Behind The Lines with Arthur Snell

President Macron did something truly unexpected when he called a snap election in the aftermath of the European parliamentary elections. It now looks very likely that France's next legislature will contain a plurality of hard right deputies from Marine Le Pen's National Rally. I spoke to Lord Peter Ricketts, former British Ambassador to France about this unexpected election and what it portends.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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was delighted to speak to Akanksha Narain, Indian political analyst and consultant about the unexpected election results in India where Modi's BJP party fell far short of their target of 400 seats in the 542-seat lower house of Parliament (Lok Sabha).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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I spoke to Christina Keßler of the Centre for European Reform (CER) about the current EU elections and the possibility of Europe taking a turn to the right.You can find Christina's work at the CER here: https://www.cer.eu/personnel/christina-kesslerSeparately, I appeared on the new podcast Quiet Riot. Find the episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6RGol2iYEkToCCrYjFUwkm?si=4FDTU1NaTgOaRfGf_Y2Qog 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Trump's criminal conviction, the chaos and division of American politics seems set to increase. But this is about much more than what happened in a New York courtroom, with roots in American history, its political structures and the rise of certain ideological movements. I spoke to American political scientist Jonathan Terra about the backdrop to the current events.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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I spoke to disinformation expert Amil Khan about the current state of disinformation in global and UK politics and the risks it could pose to the 2024 UK general election. Amil is Director of Valent projects. His work has been covered in a range of media outlets including Disinformation is on the rise. How does it work?economist.com, and the BBC How some AI developers are combatting malicious bots | BBC Newsyoutu.be.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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices