Carnegie Council Podcasts

"We're all really proud of our system. It's the world's oldest democracy, and we've always had to fight to make it real," says Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice. "But in the last 10-20 years and especially recently we've seen challenges to the right to vote and challenges to the role of big money in politics. That means we have to fight for democracy all over again." What can young...

Are we headed for a U.S.-China tech Cold War and what should we do about it? "There's no way we're ever going to beat China on scale," says Adam Segal, author of "The Hacked World Order." "They're just always going to spend more than we are, so that means you have to cooperate with the Europeans and others on scientific discovery and invention." Segal discusses who is currently winning the informa...

Adelphi University's Jonathan Cristol discusses the Trump administration's decision to step away from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and its possible effects on international arms control. Why is this a positive development for Putin and Russia? Are other treaties and alliances in danger?

Does preventive war really work? "In the vast majority of cases historically, what we see is the country that thought it was saving itself from a greater danger in the future actually creates this greater danger because you generate a level of hostility, a deepening rivalry, and a desire for revenge that comes back to haunt them," says Scott Silverstone. His advice: Hesitate. Before taking action,...

Why has there been a sudden interest in Thucydides, especially in the U.S.? Johanna Hanink discusses her new book of translations and introductions to key speeches from his "History of the Peloponnesian War," and the importance of the classics in general. "The book is of special interest to us here at Carnegie for its focus on ethics, democracy, and world affairs, all of which seem to be under str...

Jazz historian David Sager describes the beginnings of jazz and its enthusiastic reception in France during World War I. He tells the amazing and tragic story of African American musician James Reese Europe, a leader in the creation and acceptance of jazz, who didn't live long enough to see what a difference he made to music and to race relations.

Jonathan Cristol, author of "The United States and Taliban before and after 9/11," discusses the status of the latest talks between the U.S. government and the Taliban, in an effort to end the decades-long war in Afghanistan. Are women's rights being addressed? Are neighboring countries' interests being taken into account? And can we trust the Trump administration in this tense geopolitical enviro...

U.S.-Taiwan relations have long been an ingenious balancing act of "strategic ambiguity." What does the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act entail and why is it important, not only to Taiwan, but to U.S.-China relations and indeed security across Asia? Legendary China expert Jerome Cohen unpacks the history of Taiwan since 1895, its current situation and legal status, and what this could mean for Asia and t...

"There are areas where China lags behind other countries in its power, areas where it's catching up, and areas where China really has leapfrogged some other countries, including the United States, and is pulling ahead," says Bonnie Glaser of CSIS. Certainly, China is investing heavily in promoting a favorable narrative about China around the world, a strategy increasingly being referred to as "pol...

Quinnipiac's Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox discusses her work researching the conception of human rights in a community in rural India. She tells the story of Chaya Kakade, a woman who went on a hunger strike after the Indian government proposed a tax on sanitary napkins, and has since built her own production center in Latur. How does Kakade understand human rights? How can Westerners move beyond a legali...

"The rise of China is not the biggest story in the world," says Parag Khanna. "The Asianization of Asia, the return of Asia, the rise of the Asian system, is the biggest story in the world." This new Asian system, where business, technology, globalization, and geopolitics are intertwined, stretches from Japan to Saudi Arabia, from Australia to Russia, and Indonesia to Turkey, linking 5 billion peo...

How is China influencing democracies such as Taiwan, Korea, and the United States? "I think there are three areas that you can look at," says Asia security analyst Rachael Burton. "The first is narrative dominance, which I would call a form of cognitive warfare. Beijing has been able to set the terms of debate . . . and once you're asking the questions, then you're able to drive intellectuals or p...

In this episode of The Crack-Up series, which explores how 1919 shaped the modern world, film historian David Bordwell discusses two big changes in the American film industry in 1919: the revolt of film stars against the powerful studio system, and Paramount's response, which was to try and control the "product" from creation to point of consumption. He goes on to look at how these creative and co...

Ambassador Sidi Omar, UN representative for Frente POLISARIO, a liberation movement aiming to secure the independence of Western Sahara, discusses the decades-long dispute in Northwest Africa. With negotiations ongoing between Frente POLISARIO and Morocco at the UN, could there be a resolution? How do Europe and the Trump administration fit in?

The Supreme Court's 1919 decision in "Schenck v. United States" is one of the most important free speech cases in American history. Because of it we have an elaborate set of free speech laws and norms, but the context is always shifting. In this fascinating talk Bollinger and Stone explore how our understanding of the First Amendment has been transformed over time, and how it may change in the fut...

As founder and executive director of The Polis Project, a research and journalism organization, Suchitra Vijayan is helping to document a concerning trend of identity-based violence in India. She discusses her organization's work on this issue, the violence's connection to a rise in nationalism in India since Prime Minister Modi came to power, and some imperfect parallels with the contentious poli...

In the third podcast in The Crack-Up series, which looks at how 1919 shaped the modern world, Ted Widmer discusses the story of the Irish Declaration of Independence with fellow historian Christopher Pastore. Although the declaration was signed in 1919, Ireland's quest for self-determination would last for decades. How did America influence these developments? What did the Irish leaders think abou...

Discussions around cybersecurity often focus on the security and sovereignty of states, not individuals, says Professor Ronald Deibert, director of University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. If you start from a "human-centric perspective," it could lead to policies focusing on peace, prosperity, and human rights. How can we work toward this approach?

Quinnipiac University's Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox speaks about her 2018 campaign for state representative in Connecticut, which she lost by a slim margin. After months of speaking to her fellow citizens and absorbing their differing viewpoints on the campaign trail, she discusses the importance of ethics and political engagement and how we can remain civil in this divisive time.

China's economy has grown exponentially over the last four decades, but George Magnus, former chief economist at UBS, sees four traps that could derail its continued ascent: rising debt, the struggle to keep its currency stable, aging demographics, and the challenges of changing from a low-income economy to a complex middle-income one. Will Xi Jinping be open to reform? What could be the effects o...

In the second podcast in The Crack-Up series, which looks at how 1919 shaped the modern world, historian Ted Widmer talks to Harvard's Professor Lisa McGirr about Prohibition's roots in anti-immigrant sentiment and its enforcement, in some cases, by the Ku Klux Klan. Plus, they discuss the Eighteenth Amendment's connections to World War I and the rise of the modern American state.

Historian Ted Widmer discusses his new Carnegie Council podcast series "The Crack-Up" and how 1919 has shaped the modern world. He and host Alex Woodson speak about parallels to 2019, Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, Babe Ruth, the early days of Hollywood, and populism in Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Don't miss a new "Crack-Up" tomorrow with Harvard historian Lisa McGirr on pro...

If populism is a reaction to a globalism that is viewed as unresponsive to the needs of citizens, can populism sustain any version of globalization? Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer and Tom Nichols of the U. S. Naval War College discuss and debate this important question and much more.

The wide array of global issues--more than 90 percent of them--that Eurasia Group follows are now headed in the wrong direction in 2019. Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer break down those risks--from U.S.-China relations and cyberwar to European populism and American institutions--and their ethical implications with Carnegie Council's Devin Stewart for their eleventh annual discussion of the yea...

From the U.S. operation against Iran's nuclear enrichment plant, to Chinese theft of personal data, North Korea's financially motivated attacks on American companies, or Russia's interference in the 2016 election, cyberweapons have become the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. "New York Times" national security correspondent David Sanger explains how and why cyberattacks...