Counterpoint

In the past few months, the war in Ukraine has taken some dramatic turns. Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russian territory, seizing chunks of Kursk province and embarrassing President Vladimir Putin. Russia retaliated with a number of devastating attacks on Ukrainian cities and military facilities and continued to seize more territory in Donetsk. Rather than moving toward a negotiated settlement, the war seems to be escalating. FP deputy editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky is joined by Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and an assistant professor at Georgetown University, and Rajan Menon, the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities and a senior research scholar at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the night of Oct. 1, Iran launched nearly 200 missiles at Israel. It was the latest in a deadly tit for tat between the two countries. The regionwide war that the Biden administration doesn’t want now seems to be happening. And for that reason, the idea of taking out Iran’s nuclear program with military strikes seems less theoretical and more like a real possibility. Foreign Policy deputy editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky is joined by Matt Kroenig, the vice president of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a professor of government at Georgetown University, and Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the start of a war in Gaza that has killed upwards of 40,000 people, many of them civilians. Throughout this conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pursued his own political and military agenda at odds with Washington’s calls for negotiations and de-escalation. Yet the flow of U.S. arms has continued. FP deputy editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky is joined by Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of DAWN, an organization working to reform U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and Dennis Ross, who was Washington’s point person in Middle East peace negotiations under two U.S. presidents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each week, FP deputy editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky and his guests will tackle one pressing question from two opposing points of view.  Listen in as an international cast of diplomats, journalists, academics and activists from around the globe debate controversial issues that get to the heart of the world’s biggest dilemmas.  This season’s debates include, “Should the United States withhold military aid from Israel?”; “Should the Global South Denounce Russia’s war in Ukraine?”; "Does Maximum Pressure on Iran Work?” and “Should the UK rejoin the EU?” Counterpoint is a Foreign Policy Podcast, in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Global cooperation can often seem broken. On our final episode of Global Reboot, we look at how to reboot international relations for a multipolar era. Multilateral institutions seem increasingly ineffective, and even outdated, as emerging economies demand more of a role and countries form alliances and blocs outside of these institutions. In such a scenario, what can be done to improve cooperation to meet global challenges? Borge Brende joins Global Reboot to discuss this and much more. Brende is the president of the World Economic Forum. He previously served as Norway’s minister of foreign affairs from 2013 to 2017. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The “global south” encompasses countries with such varied interests and ideologies that the term may no longer be a useful tool. Yet, if the Western world hopes to counter Russia’s and China’s increasing aggression, rebuilding strong relationships with these countries is more important than ever. C. Raja Mohan is a senior fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi. He joins Ravi Agrawal to discuss how to reengage with the global south and whether the term is even still relevant today. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The global community has set a goal of preserving thirty percent of our oceans by 2030. How will we reach that goal? And what’s at stake for ocean biodiversity if that target is missed?  Monica Medina is the president and CEO of Wildlife Conservation Society, and the former United States' Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2023 is on track to be the worst year on record for refugees. And the figures for internally displaced people—communities forced to move within their own countries to escape conflict or natural disaster—are even worse. How do we fix this? Kelly T. Clements, the deputy high commissioner at the U.N. agency tasked with responding to this crisis, joins Global Reboot to discuss solutions to this growing problem. This episode was recorded as a special live taping in September at the United Nations General Assembly. You can watch the video version of this live taping here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPt7kI5KI3E Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world’s first comprehensive piece of legislation regulating artificial intelligence could be on the cusp of being approved. The European Union’s AI Act would set guardrails for the technology without curbing innovation. Eva Maydell, a member of the European Parliament, is one of the act’s key drivers and joins host Ravi Agrawal to share her insights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship has global implications, with most Democrats and Republicans in Congress calling for a more hawkish approach. Rep. Andy Kim disagrees, calling instead for a foreign policy focused more on coalition building.  Kim sits on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He’s one of the few members of Congress who has visited China. And when speaking with leaders and policymakers from the region, he says they tell him that “the [United States] cannot be the instigators of the tension. … You need to show that you are a responsible global power.” The Democratic representative from New Jersey joins Ravi Agrawal for this special FP Live taping of Global Reboot. You can watch the video version of this interview here. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her latest book, The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality, science journalist Angela Saini argues that it’s not biology alone that formed the basis for the patriarchy. The history of the patriarchal state is much more complex. For example, one of the most radical attempts to overhaul gender inequality came from an unlikely actor: the Soviet Union.  Saini joins host Ravi Agrawal to discuss how to reset gender norms in our workplaces, homes, and communities. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rory Stewart is a longtime administrator of foreign aid, from working as a diplomat in the field to the highest levels of government. He now heads GiveDirectly, one of the world’s fastest-growing nonprofits, which is popularizing direct cash transfers as an effective way to alleviate poverty. He joins Global Reboot host Ravi Agrawal to share his insights. Rory Stewart previously served as a cabinet member in the British government and is the host of the popular podcast The Rest is Politics. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Global Reboot returns for a new season. Join host and Foreign Policy editor in chief Ravi Agrawal as he talks with top policymakers and thinkers focused on solving the world’s biggest problems. New episodes drop every week starting on Oct. 27. Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For much of the 20th century, the United States has toggled between two foreign policy impulses: to actively insert itself in the affairs of the world or to hang back and focus on its own domestic issues. Advocates of the two approaches to international relations have had various designations, including liberals and realists, or interventionists and isolationists. But these days, the world is shifting more dramatically than in decades, with the rise of China as a political and economic power and the increasing belligerence of Russia towards its neighbors. With those changes underway, is that old dichotomy still relevant? And what is America’s proper role in the world? FP Editor in Chief Ravi Agrawal sat down recently with political scientist Stephen Wertheim to discuss these very questions. Wertheim, a senior fellow at the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has written about the issue extensively, including in the pages of Foreign Policy.  We are featuring their conversation in the last episode of our podcast, Global Reboot. The show is produced by Foreign Policy in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As countries grappled with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years, many turned to global financial agencies for support, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But in some cases, at least, the agencies’ playbook of reforms and austerity in exchange for loans, no longer seemed suitable. The IMF and the World Bank—along with the United Nations and the world’s other dominant international organizations—were created after World War Two, to serve the global order at the time. In the decades since, that order had changed dramatically. Are these institutions serving the world in the best possible way?  To answer that question, Foreign Policy’s Editor in Chief, Ravi Agrawal, sat down recently with Mark Malloch Brown, who spent years at the World Bank, the United Nations’ Development Program, and the United Nations thinking through these very issues. Malloch Brown is now president of the Open Society Foundations.  We’re featuring their conversation in the latest episode of our podcast Global Reboot. The show is produced by Foreign Policy in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In large parts of the world, economic and technological progress has made people’s lives significantly better over the past few decades. From China to Africa to Latin America, large swaths of the population are healthier and more prosperous than ever.   But even as humanity has achieved so much, human rights have regressed in many countries—including some of the wealthier ones. Why is that and what can people do about it? Those are two of the questions that came up in FP Editor in Chief Ravi Agrawal’s recent conversation with the former United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein. We’re featuring that conversation in the latest episode of our podcast, Global Reboot. The show is produced by Foreign Policy in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Analysts who study governance around the world have been warning for years that democracy is in decline, both in quality and quantity. Fewer countries can legitimately claim to be democracies. Among those that can, many are less democratic than they were just a few years ago.  This week on Global Reboot, Foreign Policy’s editor in chief, Ravi Agrawal, discusses the issue with Hélène Landemore, a political scientist at Yale University. Landemore has written widely about the crisis plaguing representative democracy, including in the pages of Foreign Policy. She argues for a more direct form of governance in which average citizens are involved in the decision-making at all levels.  Global Reboot is produced by Foreign Policy in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The climate and deficit reduction package that Democratic lawmakers agreed on last week earmarks some $370 billion dollars for much-needed energy and climate spending. That figure marks a victory for President Joe Biden and his climate initiative. But in the broader battle against climate change, the spending is just a tiny fraction of what’s needed. In fact, many experts now believe that finding the money to fix the problem of rising temperatures around the world is going to be a bigger challenge than figuring out the science. On this episode of Global Reboot, FP Editor in Chief Ravi Agrawal is joined by economic historian and author Adam Tooze to discuss climate finance. Who will pay for climate change adaptation? And will there be enough political will to get the job done? Global Reboot is a FP Partner Podcast with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six months ago, the food crisis around the world was dire. A combination of the coronavirus pandemic, supply chain issues, and extreme weather had compounded an already difficult problem. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and the situation became a whole lot worse. On this episode of Global Reboot, Foreign Policy’s editor in chief, Ravi Agrawal, discusses ways to address global food insecurity with Ertharin Cousin, the founder and CEO of Food Systems for the Future. Cousin was previously the executive director of the UN’s World Food Program. She also served as America’s ambassador to the UN agencies in Rome. Global Reboot is a FP Partner Podcast with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philippine authorities have arrested journalist Maria Ressa 10 times in the past two years. They’ve been threatening for years to shut down the media organization she runs, Rappler. And yet, even as the government in Manila becomes more repressive, Ressa has managed to produce some of the most probing and engaging journalism coming out of the Philippines. Last year, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. On the latest episode of Global Reboot, Foreign Policy’s editor in chief, Ravi Agrawal, sits down with Ressa to discuss the threat to free expression around the world and the ways people can fight back.  Global Reboot is produced in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices