Episodes
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Journalist Edward Luce is the author of a new biography on President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet. He joins FP Live to share how this grand strategist’s legacy still shapes foreign policy today.
Theodore Bunzel: Where Have All the Geostrategists Gone?
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How does India view a shifting world order? Former national security advisor Shivshankar Menon sits down with Ravi Agrawal to discuss New Delhi’s vision in a period defined by geopolitical flux and several global conflicts. Menon is also the author of Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy.
Sumit Ganguly: Kashmir Attack Shatters Illusion of Calm
Shivshankar Menon: A New Cold War May Call for a Return to Nonalignment
C. Raja Mohan: India Sees Opportunities as Trump Jettisons the Western Order
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FP Live host Ravi Agrawal is on the ground at the NATO summit in The Hague this week. He shares his take on how European leaders pledged to increase their defense spending in a bid to please U.S. President Donald Trump. But where is that money going to come from?
Insider: A Debrief on the NATO Summit
Ravi Agrawal: NATO Is Avoiding a Difficult Conversation
NATO Public Forum LIVE
Fabian Hoffmann: A Russia-NATO War Would Look Nothing Like Ukraine
Edward Lucas: America Will Miss Europe’s Dependence When It’s Gone
Philip H. Gordon and Rebecca Lissner: How Trump Can Reset His Failed Ukraine Policy
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Conflict broke out between Israel and Iran on Friday, with Israel launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities and Iran responding in turn. Vali Nasr, a Middle East expert and professor at Johns Hopkins University, sits down with Ravi Agrawal to discuss. Nasr is the author, most recently, of Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History.
FP Staff: Israel Strikes Iran
Iselin Brady and Daniel Byman: How the Israel-Iran War Might End
Steven A. Cook: Israel Is Going for the Death Blow on Iran
Jeffrey Lewis: Nuclear Claims Are a Smoke Screen for Hopes of Toppling Iran
John Haltiwanger: Iran’s Military Just Lost Its ‘Brain Trust’
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Chinese exports of rare earths, a critical component in manufacturing high-end tech products, emerged as a key sticking point in this week’s trade talks between Beijing and Washington. Underpinning all of this is the race for artificial intelligence supremacy. Who is winning this competition? Who is best placed to control the supply chains of all the components that go into the top chips and AI models? Jared Cohen and George Lee, the co-heads of the Goldman Sachs Global Institute, join FP Live.
Note: This discussion is part of a series of episodes brought to you by the Goldman Sachs Global Institute.
Jared Cohen: The AI Economy’s Massive Vulnerability
Rishi Iyengar & Lili Pike: Is It Too Late to Slow China’s AI Development?
Vivek Chilukuri: How the United States Can Win the Global Tech Race
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Drones are playing an increasingly decisive role in conflicts around the world. Coupled with artificial intelligence and other technological advances, the very nature of warfare is transforming in front of our eyes. Are countries and their policymakers prepared?
Mara Karlin, former assistant secretary of defense under U.S. President Joe Biden, joins FP Live to share her insights. Karlin is also the author of The Inheritance: America’s Military After Two Decades of War.
John Haltiwanger: Drones are Transforming South Asian Warfare
Stephen M. Walt: Ukraine’s Drone Attack Doesn’t Matter
Christian Caryl: The Ukrainians’ New Way of War
Mara Karlin: The Inheritance: America’s Military After Two Decades of War
Stanley McChrystal and Anshu Roy: AI Has Entered the Situation Room
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Gen Z has come of age amid a pandemic, growing polarization, and deep distrust of bureaucratic institutions. How does this shape their political and economic views? Do they still believe in the American Dream? Economic analyst and author Kyla Scanlon joins FP Live to discuss.
Suggested reading:
Institute of Politics: Spring 2025 Harvard Youth Poll
Kyla Scanlon: Gen Z and the End of Predictable Progress
Kyla Scanlon: FAFOnomics: How Chaos Became America’s Economic Strategy
Kyla Scanlon: Dollar Devaluation and the Antisystem Youth
Kyla Scanlon: In This Economy? How Money and Markets Really Work?
Kathleen J. McInnis: How to Sell NATO to Gen Z
Joseph E. Stiglitz: Big Tech Is Trying to Prevent Debate About Its Social Harms
Jeongmin Kim: Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
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Earlier this week, thousands of Palestinians stormed an aid distribution site in Gaza, underlining the ongoing humanitarian crisis there and prompting the question: Why isn’t the world doing more?
Martin Griffiths served as the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations from 2021 until 2024. He is currently with the Mediation Group International and joins Ravi Agrawal to push for solutions to the multiple crises spanning our globe.
Suggested reading:
Neha Wadekar: The World’s Refugee Relief Is Utterly Broken
David E. Rosenberg: The Old War Is Over in Gaza, and a New One Is Underway
Michael Hirsh: A New Authoritarian Era in the Mideast?
Robbie Gramer: How the U.S. Fumbled Sudan’s Hopes for Democracy
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**Hello listeners, an earlier version of this episode contained glitches due to an upload error. If you hear breaks in the audio, please download the episode again for the corrected version. Thanks for listening, and we apologize for the mishap!**
Is Trump’s Middle East Policy a Break From the Past?
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump visited three countries in the Middle East—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar—on the first scheduled foreign trip of his second term. While many of the headlines from the trip focused on the 747 jetliner Qatar donated for use as Air Force One, it’s probably more notable that Trump rejected decades of Western intervention in the region and declared that there would be “no more lectures” from America. Is the Trump administration re-aligning American priorities in the region? F. Gregory Gause, visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute, joins FP Live to discuss why the Gulf monarchies are rising in importance.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Howard W. French: What Trump Got Right in the Middle East
Agathe Demarais: The U.S. Economy Is Now Trump Enterprises
Michael Hirsh: A New Authoritarian Era in the Mideast?
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U.S. President Donald Trump came to office promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, but he hasn’t actually hit the numbers he said he would. Is that because it’s harder than it sounds, or are more plans in the works? And what will Trump’s immigration policy do to America’s standing in the world? Janet Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona and secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, joins FP Live to share her experience managing the issue of illegal immigration.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Jonathan M. Katz: Trump’s Deportation Machine Takes Shape
Christina Noriega: Trump’s Aid Freeze Is Undermining His Immigration Policy
Daniel B. Baer: Trump’s Brain Drain Will Be Europe’s Gain
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Two nuclear-armed countries, India and Pakistan, are locked in their most serious conflict in two decades. Early Wednesday morning, after weeks of pledging to retaliate for the deadliest terrorist attack in more than a decade, India launched missiles across its border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan claims it took down Indian fighter jets and has vowed to respond.
FP’s Ravi Agrawal asks Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, how far tensions could spiral. They discuss the options for de-escalation and what role external powers can play.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Ravi Agrawal: How India and Pakistan Can Pull Back From the Brink
Rishi Iyengar: A Tale of Four Fighter Jets
Sumit Ganguly: What Is the Risk of a Conflict Spiral Between India and Pakistan?
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To mark the first 100 days of the second Trump White House, we have a special ask-me-anything episode. Amid a firehose of news, which policies will endure, and which are purely rhetorical? How does Foreign Policy find the signal in the noise?
FP Live’s executive producer, Dana Sherne, turns the tables on host Ravi Agrawal as he assesses the implications of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Ravi Agrawal: Trump Is Ushering In a More Transactional World
Stephen M. Walt: Trump Is Not a Revolutionary
Daniel Treisman: The Deep Familiarity of Donald Trump
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April 29 marks the 100th day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. What do foreign policy experts make of his administration’s performance so far, as it continues to wage a trade war, reshape long-standing diplomatic relationships with allies and alliances, and advance a new world order? FP columnist Emma Ashford sits down with Ravi Agrawal to discuss.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Emma Ashford: Four Explanatory Models for Trump’s Chaos
Emma Ashford and Matthew Kroenig: Is the World Overreacting to Trump?
Nicholas Bequelin: The Key to Understanding Trump’s Chaotic Foreign Policy
John J. Mearsheimer in Foreign Affairs: Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault
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The rollout of the Trump administration’s tariffs has rattled markets, prompting questions of what these protectionist policies mean for the global economy moving forward. Two top experts on globalization join FP Live to share their thoughts. Elisabeth Braw is an FP columnist and the author of Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World. And Eswar Prasad is a trade scholar and professor at Cornell University.
We want to hear from you! Help us shape the future of FP Live by sharing your thoughts on the show by clicking here. Contact us anytime at [email protected].
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Transcript: Is the World Going to Deglobalize?
Elisabeth Braw: What’s the Cost of Doing Business Under Trump?
Eswar Prasad: The World Will Regret Its Retreat From Globalization
Joseph E. Stiglitz: Play by the Rules
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The U.S.-China trade war has rattled the global economy, and there’s little sign of de-escalation. What does this mean for their respective economies? Where does this end? The Council on Foreign Relations’ Zongyuan Zoe Liu and the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Scott Kennedy join FP Live to discuss.
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Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Scott Kennedy: Why Beijing Thinks It Can Beat Trump
Deng Yuwen: Why Beijing Is Standing Up to Trump
Howard W. French: Trump’s Tariffs Are a Gift to Xi
Lili Pike and Christina Lu: Can Washington and Beijing Walk Back Their Trade War?
Lizzi C. Lee: How China Should Handle Trump’s Tariffs
James Palmer: China May Have a Revenge List for Tariff Wars
Cameron Abadi and Adam Tooze: How Tariffs on China Brought Back Decoupling With a Vengeance
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The race is on to dominate the artificial intelligence economy, making the need for safeguards ever more pressing. Jared Cohen, the president of global affairs at Goldman Sachs, joins FP Live to discuss the potential risks and benefits of this growing market—and how so-called geopolitical swing states play an increasingly important role. This conversation was taped earlier this week, before the Trump administration's announcement of the 90-day suspension of reciprocal tariffs.
We want to hear from you! Help us shape the future of FP Live by sharing your thoughts on the show by clicking here.
Note: This discussion is part of a series of episodes brought to you by the Goldman Sachs Global Institute.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Jared Cohen: The AI Economy’s Massive Vulnerability
Jared Cohen: The Next AI Debate Is About Geopolitics
Becca Wasser and Josh Wallin: Build Allied AI, or Risk Fighting Alone
Peter Dombrowski and Bruce Jones: A New Era of Undersea Conflict Is Here
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Two leading economists debate the potential trade-offs of the Trump administration’s tariffs that are now roiling markets. Oren Cass, the founder of American Compass, joins Kimberly Clausing, a professor at UCLA, to discuss what this all means for the United States and the global economy.
We want to hear from you! Help us shape the future of FP Live by sharing your thoughts on the show by clicking here.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Wendy Cutler: How Countries Should Respond to Trump’s Tariffs
Bob Davis: Trump Has the Whole Global Trade System in His Sights
Michael Hirsh: Tariffs Can Actually Work—if Only Trump Understood How
Lili Pike: Trump Threatens China With New 50 Percent Tariffs
Joseph Rachman: Trump’s Tariffs Crush the ASEAN Economic Model
Transcript: The Case for Trump’s Tariffs
Edward Alden: Trump’s Wanton Tariffs Will Shatter the World Economy
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Legal scholars argue that the Trump administration’s push to curtail the power of the U.S. judiciary mirrors moves by several authoritarian governments around the world. What does this mean for the United States’ court system and the rule of law? And what can be learned from global advocacy and civil society defying these trends?
Political scientist Andrew O’Donohue joins FP Live to share his findings.
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Andrew O’Donohue: The U.S. Judicial Crisis Is Uniquely Dangerous
Julian E. Zelizer: Why Republicans Love Strong Presidents
David E. Rosenberg: Can Israel’s Highest Court Stop Netanyahu?
Halil Karaveli: Erdogan Is Trying to Divide and Conquer Turkey’s Opposition
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Several of the world’s wealthiest men stood behind Donald Trump as he was inaugurated for a second term, contradicting his image as a populist president. This prompts the question, how much influence do the wealthy have on U.S. politics?
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy joins FP Live to share his take on the state of U.S. democracy, and whether the United States is becoming more corrupt, to mark the launch of Foreign Policy’s latest print issue: “Billionaire Rule.”
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Spring 2025 Print Issue: Billionaire Rule
Jodi Vittori: Is America a Kleptocracy?
Adam Tooze: Elon Musk’s First Principles
James Crabtree: How Modi and Trump Treat Billionaires Differently
Priya Satia: The Deep Roots of Oligarchy
James Palmer: Did China Get Billionaires Right?
Andrew O’Donohue: The U.S. Judicial Crisis Is Uniquely Dangerous
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The Trump administration has dramatically shifted the United States’ long-standing relationship with Europe, pushing it to shore up its own defense. How is the continent grappling with these changes? And what does it mean for its policies, both foreign and domestic?
Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):
Kishore Mahbubani: It’s Time for Europe to Do the Unthinkable
Transcript: The Speech That Stunned Europe
Edward Lucas: Comrade Trump
Ivo H. Daalder: It’s Time for a New Trans-Atlantic Bargain
Michael Hirsh: On Ukraine, Split the Difference Between Trump and Biden
Anchal Vohra: Europe’s Economic Decoupling From America Is Underway
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