This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Putin has few friends – but one is Belarusian despot Alexander Lukashenko. Belarusian democracy activist and reporter Hanna Liubakova talks to Arthur Snell from exile in Lithuania, to explain how Lukashenko dragged her country into the war – and what the world can expect from Putin’s stooge. What price will Belarus pay for Lukashenko’s fealty?We're putting out irregular war bulletins covering different aspects of the Ukraine crisis. Help our work, and shape the next full series of Doomsday Watch, by supporting us on Patreon.Resources to help the Ukrainian people can be found here: https://ukrainewar.carrd.co/ “Lukashenko has made us a full-fledged aggressor in this war… We in Belarus believe this is high treason.” “Most Belarusians don’t want this war. They don’t want to threaten our neighbour.”  “Lukashenko is giving away our sovereignty and independence to Russia… He’s not making the major decisions. Putin is.” “We had seen Donbass, Crimea, Georgia, Moldova… but we could not imagine that a fully-fledged attack on a sovereign country could take place.” “The weaker Lukashenko is, the weaker Putin is.” DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn with Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kyiv is under siege but Putin’s invasion is going badly. How far will Russia’s ruler go to win his monstrous gamble? And what can the West do to stop him? In the first of our irregular Ukraine War bulletins we talk to Ukrainian journalists Artyom Liss and Kyiv-based Romeo Kokriatski about the balance of power in Ukraine, the resolve of President Zelensky, and Putin’s doomsday psychology.We’ll be releasing special Ukraine War bulletins on an irregular basis as new developments arise. Help us keep podcasting, and shape the next full series of Doomsday Watch, by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/doomsdaywatch “It seems crazy that it has only been six days. At this point, I can’t even remember what peace was like.” – Romeo Kokriatski “I don’t think anyone could have predicted this level of carnage, this level of destruction or this level of madness.” – Artyom Liss DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn with Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As tensions rise on the Ukrainian border, are we looking at the first ground war in Europe since 1945? In an emergency roundtable edition of Doomsday Watch, Arthur Snell asks a panel of experts what’s driving Putin’s thinking, how far he and Russia are willing to go to achieve their aims, and if a disastrous conflict can be averted.Want to support us, get episodes early and extra content? Support us on Patreon and back us from just £3 per month now. “The question is less, ‘Is Russia going to invade?’ and more ‘When will Russia invade?’” - Romeo Kokriatski “The only person who knows what Putin is planning to do is Putin himself. It all depends on his mood when he wakes up in the morning.” - Artyom Liss “Putin saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a catastrophe. I wouldn’t fault anyone for thinking that he may want to rebuild the empire.” - Romeo Kokriatski “Younger people who are more western-oriented, are quite embarrassed by Russia’s position on Ukraine.” - Artyom Liss “The longer this goes on, European partners are likely to become more aligned with each other .” - John Lough “Russian is only scared of NATO in that NATO prevents Russia from bullying its neighbours around.” - Romeo Kokriatski DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this series we’ve looked at under-reported threats to global stability, from the psychology of Xi Jinping to the coming water crisis to the War on Truth. But what happens next? In this extended end-of-season edition, Arthur Snell steps back to look at the big picture with experts in geopolitics, future warfare and the Chinese, Russian and American superpowers. Can the world pull itself from the brink – or is our Long Peace coming to an end? Season Two of Doomsday Watch is coming soon. Help us shape it and get new episodes early when you support us on Patreon.•  “What we’ve seen is the loss of the structures that have contained violence.” – Dr Mike Martin•  “Americans are tired – tired of not only of being at war, but also as being perceived as being warmongers.” – Candace Rondeaux•  “People will fight for a cause. That cause can be nationalism, to serve a particular master or to promote a different vision of society.” – Margaret MacMillan•  “You saw it with defeat in Afghanistan: the West does not have confidence in its own values, nor the staying power to implement them anywhere else.” – Ian Dunt•  “We are in a very dangerous situation, where we face the potential of weapons systems outside of human control that perhaps can’t be stopped.” – Margaret MacMillan•  “I worry now that we’re entering a stage where we might have a big war. I think there’s a 50-50 chance.” – Dr Mike Martin•  “All around me I see people wanting to take on populism, who want a better kind of world that makes sense.” – Ian DuntDOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Cold Warriors of the postwar world never dreamed that Western democracies would come to rely on a global information network – and that our very openness could be turned against us. As the stories of Brexit, COVID and Trump coalesce into one nightmare tale of disinformation and weaponised lying, Arthur Snell asks whether democracy can survive in a post-truth world. If you control the information space, do you control the future? And after the pandemic, can we withstand the infodemic?Want to support us, get episodes early and extra content? Support us on Patreon and back us from just £3 per month now.• “If you’ve got enough money, you can ensure that people hear your talking points day in day out, hour after hour.” – Amil Khan• “COVID was a means to test these weapons. Climate denial is the next battleground, and it will make the anti-lockdown and COVID stuff look like child’s play.” – Darren Loucaides• “If tech companies can’t moderate memes and text, how on Earth are they going to moderate the Metaverse?” — Nina Jankowicz• “Soviet Union was Terminator 1: bulky and ungainly. Now Putin’s Russia is Terminator 2, very fluid and adaptable.” – Peter Pomerantsev• “Our systems are threatened not by people who are suffering but by comfortable middle class people who are bored and looking to go on a crusade.” — Tom Nichols• “What is shocking is how fast people will jump from a failure of policy itself to the idea that the whole edifice of liberal democracy needs to be junked in favour of a celebrity strongman.” — Tom Nichols• “Our openness is a weakness. We can’t go into Russia and broadcast like the BBC can – but RT can come here and say anything it likes.” – Nina JankowiczDOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The digital Utopia we were promised has given us a desperately vulnerable world where we depend on a global internet with a billion badly-protected backdoors. Today’s cyber-war battlegrounds aren’t on bank servers or Government databases. They’re in your smart fridges, doorbells and security cameras.Arthur Snell traces a path from the first-ever co-ordinated cyber-attack (on Estonia in 2007) to a world of invisible weapons and relentless probing conflict – where hostile governments can target your own phone anywhere on earth. How do you defend democratic societies when everything has become a computer? Want to support us, get episodes early and extra content? Support us on Patreon and back us from just £3 per month now.“As soon as we discover something convenient for our lives, we become dependent on it… We’re now as dependent on connectivity as we are on electricity.” – Mikko Hypponen“Most people just don’t understand how much their devices leak about them… We are all carrying tracking devices with us.” – Eva Galperin“You can’t see a cyber weapon on a military parade ground… Countries are putting billions into these weapons and nobody knows about them.” – Mikko Hypponen“Is it really wise for any country to establish a Νational Registry of Persons, and keep most of your personal data in one place?” – Ciaran Martin“We are turning everything into a computer… If it’s smart, it’s vulnerable.” – Mikko HypponenDOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What could persuade someone to leave a comparatively wealthy country in the Western Hemisphere to fight and die in the hellhole of the Islamic State? That’s exactly what happened in the unlikely setting of Trinidad and Tobago. Arthur Snell pieces together an astonishing story of how radicalisation is continuing in unexpected places around the world – how jihad leaders learned from the experts in global expansion, the fast food giants – and how jihad has found its mirror in QAnon. How do we fight terror when global jihad has gone local?We're putting out irregular war bulletins covering different aspects of the Ukraine crisis. Help our work, and shape the next full series of Doomsday Watch, by supporting us on Patreon.Resources to help the Ukrainian people can be found here: https://ukrainewar.carrd.co/“Trinidadians who had never driven a tanker before were suddenly sending me pictures where they were holding up machine guns.” – Asha Javeed“These threats have grown out of the very measures that were supposed to contain them.” – Arthur Snell“The US invasion of Iraq was the most severe strategic misjudgment since Hitler decided to invade Russia.” – David Kilcullen“Jihad has become a global product that adapts to its surroundings. Think of it as fast food.” – Arthur Snell“When I was in Iraq during the insurgency, al-Zarqawi was the one you feared, not Bin Laden.” – Arthur SnellDOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After 9/11 the West invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to remake them as friendly, terror-free liberal democracies. But the unintended consequences were historic disaster, countless dead and the humbling of Western power, symbolised by the shameful evacuation of Kabul in 2021. How did we get it so catastrophically wrong?Arthur Snell, who served in Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province, explores the flawed thinking that generated the very insurgencies the West was trying to suppress. Has the West built a world of forever wars that it can’t win?Want to support us, get episodes early and extra content? Support us on Patreon and back us from just £3 per month now.•  “Every way you look, the Western way of war burns through cash. And that creates incentives for warlords, generals and Prime Ministers.” – Arthur Snell•  “When we went to Helmand I really thought we were going to get this right… And over several command meetings I started to think, Do we really know what we’re doing?” – Frank Ledwidge•  “Having invaded these countries and toppled their governments, we didn’t know what to do next.” – Arthur Snell•  “She told me, the Afghan people hate you. They hate you because you make promises you don’t deliver on.” – Frank Ledwidge•  “No-one said ‘You can’t do counter-narcotics, and take away people’s livelihoods, in the same place you’re supposed to be winning hearts and minds.’” – Mike Martin•  “One of the reasons we crashed into Helmand was internal military politics. It suited the army to go in, to preserve its force structure.” – Mike Martin DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music is by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An Indian megacity of 11 million people literally runs out of water, trucking in 10m litres a day to hydrate a panicking population amid water queues and panic-buying. In Bolivia a scandalous water privatisation leaves people paying a quarter of their earnings just to drink. Water riots and deaths ensue. And in the UK, companies take £60bn in profit while pumping raw sewage into waterways – while London’s millennia-old chalk aquifer is now drained bone-dry. The Capital is now under threat of running out of drinking water altogether.When the water runs out, populations move in their millions. And that means destabiliation on a global scale. Arthur talks to researchers and unlikely experts (yes, that’s Feargal Sharkey from The Undertones) about a threat that’s bigger than any populist movement or villainous autocrat. We’re facing hydropocalypse.  “London is now on a list of nine global cities most likely to run out of drinking water” – FEARGAL SHARKEY  “Water management is conflict management.” – AARON WOLF “We built water systems for a climate that no longer exists.” – SANDRA POSTEL “By 2050 Britain is facing a water shortage of 1.2 billion litres a day.” – FEARGAL SHARKEY “We have loaded the dice for more of these extreme events.” – SANDRA POSTEL Want to support us, get episodes early and extra content? Support us on Patreon and back us from just £3 per month now.DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music is by Paul Hartnoll. Guitar sting by Kenny Dickinson. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens to the Middle East when the world stops buying its oil? As the world races to decarbonise, the region’s petrochemical plutocrats face a terrible decision. To keep power, they must cut off their addiction to oil. The plans of one young Saudi prince – the ambitious, ruthless Mohammed bin Salman – are already unleashing a wave of arrests, intimidation, black ops and murder across the world.Oil power has enforced brutal stability in the region since WWII. What happens when it crumbles? “Because Jamal Kashoggi had worked for the regime, he had to die. The message is that they can do anything with impunity, there are no consequences – and everybody should be afraid of them.” – HUGH MILES “How do we keep our thrones in a neighbourhood where everybody hates us?” – IYAD EL-BAGHDADI “If you are against the Saudi regime they will target you wherever you are. Financially physically or mentally, they will try to destroy you.” – ‘GHANEM’ “This is a perfect storm. We’re transitioning to a new world and these governments are just not prepared for it.” – IYAD EL-BAGHDADI  “The Saudis are like the Tudors. There are no rules. It’s a constant struggle for power with a merciless focus on the sole question of succession: who is next?” – HUGH MILES Want to support us, get episodes early and extra content? Support us on Patreon and back us from just £3 per month now.DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell, and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music is by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices