In mid-August, the United States and Switzerland hosted peace talks for Sudan's warring parties. The talks took place outside Geneva at a time when the conflict was exacting a massive toll on the civilian population of Sudan. Just as the talks were getting underway, the UN confirmed a famine in a massive IDP camp in Darfur. Meanwhile, over 10 million people have been displaced by the fighting, making it the largest humanitarian crisis in the world by the numbers.

There have been some attempts at international mediation, none of which have stuck. Over the summer, the newly appointed U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, began laying the groundwork for these talks in Switzerland, which only recently concluded. There is obviously still no ceasefire in Sudan, but according to my guest today, Cameron Hudson, Senior Fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the talks nonetheless did achieve important progress on getting humanitarian aid to beleaguered populations.

 

 

Ever since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban three years ago, I have periodically checked in with my guest today, Zuhra Bahman. She is the Afghanistan Country Director for Search for Common Ground, an NGO focused on peacebuilding. When the Taliban toppled the Afghan government and asserted control in Kabul, Zuhra Bahman happened to be out of the country on a business trip. However, she was determined to return, and she did. As she explained in our previous conversations, she felt an obligation to influence the direction of her country under Taliban rule, improve the lives of women and girls, and promote local peacebuilding efforts.

In our conversation today, I ask her: Has she been successful? More broadly, Zuhra Bahman explains how consistent engagement with the Taliban authorities has led to some incremental gains, and she argues why the international community ought to deal directly and consistently with the Taliban.

 

Alsu Kurmasheva was visiting her ailing mother in Russia when she was detained by the authorities and had her passports confiscated. She is a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and her arrest immediately raised alarms that, like the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich, yet another American journalist has been targeted and wrongfully detained in Russia. However, unlike the wrongful detention of Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva's case is far less known.

My guest today is Pavel Butorin, Alsu's husband and also a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He explains what happened to Alsu and his ongoing efforts to secure her release from a Russian jail.

Interpol is the International Criminal Police Organzation. It was established 100 years ago to facilitate the cross border cooperation of national police agencies.  Interpol is an international organization with very high name recognition, but few people have a decent understanding of how it works. 

As it happens, before I became a foreign policy journalist I did an internship at Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France. And it is there that I caught up with my guest today, Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock. He is a former German police officer who is entering his tenth and final year as the Secretary General. In our conversation we discuss some broad trends in the transnational organized crime that he has witnessed in his tenure, and how Interpol is evolving to meet those challenges. We discuss how Interpol manages geopolitical friction and rivalries among its 195 member states, to stay true to its original mission of facilitating international police cooperation. 

Spotify users can get access to our bonus episodes and premium content through a Patreon Subsciption. Apple Podcasts can get this directly in the app. 

Get our newsletter! 

 

 

 

PEPFAR is an acronym that stands for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It is the largest foreign aid program targeted at a specific disease, and it is widely considered to be one of the most successful US foreign aid programs ever. 

George W Bush who started the program in 2003. It continued and expanded under President Obama and even thrived during the Trump years. But today its fate is uncertain. Funding for PEPFAR is provided by congress every five years, and typically this is a highly bi-partisan and wholly uncontroversial affair. It was due to be re-authorized this year -- but with the end of the fiscal year rapidly approaching, this legislation has not gone through. 

At issue is domestic politics around abortion. Anti-abortion groups in the United States have falsely accused PEPFAR under the biden administration of somehow indirectly or secretly supporting abortion. This idea has infected Republican politics -- several Republican members of congress who once supported PEPFAR are now preventing a vote on its re-authorization, threatening to undermine what one of these very members of congress once called "The most successful foreign aid program since the Marshall plan."

On the line to discuss PEPFAR's history of success and its uncertain future is Gayle Smith, CEO of the One Campaign and former head of the US Agency for International Development. 

Bill Richardson passed away on September 1st at the age of 75. He was a long serving member of Congress and Governor of New Mexico, former Secretary of Energy and US Ambassador to the United Nations. But his most lasting impact on international affairs was his freelance work as an international hostage negotiator. He would travel in his personal capacity to places like North Korea, Burma, and autocratic regimes around the world to help free people wrongfully detained abroad. He had a knack for negotiating with particularly nasty foreign leaders, earning him the moniker, "Undersecretary of Thugs."

When we spoke in 2015, Richardson had recently published a book about his experiences negotiating with autocrats called "How to Sweet Talk a Shark." And in our conversation, Richardson recounts stories and lessons learned from his work as a freelance diplomat dedicated to the release of hostages and political prisoners. We kicked off discussing how his unique bi-cultural upbringing and early experiences as a politician in New Mexico helped him develop the kinds of skills he would later deploy in negotiations with people like Saddam Hussein. 

