The Foreign Affairs Interview

For years in U.S. foreign policy circles, discussions of China focused on its growing wealth, power, and ambition, and the fear that it would supplant the United States. But a few years ago, the conversation took a sharp turn. Rather than fixating on China's rise, most analysis began to focus on the country's stagnation and even decline. There were good reasons for this: disappointing post-COVID economic growth, dire demographics, and a foreign policy alienating much of the world. And so a new consensus took hold—that a weakened China might not overtake the United States after all. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi argue that this new consensus dangerously underestimates Chinese power and the challenge it represents for U.S. foreign policy. Washington, they warn, is missing Beijing's key strategic advantage—an advantage that only a new approach to alliances will offset. As they write, if America goes it alone, “the contest for the next century will be China's to lose.” Campbell is the chairman and a co-founder of The Asia Group and served as deputy secretary of state and Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council during the Biden administration. Doshi is an assistant professor at Georgetown University and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as deputy senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security Council during the Biden administration. They joined Dan Kurtz-Phelan on April 14 to discuss the sources of Chinese power, what U.S. observers of China get wrong, and whether the Trump administration has an endgame in its confrontation with Beijing. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

For decades, it has been a trope of foreign policy commentary in the United States that Washington does not pay enough attention to its own hemisphere. But the Trump administration seems to be bucking this trend—though not exactly in the way those complaining about neglect might have wanted. President Donald Trump's campaign spent a lot of time focusing on immigration and fentanyl coming from Latin America. And in the early months of his administration, Trump has focused to a surprising degree not just on Mexico and Central America but also on the Panama Canal and Canada and Greenland. There's even been talk of America's so-called sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere.  Brian Winter, one of the best chroniclers and analysts of Latin America and the longtime editor of Americas Quarterly, was one of the few people who anticipated this focus—as he did in an essay for Foreign Affairs a few weeks before Trump's inauguration. As Trump unleashes a whirlwind of confrontational policies across the globe—his sweeping tariffs being just the latest example—Latin American leaders are developing their own approach to this challenge. And in Winter's view, they may be surprisingly well positioned to weather the storm better than their counterparts anywhere else. He spoke with Dan Kurtz-Phelan on April 8 about how leaders everywhere from Argentina and Brazil to Mexico and Central America are navigating this new reality—and also about whether Latin America's long tradition of strongman leadership has now come to the United States. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Two months into U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, the U.S.-Chinese relationship—the most consequential one in the world by a long stretch—faces new uncertainty. Trump has threatened larger tariffs as China has continued its military buildup and activities in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. But Trump has also focused his ire on allied capitals, rather than on Beijing, and talked about making a deal with his “very good friend” Xi Jinping. In a recent essay for Foreign Affairs, Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass stressed the importance, and highlighted the challenge, of understanding the balance of power with America's top rival. The biggest risk, they argue, is not that Washington will underestimate China's strength, but that it will neglect the sources of its own. Blanchette runs the China Research Center at the RAND Corporation; Hass, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, long worked on China policy at the National Security Council and State Department. They joined editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan to discuss Beijing's assessment of American power, the prospects for a “grand bargain” between Trump and Xi, and whether fears of American decline risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Not even two months into his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump is reshaping U.S.-Russian relations at a critical juncture for the war in Ukraine. As Russian President Vladimir Putin presses his advantage on the battlefield, Trump's admiration for the Russian leader, and his push for warmer relations with Moscow, is raising alarms across European capitals—in Kyiv most of all. Fiona Hill spent years studying Putin and Russia as a scholar and U.S. intelligence official before serving, in the first Trump administration, as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. She became a household name during Trump's first impeachment, when her testimony provided crucial insights into Trump's dynamic with Putin and his early interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Today, she is a senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and serves as Chancellor of Durham University. Hill spoke with editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan on the morning of Tuesday, March 11, about Trump's relationship with Putin, the prospects for peace in Ukraine, and European security in an age of American retreat. Later that afternoon, U.S. and Ukrainian officials unveiled a tentative agreement for a 30-day cease-fire—putting the ball in Putin's court. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

After three years of war, Ukraine is facing intense pressure from Donald Trump to reach a settlement with Russia. Trump has engaged directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin while calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator. His administration has sidelined European allies while joining a handful of Russian partners in voting against a UN resolution condemning Putin's aggression. And U.S. officials have pressured Ukraine into signing over critical mineral resources. And yet despite this new geopolitical reality, and despite month after month of grueling fighting that has Russian forces taking territory by the day, Ukrainians themselves remain deeply resistant to accepting an end to the war that would sacrifice their country's territory and sovereignty. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, the Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk explains that Ukrainians' resistance emerges not only out of a sense of patriotism but also, she writes, “because they know there is little chance of survival under Moscow's rule.” For years, Gumenyuk has reported from Ukraine's conflict zones, documenting the brutality and trying to understand the logic of Russian occupation. She spoke with senior editor Hugh Eakin on February 21 about how Ukrainians are reacting to the shift in U.S. policy, what life is like in the almost 20 percent of their country under Russian control, and where Ukraine goes from here. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

A month into U.S. President Donald Trump's second term in office, many are alarmed by what they see as emerging signs of democratic erosion. In a new essay, called “The Path to American Authoritarianism,” the scholars Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way make the case that such alarm is justified—that the administration's early moves could herald an irreversible transformation of the U.S. political system, with major implications for global democracy. Drawing from their research on democratic decline worldwide, Levitsky and Way argue that the United States faces a particular kind of risk that many observers miss—a form of so-called competitive authoritarianism, in which elections continue but the state apparatus is weaponized against opposition. Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow for Democracy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Way is Distinguished Professor of Democracy at the University of Toronto Distinguished Professor of Democracy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. They are the authors of Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. In a special bonus episode, they speak with senior editor Eve Fairbanks about the global playbook for authoritarian regimes—and the stakes for American democracy. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

From record-low unemployment to strong GDP growth, the Biden administration presided over what appeared to be a strong economic recovery in the aftermath of the pandemic. But these measures masked a more complex reality, argues Jason Furman in a new essay in Foreign Affairs. That reality, in his view, should reshape debates about economic strategies going forward. Furman, now Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard University, chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. He traces a stark disconnect between Biden's lofty goals and real economic performance, especially as it shaped voters' lived experience. That disconnect opened the way for Donald Trump's return to the White House.  Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Furman about why the Biden administration's economic policy fell short—and why both Democrats and Republicans should abandon what he calls their “post-neoliberal delusion.” You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

After nearly three years of war, the mood among many of Ukraine's allies has turned grim. Russian forces are making steady gains; Kyiv is running low on ammunition; and the return of Donald Trump to the White House has only added to anxieties about the conflict, casting doubt over not only the future of American military aid, but also the prospect of a negotiated settlement that is satisfactory to Ukraine. In an essay for Foreign Affairs, titled “Putin's Point of No Return,” Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Michael Kofman argue that the risks are even greater—that Putin's Russia will pose a threat to Western interests even if the current fighting in Ukraine ends. Kendall-Taylor is a former intelligence official and scholar of authoritarian regimes and Russian politics; Kofman is one of the most astute analysts of the war in Ukraine. They speak with editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan about the battlefield dynamics and political dimensions of the conflict—and about Vladimir Putin's enduring ambition to reshape the global order. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

With Donald Trump about to return to the White House, leaders around the world are bracing for what could be a significant realignment in U.S. foreign policy—and trying to prepare their own country's response. In a special two-part episode, Foreign Affairs Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan speaks with two policymakers who have grappled directly with the disruption that may come in Trump 2.0. Malcolm Turnbull, who was Australia's prime minister during Trump's first term, shares his lessons about how leaders can most effectively engage the new administration. And Bilahari Kausikan, one of Singapore's most seasoned diplomats and analysts, considers what Trump's return will mean for Asia. Together, these conversations offer a window into how global leaders are approaching a period of potential turmoil—and an unvarnished guide to power politics in an era of American disruption. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

The United States' relationship with China has scarcely been so contentious. Over the last several years, the two powers have butted heads over issues including trade and technology, Russia's war on Ukraine, and Beijing's belligerence in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Nicholas Burns has helped oversee Washington's response to these rising tensions. Burns has served as U.S. ambassador to China since 2022, the capstone of a four-decade career in the foreign service that has included posts as ambassador to NATO and Greece, State Department undersecretary for political affairs and spokesperson, and on the National Security Council staff on Soviet and Russian affairs. He has been in the room for some of the most consequential moments in recent U.S. foreign policy history: the fall of the Soviet Union, the 9/11 attacks, and now, the intensifying U.S.-Chinese competition. Two years after his first conversation with editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan, Burns, in his final days as ambassador, looks back on the Biden administration's approach to managing the relationship at this critical moment—and reflects on the need for diplomacy in the rivalry that may define the twenty-first century. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Over the past century, the world's population has exploded—surging from around one and a half billion people in 1900 to roughly eight billion today. But according to the political economist Nicholas Eberstadt, that chapter of human history is over, and a new era, which he calls the age of depopulation, has begun.  Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute and has written extensively on demographics, economic development, and international security. In a recent essay for Foreign Affairs, Eberstadt argued that plummeting fertility rates everywhere from the United States and Europe to India and China point to a new demographic order—one that will transform societies, economies, and geopolitics. Eberstadt spoke with senior editor Kanishk Tharoor about what is driving today's population decline, why policy cannot reverse it, and how governments can reckon with a shrinking world. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

In the four years since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, the geopolitical landscape has radically changed. Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought war back to Europe. Hamas's October 7 assault on Israel sparked a widening conflict in an already chaotic Middle East. And Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait has refocused attention on the Indo-Pacific as a possible theater of combat. Through it all, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been at the helm of U.S. foreign policy: shuttling between capitals, negotiating with allies and adversaries, and helping shape a vision for American engagement with the world—a vision he laid out in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs.  Now, on the eve of Donald Trump's return to office, Blinken reflects on the geopolitical challenges facing the United States today—and offers lessons from his own tenure for American foreign policy going forward. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Over the last few years, the world has seen the outbreak of a kind of war that had long seemed like a thing of the past. There was Russia's invasion of Ukraine; a Gaza war that threatened to turn into a full Middle Eastern war, and in many ways did; growing dangers in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea; and tremendously damaging fighting in places like Sudan that get much less global attention.  Mara Karlin, a scholar of war as well as a veteran policymaker, served as the top U.S. Defense Department official overseeing strategy as these conflicts started or escalated. She is currently Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of several books including The Inheritance: America's Military After Two Decades of War. She argues in an essay in Foreign Affairs that the world is seeing a return of total war—of conflicts that are more comprehensive and complex than ever before. Karlin joins Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan to discuss how fighting in Ukraine and the Middle East is reshaping our understanding of modern war, and what this means for U.S. military strategy—especially in the face of growing tensions with China. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election comes at a moment of turbulence for global democracy. It's been a year marked by almost universal backlash against incumbent leaders by voters apparently eager to express their anger with the status quo—and also an era when liberalism has been in retreat, if not in crisis. Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist at Stanford University, has done as much as anyone to elucidate the currents shaping and reshaping global politics. He wrote The End of History and the Last Man, a seminal work of post–Cold War political theory, more than three decades ago. And in the years since, he has written a series of influential essays for Foreign Affairs and other publications.  He joins Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan to consider what Trump's return to the presidency means for liberal democracy—and whether its future, in the United States and around the world, is truly at stake. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, ushering in a new era of uncertainty at home and abroad. In a special bonus episode, Foreign Affairs Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Daniel Drezner and Kori Schake on Wednesday, November 6, about what the world might expect from a second Trump term—on everything from wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, to China and alliances, to trade and immigration. Daniel Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University. Kori Schake, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, has served in senior jobs in the Defense Department, the State Department, and on the National Security Council. They reflect on the lessons of Trump's first term and whether, this time, he will take his “America first” agenda even further. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

If there's a thread that connects unsettling trends across domestic and international affairs today, it's the return of forms of violence that we once thought were more or less obsolete. That's true of the return of political violence in the United States. It's also true of the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Robert Pape is a political scientist at the University of Chicago and the founding director of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats. He has made a career of studying these types of violence—whether carried out by American extremists, by suicide bombers, or by Russian or Israeli fighter jets. In a series of pieces in Foreign Affairs, he explains why all of these phenomena are likely to endure—including, in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, with what he calls an era of violent populism here at home. He spoke with Foreign Affairs editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan on October 30 about the resurgence of these forms of violence—and the consequences for the United States and the world. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

