Decoding Geopolitics with Dominik Presl

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Christopher Kirschoff. Chris founded and led the Defense Innovation Unit, also known as Unit X - an organisation within the Pentagon tasked with finding the most innovative emerging technology - anything from flying cars to microsatellites - and implementing it into the military. That makes him a unique person to talk to about where this innovation is going but also about why is it often so hard for governments to keep up with pace of technology and why organisations like governments and militaries often fight against innovation rather than embracing it - or how do the United States, Europe, China or Russia compare in their ability to innovate and who's winning the new tech race of today.

The theory goes: China's in decline, so if it ever wants to invade Taiwan, it has to do it soon.But what if that theory depends on the wrong assumption? And who does Beijing actually see as the declining power?

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThere's probably no other bilateral relationship in global politics today that is as significant—and draws as much speculation—as the partnership between Russia and China. Together, these two countries might be capable of reshaping the global order, challenging the U.S. dominance, and influencing almost every global geopolitical issue. But there's still a lot of questions about what actually drives their cooperation, how deep or shallow their partnership truly is, and whether it's more likely to grow even closer or fall apart in the future. And so in this conversation, I speak with Elizabeth Wishnick, an expert on Sino-Russian relations and a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses and at Columbia University. I try to understand how do the two countries actually see each other: what does China think about the war in Ukraine, whether Russia was expecting more help from China in the war, what would Russia do in case of a war over Taiwan, or  whether the West can succeed in driving a wedge between them and much more.

The age of human infantry is slowly inching to its end. And it's closer than you might think.Ukraine is already running drone-only assaults. Commercial sector is quickly ramping up development and production of sophisticated humanoid robots. And when the next major war breaks out, the first thing to disappear might be human soldiers on the front line.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comWith the war in Ukraine still ongoing, it's not surprising that conventional warfare usually dominates the headlines but underneath this traditional battlefield there are other types of conflict taking place as well that are a lot more quiet but just as consequential. From covert influence operations, proxy militias to economic pressure and cyberattacks, countries like Iran, Russia, and China have become extremely good at waging wars that don't look like wars in the traditional sense. But that can be just as powerful and sometimes even more effective. And while this kind of warfare isn't new, it feels like we've entered a golden age of it.And so in this conversation, I spoke with Seth Jones, Director of the International Security Program at CSIS, and one of the leading experts on irregular warfare on the different tactics and strategies of the three leading hybrid warfare powers —Iran, Russia, and China. We discuss the strengths and vulnerabilities of each country's approach, the effectiveness of their influence operations, why the U.S. seems to lag behind in this area or what role hybrid warfare plays in the war in Ukraine and much more.

Viktor Orbán, Hungary's Prime Minister, has a big problem.After dominating Hungary for the past 15 years, unchallenged, unbothered, and admired by populists everywhere, polls now show that he's losing to a new opponent, with elections less than a year away.And it looks like his challenger found a strategy that - if successful - many European politicians might be tempted to try as well.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comIn the current war in Ukraine, there is likely no other topic that would be both so important and so wildly misunderstood as the issue of the Russian economy. The importance is quite obvious - without a functioning economy, Russia wouldn't be able to finance the war. But in terms of how the economy is actually doing and how will it do in the future, that's much less clear - and the views range from Russian economy being an unstoppable juggernaut with sanctions only making it stronger to the Russian economy collapsing since the first day of the war - neither of which are actually accurate. After all, most people are not economists and this is largely an unprecedented situation.And so, I decided to speak with someone who both knows more about this than anyone else and who is able to give a very pragmatic and objective view of where we stand: an expert on the Russian economy Janis Kluge, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. And so in this conversation, we talk about how the Russian economy is actually doing. How long can Russia actually afford to finance the war, what kind of economic damage it would take to force to rethink its plan for Ukraine and whether that is likely to happen, whether the Russian economy is overheating and what does that really mean or what would happen if the war ends and the money stops flowing into the economy - and whether the Russian government can afford that.

This is a conversation with Mujtaba Rahman. Mij is what you would call an insider of European politics. He leads the European section of the Eurasia Group and a big part of his job is to know what is going on behind the scenes, not just what you can read in the news but what European leaders really think, say and do when there are no cameras. And so it was a perfect opportunity to dive deep into European politics. We talked about whether Europe has a strategy for what do with Ukraine and Russia, what do European leaders really think about Donald Trump behind closed doors and how are they already preparing for Europe without the U.S. Or how likely is it that anti-establishment politicians in France, UK or Germany will dominate elections in the coming years and completely turn all those policies upside down. I think it's a fascinating conversation and it's always a pleasure to talk to someone who knows so much. ➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Anschel Pfeffer, a veteran journalist and the correspondent for the Economist based in Israel. And in this conversation, we talk about two things. About Israel's changing foreign policy - why is it growing increasingly expansionist, how has it fundamentally changed since the October 7th, whether Israel will attack Iran, why the Israeli military is starting to be dangerously overstretched or why the Trump-Netenyahu bromance is already over.But before we get to that, we dive quite deep into what's increasingly shaping Israel's foreign policy - its domestic political crisis, growing societal polarization and what Anschel calls an "existential crisis". 

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Justin Bronk - a military aviation expert and a Senior Research Fellow at RUSI. We dive deep into the recently revealed American and Chinese 6th generation fighter jets - how will they change warfare and who's ahead in this race for air dominance, and whether Europe and Russia could catch up. And how other technologies like collaborative combat aircraft - basically swarms of drones flying together with planes piloted by humans - are going to change what air combat has looked like for decades.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Professor Sarah C.M. Paine—one of the sharpest minds on grand strategy and on how great powers rise and fall. We talk about why Russia, China, and even the U.S. often misunderstand their own strengths, repeat the same strategic mistakes, and ultimately sabotage themselves from within. If you want to understand why grand strategy fails, and what that means for the next decade of global competition, this one's worth your time.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Mark Galeotti - a Russia expert and one of the most respected and interesting voices to listen to when it comes to anything Russian. In this conversation, we talk about the ongoing U.S.-Russian negotiations - whether Putin would actually accept a peace deal, what do Russian want to actually get out of it and why are they able to manipulate their American counterparts. And also, why 2026 will be a very painful year for Russia or why the Russian sabotage campaign in Europe might backfire.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Edward Arnold, a Research Fellow at RUSI and one of the clearest voices on European defense today. For decades, Europe's security has relied on the assumption that the United States would always be there to lead, to help, and to fight if needed. But that assumption is quickly eroding and regardless of who sits in the White House, it's becoming clear that Europe will have to rely more on itself.In this conversation, I wanted to explore what that actually means in practice. I asked Ed three big questions: First, what's broken in Europe's current defense architecture that prevents it from standing on its own? Second, what would a credible, self-reliant European defense actually look like? And third, what kinds of reforms and political will would be needed to get there and whether we are on the right path.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Keir Giles, one of the leading experts on Russia and European security, and a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House. Keir has spent decades studying Russia, its military strategy, and how Europe has responded - or failed to respond - to the growing threat from the East.In this episode, I wanted to explore three main questions: First, how grave and imminent the Russian threat to Europe actually is. Second, whether Europe is truly prepared for war if it comes to that. And third, what happens if the U.S. pulls back from European defense and Europe has to fend for itself.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Kateryna Bondar, a Ukrainian expert on emerging military technology, a former advisor of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.When people talk about the role of technology in the war in Ukraine, it usually doesn't feel like that much new development is happening - after all, we have been seeing drones in the war for over 3 years. But the reality is actually the opposite - the war in Ukraine is quickly becoming a lot more futuristic than I personally realized and technology that's already being deployed and tested on the battlefield every day, is something that most people would have probably thought is many years away. Whether that's major attacks carried out only by unmanned vehicles, fully autonomous drones or the Ukrainian ambition of fully replacing human soldiers with robots - those are things that sound unreal but already happening. War is literally changing in front of our eyes and the change is getting faster. This conversation, will hopefully make it seem a bit more real and show what the already futuristic present and very near future looks like.

