Center For Global Policy Podcasts

In this episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast series, host Nicholas Heras is joined by two leading experts on the Indian Subcontinent, Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Suchitra Vijayan , to analyze the dangerous emerging dynamics on the Indian subcontinent, especially inside India and in the contentious relationship between India and Pakistan. The discussion covers Vijayan’s critically acclaimed book, Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India , and assesses how the tortured history of the subcontinent continues to drive India and Pakistan to instability and conflict. The panel also discusses how the United States can approach its policy toward the subcontinent, with a special focus on how the growing Indian-American community is shaping U.S.-India policy in an era of great-power competition.

In this segment of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras is joined by two leading experts on the Indian Subcontinent and climate change – Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Dr. Saleem Ali – to discuss the geopolitics of climate change in India, Pakistan, and South Asia overall. The discussion then dives into the key findings from Dr. Saleem Ali’s forthcoming book, Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life (Oxford University Press, 2022) on how the local, regional, and global effects of climate change are impacting human societies. They also highlight what policy actions the United States can take to help mitigate the prospect of climate-induced state collapse, conflict, and other trans-national threats to human security on the Indian Subcontinent.

In this episode of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras discusses the tumultuous state of Pakistan with two globally recognized experts on the country: Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Raza Rumi Ahmad. They discuss the social and political fallout from the removal of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan and the geopolitical ramifications of Khan's ongoing effort to weaponize anti-Americanism. The experts also offer a path forward for an uncertain U.S. policy approach to Pakistan and India, and to meet the rising tide of Chinese power on the Indian subcontinent.

In this episode of “Roamings and Reflections,” Mercy Corps Senior Policy Advisor Yasmin Faruki joins host Alice Hickson to share what she's learned from her travels to Yemen and her work directing humanitarian policy efforts on there. Faruki discusses obstacles to humanitarian work in Yemen and speaks candidly about the need to partner with local organizations to create a sustainable future.

In this segment of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras is joined by Eugene Chausovsky, Senior Analyst at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy and a globally recognized expert on Russia, the post-Soviet states, and Eurasia, to discuss Russia’s potential emerging strategy to annex breakaway territories in several post-Soviet states. The discussion dives into the implications of Chausovsky’s most recent essay in Foreign Policy, “Russia May Be Ready to Annex Breakaway Territories,” and what the U.S. policy response should be to countering Russia’s annexation approach. Heras and Chausovsky also debate whether Ukraine can accept former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s assertion that Ukraine should give up some of its territory to Russia in exchange for long-term peace.

In the latest episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast, Program Head and Senior Analyst Caroline Rose interviews Jim Townsend, Rachel Rizzo, and Eugene Chausovsky on transatlantic security in light of the conflict in Ukraine. Townsend is an adjunct senior fellow in the Center for a New American Security’s (CNAS) Transatlantic Security Program and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy. Rizzo is an adjunct fellow in the CNAS Transatlantic Security Program. Her research focuses on European security, NATO, and the transatlantic relationship. Chausovsky is a Senior Analyst and Program Head for Training and Analytical Products at the New Lines Institute; his research focuses on Central Asia and Eurasia. Their conversation covers new applicants to NATO, Russia’s perceived threats, and how transatlantic security will be affected by the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine.

The latest episode of the New Lines Institute's Contours podcast breaks down the transforming battlefield conditions and strategic state of play in Ukraine. Host Caroline Rose, a senior analyst at the New Lines Institute and the head of the Power Vacuums program, is joined by three leading military and open-source intelligence experts: Rob Lee, a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program and PhD candidate at King's College London's War Studies Department; Sim Tack, the co-founder and Chief Military Analyst at Force Analysis, and Aram Shabanian, a Human Security Unit analyst at the New Lines Institute.

In this episode of the Contours podcast series, Nicholas Heras is joined by two noted scholars and globally-recognized experts on religious authoritarianism on the Indian Subcontinent: Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Shweta Krishnan. These experts discuss the history of religious nationalism on the Indian Subcontinent since the end of British colonialism and the partition of India and Pakistan, the development of religious political mass movements in India and Pakistan, and how elites in both countries are seeking to harness such movements now. They also examine the domestic pressures inside India and Pakistan that could lead to public demand in both countries for a religious conflict that would have grave humanitarian and geopolitical consequences.

In the first Contours podcast of 2022, Nicholas Heras is joined by war reporter Jake Hanrahan to discuss the future of conflict and the breakdown of the post-World War II global system. Hanrahan is the founder of Popular Front, a disruptive media organization that seeks to provide nuanced, gritty, and deeply human reporting on under-covered conflicts in the world. Heras and Hanrahan engaged in a wide-ranging conversation on the current state of underreported conflicts around the globe, war reporting in the age of social media, growing authoritarianism in the West, and the future of the Western-led, rules-based international order.

In this episode of the New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast series, widely respected academic Dr. Dana El Kurd sits down with Rasha Al Aqeedi and Nicholas Heras to discuss her groundbreaking research on an emerging generation of Palestinian civil society and political activists. Dr. El Kurd provides a deep dive on her innovative work on the ground in Palestine, her assessment on what the future might hold for Palestinian activism, and whether there is way forward for the Palestinian people to achieve their human dignity in the face of oppression from both the Palestinian Authority and Israel. She is the author of the highly regarded two-part New Lines Institute series on this subject, “The Strengthening of Palestinian Civil Society Activism.”

In this episode of the Newlines Institute’s Contours podcast series, Lebanon and Levant geopolitics expert Anthony Elghossain, also a contributing editor at Newlines Magazine, chats with Nicholas Heras about the recent Beirut clashes and their potential implications for Lebanon. Elghossain channels his extensive experience as a researcher in Lebanon to provide a nuanced forecast on Lebanon’s evolving security dynamics and the impact on the fragile Lebanese state as it continues its collapse.