I really appreciated this time with Bill Richardson. He was famously a very good talker, and this interview did not disappoint. The paywall on this episode is removed in remembrance of Bill Richardson. 

Full archives available to premium subscribers via Apple Podcasts, Patreon (for Spotify Users) and GlobalDispatches.org 

 

On August 20th a former academic, diplomat and now anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arevalo stunned the world with a landslide victory in Guatemala's presidential election. Arevalo won with over 60% of the vote, besting a former first lady who represented Guatemala's long dominant conservative -- and corrupt -- political establishment.

This was a truly unexpected result. People who professionally observe Central American politics, including Ivan Briscoe, were taken by surprise.  Ivan Briscoe is Program Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group. As he explains, Arevalo is genuinely committed to democracy and rooting out corruption -- and this is putting him at odds with the incumbent corrupt establishment. And despite the election results, the establishment is fighting back and taking measures to prevent Arevalo from wielding power in office and enacting meangful change. We kick off with a discussion of Arevelo's fascinating biography before having a longer conversation about the significance of his landslide victory. 

Newsletter: https://www.globaldispatches.org/ 

Patreon 

Spotify Premium Feed

BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is a significant grouping for the sheer size of the countries involved. BRICS account for 40% of the world's population and nearly one third of global GDP.  In late August BRICS held a much anticipated summit in Pretoria in which they agreed to add six more countries into the club: Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

You would be correct in thinking this is an odd grouping of countries, but as Ali Wyne explains, the attractiveness of joining BRICS outweighs the rivalries that some of these these countries might have with each other. And that, he says, captures the zeitgeist of geopolitics today. Ali Wyne is a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice, focusing on US-China relations and great-power competition. 

Support the show on Patreon

Premium Episodes on Apple Podcasts + Spotify 

Get Our Newsletter: https://www.globaldispatches.org/ 

Peter Bergen is one of the world's foremost experts on global jihadist movements like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. He is a journalist who has covered this beat for decades, including the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997.  Peter Bergen discusses where Qaeda and the Islamic State stand today, including how the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has impacted these global Jihadist movements. We also discuss why the Western Sahel region of Africa has become the geographical base of so many al Qaeda and Islamic State splinter groups. We discuss those questions and many more in detail, but kick off with a plug of Peter Bergen's new podcast, In the Room. 

In The Room 

Our newsletter: GlobalDispatches.org 

Support our work on Patreon

Pangolins are small mammals with hard scales and vital to biodiversity in forested regions. They are also the most trafficked mammal in the world. Although they are a protected species in international law, transnational organized criminal groups profit from trafficking Pangolins

This includes the Congo Basin in Central Africa. International organized criminal groups run poaching and trafficking networks in which most poached pangolins are exported to China and Southeast Asia, where they are a key ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pangolin meat is considered a high-end delicacy.

According to my guest today Oluwole Ojewale these networks rake in millions and are a destabilizing force across several countries in the Central Africa. Oluwole Ojewale is the Regional Organized Crime Observatory Coordinator for Central Africa at the Institute for Security Studies. As he explains in our conversation Pangolin trafficking is part of a broader criminal network of illicit wildlife trafficking that funds armed groups, including terrorist groups active in the Central Africa.

 

 

The number of migrants and refugees who are dying at sea while crossing the mediterranean is at a four year high.  Nearly 2,000 people are confirmed to have died in the medditeran thus far in 2023, although the real number is likely higher. In one tragedy alone, about 600 people drowned off the coast of Greece in June.  

The most popular migrant route in recent months has been from Tunisia to Italy. That was where the MSF/Doctors Without Borders Rescue Ship the Geo Barents was patrolling in early August when it came acorss a crowded migrant boat that had been adrift for days. My guest today,  Margot Bernard of MSF, describes this rescue operation in detail. And through her account of this rescue, explains how policies of European countries are contributing to a surging number of deaths at sea. 

Please support our unique brand of humanitarian journalism by getting a paid subscription on Apple Podcasts/supporting through Patreon/ or via Substack

https://www.globaldispatches.org/

 

In 2003 a militia drawn from ethnic Arab tribes in Darfur, known as the Janjaweed, partnered with the government of Sudan in a genocidal campaign against non-Arab tribes in the region. An estimated 300,000 people were killed in the 2003-2004 Darfur genocide. In August 2023, there is mounting evidence of ethnic cleansing is again underway in Darfur, and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is warning that there is risk of a full blown genocide.  

