Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Russia has successfully influenced the election here in the United States in its favor. It's side is winning the war in Syria. Crimea looks like it will remain in Russia for the foreseeable future and the NATO alliance may become weakened when Donald Trump takes office.  This is pretty much springtime for Putin in Moscow. But what are Russia's grander ambitions? Why did they hack the US election? What do they want from the Middle East? From Europe and China? I put these questions and more to James Goldgeier, a Russia expert and the Dean of the School of International Studies at American University. James describes some of Putin's near term and longer term strategic goals and how a less contentious relationship with the USA--one not based on values, but on individual transactions -- may reshape Russian foreign policy and international affairs more broadly.  

Amy Costello is a veteran reporter who now hosts the excellent Tiny Spark podcast that investigates what goes right and what goes wrong in philanthropy, including global philanthropy and the NGO sector. At the very end of our conversation Amy reveals she started this podcast in part as a response to a story she reported that was wildly popular, but she later learned rested on a false premise.  Amy was one of the first television reporters in Darfur during the midst of the genocide, a work for which she was Emmy nominated. She describes the kinds of scenes she saw and how that reporting project left a lasting impression upon her.We kick off in this holiday season discussing philanthropy and how individuals, perhaps you out there listening right now, can be an effective altruist by maximizing the impact of your charitable giving.

President Elect Donald Trump has assembled a team of generals to fill key posts in his national security team. Former Army General Mike Flynn is his National Security Advisor, Marine General John Kelly has been tapped to serve as homeland security chief and of course recently retired marine general ames Mattis has been nominated as Secretary of Defense.    Top military brass have served in civilian roles But never before have so many generals been tapped to serve at once and in top positions in the government. And this is out of the ordinary precisely because the American political system has historically shunned it for reasons that my guest Alice Hunt Friend describes.    Alice Friend studies civil military relations--she's currently writing her PhD thesis on the topic. She's a former official in the Pentagon and is currently both a Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security.    She offers what I find to be a very nuanced take on the kind of challenge or even threat to the American democratic system that is posed when the military takes on a greater role in civilian political life. She also discusses the kinds of policy implications that result from when generals are put in charge of civilian institutions.

Cameron Munter was the US Ambassador to Pakistan when US Special forces conducted the midnight raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. He watched the raid live and hours later was dealing with the diplomatic fallout.     Munter had a career in both academia and the diplomatic corps, serving in a wide variety of posts. He's now the president of the East West Institute. And this is arguably the first podcast ever in the history of the universe in which both Otto Von Bismark and Lou Reed are each discussed.  We kick off with a brief discussion of the ways that Chinese domestic politics influence its foreign policy and what the future holds for US-Chinese relationship in the Trump era. And then of course, as we always do, we pivot to a longer conversation about his life and career with some fun digressions along the way. 

There are some frightening warning signs that a genocide may erupt in South Sudan. The country has been at war with itself for the better of three years, ever since a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his Vice Preisident Riek Machar turned into an armed conflict between those two men. The conflict took on ugly sectarian dimensions--these men hail from different ethnic groups--and peace has been elusive.    In recent weeks, however, it seems that the government of Salva Kiir is readying itself to commit ethnic-based mass atrocities for reasons that my guest Cameron Hudson explains. Cameron is the director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He's also a former CIA officer with extensive background in the region. And in this episode, he explains what conditions are ripe for genocide in South Sudan are ripe.

Mark Tokola is the vice president of the Korea Economic Institute of America. He's a long serving American diplomat with postings around the world and we discuss a few of them in this episode, including his first posting to Turkey where his main job was helping Americans sent to prison on drug trafficking charges. He also compares his work in the Balkans in the 1990s to Iraq after the fall of Saddam and I think makes an important point about the value of multilateralism to American interests.  We spoke a day after the Security Council passed new a sanctions resolution on North Korea following a nuclear test in September and we kick off discussing the implications of those sanctions before pivoting to a longer conversation about his globe-spanning career. Mark's last posting was to South Korea and we end with some discussion about the political upheaval underway there and whether or not my man Ban Ki Moon may run for president next year.   Mark is an alumnus of the Salzburg Global Seminar which is a podcast sponsor this month and at the top of the episode we also reference a seminar about North Korean human rights in which he participated   

