Decoding Geopolitics is a podcast that tries to make sense of today’s dangerous world by talking with real experts on international relations, strategy and security.
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Sarah Paine Interview Part 2: Avoiding WW3, War Over Taiwan & Future of Europe
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This is a second part of the conversation with Sarah Paine, a professor of History and Grand Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. You can find the first part on Youtube and other podcasting platforms.
#69 Ed Arnold: What No One Dared To Say At The NATO Summit
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#68 Zineb Riboua: Iran’s Project Has Already Collapsed. It’s Weaker Than Ever and It’s Gonna Get Worse
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This is a conversation with Zineb Riboua, a Middle East expert and a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East - about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. We talk about what are really the Israeli goals with this operation, whether they can succeed in completely destroying Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions or how much damage they already did.
About what has been the role of the Trump administration and whether Trump was in on this from the start or if he’s now just trying to take credit - whether Israel is really pursuing a regime change and how likely that is or how vulnerable is Iran to a domestic coup, revolution and what the most likely scenarios are. And about much, much more.
#67 Christopher Kirchhoff: How Pentagon Forgot How To Innovate & What War Will Look Like in 2035
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This is a conversation with Christopher Kirschoff. Chris founded and led the Defense Innovation Unit, also known as Unit X - an organisation within the Pentagon tasked with finding the most innovative emerging technology - anything from flying cars to microsatellites - and implementing it into the military.
That makes him a unique person to talk to about where this innovation is going but also about why is it often so hard for governments to keep up with pace of technology and why organisations like governments and militaries often fight against innovation rather than embracing it - or how do the United States, Europe, China or Russia compare in their ability to innovate and who’s winning the new tech race of today.
Intelligence Brief: Is China Running out of Time To Invade Taiwan?
The theory goes: China’s in decline, so if it ever wants to invade Taiwan, it has to do it soon.
But what if that theory depends on the wrong assumption?
And who does Beijing actually see as the declining power?
#66 Elizabeth Wishnick: The Limits of Russia-China “No-Limit Friendship” & Why 'Reverse Nixon' Will Fail
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There’s probably no other bilateral relationship in global politics today that is as significant—and draws as much speculation—as the partnership between Russia and China. Together, these two countries might be capable of reshaping the global order, challenging the U.S. dominance, and influencing almost every global geopolitical issue. But there's still a lot of questions about what actually drives their cooperation, how deep or shallow their partnership truly is, and whether it’s more likely to grow even closer or fall apart in the future. And so in this conversation, I speak with Elizabeth Wishnick, an expert on Sino-Russian relations and a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses and at Columbia University.
I try to understand how do the two countries actually see each other: what does China think about the war in Ukraine, whether Russia was expecting more help from China in the war, what would Russia do in case of a war over Taiwan, or whether the West can succeed in driving a wedge between them and much more.
Intelligence Brief: The End of the Human Soldiers Is Closer Than You Think
The age of human infantry is slowly inching to its end. And it's closer than you might think.
Ukraine is already running drone-only assaults. Commercial sector is quickly ramping up development and production of sophisticated humanoid robots. And when the next major war breaks out, the first thing to disappear might be human soldiers on the front line.
#65 Seth Jones: Why The West Is Losing The Global Shadow War with Iran, Russia and China
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With the war in Ukraine still ongoing, it’s not surprising that conventional warfare usually dominates the headlines but underneath this traditional battlefield there are other types of conflict taking place as well that are a lot more quiet but just as consequential. From covert influence operations, proxy militias to economic pressure and cyberattacks, countries like Iran, Russia, and China have become extremely good at waging wars that don't look like wars in the traditional sense. But that can be just as powerful and sometimes even more effective. And while this kind of warfare isn’t new, it feels like we’ve entered a golden age of it.
And so in this conversation, I spoke with Seth Jones, Director of the International Security Program at CSIS, and one of the leading experts on irregular warfare on the different tactics and strategies of the three leading hybrid warfare powers —Iran, Russia, and China. We discuss the strengths and vulnerabilities of each country's approach, the effectiveness of their influence operations, why the U.S. seems to lag behind in this area or what role hybrid warfare plays in the war in Ukraine and much more.
Intelligence Brief: The Coming Fall of Hungary's Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán, Hungary's Prime Minister, has a big problem.
After dominating Hungary for the past 15 years, unchallenged, unbothered, and admired by populists everywhere, polls now show that he’s losing to a new opponent, with elections less than a year away.
And it looks like his challenger found a strategy that - if successful - many European politicians might be tempted to try as well.
#64 Janis Kluge: How Long Can Russia Afford The War & Can Russia Afford Peace?
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In the current war in Ukraine, there is likely no other topic that would be both so important and so wildly misunderstood as the issue of the Russian economy. The importance is quite obvious - without a functioning economy, Russia wouldn't be able to finance the war. But in terms of how the economy is actually doing and how will it do in the future, that’s much less clear - and the views range from Russian economy being an unstoppable juggernaut with sanctions only making it stronger to the Russian economy collapsing since the first day of the war - neither of which are actually accurate. After all, most people are not economists and this is largely an unprecedented situation.
And so, I decided to speak with someone who both knows more about this than anyone else and who is able to give a very pragmatic and objective view of where we stand: an expert on the Russian economy Janis Kluge, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. And so in this conversation, we talk about how the Russian economy is actually doing. How long can Russia actually afford to finance the war, what kind of economic damage it would take to force to rethink its plan for Ukraine and whether that is likely to happen, whether the Russian economy is overheating and what does that really mean or what would happen if the war ends and the money stops flowing into the economy - and whether the Russian government can afford that.
