In recent years, many of the key assumptions and ideas that guided economic policy for decades have fallen apart. Globalization pushed jobs overseas—and when those jobs were not replaced, the dislocation people felt gave rise to new political movements in the United States and beyond. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and it laid bare how vulnerable global supply chains had become. While it is clear that the old system of neoliberal economic thinking is no longer working, it is far from certain what new ideas will replace the old paradigms. Rana Foroohar is a business columnist and an associate editor at the Financial Times. She has covered trade and economic policy for years, and in an essay for Foreign Affairs—and a new book, titled Homecoming—she steps back to explain what went wrong and how the fallout is shaping global politics today. We discuss the failure of neoliberal policies, the importance of manufacturing, and the recent crypto collapse. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Editor’s Note: On July 16, 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment alleging that Sue Mi Terry had acted as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government. Foreign Affairs requires all contributors to disclose any affiliation or activity that could present a genuine or perceived conflict of interest or call into question the integrity of their work. We take these allegations very seriously.   The question of what to do about North Korea and its nuclear weapons program has fallen off Washington’s radar. But while the West is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, competition with China, instability in Iran, and a long list of other foreign policy challenges, Kim Jong Un continues to develop his country’s nuclear capabilities, with a possible seventh nuclear test in the works. What should the Biden administration be doing to prevent this crisis from spinning out of control?  Sue Mi Terry, a former senior CIA analyst and an official on the National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, says it is high time for the administration to get more engaged and better articulate its policy approach—especially as support for a domestic nuclear program intensifies in South Korea.  We discuss North Korea’s recent weapons-testing spree, whether denuclearization is still a worthy U.S. foreign policy goal, and the stability of Kim’s regime. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Russia has suffered major setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, its economy is battered by Western sanctions, and its diplomatic clout has suffered due to President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion. It is fair to say that Russia is militarily, economically, and geopolitically weaker than it was a year ago—and policymakers in Washington and Europe may be tempted to downgrade the Russian threat as a result.  But dismissing Russia would be a mistake, argue Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Michael Kofman in the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs. “Russian power and influence may be diminished, but that does not mean Russia will become dramatically less threatening,” they write. “Instead, some aspects of the threat are likely to worsen.”  In this episode, Kendall-Taylor and Kofman speak with Deputy Editor Kate Brannen as part of Foreign Affairs’ event series. We discuss the state of Russian power, Ukraine’s recent battlefield wins, and how this war might end.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Protests have rocked Iran for nine weeks, despite a violent crackdown by the country’s security services. The demonstrations erupted in mid-September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, was detained by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly. She was reportedly beaten, fell into a coma, and died days later. The public responded to her death with grief and outrage, and over the last several weeks the protests have evolved into a much broader movement against the country’s leaders. As Iran’s regime grapples with these internal threats to its power, it is sending weapons to Russia to use in Ukraine and continuing to wield its influence around the Middle East. Earlier this year, Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued in Foreign Affairs that Iran’s foreign exploits were coming at great cost at home. “Ultimately,” he wrote, “the Islamic Republic’s grand strategy will be defeated not by the United States or Israel but by the people of Iran, who have paid the highest price for it.” We discuss whether Iran’s regime will survive this wave of protests, whether reform is possible, and the nature of Iran’s relationship with Russia and China. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Boris Bondarev worked as a Russian diplomat for 20 years. On the morning of February 24, when the Russian military started bombing Ukraine, he decided to step down from his post at Russia's permanent mission at the UN in Geneva. After getting his family to safety, he publicly resigned in May, making it clear he was leaving his job in protest of the war.  In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, he writes about his reasons for publicly resigning—and what he learned after years of watching President Vladimir Putin’s regime up close. “The invasion of Ukraine made it impossible to deny just how brutal and repressive Russia had become,” he writes.  In this episode, Foreign Affairs Deputy Editor Kate Brannen talks to Bondarev about the Russian military’s vulnerabilities, how his family reacted to his decision to leave, and what happens to Russia after Putin. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

The past six months have marked an especially rocky chapter in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy has made it difficult to travel around the country and has largely kept foreigners away. In August, Beijing cut off key channels of communication with Washington in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. In the months since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, China has not condemned Russia’s unprovoked assault, nor has it publicly moved away from its “no limits” partnership with the Kremlin. More recently, new trade restrictions from the Biden administration have dealt a serious blow to the Chinese semiconductor industry. All in all, it has been a tense and unusual time in this fragile but immensely important relationship.  As the United States’ top diplomat to China, Ambassador Nick Burns has had to navigate the challenges of the last few months, strongly pushing back on China where the Biden administration disagrees with Beijing but also trying to find opportunities where communication, and even cooperation, is possible. He brings enormous experience to the job. Burns previously served at the State Department as undersecretary for political affairs, as ambassador to NATO and to Greece, and as State Department spokesperson. He has also worked on the National Security Council staff on Soviet and Russian affairs.  We discuss the challenges facing China, how China views American power, and what it’s like to represent the United States in Beijing today. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Over the past 100 years, there have been many declarations in the pages of Foreign Affairs that the world is in a historic transition period. These days, that claim feels especially plausible. The United States’ unipolar moment appears to be ending—but it’s unclear what will replace it. Will China continue to rise? Will the war in Ukraine undo Russia? Will the United States move past the political divisions that are tearing it apart? As Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, sees it, this is shaping up to be a very dangerous decade. Haass has been a close observer of the forces affecting the world for some time. In addition to serving as the head of CFR for 20 years, Haass has had a long career as a U.S. diplomat, representing the United States and leading negotiations everywhere from Northern Ireland to Afghanistan. From January 2001 to June 2003, Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He has also served on the National Security Council and in the Defense Department.  We discuss how traditional geopolitical tensions are once again front and center at the same time that transnational threats, such as climate change and pandemics, demand international cooperation. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

As the global balance of power shifts, and in the wake of crises such as the United States’ messy withdrawal from Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is an important time to consider the way U.S. foreign policy is made. What are the priorities shaping Washington’s agenda? Can the United States truly restore its leadership on the global stage? And how should the West respond as Russia escalates the war in Ukraine? Emma Ashford is a keen observer of the foreign policy debate in Washington. A senior fellow at the Stimson Center, she consistently offers some of the most trenchant and thoughtful criticism of U.S. strategy and the forces shaping it. She has warned about the dangers of groupthink in Washington—and has made the case for accepting the limits of what U.S. power can achieve. We discuss American foreign policy failures, the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Ukraine, and what great-power competition will look like in the years to come. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking a number of steps to up the ante in Ukraine. This week, Kremlin-backed leaders in Russian-occupied areas in eastern and southern Ukraine announced plans to hold referendums on whether to join Russia. These sham votes would pave the way for Putin to quickly annex the territory, just as he did in Crimea in 2014—meaning that any attack on these lands by Ukrainian forces could be used as a pretext for Putin to escalate actions against Ukraine and the West.  In a televised speech on September 21, Putin indicated that’s exactly where he’s headed, announcing a partial mobilization of Russian troops and reminding the world about the country's nuclear arsenal. Why is Putin making these moves now? Is Russia's leader running out of options? And where does his vision of a new Russian empire end? Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has been studying Putin for a long time. During the Trump administration, she served as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. And from 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. We discuss Putin’s escalation, what to make of his nuclear threats, and what Washington's options are during this risky and volatile period. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

In Washington, there is a growing fatalism that a confrontation with China is unavoidable—and perhaps even necessary. What does success look like in a world where the United States is reflexively countering China’s every move? Is catastrophic conflict the only acceptable destination? Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor of China and Asia-Pacific studies at Cornell University, believes today’s debate over how best to deal with China is far too narrow. She recently completed a yearlong post working on the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. She observed that in policy circles in Washington, debate is often stifled as no one wants to appear “soft” on China. As she writes in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, the result is that “the instinct to counter every Chinese initiative, project, and provocation remains predominant, crowding out efforts to revitalize an inclusive international system that would protect U.S. interests and values.” We discuss how U.S.-Chinese relations have become especially fraught, the potential consequences of zero-sum competition, and what the costs are to American democracy.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.