Neutrality Studies

Pascal talks with Australian historian and activist Vern Hughes, founder of the Australian Association for Armed Neutrality in 1988, about renewed interest in Australian neutrality. They discuss the US alliance, war and deterrence, public opinion, left and right support, social cohesion, immigration, ties to Asia, and the political path toward a more independent Australian foreign policy. Links: V...

Pascal Lottaz is joined by former Maltese foreign minister Evarist Bartolo to discuss the UN vote on slavery reparations, Western abstentions and opposition, the link between slavery, colonialism and present power, compensation for slave owners, Haiti, Africa-Europe ties, rising pressure from the global majority, and the wider fight over dominance, debt, war, and solidarity. ([evaristbartolo.mt](h...

Pascal Lottaz speaks with retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor about the Iran ceasefire, Trump’s threats, Iran’s missile strength, damaged US bases, Israeli pressure on Washington, the risk of wider economic shock, and Europe’s weak place in NATO. Macgregor argues Iran kept the strategic edge, the US needed the pause, and Israel remains the main block in any wider settlement. Links: Douglas Macgregor...

Iran managed to coerce the US into accepting its 10-point plan as a basis for negotiations. Here is what we can infer from this. Substack article with full text: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/p/iran-declares-interim-victory Support us here: Donations & Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com

Pascal Lottaz is joined by former US Army officer and military analyst Stanislav Krapivnik to discuss Trump’s threats toward Iran, the claimed rescue mission, risks to Gulf energy routes and power systems, the danger around nuclear sites, Israel’s role, and whether Iran, Russia, and China can raise the cost of a wider war. Links: Stanislav Krapivnik YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrSlavikman St...

Felix Marquardt speaks with physician and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté about anti-Semitism claims, Zionism, colonialism, Gaza, French and European politics, censorship, Israeli dissent, and the push to criminalize anti-Zionism. They also discuss trauma, propaganda, victimhood, media silence, and the wider crisis inside Western power and public debate. Links: Felix's Channel: https://youtube.co...

US alliances now look less like protection and more like danger. Pascal Lottaz speaks with international human rights lawyer Saul Takahashi about living through the UAE missile alerts, the Gaza genocide, US bases turning allies into targets, Japan’s risks, failed deterrence, and the breakdown of the old order. Links: Saul Takahashi Researchmap: https://researchmap.jp/saul_takahashi Neutrality Stud...

US power looks trapped, brittle, and in decline. Pascal Lottaz speaks with political economist Radhika Desai about Trump’s Iran war speech, a deepening Middle East quagmire, oil shock, NATO strain, lost US credibility, imperial decline, domestic decay, and the risk of an AI and debt crash.  Links: Radhika Desai website: https://radhikadesai.com ([radhikadesai.com](https://radhikadesai.com/?utm_so...

Western views of Iran are deeply distorted. Patrick Ringgenberg, EPFL lecturer and longtime Iran researcher, discusses media bias, Iran’s social and religious complexity, failed regime change thinking, war misreading, internal power factions, and the gap between diaspora narratives and life inside Iran. Links: Patrick Ringgenberg Website: https://patrickringgenberg.com/home/ Academia: https://unil...

This is a grave case of political punishment without due process. Pascal Lottaz speaks with journalist Hüseyin Doğru, who says EU sanctions turned him into a non-person inside Germany. The discussion covers the lack of trial or hearing, the struggle to challenge sanctions in court, frozen bank access, the seizure of his wife’s accounts, and the danger this creates for his children. They also discu...

Iran looks far harder to break than many in the West assumed. Pascal Lottaz talks with Dr. Pietro Shakarian and Eldar Mamedov about Iranian Azerbaijan, Armenia, Israel, Turkey, failed diplomacy, and the wider South Caucasus fallout from the war. Links: Eldar Mamedov at Quincy Institute: https://quincyinst.org/author/eldar-mamedov/ Eldar Mamedov on X: https://twitter.com/EldarMamedov4 Dr. Pietro A....

Not just Cuba, but the entire Caribbean region is under intense US threat from blockade, hunger, bombing, and old colonial habits dressed up as foregin policy. Today, I speak with Dr. Richard Byron-Cox, a Caribbean-born author with a PhD in public international law, about Cuba’s deep crisis, Haiti’s long suffering, and the wider struggle of small states facing raw power. The discussion moves from...

