Douglas Stuart joins the podcast to discuss his new book, "Creating the National Security State: A History of the Law That Transformed America," a look at the 1947 National Security Act. Stuart holds the J. William Stuart and Helen D. Stuart Chair in International Studies at Dickinson College; he is also an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army War College.

Questions pondered in this podcast:

• What did the United States look like, militarily and national security-wise, before World War II?
• What's the difference between "national interest" and "national security?"
• Who was Pendleton Herring? How did he influence U.S. security policy?
• How did the rise of Nazism and Fascism influence American ideas about security? How did the emphasis on national security facilitate the rise of an "administrative state" here? And what did the advent of the atomic bomb mean in all of this?
• How was the 1947 National Security Act shaped by service rivalries?
• What did Harry Truman think about the massive bureaucracy that resulted from the act?
• Does the military dominate the U.S. foreign outlook too much? What about domestic politics?
• Is there a way to reform the bureaucracy without making a bigger mess?

Programming note: This is a brief interruption of our hiatus. The podcast will be back in full force later this fall.