Frontlines and Backrooms

Just days before the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, Dr. Jeremy Shapiro joins Frontlines & Backrooms to discuss the future of the transatlantic alliance. As Washington shifts its strategic focus toward the Indo-Pacific and questions over burden-sharing grow louder, Europe is being forced to confront a difficult reality: can it continue to rely on the United States as its ultimate security guaranto...

For nearly eighty years, Europe's security rested on one assumption: that the United States would always be there. Today, that assumption is being tested like never before. In this episode, Dr. Nathalie Tocci, Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and principal author of the European Union's 2016 Global Strategy, explains why Europe may have entered a fundamentally new strategic e...

Six months after its original release, we are publishing our complete conversation with historian Benny Morris as a standalone episode for the first time. From the Nakba and 1948 to Oslo, October 7, Gaza, and the future of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Morris explains why he believes peace is further away than ever. At several moments, the conversation became heated as we challenged each other...

The war may be over, but the debate has only begun. Drawing on 26 years in US diplomacy and decades of work on non-proliferation, Mark Fitzpatrick joins Frontlines & Backrooms to examine the strategic consequences of the Iran war and the Versailles Memorandum. Did Washington achieve its objectives? Did military pressure strengthen or weaken America's negotiating position? And what does the...

Less than 48 hours after the signing of Trump's Iran Memorandum of Understanding, the agreement was already facing its first major test. As fighting continued in southern Lebanon and Tehran suspended the Geneva technical talks, the central assumptions behind Washington's latest diplomatic initiative began to unravel in real time. Veteran nuclear policy expert Joe Cirincione returns to Fron...

Donald Trump promised a different America. Less intervention. Fewer wars. A new approach to the world. But how much actually changes when administrations change? In this episode of Frontlines & Backrooms, Professor Timothy Lynch argues that behind the rhetoric, American foreign policy is often far more consistent than many assume. From Obama and Trump to China, Europe, and the Middle East, we...

Billions in US military aid and unmatched air superiority have failed to produce decisive outcomes across the Middle East. Why? In this episode, veteran war correspondent and political analyst Elijah Magnier joins Frontlines & Backrooms to discuss Iran's red lines, Hezbollah's military capabilities, the future of the Axis of Resistance, and Benjamin Netanyahu's strategic objectives...

For decades, the Balkans were promised a future inside the European Union. Instead, much of the region remains trapped between endless conditions, political dependency, and constantly shifting rules. In this episode, Professor Biljana Vankovska discusses NATO dependency, the erosion of international law, the war in Ukraine, Gaza, the European Union’s growing identity crisis, and why many people ac...

For decades, the West has viewed Iran through the lens of extremism, nuclear fears, sanctions, and permanent crisis. But beneath the revolutionary rhetoric lies something much older: a civilization shaped by invasion, survival, isolation, and a deep fear of collapse. In this episode of Frontlines & Backrooms, Dr. Roger Higginson joins us for a long-form conversation on how Tehran actually sees...

In this episode of Frontlines & Backrooms, historian Omer Bartov joins us for a deeply personal and historically charged conversation about Israel, Zionism, Gaza, historical trauma, collective denial, and the dangerous collapse of moral certainty after October 7th. Born in Israel and raised on a left-wing socialist kibbutz, Bartov reflects not only as one of the world’s leading historians of g...

What if unpredictability itself has become a weapon of power? From Richard Nixon’s “Madman Theory” to today’s politics of strategic unpredictability, uncertainty itself is once again becoming a weapon of power. At a moment when wars are expanding and the post-Cold War order appears increasingly unstable, one question is moving back to the center of global politics: Is unpredictability becoming the...

Journalist, broadcaster, and founder of On The Line Media, Samira Mohyeddin joins Frontlines & Backrooms for a conversation on the war with Iran, the collapse of Western credibility, Israel’s media strategy, and the growing crisis inside legacy journalism. We discuss Trump and Netanyahu, regime change, social media warfare, Gaza, propaganda, the Iranian diaspora, and why Mohyeddin believes jou...

