Sounds Strategic

In this episode, podcast host Meia Nouwens is joined by Tom Waldwyn, Research Associate for Defence Procurement, and Haena Jo, Research Analyst for Defence and Military Analysis, to discuss the increasingly diversified landscape of defence industry and defence procurement.   With successive governments in Turkey, South Korea, Brazil and Poland having invested heavily in their defence industri...

In this episode, podcast host Meia Nouwens is joined by Dr Benjamin Petrini, Research Fellow for Conflict, Security and Development, and Dr Umberto Profazio, Associate Fellow for Conflict, Security and Development, to reflect on the concept of fragility. Approaching the concept of fragility in a multidimensional way, Meia, Benjamin and Umberto examine the origins of the term, as well as the miscon...

In this episode of Sounds Strategic, Meia Nouwens is joined by Fenella McGerty, Senior Fellow for Defence Economics, and Henry Boyd, Research Fellow for Defence and Military Analysis, to discuss the global defence developments identified in the latest edition of The Military Balance .   To mark the publication of  The Military Balance 2021, launching today (25 February 2021), Meia, Fenel...

In this episode, Meia Nouwens is joined by Dr Euan Graham, Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security, and Joseph Dempsey, Research Associate for Defence and Military Analysis, to examine recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including the current state of the relationships between the two Koreas and the United States, as well as other countries in the region. In this episo...

In this episode, Meia Nouwens is joined by Dr Ben Rhode, Editor of The Adelphi Series and IISS Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs, and Dr Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and former IISS Deputy Director-General. Together, they reflect on the legacy of the Trump presidency and also look ahead at what to expect from Presi...

In the first IISS Sounds Strategic podcast of 2021, to coincide with the audiobook release of Brendan Taylor’s Adelphi Series publication Dangerous Decade: Taiwan’s Security and Crisis Management , Meia Nouwens and Brendan discuss the geopolitical importance of Taiwan and the challenges it faces in the coming year and beyond. Starting with President Tsai Ing-Wen’s re-election in January 2020 and h...

After an unprecedented year in world affairs, Meia Nouwens speaks with Sarah Raine, IISS Consulting Senior Fellow for Geopolitics and Strategy, and Dr Nigel Gould-Davies, Editor of IISS’  Strategic Survey  and Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia in this special end-of-year episode.  Researchers from across the IISS contributed their thoughts on the key geopolitical and security cha...

In this episode, Meia Nouwens is joined by Dr Samir Puri, The IISS’ new Senior Fellow for Hybrid Warfare, for a discussion about the concept of ‘hybrid warfare’ and its potential applications in the Asia-Pacific.  Having observed the realities of hybrid warfare in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, Samir highlights the differences between ‘grey zone’ and ‘hybrid warfare’ activiti...

In this special episode of Sounds Strategic, recorded ahead of the IISS Manama Dialogue 2020, Sir Tom Beckett speaks with Hasan Alhasan and Camille Lons about the key geopolitical challenges the Middle East has faced in 2020.    Hasan and Camille highlight the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to countries across the Middle East and how the pandemic has...

In this week’s episode, Meia Nouwens speaks with Helena Legarda, Senior Analyst at Mercator Institute for China Studies, on NATO’s evolving, and often complex, relationship with China. Meia and Helena trace the history of the relationship, from the early antagonism following the 1998 Belgrade bombing of the Chinese embassy, through several years of tentative cooperation in the early 2000s, to grow...

Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections on 4 October threw the country into political crisis. Claims that the elections were rigged sparked mass popular protests on the streets of Bishkek, the capital, which led to the resignation of Kyrgyzstani president, Sooronbay Jeyenbekov, on 15 October. In this special episode of Sounds Strategic, Nigel Gould-Davies, IISS Senior Fellow for Russia and Euras...

In the second part of our US election podcast, Meia Nouwens speaks with Nigel Gould-Davies, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia, and Irene Mia, Senior Fellow for Latin America, on the policy challenges the incoming Biden administration will face in both Russia and Latin America. Nigel explains that the election of Biden will strengthen American resolve to counter Russian influence in Europe and e...