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst and European security expert from the Institute for International Strategic Studies. We've had a lot to cover. From the developments on the battlefield in Ukraine and the reasons for the Ukrainian problems in Kursk to the impact of U.S. military aid cuts and how much of the U.S. aid could be replaced by Europe and what it would take. And although since Monday, March 10th when we recorded this episode, the ban on the U.S. aid has been lifted, it's still pretty interesting. Both because it explains how dependent Ukraine and Europe is on the U.S. equipment and because the American aid can be always taken away just as fast as it was now given back. But mostly we talked about Europe's security. About why Europe needs to decide how much it's actually willing to risk for Ukraine, what's the real problem with the potential European peacekeeping mission in Ukraine or why Europe is now at the beginning of a seismic shift - and why it's never going to be the same again. 

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopoliticsCheck out The Counteroffensive: https://www.counteroffensive.news/➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Tim Mak, a Ukraine-based journalist and a founder of The Counteroffensive - a new type of a media organisation trying to bring authentic reporting from the war and from Ukraine in general.  I spoke to Tim to learn about how everything that's been going on is being perceived in Ukraine - how is the Ukrainian government trying to work with the United States after they cut off its aid - what are their options and whether they have a strategy for what to do. And about the changes of the public opinion on peace deals and war negotiations or about the reality of the critical minerals deal negotiations and what is all that really about - and much more. 

This is a teaser of a Patreon-exclusive geopolitical analysis—normally available only to my Patreon members.➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/

➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Michael Beckley, a professor at Tufts University and a co-author of one the best books on China in recent years called the Danger Zone. In the book Michael made two big predictions: first, that China's economic model will run into major problems - which seems to be already happening - and result in the end of China's economic and political rise. And second, that this will make China much more dangerous and aggressive and make an invasion of Taiwan much more likely - which we still have to wait to see. In this conversation, I wanted to revisit those predictions with Michael to ask how does he see China's rise and decline today. Whether China's economic problems can be reversed, how are they changing Beijing's strategic calculus or how likely is a major war in the late 2020s. It's, in my view, one of the most interesting conversations I've had on the podcast so far - and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

This is a teaser of a Patreon-exclusive content - geopolitical analysis usually only for Patreon members.➡️ Join the community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/

➡️ Help to make the existence of Decoding Geopolitics possible by joining our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Ronen Bergman. Ronen is a journalist at the New York Times based in Israel and an author of a unique book called Rise and Kill First about the history of Israeli state-sponsored targeted assassinations. Ronen spent years working on his research, digging into stuff that's almost entirely classified and he spoke with dozens of former and current members of Israeli military, intelligence services and government - getting access that is completely unprecedented despite the fact that Israeli government and Mossad tried to do everything they could to stop him from doing that. In this conversation how do you research something like that, where does the practice or state-sponsored assassinations originate, why does Israel use it more than perhaps any other nation, how do its representatives think about it, when and how did these operations literally rewrite history and whether they actually make Israel safer or not. And we also talk about the ethics and morals of all of that - because I don't want to be glorifying it and one of the reasons I liked the book was because Ronen doesn't do that either and he is an Israeli citizen who is very critical to his own country. And he, in my view, manages to stay objective, and critically analyze and evaluate what his own country does.

➡️ Help to make the existence of Decoding Geopolitics possible by joining our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/