Climate change is no longer a future crisis. It is already reshaping conflict, migration, borders, and global stability. In this episode of Climate Wars: The Conflicts of the Future , Dr. Abdullah Fahimi joins Frontlines & Backrooms to examine how droughts, water scarcity, sea level rise, and collapsing agricultural systems are becoming drivers of instability and displacement across the world....

Climate change is no longer only an environmental issue. It is becoming a geopolitical, economic, and security crisis capable of reshaping migration, conflict, and political stability across entire regions. In Part I of our special two-part series “Climate Wars: The Conflicts of the Future,” environmental journalist and researcher Peter Schwartzstein explains how drought, water scarcity, collapsin...

The Gulf is no longer stable — but it hasn’t collapsed either. In this conversation with Kristin Diwan, we examine how Gulf states are recalculating their position between the United States, Iran, and Israel, and what that means for the future of the region. We discuss the transformation of the Abraham Accords, the growing fragmentation inside the Gulf, and the competing strategies shaping regiona...

The ongoing war between the United States and Iran is not just a conflict between two states. In this conversation with Hussein Banai, we examine how political leaders justify escalation without ever naming it, why deterrence can become a self-fulfilling logic of war, and what this conflict reveals about power and decision-making inside the United States. From the limits of the “madman theory” to...

This week, the line between religion, politics, and power blurred in ways that go beyond headlines. A public clash between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV. Rising tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. And a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon. These are not isolated events — they are part of a broader pattern. In this Brief, we look beyond the spectacle and examine the strategic choices shaping what comes n...

The war was expected to last days. Instead, it is reshaping the entire Middle East. In this episode, Mouin Rabbani examines how a conflict that was never meant to escalate is now expanding across the region — from the Strait of Hormuz to Lebanon, and from Washington to Tehran. We discuss how the war began, why it was expected to end quickly, and what went wrong. From failed assumptions and the abs...

This is one of the most revealing analyses of Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Iran you will hear today. Randa Slim breaks down how Hezbollah operates beyond the “proxy” label, why Lebanon is under pressure from both war and internal fractures, and how Iran’s regional strategy shapes the conflict. From Israel’s military approach to the collapse of the old regional order — this episode looks at what is actu...

Direct Iran–US talks have begun in Islamabad. This Brief breaks down what is on the table — from the Strait of Hormuz and sanctions to nuclear limits — and whether this is a real path to peace or just a pause before the war resumes. At the same time, tensions between the United States and its NATO allies are exposing deeper fractures inside the alliance.

In a candid and open conversation, Dr. Roger Higginson challenges some of the most deeply held assumptions in Western policy and thinking. From Iran to Russia, he argues that what the West sees as aggression is often perceived on the other side as defense — shaped by history, invasion, and long-term insecurity. He explains why de-escalation has become so difficult, pointing to entrenched political...

In this episode of Frontlines & Backrooms , we speak with Professor Oona Hathaway (Yale Law School), one of the leading experts on international law and the use of force, and a former advisor at the Pentagon. At a moment when the foundations of the post-1945 international order are being openly challenged, we examine whether the United States is violating the rules — or rewriting them in real...

The president of the most powerful country in the world addressed the nation. The message was meant to project control. Instead, it revealed something else. No clear strategy. No defined objective. No realistic endgame. But this week is not just about one speech. It is also about a law that redraws the line between people — and what justice looks like when it is no longer equal. And finally, a rem...

In this conversation with Joseph Cirincione, we examine the war in Iran beyond the headlines — not as a sequence of events, but as a failure of strategy. We discuss how a deal was on the table just days before the war, including back-channel diplomacy through Oman, why escalation may now be more likely than before the conflict began, and how decisions made in Washington are reshaping nuclear risk...

There are no negotiations in the current war with Iran — only the exchange of demands. This week’s Brief breaks down the reality behind U.S. claims of diplomacy, Trump’s April 6 deadline, and the military build-up pointing to a potential operation targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure. At the same time, in Lebanon, Israeli operations are reshaping the south — raising a broader question: is this a te...