When Donald Trump praises foreign dictators—from Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un to Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin—the typical reaction is shock and dismay. But in fact, Beverly Gage points out in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, such admiration is not uncommon in American politics. And Trump's embrace of overseas autocrats is just one of the unsettling features of American civic life today that has a more prominent place in U.S. history than most observers would like to think. Gage, a historian at Yale, has written extensively about contemporary U.S. politics, ideology, and social movements, and is the author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. She spoke with Foreign Affairs senior editor Kanishk Tharoor on October 17 about the historical parallels that help us understand today's fraught politics—as well as what set this moment apart. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

A year has passed since Hamas's October 7 assault on Israel sparked a brutal war in Gaza—one that is now spreading north into Lebanon and threatening to reel in bigger powers, including the United States. But the war has always been bigger than Israel and Hamas, writes Ari Shavit in a new essay for Foreign Affairs. In his view, and the view of many Israelis, the main threat—not only to Israel but also to the free world—is Iran, backed by Russia and China.  Shavit, a leading Israeli writer, has spent decades trying to make sense of Israel's identity, democracy, and role in the Middle East. He is the author of My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel and Existential War: From Disaster to Victory to Resurrection. Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan spoke with him on October 4 about how Israelis are thinking about the conflict as it enters its second year—and what it will take to bring about peace. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview. 

The world Americans face today is more complicated—and dangerous—than it has been for decades. Yet there is a growing, and in many ways understandable, desire to turn inward—a sense that there is little U.S. foreign policy can do to solve problems abroad and lots it can do to make them worse. Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, argues against this impulse in a new essay in Foreign Affairs. Great powers, she writes, don't get to just mind their own business.  Rice served as national security adviser and secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. Much of what she grappled with then—Russia's invasion of a neighbor, military collisions with China, the last major clash between Israel and Hezbollah—has worrying echoes now, especially as conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral into a wider war. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview. 

The United States is grappling with two of the biggest challenges it has ever faced: the rise of China and the threat of catastrophic climate change. At home, the Biden administration has forged a green industrial policy that could transform the U.S. economy. But as China threatens to dominate the global market for clean energy, it is not enough to invest domestically, Brian Deese argues in a new Foreign Affairs essay. Deese has been at the center of climate and economic policymaking for over a decade. He served as the director of the National Economic Council in the Biden administration, where he was one of the key architects behind the Inflation Reduction Act. During the Obama years, he helped lead the auto bailout and negotiate the Paris agreement on climate change. Now, he has a plan for the United States to lead the global energy transition on its own terms.

In June, Narendra Modi was sworn in for a third consecutive term as India's prime minister. But—in a surprise outcome—his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, failed to win a parliamentary majority. Now, for the first time, Modi sits atop a coalition government—and India's path forward appears far less certain, and far more interesting, than seemed plausible not long ago. Pratap Bhanu Mehta is one of India's wisest political observers—a great political theorist and writer as well as a fierce critic, and occasional target, of Modi and his policies. Foreign Affairs Senior Editor Kanishk Tharoor spoke with him on September 3 about what the election means for Indian democracy and where the country goes from here. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview. 

As the U.S. presidential election swings into high gear, speculation about a second-term Trump foreign policy is also becoming more intense. Would he push radical changes to policy on China, or Ukraine, or the war in Gaza? Can his campaign promises be taken at face value? Would he be reined in—by staff, Congress, or his own aversion to risk?  Kori Schake has been one of Trump's fiercest critics among Republican foreign policy hands. Schake is a senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Safe Passage: The Transition From British to American Hegemony. She served on the National Security Council and in the U.S. State Department under President George W. Bush. Yet even while warning of the consequences of a second Trump term, she shares the view that U.S. foreign policy needs to change—to align with what she calls a new conservative internationalism that would invest in American strength without neglecting the rest of the world. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

