One Decision

Robin Wright from The New Yorker has, on more than one occasion, been granted an audience with the reclusive but fiery leader of the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, designated a terrorist group in the United States and most of the Western world. Having spent years observing and reporting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and its spinoffs in Lebanon and the wider Arab world, how does she view the e...

After the divisive and controversial storm surrounding an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, President Joe Biden flew on Wednesday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Cabinet, and families touched by the October 7th massacre last week. As protests and riots spread like wildfire around not just Arab and Muslim capitals and cities worldwide, but in London, Paris, New York, and...

The world is still reeling from the shocking invasion of Israel over the weekend, where Hamas militants staged the most audacious and horrific attacks in Israel resulting in the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. But questions are now being asked, to how the country's high tech military and sophisticated intelligence services missed what Hamas was planning? Did Mossad drop the ball?...

Europe today is being tested like never before in its recent memory—war and instability are on the edges of Europe, threatening to spill over into its borders; Russian influence and propaganda are sowing divisions across the continent, and rising inflation and unemployment are giving oxygen to divisive populist politics. One Decision sits down for a sweeping and wide-ranging conversation with Robe...

No country quite understands what it’s like to live next to a major power to the extent Mongolia does because it lives between two. For decades, the government had to balance its relations and goals against the actions and ambitions of its neighbors— except one, Russia is now a pariah, and Mongolia is almost entirely dependent on the other—China for trade. In this week's bonus episode, guest host,...

Washington foreign policy hawk Ambassador John Bolton has served in every Republican administration since President Reagan, with his most recent post serving as Donald Trump's National Security Advisor. Bolton sits down with guest host and award-winning anchor and foreign correspondent Robyn Curnow and Ex-MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove to discuss his time during the Trump administration, why he is...

Canada’s Justin Trudeau threw a petrol bomb into the opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York last week—announcing that there were “credible allegations” that Delhi was behind the shooting of a Canadian Sikh activist in Vancouver in June. Prime Minister Modi is riding high after a successful G20 summit, having entertained a slew of world leaders from the West, all hoping t...

China's President Xi Jinping is absent from this year’s United Nations General Assembly, but he’s certainly being talked about. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who also skipped the meeting, is moving the United Kingdom away from its previously hostile stance toward China, arguing that boycotting Beijing is not an option amidst the many global challenges requiring cooperation. He has angered many in hi...

The world’s leaders descend on New York City this week for the annual gathering of the United Nations—think of it as our global town hall. Amid the backdrop of the Ukraine war, spiralling inflation, natural disasters and heightening superpower tensions, there is a lot to be discussed. It comes also on the heels of the G20, where Indian PM Narendra Modi played a pivotal role in shaping global agree...

Christiane Amanpour, the legendary foreign correspondent, marked 40 years with CNN this week. She's covered some of the biggest stories of our times: the Gulf wars, the conflict and breakup of the former Yugoslavia, the War on Terror, the Arab Spring, interviewing and challenging world leaders from Washington to London to Paris to Tehran. Having recently returned from Ukraine, she shares with One...

As the Washington Post's White House Bureau Chief, Toluse Olorunnipa has an outsized role in how the world—especially the power players in America’s capital city—interpret President Joe Biden’s diplomacy. In this week's bonus episode, Olorunnipa sits down with guest host Brett Bruen to look at what it’s like to travel the globe on Air Force One and write the first draft of history books on major m...

Croatia’s former President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on several occasions faced down Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table. But her experience of the Russian leader might not be what you may expect. Her country Croatia, also knows a thing or two about facing a much larger invading force - which is perhaps why she has been invited to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, so regularly. She sits down with One...

The New York Times' South Asia Bureau Chief Mujib Mashal talks to One Decision ahead of the upcoming G20 Summit in New Delhi, India. The global gathering offers a unique opportunity for the world's largest democracy to exert more international influence. Major players are vying to get the country on their side when it comes to geopolitics, the war in Ukraine, its hefty trade prospects, and its mas...

Congressman Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, chairs one of the most closely watched and surprisingly bipartisan committees in the United States House of Representatives - The Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Gallagher wants Congress to lead the way on a comprehensive American policy towards Beijing and sees areas l...

In this week's bonus episode, Julia Macfarlane leads a discussion on the apparent assassination of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin with ex-intelligence chiefs Sir Richard Dearlove, who led MI6, and Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA. They discuss what this dramatic development tells us about Putin's position of authority in Moscow— only recently challenged by Prigozhin, who led a mutiny agains...

Leading Artificial Intelligence thinker and researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky has shaped much of the development of AI technology that is radically changing our lives - but now he is sounding the alarm along with other experts and scientists who feel AI will eventually lead to humankind's demise. But while many of his colleagues and peers disagree, this debate is mainly being fought in small circles, w...

After a major national security investigation into Moscow’s espionage efforts, Great Britain unmasked an alleged Russian spy ring. Three Bulgarian nationals suspected of working for Russian security services were charged with possessing numerous forged identification documents. On this week’s bonus episode, Julia Macfarlane asks her co-host and former MI6 Chief, Sir Richard Dearlove about how the...

The newly formed Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party of China in the United States House of Representatives is tasked with analyzing the multifaceted strategic threats coming from Beijing and increasing the American government's efforts to safeguard the homeland from balloons, hacks, and other aggressive acts. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Illinois), who co-leads the Congressional...

In the waning days of the Trump administration, United States national security officials discovered that Chinese military hackers had breached the classified defense network of one of its most important security allies—Japan. In this week's bonus episode, Brett Bruen, the former Director of Global Engagement in President Obama’s White House speaks with The Washington Post's national security repo...

Afghanistan is on the verge of a collapse with the majority of the 40 million Afghans there living in poverty ruled over by the Taliban—hardline militants imposing the strictest interpretations of Sharia law. One Decision’s Julia Macfarlane and Sir Richard Dearlove sit down with British Conservative Party politician Tobias Ellwood who serves as the Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Comm...

Last week’s coup in Niger is the latest in a string of recent military takeovers in Africa—seemingly the final domino to fall in a region plagued by instability and the battle between Russia and the West for influence in the Sahel. Coup leaders are now facing an ultimatum from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reinstate democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum or fac...

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive meets stiff Russian resistance, Europe and the United States are being ravaged by climate change this summer ahead of the COP28 climate summit being hosted by the United Arab Emirates, one of the biggest energy producers in the world. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and longtime climate champion in Congress has joined other United States and...

Filmmaker Mimi Chakarova sits down with One Decision's Julia Macfarlane to discuss what has changed in the fight against human trafficking and slavery since her groundbreaking film that shined a light on vulnerable women from Eastern Europe who were manipulated and tricked into selling their bodies, trapped in a life of slavery. From Turkey to the Middle East to Western Europe, she chronicled the...

Protests have picked up in Israel this week as the Knesset takes up the controversial legislation proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics say would compromise the integrity and independence of Israel’s judicial system. If passed, the measure would eliminate the so-called "reasonableness clause" and would permit the judiciary to put curbs on government decisions granting Netanyah...

After multiple extensions, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is set to retire at the end of his term in October, but speculation continues over who will head the world's most powerful alliance. Among the contenders is Estonia’s Kersti Kaljulaid who served from 2016-2021 as the first female president of the Baltic high-tech nation that shares a border with Russia. A leader from NATO's eastern...