#63 Mujtaba Rahman: Europe’s Leaders See Trump As Predatory and Destructive. This Is Their Plan for Ukraine
This is a conversation with Mujtaba Rahman. Mij is what you would call an insider of European politics. He leads the European section of the Eurasia Group and a big part of his job is to know what is going on behind the scenes, not just what you can read in the news but what European leaders really think, say and do when there are no cameras. And so it was a perfect opportunity to dive deep into European politics.
We talked about whether Europe has a strategy for what do with Ukraine and Russia, what do European leaders really think about Donald Trump behind closed doors and how are they already preparing for Europe without the U.S. Or how likely is it that anti-establishment politicians in France, UK or Germany will dominate elections in the coming years and completely turn all those policies upside down. I think it’s a fascinating conversation and it’s always a pleasure to talk to someone who knows so much.
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#62 Anshel Pfeffer: Israel’s Existential Crisis & Its Dangerous Quest for Regional Domination
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This is a conversation with Anschel Pfeffer, a veteran journalist and the correspondent for the Economist based in Israel. And in this conversation, we talk about two things. About Israel’s changing foreign policy - why is it growing increasingly expansionist, how has it fundamentally changed since the October 7th, whether Israel will attack Iran, why the Israeli military is starting to be dangerously overstretched or why the Trump-Netenyahu bromance is already over.
But before we get to that, we dive quite deep into what’s increasingly shaping Israel’s foreign policy - its domestic political crisis, growing societal polarization and what Anschel calls an "existential crisis".
#61 Justin Bronk: Why America Is Rethinking Air Power
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This is a conversation with Justin Bronk - a military aviation expert and a Senior Research Fellow at RUSI. We dive deep into the recently revealed American and Chinese 6th generation fighter jets - how will they change warfare and who's ahead in this race for air dominance, and whether Europe and Russia could catch up.
And how other technologies like collaborative combat aircraft - basically swarms of drones flying together with planes piloted by humans - are going to change what air combat has looked like for decades.
#60 Sarah C.M. Paine: How Superpowers Self-Destruct: Russian, Chinese & American Grand Strategy
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This is a conversation with Professor Sarah C.M. Paine—one of the sharpest minds on grand strategy and on how great powers rise and fall. We talk about why Russia, China, and even the U.S. often misunderstand their own strengths, repeat the same strategic mistakes, and ultimately sabotage themselves from within. If you want to understand why grand strategy fails, and what that means for the next decade of global competition, this one’s worth your time.
#59 Mark Galeotti: Putin’s Strategy Will Backfire. 2026 Will be Russia’s Toughest Year Yet
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This is a conversation with Mark Galeotti - a Russia expert and one of the most respected and interesting voices to listen to when it comes to anything Russian. In this conversation, we talk about the ongoing U.S.-Russian negotiations - whether Putin would actually accept a peace deal, what do Russian want to actually get out of it and why are they able to manipulate their American counterparts. And also, why 2026 will be a very painful year for Russia or why the Russian sabotage campaign in Europe might backfire.
#58 Ed Arnold: Could Europe Defend Itself Without the US?
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This is a conversation with Edward Arnold, a Research Fellow at RUSI and one of the clearest voices on European defense today. For decades, Europe’s security has relied on the assumption that the United States would always be there to lead, to help, and to fight if needed. But that assumption is quickly eroding and regardless of who sits in the White House, it’s becoming clear that Europe will have to rely more on itself.
In this conversation, I wanted to explore what that actually means in practice. I asked Ed three big questions: First, what’s broken in Europe’s current defense architecture that prevents it from standing on its own? Second, what would a credible, self-reliant European defense actually look like? And third, what kinds of reforms and political will would be needed to get there and whether we are on the right path.
#57 Keir Giles: Why Europe Isn't Ready For What's Coming
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This is a conversation with Keir Giles, one of the leading experts on Russia and European security, and a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House. Keir has spent decades studying Russia, its military strategy, and how Europe has responded - or failed to respond - to the growing threat from the East.
In this episode, I wanted to explore three main questions: First, how grave and imminent the Russian threat to Europe actually is. Second, whether Europe is truly prepared for war if it comes to that. And third, what happens if the U.S. pulls back from European defense and Europe has to fend for itself.
#56 Kate Bondar: The Futuristic Military Tech That's Changing The War in Ukraine
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This is a conversation with Kateryna Bondar, a Ukrainian expert on emerging military technology, a former advisor of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
When people talk about the role of technology in the war in Ukraine, it usually doesn't feel like that much new development is happening - after all, we have been seeing drones in the war for over 3 years. But the reality is actually the opposite - the war in Ukraine is quickly becoming a lot more futuristic than I personally realized and technology that’s already being deployed and tested on the battlefield every day, is something that most people would have probably thought is many years away.
Whether that’s major attacks carried out only by unmanned vehicles, fully autonomous drones or the Ukrainian ambition of fully replacing human soldiers with robots - those are things that sound unreal but already happening. War is literally changing in front of our eyes and the change is getting faster. This conversation, will hopefully make it seem a bit more real and show what the already futuristic present and very near future looks like.
#55 Franz Stefan Gady: Why Trump Will (Accidentally) Make Europe Great Again
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This is a conversation with Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst and European security expert from the Institute for International Strategic Studies.