As the war in Gaza grinds on, Israel's endgame remains unclear. What does it mean to destroy Hamas? Who will provide security and govern Gaza when the fighting stops? How has this war changed Israel's relationship with its neighbors and the wider world? To discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the future of Gaza, Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan moderated a panel on August 1 that included Audrey Kurth Cronin, Marc Lynch, Dennis Ross, and Dana Stroul. Cronin is director of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology and the author of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Lynch is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. Ross is a counselor at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a professor at Georgetown University, and a former U.S. envoy to the Middle East, serving in senior national security positions in the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations. Stroul is director of research at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has a very clear vision for a new world order. And although observers in the United States may disagree with that vision, Washington should not dismiss it, argues Elizabeth Economy in a new piece for Foreign Affairs.  Economy is one of the foremost experts on China in the United States. A senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, she served as the senior adviser for China at the U.S. Department of Commerce from 2021 to 2023. She stresses that if the United States wants to out-compete China, Washington needs to offer its own vision for a new world order; it can't simply defend an unpopular status quo. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

In just a few short years, the United States' China policy has undergone nothing short of a revolution. Few people have been more central to that shift than Matt Pottinger. He was a reporter in China for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, then a U.S. Marine, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. He went on to become the top policymaker on Asia and the deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration.  Pottinger argues in a new essay for Foreign Affairs that even though Washington's China strategy has already gotten much tougher, it still has a ways to go—to take on more risk and lay out a clear, if radical, goal for the kind of China the United States wants to see. His views are a window into what China policy might look like if Donald Trump returns to the White House. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

The stakes of a second Trump term are very clear to Ben Rhodes, who served for eight years as one of Barack Obama's closest advisers on national security. “Trump's blend of strongman nationalism and isolationism could create a permission structure for aggression,” Rhodes writes in a new piece for Foreign Affairs.  Today, Rhodes is a co-host of the podcast Pod Save the World and the author of After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made. From 2009 to 2017, he served as U.S. deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting in the Obama administration. Rhodes is as clear-eyed about the achievements and failures of President Joe Biden's foreign policy. If Biden does win a second term, Rhodes argues, he should set out a new strategy—one that takes the world as it is, not as Washington wishes it would be. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Earlier this month, Claudia Sheinbaum won a sweeping victory in Mexico's presidential election. Although a lot of the coverage framed the results as a win for women and progressive politics, the story is far more complicated.  Mexico's democracy is in trouble, warns Denise Dresser, a political analyst in Mexico. For years, Dresser has watched Sheinbaum's party—and its previous leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador—govern through polarization and the erosion of democratic institutions, even as the country struggles with violence, corruption, and persistent inequality. Dresser is a professor of political science at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. There is a chance Sheinbaum charts a different course. But if not, Dresser worries that Mexico could face an autocratic future.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

For months, Iran and Israel have seemed to be on the brink of outright war. Although tensions are lower than in April—when the countries exchanged direct attacks—they remain dangerously high. Vali Nasr has tracked these dynamics since long before October 7. He is the Majid Khadduri professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center. He served as the eighth dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS between 2012 and 2019. During the Obama administration, he served as senior adviser to the legendary diplomat Richard Holbrooke. He warns that as long as war rages in Gaza, the Middle East will remain on the verge of exploding. Yet it is not enough for Washington to focus just on ending that war. It must also put in place a regional order that can free the Middle East from these cycles of violence. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

There's no question that Hamas violated international law when it attacked Israel on October 7, and as it continues to hold hostages in Gaza. But more than seven months into Israel's response, the issue of whether Israel is violating international law—or even committing war crimes—is coming to a head. Washington is debating holding up deliveries of weapons to Israel. And the International Criminal Court is rumored to be preparing a case against leaders of both Hamas and the Israeli government. What's happening in Gaza may seem unprecedented. But as the legal scholar Oona Hathaway writes in Foreign Affairs, “The conflict in Gaza is an extreme example of the breakdown of the law of war, but it is not an isolated one.” Hathaway is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale University School of Law and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 2014–15, she took leave to serve as special counsel to the general counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense. Foreign Affairs Deputy Editor Kate Brannen spoke with her on May 13 about the causes of that breakdown—and what, if anything, can be done to salvage the rules meant to protect civilians in wartime. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

When Russia botched its invasion of Ukraine and the West quickly came together in support of Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin's grip on power appeared shakier than ever. Last summer, an attempted coup even seemed to threaten his rule. But today, Putin looks confident. With battlefield progress in Ukraine and political turmoil ahead of the U.S. election in November, there's reason to think things are turning in his favor. The historian Stephen Kotkin joins us to discuss what this means for Russia's future—and how the United States can be ready for whatever that future holds. Kotkin is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Stalin: Totalitarian Superpower, 1941–1990s, the last in his three-volume biography of the Soviet leader. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

On April 13, Iran did something it had never done before: it launched a direct attack on Israel from Iranian territory. As historic and spectacular as the attack was, Israel, the United States, and others managed to intercept a huge percentage of the drones and missiles fired, and the damage inflicted by Iranian strikes was minor. Still, the world is waiting tensely to see how Israel will respond—and whether the Middle East can avoid full-scale war.  To understand the attack and its consequences, Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of the Brookings Institution's Foreign Policy program, and Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.  We discuss where this conflict could go next—and how to bring the two sides back from the brink of war.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Martin Indyk has probably spent more time and energy than anyone else—certainly more than any other American—trying to find a path to peace among Israel, its neighbors, and the Palestinians. He's worked on these issues for decades. Indyk served as President Barack Obama's special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from July 2013 to June 2014.  He served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1995 to 1997, and again from 2000 to 2001. He also served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1995 and as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State from 1997 to 2000. He spoke to Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on April 1. The conversation covers the prospect of a cease-fire in Gaza; how the Biden administration is, and is not, using its influence to shape Israeli actions; and the possibility that this terrible war could finally move both sides toward a two-state solution. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

More than any time in the last 75 years, we're living in a world at war. Conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine dominate headlines. But that's just part of it. Last year, Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee. There's a full-scale civil war in Myanmar. In Africa, there is war in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Congo, and there have been seven coups on the continent since August 2020. Comfort Ero, the head of the International Crisis Group, has been tracking these conflicts as closely as anyone. She has watched the international system grow more brittle and less effective at preventing war—and has been doing the hard political work of ending conflict once it breaks out. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

India has enormous momentum. Its population has surpassed China's, making it the most populous country in the world. Its economy is expected to become the world's third largest in the next few years. And, as much as any country, it seems positioned to take today's geopolitical tensions and turn them to its advantage. The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, is expected to win a third term in office this spring, cementing his own political dominance. But that has come with a dark side—an assault on civil rights and democracy, which some warn will ultimately hinder India. To address Modi's third term and India's future more broadly, Foreign Affairs editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan moderated a panel including Alyssa Ayres, Ashley J. Tellis, and  Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Ayres is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Tellis is the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And Mehta is Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

A year ago, protests began to rock Israel. For months, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to weaken the country's Supreme Court. Then came Hamas's attack on October 7, and everything changed. “The war has caught Israel at perhaps its most divided moment in history,” writes Aluf Benn in a new piece for Foreign Affairs. Benn, the editor of Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, argues that Netanyahu worked to divide Israeli society with policies that put the country on track for disaster. He spoke to Foreign Affairs Executive Editor Justin Vogt on February 27. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Four months after Hamas's October 7 attack, the war in Gaza continues with little reason to think that Israel is particularly close to achieving its declared goals. Meanwhile, the Middle East is on the precipice of a full-scale regional war—and it may be that that war has already begun. Dahlia Scheindlin is a pollster, a policy fellow at Century International, and a columnist at Haaretz. She is the author of the new book, The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel. Dalia Dassa Kaye is a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and a Fulbright Schuman Visiting Scholar at Lund University. We discuss the domestic political landscape inside Israel, the risks of further escalation in the region, and whether there is a better path forward. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview. 

Last fall, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates took to the pages of Foreign Affairs to issue a warning: with America facing the most dangerous geopolitical landscape in decades, dysfunction in Washington threatened to turn that danger into disaster. Today, Russia and China are testing the international order. Iranian proxies are attacking U.S. forces on a daily basis. And, as Gates writes, “at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response, America cannot provide one.” Gates worries that such dysfunction at home could prompt America's foes to make risky bets—with catastrophic consequences for both the country and the world.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview. 

