The Voices of War

  My guest today is Dr Robert ‘Bob’ Bowker whose career in the politics and analysis of the Middle East spans five decades. He spent 37 years as an Australian diplomat in the region, firstly on postings to Saudi Arabia (74-06), and Syria (79-81) and later as the Australian ambassador to Jordan (89-92), Egypt (05-08) as well as non-resident ambassador to Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Sudan. Bob also h...

Today, I spoke with Will Storr, who is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in titles such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Yorker and The New York Times. He is the author of six critically acclaimed books, including ‘Selfie: How the West became self-obsessed’, ‘The Heretics: Adventures with the enemies of science’, as well as the Sunday Times Bestseller ‘The Science of Storyt...

Please note that this entire episode is available on the public channel. To gain access to all other episodes, please subscribe at https://thevoicesofwar.supercast.com/ ---- Today, I spoke with Robert Hartley, who is a former Australian Army Officer who served for 12 years in the Artillery Corps before transitioning to a civilian career in the technology sector. During his time in the military, Ro...

Today, I spoke with Dr Christopher Coyne, who is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the Associate Director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of five books and numerous academic articles, book chapters, and policy studies. He joins me today to discuss his latest book, In Search of Monste...

My guest today is Dr Elizabeth Boulton, who is an eco-military theorist with Destination Safe Earth, and a research affiliate with the ‘Climate Change & (In)Security Project’ which is a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research (CHACR) and the British Army. She joins me today to discuss her thinking behind the concepts of ‘Hyperthr...

My guest today is Amos Fox, who is an officer in the US Army with more than 24 years of service in uniform. Amos has written extensively on war and conflict over the past decade, producing over 60 publications. His work focuses on causal mechanisms to explain patterns in armed conflict. Much of Amos’ current writing addresses proxy war, land warfare, the Russo-Ukrainian War, and military thinking....

My guest today is Dr Alison Broinowski AM, who is an Australian academic, journalist, writer, and former Australian diplomat. She is also the President of Australians for War Powers Reform.   Alison joined me to explore the current debate on Australian troop deployment, compare it to other democracies, and discuss the possible outcome of the ongoing parliamentary enquiry into war powers.   Some of...

This a reminder that The Voices Of War is transitioning to a subscription model from February. More info here . Those wishing to subscribe can already do so here . --- My guest today is Dr Samir Puri , who is a visiting lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London and has previously taught at Cambridge and John Hopkins. He joined me for a deep dive into his two most recent books. The first one...

This a reminder that The Voices Of War is transitioning to a subscription model from February. More info here . Those wishing to subscribe can already do so here . --- Today, I’m speaking with Professor Greg Barton, who is a Research Professor in Global Islamic Politics at Deakin University. Greg is one of Australia’s leading scholars of radicalisation, terrorism and countering violent extremism....

This a reminder that The Voices Of War will adopt a subscription model. You can hear the explainer here . You can subscribe to the new channel here . -- My guest today is Dr Alexander YC Lim, who is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine with the Queensland Brain Institute. He is a Psychiatrist in private practice, and now almost exclusively looks after members of the Australian Defence Force,...

To make the show sustainable into the future, The Voices Of War is adopting a subscription model starting in January 2023. Key points: This channel will air full episodes until the end of January to allow those who wish to subscribe time to transition to the new channel From February, this current channel will air only the first half of each episode and each episode will be bookended with a notice...

My guest today is Ye-Min Wu, who is the South & Southeast Asia Director at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Ye-Min joined HD earlier this year after more than 15 years as a diplomat representing Singapore at the United Nations, World Intellectual Property Organization, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as the World Trade Organisation. She has also chaired UN negotiations and r...

My guest today is Natalia Konstantinova, who is better known by her social media handle, Natasha from Russia. She is a popular Russian blogger and vlogger whose original aim was to help explain Russia to the outside world, but since her country's invasion of Ukraine, she has become a prominent voice about how this war is perceived in Russia. Some of the questions we explored are: What does the ave...

