The World Unpacked

On May 19, Iran elected a new president. Centrist incumbent Hassan Rouhani won by a comfortable margin in a high-turnout election, defeating hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi. With the dust settled, what does the outcome mean for Iran's young population, for the region, and for the United States? Carnegie’s Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour discusses the election result and what it means with Tom Carver. Karim Sadjadpour, a leading researcher on Iran, has conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iranian officials and hundreds with Iranian intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, paramilitaries, businessmen, students, activists, and youth, among others. He contributes regularly to publications such as the Economist, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune,and Foreign Policy. (More on Sadjadpour - http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/340)

18 million people are estimated to work for the Indian national government, and that number doesn’t include India’s regional and state governments. Yet, compared to the size of the Indian population—1.3 billion—it’s not very large. The biggest challenge for the Indian state is not its size, but its inefficiency. While the last three decades have seen dramatic transformations in the country’s economy and the private sector, the state has failed to modernize at the same rate. Tom Carver talks the authors of a new book titled, Rethinking Public Institutions in India, Carnegie Senior Fellow Milan Vaishnav, Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, about the massive challenges India faces and the state’s ability to adapt. Milan Vaishnav is the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press and HarperCollins India, 2017). His work has also been published in scholarly journals such as India Review, India Policy Forum, and Latin American Research Review. He is a regular contributor to several Indian publications. (More on Vaishnav - http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/714) Devesh Kapur is the director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, and a professor of political science and Madan Lal Sobti professor for the study of contemporary India at the University of Pennsylvania. (More on Kapur - https://casi.sas.upenn.edu/about/people/devesh) Pratap Bhanu Mehta is the president and chief executive of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and a contributing editor at the Indian Express. (More on Mehta - http://www.cprindia.org/people/pratap-bhanu-mehta)

Europe’s relationship with its eastern frontier is at a turning point. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, and the ensuing crisis in Ukraine, has forced the EU to reevaluate its relationship with its eastern neighbors. The heady, post Cold War optimism of a single free Europe has confronted cold, hard reality. Carnegie Senior Fellow Richard Youngs joins Tom Carver for a conversation about his new book, Europe’s Eastern Crisis: The Geopolitics of Asymmetry, to discuss how reality is threatening the fundamental principles of the European order. Richard Youngs has authored eleven books. His most recent works are Europe’s Eastern Crisis: The Geopolitics of Asymmetry (Cambridge University Press, 2017), The Puzzle of Non-Western Democracy (Carnegie, 2015), and Europe in the New Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2014). He has held positions in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as an EU Marie Curie fellow. (More on Youngs - http://carnegieeurope.eu/experts/?fa=828)

The French presidential elections have captured attention around the world as the populist firebrand Marine Le Pen faces off with political newcomer Emmanuel Macron. As the final round of voting approaches, Tom Carver is joined by Erik Brattberg, director of Carnegie’s DC-based Europe Program, and Pierre Vimont, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels to discuss the rising frustration with “politics as usual” in France that has led to such a riveting contest. In this episode, recorded shortly after France’s first round of voting, Brattberg, Vimont, and Carver discuss the echoes of the 2016 U.S. election, the future of Euroscepticism, and analyze future of France under each prospective president.​ Erik Brattberg is director of the Europe Program and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He joined Carnegie from the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University, where he was the director for special projects and a senior fellow. Brattberg was previously the 2014 Ron Asmus Policy Entrepreneur Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and visiting Fulbright fellow at Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS. (More on Brattberg - http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/1342) Pierre Vimont is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. In June 2015, Vimont was appointed personal envoy of the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to lead preparations for the Valletta Conference between EU and African countries, to tackle the causes of illegal migration and combat human smuggling and trafficking. During his thirty-eight-year diplomatic career with the French foreign service, he served as ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2010, ambassador to the European Union from 1999 to 2002, and chief of staff to three former French foreign ministers. He holds the title, Ambassador of France, a dignity bestowed for life to only a few French career diplomats.​ (More on Vimont - http://carnegieeurope.eu/experts/1041)

