
Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl
Decoding Geopolitics is a podcast that tries to make sense of today's dangerous world by talking with real experts on international relations, strategy and security.
Latest episodes

Feb 18, 2025 • 15min
Q&A: Can Europe Survive On Its Own?
➡️ Help to make the existence of Decoding Geopolitics possible by joining our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/

9 snips
Feb 17, 2025 • 29min
#51 Anne Applebaum: Why Europe’s Security Strategy Is Failing & How the War in Ukraine Will End
Anne Applebaum, an American-Polish journalist and historian renowned for her expertise in Russia and Eastern Europe, shares critical insights at the Munich Security Conference. She discusses the implications of U.S. foreign policy on European security and the pressing need for independent defense strategies. Applebaum highlights Europe's awakening to security threats amid the Ukraine conflict and critiques the misconceptions about engaging with Russia. She warns of the complexities in negotiating with Russia, stressing the importance of appropriate security guarantees before any ceasefire efforts.

Feb 11, 2025 • 34min
#50 Soner Cagaptay: Is Turkey Building a New Ottoman Empire?
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute and a leading expert on Turkish foreign policy.Turkey is an increasingly influential player in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe but at the same time, it's rise and its strategy are hugely overlooked and misunderstood. And so I spoke with Soner about exactly that. About what is Turkey's grand strategy and what is it trying to achieve, how it's becoming a major power in the Middle East, why is it both an enemy and a friend of Russia, why is it even in NATO when it doesn't seem to be aligned on a number of issues with the majority of its members or what's the risk of war between Greece and Turkey - and much more.

Feb 5, 2025 • 39min
#49 Hal Brands: 'We’re Living In a Pre-War World. Great power war is no longer unthinkable.'
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/
Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com
This is a conversation with Hal Brands, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and one of the most influential and respected thinkers on U.S. foreign policy and global power dynamics of today.
In this conversation, we talk about the return of geopolitics. About why are ideas about geopolitics that dominated the world a hundred years ago and that were at the beginning of all the great wars of the 20th century now making a comeback. And threaten to start other great wars in our time and define the 21st century as well. And whether and how, can it be prevented.

Jan 29, 2025 • 50min
#48 Mike Kofman: The War Is Slowly Killing Russia’s Military. Here’s How Long They’ll Need to Recover
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/
Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com

8 snips
Jan 22, 2025 • 47min
#47 Jeremy Shapiro: What's Trump's Plan for Ukraine and Will He Defend Taiwan?
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
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Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com
This is a conversation with Jeremy Schapiro, a Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former advisor and policy planner at the U.S. State Department. And this conversation is about a single but extremely important question - what will the foreign policy of Donald Trump in the next four years look like. And how is it going to change the world as we know it.
We talked about how Donald Trump’s foreign policies actually created and who are the different ideological groups that shape them which is something that Jeremy wrote on quite a lot. And about what his policies will look like - on Russia and Ukraine, Europe and NATO, Iran and Israel and China and Taiwan.
My goal going into this was to be as unbiased and pragmatic as possible - to try to analyze what Donald Trump’s foreign policy on different issues might look like rather than to judge him as a person because there’s not enough of the first and more than of the latter. Whether it was successful or not, is up to you.

Jan 17, 2025 • 46min
#46 General Ben Hodges: Russia’s Failing Strategy, Ukraine and the West’s Fear of Escalation
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/
Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com
This is a conversation with General Ben Hodges. Ben is a former high-ranking U.S. general who ended his career as a Commander of the United States Army in Europe and today is one of the most respected commentators on the Ukraine war, defence and European security and a major advocate for the Ukrainian cause.
In this conversation we talk about what really mattered in the past year, from the Kursk offensive to North Korea joining the battlefield. About how the war developed and what is the balance of forces today, what can we expect of the year to come and what does Ben expect from the Trump administration when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. And we talk about a lot of difficult, uncomfortable but extremely important questions - from negotiations, to issues with Ukrainian mobilization or the changing Ukrainian public opinion.

Jan 6, 2025 • 42min
#45 Lennart Maschmeyer: How Ukraine Avoided a Cyber-Apocalypse & Why Cyberwarfare Isn't What You Think
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
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Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com
This is a conversation with Lennart Meschmayer. Lennart is a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich who’s focusing on cyber warfare - how states use cyber power against each other both in times of war and peace and what role does cyber play in conflicts today. And that’s exactly what this conversation is all about.
We talk about what role does cyber play in the war in Ukraine, why we haven't seen a cyber apocalypse that many have predicted before the war started, why cyber warfare works really differently than most people think, why is Israel a hacking superpower or what would a cyber war between Russia and NATO look like.

Dec 18, 2024 • 52min
#44 Justin Bronk: F-35 Critics Are Completely Wrong. F-16s for Ukraine Were Over-Hyped.
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/
Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com
This is a conversation with Professor Justin Bronk. Justin is a Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a professor at the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, an active private pilot and one of the most respected experts on air power and technology in the world.
In this interview we talk about a lot of things. We discussed the F-35s and its criticism, how it compares to its Russian and Chinese counterparts or whether it will be replaced by drone swarms and unmanned technology. How did Ukraine change what role air power plays in conflicts, what kind of impact are F-16s having on the war or whether Ukrainian force will start operating Western-made planes. And we talk about how the near future will air power as we know it - from drone swarms, unmanned fighter jets and collaborative aircraft. It’s a great conversation and I really hope you’ll enjoy it.

Dec 11, 2024 • 59min
#43 Syria Expert (Aron Lund): 'Things Could Get Much Worse. Here’s Who the Real Winner Is.'
➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/
Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com
This is a conversation with Aron Lund. Aron is an analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and one of the world’s leading foreign experts on Syria, its security and politics. And in this conversation, we unpack everything that happened in the past week and what is going to happen now.
We talk about why no one saw the offensive coming and why did Assad’s regime fall so quickly, about who are actually the rebels who took it down, how radical are they and what can we expect of them. We discuss what this means for Turkey, Israel, Russia and Iran and the Middle East at large and what post-Assad Syria will look like - and why things might get a lot worse.