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Rana Dasgupta – After Nations

    The Making and Unmaking of a World Order

    Conflicted | 09 September 2026 | 1h 34m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify

    Interview with Rana Dasgupta about his book After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order. Traces the nation-state’s origins as a recent, anomalous invention, arguing its 200-year supremacy is now ending. Discusses how sacred empires gave way to bounded states, secular liberalism emerged as a displaced theology, and industrialisation weaponised democracy and welfare. Argues international law was designed less to prevent war than to secure property and global capitalism. Posits a return to an 18th-century norm of diverse political forms, where tech firms resemble new East India Companies, and climate change and mass migration challenge the sedentary order. Explores the modern state’s theological underpinnings, showing how God’s displacement by the state created new forms of control and identity, with current geopolitical shifts mirroring 1914 but without a clear successor.

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    Jordan Schneider Thinks the Real AI Race Is About Compute, Not Models

      The Spillover | 28 July 2026 | 1h 2m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify

      Interview with Jordan Schneider of ChinaTalk discussing the escalating AI race and safety crisis. Backgrounds the incident where OpenAI models autonomously hacked Hugging Face, prompting the Trump administration to pivot from deregulation to suppressing model releases. Meanwhile, China is closing the capability gap, with Xi Jinping promoting “open-weight” models as a global influence tool. Debates whether catastrophic risks like cyberattacks or bioweapons will force US-China cooperation. Predicts China will prioritise safety once its own models misbehave.


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      Michael McFaul – Autocrats vs. Democrats

        Uncommon Knowledge | 2 March 2026 | 1h 12m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
        Interview with Michael McFaul about his book Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder. Explains why Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and today’s autocratic leaders fundamentally do not think like we do – and why that misunderstanding has shaped some of America’s most consequential foreign-policy mistakes. Traces Russia’s post–Cold War slide back into autocracy; challenges the claim that NATO expansion caused the rupture with Moscow; and argues that the true threat to authoritarian regimes is democratic example rather than Western military power. Examines the war in Ukraine, its implications for Taiwan, the limits of transactional diplomacy with ideologues like Putin, and the enduring lessons of Cold War statecraft. Reflects on his unlikely journey from Butte, Montana, to Spaso House – the Moscow home of the U.S. ambassador to Russia – and why he remains convinced that democracy, however fragile, is still the West’s greatest strategic advantage.

        Is this the Chinese Century?

          Plain English with Derek Thompson | 29 April 2025 | 1h 06m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
          Interview with Rush Doshi and Kurt Campbell about their Foreign Affairs essay Underestimating China: Why America Needs a New Strategy of Allied Scale to Offset Beijing’s Enduring Advantages. Backgrounds China’s manufacturing dominance and suggests that the United States closely align with allies to match China’s scale.

          Tom Friedman Thinks We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong

            The Ezra Klein Show | 15 April 2025 | 1h 08m | Listen Later | Spotify
            Interview with Tom Friedman on his NY Times opinion piece I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America. Argues that the Washington consensus on China – that the country is a hostile adversary – is dangerous and based on an outdated understanding of what China now is. Discusses what he saw in China, which suggests China’s manufacturing and technology have advanced to surpass the United States. Suggests a different China policy direction and that the United States develop its domestic manufacturing capability.

            The Soviets’ Bid for Global Power

              ChinaTalk | 24 March 2025 | 1h 50m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
              Interview with Sergey Radchenko about his book To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Bid for Global Power. Assesses the thinking of Soviet and Chinese leaders as they wrestle for global power and recognition, discussing why legitimacy matters in international politics; Stalin’s colonial ambitions and Truman’s strategy of containment; Sino-Soviet relations during the Stalin era and beyond; the history of nuclear blackmail, starting with the 1956 Suez crisis; and why Khrushchev couldn’t save the Soviet economy.

              Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

                ChinaTalk | 26 February 2025 | 1h 39m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
                Interview with Eddie Fishman about his book Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. Discusses the past 20 years of American sanctions policy: the evolution of U.S. sanctions policy, from Iraq and Cuba to Iran and Russia; how Reagan’s deal with the Saudis turned the dollar into an economic chokepoint; the success of sanctions against Iran, and how that playbook could have been used to punish Russia; historical lessons in enforcement relevant for export controls on China today; the role of great civil servants like Stuart Levey, Daleep Singh, Victoria Nuland, and Matt Pottinger in building state power; institutional challenges for economic warfare and the consequences of failure to reform; and strategies for writing groundbreaking books about modern history.