As tension grows on the Korean peninsula, dissension simmers over the future of the Iran Deal, and conflict brews on the India-Pakistan border, the global nuclear landscape is more complicated than ever. In a special edition of the Carnegie Podcast, Toby Dalton of Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program hosts a recap of Carnegie’s recent 2017 International Nuclear Policy Conference. Listen in as nuclear experts and world leaders debate the future of the Iran Deal, the Trump administration’s nuclear posture, the future of North Korean proliferation, and prospects for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Toby Dalton is co-director of Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. An expert on nonproliferation and nuclear energy, his work addresses regional security challenges and the evolution of the global nuclear order. From 2002 to 2010, Dalton served in a variety of high-level positions at the U.S. Department of Energy, including senior policy adviser to the Office of Nonproliferation and International Security. (More about the 2017 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference: http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/21/2017-carnegie-international-nuclear-policy-conference-event-5209)

Egypt is going through an unprecedented period in its history. In the space of a few years, the most populous country in the Arab world witnessed huge street demonstrations, the overthrow of longtime president Hosni Mubarak, the election of the Muslim Brotherhood, a military coup, and the arrival on the scene of General Sisi, Egypt’s current ruler. Sisi’s presidency has been marked by the mass detention of activists and a crackdown on civil society. Carnegie Senior Associate Amr Hamzawy spoke to Tom Carver about the new forms of activism that are starting to emerge in the country and the regional and security pressures Sisi is facing. Amr Hamzawy is a former member of the People’s Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the Egyptian independent newspaper Shorouk. (More on Hamzawy: http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/237)

In the current political environment, developing any kind of effective strategy toward Russia is fraught with difficulty. A two-year, bipartisan task force convened by Carnegie Endowment and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, has recommended that instead of fueling unrealistic expectations of a breakthrough, the Trump administration should seek incremental progress on specific topics, based on a set of guiding principles. In the latest Carnegie podcast, two of the authors of the report, Carnegie's Andrew S. Weiss and Eugene Rumer, share their thoughts on how to manage the relationship and what some of those guiding principles should be. Andrew S. Weiss is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment and oversees research in Washington and Moscow on Russia and Eurasia. Weiss previously served as director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council staff, as a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and as a policy assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush.​ Eugene Rumer is a senior fellow and director of Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program. Prior to joining Carnegie, Rumer was the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2010 to 2014. He has also served on the National Security Council staff and at the State Department, taught at Georgetown University and the George Washington University, and published widely.

Michael Pettis, a thought-provoking economist on China, examines the trade relationship between the US and China. He explores the potential consequences of a trade war, the interconnection between income, consumption, and global demand, and the historical context of tariffs. He also discusses the threat to the global trading structure and the need for a new trading regime.

How should Europe handle President Trump? There is more uncertainty in the transatlantic relationship now than at any time since the end of the cold war. And preoccupied by its internal issues, the EU has failed to find a coherent approach for dealing with Vladimir Putin on its eastern border. As Carnegie’s popular blog Strategic Europe celebrates its 5th anniversary, Tom Carver talked to its editor-in-chief Judy Dempsey about the future of European foreign policy. Dempsey is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and the author of the book The Merkel Phenomenon (Das Phänomen Merkel, Körber-Stiftung Edition, 2013). She worked for the International Herald Tribune from 2004 to 2011 as its Germany and East European Correspondent, and from 2011 to September 2013 as columnist. Dempsey was the diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times in Brussels from 2001 onward, covering NATO and European Union enlargement.​

The global nuclear order is facing unprecedented challenges with Russia, North Korea and Iran all testing the limits of nuclear non-proliferation. The landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty marks its 50th anniversary next year. Will it be able to survive in its present form? This month, as Carnegie brings together 800 experts for its nuclear policy conference in Washington, Tom Carver spoke with Carnegie’s James Acton and Toby Dalton about the nuclear nonproliferation agenda. James Acton is co-director of Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. A physicist by training, Acton was a winner of the competitive Carnegie Corporation of New York grant on New Technologies and the Nuclear Threat that funds his ongoing research into the escalation implications of advanced conventional weapons. Toby Dalton is co-director of Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. An expert on nonproliferation and nuclear energy, his work addresses regional security challenges and the evolution of the global nuclear order. From 2002 to 2010, Dalton served in a variety of high-level positions at the U.S. Department of Energy, including senior policy adviser to the Office of Nonproliferation and International Security. He also established and led the department’s office at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan from 2008-2009.