Archives for April 2017

What’s Next for Afghanistan?

When I reached former UN Dispatch contributor Ahmad Shuja in Kabul, the country was still reeling from the deadliest single Taliban attack since the start of the insurgency nearly 15 years ago. Some 160 young soldiers–mostly recruits– were massacred in a brazen assault on a base in the northern part of the country. That attack came after the United States dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat on what was reportedly a network of tunnels used by insurgents

Shuja is an Afghan analyst and researcher who previously worked for Human Rights Watch. Now, he is affiliated with the American University of Afghanistan — though he stresses that he is speaking in his personal capacity.

He discusses the implications of this recent Taliban attack, what the US government could be doing differently in Afghanistan, and how and why the government of Afghanistan is struggling to meet some of the basic needs of its people.

Ahmad discusses the deteriorating security environment in Kabul and the effect that is having on daily life.

If you have 20 minutes and want a handle on what is happening in Afghanistan and what it portends for the trajectory of the conflict and prospects of political stability, have a listen

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Episode 148: Laurie Adams

Laurie Adams is president of the NGO Women for Women International which works with women survivors of war. She has had a long career in the NGO sector and as an activist, including many years with Oxfam in various parts of Africa and with the NGO ActionAid International.

Laurie also had a career as an activist initially inspired by the anti-apartheid movement. We have a really thoughtful conversation about both the role of activism in international affairs and also just how one becomes a “professional” activist. Laurie describes the tension she felt between doing long term advocacy work to change public attitudes and public policies versus the direct aid that has more immediate impact on individuals lives.

This is a great conversation with someone who has lived an interesting life dedicated to progressive change and in service of the common good.

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Bonus episodes for premium subscribers include:

#1: International Relations Theory, explained.

#2: A Brief History of Nuclear Non-proliferation

#3: A Brief History of NATO

#4: The Syrian Civil War, explained. (Well, sort of — it’s complicated!)

#5: Meet the Kim family of North Korea.

#6: The Sustainable Development Goals, explained (Coming soon!)

#7: The Six Day War, Explained. (Coming soon!)

The Venezuela Crisis, Explained

Scenes from Las Mercedes, Caracas February 27; during continuing protests in Venezuela. Credit: AndersAZP via Flickr/CC license

Venezuela is at yet another crisis point. The government of Nicolas Maduro is facing steep opposition from the very people that swept Maduro’s predecessor and mentor Hugo Chavez to power nearly 20 years ago. But after years of sharp economic decline it appears that the “revolution’s” hold on power is a tenuous as ever.

On the line to explain what is going on in Venezuela is Francisco Toro, editor of the news website Caracas Chronicles. He discusses how the situation reached this point and why there is such high probability of violence.  Toro describes the poor economic decision making that drained Venezuela’s coffers as the oil boom went bust and how the political leadership in the country is responding to ever growing popular discontent.

Things are definitely heating up in Venezuala. If you have 20 minutes and want a deeper understanding of what is going on in Venezuela and its regional and global implications, have a listen.

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Episode 147: Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Linda Thomas-Greenfield grew up the oldest of eight children in a small segregated town outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They were poor. Her father was not literate. Despite these circumstances, she became one of America’s top diplomats, having just left her post a few weeks ago as the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.

Amb Thomas-Greenfield speaks candidly about the kinds of racial animus she faced growing up and in college at Louisiana State University. She tells how she first became interested in Africa and how her career as an Africa specialist evolved, including a formative stint as a diplomat in the small country of the Gambia.

(Stay for the discussion of the “Gumbo Diplomacy” she practiced as ambassador to Liberia when Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the Nobel Peace Prize!)

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What Political Science Can Teach Us About The US Airstrikes on Syria

Moscow cast its eighth veto at the Security Council in defense of the Syrian government yesterday. The vote in question would have dispatched a team of UN investigators to the site of the chemical weapons attack and compelled the Syrian government to cooperate with the investigators. Alas, for now they will not deploy. The status quo prior to the chemical attack seems to be in place. That is, with one big exception: the US decision to fire 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase suspected of being used in the attack.

This was the first time in the six year Syrian war that the United States directly and deliberately targeted Syrian government forces. But will the US military strike actually change anything about the conflict? Will the Syrian government’s behavior alter in any meaningful way? Will Syria’s backers approach the conflict any differently? It turns out that there is some emerging political science that points to some of the answers to these questions.

On the line in this podcast episode is Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the few people who has researched whether or not limited airstrikes — like the kind Donald Trump ordered on Syria last week — actually achieve their stated political and military objectives.

His book Between Threats and War: US Discrete Military Operations in the Post Cold-War World examined some 36 airstrikes and finds that they very rarely do what they are intended to do. We discuss why that is–and what implications his findings have for further US involvement in Syria.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn how limited airstrikes like this can–or in most cases cannot- achieve their stated political and military goals, have a listen.

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Episode 146: Vali Nasr

 

Vali Nasr was born in Iran, where his father was a high profile academic and university administrator  Then came the revolution. They fled–and that traumatic experience, he says, shaped his intellectual development in ways he is only beginning to understand.

Nasr is now dean of the School of Advanced International Studies, better known as SAIS, at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of several books including The Shia Revival which predicted the rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and Dispensable Nation which critiqued Obama administration policies in the Middle East. Nasr served in the Obama administration, working directly under Richard Holbrooke in the State Department’s Afghanistan/Pakistan policy office.

In this conversation, Nasr discusses the impact of the Iranian revolution on his own career and intellectual pursuits. He also discusses his friendship with Richard Holbrooke and how his untimely death may have altered the course of history,

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What’s Next for US-China Relationship?

A summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump sets the stage for the most important bi-lateral relationship in the world.

But what is actually on the agenda in Mar-a-Lago this week? And how might US-China relations shift in the coming years under President Trump? I put these questions and more to Susan Jakes who is the editor of ChinaFile and Senior Fellow at Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations.

She discusses why the optics of this meeting are so meaningful to both sides, how the domestic politics in China inform a trip like this, and why the irksome and threatening actions of North Korea may become an increasingly important aspect of US-China relations.

If you have twenty minutes and want to learn more about the key elements of the relationship between the US and china and how they may evolve, have a listen.

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Episode 145: Richard Haass

It’s a small victory for me as the interviewer when the person with whom I’m speaking admits that he is probably being overly candid — as Richard Haass did when he discussed some of his reasons for leaving the George W. Bush State Department over the Iraq war.

Richard Haass (of course) is President of the Council on Foreign Relations. His newest book is A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order which we discuss at the top of the episode.

I caught up with Richard just a couple hours after he finished interviewing UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on stage at CFR in New York and we kick off discussing the Trump administration’s approach to the UN before having a conversation about his newest book and a good talk about his life and career. He opens up about the influence of his conservative father, striking a friendship with Colin Powell early in his career, and navigating the DC foreign policy bureaucracy before landing at CFR.

I was thrilled to speak with him–he’s someone that if you are listening to this podcast has probably had some amount of influence on how you see the world. If you want to learn the life story and career highlights of one of the more influential voices in American foreign policy have a listen.