➡️ Help to make the existence of Decoding Geopolitics possible by joining our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Anne Applebaum, recorded at the Munich Security Conference. Anne is an American-Polish journalist and historian who has been writing on Russia and Eastern Europe for decades and whose insights I consider extremely valuable. In the conversation we talk about the big speech that J.D. Vance gave at the conference how Europe should respond to the increasingly unpredictable foreign policies of the United States. And we also talked about Russia and Ukraine, possible negotiations and the end of the war or if this will finally be the wake up call for Europe or whether we will remain asleep at the wheel. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.comThis is a conversation with Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute and a leading expert on Turkish foreign policy.Turkey is an increasingly influential player in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe but at the same time, it's rise and its strategy are hugely overlooked and misunderstood. And so I spoke with Soner about exactly that. About what is Turkey's grand strategy and what is it trying to achieve, how it's becoming a major power in the Middle East, why is it both an enemy and a friend of Russia, why is it even in NATO when it doesn't seem to be aligned on a number of issues with the majority of its members or what's the risk of war between Greece and Turkey - and much more.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics ➡️ Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/ Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Hal Brands, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and one of the most influential and respected thinkers on U.S. foreign policy and global power dynamics of today. In this conversation, we talk about the return of geopolitics. About why are ideas about geopolitics that dominated the world a hundred years ago and that were at the beginning of all the great wars of the 20th century now making a comeback. And threaten to start other great wars in our time and define the 21st century as well. And whether and how, can it be prevented. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/ Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Jeremy Schapiro, a Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former advisor and policy planner at the U.S. State Department. And this conversation is about a single but extremely important question - what will the foreign policy of Donald Trump in the next four years look like. And how is it going to change the world as we know it.  We talked about how Donald Trump's foreign policies actually created and who are the different ideological groups that shape them which is something that Jeremy wrote on quite a lot. And about what his policies will look like - on Russia and Ukraine, Europe and NATO, Iran and Israel and China and Taiwan.  My goal going into this was to be as unbiased and pragmatic as possible - to try to analyze what Donald Trump's foreign policy on different issues might look like rather than to judge him as a person because there's not enough of the first and more than of the latter. Whether it was successful or not, is up to you.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with General Ben Hodges. Ben is a former high-ranking U.S. general who ended his career as a Commander of the United States Army in Europe and today is one of the most respected commentators on the Ukraine war, defence and European security and a major advocate for the Ukrainian cause. In this conversation we talk about what really mattered in the past year, from the Kursk offensive to North Korea joining the battlefield. About how the war developed and what is the balance of forces today, what can we expect of the year to come and what does Ben expect from the Trump administration when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. And we talk about a lot of difficult, uncomfortable but extremely important questions - from negotiations, to issues with Ukrainian mobilization or the changing Ukrainian public opinion.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Lennart Meschmayer. Lennart is a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich who's focusing on cyber warfare - how states use cyber power against each other both in times of war and peace and what role does cyber play in conflicts today. And that's exactly what this conversation is all about. We talk about what role does cyber play in the war in Ukraine, why we haven't seen a cyber apocalypse that many have predicted before the war started, why cyber warfare works really differently than most people think, why is Israel a hacking superpower or what would a cyber war between Russia and NATO look like. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Professor Justin Bronk. Justin is a Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a professor at the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, an active private pilot and one of the most respected experts on air power and technology in the world. In this interview we talk about a lot of things. We discussed the F-35s and its criticism, how it compares to its Russian and Chinese counterparts or whether it will be replaced by drone swarms and unmanned technology. How did Ukraine change what role air power plays in conflicts, what kind of impact are F-16s having on the war or whether Ukrainian force will start operating Western-made planes. And we talk about how the near future will air power as we know it - from drone swarms, unmanned fighter jets and collaborative aircraft. It's a great conversation and I really hope you'll enjoy it. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Aron Lund. Aron is an analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and one of the world's leading foreign experts on Syria, its security and politics. And in this conversation, we unpack everything that happened in the past week and what is going to happen now.  We talk about why no one saw the offensive coming and why did Assad's regime fall so quickly, about who are actually the rebels who took it down, how radical are they and what can we expect of them. We discuss what this means for Turkey, Israel, Russia and Iran and the Middle East at large and what post-Assad Syria will look like - and why things might get a lot worse. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Eliot Cohen. Eliot is a military historian, a dean of the school of advanced international studies at John Hopkins University, a former official at the U.S. department of state and one of the most influential thinkers shaping U.S. foreign policy in recent decades.  But in this interview we talk about one specific topic: why did most analysts and experts completely failed to predict how the war in Ukraine would turn out following the Russian invasion. He recently published an extremely interesting paper dedicated to this issue, co-authored with professor Phillips O'Brien and so we dove deep into it: we talked about why most experts wildly overestimated Russian military capability and underestimated Ukraine's readiness and resilience, why do we tend to either over and under-estimate Russia, whether the invasion could have actually turned out differently or what do most analysts still keep getting wrong. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Michael Sobolik, a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and an author of the book Countering China's Great Game. And in this interview, we talk about China's grand strategy - and what it actually looks like. We discuss what are China's geopolitical ambitions and why their origins go back way further than most people think, how does China uses the Belt and Road to increase their influence and why it often shoots itself in the foot doing so or why China is in danger of an imperial overstretch and how does Taiwan fit into its global vision. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Kenneth Pollack about one single question - why do militaries of Arab nations, despite often having superiority in numbers and better equipment than their opponents, tend to hugely underperform in modern military conflicts? And often end up losing wars which in theory they should win? It's a question that has been asked by many but no one  knows more about it than my guest.  He spent 30 years as an analyst in the CIA studying the Middle East and the militaries of both U.S. partners and adversaries. After leaving the CIA he became an academic and dedicated his academic career to answering this question. And so this is what we talk about - what is the real reason that Arab militaries tend to be notoriously ineffective, how does culture, economy or politics influence how they fight or why do organizations like Hezbollah seem to defy this rule and are a lot more effective than many larger and better equipped traditional Arab armies.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Ryan McBeth. Ryan is a former infantryman in the Marine Corps, an intelligence analyst, software architect and most importantly, a Youtube legend and one of my favorite creators. In this conversation, we talk about a lot of things - from his background to what he thinks that Trump's presidency will mean for the world of geopolitics. And also what's his view of the situation of the war in Ukraine and how he thinks it might end, why does he believe that we are already living through WW3, whether China will invade Taiwan and much more.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Matthew Savill. Matthew is a Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute and he has over 20 years of experience of working on defense, intelligence and national security in leadership positions in the British civil service. And in this conversation we talk about the current state of the British military which according to many is not great. We discuss whether the British military is in crisis and how bad it is, why is the British army becoming smaller than ever before in the last 200 years at a time of a growing threat to Europe, whether Britain can still afford to maintain a global blue-water navy or why does it have smaller armed forces than France despite spending more money on it.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Dr. Ali Ansari, professor at St Andrews University and an expert on Iranian history and foreign policy. In this interview we talk about Iran's conflict with Israel - why both countries race against the clock to win, how the past months changed the balance of power between the two, about what it means for Iran's proxy groups in the region, about the great paradox of Iran's foreign policy and much more. 

