built for the wrong war over Taiwan, and how Ukraine quietly turned its fortunes around heading into 2026. In this episode: How Russia could beat NATO without firing on it. Inside the Bundeswehr war game where Gady cut off the Baltics with a "humanitarian corridor" into Lithuania, an information-warfare campaign that split European politics, and nuclear saber-rattling aimed at Berlin — and his unsettling conclusion that Russia may not need a ground invasion at all. A war of attrition over Taiwan. Why sinking China's invasion fleet — the celebrated "hellscape" — is the easy part, and what happens on "day after" once U.S. precision munitions run dry and Xi refuses to go home. Alperovitch and Gady debate whether denial alone wins anything, and how a conflict neither side can decisively win punishes whoever has the weaker defense-industrial base. How Ukraine turned the tide. Stabilized manpower, a cleaner chain of command, a real edge in unmanned warfare (helped by Starlink…

People in this episode

Host: Dmitri Alperovitch

Guest: Franz-Stefan Gady

Topics covered

• Russia vs NATO
• Taiwan conflict
• Ukraine military strategy
• war games
• information warfare
• defense-industrial base

Keywords

• Russia
• NATO
• Taiwan
• Ukraine
• war game
• military strategy
• information warfare
• defense
• unmanned warfare
• precision munitions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NATO, U.S.

Places: Taiwan, Lithuania, Berlin, Ukraine, Baltics, Donbas

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