As Cameron Hudson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies explains, what is happening in Darfur today is reminiscent of the Genocide 20 years ago. We kick off discussing the current campaign of ethnic cleansing underway in Darfur.  He then explains how the genocidal Janjaweed militia became the Rapid Support Forces, which are carrying out these atrocities while battling for control of the whole of Sudan in a full blown civil war that began in April. We discuss how the Rapid Support Forces funds its operations, and the support it is receiving from the United Arab Emirates.

Global Dispatches will bear witness to the unfolding crisis in Darfur even as it is far from the headlines of most western outlets. We will offer original reporting, and give you the analysis and context you need to understand this crisis as it unfolds through a series we are calling Darfur Genocide Watch. To access this series and support our work, become a paid subscriber in Apple Podcasts, via Patreon or via Substack

 

For the last eight years a decrepit old oil tanker off the coast of Yemen has been like a ticking time bomb, threatening to unleash unprecedented disaster in the Red Sea. The 47 year old oil tanker, the FSO Safer, was fraying and decaying -- and filled with one million barrels of oil. For reference, this is about four times the amount that the Exonn Valdez spilled in 1989. The UN estimated that a spill from the SFO Safer would cause an ecological, environmental and humanitarian disaster across the Red Sea region, destroying pristine reefs, and imperling costal fishing communities in Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and beyond. It would take 25 years for fish stocks to replenish. The cleanup alone would cost $20 billion.

But today's episode is about how that disaster was averted. On Friday, August 11th the United Nations announced that the FSO Safer's 1 million barrels of oil had been offloaded. This was the culmination of a massive political, diplomatic and logistical undertaking and my guest is the person who was at the center of it all, the UN's top official in Yemen David Gressly. 

David Gressly is an Assistant UN Secretary General, with whom I spoke from Aden just hours after the last oil had been pumped out of the FSO Safer. We kick off discussing the circumstances in which the oil became trapped in the old vessel, which is very much part of the story of Yemen's civil war. But this is a good news story of a crisis averted. 

On May 19th, a helicopter crash in Iran killed President Ebrahim Raisi and several top government officials. This forced new presidential elections, and on July 5th, Masoud Pezeshkian defeated his more hardline opponent and is now Iran's president-elect. Pezeshkian comes from the reformist faction of Iranian politics, but real power still lies in the hands of unelected clerics, none more so than Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Still, this election will have an impact on Iran's relationship with the outside world, including the West. Joining me to explain the international implications of Masoud Pezeshkian's election is Sina Toossi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy. We discuss what we mean by "reformist" in the context of Iranian politics, which leads into a broad conversation about the kinds of changes we might see in Iranian domestic and foreign policy as Pezeshkian takes the reins of government from a hardline faction that has been dominant for the last several years.

Haiti is in the midst of the worst humanitarian and security crisis in years. Gang related violence is surging - and the Haitian National Police are overwhelmed and incapable of restoring order.  According to some estimates gangs now control about 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. This rampant insecurity is driving a humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. About half the country is experiencing food insecurity. 

Amid surging violence and insecurity, Prime Minister Ariel Henry appealed to the international community to send help and asked the United Nations Security Council to support a foreign military or police intervention in Haiti. For a long time, no county was willing to step up and volunteer to lead an intervention in Haiti -- that was until Kenya said that it was willing to lead a UN-backed multinational intervention in Haiti.

But is this even a good idea? Joining me to discuss that question and many more is Renata Segura, Deputy Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group. We kick off discussing the gang violence and security challenges in Haiti before having a long conversation about the international dynamics driving a potential Kenya-lead intervention in Haiti. 

 

Listening on Spotify? Go here to find our bonus episodes and premium content. 

On July 26th, the democratically elected president of Niger Mohamed Bazoum was deposed in a military coup. This coup seemingly came out of nowhere. Now, a country that had been a key US ally and a French ally in the region is suddenly in turmoil. There is also a good deal of concern that the new Nigerienne junta may turn to Moscow for support, just like the coup leaders in Mali and Burkina Faso. 

Joining me to discuss the coup in Niger and what comes next is Leonardo Villalón, professor of African Politics at the The University of Florida. We kick off discussing the possible motivations of the coup leaders and then have a long conversation about the domestic, regional and geopolitical implications of this coup.

