Archives for January 2016

Earlier this week the World Health Organization warned that a mosquito borne viral disease known as Zika was fast spreading throughout the Americas. That includes the United States, which it will likely reach sooner rather than later.

Zika is rarely deadly, but it can cause some severe birth defects should a pregnant woman contract the disease when bit by a mosquito. Already in Brazil we are seeing a large number of these birth defects.

Zika is among a category of diseases that is called “neglected tropical diseases.” And they are neglected largely because they have historically only affected the poorest people on the planet. But now, one of these diseases is fast spreading in middle income and wealthy countries and we are poised for a public health crisis.

On the line to discuss Zika and its larger public health implications is one of the world’s leading experts in tropical diseases, Dr. Peter Hotez.  He is the Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; the Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics Texas Children’s Hospital; and President of the Sabin Vaccine institute, the work of which we discuss in this conversation.

This is an absolutely fascinating conversation about a topic that is clearly on many people’s radars right now. We discuss how and why this disease is spreading, the lessons drawn from the ebola outbreak that can be applied to this situation, and how poverty and inequality in the USA might exacerbate the Zika outbreak?

If you have 20 minutes, want to understand the Zika outbreak and its broader public health implications, have a listen.

Drone strikes are an increasingly common feature of modern warfare; and there have been numerous discussions in the academic literature and beyond about the effectiveness of drones strikes, the morality of the policy, and the larger implications of the United States’ growing reliance on drone strikes as part of a broader counter-terrorism strategy.

(U.S. Air Force photo/Lt Col Leslie Pratt

But for all this debate, there has been very little research into the psychology that surrounds drone strikes. Now, two academics out of George Washington University are compiling some exceedingly interesting and politically relevant research into the psychological forces that are shaping America’s drone policy.

Julia McDonald and Jacqueline Schneider recently published a fascinating paper in the Journal of Conflict Resolution that examines the relationship between a president’s tolerance for risk and his (or possibly her) preference for using drones. They are also in the midst of research into why soldiers in combat prefer, or not, manned vs unmanned air support; and the conditions under which the general American public is more or less likely to support drone strikes.

It’s cutting edge and cross disciplinary research and just fascinating stuff. On the line with me to discuss this research and its broader implications is the co-author of these studies, Jacqueline Schneider, a pHD candidate in residence at the Institute for Conflict and Security Studies at George Washington University.  Enjoy!

The journalist Anjan Sundaram is the author of the new book Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, which details how the creeping authoritarianism of the Rwandan government has silenced the free press, even as that government is treated as a darling of the international community for its impressive economic gains following the genocide.

In 2009, Anjan took a job teaching journalism in Rwanda. He soon saw that something was amiss. His students were harassed, beaten and one colleague murdered. Other journalists were simply co-opted into the state propaganda machine. After speaking with Anjan for this interview, it’s hard not to conclude that suppression of dissent in Rwanda is putting that country on a very dangerous path.

This is a fascinating conversation and I suspect that this book will get a great deal of attention in foreign policy and human rights circles.

We kick off discussing the history of President Paul Kagame, and his recent controversial decision to amend the constitution to permit him to stay in office, theoretically until 2034.

The new year marks the semi-official kickoff of the race to select the next UN secretary general. Ban Ki Moon’s second and final term expires at the end of the year and now it is up to the world — more specifically the Security Council with input from the General Assembly — to find his replacement.

On the line with me to discuss the likely candidates for the next secretary general and the diplomatic intrigue that will surround this whole process and provide a great deal of subtext for diplomacy at the UN this year is Richard Gowan. He is a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for International Cooperation. He’s also out with a new piece in The American Interest taking a look at US priorities at the UN during Obama’s last year in office.

But we kick off and devote most of this episode to the big question of who will replace Ban Ki Moon and how that selection will be made. And we start by discussing what’s known in UN circles as the so-called “Bulgarian Primary.”

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