Foreign Exchanges: the Podcast

Freelance writer and Harvard Divinity School grad student Hannah Gais is back, so that makes two repeat guests on the podcast! She's going to try to explain to me how the Orthodox Church works, an effort that goes so well you can hear my dog literally howling by the end of it (I'm pretty sure she saw some kids outside). We talk about the schism between the Russian Orthodox Church and Ecumenical Pa...

Today I'm joined in person by Emerson T. Brooking, co-author of a new book called LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media . We talk about  the ways social media is being used to make life worse, where we're heading in terms of how governments and other bad actors weaponize social media, and what we can do about it. Enjoy! Buy the book: https://www.powells.com/book/-9781328695741 You can follow...

If you're a Michael Brooks fan, which you should be, then hopefully you've heard me on his show a few times now. Today I'm very grateful for the chance to turn the tables on him as we talk about Brazilian politics, corruption, Lula, and what has been an extraordinarily eventful presidential campaign. Enjoy! Do yourselves a favor and check out The Michael Brooks Show, on libsyn and/or YouTube . And...

Alex Thurston (@sahelblog on Twitter ) joins me again to try to make some sense of the dizzying array of extremist groups in Mali and to talk about the aftermath of the Malian presidential election last month, which saw Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (pictured) reelected albeit with very low turnout. Be sure to check out Alex's Sahel Blog and his books: * Salafism in Nigeria from Columbia University Press...

I'm joined by Michael Youhana to discuss his recent piece for the Fellow Travelers Blog, "Ending the War on Weapon States." We talk about what constitutes a Weapon State, how the War on Weapon States has impacted post-Cold War US foreign policy, and how to think about WMD and "rogue states" without falling into the usual Blob b******t. Apologies for a couple of spots where the audio is rough, one...

Unlocked for the public again because we've got another interview. Today I'm joined by defense technology reporter Kelsey Atherton, who you should be following on Twitter . We're talking about building a left-wing foreign policy vision, the new Fellow Travelers Blog that aims to get that conversation going, Space Force, and drone madness. Enjoy! Kelsey's piece on the Maduro incident is here . Fell...

I'm joined by Alex Thurston from Miami University of Ohio to talk about Boko Haram in particular and Nigeria in general. Alex is an expert on the Sahel region who writes at several places, but you should definitely check out his Sahel Blog and his books: * Salafism in Nigeria from Columbia University Press * Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement from Princeton University Press Yo...

Here's that interview I promised you all last week. I'm speaking with writer Branko Marcetic, who has been covering Donald Trump's trip to the NATO summit and his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki for Jacobin and In These Times. He's been doing some great work countering the overwrought conventional narratives about both events. We discuss what really happened in Brussels and Helsinki and ta...

I'm throwing this one open to the general public because I think it's a good discussion and because...I've got a guest! Yes, you get to listen to somebody else talk for a change! I'm very excited to be joined by Ryan Cooper, National Correspondent for The Week and deep thinker about left-wing politics, to discuss what he's learned about how new Democratic candidates are approaching foreign policy...

As promised, I did a 20 minute spot with the District Sentinel guys earlier today to discuss Netanyahu's presentation yesterday. You can go check it out on their Patreon and also check out the other great work they're doing, but they were kind enough to let me also post the audio here for you guys as well. One thing I'll add here: I mentioned Netanyahu wanting his speech to get on Fox and Friends...

Today I'm pleased to be joined by Dan, aka Twitter user @dankmtl, for a crash course on the history of Armenian communities in the Middle East. Obviously we spend a fair amount of time on the Armenian Genocide, its causes and lingering effects, but we go all the way back to good old Tigranes the Great (see one of his coins above), who expanded Armenia to its largest extent in the first century BCE...

Today's episode is another interview and it is again going to be available to the public. I'm grateful to have been joined by John Feffer of the Institute for Policy Studies to talk about his recent piece for Foreign Policy in Focus on Donald Trump's majoritarian politics and the spread of majoritarianism around the world (I know I mention "a couple of pieces" in my intro but consider that a funct...

We're lucky to be joined by freelance writer, full-time grad student, and Russian active measure Hannah Gais to talk about the 2016 election, Russiagate, Vladimir Putin, the state of US-Russia relations, and Russia's many crimes including killing God. I'm opening this episode to the general public for a change, so please share widely. Hannah's Baffler piece, "Who's Afraid of the Russian Soul?" is...

I'm proud to bring you our first interview! Veteran reporter Jim Lobe joins me to talk about neoconservatism, a subject on which he has been reporting and lecturing and giving interviews for many years now. We talk about defining neoconservatism, about its development from a niche intellectual movement on the leftish side of the spectrum into perhaps the dominant foreign policy ideology on the rig...