Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy

In this episode, Jeff Hawn details the implications of Western leaders failure to understand Russia. Its failures helped facilitate the rise of Vladimir Putin, who became everything the U.S. and the West feared from a post-Soviet Russia. To avoid repeating that mistake as Russia moves into a post-Putin area, American leadership must look beyond personalities and understand the regime’s mechanics.

In this episode, Diana Rayes proposes that the countries providing assistance to these – and other – refugees should learn from past crises and scale up their national health systems in order to accommodate the mental health and social integration issues these newcomers face. Nearly 12 million Ukrainians are either displaced within their own country or seeking refuge abroad after the Russian invas...

In this episode, New Lines analyst Calvin Wilder gives an overview of the situation on the front lines and shows ways Washington can de-escalate tensions and promote peace in the region. Turkey is threatening a third offensive into territory in northeast Syria controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). While pressure from both the U.S. and Russia may have put those plans on hold...

In this episode, Jesse Marks and Caroline Rose explain the ongoing security situation and describe how Washington can help Jordan constructively engage with the regime over illicit narcotics streams, border clashes, and other security concerns – short of normalization. Recent overtures between the Jordanian and Syrian governments have prompted concerns from the United States that Amman is seeking...

In this episode, Jeremy Morris details the threats the regime could face from worker militancy, passive resistance to the state, and negative politicization of the war. Much has been made of political unrest in Russia over the past few years, but the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the possibility of economic instability as the poor and middle class increasingly feel the effects o...

In this episode, Claudia Gago Ostos discusses the Summit of the Americas, held on June 6, 2022 in Los Angeles. Organizing the summit was fraught with difficulties: Some Caribbean and Central and South American countries threatened to boycott the event if non-democratic countries are excluded from the guest list, and the U.S. has not made the summit’s agenda clear. Ostos details the implications of...

In this episode, Sabina Henneberg and Karim Mezran show the history of Gulf states’ involvement in the region and why the Biden administration should pay attention to this volatile area. The Maghreb is strategically crucial for commerce, energy, and U.S. national security, but Washington’s allies in the Persian Gulf are increasingly taking advantage of instability in the region to further their ow...

In this episode, Hamdullah Baycar lays out the incentives – and obstacles – for improved relations between Ankara and Abu Dhabi. The UAE and Turkey have begun to normalize relations after a decade of cold war, a move that could hasten normalization between Turkey and Israel and further isolate Iran.

In this episode, Heiko Wimmen lays out the factors that have doomed the country to such vicious political cycles since the end of the civil war 33 years ago and shows steps interested domestic and international stakeholders can take to promote change. Lebanon continues to reel from a ruinous economic crisis, but upcoming parliamentary elections appear likely to produce few if any changes in the ma...

In this episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast series, Human Security Unit Director Faysal Itani sits down with Lebanese political activist Alaa Sayeg to discuss Lebanese politics amid the worst economic situation in the country’s history. Viewed through the lens of Sayeg’s personal experience as an opposition politician in the May 2022 national elections, the discussion highlights...

Russia’s war in Ukraine is entering a new phase as forces shift their focus to the country’s east and south, seeking to capitalize on gains in separatist enclaves after numerous losses and shortfalls in the campaign’s initial months. As Russia adjusts its posture, the U.S. — particularly its intelligence community — also wants to shift to a long-term strategy that will deter Russian advances and v...

In this episode of the New Lines Institute's Contours podcast series, host Nicholas Heras is joined by three outstanding experts, Leyla Latypova, Misha Yakovlev, and Jeff Hawn, to discuss the state of Russian civil society and the civil resistance movement against the Putin-led Russian government. The discussion focuses on the current, contentious, and potentially regime-destabilizing dynamic betw...

In this episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast series, host Nicholas Heras is joined by two leading experts on the Indian Subcontinent, Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Suchitra Vijayan , to analyze the dangerous emerging dynamics on the Indian subcontinent, especially inside India and in the contentious relationship between India and Pakistan. The discussion covers Vijayan’s critically ac...