In this episode of the Newlines Institute’s Contours podcast series, geopolitical analysts and Russia experts Jeff Hawn and Sim Tack join the Newlines Institute’s Caroline Rose and Nicholas Heras to break down the future of Russia after the country’s September 2021 parliamentary elections. The discussion includes a detailed assessment of the U.S. and European policy approach to Russia and recommendations for those approaches moving forward. In particular, Hawn, Tack, Rose, and Heras wrestle with the basic but important question of whether the Biden team needs to think more creatively while developing its policy on Russia.

In this episode of “Roamings and Reflections,” humanitarian assistance and international development expert Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff joins host Nicholas Heras to recount the massive effort to evacuate Afghans as the Taliban seized Kabul. Ghosh-Siminoff provides an account of one of the most unique civil society efforts in U.S. history as America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan came to a chaotic end.

In this episode of Roamings and Reflections, Director of Newlines Institute’s Human Security Unit Faysal Itani interviews Flavius Mihaies about his travels through Lebanon. Few would dispute that Middle Eastern minorities face a range of challenges. In some places they are in physical danger, while in others they face political marginalization. In this conversation, Itani and Mihaies discuss the experience of Lebanon’s minorities, particularly its Christian population, and situate these experiences in Lebanon’s ongoing political, economic, and social decay. This follows Mihaies’ visit to Lebanon to research Christian political attitudes and experiences.

In this emergency edition of the Newlines Institute’s Contours podcast, Contours host Nicholas Heras talks through the short-term scenarios in Afghanistan and the geopolitical maneuvers to follow now that the Taliban stands triumphant in Kabul with Kamran Bokhari, Rasha Al Aqeedi, and Caroline Rose. Kamran Bokhari is a globally recognized expert on Afghanistan and the Director for Analytical Development at the Newlines Institute. Rasha Al Aqeedi is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for Nonstate Actors at the Newlines Institute who has been closely following the Taliban's transition from nonstate authority to a state. Caroline Rose is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for Power Vacuums who has been gaming the geopolitical scenarios in Asia in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In this inaugural episode of the “Roamings and Reflections” series within the Newlines Institute Contours podcast, Newlines Institute Nonresident Fellow Eugene Chausovsky discusses his recent trip to Ukraine and Azerbaijan with Contours host Nicholas Heras. Chausovsky traveled to these countries to investigate the linkages between energy, infrastructure, security, and trade that are driving geopolitics in Eurasia. What he found was a striking similarity in the challenges and opportunities presented to the decision makers in Kyiv and Baku as they chart their next moves in a changing global system. The Roamings and Reflections series will highlight trips to the field – domestic and foreign – made by Newlines Institute team members, drawing out their timely, relevant, and actionable findings that are important to policy and geopolitics.

In this special Newlines Institute Contours podcast, Iraq experts Rasha Al-Aqeedi, Caroline Rose, and Contours host Nicholas Heras discuss Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s visit to Washington to meet President Joe Biden and what al-Kadhimi’s trip means for the dynamics inside Iraq and for U.S policy on Iraq. Al-Aqeedi, Rose, and Heras give al-Kadhimi a grade for his term as prime minister to date and forecast what to expect next in Iraq. Rasha Al-Aqeedi is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for the Nonstate Actors Program, Caroline Rose is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for Power Vacuums, and Nicholas Heras is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for State Resilience and Fragility, at the Newlines Institute. All three have written extensively on dynamics inside of Iraq, U.S. policy on Iraq, and the geopolitical impact of events in Iraq in the Middle East and beyond the region.

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast assesses state resilience and fragility in Jordan and the future of the U.S.-Jordanian relationship. Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host Nicholas Heras sits down with Suha Ma’ayeh, Rana Sweis, and Dr. Curtis R. Ryan to discuss why King Abdullah II’s upcoming visit to the White House to meet President Joe Biden is such a high-stakes meeting for the future of Middle East stability and security. Suha Ma’ayeh is a Jordanian freelance journalist and researcher based in Amman. She has written extensively on domestic politics, Arab spring protests, foreign affairs, terrorism, elections, and corruption, including the crisis in southern Syria and the influx of refugees, for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs. Rana Sweis is a Jordanian journalist and researcher covering political, social and refugee issues in the Middle East, most often for The New York Times, and the founder and managing director of Wishbox Media. She is the author of “

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast assesses state resilience and fragility in Egypt and the future of the Egyptian state using one of the best books on this subject, “Coups and Revolutions: Mass Mobilization, the Egyptian Military, and the United States from Mubarak to Sisi ,” by Dr. Amy Austin Holmes. Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host Nicholas Heras sits down with Dr. Holmes and another highly regarded Egypt expert, Mohamed Soltan, to discuss the Egyptian state's response to the three mass uprisings it faced since 2011 and how the Abdel Fattah al-Sisi-led government could adapt to numerous pressures on Egypt's stability. Dr. Amy Austin Holmes is currently a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center. Previously she served, for more than 10 years, as a tenured Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo, where she lived through the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak and al-Sisi's subsequent rise to power. Mohamed Soltan is a human rights policy advocate and founder of The

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast examines dynamics in Iran to watch now that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s protégé Ebrahim Raisi has been elected president. In this episode, Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host Nicholas Heras sits down with three noted Iran experts: Professor Neda Bolourchi, associate director of and faculty member in the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Rutgers University-New Brunswick; Amir Toumaj, a research and policy analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and co-founder of Resistance Axis Monitor; and Dr. Kamran Bokhari, the Newlines Institute's director of Analytical Development.