Disorder – Details, episodes & analysis

Over the last two decades the seemingly ‘connecting’ phenomena of globalization and the internet have not made human communities more united. Seemingly paradoxically, aided by new technologies and interconnections, new forms of tribalism, superstition, in-group conformism, and out-group hatred have spread. Are these patterns of in-group solidarity and out-group distrust just the way humans are biologically wired to think?    In today’s episode, Jason Pack is joined by Harvey Whitehouse, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at Oxford University and author of Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World. Jason and Harvey explore: why cultivating a deeper understanding of evolutionary biology helps us explain the exact sociological appeal of strongmen like Putin and Trump; whether the decline in global religiosity has made societies less governable; and why the concept of identity fusion can shed light on how humans see their very essence of their being as part of a group and are willing to act collectively and selflessly to achieve what are perceived as shared interests.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/       Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links  Get Harvey’s book, Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World  https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451443/inheritance-by-whitehouse-harvey/9781529152227     For more on Harvey and his amazing breadth of research: https://www.harveywhitehouse.com/     Listen back to Claire York in ‘Ep39. What Role, if any, is there for Empathy in Ordering the Disorder?’ https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/ddabc397bd974b61f558504f5fff388f  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate ONE MILLION downloads (thanks mega orderers!), Jason is joined by his best friend and lecturer at the Swedish Defence College, Karl Karim Zakhour.    The two ruminate on a host of topics including: the rather surprising interconnections between neo-liberal reforms in Sweden and Syria and what they tell us about our era of Global Enduring Disorder; whether 2004 was the worst year in geopolitics, but the best year to drink arak in Damascus; whether a certain kind of vulgar Hegelianism might just save us from the current disorder; and whether Kier Starmer might just have what it takes to be the antidote to the rise of the far-right authoritarians. The episode concludes with Jason taking stock of what he has learned from doing the Disorder pod by laying out his vision for the kind of global institutions needed to make a Global Enduring Order come into being while Karim explains why bottom-up organizing and more voluntary associations are also needed to help us Order the Disorder.     Links:     For more on Karim Zakhour and the Försvarshögskolan: https://www.fhs.se/sc/profile-page.html?identity=400.506a10b718cee96f44e50adb       The Origins of AGE: From States and Markets to Scientific Methods   (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-13722-8_23)  What will the world look like in a hundred years? What will the study of international relations be like? This article lays out a vision of the future, at once familiar and unexpected.     Entrepreneurs of desperation: Young men and migration in interior Tunisia   (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003353232-11/entrepreneurs-desperation-karim-zakhour)  The article looks at how young men in Tunisia try to navigate around harsh economic realities and dream of better lives.     While We Wait: Democratization, State and Citizenship among Young Men in Tunisia's Interior Regions  (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1456250&dswid=5417)  Why did the Tunisian democratic experiment fail? Based on long fieldwork this Ph. D thesis argues that democratization creates both opportunities and deep uncertainties that are amplified by economic failures and thus creates its own authoritarian reaction.      Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/       Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NATO is the longest lasting and most successful military alliance in human history. Today NATOs 75th Summit in Washington, DC comes to a close. What can NATO’s past tell us about  its probably future?     To commemorate this symbolic occasion, Jason is joined by Peter Apps. He is the author of ‘Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO’, a global defence columnist for Reuters, and a British Army reservist. He has reported from more than 20 countries over two decades, despite being paralyzed in a frontline car crash in Sri Lanka in 2006.     Jason and Peter discuss: Lord Ismay’s dictum; how has the Ukraine war affected the alliance?; how important are personalities to the alliance and how it works?; and how can NATO’s history, institutional biography, and legacy of diplomatic flexibility shed some light on how it might respond to the unprecedented challenges around it — from the rise of the far right in National Rally in France, the AfD in Germany, to the spectre of Trump — and the challenges posed to NATO by Putin, Xi, climate change, AI, and misinformation.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    Peter’s book Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO: the "astonishingly fine history" of the world's most successful military alliance https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deterring-Armageddon-Biography-astonishingly-successful/dp/103540575X     Listen to Disorder Ep6. NATO: A Model for Ordering the Disorder? with Kori Shacke, Timothy Garton Ash, Jamie Shea and Charles Kupchan: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/9472a8b7d262dd9fb0cd9827e8947964     About the NATO Defense College Foundation: https://www.natofoundation.org/about-us  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of Brexit, upon them hath the light shined.’ (Isaiah 9, v.2 with only one word changed) In retrospect, the melodies and lyrics of Handel’s Messiah appear quite appropriate for this most non-Messianic of Messiahs, the man of our moment, Sir Keir.  Therefore, despite Alex and Jason’s fear about the large Reform vote and their trepidation about Biden’s remaining in the US Presidential race, they still make time to ‘Rejoice, Rejoice, Rejoice Greatly’ because British democracy does work. It operates via a system of checks and balances -- where every action causes a counter reaction, and every Sunak Rwanda scheme, Truss tanking of the economy, and Boris-y lie elicits a shift in public opinion.    Despite the positive news of Britian’s Independence from Neo-Populists, the Enduring Disorder still prevails in many corners of these resplendent Isles. Jason tells of his undercover ethnographic field trip to Clacton-on-Sea, where he discovers that Reform are actually just the UK branch of the MAGA movement. Jason and Alex debate if: 1) Britain is in a phase of post-populism or proto-populism; 2) if the wave has crested or if Britain is just at an earlier stage in development than France or the USA; 3) What we can extrapolate about how the British electorate’s protest votes over Gaza or immigration bode for the American election; and 4) the power of the anti-system and anti-incumbency pressures and how these two factors might be the big difference btw the British and American elections -- as in the US both anti-system and anti-incumbency tendencies are working for the Republicans and against the Dems, whereas in the July 4 UK election the anti-system vote worked against the Tories and for Reform while the anti-incumbency vote worked for the Tories and against Labour.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack to get a recent clip of Jason on Al Jazeera English talking about Sir Keir’s approach to Gaza: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    Oh Baby What a Night, the Two Matts on the Rise of the Lib Dems and Starmer’s flawless mastery of the first past the post system: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-two-matts/id1236139906?i=1000661232273     Read The Lammy Doctrine https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2024/06/david-lammy-doctrine-interview-jason-cowley?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email     Listen to an potted biography of Sir Keir’s personal, professional, and intellectual journey: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/origin-story/id1624704966?i=1000660203835   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Later this week as they go to the polls, UK voters will likely celebrate their very own ‘Independence from Neo-Populists Day’. With Labour widely expected to secure a large majority… could this be a chance for Order within an increasingly Disordered West? If he cruises to victory, as expected, how will Sir Keir manage his relations with the EU and US?  In this episode, Jason Pack and Alex Hall Hall discuss the rather uninspiring election campaign so far. They analyse why Labour’s play-it-safe ‘Gareth Southgate approach’ is dissuading some voters; what a Starmer premiership means for the UK’s relationship with the EU (could some stealth mega-ordering be on the horizon?); and how David Lammy and Kier would almost certainly reignite an increasingly ‘special relationship’ with a Biden/Democrat-led US, or how they would struggle to navigate a ‘specially-challenged-relationship’ with a Trump-led White House.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    Read In Picture-Postcard English Villages, a Seismic Political Shift Is Underway (on Jeremy Hunt) from the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/world/europe/uk-election-jeremy-hunt.html    Sir Keir Starmer must win. Only his government can shape the future we want to see: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2024/jun/28/the-guardian-view-on-the-general-election-2024-a-labour-victory-would-be-a-reason-for-hope     And when will we get the results: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/21/general-election-timetable-when-what-time-results/     Read The Lammy Doctrine https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2024/06/david-lammy-doctrine-interview-jason-cowley?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After months of the grandees in the Democratic party telling the public that Biden’s age was nothing to worry about: the Global Orderer-in Chief has been shown to have no clothes and his adult diapers were not changed prior to his appearing before an audience of tens of millions. As Mega-Orderers know, Jason is prone to melodrama, but in this instance the Sky Really Is Falling!  June 27, 2024 may go down there as one of those dates like Dec 7, 1941 and June 23, 2016: Dates that will live on in infamy.     