Former CIA analyst, Larry Johnson is quite sure; there is no "grand strategy" or "4D Chess" going on. The US/Israeli coalition war against Iran is just a rolling disaster (academics would call it "path dependent) in which one bad decision leads to the next and by now a ground invasion with US boots on the ground is basically inevitable because they already went through the...

This conversation is a direct challenge to the moral claims of Western philosophy in the face of Gaza. I speak with Professor Dr. Irfan Ahmad, professor of anthropology and sociology at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul. The discussion looks at Habermas as a major German public intellectual, then moves into Western Marxism, colonial blind spots, and the way Palestine is pushed out of the moral fra...

The old Western order looks more brittle, more violent, and more desperate than at any point in recent memory. In this conversation, I speak with German author and playwright Fabian Scheidler about his book "The End of the Megamachine" and the deeper system of militarism, capital, media power, and linear force that he argues is driving ecological collapse, war, and political decay. Fabia...

So long and thanks for nothing. Despite the fanfare around a ground invasion of Iran, the troop withdrawals from the region speak a different langauge. Iran is on the verge of driving the americans out of the entire Gulf region, proofing that the US/Israeli War of Aggression against Iran is built on bad judgment and false confidence. I speak again with Rainer Rupp, a former German intelligence off...

What if the world at the moment seems insane because the people running its conflicts are in fact clinically psychotic? This is what I discuss today with the retired psychiatrist Dr. Niall MacLaren. We talk about his biocognitive model and how a craving for dominance dictates the actions of modern empires. His book, Narcisso-Fascism, explains why nations act like playground bullies and why we keep...

Crime in the united states is not a bug, it’s a feature. That explains actually a lot also about its illegal foreign policies. The US as a political entity is deeply intertwined with crime syndicates and explicitly illegal acts under international and local law. Epstein was not at all an exception. These shady dealers are part and parcel of how US politics works. Luckily, there are great academics...

The Iran War is going horribly. If Donald Trump knows this or not and which type of information he is being fed we don't know. But the idea of sending ground troops to occupy islands in front of Iran is either utter disregard for reality or a desperate move to somehow turn the tide of the war around. Here to discuss this is Prof. Steven Starr, an Emeritus Professor of the University of Missour...

Donald Trump seems to think that "signalling deescalation" by announcing that hits on Iranian gas facilities have been further suspended until April 6 would lull Iran into believing they are safe for now. But we know that the US is finishing its troop amassment in the region. The logical conclusion: the US is planning another sneak attack over a weekend with the hope that once markets ar...

The scale of the strategic mistake the US made in attacking Iran is slowly becoming apparent, and it is leading to ever more desperate moves by the US-Israeli axis. Dr. Arta Moeini, who is intimately familiar with both the Iranian and US political systems, explains the extent of these miscalculations and their impact on the regional balance of power, while Lasha Kasradze examines the facts on the...

Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University, updates us on the war from Teheran: He predicts that the Americans are actually going to do boots on the ground since they are that desperate and it will lead to mass-slaughter of the troops trying. The resolve of Iran seems unbroken and the capability to strike invading troops not just from the shore lines but from any place in Iran is a thre...

The Political West is risking it all. Under US leadership, the old colonial empires that never got over their loss of power are about to launch the largest global war since the 1940s. And for what? With Lasha Kasradze from Georgia and Arthur Khachikian from Armenia, I trace the risks, the fear, and the brutal logic of the failing western empire. Links: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallo...

The Iran War is a multi-decade history of step-by-step escalation to get to total war and the peak of the strategy is around the corner. Today I'm speak with Patrick Henningsen, American journalist, geopolitical analyst, and founder of 21st Century Wire. Links: Patrick Henningsen on 21st Century Wire: https://21stcenturywire.com Patrick Henningsen on Substack: https://patrickhenningsen.substac...

The Iran War is not about what you see. But about what you can't consume. Join me for a talk with professor Warwick Powell on his newest book about the Thermodynamic economy. Warwick's book: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Dr-Warwick-Powell/dp/9699293209 Support us on substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Shop and Donations: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com