Center For Global Policy Podcasts

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast presents a deep dive into U.S. President Joe Biden’s inaugural visit to Europe, his administration’s commitment to collective defense, and the fragile trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations ahead of the June 16 Geneva summit between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In this episode, Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host, Nicholas Heras, sits down with four special guests: Jim Townsend, Jr., an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security’s Transatlantic Security Program and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy; Rachel Rizzo, the Director of Programs at the Truman Center and Truman National Security Project; Dr. Ariel Cohen, a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council and Founding Principal of International Market Analysis, Ltd; and Caroline Rose, a Senior Analyst and Head of Newlines Institute’s Power Vacuums Program.

Newlines Institute’s Rasha Al Aqeedi and The New York Times’ Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf discuss the current state of Iraq’s October Revolution movement that began nearly two years ago. They are joined by a prominent figure in Iraq’s political activism scene. Newlines Institute has decided to keep the activist anonymous for security reasons, as threats and assassinations continue targeting political activists. Newlines Institute’s Nick Heras moderates the discussion.

In this two-part Contours podcast, Newlines Institute’s Nicholas A. Heras explores the Palestinian-Israeli crisis with colleague Caroline Rose. They are first joined by Omar Rahman, an expert on the post-Oslo Accords era of this conflict. This episode examines the root causes of Palestinian grievances and explores the limited options available to residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Our second episode features Newlines Institute Fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov and the Shalom-Hartman Institute’s Yossi Klein. They engage in a spirited discussion about how perceptions of the crisis within Israel differ from perspectives globally, and how the U.S. must balance its relationship with Israel while still defending human rights. We hope that you will listen to both conversations and come away with a greater understanding of how this conflict is being perceived within and outside of the region. The unfolding civil crisis between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza is already having significant effects in both the Mi

In this two-part Contours podcast, Newlines Institute’s Nicholas A. Heras explores the Palestinian-Israeli crisis with colleague Caroline Rose. They are first joined by Omar Rahman, an expert on the post-Oslo Accords era of this conflict. This episode examines the root causes of Palestinian grievances and explores the limited options available to residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Our second episode features Newlines Institute Fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov and the Shalom-Hartman Institute’s Yossi Klein. They engage in a spirited discussion about how perceptions of the crisis within Israel differ from perspectives globally, and how the U.S. must balance its relationship with Israel while still defending human rights. We hope that you will listen to both conversations and come away with a greater understanding of how this conflict is being perceived within and outside of the region. The unfolding civil crisis between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza is already having significant regional effects in bo

This Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy podcast reviews the unfolding military escalation on the Russian-Ukrainian border, as Russian forces strengthen their posture and pose a potential stress test of the Biden administration, U.S. European allies, and the NATO alliance. To discuss this potential crisis in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and head of the Authoritarianism Program Nicholas Heras is joined by three top analysts on Russian foreign policy and Eastern European geopolitics: Caroline Rose, Eugene Chausovsky, and Jeff Hawn. Caroline Rose is a senior analyst at the Newlines Institute for Policy and Strategy and is a foreign policy specialist on the Middle East and Europe. She is the head of Newlines’ Strategic Vacuums Program. Eugene Chausovsky is a non-resident Fellow with the Newlines Institute, focusing on the political, economic, and security issues pertaining to Russia, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Jeff Hawn is an independent geopolitical risk consultant b

With no end in sight for the Syrian civil war, the country’s 6 million refugees and 6 million internally displaced peoples (IDPs) face an uncertain future. Those who have fled to other countries to escape the violence face deplorable conditions in refugee camps and years-long waits for resettlement, while IDPs live in constant fear of the ongoing hostilities in Syria. Compounding these issues is the COVID-19 pandemic, to which refugees and IDPs are all the more vulnerable given their lack of access to health services, as well as restricting travel. So what options do Syrian refugees have for relief? Dina Dajani, Deputy Director of the Newlines Institute's Displacement and Migration Program, speaks with Sahar Atrache, senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International, about the Syrian refugee crisis. Atrache begins the conversation by relating the story of Reema, a Ph.D. student who fled Damascus with her three children and from there lived in Lebanon, Jordan, and eventually the United States. Ree

