Behind The Lines with Arthur Snell

I had the chance to speak to Marika Mikiashvili of the Droa liberal internationalist party in Georgia about the background to the current protests in her country, Russia's history of interference and military intervention and the importance of Georgia's struggle to the wider question of democracy in Europe.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

German historian Helene von Bismarck discusses Brexit aftermath, British identity debates, German perspectives on EU discourse, stereotypes, geopolitics, aid spending in Ukraine, UK's foreign policy stance post-Brexit, and reflections on democracy in a casual chat.

Following on from the episode on 22 April, the second part of my conversation with Sydney Nash on the UK's relations with Europe.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At a time when the unbreakable city of Kharkiv faces untold destruction and sustained bombardment by Russian forces it was a privilege to speak to Dr Jade McGlynn, a scholar of Ukraine and Russia, who is based there. We discussed the situation in Kharkiv and across the wider front and also the vital work she is involved with to raise funding for new technologies to support Ukraine's defence. You can find more details of it here https://uscc.org.ua/en/Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As ever, British debates about the EU tend to be debates about Britain. We might hope to rejoin, or at least regain a better-functioning trading relationship with the organisation, but we don't do enough thinking about where the EU is headed in its own development. So I spoke to Europe expert Sydney Nash about this over two episodes. The first of these focuses on the EU's current situation.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iran and Israel have been on the brink of open conflict, in the light of Iran's barrage of drone and missile strikes on Israel, which in turn followed Israel's strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus. I spoke to Charlie Gammell, Iran expert, historian and former diplomat, about the crisis and what we might learn from it.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do British political parties get funded? What does that money buy? With only a few weeks to go until the local elections and in a year of a general election I spoke to Seth Thevoz, political and investigative journalist, about how parties are funded.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Professor Amalendu Misra of the University of Lancaster is an expert in Latin America and the Caribbean, notably Haiti. I spoke to him about the current crisis there and what it tells us about the wider region. Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Martin (who is on Twitter and elsewhere @threshedthought) is one of the most insightful thinkers on conflict and geopolitics active today. He served in the army in Afghanistan with some distinction and subsequently has worked as an academic and adviser on conflict and strategy. He is now running for parliament as the Liberal Democrat candidate in Tunbridge Wells. When we say that parliament needs more people who have actually done things with their lives and fewer professional politicians, it's hard to imagine a better candidate than Mike.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is Democracy for Sale? The degree to which dark money, powerful interests and political power intersects in this country is startling and depressing. One of the most dogged chroniclers of this phenomenon is the investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan whose book, published articles and substack are all essential reading for people that take an interest in this question.I spoke to Peter about his work and what it means for our politics. You can find Peter's substack here https://democracyforsale.substack.com/ and he is on Twitter here https://twitter.com/PeterKGeogheganI'm, as always, at https://twitter.com/SnellArthur and https://arthursnell.substack.com/ as well as on BlueSky for those that celebrate.Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.