Ukraine may be facing the toughest chapter of its war since the first days of Russia's invasion. The frontlines have changed little over the past year. And, in November, Ukraine's top general, Valery Zaluzhny, used the word “stalemate” to describe the situation on the battlefield. In the West, the political tides may be shifting—especially in the United States, where Republicans in Congress are holding up new aid, and Donald Trump, running for reelection, has said he'll end the war in 24 hours if he returns to the White House.  Since the war began, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has been tirelessly and eloquently making a case for Ukrainian victory, both on the world stage and in the pages of Foreign Affairs. In a January 23 conversation with Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, he discussed why the West should not give up on Ukraine, and the country's prospects of victory in the months and years ahead. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview. 

There's a growing sense that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a pretty good position heading into 2024. Certainly that's what Putin wants the rest of the world to think—that he can outlast Ukraine and its supporters in the West. Yet the situation looks more complicated on the ground in Russia.  And there are few people better positioned to make sense of that reality than Andrei Kolesnikov. Kolesnikov, a journalist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has been in Moscow since the war began. Over the last two years, he's written a series of deeply illuminating pieces for Foreign Affairs. In December 2022, the Kremlin listed Kolesnikov as a foreign agent.  Kolesnikov spoke with Foreign Affairs Senior Editor Hugh Eakin on January 8 about Putin's hold on power and how Russians view their leader and his disastrous war. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Hamas's attack on October 7 shocked the world and upended the status quo in the Middle East. As Israel's war in Gaza continues, the two-state solution seems more out of reach than ever. And yet, close observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict understand that for there to ever be peace, a political solution must go hand in hand with any military strategy.  At a Foreign Affairs live event on December 14, Lisa Anderson, Salam Fayyad, and Amos Yadlin joined Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan to explore these issues and more.  Anderson is the James T. Shotwell professor of international relations emerita at Columbia University and was the president of The American University in Cairo from 2011 to 2015. Fayyad served as the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013. Yadlin is a retired major general in the Israeli Air Force and served as head of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate from 2006 to 2010. Together, they discussed Israeli strategy, whether Hamas can actually be destroyed, and whether there is any hope for a return to a peace process. This is an edited version of their conversation. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Most Americans think their country is in decline. So do their leaders. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have embraced foreign policies premised on the notion that the global order no longer serves American interests. But these pessimistic assumptions are wrong, Fareed Zakaria argues in a new essay for Foreign Affairs. Moreover, they are leading the country to embrace strategies that will harm much of the world—and the United States most of all. Zakaria is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, a columnist for The Washington Post, and the author of The Post-American World. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

There is no doubt that China's economy is struggling. After Chinese President Xi Jinping ended the country's zero-COVID policy a year ago, most economists expected growth to surge—but that never really happened, and deeper problems became apparent. So what are the exact causes of China's stagnation?  The economists Adam Posen, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, and Michael Pettis each have different answers. China's future—and the future of the United States' policy toward China—hinges on which of their answers is the right one. Foreign Affairs Executive Editor Justin Vogt spoke with them at a November 14 discussion co-hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, of which Posen is president. Liu is the Maurice R. Greenberg fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Pettis is a senior fellow at the Carnegie China Center and professor of finance at Peking University. 

From killer robots to smarter logistics, artificial intelligence promises to change the way the U.S. military fights and develops weapons. As this new technology comes online, the opportunities are coming into focus—but so are the dangers. In a new piece for Foreign Affairs, Michèle Flournoy argues the U.S. military has no choice but to move forward with AI and to do so quickly. Flournoy served as the Pentagon's policy chief during the Obama administration and today is a co-founder and managing partner at the consulting company WestExec Advisors. Deputy Editor Kate Brannen talked to her about how the U.S. Defense Department will need to change the way it does business if it wants to integrate AI safely and responsibly. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

There is no end in sight to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. But even as fighting rages, questions abound about what happens when it finally stops. What can be salvaged from the wreckage? Will Hamas survive, if not as an organization than as an ideology? Who will govern Gaza? What type of leadership will be needed on both sides to broker any type of lasting peace? Former Israeli security chief Ami Ayalon says that today there is no clear picture in Israel about what happens on the day after—and that this is a grave mistake. Ayalon began his military service in 1963 and went on to lead Israel's navy and then Shin Bet, the country's internal security service. The task for Israel, he argues, is not just addressing the security failures that preceded October 7, but offering a political future that both Israelis and Palestinians will support. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