Biden’s debate performance truly has massive implications for global order: it will embolden Pyongyang, Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow; it creates a dangerous global vacuum with an absence of orderers for many months until the dust settles from the US election; and it leaves the democratic party with an urgent choice how to choreography the process of substituting Biden out for a younger candidate.     To counterbalance Jason’s doom and gloom, he is joined by the ever up beat Glaswegian Jane Kinninmont who presents the view on Biden from the European capitals.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    As for what needs to happen now, here are what centrist Democrats  commentators are saying: Tom Friedman: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/joe-biden-tom-friedman.html     Frank Bruni: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/presidential-debate-trump-biden-2024.html     Scores of cogent podcasts have emerged dissecting the optics of the debate and what the Dems have to do now. Here are a couple that we have found particularly useful:    Ezra Klein: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-presidential-debate.html    The Rest is Politics US: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/advantage-trump-will-the-democrats-move-to-replace/id1743030473?i=1000660512902   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exactly 110 years ago, a malnourished teenager with a pistol disordered the world. On Sunday the 28th of June 1914, Gavrilo Princip fired two bullets. They hit their targets -- killing both the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian imperial crown, and his wife, Sophie.     That event ended the age of the traditional European empires, unleashed the mud and blood of the Great War, catalysed the fall of the Tsar and theoretical Marxism’s transformation into a totalitarian reality, and uncorked the nationalist genie that would lead to Hitler, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and later the Cold War. But did it also start our era of Enduring Disorder?     Jason has certain contentions about the relative degree of order and disorder in the past -- notably that the years 1815-2011, in general, and 1946-2003, in specific, were periods characterized by global order and coherent hegemonic leadership -- but what if he is wrong? What if our global disorder didn’t start in 2003 but rather in 1914?    In this special anniversary episode of Disorder, Tim Butcher tells Jason Pack about that fateful day exactly 110 years ago, what its disordering implications have been, how they have rippled down the years, and how modern history can be thought to have begun on that street corner in Sarajevo.     Princip has been variously described as the `bloodiest assassin in history’ and ‘the most important person in the entire 20th century’… but in this episode, we are going to investigate if he is -- possibly more so than even Trump, Putin or the Ayatollahs -- our world’s true disorder-in-chief… As Tim explains, there is every reason to feel that the world of the Fin de Siècle was in fact more order than what came after it and that Princip is the author of the Disorder that we now inhabit.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    Buy ‘The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War’ by Tim Butcher - https://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Hunting-Assassin-Brought-World/dp/0802123899/     For more on Gavrilo Princip’s biography: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gavrilo-Princip     For more on Tim Butcher’s amazing career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Butcher     And for his great episode on our sister Pod, Battleground: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/121-how-the-2006-war-relates-to-gaza-today/id1617276298?i=1000640849125   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We celebrate 9 full months of Disorder with a live studio recording. Climate change hasn’t been acted on coherently by a coalition of major powers, while certain governments and businesses have prevented climate action choosing to pursue short-term goals. Is this to be expected? Is it rational for some governments and business to pull in different directions or are they missing the plot and thinking too short-term?    But then again, is it in the long-term interest of most major states, citizens, and multinational corporations to work together to fight climate change? Or is it actually a rational calculation for certain states or corporations (like oil producing ones) to fight the creation of global coordination mechanisms and delay the energy transition and look to profit from the current high demand for the fossil fuels that they either export or produce?    To discuss this issue, Jason Pack is joined by Olivia Azadegan and Hassan Damluji.    Hassan Damluji is a British-Iraqi development expert and author of The Responsible Globalist: What Citizens of the World Can Learn from Nationalism. He is Co-founder of Global Nation, which focuses on improving international cooperation to combat climate change, pandemics, inequality and conflict. Olivia Azadegan is a British-Iranian, a fellow at the Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Change at the Atlantic Council and a winner of a Forbes 30 under 30 Award.    The trio discuss: what is the role of the MENA region in fighting climate change, how can nations effectively coordinate to incentivise each other to act now, and why low hanging fruit like reducing methane emissions could help us Order the Disorder.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    Listen to our previous Climate Change focusing on COP episode at: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/57a09a9714313530fa16475c09396f7b     For more on COP and collective action:  https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/12/13/in-a-first-cop28-targets-the-root-cause-of-climate-change     How MENA countries face achieving climate resilience: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/04/assessing-climate-adaptation-plans-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa?lang=en     Exploring the Energy Transition and Net-Zero Strategies of Gulf Oil Producers: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/exploring-energy-transition-and-net-zero-strategies-gulf-oil-producers     A profile of our Queen for an episode: https://www.forbes.com/profile/olivia-azadegan/     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Renowned Israeli Military historian Martin Van Creveld explains to Disorder listeners how certain essential elements of warfare have remained constant overtime. These continuities have been frequently overlooked in the sensationalizing media coverage of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.    In major interstate warfare, the defense retains its traditional advantages just as it did when Carl von Clausewitz penned his famous ‘On War’; in counter insurgency warfare separating insurgents from the shelter they receive from the local population remains as complex as when Mao Tze Dong wrote his ‘On Guerrilla Warfare’; and maintaining deterrence vis a vis one’s adversaries remains just as important as when Theodore Roosevelt suggested at the Minnesota State Fair in 1901 that one should ‘speak softly, and carry a big stick.’     Drawing on his extensive research over decades, Martin presents a rare treat for Disorder listeners sharing his theories on deterrence, the imitative nature of war, what makes people willing to fight and die, the tragedy of the Palestinians, propaganda in War, and what can be done to help Israelis and Palestinians understand each other’s narratives better. Martin Van Creveld has written 33 books with fluidity and grace on topics as wide ranging as tank battles, feminism, human consciousness, Western philosophy, and terrorism. Martin has briefed every major Western military and his books ‘Command in War’; ‘Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton’; ‘The Transformation of War’; ‘The Sword and the Olive’ and ‘The Rise and Decline of the State’; ‘the Culture of War’; ‘Pussycats: The West and the Rest’ have changed how war is studied at military academies the world over.    Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    On supply in War: https://www.bookandsword.com/2021/07/03/some-thoughts-on-van-crevelds-supplying-war/  On airpower: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/books/review/book-review-the-age-of-airpower-by-martin-van-creveld.html  Famous Martin Van Creveld Quotes: https://www.azquotes.com/author/3400-Martin_Van_Creveld   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heretofore, this podcast has largely examined the blame that neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, and neo-populists on the Right bear in causing our era of global enduring disorder. Now is the turn to set our crosshairs on the disorder that comes from the ideas of the Left. Recent events reveal that the Left lacks a coherent vision of the global economy, of global institutions, and possibly of the objectives of Western foreign policy in general. To be intellectually honest, we must ask is the progressive Left as guilty as the neo-populist Right in disordering the globe?     These days, many on the progressive left are outraged with Biden, Sunak, and Starmer’s centrism and demand a more humanitarian approach to Anglo-American foreign policy, but are those progressive voices sufficiently concerned about whether or not their preferred approach will lead to global order? Jason is joined by Professor Megan Stewart of the University of Michigan to discuss the implications of her co-authored essay in Foreign Affairs, ‘The Progressive Case Against Retrenchment’.    Megan explains that progressive American scholars have largely characterized their ‘progressive vision of foreign policy’ as one where the US and the West restrains its exercise of hegemonic power abroad. She explains that for these progressive thinkers, the U.S. is the greatest source of imperialism, war, and insecurity. Megan explains why they think this way and Jason shares his feelings that this train of thought is a recipe for further disorder. Megan concludes with a dose of hard nose realism arguing that force MAY be justified on progressive grounds, and that a truly progressive foreign policy means grappling with inevitable tradeoffs and trying to minimize them.     Twitter: @DisorderShow    Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links      Read Megan's co-authored article The Progressive Case for American Power  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/progressive-case-american-power   For more on Megan: https://www.meganastewart.org/bio    Her book Governing For Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War:  https://www.meganastewart.org/book-project   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices