World Discord Podcast

Profs Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by Dr, Joshua Landis, Co-Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma to talk about what's happening in Syria after the civil war that drove out the Assad regime.

Profs Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless talk about the current crisis in Goma, DRC with M-23 forces and Rwandan military taking over the city, which could lead to a wider war in the region.

Profs Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by Professor Ji Yeon Hong, Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Politics at the University of Michigan, to discuss the recent political turmoil around the declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment of the president of South Korea.

Profs. Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by Karwan Gaznay, former member of the Kurdish Parliament in Northern Iraq, to talk about the Kurdish situation in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran.

Profs. Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless review various conflicts and issues around the world in a recap to the year 2024.

Profs. Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by two US military veterans, Justin Van Gundy and Edward Levy, to talk about the experiences of our soldiers in various war zones and their perspectives on war.

Brian and Joel discuss the global consequences of the election of Donald Trump.

Brian and Joel are joined by Simon Billenness, Executive Director, International Campaign for the Rohingya, for a discussion of the political chaos in Myanmar and the plight of the Rohingya.

Afiya Zia, a Pakistan-based scholar and activist, joins Brian and Joel to discuss internal politics in Pakistan, and how the Taliban has destabilized much of that politics over the years.

Brian and Joel discuss the situation in Rwanda with Claude Gatabuke, Executive Director of the African Great Lakes Network and a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Joshua Meservey of The Hudson Institute returns to join Brian and Joel in a discussion of the continuing conflict and chaos in South Sudan

Brian and Joel discuss the Israeli operation in Lebanon that detonated scores of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the operation.

Professor Emeritus Robert Fatton of the University of Virginia joins Brian and Joel to discuss the deteriorating political situation in Haiti.

Brian and Joel discuss the impact of the Israel-Hamas conflict with an Israeli-American student. We discuss some aspects of the war that get less attention in the media today: the continuing attacks on Israel and their effects, the attitudes of the Israeli population to the ongoing conflict and to the Netanyahu government, and his experiences as a current university student.

Olivia Enos, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, joins Brian and Joel to discuss China's genocidal persecution of the ethnic Uyghur population in Western China. Qelbinur Aini tells the story of her sister's detainment in a Chinese "reeducation" camp, which is in fact a hard labor concentration camp.

Drs. Brian Endless and Joel Ostrow discuss the relevance of international law and how it is used by states, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Drs. Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by Joshua Meservey, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute to discuss the current conflict in Sudan which has reemerged with extreme violence over the past year.

Benedictine student and Palestinian-American Mya Mohammed '25 joins Brian and Joel to discuss the Gaza War from a personal perspective.

Drs. Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by Professor Marco Alcocer from the University of California, Merced to discuss politics in Mexico following the recent presidential elections, along with the current plague of drug cartels in that country.

Professor Brian D. Taylor of Syracuse University joins Joel and Brian for a discussion of Russia's military failures, and how Russia so badly misjudged Ukraine's willingness and ability to resist and it's own military capacity.

Drs. Brian Endless and Joel Ostrow are joined by Father Touissaint Kafarhire Murhula, SJ, PhD, Director of the Arrupe Center for Research and Training in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. We discuss some of the history and the current situation in the Congo, including the "civil war" that has been raging since 1996.

Drs. Brian Endless and Joel Ostrow examine the conflict in Yemen with guest Fatima Abo Alasar, Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute and Senior Analyst at the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies. This covers history, the current conflict between the Iranian backed Houthis and the Saudi backed government, and how the conflict affects the rest of the region.

Drs. Brian Endless and Joel Ostrow examine the recent controversy around International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) involvement in the Israel/Gaza crisis.

In this episode, Professor Eric Heginbotham, Research Fellow at M.I.T.'s Center for International Studies and an expert on Asian security issues, joins us for a discussion of tensions between China and Taiwan and in the South China Sea more generally.

Drs. Joel Ostrow and Brian Endless are joined by Dr. Kaveh Ehsani (DePaul University). Dr. Ehsani is an expert on Iran who provides insight on what comes next after the recent helicopter crash that killed the Iranian President and Foreign Minister.