 

The Wagner group was a key fighting force in Ukraine until its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin,  attempted a mutiny. 20 years before Wagner was tapped to fight in Ukraine, the United States turned to the private security firm, Blackwater, during its occupation of Iraq. Like Wagner, Blackwater was a for-profit entity that was fighting alongside one of the most powerful militaries in the world. And also like Wagner, Blackwater was credibly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

So why is it that countries turn to private groups like this during wartime? I put that question to Dr. Benjamin Tkach, associate professior of political science at Mississippi State University. He is a researcher who studies security privatization, including private military contractors and mercenaries. We kick off briefly defining our terms: what do we mean by "mercenary" and "private security and military company?" We then have a long discussion about the corporate structure of the Wagner Group and its deployment in Africa and Ukraine. Benjamin Tkach compares Wagner today to Blackwater 20 years ago to help answer the question of why powerful countries turn to private groups in times of war.

Get our newsletter! 

https://www.globaldispatches.org/ 

 

Monica Juma is the National Security Advisor to Kenyan President William Ruto. Kenya is a stable democracy in a tough neighborhood. There is an ongoing Islamist insurgency across the border in Somalia, and nearby Sudan is in the midst of a spiraling civil war. On top of this all, the Horn of Africa is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years. I asked Monica Juma about each of these challenges, starting with how climate change is impacting Kenya’s national security.    Today's episode was recorded live at the Aspen Security Forum. It is the last of three interviews I conducted on site in the middle of July, the others including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk and International Relations scholar Joseph Nye.    https://www.globaldispatches.org/     

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She is a human rights lawyer who leads the Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian human rights organization.  

Oleksandra Matviichuk has been systematically documenting Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity since 2014, when Russia first annexed parts of Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, her work has intensified and includes advocating for ways to bring perpetrators to justice. We kick off discussing her work prior to the 2014 annexations and 2022 Russian invasion and then have a powerful conversation about reconciling her values as a human rights lawyer and the desperate need for a swift Ukrainian military victory against Russia.  

I caught up with Oleksandra Matviichuk at the Aspen Security Forum, where we recorded our conversation live. 

Please visit https://www.globaldispatches.org/ to get our free newsletter and learn more about our work. 

I caught up with legendary international relations scholar Joseph Nye at the The Aspen Security Forum. This conference was a target rich environment for snagging great guests for the podcast and I have some excellent episodes coming up, including a conversation with the most recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the Ukranian Human Rights Lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk and Kenya's National Security Advisor Monica Juma. 

I speak with Joseph Nye, best known for coming up with the concept of "Soft Power" about the sources of Chinese soft power today and how that factors into geopolitical competition with the United States. We also discuss what opportunities might be harnessed to avoid a new Cold War between the United States and China. 

Since the start of the war, Russia has abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. These kidnappings have been well documented by Ukrainian authorities and civil society groups. Last March, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and his children's affairs commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the "unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."

What happens after these children have been abducted is revealed in a new documentary by my guest today Isobel Yeung, senior correspondent for Vice News. She reported from both Ukraine and Russia to uncover a system of re-purposed summer camps and foster families who have assumed guardianship over abducted Ukrainian children. She interviews the ringleader of it all-- the alleged war criminal Maria Lvova-Belova.

 

NATO held a Major summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11th and 12th. Top on the agenda, of course, was Ukraine including Ukraine's potential future NATO membership. Another key issue on the agenda was Sweden. Last year, both Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO. Finland is in, but Turkey had been blocking Sweden's membership. That abruptly changed in Vilnius, paving the way for all Nordic countries to become NATO members.

Joining me to discuss what happened at this meeting, and what the Vilnius summit suggests about the future of NATO is Jim Goldgeier a professor of International Relations at American University and a longtime scholar of NATO and transatlantic affairs. We kick off discussing the debate around Ukraine's potential membership before discussing many of the other issues on the agenda in Lithuania, and what meeting means for NATOs future and the war in Ukraine. 

 

The international shipping industry is a major greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for about three percent of all greenhouse gas emitted last year. For reference, this is roughly equivalent to the total annual emissions of Germany. 

Because these emissions occur on international waters, the shipping industry was purposefully left out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Instead, a UN agency called the International Maritime Organization is the forum for multilateral diplomacy to curb emissions in international shipping. In early July members of the IMO met in London for negotiations.  

Joining me to discuss why this meeting was so significant to international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions is Susan Ruffo, Senior Director and Senior Advisor for Ocean and Climate at United Nations Foundation. We kick off discussing the impact of international shipping on climate change and then have an extended conversation about what happened at this meeting of the International Maritime Organization, which includes a new target for emission reduction and progress towards enacting a levy on carbon emissions from shipping. 

 

 

 

 

 

Taiwan will hold presidential elections in January 2024. Needless to say, these elections will have extremely consequential geopolitical implications. The two main candidates have differing views of Taiwan's relationship with China. Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is the current Vice President and represents the stronger pro-independence faction of Taiwanese politics. His main rival, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomingtang (KMT)  supports closer relations between Taipei and Beijing. And this year there is a surprising third party candidate, Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), who is is shaking up what is conventionally a two party presidential contest.

Joining me for an in-depth conversation about Taiwanese politics and these upcoming elections is Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution where he is the program manager of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. We kick off discussing the political history of Taiwan following the Chinese civil war and then have an in-depth conversation about each of the candidates' positions on the key issue of cross straight relations. 

The Labour Party won an overwhelming victory in the recent elections in the United Kingdom. Keir Starmer is now Prime Minister, ending 14 years of Conservative rule in the UK. So what does this mean for Britain's foreign policy? Can we expect any major changes to Britain's relationship with the world?

Joining me to discuss the foreign policy implications of the UK elections is Jason Pack, host of the Disorder Podcast. We have an extended discussion about the new Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who Jason Pack argues will have an outsized role in shaping UK foreign policy in the years to come. This includes reorienting and reinvigorating Britain's once-vaunted global development programs.

"The Lammy Doctrine"  New Statesmen

The Disorder podcast: https://linktr.ee/disorderpod

Less developed countries rightly lament the lack of access to funding for sustainable development that donor countries routinely promise, but rarely deliver. To remedy, dozens of Presidents, Prime Ministers and high-level officials met in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact to rethink the "global financial architecture" to support developing economies grow in a climate compliant way. This summit was intended to kickstart momentum toward new funding opportunities for sustainable development, including enacting reforms at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. 

This was a big moment for the sustainable development community and joining me to explain what happened is Clemence Landers, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. We kick off discussing why such a meeting was necessary in the first place, including a trifecta of crises that is driving economic distress in less developed countries today. We then discuss the outcomes of the meeting, and what it means for global development and climate change debates going forward. 

Amed Khan has been described as a "direct action philanthropist." He goes to the frontlines of humanitarian crises on his own and uses his personal wealth and networks to deliver whatever the communities say they need. For the past two years, Amed Khan has been in Ukraine near the frontlines of fighting in places like Bakhmut. When we spoke he had just returned from Kherson, which experienced catastrophic flooding following the sabotage of a major dam upstream.

We kick off discussing how he got into this line of work in general, and to Ukraine in particular. As he explains he has a long history in Ukraine, but more recently worked with Ukrainian special forces to help rescue Afghans as Kabul fell to the Taliban. This was just months before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

We discuss why "frontlines philanthropy" is a unique approach to humanitarianism, the advantages and limitations of which we discuss at length.

 

 

 

 

Over the decades, Senegal has earned a reputation as a reliably stable democracy in West Africa. But recent events have put that reputation to test.  Over the last month, Senegal has been rocked by widespread protests against the government of President Macky Sall. These protests were sparked by the arrest and conviction of a prominent opposition party leader, Ousmane Sanko. The government response to these protests has been brutal. More than a dozen people have been killed, many by live ammunition fired into crowds of protesters.

Joining me to discuss recent events in Senegal is Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy director within the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. We discuss what lead to these protests and what Human Rights Watch uncovered about the government’s deadly response. We then have a broader discussion about what is driving democratic backsliding in Senegal

Back in 2017, the Trump administration announced that the United States would formally leave UNESCO, the UN's education, science and cultural organization. When the Biden administration came to office it promised to reverse course and rejoin UNESCO.  On June 12 this year it announced a plan to do just that. 

Joining me to discuss America's complicated relationship with UNESCO and explain why the Biden administration is seeking to rejoin is Peter Yeo, President of the Better World Campaign and Senior Vice President at the United Nations Foundation.  We kick off discussing what exactly UNESCO does and how it supports American interests before having a longer conversation about this recent frought history between UNESCO and the US. Peter Yeo then explains the process by which the Biden administration is seeking to rejoin UNESCO. 

Since fighting broke out in Sudan on April 15th this year, more than million people have been displaced internally and internationally. Many of the borders across which Sudanese have fled are not functional borders -- that is, there is no process to register or screen people who are entering a country. According to my guest today, non-functional porous borders are exacerbating an aleady dire humanitarian crisis. 

Margaret Monyani is a senior migration researcher at Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. We kick off discussing why the African Union is focusing more heavily on border control and administration before having a longer conversation about what Sudan's refugee crisis tells us about African borders today. 

On May 14th, Thailand held general elections. The results were a shock to the Thai political system.  

