The Western Bubble

What is the role of the military in the Western Bubble? Does it add to it? Does it intensify it? How come NATO has a military budget many times the ones of China or Russia? All questions we answer in this episode! This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats. This e...

"Northern European arrogance vs Southern European ingratitude" ... Europeans have their stereotypes for each other. But what does this have to do with the Western Bubble and its origins? This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats. This episode was supported by res...

Two days after we recorded our episode on the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Denmark dropped its investigation into the Nordstream Bombing and Macron speculated sending troops to Ukraine. Oh, and Putin threatened to deploy nuclear weapons if NATO were to send troops. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual proj...

Two years ago Russia invaded Ukraine, since then a lot has happened in the Western Bubble, but basically very little has changed on the battle fronts, except 500000 casualties. Is the West partially responsible for this suffering because it blocked negotiations in the summer of 2022? https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-24-2024 This podcast i...

Donald Trump has very good chances to become US President once again. Today we analyse what the Foreign Policy of a second Trump term would look like, based on the concept of the Western Bubble.  This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats. This episode was support...

The Republican Party in the US is a great case study of Western behaviour in the past decades. Particularly recently, the Party has provided us with many things to analyse.  DISCLAIMER: Dario’s audio is a little messed up in this episode, we apologise for this.  This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual project between the Director of...

The International Court of Justice issued an emergency ruling on a case of South Africa brought forward against Israel over Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip. Today we look at the relevance of international law for the Western Bubble and the world of international relations. Is it relevant at all? This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is...

Today we discuss Cancel Culture! Where does it come from? And where is it going? Also, why is this unique to the Western World? Join us as we kick off our fourth season! This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats. This episode was supported by research from Yu Jie...

It is the end of 2023 and we are awarding the bubble awards once again! Who will win the bubble blooper, bubble booster, bubble burster, bubble blower and the best bubble? - Biden, Putin, von der Leyen, many others or the fan favourite Liz Truss? This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasen...

During the recording of our last episode, right-wing populism, Dario went on a rant about society’s treatment of the youth during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was too long to keep in the original episode, but also too honest and important to fully cut it. So we decided to upload it as an EXTRA Episode, enjoy! This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Usama Ghanem. Stil...

Geert Wilders, Javier Milei, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson! Crazy hair populists are on our minds and we want to understand why the West is so vulnerable to these right-wing populists. What aspects of the Western Bubble led to larger and larger parts of society voting right-wing populists parties? This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Usama Ghanem but is an indivi...

How many times per week do we think about the Roman Empire? Balder thinks about it twice a week, Dario prefers the Egyptians… But what does this mean for the Western Bubble? Well, the Romans are an essential part of the Western identity as we like to idealise them. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Usama Ghanem but is an individual project between the Direct...

David Cameron is back in the politics of the United Kingdom and so is our need to talk about the UK. The last time we did so was one year ago and the name of the Prime Minister was Liz Truss. This week we talk about the reasons that have led British party politics to be focused around individuals rather than ideas and whether the UK should be an example of Western liberal democracy for the world…...

Contrary to popular belief or media attention, the Israel-Hamas and the Russia-Ukraine conflicts are not the only ones in the world. Lives are also lost and destroyed in many other places in this world, some of which we highlight in this episode. What are the reasons we care so much about some conflicts, and so little about others. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA...

After popular demand, we are back with this topic and the situation on the ground still has not improved. Since our last episode, the West has further isolated itself on this topic on the global stage after a vote in the UN General Assembly. And, we introduce a new category in our podcast: “International Relations Perspective” where we quickly analyse what Russia, Saudi Arabia and China are saying...

For years now the West has put Venezuela in the naughty corner, only to realise that in the meantime the country has moved closer to Russia and China. Join us for this episode to observe Western efforts to reconnect with the country. As a little extra we will make fun of Jordan Goudreau who tried to take the Maduro government down with a total of 40 mercenaries. This podcast is published with the...

What do the United States and China have in common with Adidas and Nike? According to Dario they are an analogy for global realignment, but you let us know if this works in light of the 10 year celebration of the Chinese Belt-Road-Initiative. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Usama Ghanem but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasens...

One week later and the tragic situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip is still on everybody's mind. Since last week a lot of things have happened and a lot more actors with their own Western Bubble bias have entered the discussions. We analyse the three main groups forming the current conversation and have a particular look at the Western left. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and ed...

The tragic situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip also needs to be analysed from the Western Bubble perspective. What lessons can be learned from our analysis of the past and applied here to de-escalate and decrease humanitarian suffering? IMPORTANT: We recorded this episode on October 8th at 10:30. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Julia Ohm but is an indiv...

The news of Azerbaijan taking over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh primarily inhabited by ethnic Armenians sparked a debate about self-determination. We weigh in on this debate from the Western Bubble perspective and explain the dynamics of the IR version of rock-paper-scissors: self-determination-sovereignty-global politics. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member...

This is our first interview episode of season three and we could not have started it with a better guest but our editor Usama Ghanem. We talk to him about his experiences in the West and with the Western. Listen to the episode to find out what obscure laws there are in the United Kingdom, the Arab Spring in Egypt and why Usama's name is spelled the way it is. This podcast is published with the hel...

With the BRICS and G20 summit taking place last week, Western countries and media are panicking over new members to the BRICS and interpreting China’s absence from the G20 summit as a difficult relationship with India. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Usama Ghanem but is an individual project between the Director of RAIA Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats...

We are Balder Hageraats and Dario Hasenstab, a professor and his former student of international relations. Together we examine how Western countries are increasingly lost in their own delusions on the world stage, and what can be done to bring them back to reality. In this introduction episode, we discuss the beginning of this podcast and the main theme, the Western bubble. For season 3 we are in...

Today we analyse the United Nations Human Rights Council issuing a report on Quran Burnings in Sweden and Denmark. This shows how the West has lost control over its own invention and how the United Nations no longer exclusively displays Western interpretations of morality. This podcast is published with the help of RAIA and edited by RAIA member Usama Ghanem but is an individual project between th...

Today we analyse the coverage of a press team in Iraq that gives us hope that the Western Bubble is not impenetrable. As a basis of today's episodes serves a Foreign Affairs article written by John Walcott who wrote about his time at Knight Ridder, a former US media outlet, and their coverage of the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iraq/journalism-press-failed-...