The Global Agora

Russian President Vladimir Putin achieved less than nothing. This is how Tom Nichols assesses the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Tom is a staff writer at The Atlantic and Professor Emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years. So is Putin the biggest loser of 2022? Are we witnessing Cold War 2.0? Read not just the latest Tom's book ...

Maria Avdeeva is Ukrainian disinformation and security expert from Kharkiv. From the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion she is trying to document what is going on. I talked to Maria jusť before the big aggression  and also a few times in the past months . And while the situation is complicated, I'm glad that we had a chance to reconnect. The war is raging but it's also a bit of a C...

Every comparison is a problematic one, but it is also interesting to educationally speculate. I talked to  Rory Truex , an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research focuses on Chinese politics and authoritarian systems. We also discussed one very hypothetical question. Would Xi Jinping attack Ukraine if he would ru...

The Russians themselves must conclude that the war against Ukraine was a mistake, a disaster. That's why they have to lose otherwise there will be another war. This is how Anne Applebaum sees the invasion. She is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Anne's latest book is Th...

What kind of weapons does Ukraine need to keep the momentum on the battlefield? What is the prospect of some negotiations with Russia? Will and should Ukraine continue to strike targets inside Russia? About this and much more, I talked to Toms Rostoks , an Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Latvia and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Security and Strategic Resea...

The current protests in China against the zero covid policy will be squashed. This is what I think, but more importantly, this is also what Lawrence C. Reardon thinks. Because he definitely knows China. Chris, as I know him, is a Professor of Political Science at New Hampshire University and a research associate at Harvard University's Fairbank Center. But while he suggests that dem...

Does the football World Cup in Qatar deserve so much criticism? Is it somewhat illegitimate? And what about the beer for fans? I talked to Arash Azizi , a scholar and the PhD candidate in history at New York University (NYU). He researches the history of socialist and Islamist movements in Iran and the Arab world.  But we didn't discuss just Qatar and football. We also debated how he sees the...

Jennifer Mercieca was right. She is Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University and an author of the book Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump . We recorded this podcast one day before Donald Trump's presidential announcement and Jennifer was pretty sure, as you can listen, how this ends up. We discussed what's next for Trump, a...

Julian Ringhof is a policy fellow with the European Power program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on the implications of digital and emerging technologies for international affairs. He just published an article titled The age of ego-politics: Elon Musk and the power of the tech giants . With that in mind, I thought that it would be interesting to interv...

Professor Seth Cotlar is a historian at Willamette University in Oregon so as we talked about American politics, his answer contains many historical references. It only helps to better understand what's going on in the US. The midterm elections take place on November 8 and President Joe Biden said that democracy will be on the ballot. Is this a bit of a political exaggeration o...

Imagine that you are in a wargame simulation and you play Russia. This is what happened to Alexander Bollfrass . He is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - ETH Zurich. I talked to him after he participated in such a wargame. What were its main conclusions? Did the players blow off the world with nuclear weapons? Listen to...

As Russia is conducting essentially terrorist attacks targeting Ukrainian cities with drones, I spoke to Mauro Gilli . He is a Senior Researcher in Military Technology and International Security at the Center for Security Studies of ETH-Zurich. We talked about drones and other military systems and about how both sides used them on the battlefield. Do you want to know what is the big...

Is Xi Jinping fully in control? ,,99,5 percent," said Kerry Brown to me when I asked him if we can be 100 percent sure that Xi gets a third term as general secretary at China's Communist Party Congress that starts on October 16th. He is a Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London. So what does Xi's reign mean? Could the...

In September, I visited South Korea for the first time and I also had the opportunity to see the demilitarized zone. Just before my visit, I talked to Sung-Yoon Lee , Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and Assistant Professor at Tufts University. Our discussion was focused more on North Korea and the regime in Pyongyang. So what can we expect from Kim Jong-un and from his sister...

The far-right party the Brothers of Italy led by Giorgia Meloni just won the early election with 26 percent of votes. The alliance of the Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini's Lega and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia will establish the government that will be further to the right as any Italian government after the Benito Mussolini's era. Yes, the fascist era. Is...

The election just took place in Sweden and the result is that the country will be run by the rightist government. The Social Democrats led by PM Magdalena Andersson von over 30% of the votes but it's not enough to govern due to the fact that the far-right Sweden Democrats are the second-strongest party, gaining 20,5% of the votes in their best-ever election performanc...

,,The war in Ukraine is entering a critical phase. Winter is coming and it will be hard. Hard for the Ukrainian people and armed forces who are fighting for their freedom, and hard for those of us who support them," NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently wrote for The Financial Times . But what is NATO doing more than six months into Russia's war against Ukraine? Should the Alliance be...

This podcast was recorded two days before Queen Elizabeth II. passed away, that's why it's not mentioned. The death of the Monarch might have real political consequences for the United Kingdom, but it doesn't change the fact that a new Conservative PM Liz Truss will face many challenges. Is she up to the job? Is Boris Johnson already plotting a comeback? I talked to Steven Fielding , a Profes...

The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 and passed away on August 30. There is very little doubt that he changed the world and contributed to the end of the Cold War, though he also faced a lot of criticism. Where is Gorbachev's place in history? How important was he? What were his successes and failures? I talked to Bradley Woodworth , an Associate Professor of Histor...

You gotta fight for your right to party! The famous Beastie Boys song might become a new political slogan of Finland's Social Democrat PM Sanna Marin . After the video of her partying was leaked, she faced criticism, she took a drug test and apologized. But is this episode even newsworthy? If Marin is a party girl, so what? Is she facing double standards from critics? Woul...

The Taliban took over Kabul one year ago, on August 15th. It had a huge geopolitical significance but I have to admit there is another reason why it's so easy for me to remember it. The fact is that August 15th is my birthday. About what happened in Afghanistan in one year, I talked to Vanda Felbab-Brown . She is a Senior Fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology i...

To quote Margaret Thatcher: Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. So how powerful is Russia whose leaders like to brag about it? I talked to Nicholas Cull , a Professor of Public Diplomacy and Communication at the University of Southern California. We discussed Russian narratives related to the war against Ukraine and what Moscow i...

The Italian government of PM SuperMario Draghi collapsed. The early election will take place on September 25th. How might the voting be affected by Russian aggression against Ukraine? How pro-Putin are Italian parties and the public? Will Italy turn to Russia after the early election? And what to expect from the far-right leader Giorgia Meloni and her party Brothers of Italy wh...

Happy Birthday to Arnold Schwarzenegger ! Born on July 20, 1947, in Austrian Thal, he is 75 years young. The star of The Terminator, Predator, BTW, probably my favorite Arnolds's movie, Conan the Barbarian, Red Heat, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, Twins or True Lies, and the former Republican Governor of California has never been far from the spotlight. How was he able to achieve w...

Complex or complicated? What is the legacy of murdered Japan's ex-PM Shinzo Abe? Was he a nationalist who globalized Japan? The killing of the longest-serving Japanese Prime Minister on July 8th shocked the country and the world. How will Mr. Abe be remembered? I talked to  Joshua Walker , President, and CEO of Japan Society in New York who had a chance to interact with th...