As the war in Gaza continues, the question of Hamas's future has become paramount. But it has also raised questions about the years of Hamas rule in Gaza—and the group's support among Palestinians.  Amaney Jamal is dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and co-founder of Arab Barometer, which conducts public opinion research across the Arab world.  Her most recent survey of Palestinian public opinion wrapped up on October 6—the eve of Hamas's attack. As she wrote in a recent piece for Foreign Affairs, “The argument that the entire population of Gaza can be held responsible for Hamas's actions is quickly discredited when one looks at the facts.” You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

In Ukraine, where war with Russia grinds on, the dominant question has become: can one side outlast the other? This is especially true as both sides face another grueling winter.  One thing Russia has in ample supply is men. But how it treats its soldiers is having an effect on the battlefield, explains Dara Massicot, who has studied the Russian military for years, first at the U.S. Defense Department and later at RAND and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.   Foreign Affairs Deputy Editor Kate Brannen sat down with her to discuss how the human dimension of this war provides clues about where it might be headed next.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Two weeks ago, there was reason to think that the Middle East was becoming more stable than it had been for years. Washington was pushing for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia as one piece of a broader attempt to reduce the U.S. role in the region and focus on other priorities. Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7 shattered those hopes.  But there had long been signs that all was not well—that key assumptions underlying U.S. strategy were on shaky ground. In the months before the attacks, Suzanne Maloney and Marc Lynch saw the lights flashing red. Maloney is vice president of the Brookings Institution and director of its Foreign Policy program. Lynch is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. As they watched the region over the past several months, both worried that another crisis was coming. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

In March 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the globe, the Chinese government expelled a handful of U.S. journalists from China. The move came weeks after the Trump administration curtailed the number of Chinese citizens who could work in the United States for state-run Chinese news organizations. Among the journalists forced to leave China was Ian Johnson, who had been living there for 20 years.   This spring, Johnson finally returned to China. While he was there, he spoke to a cross section of Chinese people—not only scholars and officials but also small business owners, bus drivers, students, and nuns. Some were people he'd known for years.  What he found was grim—a country in a state of stagnation and turning inward. Its leader, Xi Jinping, seemed so intent on control and so obsessed with security that no price was too high. Yet, under the surface, Johnson found there may be more dissent than most observers realize—a phenomenon he explores in his new book, Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Building closer ties with India has become a top priority for U.S. foreign policy. In June, the White House hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a lavish state dinner. The thinking is that India will be a key U.S. partner in its competition with China. But is Washington making the wrong assumptions about India? How far do the two countries' interests diverge when it comes to Beijing? Ashley Tellis has been one of the closest observers and shapers of the U.S.-Indian relationship. He served in senior positions in the U.S. embassy in New Delhi and on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. Today, he is the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In an interview earlier this month, Tellis warned that Washington needs to be more clear-eyed about Indian interests—understanding that they do not always align with those of the United States. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Ever since the company OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT last year, there have been constant warnings about the effects of artificial intelligence on just about everything.  Ian Bremmer, the founder of the Eurasia Group, and Mustafa Suleyman, founder of the AI companies DeepMind and Inflection AI, highlight what may be the most significant effect in a new essay for Foreign Affairs. They argue that AI will transform power, including the power balance between states and the companies driving the new technology. Policymakers are already behind the curve, they warn, and if they do not catch up soon, it is possible they never will. You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

After World War II, an idea took hold: economic interdependence between countries would help prevent war. But lately, faith in this idea has wavered, and terms like “decoupling,” “friend shoring,” and “de-risking” are dominating the debates around trade in Washington and beyond.  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization, disagrees with key elements of this new consensus. She thinks that policymakers are misdiagnosing the problems that the world faces, and that they risk setting us on a dangerous course—one that could break the global economy and leave the world both less prosperous and less secure.  We discuss why views on global trade have changed so dramatically in recent years, China's integration into the global trading system, and what would happen if the world fragmented into two trading blocs.  You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.