Donald Trump's foreign policy and national security team is still taking shape. He has appointed Nikki Haley as his UN ambassador and Mike Flynn as his National Security Advisor. But at the time of recording, he has not picked a Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense.    So how are you best able to interpret and understand the implications of those selections to American foreign policy? Thankfully, there is some is some emerging political science that speaks to the role of advisors in shaping national security policy, and on the line with me to discuss this research is Professor Elizabeth Saunders of George Washington University.    Saunders has conducted a number of studies that speak to the circumstances in which cabinet picks and top advisors can shape public opinion and decision making on key foreign policy issues. We discuss her research and its implications for the Trump transition in this episode. And after you listen to this episode, you should have a fairly decent grounding in how to interpret the significance of these picks, no matter who the end up being.  

--- Support the podcast and join our premium subscribers club! ---> https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches    President elect Donald Trump will nominate Nikki Haley to be his Ambassador to the United Nations. She is a rising star in Republican politics and currently serves as the governor of South Carolina. She was sharp critic of Trump during the primaries, yet he has picked her to represent him at the United Nations.    On the line with me to discuss Nikki Haley, her political background, her personal story, and her place in South Carolina and national politics is Andy Shane the Colombia bureau chief of the Post and Courier newspaper in South Carolina. We have an in-depth conversation about the woman who will next lead the United States Mission to the UN and we discuss how some experiences she had as governor may suggest how she takes on her next role.    Trump's cabinet is still taking shape and it's notable that he would pick his UN Ambassador position before his Secretary of State, but I think we have come to expect the unexpected from this president elect. One other political wrinkle that we did not discuss, but is on the minds of people who follow national politics is that there may be a senate seat in South Carolina opening up in 2019, and if so, political watchers speculate that she may vie for that position. So the thinking goes, this could be a good platform for which to run for president in 2024. Now this is a long way off, but it's what the chattering class is chattering about.

--- Support the podcast! Join the premium subscribers club! --- Tali Nates has a personal connection to Schindler's List. On it was the name of her father and uncle, whom Oskar Schindler saved from a Nazi extermination camp.  She is now the director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Center in South Africa and we have a fascinating conversation about how the lessons of the Holocaust are applied and learned in post-Apartheid South Africa.   Tali was born in Israel and moved to South Africa before the end of Apartheid. She candidly describes the moral compunction she experienced during that era and how teaching Holocaust history to white south africans became a method of resistance.    This episode is part of a series that is being created in partnership with the Salzburg Global Seminar, which is a forum and meeting space that brings together a cross section of global leaders to take on some of the big global challenges of the day. We kick off discussing her participation on one of the Salzburg sessions before turning to her own family history and contemporary work.  

--- Support the podcast and join our premium subscribers club! --- As Americans headed to the polls on election day, diplomats from around the world headed to Marrakech, Morocco for the first big global climate summit since the Paris Agreement last year. This was to be an important inflection point in the global effort to combat climate change. Just a week earlier the Paris Agreement officially entered into force after the requisite number of countries ratified it and this meeting in Marrakech would to fill in some key details and add some technical guidance to enable the implementation of the agreement.  And then, Donald Trump was elected.   During the campaign he pledged to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and defund UN programs to combat climate change. So I was interested to learn the implications of the election on the ongoing negotiations in Morocco and this episode is in two parts.   First, I speak with Eliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, who I caught up the day after the election just as he was headed to Morocco. Eliot discusses the ways domestic politics here in the USA may affect climate negotiations and also recounts the history of American leadership (or lack thereof) in international climate diplomacy.     Next, I speak with Hugh Sealy, a diplomat from Grenada who is a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, known as AOSIS in UN speak. I caught up with Hugh in Marrakech about a week after the election, and as you'll see he does not report that much has changed. He does though, also discuss the importance of American leadership and also offers some interesting insights into the role that small countries like his can play in these big negotiations.    If you have not already done so, please check out the Patreon page I have created which is a way for you to support the show and also, if you are interested, take a deeper role in its production. Listeners who make a recurring monthly contribution through this platform can receive rewards for your support. So, for being a Global Dispatches premium subscriber you get a complimentary subscription to my DAWNS Digest global news clips service, sneak previews of upcoming episodes and the opportunity to have your questions posed to my guests, and also, if enough of you join the premium club I will launch a new podcast series, shaped by you, exclusively for. And stickers! Check it out.