Need to Know

Nina Jankowicz comes back to discuss her new book "How To Lose the Information War." It's a fun discussion about human nature, regulation, great powers, we even throw a little Shakespeare in there. Something to add to your summer reading list!

Duncan Wood and Chris Wilson come back to help us understand how a dip in the Mexican economy can affect USMCA implementation and how a visit from the Mexican President to the US plays politically in Mexico.  Interesting stuff.  This presentation and interview are taken from a briefing we conducted over zoom last week.  So references to a visit "next week" refer to this week of July 5th.

We are living through a historic moment.  In this episode, I talk with author Dorothy Crawford, who wrote an excellent book called "Deadly Companions: How Microbes Have Shaped Our History."  She does an amazing job at providing a historical context to how pandemics shape human actions and civilization.  I highly recommend taking a look at her book, where she predicted this current pandemic as bein...

Asia Program Deputy Director Michael Kugelman explains the border dispute between China and India, which leads to an explanation of the complex web of relationships in the South Asia region.  There's so much more to understand about these relationships, we hope to dive more into that soon.

It has been one year since we started this show, and this is the 50th episode. It's a big moment, and comes at a big moment in history. So in this episode, we go back to the guests of our most popular episodes and take a look back and a look forward. Matt Rojansky joins me to talk about Russia, Aynne Kokas and Robert Daly discuss China, and Mike Sfraga talks about the Arctic. Fun for everyone!

Wilson Center Canada Institute Director Christopher Sands has a project looking at how states, provinces and local jurisdictions on both sides of the northern border are approaching reopening their economies. And this begs the larger question of how reopening the international border will take place. It takes two to tango when dealing with opening a border. How are the US and Canada approaching th...

What if you had to renegotiate all of your trade deals right now with everything go on in the global economy. Well, that's exactly what the UK has to do after Brexit. It has embarked on new trade negotiations with the EU and the US, all while trying to navigate the perils of the Corona Economy. Trade expert and Wilson Global Fellow Michelle Egan joins me to show how the UK is handling this and wha...

Shihoko Goto, of the Wilson Center's Asia Program gives us an economic look at Asia, both in its recovery attempts in dealing with being the leading edge of the coronavirus impact - and the first on the other side of the bell curve - to what is on the horizon.

Continuing our look at economics in a time of global pandemics, I talk with Benjamin Gedan of the Latin American Program at the Wilson Center to see what Latin America is doing in this crisis, and the prospects for recovery. 

Scott Cullinane, Executive Director at the US-Europe Alliance and alumni of the Wilson Foreign Policy Fellowship Program talks with me about European Union response to coronavirus, and what the challenges posed for an economic recovery on the continent.

If you like what you hear, could you leave us a review?  Wilson Center Asia Program Director, Abraham Denmark joined us on a webinar briefing for congressional staff recently to explain where Kim Jong Un could possibly be and why, the small matter of succession in an authoritarian monarchy, and what it means for the future.  This edited version of that briefing features questions submitted to us f...

May 9th in Russia, is like the US' Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day rolled into one. Celebrating the end of WWII is a big deal every year. This year is the 75th anniversary, so it was supposed to be even bigger. To top it off Vladimir Putin weaved a complex constitutional change and plebiscite to extend his rule in office to correspond with the great patriotic celebration. Yuval Weber expla...

After an introduction from my kids, Duncan Wood and Chris Wilson from the Wilson Center Mexico Institute, and our brand new Canada Institute Director, Chris Sands, join me to discuss how our supply chain is holding up in North America, and what we are learning from the current COVID-19 crisis. 

Two of our previous guests come together to talk to us about disinformation in general, and specific to COVID-19 in Europe and Asia. Nina Jankowicz, Disinformation Fellow with the Wilson Center's Science and Technology Innovation Program, and Rui Zhong, an Associate with the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute take a look at what's out there and its effects on response and recovery.

2036 seems like a long way off. That must be why it was chosen as the end date for the next term of the Putin presidency -- if proposed constitutional changes go through -- which everyone believes they will. There is a pesky global pandemic that is slowing things down, but by all accounts, it looks like Putin will have his way. Why is Vladimir Putin such an enduring fixture of the Russian state? C...

Ben Buchanan, author of "The Hacker and the State" joins me to discuss his book and waiting for "the big one" in cyber. In short, we are not talking about coronavirus -- just your normal everyday other issues that could bring down the world.

Welcome Back to Need to Know!  It has been a month since our last episode, which was on the coronavirus.  And wow, the world has changed drastically.  Here, we go back to the same three experts we spoke to a month ago, and try to go beyond the everyday news on the virus to what this means more broadly in society and ramifications for the economy and foreign policy.  We hope that everyone is stayin...

I'm joined by three experts today. Alex Long, who walks us through the public health perspective of understanding coronavirus, its implications for global health and security -- Rui Zhong, who explains some of the societal dynamics in China that we have seen from this outbreak -- And Shihoko Goto, who deftly explains how this is affecting the global economy and what it may mean for the future. Thi...

Disinformation Fellow Nina Jankowicz joins me to discuss what has been the impact of so many international incidents on the national psyche of Ukraine. And in a Need to Know first, we have questions submitted to our expert by congressional staff! If you have questions you'd like answered on the podcast, email us at needtoknow@wilsoncenter.org

Latin America Program Fellow Michael Penfold joins the Need to Know podcast to discuss the appearance of Juan Guaidó at the State of the Union, and what that means for the situation in Venezuela.

NAFTA -- the FTA that everyone loves to hate. And now, we are fast progressing towards USMCA. Here we talk to our Wilson Center experts about where NAFTA came up short, and how the USMCA addresses those issues.

You know you love trade history. This is a quick download on the history of US trade policy to give us a better understanding of how we arrived at NAFTA and then on to the USMCA. 200 years of history in 20 minutes. You can't beat that!

Phase one is underway! And one of the central tenants is for China to increase its purchasing of agricultural products. In this episode we chat with a couple of farmers in Nebraska to get their sense of where this is going, and their thoughts on the trade war thus far.

In this second episode of our Trading Views series, we talk to three of the Wilson Center's top Asia experts to understand what phase one of a trade deal with China means.

A new series from Need to Know -- Trading Views -- where we will look at the changes in trade policy seen in the last few years.  With the signing of a phase one trade deal happening imminently, we're taking a look at how tariffs have affected businesses.  To do that we're on location in Morristown, Tennessee, to talk to Rusty Smith of Forenta, and Roger Porter of Porter's Tire.