In this two-part episode, Meia Nouwens speaks with IISS experts on the foreign-policy priorities the incoming Biden administration will likely address over the next four years. In part one, Euan Graham, Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security, discusses how leaders in the Asia-Pacific, including China, have reacted to the election result and the policy implications a Biden presidency may have. He...

The upcoming US presidential election between President Donald Trump and former vice president Joseph Biden may prove to be one of the most contentious in US history. In this episode, Dana Allin, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs, and David Gordon, Senior Adviser for Geo-Economics and Strategy, discuss each candidate’s prospects and how the Trump administration has impa...

The collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty   last year increased concerns that the international architecture around arms control was weakening further. With other agreements up for renewal or under renewed scrutiny, what does the future hold for arms control between the US, Russia and China?  In this week’s episode, Meia Nouwens speaks with three IISS Missile...

The recent dispute between Greece and Turkey has again raised questions around the sustainability of the NATO Alliance. However, one of the Alliance’s loudest critics in recent years has been US President Donald Trump, despite the United States' critical role within it. But are such criticisms political rhetoric or are they part of a wider strategic recalculation by the US as its national security...

This week, Antonio Sampaio is joined by Ignacio Cano, Alice Hills and Tessa Diphoorn for a wide-ranging discussion on the challenges of policing in the developing world, with a particular focus on Brazil, Kenya and Somalia. Ignacio, Alice and Tessa each describe the different forms of policing in each country, from extreme militarisation in Rio de Janeiro to sporadic and limited policing in Somali...

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the US military bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki using a weapon of unprecedented destructive capability, the atom bomb. These bombings marked the beginning of the nuclear age and remain the only use of a nuclear weapon in an active conflict. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of these events, Meia Nouwens is joined by Dana Allin, Senior Fellow for US Fo...

In this week’s episode of Sounds Strategic, Meia Nouwens is joined by John Raine, Senior Adviser for Geopolitical Due Diligence, and Dr Nigel Gould-Davies, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia and Editor of the Strategic Survey , for a discussion on political risk and ‘corporate foreign policy’. The economic instability caused by the COVID-19 crisis, coupled with the intensifying geo-economic riva...

To celebrate the 50th episode of Sounds Strategic, Robert Ward, Director of the Geo-economics and Strategy programme at the IISS, hosts Meia Nouwens and Nigel Inkster for a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation on China, its foreign-policy motivations and what its possible dominance in technology could mean for the West. In the episode, Meia and Nigel examine the limits of China’s assertive, ‘...

Following a  special presentation  by US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Meia and Antônio speak with Research Fellow Aaron Connelly on how the United States’ strategy towards Southeast Asia is viewed by Southeast Asian countries themselves.   In the episode, Aaron explains why Secretary Esper’s recent remarks may indicate US policymakers are moving away from large-scale m...

With the return of great-power competition to the forefront of international affairs, there has been a renewed focus among the world’s advanced militaries on what capabilities will be required to win or compete in possible conflicts in the future.  In this week’s episode, Franz-Stefan Gady joins Meia and Antônio to discuss the concepts that underpin debates around future warfighting, and...

Europe was already facing a host of complex geopolitical and economic challenges at the start of 2020, even before the COVID-19 crisis. In this week’s episode, Meia is joined by Sarah Raine and Fabrice Pothier for a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion on how the EU’s political agenda has been impacted by the pandemic and what issues remain at the forefront of its policy priorities. Domestically,...

China has been expanding its economic and diplomatic reach in the Gulf for little over a decade, but should growing Gulf–China relations concern the United States? In this week’s episode, Camille Lons speaks with Antônio and Meia on the dynamics of China’s growing presence in the Gulf, how it has evolved in recent years and its limitations.  At its core, China’s interest in the Gulf rema...

Japan was already heading towards economic difficulties before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world’s economy. How will Japan’s economy fare in the post-COVID period? And will it affect the country’s geostrategic and geo-economic ambitions? In this week’s episode, Meia discusses these questions with Robert Ward and Yuka Koshino. Robert explains that Japan will likely experience a severe econo...