Since a 2014 coup, the military leaders have dominated Thai politics. A main opposition party has challenged military rule, but has been genereally thwarted at every turn.  However, this year a third party emerged victorious: and their vision for the country represents a radically progressive shift in Thai politics. 

The Move Forward Party, lead by a charismatic Harvard and MIT educated 42 year  Pita  Limjaroenrat won the elections. And they did so, according my guest today, by chanellening a kind of progressive populism that can change Thailand's domestic political culture and foreign policy in big ways. 

Prashanth Parameswrn is a Fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the ASEAN Wonk Substack Newsletter.  We kick off discussing the political context in which Move Forward won these elections. We then have an extended conversation about how the Military Junta has rigged the Thai political system in such a way that the Move Forward Party may never actually be able to form a government. Even if they did, the threat of a coup would loom large. We then have an extended conversation about what this election means in terms of Thai foreign policy and geopolitical competition in Southeast Asia between the US and China.   

 

 

 

On June 7th, the Professional Golf Association announced a merger with a Saudi backed rival golf league known as LIV Golf. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, backed this deal. The chairman of the Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund will serve as the chairman of this new yet-to-be named golf league.  In other words, Saudi Arabia just bought the sport of Professional Golf. 

This move comes on the heels of other Saudi forays into professional sports, including the purchase of the Newcastle United Premier League soccer team in 2021.

The Saudi purchase of professional golf is a clear example of an attempt to rehabilitate its public image through sports, otherwise known as "sportswashing."  

Joining me to discuss this Saudi public diplomacy gambit is Alex Ward, National Security Reporter for Politico.  We kick off discussing the lessons learned from Saudi Arabia's purchase of Newcastle United and then have a conversation about the PGA merger in the context of Saudi Arabia's politics and foreign policy. 

Get our free newsletter: https://globaldispatches.substack.com/ 

In the early hours of Tuesday, June 6th a major Dam on the Dnipro river in Russian occupied Ukraine suffered catastrophic damage. Floodwaters are now rushing downstream and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing.

The path of these destructive floodwaters roughly follows the frontlines between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Southern Ukraine and this breach comes just as Ukraine's much anticipated counteroffensive gets underway. This obviously raises the question: did Russia sabotage the Kakhovka dam to thwart a Ukrainian counteroffensive? 

I'm joined today by the former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst.  He is a retired career foreign service office and now the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. We kick off discussing the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, including the likelihood that it was deliberately destroyed by Russia. We then have an extended conversation about what the destruction of this dam means for Ukraine's counteroffensive.\

The second leading cause of death from infectious disease around the world is Tuberculosis, following COVID. 10 million people globally develop TB each year, and in 2021 1.6 million died from Tuberculosis. 

So why is a disease that is preventable and curable still inflicting such a major toll on the health and welfare of so many people and what can be done to reduce the burden of TB around the world? Joining me to answer these questions and more is Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership. 

We kick off discussing trends in TB around the world including how covid impacted efforts to reach global targets around reducing sickness and death from TB. We then have a longer conversation about what can be done to accelerate progress against this deadly disease. 

 

 

In 1993, governments around the world agreed to a landmark arms control treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention. It prohibits countries from building chemical weapons, using chemical weapons and requires countries to destroy whatever stockpiles of chemical weapons they may have. 

The way treaties like this work is that governments come together every few years for what are known as "Review Conferences" in which they assess past progress and set priorities for the coming years.  In the middle of May, members of the Chemical Weapons Convention gathered in The Hague for a five year review conference. And that is where things hit a few snags, according to my guest today Mary Wareham. 

Mary Wareham is the advocacy director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. We kick off discussing the history and some successes of the Chemical Weapons Convention. We then have a longer discussion about the complicated diplomatic dynamics of maintaining an an effective ban on chemical weapons use and development. 

 

From July 15th to the 18th, the Chinese Communist Party is holding a gathering known as the Third Plenum. This is a highly anticipated political event, as Xi Jinping and party officials are expected to announce key economic reforms intended to spur the Chinese economy. For the past several years, especially since COVID, the Chinese economy has been lagging. According to my guest today, Anja Manuel, executive director of the Aspen Security Group, this is largely because Xi has prioritized regime security over economic growth.

We kick off by discussing what the Third Plenum is and have a broad conversation about the economic and political context in which this meeting is occurring. We also discuss the broader geopolitical implications of a slowing Chinese economy and what that means for competition between the US and China.

Finally, Anja Manuel previews the Aspen Security Forum, which kicks off on July 16th. This is a significant foreign policy and national security gathering that I've had the pleasure of attending for the past few years.

https://www.globaldispatches.org/SaveUs 

On Wednesday May 17th, Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso invoked a constitutional provision known as muerte cruzada, or "mutual death." The move dissolves the parliament and enables Lasso to rule by decree for six months when new elections are held.

This political upheaval comes at a time of surging violence in Ecuador, driven largely by gang violence related to cocaine trafficking. Joining me to discuss the political crisis in Ecuador, explain what is driving a surge in violence in the county -- and the connection between the Ecuador's politics and rising crime is Glaeldys Gonzalez a fellow for the Latin America and Carribbean program at the international crisis group. 

 

The study and analysis of Great Power Competition is all the vogue in international relations and foreign policy circles. And understandably so: the rise of China, the actions of Russia and America's approach to geopolitics are indeed setting the conditions in which some big global shifts are playing out.

But that does not mean one should ignore the role that small states are playing in international politics. If you overlook small states, you are missing a complete picture of international relations today. 

My guest today, Tom Long, is author of the book  "A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics" and associate professor of international relations at the University of Warwick.  He studies how smaller states have successfully shaped internationally affairs to their advantage.

The year is 2026, and China has just launched an invasion of Taiwan.

What happens next was the subject of a comprehensive non-classified War Game simulation lead by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Our guest, Mark Cancian, is a retired Marine Colonel and senior advisor at CSIS and one of the lead conveners of this War Game. 

We kick off discussing how the War Game was designed before having a longer conversation about the outcomes it predicted. This includes death tolls, the role of Japan and whether or not the US and Chinese homeland are attacked.  I'll cut to the chase: after 24 iterations, the most probable outcome was the defeat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, but at a staggeringly high cost to Taiwan and the United States. 

 

Ukraine is widely expected to launch a counter-offensive to reclaim territory captured by Russia. And if Ukraine is successful on the battlefield, Russia may float a ceasefire proposal, that more likely than not would be disingenuous and merely an attempt to stall for time. 

These are some of the conclusions of a recent Red Team exercise conducted by the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) which gathered a number of experts to predict Russia's approach to a potential ceasefire negotiation. Joining me to discuss their findings and how a Russian ceasefire proposal might upend international support for Ukraine is Dr. Paul Williams, founder of Public International Law & Policy Group which is a pro bono law firm supporting states and governments involved in, among other things peace and ceasefire. 

 

This is a a special crossover episode featuring Global Dispatches host Mark Leon Goldberg taking questions from veteran journalist Ray Suarez, from the On Shifting Ground podcast. They discuss trends in international reporting and why humanitarian journalism is a vital part of the media ecosystem. Regular Global Dispatches listeners will get a unique understanding of how the show is put together every week. 

 

Before COVID more and more children around the world were receiving their routine vaccinations on time and in full. But COVID severely interrupted that progress. Now, we are seeing lagging indicators of interrupted childhood vaccinations in the form of outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases like measles and diphtheria. 

To reverse this trend a number of global health entities have joined forces for what they call “The Big Catch-up” to boost vaccination among children following declines driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

joining me to discuss trends in routine childhood vaccinations around the world, the impact of COVID 19 on those trends and what can be done to restore progress is Dr. Ephrem Lemango, associate director of immunization at UNICEF headquarters in New York. 

 

 

 

On May 11th a pandemic-era policy, known as Title 42, will expire. This was a Trump administration policy which used public health concerns as a pretext expel migrants from the United States before they could claim asylum under US and international law. Title 42 has continued under the Biden administration but is set to expire. American officials are bracing for a massive increase in the number of people seeking asylum at the southern US border.  This is shaping up to be a humanitarian crisis and bureaucratic crisis rolled up into one. 

Joining me to help explain recent migration patterns in the Americas and the Biden administration's approach to migration at the southern US border is Yael Schacher, director for America's and Europe and Refugees International.

We kick off discussing one key node in an increasing number of migrants journeys known as the Darien Gap. We then have a broad discussion about the patchwork of US policies intended to handle asylum claims and offer a legal pathway to entry to the USA. 

Turkey holds elections on May 14th. For the first time in twenty years, President Erdogan is facing a serious challenge at the ballot box. The opposition has unified behind candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a 74 year old career politician whose low-key demeanor is a stark contrast to President Erdogan's bombastic charisma.

As my guest today Dr. Lisel Hintz explains, Turkey's struggling economy and the fallout from the earthquakes earlier this year are re-shaping the political landscape.  Dr. Lisel Hintz is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. We kick off discussing some of the domestic political dynamics driving this election and then have a discussion about the foreign policy implications of the elections. This includes Turkey's relationship to NATO, its position on Russia and Ukraine and regional dynamics in the Middle East.

