Departures with Robert Amsterdam

Often dismissed as the edge of the Russian or Chinese empires, Central Asia hosts a complex history that informs on present day atrocities including the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and the Uyghur concentration camps in China. It is through these current events, that Central Asia has become one of the most important geopolitical regions in the world.  This week’s episode of Departures features Adeeb Khalid, the Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor of Asian Studies and History at Carleton College, and author of the book, “Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present."  In their discussion, Bob Amsterdam and Khalid dive deep into historical tensions between Russia and China for influence in Central Asia, particularly as the Belt and Road Initiative and other Chinese directed infrastructure projects take hold; and Russia's once favorable reputation is losing value throughout the region in light of their military attack in Ukraine.   But will Russia's assault on Ukraine create an opening for China to increase its leverage over Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the region at-large? Tune into this week's episode for expert commentary.     

We can all agree that the global world order has become rather disorderly. We also seem to have trouble coming up with consistent and convincing explanations of what brought about this disorder, pointing useless at shocks such as the passage of Brexit to the Trump to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But for political scientist Helen Thompson, the author of the excellent book, "Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century," the makings of our current geopolitical problems were cast deep in the faultlines of history going back to the end of the Cold War and, more recently, the departure from global economic orthodoxy observed from 2005-2008.  Thompson argues that the process of democratization in many countries did not quite go as planned. There was not a massive enfranchisement of lower classes in many nations - instead we saw the rich and powerful become more rich and powerful, with a greater concentration of wealth and inequality taking place within democratic societies.  "What we see by the 1990s is once again the rise of aristocratic excess," Thompson says in her conversation with Amsterdam. "We can see it in the United States with the growing importance of finance in campaigns and elections. (...) In terms of European countries, this aristocratic excess was primarily shaped through the technocratic elements of the European monetary union." Thompson argues that the financialization of society laid the faultlines for the disruptive events we are currently experiencing and struggling mightily to overcome. A fascinating conversation with a deep thinker.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it intervened in Syria in 2015 to shore up the beleaguered regime of their ally, Bashar al-Assad. How did this experience inform upon Vladimir Putin's catastrophic decision to invade and attempt regime change of the democratically elected government in Kyiv? This week's episode of Departures features Joby Warrick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter for the Washington Post, and author of the book, "Red Line: The Unraveling of Syria and America's Race to Destroy the Most Dangerous Arsenal in the World."  In their conversation, Bob Amsterdam and Joby Warrick discuss the contrasting experiences of Russia's relatively successful military intervention in Syria, with the catastrophic setbacks they have encountered in the invasion of Ukraine, which in recent days has called attention to horrific war crimes committed by the Russian military. Through the indiscriminate targeting of residential areas and hospitals, Putin's destruction of infrastructure is designed to cripple Ukraine. Instead, the outcome has been devastating for Russian forces. Warrick argues Russia's systems are not just corrupt at the official level, but importantly at the military level, where platoons lack command and control, and forces can't operate ground support for armored battalions. But do these corrupt institutions explain Russia's failures? Or was the chaos of the Ukraine invasion primarily an issue of poor intelligence and the isolation of the Russian leader? Warrick and Amsterdam debate how the blame falls and how it will make peace negotiations more difficult and more protracted.

We last checked in with former Russian lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev about a month ago, as the Russian military began its invasion of Ukraine. Now, with things looking much different and many things not going to plan, we check back in for Dispatch #2 from inside Ukraine. Ilya Ponomarev, who was forced into self-exile from Russia following his solitary vote against the annexation of Crimea, has spent years living in Kyiv supporting governance efforts and leading new ventures. As someone who has directly interacted with Vladimir Putin and who has an intimate knowledge of the government's functioning and processing, his analysis of the current situation is both important and alarming. According to Ponomarev, Putin is a "dead man walking," without option to escape his current predicament, but this of course still makes him very dangerous. On the disastrous decisionmaking which led to the invasion, Ponomarev points out the Covid-19 pandemic as having severely narrowed Putin's available sources of information, leading him to depend on just two of his most hawkish advisors and relying on numerous low-quality history books which he has frequently cited in statements to media. What direction will the war take from here? What can be the possible negotiated outcomes? Amsterdam and Ponomarev discuss in detail.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most resource-rich nations in the world, holding the largest deposits of critical minerals which will be key to the coming industrial transformation. But it is also a nation that is well into its third decade of war - a war that in many ways is forgotten, ignored, and buried away from public attention. But one person who has been paying attention is Jason Stearns, a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation and Chair of the Advisory Board of Congo Research Group. In his exhaustively researched excellent new book, "The War That Doesn't Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo," Stearns explores how the conflict has continued despite the 2003 peace agreement, with the fighting becoming a structural economic activity. In his discussion with Amsterdam, Stearns doesn't hold back on the enabling role he has seen in the donor community, flooding the country with millions of dollars of aid while a narrow elite class has emerged among the military and security bureaucracy while the country has remained mired in war and poverty. Stearns' sharp and insightful on the crisis in the Congo is informed by more than a decade of experience working there on the ground in human rights organizations, leading him to present very compelling theories of how conflict has subsisted, why peacekeeping efforts have failed, and how we should start to think differently about intervention in Africa writ large. A highly recommended publication - go pick up a copy.

During one specific week in December in 1941, a series of events and calculations led to Adolf Hitler's disastrous decision to declare war on the United States, putting the conflict on the eventual path toward the outcome we now regard with familiarity. The sequence of events leading from the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan to the entry of the United States into the war were of course very far from clear cut or certain at the time, and instead played out with the high-tension drama of a Hollywood thriller. The story of what happened during these four days is examined and retold with unusually gripping detail and surprising revelations by historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman in their excellent new book, "Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany's March to Global War." Simms and Laderman's book takes readers inside the blow-by-blow strategic thinking by Hitler and his advisors that led to this momentous and ultimately catastrophic decision with extraordinary and engaging detail, as well as the reaction to events in the Roosevelt White House. Hitler's American Gamble invites readers to imagine a broad range of potential alternative outcomes which could have taken place during this week, many of which were just avoided by the slimmest of margins. As news of the attack in the Pacific spread, leaders among the various countries did not all have the same access to information or understanding of the meaning of the events - and in the end, it would be these asymmetries that would prove critical.

"100 billion people have lived on planet earth since our species evolved, and for all our archives, all our libraries, and all our museums, we have only the tiniest little sliver of any record of who these people were and what their lives were like," says Jon Grinspan in his conversation with Robert Amsterdam. "So the challenge of history is to live in the present, and try to connect with these human beings who came before us, try to understand what their meaning was." And it is with this tremendous care and attention to detail that brings all the characters to life in Grinspan's excellent new book, "The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915," which examines one of the most turbulent, polarized period of America's political history. In their podcast discussion about the book, Grinspan and Amsterdam explore the striking similarities between the late 19th century and more contemporary events in the United States since Donald Trump's takeover of the Republican party, the 2021 insurrection, and the seemingly intractable partisan tribalism prevalent in politics today. Though many people have described the past five years as "unprecedented" in US history, that's actually not true, argues Grinspan. There is a deeper history of democracy in America that has been much more contested, he writes, focusing on the characters of radical congressman William “Pig Iron” Kelley and his progressive daughter, Florence Kelley. Looking at this family over the course of a critical half-century, one can see numerous lessons of what it cost the country to exit a period of tremendous dysfunction into a period of relative stability.

As tensions continue to rage between Russia and the West over its build-up on the Ukrainian border, Departures turns to expert Mark Galeotti for his analysis on the situation and a discussion of his brand new book, "The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War." Galeotti, who has spent years researching and writing about Russian organized crime and the security state, argues that despite the buildup of a traditional military conflict potentially in Ukraine, overall the world is seeing the practice of warfare change.  Shooting wars are much too costly, from both an economic and social aspect, and hybrid warfare, disinformation, hacking, assassinations, sanctions, cultural exchanges, and even business and financial press provide a whole new series of battlefronts where rivals may clash. Galeotti and Amsterdam talk about the limits of sanctions, and why in many cases they don't work against larger nations like Russia. Although politically palatable, making the appearance of action at little cost to the policymaker, it sidesteps issues which are much more important.

Throughout the most recent intensifying conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine, there is a common assumption that the Russian leadership is wielding its "energy weapon" to break apart European unity and advance its interests. While that may be partly true, it would be a huge mistake to assume that such a vast industrial chain of inputs, labor, refining, and transportation of these goods lay in the hands of so few people, argues Prof. Margarita Balmaceda in her new book, "Russian Energy Chains: The Remaking of Technopolitics From Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union." In her conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Balmaceda of Seton Hall University argues that for many, the flow of Russian energy exports of oil, gas, and coal often represent opportunities which are happily exploited more than constraints and threats as energy weapons. The rise of numerous Ukrainian oligarchs who took advantage of energy transit were able to transfer this to political influence, forever shaping regional dynamics that we can see playing out today, among numerous other examples. Oil and gas certainly are the lifeblood of Russian politics - but it is not a force under the sole discretion of Vladimir Putin.

Several years ago, Hakan Bulgurlu was at the top of his game. He was serving as CEO of Arçelik, a multi-billion dollar corporation. He and his family, including three young children, were enjoying a great life with frequent international travel. But he was also deeply troubled by the raw data he was seeing professionally concerning the rapidly deteriorating climate situation. And when he would speak up about these concerns, he found that people wouldn't listen and wouldn't act. So, he made a momentous decision to prepare himself to summit Mount Everest and bring attention to the cause. In his new book, "A Mountain to Climb: The Climate Crisis: A Summit Beyond Everest," Bulgurlu takes us deep inside the harrowing details of his trip to Everest in 2019, which turned out to be one of the most deadly years in terms of climber fatalities.  Interspersed with the tale of the expedition, Bulgurlu's book explores the roots of the environmental crisis we find ourselves in, including interviews and commentary from climate activists and campaigners, biologists, scientists, filmmakers, academics, economists, entrepreneurs, global leaders and innovators. In this gripping account of his journey, Bulgurlu describes the challenges he faced in reaching the summit, and the challenges we all face in protecting the planet and the future of humanity.