Global Dispatches -- Conversations On Foreign Policy And World Affairs

Zimbabwe has had exactly one leader in its entire 37 year history as an independent country. That was, until November 14th Robert Mugabe was deposed in an apparent coup. What happens next is still very much in the air. Right now, Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace are under an apparent house arrest, though it seems he may soon be forced into exile. Meanwhile, his recently sacked vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa seems to be calling the shots.     On the line with me to discuss recent events in Zimbabwe and offer some deeper context in which to understand how, after 37 years Robert Mugabe's time in power has abruptly come to an end is Amb John Campbell, who is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC.    Amb. Campbell explains how an intra-party rivalry over who might succeed the 93 year old Robert Mugabe seems to have triggered this coup. We also discuss Mugabe's history as a singularly fascinating liberation leader who for a time presided ov

Over the last several weeks, ISIS has been systematically losing territory. Its last stronghold in Iraq, the city of Hawija, was liberated in early October. A few weeks later, ISIS' de-facto capitol in Raqaa, Syria fell to US-backed forces. ISIS no longer controls any major city in the region.   With the group mostly defeated on the ground, the international community is starting to think through some difficult and fraught questions of how best to bring ISIS to justice for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during their brutal reign.    On the line with me to discuss some of the options that the international community is weighing, and also some of the key obstacles for bringing to justice those who committed atrocity crimes in Iraq and Syria, is Dr. Zachary D. Kaufman.     Zachary D. Kaufman is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and teaching at Stanford Law school -- he is also, like me, a Humanity in Action senior fellow.    

Peter Galbraith helped uncover and confront two genocides. As a staffer in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1980s, Peter compiled evidence of Saddam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurdish people. Later, as the United States Ambassador to Croatia during the 1990s, he used his position to call for more forceful intervention on behalf of besieged populations in the Balkans. We discuss both these events, plus what it was like to be born the son of the 20th century’s most celebrated public intellectuals and liberal icons, John Kenneth Galbraith. Peter recently wrote a piece in the New York Review of Books about how the Trump administration is approaching the Kurdish situation. In it, he discusses some recent events in Kurdish region, including the Iraqi governments decision to forcefully—and violently — respond to an independence referendum in the Kurdish region. This leads to an extended conversation that includes stories from Peter’s nearly 35 year engagement with Kurdish politics — I think you will

Saudi Crown Price Mohammad bin Salman consolidated power in a pretty dramatic fashion by detaining would-be rivals and diminishing other power centers in the country. These moves coincided with an apparent rocket attack, launched from Yemen, toward the vicinity of an airport in Riyadh. That sparked a very dramatic decision by the Crown Prince to impose a total blockade of Yemen. That decision could have a profoundly devastating impact on the situation in Yemen, where nearly the entire population is affected by an ongoing conflict that is pitting an Iran-backed rebel group against the Saudi-backed government. The rebel group controls much of northern part of the country, including the capitol Sana’a and the largest port, Hodeidah. Saudi Arabia (with American backing) controls all sea and air lanes around the country.    Yemen is already the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with 7 million facing starvation and over 900,000 sickened with cholera.  If access to Yemen remained shut down, “I can’t imagine th

Donald Trump's approach to sovereignty is not unique in American history. There is a longstanding political tradition that seeks no compromise with the world and see's all interactions with allies and adversaries as zero sum. What is different is that no American President has held these views until now. Stewart Patrick is author of the new book The Sovereignty Wars Reconciling America with the World. The book examines how debates about sovereignty in the United States shape American foreign policy, and also the liberal international order --that is the patchwork of treaties and agreements and institutions like the United Nations that help set the rules of international relations.   We discuss the implications of Donald Trump's apparently narrow view of sovereignty on American foreign policy. It's a high minded conversation--and a good one.    Stewart Patrick is a senior fellow and director of the program on international institutions and global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was a g

If California were a country, it would be the sixth largest economy in the world. Its population is greater than countries like Poland and Canada.  So what happens in California can very much impact the rest of the world. And one fairly direct manifestation of California's global relevance is in the state's approach to climate change. Earlier this summer, California revamped its Cap-and-Trade program. This is a policy innovation intended to curb emissions by creating a market around greenhouse gasses like carbon. Companies can buy and sell permits to each other to release set amounts of greenhouse gasses.    That's one way California is having a global impact. There are others as well. On the line with me to discuss California's global impact is California State Senator Ben Allen. Senator Allen represents about 1 million people in communities around Los Angeles and he has been in the State Senate since 2014. We discuss California's approach to climate change, and also some strategies that Senator Allen and hi