We’ve had a lot to cover. From the developments on the battlefield in Ukraine and the reasons for the Ukrainian problems in Kursk to the impact of U.S. military aid cuts and how much of the U.S. aid could be replaced by Europe and what it would take. And although since Monday, March 10th when we recorded this episode, the ban on the U.S. aid has been lifted, it’s still pretty interesting. Both because it explains how dependent Ukraine and Europe is on the U.S. equipment and because the American aid can be always taken away just as fast as it was now given back.
But mostly we talked about Europe’s security. About why Europe needs to decide how much it’s actually willing to risk for Ukraine, what’s the real problem with the potential European peacekeeping mission in Ukraine or why Europe is now at the beginning of a seismic shift - and why it’s never going to be the same again.
#54 Tim Mak: Why Zelensky Can't Accept a Bad Deal & What The Minerals Deal Is Really About
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This is a conversation with Tim Mak, a Ukraine-based journalist and a founder of The Counteroffensive - a new type of a media organisation trying to bring authentic reporting from the war and from Ukraine in general.
I spoke to Tim to learn about how everything that’s been going on is being perceived in Ukraine - how is the Ukrainian government trying to work with the United States after they cut off its aid - what are their options and whether they have a strategy for what to do. And about the changes of the public opinion on peace deals and war negotiations or about the reality of the critical minerals deal negotiations and what is all that really about - and much more.
Yes, Europe Can Survive Without America - Here's How
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#53 Michael Beckley: China’s Rise Is Over. Things Are Gonna Get A Lot Worse - Fast
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This is a conversation with Michael Beckley, a professor at Tufts University and a co-author of one the best books on China in recent years called the Danger Zone. In the book Michael made two big predictions: first, that China’s economic model will run into major problems - which seems to be already happening - and result in the end of China’s economic and political rise. And second, that this will make China much more dangerous and aggressive and make an invasion of Taiwan much more likely - which we still have to wait to see.
In this conversation, I wanted to revisit those predictions with Michael to ask how does he see China’s rise and decline today. Whether China’s economic problems can be reversed, how are they changing Beijing’s strategic calculus or how likely is a major war in the late 2020s. It's, in my view, one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had on the podcast so far - and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
3 Questions That Will Decide The Future of Europe
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#52 Ronen Bergman: This Is How Israel's Secret Assasination Program Really Works
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This is a conversation with Ronen Bergman. Ronen is a journalist at the New York Times based in Israel and an author of a unique book called Rise and Kill First about the history of Israeli state-sponsored targeted assassinations. Ronen spent years working on his research, digging into stuff that’s almost entirely classified and he spoke with dozens of former and current members of Israeli military, intelligence services and government - getting access that is completely unprecedented despite the fact that Israeli government and Mossad tried to do everything they could to stop him from doing that.
In this conversation how do you research something like that, where does the practice or state-sponsored assassinations originate, why does Israel use it more than perhaps any other nation, how do its representatives think about it, when and how did these operations literally rewrite history and whether they actually make Israel safer or not. And we also talk about the ethics and morals of all of that - because I don't want to be glorifying it and one of the reasons I liked the book was because Ronen doesn't do that either and he is an Israeli citizen who is very critical to his own country. And he, in my view, manages to stay objective, and critically analyze and evaluate what his own country does.
Q&A: Can Europe Survive On Its Own?
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#51 Anne Applebaum: Why Europe’s Security Strategy Is Failing & How the War in Ukraine Will End
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This is a conversation with Anne Applebaum, recorded at the Munich Security Conference. Anne is an American-Polish journalist and historian who has been writing on Russia and Eastern Europe for decades and whose insights I consider extremely valuable.
In the conversation we talk about the big speech that J.D. Vance gave at the conference how Europe should respond to the increasingly unpredictable foreign policies of the United States. And we also talked about Russia and Ukraine, possible negotiations and the end of the war or if this will finally be the wake up call for Europe or whether we will remain asleep at the wheel.
#50 Soner Cagaptay: Is Turkey Building a New Ottoman Empire?
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This is a conversation with Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute and a leading expert on Turkish foreign policy.
Turkey is an increasingly influential player in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe but at the same time, it's rise and its strategy are hugely overlooked and misunderstood. And so I spoke with Soner about exactly that. About what is Turkey's grand strategy and what is it trying to achieve, how it's becoming a major power in the Middle East, why is it both an enemy and a friend of Russia, why is it even in NATO when it doesn't seem to be aligned on a number of issues with the majority of its members or what's the risk of war between Greece and Turkey - and much more.
#49 Hal Brands: 'We’re Living In a Pre-War World. Great power war is no longer unthinkable.'
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This is a conversation with Hal Brands, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and one of the most influential and respected thinkers on U.S. foreign policy and global power dynamics of today.
In this conversation, we talk about the return of geopolitics. About why are ideas about geopolitics that dominated the world a hundred years ago and that were at the beginning of all the great wars of the 20th century now making a comeback. And threaten to start other great wars in our time and define the 21st century as well. And whether and how, can it be prevented.
#48 Mike Kofman: The War Is Slowly Killing Russia’s Military. Here’s How Long They’ll Need to Recover
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#47 Jeremy Shapiro: What's Trump's Plan for Ukraine and Will He Defend Taiwan?
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This is a conversation with Jeremy Schapiro, a Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former advisor and policy planner at the U.S. State Department. And this conversation is about a single but extremely important question - what will the foreign policy of Donald Trump in the next four years look like. And how is it going to change the world as we know it.
We talked about how Donald Trump’s foreign policies actually created and who are the different ideological groups that shape them which is something that Jeremy wrote on quite a lot. And about what his policies will look like - on Russia and Ukraine, Europe and NATO, Iran and Israel and China and Taiwan.
My goal going into this was to be as unbiased and pragmatic as possible - to try to analyze what Donald Trump’s foreign policy on different issues might look like rather than to judge him as a person because there’s not enough of the first and more than of the latter. Whether it was successful or not, is up to you.
#46 General Ben Hodges: Russia’s Failing Strategy, Ukraine and the West’s Fear of Escalation
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This is a conversation with General Ben Hodges. Ben is a former high-ranking U.S. general who ended his career as a Commander of the United States Army in Europe and today is one of the most respected commentators on the Ukraine war, defence and European security and a major advocate for the Ukrainian cause.
In this conversation we talk about what really mattered in the past year, from the Kursk offensive to North Korea joining the battlefield. About how the war developed and what is the balance of forces today, what can we expect of the year to come and what does Ben expect from the Trump administration when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. And we talk about a lot of difficult, uncomfortable but extremely important questions - from negotiations, to issues with Ukrainian mobilization or the changing Ukrainian public opinion.
#45 Lennart Maschmeyer: How Ukraine Avoided a Cyber-Apocalypse & Why Cyberwarfare Isn't What You Think
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This is a conversation with Lennart Meschmayer. Lennart is a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich who’s focusing on cyber warfare - how states use cyber power against each other both in times of war and peace and what role does cyber play in conflicts today. And that’s exactly what this conversation is all about.
We talk about what role does cyber play in the war in Ukraine, why we haven't seen a cyber apocalypse that many have predicted before the war started, why cyber warfare works really differently than most people think, why is Israel a hacking superpower or what would a cyber war between Russia and NATO look like.
#44 Justin Bronk: F-35 Critics Are Completely Wrong. F-16s for Ukraine Were Over-Hyped.
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This is a conversation with Professor Justin Bronk. Justin is a Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a professor at the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, an active private pilot and one of the most respected experts on air power and technology in the world.
In this interview we talk about a lot of things. We discussed the F-35s and its criticism, how it compares to its Russian and Chinese counterparts or whether it will be replaced by drone swarms and unmanned technology. How did Ukraine change what role air power plays in conflicts, what kind of impact are F-16s having on the war or whether Ukrainian force will start operating Western-made planes. And we talk about how the near future will air power as we know it - from drone swarms, unmanned fighter jets and collaborative aircraft. It’s a great conversation and I really hope you’ll enjoy it.
#43 Syria Expert (Aron Lund): 'Things Could Get Much Worse. Here’s Who the Real Winner Is.'
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This is a conversation with Aron Lund. Aron is an analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and one of the world’s leading foreign experts on Syria, its security and politics. And in this conversation, we unpack everything that happened in the past week and what is going to happen now.
We talk about why no one saw the offensive coming and why did Assad’s regime fall so quickly, about who are actually the rebels who took it down, how radical are they and what can we expect of them. We discuss what this means for Turkey, Israel, Russia and Iran and the Middle East at large and what post-Assad Syria will look like - and why things might get a lot worse.
#42 Eliot Cohen: Why Experts Failed to Predict Russia's Invasion of Ukraine?
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This is a conversation with Eliot Cohen. Eliot is a military historian, a dean of the school of advanced international studies at John Hopkins University, a former official at the U.S. department of state and one of the most influential thinkers shaping U.S. foreign policy in recent decades.
But in this interview we talk about one specific topic: why did most analysts and experts completely failed to predict how the war in Ukraine would turn out following the Russian invasion. He recently published an extremely interesting paper dedicated to this issue, co-authored with professor Phillips O’Brien and so we dove deep into it: we talked about why most experts wildly overestimated Russian military capability and underestimated Ukraine’s readiness and resilience, why do we tend to either over and under-estimate Russia, whether the invasion could have actually turned out differently or what do most analysts still keep getting wrong.
#41 Michael Sobolik: This is China’s Plan for Global Domination - And Its Biggest Weakness
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This is a conversation with Michael Sobolik, a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and an author of the book Countering China’s Great Game. And in this interview, we talk about China’s grand strategy - and what it actually looks like.
We discuss what are China’s geopolitical ambitions and why their origins go back way further than most people think, how does China uses the Belt and Road to increase their influence and why it often shoots itself in the foot doing so or why China is in danger of an imperial overstretch and how does Taiwan fit into its global vision.
#40 Kenneth M. Pollack: Why Arab Militaries Lose Wars?
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This is a conversation with Kenneth Pollack about one single question - why do militaries of Arab nations, despite often having superiority in numbers and better equipment than their opponents, tend to hugely underperform in modern military conflicts? And often end up losing wars which in theory they should win? It’s a question that has been asked by many but no one knows more about it than my guest.
He spent 30 years as an analyst in the CIA studying the Middle East and the militaries of both U.S. partners and adversaries. After leaving the CIA he became an academic and dedicated his academic career to answering this question. And so this is what we talk about - what is the real reason that Arab militaries tend to be notoriously ineffective, how does culture, economy or politics influence how they fight or why do organizations like Hezbollah seem to defy this rule and are a lot more effective than many larger and better equipped traditional Arab armies.
#39 Ryan McBeth: Endgame in Ukraine, WW3 and What Trump's Win Means For the World
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This is a conversation with Ryan McBeth. Ryan is a former infantryman in the Marine Corps, an intelligence analyst, software architect and most importantly, a Youtube legend and one of my favorite creators.
In this conversation, we talk about a lot of things - from his background to what he thinks that Trump’s presidency will mean for the world of geopolitics. And also what’s his view of the situation of the war in Ukraine and how he thinks it might end, why does he believe that we are already living through WW3, whether China will invade Taiwan and much more.
Britain's Shrinking Army and Broken Military: What Happened? | Ep. 38 Matthew Savill
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This is a conversation with Matthew Savill. Matthew is a Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute and he has over 20 years of experience of working on defense, intelligence and national security in leadership positions in the British civil service. And in this conversation we talk about the current state of the British military which according to many is not great.
We discuss whether the British military is in crisis and how bad it is, why is the British army becoming smaller than ever before in the last 200 years at a time of a growing threat to Europe, whether Britain can still afford to maintain a global blue-water navy or why does it have smaller armed forces than France despite spending more money on it.
Prof. Ali Ansari (#37): Iran Can't Afford a War. It's Out of Options and Running Out of Time
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This is a conversation with Dr. Ali Ansari, professor at St Andrews University and an expert on Iranian history and foreign policy. In this interview we talk about Iran's conflict with Israel - why both countries race against the clock to win, how the past months changed the balance of power between the two, about what it means for Iran's proxy groups in the region, about the great paradox of Iran's foreign policy and much more.
Tim Marshall (#36): Why Geography Explains the Ukraine War, China's Expansion and Everything Else
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This is a conversation with Tim Marshall. Tim has a long career as foreign correspondent, covering wars and revolution from the Balkans to the Middle East but he's mostly known for his series of books starting with Prisoners of Geography, in which he argues that more than anything it's geography that determines international relations.
I'm a fan of the books but at the same time I'm not sure if I agree with the theory and so in this interview we talk about whether this argument holds water, whether geography influenced Russia to invade Ukraine and whether we should even accept this premise and how it shapes the world from China to the Middle East.
War In Space Is Already a Reality. Here's How It Works | Ep. 35 Juliana Suess
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#34 Zbigniew Pisarski: How Poland Prepares for War & Why It's Europe's New Superpower
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Ankit Panda (#33): Why We Might See a “Limited” Nuclear War and Why The Nuclear Arms Race Is Back
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This is an interview with Ankit Panda. Ankit is an expert on nuclear strategy, arms control, missile defense, nonproliferation, deterrence and he is a Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.And in this conversation, we talked about everything related to nuclear weapons. Why are they coming back to fashion, why are we living through the beginning of another nuclear arms race, why are countries and leaders becoming increasingly more comfortable with the idea of a limited nuclear war and much much more.
Q&A Special Episode
This is a special episode where I answer questions from my supporters on Patreon. It's a bit of a free-flowing rant rather than something that would be carefully scripted and thought-out, so keep that in mind.
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#32 Admiral Mike Studeman: There's a 60% Chance of War with China. Chinese Military Build-up is Fastest in History.
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This is a conversation with Admiral Mike Studeman. Mike spent decades as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy, eventually becoming a Director of Intelligence at the Indo-Pacific Command and until very recently, he served as a Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the oldest U.S. intelligence agency. He speaks Mandarin and throughout his career he has focused on studying and analyzing China and its military.
In this conversation, we talk about why the risk of a war with China is much higher than most people think and why Mike thinks that we are on a trajectory towards it. How is the Navy prepared for it, how is it adapting to the changing character of war or why the U.S. is losing to China in information warfare.
General Petraeus on Ukraine War, Russian Mistakes and Lack of Western Strategy | Ep. 31
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Intelligence Brief: Ukraine's Kursk Offensive
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#30 Dmitri Alpetrovitch: 'We're on a Path To War with China: We Just Haven't Realized It Yet.'
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This is a conversation with Dmitri Alpetrovitch. Dmitri is a chairman of a think-tank called Silverado Policy Accelerator and an author of a new book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century about how to win a cold war with China and prevent it from turning it into a hot one.
We talked about who's winning the Cold War of the 21st century, why Taiwan is the new West Berlin and whether Xi Jinping will decide to invade or not and much more.
#29 Kirill Shamiev: Russia is Running out of Men, Tanks and Time. Putin Has a Painful Decision to Make
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This is a conversation with Kirill Shamiev. Kirill is a Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations where he primarily focuses on the Russian military - and that's exactly what we talked about.
We discussed what is the state of the Russian military today, two and a half years into the war, whether it is able to learn and improve, what was the meaning behind the purges at the Russian ministry of defense, how much corruption affects Russian combat capability or how fast will it be able to rebuild its military to potentially face NATO.
#28 Yusuf Unjhawala: Why India-China War Is More Likely Than Invasion of Taiwan
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This is a conversation with Yusuf Unjhawala - a defence analyst from a leading Indian think-tank the Takshashila Institution.In this interview, I wanted to better understand India's foreign policy and security challenges and how India actually sees the world from its own perspective. And so we talked about why India doesn't have allies, why it wants to be friends with both Russia and the West or why a war between India and China might be more likely than a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. I hope you like it and now, enjoy the conversation.
Is North Korea Preparing for War & North Korean-Russian Alliance | Ep. 27 Jean H. Lee
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Jean H. Lee is a journalist and foreign policy analyst renowned for her expertise in covering North Korea and Northeast Asian affairs. She is co-host of the award-winning Lazarus Heist podcast for the BBC World Service and a former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press news agency.