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Tim Marshall. Tim has a long career as foreign correspondent, covering wars and revolution from the Balkans to the Middle East but he's mostly known for his series of books starting with Prisoners of Geography, in which he argues that more than anything it's geography that determines international relations. I'm a fan of the books but at the same time I'm not sure if I agree with the theory and so in this interview we talk about whether this argument holds water, whether geography influenced Russia to invade Ukraine and whether we should even accept this premise and how it shapes the world from China to the Middle East.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Juliana Suess, the Research Fellow on Space Security at the Royal United Services Institute and in this episode, we talk about war in space. We discuss why space is increasingly becoming the most important warfighting domain, the new space race between China and the U.S., how is space warfare playing out in the Ukraine war, why is Russia putting nukes in space and much more.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is a conversation with Zbigniew PISARSKI, a leading Polish foreign policy and security analyst, President of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation and founder of the Warsaw Security Forum. In this conversation, we talk about Poland and specifically, about its rise as a new geopolitical and military power. We discuss why does Poland spend far more on defense than any other NATO member, how did its military transform since 2014, and Poland's rise as a new European geopolitical heavyweight - and much more.

➡️ If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help to make its existence possible, join our community of geopolitics enthusiasts on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics ➡️ Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe ➡️ Thank you Conducttr for sponsoring the podcast. Take a look at Conducttr's services and its crisis exercise software at: https://www.conducttr.com This is an interview with Ankit Panda. Ankit is an expert on nuclear strategy, arms control, missile defense, nonproliferation, deterrence and he is a Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.And in this conversation, we talked about everything related to nuclear weapons. Why are they coming back to fashion, why are we living through the beginning of another nuclear arms race, why are countries and leaders becoming increasingly more comfortable with the idea of a limited nuclear war and much much more.

