Foreign Policy Live

This week, the largest-ever World Cup will commence. Across the three host countries—Canada, Mexico, and the United States—48 teams will play 104 matches in 16 cities. But it also comes amid a particularly fraught geopolitical backdrop. Not only have the three hosts spent the last year sparring over immigration, trade, and even national sovereignty, but one of them, the United States, is at war wi...

What would it take to end the Iran war? What exit strategies are still available to the United States? Robert Malley, a former lead negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, joins FP’s Ravi Agrawal to discuss the current talks to open the Strait of Hormuz.  Plus, Ravi offers his read on why U.S. President Donald Trump is wavering between two ex...

If the rules-based order is broken, what comes next? And who will lead it? Mark Leonard argues in his new book, Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When the Rules Fail, that the coming system will be “un-order,” governed not by China or the United States but by no one at all. Are states responding quickly enough? Leonard, who is the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, joins FP Live’s R...

U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to great fanfare but left with little to show for it. What does the Trump-Xi summit reveal about the balance of power between the world’s two biggest economies? Rana Mitter, a top historian of China, joins FP Live to discuss where the world’s most important relationship is headed. Plus, Ravi shares his...

There’s little doubt that the conflict in Iran has hurt much of the world economy. But not Russia. Data suggests that the Kremlin has already made billions of dollars in additional oil revenue since the United States and Israel attacked Iran. But beyond just cash, how much will this change President Vladimir Putin’s broader strategy? And what does this mean for the fate of the war in Ukraine? Alex...

While the conflict in Iran has dominated headlines in the last two months, accounts of ordinary life in the Islamic Republic are scarce. According to journalist Ali Hashem, who spent six weeks in Tehran and has visited several times in the last decade, life in the capital looks more normal than one might imagine. Shops and restaurants are largely open, and regular people seem to be rallying around...

It’s time for another ask-me-anything edition of FP Live. This one takes on the war in Iran from many angles: the economic impact, regional balance of power, the longer-term global impact, and much else. Producer Dana Sherne puts audience questions to FP’s editor in chief Ravi Agrawal. Ravi Agrawal: The World Is Paying the Price for America’s War Ravi Agrawal: Trump Is Losing the War in Iran Steph...

The extension of a fragile cease-fire in the Middle East has left the region with no clear path forward. The Strait of Hormuz is still blocked, which means the global energy crisis will get worse. But Tehran’s new leaders are suffering too. What is their plan? Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour joins FP Live to discuss the shifting state of the war. Plus, Ravi shares his read on how the war’s economic f...

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is like a ticking time bomb for the global economy, disrupting the flow of energy and rippling through industries from agriculture to semiconductors. How bad could it get? The International Monetary Fund has cut its forecast for global growth this year from 3.4 percent to 3.1 percent in the best-case scenario and 2 percent in the worst case. What countries will...

The Iran war has become the most serious foreign-policy challenge for U.S. President Donald Trump in his second term. But does it reveal a larger point about U.S. power? Stephen M. Walt, a professor at Harvard University and Foreign Policy columnist, argues that it does and that the United States is increasingly acting like a rogue state. What damage will this cause, and what can countries do abou...

The Trump administration’s plans in the Middle East are often criticized by those who say he shouldn’t have attacked Iran. But the White House is also facing flak from those who say that it didn’t go far enough. John Bolton is a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran. He served as national security advisor in the first Trump administration before falling out with the president. Bolton joined...

After news of a 14-day cease-fire in the middle east conflict, Ravi shares his initial thoughts and analysis. Plus, the rationale for attacking Iran revolved around security. How did the global narrative become about energy? Iran’s strongest weapon has turned out to be its ability to strangle the Strait of Hormuz, an important trade choke point. What does the return of energy as a weapon mean for...

As the U.S.-Israel war against Iran enters a second month of conflict, how is Tehran’s surviving leadership thinking about an endgame? And how will the conflict reshape geopolitics in the region? Ali Vaez has extensive contacts with Iranian lawmakers and sits down with Ravi Agrawal to discuss the regime’s options. Vaez is a project director at the International Crisis Group. Plus, Ravi’s Read on h...

Crude and gas prices are soaring after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on regional energy infrastructure amid war in the Middle East. How bad could the energy shock get and for how long? FP columnist Jason Bordoff sits down with Ravi Agrawal to discuss. Bordoff previously served in the Obama administration as a senior director for energy and climate change in the National Security...

It’s widely accepted that the post-WWII order has changed, but the question remains—what comes next? Political scientist Hal Brands maps out three possible scenarios in a cover essay for Foreign Policy’s latest print issue and joins FP Live to discuss.  Brands is a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of The Eurasian Century: Hot...

It’s no secret that democracy is in trouble. Studies show that a growing number of countries are less free, and polls suggest ordinary citizens are losing faith in their governments. What can be done to fix this? Hélène Landemore has a radical solution: to get rid of politicians and electoral politics and instead create assemblies of ordinary citizens. She explores this concept in her new book, Po...

As the war in Iran soon enters its third week, two experts join FP Live for a debate. Were the United States and Israel justified in attacking Iran? And will the war advance U.S. interests in the region, or set them back? Trita Parsi and Matthew Kroenig sit down with executive editor Dan Ephron to discuss. Parsi is the executive vice president at the Quincy Institute, and Kroenig is an FP columnis...

As the United States and Israel attack military facilities across Iran, Tehran has been retaliating. But it has attacked Gulf countries more than it has targeted Israel. Why? And how will the likes of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates respond? Will it shift their geopolitical alignment away from the United States? Regional experts Mina al-Oraibi, the editor in chief of the National...

On Saturday, Israel and the United States struck Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran has been responding with volleys of missiles aimed at Israel—and also at several other countries in the region. How will the conflict end? How long can Tehran sustain this fight? Iran expert Vali Nasr joined Ravi Agrawal for an emergency episode that ran live on the afternoon of Monday, Mar...

As U.S. President Donald Trump considers a military strike on Iran, what are the options on his table? What will his military advisors recommend he should and shouldn’t do? David Petraeus has often been in the position of providing such advice to the White House, and he joins FP Live to explain what could happen in the coming days. Petraeus ran U.S. and allied forces in the Middle East as the head...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s China policy often seems deliberately ambiguous. Is that a virtue or a flaw? Kurt Campbell is a longtime China watcher who rose up to run Asia policy under the Biden administration. He was the original architect of the so-called “pivot to Asia” during the Obama administration. He joins FP Live to discuss Trump, former U.S. President Joe Biden, and the world’s most imp...

 Is the age of nuclear nonproliferation over? There are certainly worrying signs. New START, the main nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia, recently expired. China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. Talks to bring Iran back to the negotiating table seem to be at an impasse. And one increasingly hears about the possibility of South Korea or Japan going nuclear. What can the wo...

The Pentagon’s policy chief Elbridge Colby recently called for a “NATO 3.0”, stating that the United States would “continue to provide the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent” to Europe, but when it came to most defense matters, Europe would need to “assume primary responsibility.” Colby is the undersecretary of war for policy and joins FP Live host Ravi Agrawal at the annual Munich Security Conferenc...

U.S. tariffs have upended decades of trade policy, but new U.N. data shows that the economies suffering most are those that can least afford a setback. At the Munich Security Conference (MSC), FP’s Ravi Agrawal hosted a panel on the trade wars, with policymakers on the front lines of these economic changes: Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the director-general of the World Trade Organization; Finnish Presiden...

With the White House continuing to threaten military action against Tehran even as diplomatic talks continue, Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour joins FP Live host Ravi Agrawal to discuss what might come next. Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Plus, One Thing from Ravi on a sobering new report about a world “Under Destruction.” A transcript of J.D. Vance’s...