 

In the ten year history of this podcast, it is rare to have episodes on the same topic in back to back weeks. But the unfolding crisis in Sudan is such an important topic that it demands attention. 

Last week, I spoke with civil society activist Hala al Karib, who was trapped in her house in Khartoum as fighting erupted. She very  much offered an informed local perspective on what was happening around her. Today, we are taking a global perspective on Sudan's burgeoning civil war with Cameron Hudson. He's a senior associate in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a long time Sudan policy hand in Washington DC. 

We kick off discussing why this conflict erupted when it did. We then spend a good deal of time discussing how and why this incipient civil war is very much an international affair, including a discussion of the diplomatic failures that lead to this moment. 

On March 29th, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia and charged with espionage. The charges are spurious, but the intentions are clear: Evan Gershkovich is now a hostage in Russia and his release will require a delicate diplomatic balancing act. 

My guest today Dr. Dani Gilbert is an academic who studies what she calls "Hostage Diplomacy." She is the Edelson Fellow in US Foreign Policy and International Security at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.

We last spoke in June 2022, following the arrest of the American basketball star Britney Griner. In our conversation today, we discuss the differences and similarities between the Griner case and the Gershovich situation. We also discuss what processes might lead to Gershkovich's release and how this latest wrongful detention of an American abroad fits into larger patterns around government sponsored hostage taking.  

A rather bizarre incident recently occurred in the South China Sea off the coast of the Philippines. On June 17th, the Chinese Coast Guard clashed with Philippine naval vessels en route to resupplying a stranded Philippine ship on a formation known as the Second Thomas Shoal. This desolate shoal is very much in the territorial waters of the Philippines, but China nonetheless claims it as Chinese sovereign territory. The Chinese have routinely harassed Philippine ships in the area, but on June 17th, the Chinese Coast Guard attacked the Philippine naval vessels with water cannons, swords, and axes in the most violent incident of its kind in years. This kind of escalation risks drawing in the United States due to the longstanding Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Philippines, which obliges the US to come to the defense of the Philippines. This has the potential to draw the US and China into direct conflict.

My guest today is Prashanth Parameswaran, founder of the ASEAN Wonk newsletter and fellow at the Wilson Center. We kick off by discussing what exactly happened during the June 17th incident before having a broader conversation about the dynamics in which this territorial dispute in the South China Sea draws the US and China closer to conflict--and how to escape that trap.

On Saturday, April 15th fighting broke out in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan. At time of recording, hundreds of people have been killed, all commercial air travel has been suspended, and international aid operations have come to a halt. In the massive city of Khartoum, millions of people are sheltering in place, with dwindling supplies of food and water-- and that includes my guest today Hala al-Karib, a Sudanese activist, research practitioner and director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. 

When I last spoke with Hala al-Karib for the podcast in late February, she more or less predicted the crisis we are seeing today which is the result of a failure of a transition to democracy in Sudan.

Hala al-Karib explains that despite the predicable failure of the democratic transition in Sudan, people were still caught off guard by the actual outbreak of fighting. We then go on to discuss some of the broader conflict dynamics and what can be done to pull Sudan back from the brink of all out civil war. 

Over ten years ago, most Arab countries in the Middle East cut ties with the Syrian government during the civil war and supported armed groups dedicated to the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Meanwhile, Iran was Assad's key backer. 

But now, in the Spring of 2023 a big shift is underway. Saudi Arabia and Iran are taking steps towards rapprochement and Arab governments throughout the region are re-opening embassies in Damascus and re-establishing diplomatic relations with Syria.

Joining me to explain what is driving this regional re-alignment is Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the Mackey Chair. We kick off discussing how the outbreak of the Syrian civil war impacted regional diplomacy and why now we are seeing such profound changes in the the geopolitics of the Middle East. 

 

About six years ago, I received a request for an interview from an academic in the United Kingdom named Martin Scott who was doing journalism related research. That interview helped to inform the new book: "Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone" by Martin Scott, and coauthors Mel Bunce, and Kate Wright -- all of whom are academics. 

The book identifies and defines what the authors call "humanitarian journalism" which combines conventional journalistic norms like objectivity with certain key humanitarian principals like the moral equivalence of all lives, regardless of geography. The book explicitly cites my work, as well as that of a small number of other journalists who do what they called humanitarian journalism. I talk with Martin Scott, Associate Professor in Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia about the concept and practice of "humanitarian journalism."