This week, A'ndre and Andrea spoke with Stuart Reid, Executive Editor of Foreign Affairs, on his new book The Lumumba Plot, which investigates the CIA's role in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically-elected leader of the DRC in 1961. We profile Lumumba with Stuart, and describe the then-Republic of Congo's colonial history, discussing what the process of decolonization between Belgium  and the Republic of Congo (chaotically) looked like. Stuart chats about Belgian involvement in post-colonial Congo, and why the CIA's paranoia of Soviet influence led to the sanctioning of a plot to assassinate Lumumba. We reflect on how the Lumumba assassination has reverberated throughout the DRC's history, and lessons to be learned for U.S. foreign policy.

This week, Burn Bag co-host Andrea Ochoa sits down with Roderick Jones and Vice Admiral (Ret.) Michael LeFever from Concentric Advisors, a risk management firm providing security services and intelligence solutions to clients worldwide. For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Roderick and Vice Admiral LeFever bring years of experience to the table and discuss cyber across all fronts -- from its usage as an offensive weapon by adversaries and adversarial groups, to building cyber resiliency from both government and industry perspectives. The discussion reviews the evolution of cyber attacks and its applications in modern conflicts, as well as government response and reactive measures towards this type of warfare. Roderick and Vice Admiral LeFever touch upon public policy and our National Cybersecurity Strategy, which work to address threats and defense approaches in the cybersecurity realm. We wrap our discussion with an overview of Concentric Advisors and both guests' work in the security management space for clients worldwide.Roderick and Vice Admiral LeFever have co-authored a book entitled 'End Game First: A Leadership Strategy for Navigating Crisis and Business,' which you can purchase here. 

On this week's episode, Andrew sits down with Profs. Erik Gartzke and Jon Lindsay about the complexity, importance, and limitations of cybersecurity and cross-domain deterrence at the Great Power level. Profs. Gartzke and Lindsay are leaders in the academic The two trade stories about their experience making sense of the phenomena and their applicability in European deterrence, counterterrorism, and homeland security. Gartzke and Lindsay offer a deep dive into why "cyber" is so misunderstood by both decision-makers and the American public, and help shed some light on how we ought to view the evolving field in the decade to come.Erik Gartzke is a Professor of Political Science from the University of California, San Diego and specializes in the impact of information on war. Jon Lindsay is an Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and teaches cybersecurity and international relations. Together they have written numerous articles and recently co-edited the book “Cross-Domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity” which serves as one of the leading sources of modern cross-domain scholarship.

In light of the recent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza, The Burn Bag is re-releasing several episodes A'ndre and Ryan recorded during the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian crisis, aiming to assess the history of the broader Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts, highlighting a multitude of perspectives. We hope that you listen to all of these re-releases, in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of this conflict.In this week's episode, A'ndre and Ryan dissect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with University of Michigan Professor Victor Lieberman. This episode provides a broad overview of the conflict itself, going back more than a 100 years and framing the conflict as not one between Muslims and Jews, but one between two rival nationalisms -- Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism. Professor Lieberman provides a timeline that goes back to the days of the Ottoman Empire and then into the British administered Mandatory Palestine, the demographic shifts that occurred in the region due to European anti-Semitism, and the political and armed conflicts leading up to creation of the State of Israel. Professor Lieberman digs into the wars between Israel and its Arab state neighbors, the nature of Palestinian political leadership, and the relationship between the goals of the Arab states and the goal of a Palestinian state.  Land, borders, and failures in diplomacy form a large bulk of the discussion, and Professor Lieberman rounds out the conversation with why he is cautiously pessimistic about any potential resolution to the conflict. The conversation aims to effectively and objectively cover the hundred year conflict in one hour, providing a primer that will help our audience formulate opinions on their own, given the issue's sensitive nature. Professor Victor Lieberman teaches a popular course on the Arab-Israeli conflict at the University of Michigan, where he serves as the Raoul Wallenberg Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Asian and Comparative History. His effective and objective teaching style was rewarded with the Golden Apple Award in 2014 -- given to a professor for outstanding teaching, by the students.  NOTE: In A’ndre’s introduction, he mentioned that Professor Rashid Khalidi was a negotiator for the PLO. The correct statement is that he was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993.  

In light of the recent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza, The Burn Bag is re-releasing several episodes A'ndre and Ryan recorded during the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian crisis, aiming to assess the history of the broader Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts, highlighting a multitude of perspectives. We hope that you listen to all of these re-releases, in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of this conflict.In the last episode of our miniseries on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we speak to Yossi Klein Halevi, famed Israeli author and journalist, on  'myths' and 'realities' around the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and Zionism. Yossi talks about the idea of Israel and 'historic' Israel before the founding of the modern day state, and what Israel means to Jewish people -- drawing on the intersection of history, religion, and culture. Discussing the expulsion of Jews around the world before, during, and after the creation of the State of Israel, Yossi discusses how Israel is perceived as more than just a country, providing his take on what Zionism means, in his perspective. Yossi dispels critiques that Israel is a 'white' state and talks about the diversity present within Israel's population, and then dives into relations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Yossi, the author of Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor, acknowledges and refutes criticisms of Israel, delineating between 'legitimate' criticisms of recent actions around Sheikh Jarrah and more 'existential' criticisms around overarching anti-Zionism -- providing his rationale on why he believes those existential criticisms are anti-Semitic.NOTE: In A’ndre’s introduction, he mentioned that Professor Rashid Khalidi was a negotiator for the PLO. The correct statement is that he was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. 

In light of the recent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza, The Burn Bag is re-releasing several episodes A'ndre and Ryan recorded during the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian crisis, aiming to assess the history of the broader Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts, highlighting a multitude of perspectives. We hope that you listen to all of these re-releases, in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of this conflict.[Originally released 6/19/21] In the latest episode of our miniseries focusing in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we speak to Dr. Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian American historian who currently is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, on the history of the Palestinian people and Palestinian nationalism. Dr. Khalidi, the author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine (2020) and Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (1997), discusses the origins of Palestinian Nationalism and provides a primer on the development of the Palestinian identity, dispelling the myths and talking the realities of Palestinian Nationalism in both the Mandate and Pre-Mandate period (the 'Mandate' referring to British governance of the Palestinian region in the years preceding 1948). Dr. Khalidi discusses why early attempts at creating a Palestinian state failed, and what agency the Palestinians actually had in their own fate amidst the involvement of regional and foreign powers. Dr. Khalidi goes on to talk about the Palestinians as a political entity, with the rise of the PLO, and gives his take on why the Oslo Peace Process failed -- drawing on his own personal experience as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington peace negotiations between 1991 and 1993.NOTE: In A’ndre’s introduction, he mentioned that Professor Rashid Khalidi was a negotiator for the PLO. The correct statement is that he was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. 

In light of the recent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza, The Burn Bag is re-releasing several episodes A'ndre and Ryan recorded during the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian crisis, aiming to assess the history of the broader Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts, highlighting a multitude of perspectives. We hope that you listen to all of these re-releases, in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of this conflict.[Originally released 5/29/21] In this special release, A'ndre and Ryan speak with Dr. Jess Ghannam, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Global Health Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine, about post-conflict trauma and the importance of incorporating this trauma into larger conversations about national security. Dr. Ghannam, who is Palestinian-American and hails from Detroit, speaks on how "the juxtaposition of pain and curiosity" motivated him to learn about and work on the impact of trauma, in order to address health inequalities at home and abroad.  Dr. Ghannam recounts his on-the-ground experience in working in creating medical clinics in Gaza and the public health crises he observed there as a starting point to contextualize the broader conversation from a global standpoint. We have a conversation on the different types of trauma that children and adolescents experience, how mental health gives way to physical and other symptoms, and why Western ways of thinking about PTSD may not be adequate in describing the heavy trauma that civilians in conflict zones face. We discuss how a focus on chronic illnesses (non-communicable) and mental illnesses, such as depression, do present a security risk for the United States and the global community, and the interventions that the public health sector is engaging in to address these huge health issues.NOTE: In A’ndre’s introduction, he mentioned that Professor Rashid Khalidi was a negotiator for the PLO. The correct statement is that he was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. 

In light of the recent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza, The Burn Bag is re-releasing several episodes A'ndre and Ryan recorded during the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian crisis, aiming to assess the history of the broader Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts, highlighting a multitude of perspectives. We hope that you listen to all of these re-releases, in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of this conflict.[Originally Released on 6/3/2021] In this special episode, A'ndre and Ryan speak with Nabil Fahmy,  Founding Dean of the American University in Cairo's School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and former Egyptian Foreign Minister. Dean Fahmy shares his perspective on the recent Gaza War and Egypt's historical role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dean Fahmy digs into Egypt's relationship with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, while giving his prognosis on the path ahead in the more than seventy year conflict. He also discusses Egypt's unique geopolitical position as an African and Asian power, and how this informs its foreign policy and relationship with regional and international actors, such as the United States. The conversation concludes with a discussion on Egypt's future and how the younger generation can bring positive change.NOTE: In A’ndre’s introduction, he mentioned that Professor Rashid Khalidi was a negotiator for the PLO. The correct statement is that he was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993.

This week, A'ndre chats with Michael Kugelman, the Director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, on the recent diplomatic tensions between India and Canada over the assassination (on Canadian soil) of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader. We dive into Canada's allegations against India, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused the Indian Government of being involved in the assassination -- which the Indian Government has since denied. India has in turn accused Canada of harboring extremists supporting Khalistan separatist movement,  dedicated to the creation of a separate Sikh homeland in Punjab, which turned violent in the 1970s and 1980s before being quelled by the Indian Government. Michael and A'ndre take a deep dive on that separatist movement, and why Canada has been accused of being a "safe haven for terrorists" by India. We then take a step back to assess India-Canada relations under Narendra Modi and Justin Trudeau, in addition to evaluating whether the diplomatic row will hamper U.S.-India relations -- particularly in light of reports that the United States may have provided Canada with valuable intelligence on India's alleged involvement in the Nijjar assassination.

Professor Joseph S. Nye Jr., one of the most influential international relations thinkers of our time, sits down with A'ndre Gonawela and Andrew Wilson to discuss the applicability of his theories around neoliberalism in a Great Power competition framework, his assessments of executive foreign policy in past administrations, and where academia can inform the public as the international landscape continues to change. Professor Nye, who co-founded the neoliberalist school of thought, provides his take on what people get wrong about it. The hosts and Professor Nye discuss what 'soft power' is, in addition to recent concepts around 'smart power' and 'sharp power'. A'ndre and Andrew also question Professor Nye about his views on what constitutes a 'moral' foreign policy, as Nye provides his rankings on U.S. Presidents and their own moral foreign policies.