One Decision

Former Director of Global Engagement in the Obama White House Brett Bruen joins to host our weekly special One More Decision to provide analysis on the violent clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary group, Rapid Support Force (RSF). Brett speaks with Ambassador Cameron Hume who ran the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum for his inside take on foreign influence in the conflict, whether sancti...

The biggest porn upload site Pornhub is facing a slew of lawsuits by women who accuse the site of enabling and profiting from sexual exploitation. The advent of the internet means that the abuse of victims of human rights violations including rape and violence now, arguably, is compounded - every time someone views the material. To get a sense of the scale of the issue of trafficking and where the...

Former Director of Global Engagement in the Obama White House Brett Bruen joins to host a special One More Decision to provide analysis on the discovery of a young Air Force reservist's role in stealing over a hundred secret documents and publishing them online. Bruen takes us inside the American security clearance system and looks at whether after so many intelligence issues, allies are now going...

Russia says it will “not tolerate pressure” from the U.S. over detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, a Russian senior official has warned. Washington has recently escalated his case, officially designating him as “wrongfully detained” - meaning he is now seen as a hostage. As Bloomberg reports that Putin himself personally approved his detention, there are growing questions on what price the U.S...

Bonus episode from the One Decision team: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the infamous boss of the Wagner mercenary group, claimed a big victory this week - that his fighters had taken substantial control of the contested city of Bakhmut in Ukraine, and that it had been “legally captured”. However, this is not necessarily good news for the Kremlin. Putin’s once close ally has been badmouthing the Russian milit...

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s place in history is now secure. He may not always be the longest-serving PM, but he will always be the first sitting PM to be indicted on criminal charges. It’s those corruption charges that many of his critics are saying are the motivation for his new judicial reforms - which aim to limit the power and independence of the Supreme Court, and make it harder for a...

The man who once led British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove weighs in on the mass protests we have witnessed in response to major reforms proposed by both President Emanuel Macron and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their countries. Will these leaders and their proposals survive? We offer a special short analysis on the situations & scenarios for the deep public discontent on display at t...

Ukraine welcomed the first arrival this week of sophisticated tanks, as well as armed personnel carriers from the United Kingdom and the United States. They arrive on the battlefield just in time for a long-anticipated counteroffensive by Kyiv. As heavier military support begins to trickle in from western allies, Russian President Vladimir Putin weighs another political calculation of his own - if...

Republicans in the United States are divided on how much support to provide Ukraine in the fight against Russia's invasion of its territory. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has courted controversy by pursuing Trump’s base, arguing that supporting Kyiv is not in America’s national security interests. He’s been deeply criticized by senior figures within his own party for doing so. What is driving this...

A veteran diplomat and one of the leading experts on China, Charlie Parton, joins his old friend Sir Richard Dearlove to discuss the increasing and personally invasive threat posed by the tiny chips present in everything from your smart fridge to your Fitbit. It’s a remarkable conversation that will change the way we look at the modern technology that now fills our homes. They also delve into how...

When WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner was jailed and sent to a penal colony in Moscow last year, the US government got to work on securing her release. But, a few days after she was detained by Russian authorities, Putin invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, it became complicated for the Americans to talk to the Russians in an official capacity. But luckily for Griner, they weren’t the only ones on the c...

When Richard Haass became the head of the influential policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, twenty years ago, the world was very different from where we are now. Dominated by a post-9/11 reality, the American-led international order was in little doubt. In 2003, China had only just joined the World Trade Organization and had yet to become the rising power and economic behemoth it is...

The day before Putin's State of the Union address, President Joe Biden emerged in dramatic fashion beneath Ukraine's glimmering golden domes. A secret operation got him on the ground to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital. Air raid sirens blared out as Biden strolled the streets of Kyiv with Zelensky - the first time in modern US history a serving president visited a warzone with...

Mike Pompeo is the only American to have served as both CIA Director and Secretary of State. A bullish defender of the legacy of the Trump era, in a new autobiography on his time during office, he argues that ‘peace through strength’ is the only way to ensure that America’s foes like Putin and Xi will not actualize the threat they currently pose to Western interests. As speculation mounts over whe...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is particularly observant when it comes to anniversaries. This month he marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Nazis in the battle of Stalingrad. Given he is an enthusiastic student of history - albeit, his own versions of history - watchers of the war in Ukraine have raised the question: what will Putin do when his invasion reaches the ‘one-yea...

Twenty years after the invasion of Iraq, the decision to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power continues to shape the Middle East and the world. In this episode, guest host Helena Humphrey speaks to former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, about his decision to support the war despite widespread opposition in his own country. He joined American President George W. Bush and Briti...

Seldom do you get this level of access. The former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency General Michael Hayden sits down with One Decision. In one of his rare recent interviews, he shares an unvarnished view of the risks posed by Xi Jinping's ambitions and the lessons we should have learned from the War on Terror. In a remarkable exchange, he speaks with co-host and former MI6 Chief Sir Ric...

Christo Grozev once humorously described himself as an ‘internet nerd’ who hunted Russian trolls in his spare time. Well, his hobby has now made him an internationally celebrated journalist - and earned him a place on Russia’s most wanted list. As Lead Russia Investigator for the open-source investigative website Bellingcat, Grozev is one of the best people to talk to if you want to learn more abo...

2022 was a crazy year. And our Sir Richard Dearlove says 2023 won't be any less eventful. The former head of MI6 sits down with host Julia Macfarlane to discuss what the future might hold for the war in Ukraine, the burgeoning protest movement in China, and the United States presidential race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rory Stewart caused a buzz when he challenged Boris Johnson for leadership of the Conservative Party. He did not win the leadership, but he won widespread support for his ‘Rory Walks’ campaign across the United Kingdom, from Brits of all political stripes. He is also known for his walks across Afghanistan, where he was hunted by the Taliban in the mountains between Herat and Kabul at the height of...

As part of our end-of-year review looking into the biggest decisions of 2022, we look at how Putin's invasion of Ukraine plunged Europe into its biggest security crisis since the Second World War. Just a few days after Putin ordered troops to cross the border into Ukraine, German Chancellor Scholz declared a historic reversal of decades-old policy and a 100 billion euro fund to bolster Germany's a...

For our end-of-year review, we analyzed the big events and decisions made in 2022 - the headline blockbusters that dominated the headlines: Putin’s war in Ukraine, Xi’s third term, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the surprising United States midterm elections. But what about the choices made that flew under the radar? Or the choices that needed to be made in 2022, but were ignored? One Decisio...

2022 started with the White House warning that Putin planned to invade Ukraine. Many were skeptical. But in this year's most significant decision survey of more than 100 journalists, the consensus is in: Putin's decision to invade Ukraine was the biggest decision of 2022. Some of the other decisions will surprise you and might end up having more impact in 2023. In this roundup of the biggest stori...

Jeremy Bowen, International Editor at the BBC sits down with One Decision shortly after returning from the Ukrainian frontline, having been embedded with troops as government forces retook control of the occupied city of Kherson last month. A huge victory for Kyiv and a humiliating setback for Putin, who has this week admitted on television that his 'special operation' is likely to take a long tim...

The United States' last legislative elections surprised many political onlookers in the country. Unlike long-standing precedent, where the president's party usually suffers severe losses during these midterm elections, the Democrats actually held control of the Senate and narrowly lost the House of Representatives. We bring together President Donald Trump's former Communications Director Alyssa Fa...