National security, unlocked. Each Thursday, host Mary Louise Kelly and a team of NPR correspondents discuss the biggest national security news of the week. With decades of reporting from battlefields and the halls of power, they bring you inside the Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community to help you understand America's shifting role in the world, and how events in faraway places matter here at home. Additional episodes feature interviews with power players from the NatSec world -- current and former military officials, intelligence experts, diplomatic leaders, and more. Email the show at [email protected] . Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including archive access and sponsor-free listening for Sources & Methods.
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A car is set ablaze during demonstrations on Saturday in Paris. Carl Court/Getty Images hide caption
October 22, 2026 • France has been rocked by protests and riots. The far-right is on the rise across Europe. All while, the United States is backing away from Ukraine. President Trump has been trying to obliterate the post-WWII order since his first term … is he finally succeeding?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sits down for an interview with NPR in Kyiv. Svet Jacqueline for NPR hide caption
October 15, 2026 • A crucial military communication system was disrupted in Ukraine this week, as Russian attacks pounded energy sites.
The former head of the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service, was arrested on charges of treasonous espionage this week. Steffi Loos/Getty Images hide caption
October 8, 2026 • A German spy chief is arrested for treasonous espionage. What exactly is he accused of doing? Also, two tech billionaires are leading the Pentagon’s future of war project. Is that a problem?
A U.S. military plane prepares for takeoff from Camp Victory on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport in the final days of U.S. operations in Iraq. Ammar Karim/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
October 1, 2026 • For the second time since the 2003 invasion, the last American troops have left Iraq.
Ukrainian firefighters extinguish a fire at a shopping centre following a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Darya Nazarova/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
September 29, 2026 • Russia threatens attacks beyond Ukraine's border and rattles Europe. Is it ready?
President Donald Trump's speech Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York was an assault on the core ideas of the U.N. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
September 24, 2026 • President Trump used his speech at the United Nations General Assembly to attack the principles the organization is built on. Does the U.N. stand a chance in a new era of great power rivalry?
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issued a call for a slowdown of frontier AI research over the weekend. Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images hide caption
September 17, 2026 • All a sudden everyone is talking about the risk of an AI catastrophe or, in the case of President Trump, an AI "hoax."
Smoke pours from the World Trade Center after it was hit by two hijacked passenger planes on September 11, 2001 in New York City. Robert Giroux/Getty Images hide caption
September 9, 2026 • It’s been 25 years since al-Qaida attacked the United States by hijacking airplanes and crashing them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with a fourth plane crashing into a field in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Navy sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Gridley hoist the U.S. flag during the multinational Panamax military exercise in Panama City last month. Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
September 3, 2026 • The U.S. military is blowing up boats again. And it is taking a stake in the Venezuelan oil business. What is the administration trying to achieve in the Western Hemisphere?
People walk past an anti-U.S. billboard in Tehran. This week, Iran responded with defiance to a U.S. threat of the "single greatest financial offensive ever", saying it was an admission of military defeat and warning countries against aiding Washington. AFP via Getty Images hide caption
August 27, 2026 • It’s been six months since the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran.
