All episodes
Did Russia win the Cuban Missile Crisis?
The deep roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Is America back, or are we seeing America's back?
"We don't do windows" - How the Bush administration sold the Iraq War
Why we should look at China in shades of grey
NXIVM and the expanding influence of cults
Why the catastrophes of 2020 should prompt a rethinking of America's role in the world
China's high-tech gulag archipelago
What Germany fails to understand about Russia
Even dictators have to play by (some) rules
EPISODE 100: The fools and villains who prevented peace in 1916
How the pandemic creates opportunities for global change
The most powerful political machine ever created
Why elections in Russia still matter
We are all 'Homo Sovieticus'
How China's foreign policy is shaped
The innovation and resilience of the Mongol Empire
Who 'belongs' in a nation, and who is allowed to wield state power?
A veteran intelligence agent shares his perspective on Russia
Why we are losing the cyber-weapons arms race
The adventurous lives of Imperial Russian spies
Why Putin's power is far from absolute
The good, the bad, and the populists of Latin America
Emergency Pod: The Crisis in Israel
Rwanda's Potemkin democracy
The tragic story behind #BringBackOurGirls
Chinese supremacy is no fait accompli
The shifting dynamics of Turkey-China relations
The mundane and extraordinary lives of special advisers
The joys of high treason
The political culture which gave rise to Atatürk
When bloggers become open source intelligence officers
The rise and fall of Qassem Soleimani
Anti-Americanism without Americans in Central Asia
The weaponization of distrust
Bob Gersony's master class in diplomacy
How conflict unites and divides the US and Philippines
Rethinking our engrained assumptions about Russia, Stalin, and Stalinism
Critical thinking in the age of truth decay
After the failed putsch, we talk antitrust
How China's memory of WWII evolved from victim to hero
Why America chose hegemony
A Turkish diplomat's view of global politics
Syria almost built a democracy in 1920, until the West came along
What we failed to see in 1933
Peering into the online abyss of anti-Semitism, white nationalism, and incel misogyny
What an expert on coups d'état has to say about the situation in the United States
The disastrous misadventures of US-led regime change in the Middle East
When the news industry becomes an instrument of state power
Election Special: American Democracy under Attack by the President
The complex legacy of Shinzo Abe
The audacity of election rigging in Tanzania
How victims of Argentina's Dirty War sparked a global campaign to end torture
Compressed modernity and the burden of being Korean
What the showdown between Roosevelt vs. JP Morgan tells us about the Trump era
TikTok on the Auction Block
Without virtue of the people, you can't run a democracy
The stagnation of nostalgia in the twilight of the Trump era
Trump may be sick, but he's not broke
The not-so-special relationship
The global reach of Russia's intelligence services
The narcissism of small differences
The Republican Party's plutocratic populism and ethnic outbidding
China's Eurasian misadventures
How we should respond to foreign election interference
How hacking became an essential tool of statecraft
How Postwar Europe pioneered a unique phase of democracy
How the liberal international order was built on blood
In postwar Japan, a dramatic trial of a show trial
Tanzanians are living in fear of Magufuli
How Syria has rapidly accelerated the development of international law
The unraveling of the US-China détente
How US diplomacy failed South Sudan
A perfect vehicle for chaos
Make America competent again
The strategic advantage of democracies
The soul inside the legal thriller
Competitive coercion and the need to rebuild the US alliance system
The war on international justice
The Jewish dynasties that built modern China
The obstacles to Africa's prosperity
A world without "The West"
Russian kleptocracy as a business model
The future is not a right, but a commodity
China's long road to democracy
The intoxicating power of nostalgia
The US can't seem to kick its addiction to regime change
Will the killing of George Floyd change America?
The inevitability of tragedy
Who cares about the sword if you can manipulate the hand that wields it?
Rumors of democracy's demise are greatly exaggerated
Democracy is great if you can get there, but first let's prioritize governance
How technology could save us, if we don't mess it up first
The unique burden of being Russian
Is Putin making Russia great again?
The travel industry will never be the same
Will rule of law withstand the age of pandemic?
The incredible shrinking US influence
Take-it-or-leave-it diplomacy
Offshore balancing acts in the age of Trump