Global Dispatches -- Conversations On Foreign Policy And World Affairs

On the line with me to preview the big stories, ideas, trends and crises and provocations that will set the agenda at the United Nations and beyond is Richard Gowen. He's a fellow with the European Council on Foreign Affairs and a regular guest of this very podcast. We have a lively conversation about Trump's relationship with the UN, the new incoming secretary general and more.    We recorded this conversation in late December, before the big vote on Israel settlements into which the president elect weighed on twitter. So that vote does not factor into this conversation, but I would say that the big implication of that vote is that it's likely makes the UN more vulnerable to moves by the incoming congress to restrict or undermine US support for the UN, including the possible withholding of funding. If you want to read my full thoughts on that, check out UN Dispatch. For now though, here is Richard Gowen and I chatting about the big stories at the UN and around the world in 2017 

Russia has successfully influenced the election here in the United States in its favor. It's side is winning the war in Syria. Crimea looks like it will remain in Russia for the foreseeable future and the NATO alliance may become weakened when Donald Trump takes office.  This is pretty much springtime for Putin in Moscow. But what are Russia's grander ambitions? Why did they hack the US election? What do they want from the Middle East? From Europe and China? I put these questions and more to James Goldgeier, a Russia expert and the Dean of the School of International Studies at American University. James describes some of Putin's near term and longer term strategic goals and how a less contentious relationship with the USA--one not based on values, but on individual transactions -- may reshape Russian foreign policy and international affairs more broadly.  

Amy Costello is a veteran reporter who now hosts the excellent Tiny Spark podcast that investigates what goes right and what goes wrong in philanthropy, including global philanthropy and the NGO sector. At the very end of our conversation Amy reveals she started this podcast in part as a response to a story she reported that was wildly popular, but she later learned rested on a false premise.  Amy was one of the first television reporters in Darfur during the midst of the genocide, a work for which she was Emmy nominated. She describes the kinds of scenes she saw and how that reporting project left a lasting impression upon her.We kick off in this holiday season discussing philanthropy and how individuals, perhaps you out there listening right now, can be an effective altruist by maximizing the impact of your charitable giving. 

President Elect Donald Trump has assembled a team of generals to fill key posts in his national security team. Former Army General Mike Flynn is his National Security Advisor, Marine General John Kelly has been tapped to serve as homeland security chief and of course recently retired marine general ames Mattis has been nominated as Secretary of Defense.    Top military brass have served in civilian roles But never before have so many generals been tapped to serve at once and in top positions in the government. And this is out of the ordinary precisely because the American political system has historically shunned it for reasons that my guest Alice Hunt Friend describes.    Alice Friend studies civil military relations--she's currently writing her PhD thesis on the topic. She's a former official in the Pentagon and is currently both a Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security.    She offers what I find to be a very nuanced take on

Cameron Munter was the US Ambassador to Pakistan when US Special forces conducted the midnight raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. He watched the raid live and hours later was dealing with the diplomatic fallout.     Munter had a career in both academia and the diplomatic corps, serving in a wide variety of posts. He's now the president of the East West Institute. And this is arguably the first podcast ever in the history of the universe in which both Otto Von Bismark and Lou Reed are each discussed.  We kick off with a brief discussion of the ways that Chinese domestic politics influence its foreign policy and what the future holds for US-Chinese relationship in the Trump era. And then of course, as we always do, we pivot to a longer conversation about his life and career with some fun digressions along the way. 

There are some frightening warning signs that a genocide may erupt in South Sudan. The country has been at war with itself for the better of three years, ever since a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his Vice Preisident Riek Machar turned into an armed conflict between those two men. The conflict took on ugly sectarian dimensions--these men hail from different ethnic groups--and peace has been elusive.    In recent weeks, however, it seems that the government of Salva Kiir is readying itself to commit ethnic-based mass atrocities for reasons that my guest Cameron Hudson explains. Cameron is the director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He's also a former CIA officer with extensive background in the region. And in this episode, he explains what conditions are ripe for genocide in South Sudan are ripe. 

Mark Tokola is the vice president of the Korea Economic Institute of America. He's a long serving American diplomat with postings around the world and we discuss a few of them in this episode, including his first posting to Turkey where his main job was helping Americans sent to prison on drug trafficking charges. He also compares his work in the Balkans in the 1990s to Iraq after the fall of Saddam and I think makes an important point about the value of multilateralism to American interests.  We spoke a day after the Security Council passed new a sanctions resolution on North Korea following a nuclear test in September and we kick off discussing the implications of those sanctions before pivoting to a longer conversation about his globe-spanning career. Mark's last posting was to South Korea and we end with some discussion about the political upheaval underway there and whether or not my man Ban Ki Moon may run for president next year.   Mark is an alumnus of the Salzburg Global Seminar which is a podcast sp

Donald Trump's foreign policy and national security team is still taking shape. He has appointed Nikki Haley as his UN ambassador and Mike Flynn as his National Security Advisor. But at the time of recording, he has not picked a Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense.    So how are you best able to interpret and understand the implications of those selections to American foreign policy? Thankfully, there is some is some emerging political science that speaks to the role of advisors in shaping national security policy, and on the line with me to discuss this research is Professor Elizabeth Saunders of George Washington University.    Saunders has conducted a number of studies that speak to the circumstances in which cabinet picks and top advisors can shape public opinion and decision making on key foreign policy issues. We discuss her research and its implications for the Trump transition in this episode. And after you listen to this episode, you should have a fairly decent grounding in how to interpret th

--- Support the podcast and join our premium subscribers club! ---> https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches    President elect Donald Trump will nominate Nikki Haley to be his Ambassador to the United Nations. She is a rising star in Republican politics and currently serves as the governor of South Carolina. She was sharp critic of Trump during the primaries, yet he has picked her to represent him at the United Nations.    On the line with me to discuss Nikki Haley, her political background, her personal story, and her place in South Carolina and national politics is Andy Shane the Colombia bureau chief of the Post and Courier newspaper in South Carolina. We have an in-depth conversation about the woman who will next lead the United States Mission to the UN and we discuss how some experiences she had as governor may suggest how she takes on her next role.    Trump's cabinet is still taking shape and it's notable that he would pick his UN Ambassador position before his Secretary of State, but I think we have

--- Support the podcast! Join the premium subscribers club! --- Tali Nates has a personal connection to Schindler's List. On it was the name of her father and uncle, whom Oskar Schindler saved from a Nazi extermination camp.  She is now the director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Center in South Africa and we have a fascinating conversation about how the lessons of the Holocaust are applied and learned in post-Apartheid South Africa.   Tali was born in Israel and moved to South Africa before the end of Apartheid. She candidly describes the moral compunction she experienced during that era and how teaching Holocaust history to white south africans became a method of resistance.    This episode is part of a series that is being created in partnership with the Salzburg Global Seminar, which is a forum and meeting space that brings together a cross section of global leaders to take on some of the big global challenges of the day. We kick off discussing her participation on one of the Salzburg sessions

--- Support the podcast and join our premium subscribers club! --- As Americans headed to the polls on election day, diplomats from around the world headed to Marrakech, Morocco for the first big global climate summit since the Paris Agreement last year. This was to be an important inflection point in the global effort to combat climate change. Just a week earlier the Paris Agreement officially entered into force after the requisite number of countries ratified it and this meeting in Marrakech would to fill in some key details and add some technical guidance to enable the implementation of the agreement.  And then, Donald Trump was elected.   During the campaign he pledged to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and defund UN programs to combat climate change. So I was interested to learn the implications of the election on the ongoing negotiations in Morocco and this episode is in two parts.   First, I speak with Eliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, who I caught up the day after the el

--- Support the podcast and join our premium subscribers club! --- Maina Kiai has some profound insights into how governments abrogate the rights of people to freely assemble. He is a Kenyan human rights lawyer and activist who currently serves as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. His career was born in opposition to an oppressive government in Kenya and he discusses the kinds of tactics and strategies he used to advance human rights under an authoritarian government.He also recounts his role in helping to mediate during the disputed 2007 Kenya elections, which turned very violent and resulted in his life being in danger. We kick off discussing the impact of a Trump presidency on human and civic rights around the world and in the United States.  This is a great conversation, which I did leave feeling inspired.   ---   I started a Patreon page! This is sort of like a KickStarter for internet content creators. If you make a recurring monthly

--- Click here to go to the Patreon Page to earn rewards and support the show! ---    I'll get straight to the point. These are uncertain times. They are confusing times. We are entering the Trump era of American foreign policy. What does that mean for the world? For the ideals we care about? For the entire liberal international world order?  I don't know. But I am going to make a pledge to you right now: I will dedicate this podcast to exploring and explaining the implications of President Trump to foreign policy, international relations and global affairs. These are uncharted waters into which we are all about to set sail.  And in times like this community is more important than ever. I am going to open up Global Dispatches and offer you a chance to share your experiences, anxieties, hopes and ideas for what the future will hold. I'll give you expanded opportunities to interact with my guests, with me, and with each other.  But I need help to make this work so here's my pitch: I need to spend more time

