The Global Agora

How has the nature of threats changed over the past decades? With a 36-year career in Canada’s foreign service and security community, Jennifer Irish can tell. We met at the Stratcom Under Pressure conference in Bratislava, organized by the Hoaxy a podvody (Hoaxes and Scams) project. Ms. Irish is the Founding Director of the Information Integrity Lab at the University of Ottawa, and we discuss for...

US President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that, because of other countries' testing programs, he has instructed the Department of War to begin testing nuclear weapons on an equal basis – a process he says will start immediately. What does this mean? How risky is it? Will Trump really resume nuclear testing? And if he does, who will be the biggest winner? I try to find answers...

If authoritarians seek to dictate the global agenda while liberal democracies at least partly resist, could this lead to conflicts or even wars? This was one of my questions for Alexander Cooley , Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and Alexander Dukalskis , Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. T...

Some people welcome the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, yet criticize the same procedure when applied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What does Hugo Slim – Director of the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, who studies ethics, war, and humanitarian aid in international relations –...

When President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament in June 2024, he gambled that new elections might restore his control or expose the far right as unfit to govern. Instead, France has been stuck in a political stalemate – no clear majority, a restless opposition, and a public growing weary of the political chaos. To help us make sense of it all, I’m joined by Georgina Wright , Special Adviser to...

Does American President Donald Trump really see the Russian war against Ukraine at least partly differently compared to, for example, six months ago, when he was still regularly berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? This was my question for a military analyst, Franz-Stefan Gady . His response? "I think the major mistake that we are making in Europe is constantly trying to assess w...

Who is Andrej Babiš? Who is the real Babiš? The best kind of handle we can get on this is what he said early on about how he wants to run the country like a firm. Clearly, he wants centralized power. He doesn’t like checks and balances. That’s how Seán Hanle y, Associate Professor in Comparative Central and East European Politics at University College London, put it in our conversation. The electi...

Is it accurate to describe the upcoming elections in Moldova, scheduled for September 28, as a duel between the pro-EU and pro-Russian camps? Has Russia been at least partly successful in influencing a significant number of Moldovan voters? And what might happen if pro-Russian forces win? I discuss these questions, and more, with Denis Cenusa , an Associate Expert at the Center for Geopolitics and...

Are Russia, China, and Donald Trump's America global disruptors, and what can the EU do about it? And how to live in a world full of anxiety where drones fly over our heads, we feel economic pressure, and the wars are nearby. Join me as I speak with Paweł Świeboda , Senior Visiting Fellow and Co-Director of the Brussels Economic Security Forum at the European Policy Centre. He was Deputy Head...

What does MAGA propaganda represent in American politics? And what does Superman represent? To unpack these political symbols, I speak with Nicholas Cull , Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California, a pioneer scholar and educator in the field of public diplomacy and a historian of the role of mass communication in foreign policy. Does he believe that President Donald Trum...

Washington has sent warships, submarines, and thousands of Marines into the Caribbean, raising questions about America’s intentions toward Venezuela. The Trump administration says it is targeting narco-terrorists linked to Nicolás Maduro’s regime – but how accurate is that picture, and what does it mean for regional stability and security? There was already an attack on an alleged drug trafficker&...

In this episode of my podcast, The Global Agora, Niklas Harring , Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, discusses the complex relationship between public concern over climate change and actual support for climate policies. While surveys consistently show that Europeans overwhelmingly view climate change as a serious threat and support ambitious...

A very different kind of meeting took place between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. It was a stark contrast to their previous encounter at the end of February, which many described as an ambush. What has changed in the past six months on both the Ukrainian and American sides? And what do these changes mean for the future of the Russian war,...

Vanda Felbab-Brown is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and we discuss how the fentanyl crisis has become the most lethal drug epidemic in United States history. She examines the factors contributing to it, including the high potency of synthetic opioids and the role of criminal organizations in their distribution. Vanda also offers her insights into a recent decline in fentanyl-relate...

When President Donald Trump says jump, every Republican asks: How high? But is he weaker than he appears? Trump plays the hegemon, and many are afraid of him, from his party to the media, law firms, and universities. But at one moment, he will be a lame duck, and he is old. I discussed the current state of the GOP and the Democratic Party with Steven Greene , a Professor of Political Science at No...

Is there a real risk of coordinated aggression by China and Russia that could lead to simultaneous attacks on Taiwan and NATO countries? Both the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte have mentioned this scenario. So, should we be seriously worried about something that could resemble a global war? I spoke with Mick Ryan , a military strat...

Is everything a distraction from the Epstein files? But when Donald Trump accuses Barack Obama of treason, what's next? Can the current US President try to arrest and prosecute his predecessor? And how would America and its institutions react to it? "At this point, we can't rule anything out," Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan Donald Moynihan told me. Liste...

The Norwegian newspaper The Barents Observer is taking the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office to court for declaring the media outlet a so-called undesirable organization. "I think that the Russian authorities are very, very afraid of independent media. We publish in Russian, so we do have an audience inside the country," said Barents Observer publisher Atle Staalesen to me. I met him i...

Phillips P. O'Brien is the Head of the School of International Relations and Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews. Does he think that what we're seeing from the Trump administration could amount to a kind of deliberate strategy – to restrict funding and weapons for Ukraine, in the belief that Kyiv will interpret this as a signal that it must eventually capitulate?...

Vladimir Putin recently announced that Russia plans to cut military spending starting next year. This statement came after the Minister of Economic Development, Maxim Reshetnikov, warned that the country’s economy is teetering on the brink of recession. Yet Putin also declared : Wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that’s ours. So, regardless of his words about the economy, is he preparing for a...

Cas Mudde is a Dutch political scientist – or, as he prefers to call himself, a politicologist – one of the foremost scholars on the far right in Western democracies and a professor at the University of Georgia. After a few phone discussions, I finally met him in person at the GLOBSEC conference in Prague. We talked about Donald Trump's America, why he is optimistic about US democracy, though...

The NATO summit takes place on June 24-25 in The Hague. How should the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deal with American President Donald Trump? Can NATO work in a mode of pleasing and not provoking him? How should the Alliance spend 5 percent of GDP on defense? And what to do with Russia? At the GLOBSEC conference in Prague, I spoke with ⁠ Ben Hodges ⁠, a former commanding general, United Sta...

Can Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party lose next year’s election? What might he do to prevent that? How nervous is Orbán about Péter Magyar's Tisza Party, which is currently leading in the polls? And with the potential win of Andrej Babiš in the Czech elections and with recent Karol Nawrocki's victory in Poland's presidential race, could we be witnessing a more illiberal V4...

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un recently suffered a public embarrassment. He wanted to show off his new destroyer, but it was damaged. „The destroyer program of North Korea has suffered a setback. But Kim Jong-un has no intention of stopping the development of it,“ Ramon Pacheco Pardo , a Professor of International Relations at King's College London, told me. According to him, it is obvious that...

I don't think Larry Diamond needs much of an introduction – but here we go. He is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. For decades, his research has focused on democratic trends and conditions around the world, as well as on policies and reforms to de...