Earlylands in Conversation

For this episode, we are joined by South African defense industrialist and philanthropist Ivor Ichikowitz. In 1994, as apartheid ended and most observers wrote off South Africa's defense industry, Ivor founded Paramount Group and built it into Africa's largest privately owned defense and aerospace company. He stepped back from daily leadership of Paramount in 2022 and has since put his ene...

At the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg in the summer of 2023, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told an audience of African dignitaries that Russian soldiers were dying in Ukraine so that Africa could be free. Dr. Hanna Notte, in her new book We Shall Outlast Them: Putin's Global Campaign to Defeat the West (W. W. Norton, 2026), explains why a line like that gets a hea...

In 1914 the heads of state of Germany, Russia, and Britain were cousins. They knew each other intimately and they corresponded constantly. What they could not do was understand what the others were actually trying to achieve, and historian Arne Westad thinks that failure is the lesson from 1914 that we have the most to learn from today. Westad's new book is The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict,an...

It can be argued that each generation of Western development expert arrives in Africa convinced the previous generation got it wrong, and leaves having made a version of the same mistake. Trade, then agricultural productivity, then trade again, then structural adjustment, followed by microcredit. Historian Bronwen Everill, in her book Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance (The New Press, 20...

Russia's military is materially weaker today than it was a year ago, and Ukraine has established an asymmetric approach that drives up the cost of every Russian advance. Yet those facts still do not guarantee Kyiv the ending it wants. Dr. Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Applied Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London and one of the world's leadi...

Rail rarely makes headlines, but it may be doing more to shape Africa's economic trajectory than any single mine or trade deal. James ('Jamie') Holley is CEO of Traxtion, the largest privately owned rail operator on the continent, with a deployed fleet of over 55 locomotives across ten countries, from South Africa's core network to the Tazara line linking Zambia to the Tanzanian co...

Critical minerals have become the connective tissue of modern geopolitics, linking energy security, manufacturing, and great power competition in ways that didn't exist a decade ago. Christopher Vandome leads the Critical Minerals Initiative at Chatham House, the London-based foreign policy think tank, where he's also a senior research fellow with both the Global Economy and Finance Progra...

The critical minerals story in Africa is typically told through the lens of geology, geopolitics, and finance. Rarely does anyone talk about the unglamorous reality that sits between the mine and the market: the roads, the trucks, the borders, and the sheer logistical challenge of moving product across some of the world's most difficult operating environments. Clementine James knows that reali...

Throughout the course of the over four-year full-scale war in Ukraine, one of the most respected Western media outlets covering the conflict has been the Financial Times . The core ofthe FT's coverage has been provided by its Kyiv-based correspondent Chris Miller. Chris has lived and worked in Ukraine since 2010, when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in eastern Ukraine. The country is clearly in his...

For this episode, we are joined by award-winning historian and author Tim Bouverie. Tim has recently received widespread acclaim for his book Allies at War , which some listeners may have spotted prominently positioned beside Prime Minister Netanyahu in the now widely circulated photograph of the Israeli leader speaking with President Trump on the night of the first military strikes on Iran. The b...

We’ve spent multiple episodes discussing the Ukrainian perspective on Russia’s brutal war. For this episode we shift our focus to a look at how the average Russian views not only the war, but more broadly life in Putin’s autocratic state. Our guest is the journalist Howard Amos, whose book Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruins of Empire , tries to understand life in modern Russia not by look...

For this episode of the podcast we go back to Ukraine. Our guest today sets a new standard for what a highly intelligent, motivated, and deeply patriotic young person can do. Although only 25-years old, Maryna Hrytsenko has established herself as one of the leading advocates for Ukraine and its military in the global halls of power. She is a co-founder of the Snake Island Institute (SII), which in...

For this episode of the podcast we turn our attention back to Africa and roll back the clock to the 19th century. Our guest today is Professor Richard Reid of St. Cross College, Oxford. Richard is a specialist in 19th and 20th century African history and author of the 2025 book The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century. In the book, Richard makes the case for a new lens thro...