Jean began reporting on the ground in North Korea in 2008. In 2011, she became the first American journalist to join the Pyongyang foreign press corps in North Korea. In 2012, she opened AP’s Pyongyang bureau, the first and only US news bureau in North Korea. Her work in North Korea from 2008 to 2017 included nearly three years working alongside North Korean staff and colleagues in Pyongyang on assignments that took her across the closed nation to visit farms, factories, schools, military academies, and homes in the course of her exclusive coverage.
#26 Dr. Jack Watling: Russia's War Machine Is Peaking. Next Year, It Runs Out of Steam
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Dr. Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute. Jack works closely with the British military on the development of concepts of operation, assessments of the future operating environment, and conducts operational analysis of contemporary conflicts.
In this conversation, we talked about two wars that Russia is currently waging: an overt one against Ukraine and a covert war against the West. Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon - and if you want to support what I'm doing, do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon as well.
#25 Jake Broe: 'This War Will End With a Russian Collapse. Donald Trump Will Leave NATO.'
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This is a conversation with Jake Broe, a former Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer and one of the biggest Youtubers providing daily updates on the war in Ukraine.
We talked about why Jake thinks Donald Trump will leave NATO, why the war will end with a political and economic collapse of Russia and much, much more.
#24 Mykola Bielieskov: This Is Not Working Anymore - What Ukraine Really Needs to Win
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This is a conversation with Mykola Bilieskov, a Ukrainian analyst and a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies of Ukraine institute under the Ukrainian presidential administration.
We talked about why Ukrainians are hesitant to join the military, why Western model of support for Ukraine is not working anymore, why he is more worried about the next year than this one and why NATO might have to join the conflict one way or another.
#23 Minna Ålander: How Finland Joining NATO Checkmates Russia & Why Is It Ready For War
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This is a conversation with Minna Alander - a research fellow at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs who's focusing, among other topics on Finnish security and defence policy, Nordic defence cooperation and Arctic security.
Finland is quite an exception among European countries - because while today many are panicking and trying to make up for years of underfunding, Fins seems to be quite calm - as they have been ready to fight Russia on their own for decades - as they have done in the past in multiple iconic conflicts.
In this conversation we talk about why is Finland prepared for war better than almost anyone else, what is the Finnish perspective of the Russian threat, how did Finland joining NATO completely changed the calculus for both NATO and Russia and what would a Russian invasion fo Finland look like.
Thank you to everyone who is supporting this podcast on Patreon - it's incredibly helpful. And now, enjoy the conversation.
#22 Thomas Van Linge: Why Myanmar's Military Junta Is On The Verge of Collapse
This is a conversation with Thomas Van Linge - a freelance journalist and a researcher covering the world's forgotten conflicts, including the civil war in Myanmar. Recently, he came back from a research trip to the rebel-held areas in Myanmar where he stayed with the rebels, visited the frontlines and saw up close what the war looks like.
In this conversation, we talk about why is the military starting to lose and how close it is from a final defeat, why is Russia supplying the military dictator, what is China's role in the conflict and what will happen to Myanmar once the dictatorship falls.
#21 General Ben Hodges: Retaking Crimea, NATO in Ukraine and Russian Collapse | Ep. 21 Gen. Ben Hodges
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This is a conversation with Ben Hodges, a retired three star general of the US army, the former Commander of US Army Europe and someone who spent more than three decades as a military officer and achieved one of the highest posts in the US Armed Forces.
In this interview, we discussed what the latest military package means for Ukraine, why the West seems to prioritize avoiding escalation more than defeating Russia, whether we should send troops to Ukraine, how could Ukraine retake Crimea or whether we should worry about the fall of Putin's regime.
Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon - and now, enjoy the conversation.
#20 Lukas Milevski: This Is What Happens If Russia Invades The Baltics
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This is a conversation with Lukas Milevski, a professor at Leiden University and an expert on strategy and defense and security of the Baltic countries. In this interview, we talk about what would happen if Russia invades the Baltics, how prepared they are, if they could be successful and how big of a risk it actually is.
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#19 Brian Hart (CSIS): How Strong Is China's Military & Is It Prepared for War?
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This is a conversation with Brian Hart - a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and an expert on China's military and its foreign and security policy. We talked about what is the real capability of China's military, whether it's a paper tiger or if it's prepared and ready to take Taiwan by force, if 2027 is the year when we should expect the war to happen or how ready is Taiwan to fight back.
#18 David Gioe: CIA Officer on Outsmarting the Russians, Chinese Spies and the Ukraine War
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This is a conversation with David Gioe. David has two decades of experience as an intelligence officer, starting his career in the FBI and then joining the CIA, first as an analyst and later as an field-qualified operations officer. He deployed a number of times overseas and worked on counter-intelligence, clandestine operations and covert action. After retiring from the CIA, David has moved to academia and today he works as a professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and he is a visiting professor of Intelligence and and International Security in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.
We talked about how the world of intelligence really works, how it has changed since the cold war or how agents working in the field do their job at a time when anonymity is increasingly disappearing. And how the CIA manages to stay ahead of the Russians, why Chinese spies work differently than anyone else and much much more.
Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon. If you want to follow David you can go to his Twitter or website and now, enjoy this conversation.
#17 Mark Galeotti: Putin's Growing Problems & Why Russia Is More Fragile Than It Seems
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This is a conversation with Mark Galeotti - an honorary professor at UCL, a senior associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute, director of Mayak Intelligence and one of the most renowned experts on Russia and Russian politics.