Farida Nabourema spoke from an undisclosed location in West Africa, out of fear for her personal safety. Farida is a prominent Togolese activist and these are very tense times in Togo. Several people were killed in protests in recent months amid a growing opposition movement that is calling for the re-instatement of presidential term limits. These term limits are guaranteed under the Togolese constitution, but nonetheless are being ignored by the regime.   Togo is a small country in west Africa, with a population of about 7.5 million people. It has been ruled for the last 50 years by the same family. Eyadéma Gnassingbé came to power in 1967 and ruled until his death in 2005, whereupon his son, Faure Gnassingbé became president. Faure is ruling to this day and is seeking to undertake some moves of dubious constitutionality that could extend his rule far into the future.    It is in this volatile political environment that Farida is engaging her activism and supporting a movement to enforce president term limit

Safwan Masri set out with a simple question: of all the countries caught in the turmoil of the Arab Spring, how is it that Tunisia was the only country to successfully replace a long ruling despot with a more or less functioning democracy? His new book Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly takes a deep dive into that question, examining Tunisia's history, politics and, crucially some decades old educational reforms.  This is a very interesting conversation about both the Arab Spring, and Tunisia's unique experience. It is the Arab Spring success story--so far at least--and Safwan Masri helps me understand why.   Safwan Masri is Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University.     Become a premium subscriber to unlock bonus episodes, earn other rewards, and support the show! 

  Exactly two weeks to the day before this interview, Beatrice Fihn received a phone call from Norway. It was the Nobel Committee informing her that the NGO she leads, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.  The committee cited ICAN, as the NGO is known, for its work to achieve an international treaty against nuclear weapons. The treaty is often compared to the Landmine Ban Treaty and Convention Against Chemical Weapons in that it invokes broadly humanitarian principles to ban what is an inherently indiscriminate weapon. The treaty was finalized in July and has already gained over 50 signatories from governments, with many more expected in the near future.   What does this treaty hope to accomplish? What logic do Beatrice Fihn and her colleagues  use to press their case against countries who include nuclear weapons as part of their national security strategies?  How will winning the Nobel Peace Prize affect her organization's work? Fihn discusses thes

A case that is pending before the Supreme Court of the United States could have profound implications for human rights and corporate social responsibility around the world. The case is called Jesner vs. Arab Bank. It is a lawsuit in which The plaintiffs allege that Arab Bank, which is a Jordanian financial institution, facilitated payments to terrorist groups that carried out attacks in Israel, killing and injuring them.    Now a case involving foreign victims of a terrorist attack carried out on foreign soil by a foreign group would typically not be the business of the US legal system. But the plaintiffs in this case are pursing damages using a law that has been on the books since the 18th century, called the Alien Tort Statute. And according to my guest today, Dr. Zachary Kauffman, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Plaintiffs this statute could influence corporate decision making and even US foreign policy.    Zachary Kauffman is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and teach

Alexis Okeowo is a staff writer for the New Yorker whose debut book was published earlier this month. The book,  A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa has been getting rave reviews --  rightfully so. The book tells the story of subtle forms of resistance; how individuals, in their own way, are pushing back against injustice. In doing so, she shines a light on some important though often overlooked global stories, like slavery in the country of Mauritania or the plight former child soldiers in Uganda.  Alexis traces her interest in these issues to her upbringing as an American born child of Nigerian immigrants to Montgomery, Alabama where Rosa Park's act of resistance ignited a civil rights movement. Alexis discusses her career in journalism, including some key stories she reported on like the Chibok School girls kidnapping in 2014. Become a premium subscriber to unlock bonus episodes, earn other rewards, and support the show!  

President Trump is widely expected to decertify the Iran Nuclear Deal. But what decertification actually mean? And will this action destroy the Iran Nuclear Deal? On the line with me to discuss these questions and more is Spencer Ackerman, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter with the Daily Beast.   It's becoming increasingly clear that even if this White House action does not result in the re-imposition of US sanctions, which could kill the deal, it nonetheless undermines American credibility among both America's allies and adversaries around the world. The diplomatic fallout from this move will be far and wide. As Ackerman puts it, this action "cannot be cauterized" from any other aspect of American diplomacy.     Ackerman recently wrote about the likely diplomatic fallout from this action, which we discuss in depth.   If you have 20 minutes and want to learn about the broader implications of this move by President Trump, have a listen.    Become a premium subscriber to unlock bonus episodes, earn other rewa

The Central African Republic is facing some serious challenges right now. Four years ago, the country was on the brink of genocide after the longtime strongman Francois Bozize was ousted in an armed rebellion. The violence quickly turned sectarian with Christian and Muslim militias attacking civilian populations and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. UN Peacekeepers along with French forces deployed to the country and prevented this crisis from spiraling totally out of control. A peace process emerged, a new government was elected and a tenuous peace took hold. The French forces withdrew last October. Now, about 12,800 UN peacekeepers remain. In recent months, though, violent conflict started to re-emerge -- particularly in more remote parts of the country. The trend-lines now are not as positive as they were a year ago.  This episode on the Central African Republic is in two parts. First, I speak with a member of Congress, David Cicilline of Rhode Island. He visited the country in August as part of

People in Kurdish region of Iraq have voted overwhelmingly for independence in a popular referendum that took place in late September. No country in the region wanted this referendum to happen--and neither did the United States, with whom the Kurds have been a longtime ally. Soon after the results were announced, the Iraqi government and other countries in the region like Turkey and Iran threatened retaliatory measures.   The implications of this referendum and its fallout are still unfolding, and here to help me make sense of what this referendum was all about and how it may impact the political and diplomatic dynamic of the region is Morgan Kaplan. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies and the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. We discuss why this referendum was so politically significant and how it may affect the future shape of the Middle East.   Become a premium subscriber to unlock bonus episodes, earn other rewards, and support the show!  