Donald Trump will become president and commander-in-chief in January. I am pledging to you right now that I will dedicate myself and dedicate this podcast to helping you make sense of foreign policy and world affairs in the era of Trump.   To that end, I caught up with Heather Hurlburt of the New America Foundation. Heather and I have a pretty wide ranging discussion about the implications of a Trump presidency for American alliances, for Syria, for the Iran nuclear deal and for the lives of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.   We kick off discussing the kinds of personnel choices that President Elect Trump must take in the coming weeks which will be a very early sign of what kind of foreign policy president he will be.     

How the international community saves lives in conflict prone countries or insecure places is becoming increasingly relevant and important to global affairs. On the line to walk me through the nuts and bolts of one of these relief operations is Laurent Bukera, who runs the World Food Program's operations in Somalia.  We have a pretty fascinating conversation about how a humanitarian agency like the World Food Program operates in profoundly difficult environments beset by insecurity and terrorism.  Laurent walks me through some of WFP's operations in Somalia--that is how they deliver aid and some of the challenges of working in that country. And these challenges includes not only threats from terror groups like Al Shebaab, but more broadly extremely low levels of infrastructure development. To deal with some of these obstacles the WFP is rolling out some new technological innovations, which we discuss toward the end of this episode. 

Here we are days from the US election, so I thought to myself let's have a US focused episode that explains US culture and American politics and why Trump is facing such an uphill battle by talking about....hot sauce.  Now, it's been widely reported--and I'm being completely serious here--that this is Hillary Clinton's favorite condiment. And full disclosure: I too love everything spicy. But it is also true that more Americans like spicy food than at any time in the history of this country.   On the line with me to discuss the political and cultural implications of Americans' growing appetite for spicy cuisine is Denver Nicks, author of the new book: Hot Sauce Nation: America's Burning Obsession. We discuss how spicy peppers became integrated into the mainstream of the American cuisine largely through public policy decisions that be traced to a profoundly important date in 20th century American history. The results on election day may be one more indication that spicy peppers and American elections are far mo

Brian Katulis is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress where his work focuses on US National Security and Foreign Policy.  He's had a long career working and living in several middle eastern countries at key junctures in their history, including Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Egypt and we discuss many of these experiences in this conversation. We kick off discussing a new report he helped write about some of the key challenges facing the next administration as it navigates an ever evolving political and security landscape in the Middle East.   

 Mosul is Iraq's second largest city, and in 2014 ISIS militants took the city as Iraqi army units fled. Now, a large scale military operation backed by the United States is underway to regain control of the city, which is situated in Northern Iraq.  The fight to re-take Mosul may have profound domestic and regional political implications says my guest today Kirk Sowell, publisher of the Inside Iraqi Politics newsletter,  He argues in a recent piece published by the Carnegie Endowment that the operation to retake mosul is part of a broader power struggle between Turkey and Iraq. The conversation you are about to hear explains the political and diplomatic context in which this battle is taking place.    If you believe, as Clausewitz said, that "war is the continuation of politics by other means" than it behooves all of us to understanding better the kind of regional, sectarian and even parliamentary politics at play in the battle for Mosul.   

Late in the evening on October 20th news broke that South Africa is moving to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. The ICC is the first permanent international court to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity and back in 2002 when it came to life, South Africa was a founding member. In recent years the court has come under criticism by some African governments for holding a perceived bias against Africa, but until now no major country has withdrawn from the court after joining it. There is a fear that South Africa's withdrawal will spark an cascade of countries doing the same thing. If South Africa's withdrawal leads to a mass exodus, the ICC's jurisdiction around the world could be significantly shrunk. Maybe even fatally.   On the line with me to discuss these questions and more is David Bosco, associate professor of international studies at Indiana University's School of Global and International Studies. He is also author of the book Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a

Sarah Chayes was a reporter for NPR working in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Then, in early 2002 she decided to give up her career in journalism to help rebuild the country. She joined the NGO world, eventually founding an Afghan based NGO. And during this time, while living in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, she became an advisor to the top US generals in Afghanistan.  These experiences in Afghanistan informed her prize winning book, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, which as the name suggests examines the corrosive effect of corruption in post conflict countries and beyond.    We kick off talking about the problem of corruption before discussing Sarah's fascinating life and career.