We talked about the attacks in Moscow - whether he thought it could have been a false flag, or whether the Russian propaganda will succeed in shifting blame to Ukraine. And about the broader picture - when might the war in Ukraine end and how, whether Russia is weaker than it looks and much more.
Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon, and now enjoy the conversation.
#16 Ulrike Franke (ECFR): Why Germany Won't Give Ukraine Taurus & Why It Struggles To Fix Its Military
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Dr Ulrike Franke is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who's focusing on German Security, Foreign and Defense policy and has a deep insight into the inner workings of German political and security institutions.
We talked about how Germany has changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, why it struggles so much to rebuild its military, why it still refuses to provide Taurus missiles to Ukraine, whether the German public has abandoned its pacifism or whether Germany should get a nuclear bomb.
Thank you to everyone who's supporting this podcast on Patreon and now enjoy the conversation.
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#15 Alex Vatanka: Iran's Dangerous Geopolitical Strategy & Why The U.S. Can't Stop It
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This is a conversation with Alex Vatanka - a Tehran-born expert on Iranian domestic and foreign policy and a director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute.
In this conversation we talk about Iran's geopolitical strategy - what is it trying to achieve, what are its motivations and goals but also about whether it would benefit from a large regional war, to what extent it controls Hamas, how stable is the Iranian regime and much much more.
Thank you so much to everyone for supporting this podcast. And now enjoy the conversation.
#14 Mick Ryan: Australian General on What a War With China Will Look Like
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This is a conversation with General Mick Ryan. Mick is a former high commanding officer in the Australian Army and today works mostly on the topic of the future of war. He wrote two excellent books - War Transformed in which he explains how technology will shape future conflicts and White Sun War - a fictional account of war over Taiwan in which he brings these ideas to life and shows how devastating a superpower conflict would look like. In this interview we talk about all of that and much more.
Enjoy the conversation.
#13 Szabolcs Panyi: Why Hungary Supports Russia & Orban's Grand Strategy
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This is a conversation with Szabolc Panyi, a leading Hungarian investigative journalist who's been working for years on Hungarian Russian relations and Russian influence activities in Hungary.
He was trying to help me understand why Viktor Orban acts like a Russian Trojan Horse, what is he trying to get from the European Union and what's behind the unlikely alliance between him and Tucker Carlson. And now enjoy the conversation.
#12 Vlad Vexler: Navalny, War and the Future of Russia
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This is a conversation with Vlad Vexler, a fellow Youtuber and a political philosopher with excellent insight into the Russian state and society. We talked about Navalny, Tucker Carlson's Putin interview, why there is a lack of opposition to Putin's regime and what would it take for someone to successfully challenge him and many other things. It was one of the most interesting conversations I've had on the channel so far and I have a lot to think about now.
#11 David Rennie (Drum Tower): Is China Getting Ready for War?
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This is a conversation with David Rennie, a China-based reporter for the Economist, a head of their Beijing Bureau and a co-author of an excellent podcast on China, the Drum Tower. David has lived and worked in China for decades, he speaks fluent Chinese and talks to both Chinese officials and people on the ground on a regular basis.
And so we talked about whether the Chinese leadership wants to take Taiwan by force and if it's preparing to do that, why the growing disillusionment with the economy is making the government very nervous and why even Chinese leadership has to care about what people think. And about many other things. Thank you to everyone who has decided to support this podcast on Patreon, it means a lot. And now enjoy the conversation.
#10 Anders Puck Nielsen: Military Analyst on Ukraine's Strategy to Defeat Russia
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This is a conversation with Anders Puck Nielsen, a military analyst at the Royal Danish Defence College, a former Captain in the Royal Danish Navy and a fellow Youtuber. We talked about which of the two sides in the war in Ukraine actually has time on their side, why Russians use meat wave tactics, why do we misunderstand what a NATO-Russia conflict would look like and how can Ukraine win this war. And many other things.
Thank you to all the people who support this podcast on Patreon because you make this possible. And now enjoy this conversation.
0:00 - Intro
01:19 - Ukraine War & Naval Warfare
09:59 - Ukraine War & Air Warfare
09:59 - Ukraine War & Air Warfare
14:39 - Land Warfare & Russian "Meat wave" Tactics
29:41 - How can Ukraine Win the War?
41:11 - Who has time on their side?
44:27 - What if General Zaluzhny gets replaced?
#9 Richard Shirreff: The General Who Predicted The Russian Invasion on What's Next
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This is a conversation with General Richard Shirref. General Shirreff was one of the highest ranking British military commanders and a second in command of NATO forces. He has been warning of the Russian threat long before it became mainstream and in 2016, after he left the military he published a book called War with Russia in which Russia attacks Ukraine and afterwards continues to invade the Baltics, catching NATO completely unprepared - a book that was meant as a warning for what might be coming.
In this conversation, we talk about why he was one of the few people who saw the threat clearly years before everyone else, why it would be extremely dangerous to underestimate the Russians and how prepared is NATO for a Russian aggression. Richard is extremely candid in his answers and he's not afraid to be critical and say things as they really are and so I think it's an extremely interesting conversation. Thank you to everyone who supports this show on Patreon because you make this possible, and now enjoy the podcast.
00:00 - Intro
01:17 - Predicting Russian Invasion
06:51 - Why we refused to see the Russian threat
11:09 - Russian Invasion in 2022
13:15 - Underestimating the Ukrainians
18:05 - Overestimating the Russians
21:55 - The Russian Threat for NATO
34:06 - How Prepared is NATO?
36:54 - The state of the British Military
40:42 - Do we need to introduce conscription?