Today's episode is out of cycle, but as the issues under discussion are the very essence of timely, we wanted to bring them to you as soon as possible. Our conversation is with Bloomberg Global Defense Editor Gerry Doyle. Gerry is at the forefront of coverage of the wars in Iran and Ukraine and much else around the world when it comes to defense and security. We go deep on key trends and lesso...

The world of air travel is unquestionably a modern marvel, yet it is also highly complex and brutally competitive. And now, in this period of skyrocketing fuel prices and global hubs shut down because of the spiralling conflict in the Gulf, the sheer difficulty of running a global airline is in sharp focus. Our guest today is well placed to give us insight into this fascinating world. Allan Kilavu...

"If you want to understand October 7th, if you want to understand what's happening in current politics in much of the Middle East, certainly in Iran, then the only place to start is the 1970s.” - The Guardian's Jason Burke Since our last episode, a new conflict has begun in Iran with ramifications not only for the broader Middle East but forthe entire world. We are very fortunate that...

For this episode we turn our attention back to the ever-evolving topic of European security. Rather than focusing on developments in Ukraine, we instead take a detailed look at the troubling state of the British Army, traditionally one of Europe’s most capable fighting forces and also one that is likely to play a leading role in any European stabilization force in Ukraine. Our guest today is Briga...

Thousands of people are descending on Cape Town this week for the annual Mining Indaba, one of the industry’s largest annual global gatherings. I doubt any of them would arguewith the assertion that politics, whether it be geopolitics or national level issues, is one of the driving forces impacting the industry. And, while playing host to the Indaba, South Africa is also one country where politics...

“Critical minerals” – a phrase that we hear nearly every day yet one that is too often used with little explanation.  What exactly are critical minerals, where are they found, and why are they so “critical?"    We are joined for this episode by someone who is uniquely well-equipped to help us answer these and many other questions. Journalist Ernest Scheyder is the author of the award-winning book...

2026 has started with a proverbial bang, with the hard realities of military force brought squarely into the headlines with the US operation to seize Nicholas Maduro. And, of course, the grinding war of attrition continues in Ukraine as do conflicts in countries as varied as Sudan and Myanmar. While so much of the media coverage of these wars focuses on the role of technology and the apparent vide...

"Orwell himself has become what academics would call a floating signifier. He's escaped from his original grounding like a hot air balloon and gone floating off across the landscapes of the world. And he means virtually anything that anybody wants him to mean." DJ Taylor on the legacy of George Orwell As we close out 2025, a year that has undoubtedly been one of the most consequential in recent me...

The release earlier this month of the Trump administration's new National Security Strategy vividly captures the tectonic shifts that are occurring in global affairs. For many observers of the international order, it can feel as if there is no framework or structure to the chaotic period in which we are living. If that opinion resonates with you, then today's guest may be able to offer an analytic...

Ethiopia is one of the most consequential states on the African continent. With more than 130 million people, one of the largest armies in Africa, and a critical role as a supplier of low-cost power, developments in Ethiopia reverberate far beyond its borders. At the center of the country’s contemporary story is its prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. For this episode we welcome Tom Gardner, The Economist...

South Africa this month is hosting the G20 summit in Johannesburg, an opportunity for the government of Cyril Ramaphosa to shift the focus from a steady drumbeat of news about the country's highly contentious relations with the US. We are very fortunate to be joined for this episode by prominent analyst of South Africa, Dr. Terence McNamee. Terence published this month in the Christian Science Mon...

For episode 15 we welcome Perry Boyle, who has fast established himself as one of the most prominent Western investors – via his firm MITS Capital – in Ukraine’s burgeoning defense industry. Ukrainian defense technology, whether it be highly capable yet low-cost unmanned aerial and ground systems to path-breaking electronic warfare products, isgrabbing the attention of Western investors and highli...