The Global Agora

Should Iran face more sanctions if it continues helping Russia to wage a brutal war against Ukraine? I talked to Barbara Slavin , a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University. We also discussed how far would Russia go to help Iran and vice versa, how the Russian war affects the Middle East, China in the region, a...

John Sipher is a senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, and the co-founder of Spycraft Entertainment, a production firm providing content to the entertainment industry. He retired in 2014 after a 28-year career in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, which included serving in Moscow and running the CIA’s Russia operations. So I asked him if he would hire current  Russian President ...

Andrei Kolesnikov is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. For now, he stays in Russia, although he was labeled as a foreign agent. According to Andrei, Russian society is basically the same if we compare pre-war times and the current situation. The group of Putin's non-supporters has always been around 15-20 percent and the invasion didn't change this. So can something pe...

Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper cannot be clearer. He believes Donald Trump would try to pull the US out of NATO and South Korea in his second term. I talked to Esper at the annual GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava and we also discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Republican Party, and China. Listen to our conversation. And if you enjoy what I do, please support me on Ko-fi! Thank y...

What happens if Belarus' dictator Alexander Lukashenko dies? I talked to the opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya . And she has a plan. She fights for her country as her husband Siarhiej is imprisoned by the regime. We also discussed the dangers of the Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, Ukraine and how she works hard to keep Belarus on agenda. Our debate took place at the annual GLOBSEC...

How can Ukraine plan its counteroffensive? Would the F-16 jets help Kyiv? And what can Russia do to counter the impending attack? I talked to Johan Norberg , a Senior Military Analyst from the Swedish Defense Research Agency ( FOI ). Why does he think that the West will decide the war? Listen to our conversation. And if you enjoy what I do, please support me on Ko-fi! Thank you. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://k...

She hates him because of his politics! It's all about money and fame! Is this why E. Jean Carroll sued Donald Trump? Not at all, a friend of Carroll Jennifer Taub explains. She is a Law Professor at Western New England University School of Law, author of the Substack newsletter Money & Gossip , and host of the podcast Booked Up with Jen Taub . In our debate, she dissected the verdict of th...

Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin is naming and shaming everybody. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is offering his services but it's not clear if he really has something to offer. And the Russian President Vladimir Putin is... Is doing exactly what? About Prigozhin, Kadyrov, and Putin, I talked to political analyst Anton Barbashin who is an editorial director of Riddle , which is a website...

As Wikipedia says, Charles III, born Charles Philip Arthur George on November 14th, 1948 is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Last year, at the age of 73, he became the oldest person to accede to the British throne, also after having been the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales in British history. King Charles' coronation will take place on May 6th...

French President Emmanuel Macron was elected for his second term one year ago, on April 24th, 2021. How strong or weak is he now? I talked to  Georgina Wright , a Senior Fellow, and Director of Institut Montaigne's Europe Program. We discuss recent Macron's visit to China and its aftermath but also French domestic politics. Is Macron naive? And is there a danger that he is paving the way f...

The National Hockey League has a war crimes problem . Because of this piece, in the Globe and Mail, I contacted Mark Kersten . He is a Senior Consultant of the Wayamo Foundation and an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. So what's wrong with the NHL and with its superstar Russian player Alexander Ovechkin who is al...

The Good Friday Agreement that ended the conflict in Northern Ireland turned 25 on April 10th. What were the main factors that contributed to its success? I talked to Shaun Mcdaid , a Senior Lecturer in Politics from the Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences at Huddersfield University. We discussed the history of the Troubles, terrorists from the Irish Republican Army, and their internatio...

From April 4th, Finland is officially the thirty-first member of NATO . What does it mean for the country, for the Alliance, and for Russia? What are the pros and possible cons of Finland's membership? And why is Sweden still out? I talked to Charly Salonius-Pasternak , a leading researcher in The Center on US Politics and Power at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. I also asked h...

Kacper Rerawek ⁠ is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo. His book ⁠Brown-Red Cocktail? Extremist Foreign Fighters in the War in Ukraine was published last year and for The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) he just released a report A Year of Foreign Fighting for Ukraine: Catching Fish With Bare Hands? So who are they and how do foreign figh...

Fred Wellman served in the Army for 22 years as an aviator and public affairs officer and he left the Armed Forces as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, and completed tours during Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. So, in his own words, he invaded Iraq twice. He also was a spokesman for General David Petraeus, and General Martin Dempsey. I have asked Fred for an int...

Some people claim that the American invasion of Iraq 20 years ago started what could be called the post-truth world. Robert E. Kelley had been an International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) inspector in Iraq in 1992–93 and he was there also in the final months before the 2003 invasion. We talked about his experience, his work, and how his team had to deal with leaks to the press from the CIA that...

Did the probability of Russia attacking Norway decrease? Karsten Friis , a Senior Research Fellow from The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, thinks it does, but there are also a few buts. So we have discussed what is the biggest concern of Norway regarding Russia, also taking into account that Finland and Sweden are, hopefully, on their way to NATO. He explained how Norway is helping U...

In December, The Society for the German Language named Zeitenwende the word of the year for 2022 . But one year after the Russian large-scale invasion of Ukraine started, does the Zeitenwende also have a real political meaning? What is the role of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in this epochal tectonic shift as he described it by himself?  talked to Alexander Clarkson who is a Lecturer in German, European...

It's one year from the beginning of the Russian large-scale invasion of Ukraine. "Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he can bully Ukrainians. But he only makes us angrier." This is what Iuliia Mendel said to me in our podcast debate. She is the former press secretary of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from June 2019 until July 2021, author of the book The Fight of Our...

Could Russia try to stage a coup in Moldova? How probable is it? Is Moldova's government ready for such a scenario? And what about the problem of Transnistria? About the current developments in Moldova, I talked to Denis Cenusa . He is an associate expert at The Eastern Europe Studies Centre (EESC) in Vilnius. Listen to our conversation. And if you enjoy what I do, please support me on Ko-fi!...

We are all following Rob Lee on Twitter , aren't we? I'm not sure when he sleeps but his feed is all the time full of interesting information, analysis, and videos related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With all of this, I'm really happy that Rob joined my podcast. No introduction is needed, but he is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program, and...

Finland and Sweden are still out of NATO despite the agreement from the Alliance summit in June in Madrid. Is Turkey playing a divide-and-conquer game as it seems Ankara is all the time moving the goalposts? Is Russian happy about it? And what about Hungary? I talked to Toni Alaranta , Senior Research Fellow in the European Union Research Programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs...

How is the Russian invasion against Ukraine shaping Japan's security views? What are Tokyo's main concerns? China, North Korea, Russia? I talked to John Nilsson-Wright , University Associate Professor in Modern Japanese Politics and International Relations at Cambridge University and Korea Foundation Korea Fellow and Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia with the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chat...

Wilder Alejandro Sanchez is an analyst of defense, trade and geopolitical issues in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Western Hemisphere and the President of Second Floor Strategies, a consulting firm in Washington, DC. As his expertise stretched from the post-Soviet space to Latin America, I picked Alex's brain and we talked about how the mentioned regions reacted to the Russian war again...

The first round of the presidential election in Czechia takes place on 13 and 14 January. There are three clear favorites for the run-off. Ex-Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, former rector of Mendel University in Brno Danuše Nerudová, and former Chair of the NATO Military Committee Petr Pavel. I talked to Seán Hanley , an Associate Professor in Comparative Central and East European Politics at th...