My guest today is Andrew Quilty , an Australian photojournalist, investigative journalist, and author. Andrew is the recipient of eight Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, for his work in Afghanistan, where he has been based since 2013. He joined me to discuss his recently published book, August in Kabul: America's last days in Afghanistan , which is an intimate and deeply personal account...

Today, I'm speaking with Dr Pauline Shanks Kaurin who is a Professor of Professional Military Ethics at the US Naval War College where she specialises in military ethics, just war tradition and applied ethics. She is the author of ‘ On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for Military, Citizenry and Community ’, which is a book we discussed today. As you will find out, the subject matter this book...

This is Part 2 of my discussion with Dr Jasmin Mujanovic. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, I suggest you do that first, as elements of the remainder of the conversation may otherwise seem out of context. You can listen to part 1 here . Some of the topics we cover in this part are: Details of the controversial electoral law amendment made by the High Representative Perceptions, real or otherw...

My guest today is Dr Jasmin Mujanovic, who is a political scientist and policy specialist in southeast European and international affairs.  He has worked as a scholar, policy analyst, consultant, researcher, and writer in both North America and Europe. Jasmin’s academic research concentrates primarily on the politics of contemporary south-eastern Europe, with a particular focus on the politics of...

My guest today is Wolfgang Sporrer who is an Adjunct Professor at the Hertie School in Berlin and who was until 2020 the head of the Human Dimension Department of the OSCE in Ukraine. Wolfgang has joined me on the show twice before, where we discussed the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the ultimate reasons and consequences of Putin’s decision to go to war. You can find links...

This is Part 2 of my discussion with Dr Alex Bellamy, author of ‘ World Peace And How We Can Achieve It’ , which was the basis for our discussion. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, I suggest you do that first as some discussions in part 2 might otherwise seem out of context. You can listen to part 1 here . Like in part 1, we covered many topics, including: Are humans wired for violence? How s...

Today, I spoke with Dr Alex Bellamy, who is a professor of peace and conflict studies and director of the Asia Pacific Centre for the responsibility to protect at the University of Queensland. He is the author of numerous books, including ‘ World Peace And How We Can Achieve It’ , which was the basis for our discussion today. However, as you’ll hear, we covered many topics, including: Outline of R...

Today, I spoke with Amanda Hsiao who is the Senior Analyst for China at the International Crisis Group . She joined me to shed some light on the increasing tensions between Washington and Beijing. Amanda did this by tackling questions such as: What are key points of difference in the US and Chinese worldviews? Why are both sides intentionally elevating tensions? What has led to the current change...

Today, I spoke with Dr Mike Martin and John Spencer who joined me for an update on the situation in Ukraine. This conversation was recorded just after 9pm on the evening of 22nd of September, Ukraine time. Some of the topics we covered are: Impact of recent Russian battlefield losses Significance of Putin’s ‘partial mobilisation’ and what it might mean Attrition vs. Manoeuvre warfare Possible next...

My guest today is Paul Ingram, who is the Academic Programme Manager at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge. Up to a few months ago, he was also the Director of Emergent Change, which he established to further the understanding and practice of the Stepping Stones Approach (SSA) to nuclear disarmament. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director at Br...

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Dr Jessica Wolfendale, who is an author, ethics professor and expert on torture and war crimes. If you've missed Part 1 of this discussion, I suggest you listen to that first here . Some of the topics we covered in Part 2 are: The dispositional account and cognitive-affective personality system Military culture and socialisation Freedom and resentment Moral i...

This is Part 1 of my conversation with Dr Jessica Wolfendale, who is an author, ethics professor and expert on torture and war crimes. She joined me to try and tackle the dichotomy of how to reconcile one’s perception of oneself with one’s actions, within the context of atrocities carried out in war.  She does this by asking questions such as, ‘How do good people commit atrocities, like torture, a...