44:31 - Is Taiwan a window of opportunity for Russia
46:47 - Can Europe defend itself without the U.S.?
#8 George Barros (ISW): Is Russia Learning From Its Mistakes & Could It Attack NATO?
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This is a conversation with George Barros. George leads the team at the Institute for the Study of War that is responsible for tracking and analyzing the war in Ukraine and making daily updates on what is going on in the battlefield and on the strategic level. They are now the most quoted think-tank in the world and so there is a good chance that you have seen George's work before.
In this conversation, we talk about the shape of the Russian military as it's getting ready for a major offensive against Ukraine, what are the real Russian losses and when will the Russians finally run out of tanks and whether Russia would and could attack NATO. And we also talked about the work of his team at ISW, how they track and analyze the conflict and how open source intelligence is changing the character of war. Enjoy the conversation.
#7 Francis Farrell (Kyiv Independent): Ukraine's Plan for 2024 and Why It Can Still Lose the War
This is a conversation with Francis Farrel, an Australian-born journalist based in Ukraine, Working as a reporter focusing on the war and often reporting directly from the frontlines for the Kyiv Independent, a major Ukrainian English-language newspaper.
We talked about what the situation on the ground in Ukraine looks like, what is the strategy for 2024, how long can Ukraine last without further Western aid or whether journalists should be publishing negative stories about Ukraine in time of war. Make sure that you check out Kyiv Independent, it's a great source of news directly from the source and I also recommend following Francis on Twitter as he shares some really interesting stuff. And now, enjoy the conversation.
If you want to support the podcast, you can do so here: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
00:00 - Intro
01:45 - Situation on the ground in Ukraine
05:29 - Ukraine's Strategy for 2024
10:51 - Is Ukraine Ready for Defense?
16:52 - Rift Between Military and Political Leadership
24:52 - Why Approval for Zelensky Is Going Down
29:07 - How long can Ukraine last without foreign aid
35:01 - What Trump Re-Election Would Mean for Ukraine
39:46 - Ukraine and Further Mobilization
47:04 - Should journalists publish negative stories about Ukraine?
54:46 - Good News from Ukraine
#6 Mark Cancian (CSIS): This is What Happens When China Invades Taiwan
This is a conversation with Mark Cancian. Mark is an incredibly accomplished scholar and a soldier - he has spent three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, served in Vietnam, the Operation Desert Storm and the Iraq War and he has taught and worked at Harvard and John Hopkins Universities and today he serves as a Senior Advisor at the Washington think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But the reason we talked today was because last Mark was one of the leads on an incredibly interesting project that took place last year - the largest and most complex publicly available wargame of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Using an incredible amount of data, a large number of players and 25 iterations, Mark and his colleagues tried to simulate what would happen if China attacked. In this conversation we talked about how this invasion would go down, what would be its result, whether the United States military is ready for it and how to stop it from escalating into a global conflict. You can find the report from the wargame in the description below and now enjoy the podcast.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
Wargame report: https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan
00:00 - Intro
01:24 - What would a Chinese invasion look like?
18:19 - Do Chinese wargames have the same results?
23:29 - How should the U.S. military prepare?
34:25 - Is the United States prepared for the mass casualties?
37:05 - Why the U.S. Air Force Needs To Change
39:45 - “The Anti-Chinese Coalition”
43:39 - How to prevent an escalation into a global conflict
46:20 - Probability of a Chinese Invasion
#5 Robert Ward (IISS): How Japan Is Once Again Becoming a Military Powerhouse
Robert Ward is a Japan Chair at the International Institute for Strategic Studies with decades of experience with Japanese security, defense and foreign policy. We talked about why Japan is abandoning its pacifism, how does it see the threat from China and whether Japan would join a potential war over Taiwan. Enjoy.
#4 Christian Mölling: Why Europe Has 6 Years to Prepare For War With Russia
Dr. Christian Molling is a deputy director of The German Council on Foreign Relations's Research Institute and the head of its Center for Security and Defense and an expert on German and European foreign and security policy and defense industry.
And he is also a co-author of a recent report called Preventing the Next War which has received an unprecedented amount of attention across Europe and which calls on Germany and NATO to urgently prepare for a potential large-scale war with Russia that might happen in the next 6 to ten years.
#3 Mark Galeotti: Why Putin's Downfall Has Already Started
Mark Galeotti is the director of the consulting firm Mayak Intelligence, honorary professor at UCL, former advisor to the Foreign Office and one of the most widely recognized experts on Russia and its security and foreign policy. We talked about why so many experts failed to predict the Russian invasion, whether Putin has a grand strategy and why Putin's regime is much more fragile than it seems. Enjoy.
#2 Jade McGlynn: How Russia rewrites history and why Russians support the war
Dr. Jade McGlynn is a researcher at King’s College London that looky at how Russia uses history to shape the present. We talked about why regular Russians support the war in Ukraine, whether Putin believes his own propaganda and why Ukraine is so incredibly important for him and for Russia in general. Enjoy.
#1 Maximilian Hess: Who's Winning The Economic War Between Russia and the West?
How long Russia can sustain its war in Ukraine before its economy will fall apart? Why sanctions didn't work the way we expect them to? And why is the crumbling Russian economy more resilient than it seems?
Maximilian Hess is a Central Asia Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the founder of the London-based political risk firm Enmetena Advisory. He is also the author of Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West. His research focuses on the relationship between trade, debt, international relations, and foreign policy, as well the overlap between political and economic networks.
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En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.