The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus

Apple doesn’t just manufacture in China. It helped build the system that now holds it hostage. In this episode of The Next Best, I speak with Financial Times journalist Patrick McGee, author of Apple in China, about one of the most important – and least understood – geopolitical entanglements of our time. • How did Apple become dependent on the Chinese Communist Party? • Why can’t it simply move p...

How powerful is propaganda—really? In this episode of The Next Best, Marcel Dirsus speaks with Gavin Wilde, a former White House official and U.S. intelligence analyst, about why we consistently overestimate the impact of fake news, disinformation, and "information warfare." From World War I and Edward Bernays to Russian hybrid warfare, social media bots, and AI-generated deepfakes, Wild...

Can Europe defend itself without the United States? The uncomfortable reality is that Europe’s security architecture is completely dependent on Washington—and that foundation is cracking. In this episode of The Next Best, Marcel Dirsus speaks with Max Bergmann (Director at CSIS and former US diplomat) about the depth of this military dependence. They break down exactly what would have to change if...

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Tim Weiner joins Marcel Dirsus to discuss his book, The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century. This episode is a deep dive into the CIA, the failures of the War on Terror, and the future of modern warfare. Weiner traces the agency’s evolution from the Cold War through 9/11, revealing how fear drove the CIA into torture, secret prisons, and paramilitary operations t...

The Baltic region is Europe's most dangerous geopolitical flashpoint. From the Suwałki Gap to the stationing of German combat troops in Lithuania, we explore the geopolitical stakes of a potential conflict between Russia and NATO. Political scientist Marcel Dirsus speaks with Oliver Moody, Berlin correspondent for The Times, to analyze the strategic vulnerability of Lithuania, Estonia, and Lat...

How the U.S. turned banks, the dollar, and tech supply chains into a weapon that isolates entire countries without firing a shot. Edward Fishman is the author of "Chokepoints" and a former member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff. We discuss how the US transformed the global financial system into a weapon, the history of economic statecraft from naval blockades to sma...

We're now multiple years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and an end to the fighting isn't in sight. There are now negotiations, but where could these negotiations lead? What happens if Russia wins? And why did Putin decide to invade in the first place? To answer these questions, I speak to Michael Kimmage. Michael is the director of the Kennan Institute in Washington, DC and a profess...

My guest this week is Kori Schake. Kori has an incredibly impressive CV. She is currently the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, but she has also worked at the US Department of State, the Pentagon and the White House. She advised John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign and she has taught at Stanford and West Point. Her latest book is called The S...

Earlier this year, I read a book called Death is Our Business and this week I spoke to the author John Lechner. John is an interesting man. He used to work in investment banking and then he decided to become a journalist. So he moved to Africa and started reporting on Russian mercenaries. John got kidnapped at some point, but along the way he learned quite a few languages. He speaks fluent Russian...

Hey, it's Marcel Dirsus and this is The Next Best. I spoke to Charles Hecker this week. Charles has spent 40 years traveling and working in the Soviet Union and Russia. He speaks fluent Russian and he just wrote a book called Zero Sum. At first glance, the book is about international business in Russia. And it is, but it is also a lens to look at political and economic developments more generally....

My guest this week is Steve Coll. Steve is a senior editor at The Economist and he has written nine books. He has won the Pulitzer Prize not once, but twice. His most recent book is about Saddam Hussein, the CIA and America's invasion of Iraq. It is called The Achilles Trap. 1 In this episode, we talk about Saddam Hussein's childhood, chemical weapons use against Iran, and a series of misc...

Hey, it's Marcel Dirsus and this is The Next Best.