When Keith Harper was confirmed as President Obama's Ambassador to the Human Rights Council he became the first American-Indian to achieve the rank of Ambassador. The longtime attorney for native American rights soon put his knowledge of tribal culture to use in Geneva where he represented the United States on the top UN human rights body.  Keith is a Cherokee Indian. He was born in San Francisco and from an early age was animated by a civil rights movement known as "Red Power." After law school he represented a number of Native Americans and Native American causes and this culminated in a billion dollar class action lawsuit against the federal government that he successfully litigated.  We spend this first few minutes of this conversation discussing the work of the Human Rights Council, so let me give you a little bit of a background on it. This is a 47 member body in which each member state is elected by the entire UN membership to three year terms. Now, one of its flaws that critics sometimes point to is t

The Trump administration this week announced sweeping new restrictions on travelers from eight countries:  Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen Days later, the administration formally established that the United States will take in no more than 45,000 refugees fleeing conflict around the world. This is a record-low cap on the number of refugees that the United States has ever resettled since 1980. To put this in context, the previous cap authorized by President Obama was 110,000.   The travel ban and refugee cap are two separate policies, but they are related, at least politically, in the eyes of this administration.   With the exception of Venezuela, in which only government officials are targeted, the travel ban prevents nearly any national from these countries from obtaining a visa to visit, live, study or work in the United States. According to my podcast guest Mark Hetfield, there is only one historic precedent for this: the 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was an exp

My guest today Meghan O'Sullivan is the author of the new book Windfall: How the new energy abundance upends global politics and strengthens American power. And we kick off our conversation with a discussion of the ways in which the natural gas boom in the united states is changing international diplomacy and geopolitics. It's fascinating stuff. Meghan is the Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and has had a career in government and the think tank world. She served, for a time, as the deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration and she was one of the first American civilian officials on the ground in Baghdad after the city fell to US forces in 2003. We discuss these events and more--including being mentored by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Become a premium subscriber to unlock bonus episodes, earn other rewards, and support the show!  

Amid all the pageantry, hoopla and media circus that is UN week in New York there is always some interesting and substantive work being done on important global issues. Sometimes these issues are not on top of the agenda of world leaders (though they probably should be) and conversations around them do not get the kind of attention they deserve for one reason or another. So, I was very glad to catch up with Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children to have a conversation about the challenges of getting refugee children in quality schools.     According to a new report from Save the Children, 700 million days of school have been missed by 3.5 million registered refugee children. More than half of all refugee children globally are out of school.   For Syrian refugee children, the situation is particularly bleak. 43 percent of school-aged Syrian refugee children will be missing school this year. This number is an increase over the same statistic last year, when 34 percent were out of school — this me

World leaders gather at the United Nations this week for the annual summit at the United Nations General Assembly. This is always one of the big highlights of the international diplomatic calendar and it will be all the more interesting this year for the fact that President Trump is making his UN debut. So what should expect from Trump at UNGA? What are some of the big issues on the diplomatic agenda in New York this week? How much oxygen will the US President suck from the room? On the line to discuss these questions and more is Richard Gowen, fellow at the European Council. We also discuss key issues — beyond Trump — that will drive the conversations this week, including the crises in North Korea and Myanmar, how Antonio Guterres his first UNGA as Secretary General and what to expect from Emmanuel Macron’s debut. This is a useful preview of some of the key issues of substance and style that will drive the global conversation in New York this week. It will be useful to both UN-nerds and general international

Nearly 400,000 ethnic Rohingya have fled Myanmar across the border to Bangladesh. By the time you listen to this, that number will almost surely be much higher.  Since late August, security forces from the government of Myanmar (also called Burma) have attacked villages and towns in a seemingly coordinated fashion to create a massive displacement crisis. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described what is happening a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”   On the line with me to discuss this current crisis is John Sifton, the advocacy director Human Rights Watch-Asia. We spoke just after he got off the phone with his colleagues on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border who have witnessed profound scenes of destruction. John also describes satellite imagery he's reviewed that depicts towns, villages and neighborhoods being burned to the ground.   John gives a useful background on the plight of the Rohingya population in Burma and explains why Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,the de-facto leader of the count