Kamran Bokhari and Faysal Itani discuss Lebanon’s multiple crises and the Beirut port explosion that served as a culmination of the problems the country is facing. Itani says the port explosion was the result of decades of corruption that led the Lebanese government and public services to failure. After the civil war, Lebanon functioned under an arrangement that was supposed to help the country transform to a liberal democracy, but that transformation never took place. Now, amid an unprecedented economic crisis, Itani says Lebanon is far from the path to recovery and is on the verge of becoming a “robber baron state” in which the elite divide the spoils of the economy and the population is left behind. There is a chance that the Lebanese elite could change and work more to benefit the people, Itani says – either out of a sense of enlightened self-interest, or out of fear of the pressure rising from the streets in the form of growing opposition. Itani also says that while the government may be lost, the regi

Kamran Bokhari of the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy and Jacob Shapiro of Perch Perspectives touch on an array of topics, including how COVID has set the course for U.S.-China competition, the geopolitics of Black Lives Matter, and the shift toward a multipolar world. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a handful of political forces that existed before the virus spread, Shapiro says, and locked the United States and China into a contentious relationship. Elsewhere in the world, the pandemic has created opportunities for some countries to strengthen their positions and in some cases form blocs with other nations as the world moves away from globalization and away from a situation in which the United States is the global superpower. The United States has abdicated its role as global leader, Shapiro says, and needs to look at internal issues like race relations in order to maintain a certain credibility on the world stage because the United States’ greatest strength is in leading by example rather

Millions of refugees were already in fragile situations before the pandemic began. Now with COVID-19 complicating access to healthcare and slowing the refugee and asylee pipelines to a trickle, displaced people face even more difficulties. Refugees and asylees understand the advent of COVID-19 increases their risk dramatically, both on the health front and related to their chances of accessing a secure living environment. Further, they are aware that common public health guidelines like social distancing and hand washing are not possible in crowded camps with limited facilities. Given the stark realities of being amongst the forced displaced during COVID-19, what options do refugees have, if any, and how can governments support them? Dina Dajani, Deputy Director of the Newlines Institute's Displacement and Migration Program, speaks with Devon Cone, Senior Advocate for Women and Girls at Refugees International, about these issues as they relate to refugees from Afghanistan. Cone points out that Afghan refuge

The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy is proud to release this Special Edition of its podcast series, The Lodestar, which is a joint production with the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University (NDU). Newlines Institute's Kamran Bokhari sat down with Hassan Abbas, NESA distinguished professor and Newlines Institute's Senior Fellow to discuss the state of negotiations for peace in Afghanistan. Abbas, who recently wrote a Special Analysis for Newlines on the subject, argues that all the regional players and outside stakeholders – including the United States, Russia, and China – need to have a seat at the table to negotiate with the Taliban. Pakistan, India, Iran, China, Russia, and the United States are all involved in Afghanistan in some form, but all these players except the U.S. feel they have been left out of negotiations, Abbas says. Each one of these powers has developed its own ties to Afghanistan, whether in terms of alliances or investments. T

Kamran Bokhari sits down with Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director of People Demand Change about developments in Syria, particularly the Idlib Province. Bokhari describes Idlib as a “multi-player battlespace,” where numerous different forces such as jihadists, Syrian rebels, Russians, and Syrian regime forces are at work. Ghosh-Siminoff notes that it is important for people to grasp the complexities of Idlib, which has been under opposition control for about eight and a half years. Not only are numerous forces present in the area, but the opposition-controlled space known as Idlib actually contains bits and pieces of other provinces, and the space has expanded and retracted repeatedly. Ghosh-Siminoff points out that 3 million people are living in “Greater Idlib,” and between 60 and 80 percent of them are women and children. After the regime regained some territory, the area where these 3 million internally displaced persons are living is half what it once was. Idlib has become something of a deposito

Newlines Institute's Kamran Bokhari talks with Dr. Muqtedar Khan, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware and a Newlines Institute Senior Fellow (2019-20), about his new book, Islam & Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan. Professor Khan says he was prompted to write the book by two factors. The first was a realization that bad governance is the reason why Muslim countries are in such bad shape -- something he says is reflected in millions of Muslims’ “voting by their feet” and leaving the Muslim world to live elsewhere. The second factor, Khan says, is that the desire to bring Islam into the public sphere has led to some “unfortunate experiments” like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, which have harmed not only Muslim societies but the broader world. The book articulates ways in which to bring Islam into the public sphere as a force for love and compassion rather than tension, Khan says. Ihsan, Khan explains, is a concept that has been translated a