This is a special episode where I answer questions from my supporters on Patreon. It's a bit of a free-flowing rant rather than something that would be carefully scripted and thought-out, so keep that in mind. If you want to join our Patreon community, you can do that here: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe Might of the Chain: https://a.co/d/633rSOr This is a conversation with Admiral Mike Studeman. Mike spent decades as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy, eventually becoming a Director of Intelligence at the Indo-Pacific Command and until very recently, he served as a Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the oldest U.S. intelligence agency. He speaks Mandarin and throughout his career he has focused on studying and analyzing China and its military.  In this conversation, we talk about why the risk of a war with China is much higher than most people think and why Mike thinks that we are on a trajectory towards it. How is the Navy prepared for it, how is it adapting to the changing character of war or why the U.S. is losing to China in information warfare. 

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Sign up to my upcoming geopolitics newsletter: https://station-zero.beehiiv.com/subscribe This is an interview with General David Petraeus. General Petraeus spent 37 years in the U.S. Army. Over the course of his career, he led the U.S. Central Command, the U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and after his service in the military, he served as the Director of the CIA. Overall, he's considered one of the most prominent and effective military leaders of this century. In this conversation, we talk about his experience from Iraq and Afghanistan, but mostly about the war in Ukraine - what lessons should we be taking from it, whether we have a strategy to win and what's going to happen next.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Get access to more episodes of the intelligence brief, support the podcast, get ad-free full interviews ahead of time and ask questions to my guest by becoming a supporter.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics This is a conversation with Dmitri Alpetrovitch. Dmitri is a chairman of a think-tank called Silverado Policy Accelerator and an author of a new book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century about how to win a cold war with China and prevent it from turning it into a hot one.  We talked about who's winning the Cold War of the 21st century, why Taiwan is the new West Berlin and whether Xi Jinping will decide to invade or not and much more. 

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics This is a conversation with Kirill Shamiev. Kirill is a Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations where he primarily focuses on the Russian military - and that's exactly what we talked about. We discussed what is the state of the Russian military today, two and a half years into the war, whether it is able to learn and improve, what was the meaning behind the purges at the Russian ministry of defense, how much corruption affects Russian combat capability or how fast will it be able to rebuild its military to potentially face NATO. 

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics This is a conversation with Yusuf Unjhawala - a defence analyst from a leading Indian think-tank the Takshashila Institution.In this interview, I wanted to better understand India's foreign policy and security challenges and how India actually sees the world from its own perspective. And so we talked about why India doesn't have allies, why it wants to be friends with both Russia and the West or why a war between India and China might be more likely than a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. I hope you like it and now, enjoy the conversation.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Jean H. Lee is a journalist and foreign policy analyst renowned for her expertise in covering North Korea and Northeast Asian affairs. She is co-host of the award-winning Lazarus Heist podcast for the BBC World Service and a former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press news agency. Jean began reporting on the ground in North Korea in 2008. In 2011, she became the first American journalist to join the Pyongyang foreign press corps in North Korea. In 2012, she opened AP's Pyongyang bureau, the first and only US news bureau in North Korea. Her work in North Korea from 2008 to 2017 included nearly three years working alongside North Korean staff and colleagues in Pyongyang on assignments that took her across the closed nation to visit farms, factories, schools, military academies, and homes in the course of her exclusive coverage.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Dr. Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute. Jack works closely with the British military on the development of concepts of operation, assessments of the future operating environment, and conducts operational analysis of contemporary conflicts. In this conversation, we talked about two wars that Russia is currently waging: an overt one against Ukraine and a covert war against the West. Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon - and if you want to support what I'm doing, do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon as well.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics This is a conversation with Jake Broe, a former Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer and one of the biggest Youtubers providing daily updates on the war in Ukraine. We talked about why Jake thinks Donald Trump will leave NATO, why the war will end with a political and economic collapse of Russia and much, much more.