James Curran on Trump, Ukraine, shifting tectonic plates, and a bigger Australian defence bill

To discuss Trump Mark 2 on the world stage and what that means for Australia, we're joined by James Curran, professor of modern history at the University of Sydney.Mentioned in this episode:Listen to Scam Factories on The Conversation Weekly🔎 search for The Conversation Weekly Scam Factories takes you inside Southeast Asia’s brutal scam compounds. We meet the people lured into the industry, reveal how they become trapped and trafficked and track their desperate attempts to escape. We track the organised crime groups and corrupt politicians linked to the operations and chart the industry’s explosive growth: hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to scam. And we try to answer the question, are they victims or criminals, or can they be both?Your support mattersSupport non-profit journalism you can trust. Donations 2025The Making of an AutocratSearch: "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series. Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.