In this segment of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras is joined by two leading experts on the Indian Subcontinent and climate change – Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Dr. Saleem Ali – to discuss the geopolitics of climate change in India, Pakistan, and South Asia overall. The discussion then dives into the key findings from Dr. Saleem Ali’s forthcoming book, Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Defi...

In this episode of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras discusses the tumultuous state of Pakistan with two globally recognized experts on the country: Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Raza Rumi Ahmad. They discuss the social and political fallout from the removal of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan and the geopolitical ramifications of Khan's ongoing effort to weaponize anti-Americanis...

In this episode of “Roamings and Reflections,” Mercy Corps Senior Policy Advisor Yasmin Faruki joins host Alice Hickson to share what she's learned from her travels to Yemen and her work directing humanitarian policy efforts on there. Faruki discusses obstacles to humanitarian work in Yemen and speaks candidly about the need to partner with local organizations to create a sustainable future.

In this segment of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras is joined by Eugene Chausovsky, Senior Analyst at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy and a globally recognized expert on Russia, the post-Soviet states, and Eurasia, to discuss Russia’s potential emerging strategy to annex breakaway territories in several post-Soviet states. The discussion dives into the implications of Ch...

In the latest episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast, Program Head and Senior Analyst Caroline Rose interviews Jim Townsend, Rachel Rizzo, and Eugene Chausovsky on transatlantic security in light of the conflict in Ukraine. Townsend is an adjunct senior fellow in the Center for a New American Security’s (CNAS) Transatlantic Security Program and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary...

The latest episode of the New Lines Institute's Contours podcast breaks down the transforming battlefield conditions and strategic state of play in Ukraine. Host Caroline Rose, a senior analyst at the New Lines Institute and the head of the Power Vacuums program, is joined by three leading military and open-source intelligence experts: Rob Lee, a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Instit...

In this episode of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras is joined by two noted scholars and globally-recognized experts on religious authoritarianism on the Indian Subcontinent: Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Shweta Krishnan. These experts discuss the history of religious nationalism on the Indian Subcontinent since the end of British colonialism and the partition of India and Pakistan, the deve...

In the first Contours podcast of 2022, Nicholas Heras is joined by war reporter Jake Hanrahan to discuss the future of conflict and the breakdown of the post-World War II global system. Hanrahan is the founder of Popular Front, a disruptive media organization that seeks to provide nuanced, gritty, and deeply human reporting on under-covered conflicts in the world. Heras and Hanrahan engaged in a w...

In this episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast series, widely respected academic Dr. Dana El Kurd sits down with Rasha Al Aqeedi and Nicholas Heras to discuss her groundbreaking research on an emerging generation of Palestinian civil society and political activists. Dr. El Kurd provides a deep dive on her innovative work on the ground in Palestine, her assessment on what the future...

In this episode of the Newlines Institute’s Contours podcast series, Lebanon and Levant geopolitics expert Anthony Elghossain, also a contributing editor at Newlines Magazine, chats with Nicholas Heras about the recent Beirut clashes and their potential implications for Lebanon. Elghossain channels his extensive experience as a researcher in Lebanon to provide a nuanced forecast on Lebanon’s evolv...

In this episode of the Newlines Institute’s Contours podcast series, geopolitical analysts and Russia experts Jeff Hawn and Sim Tack join the Newlines Institute’s Caroline Rose and Nicholas Heras to break down the future of Russia after the country’s September 2021 parliamentary elections. The discussion includes a detailed assessment of the U.S. and European policy approach to Russia and recommen...

In this episode of “Roamings and Reflections,” humanitarian assistance and international development expert Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff joins host Nicholas Heras to recount the massive effort to evacuate Afghans as the Taliban seized Kabul. Ghosh-Siminoff provides an account of one of the most unique civil society efforts in U.S. history as America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan came to a chaotic end.