Cold War II: Niall Ferguson on The Emerging Conflict With China

Uncommon Knowledge | 1 May 2023 | 1h 01m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Niall Ferguson about the conflict over Taiwan: why it’s a cold war, when it started, how to avoid allowing it to become a hot war, and how to de-escalate and even win it. Along the way, discusses the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the role of the United States and Western Europe in both conflicts, and how we can avoid once again living under the threat of nuclear war as we did in Cold War I.

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False Narratives – A Path to a World of Conflict ft. Stephen Roach

Top Traders Unplugged | 19 April 2023 | 1h 01m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Stephen Roach about his book Accidental Conflict: America, China and the Clash of False Narratives. Delves into the deteriorating relationship between China and the US, offering insight into the complexity of the relationship and how it can be mended. Unravels the narratives that led to this new Cold War and suggests a path towards interdependency and healthier economies.

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Economic Warfare: Implications for Sanctions Today

ChinaTalk | 8 March 2023 | 1h 03m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Part 2 of an interview with Nick Mulder about his book The Economic Weapon. Discusses why the Great Depression made importing commodities cheaper, and how that affected Germany’s and Japan’s protectionism; the difference between autarky and autarchy; whether Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could survive a full-on fuel embargo today by using Nazi-era technology; “temporal claustrophobia” and what it has to do with Japan siding with the Axis; parallels between the “ABCD circle” (America, Britain, China, Dutch East Indies) and the semiconductor export controls today; why having an empire was a liability for Britain; what sanctions had to do with the Czechoslovaks – even with a larger army – falling to the Nazis; how the blockades of WWI differed from WWII; and what lessons pro-decouplers should learn from this history of sanctions.

 

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Economic Warfare: A History

ChinaTalk | 3 March 2023 | 1h 20m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Part 1 of a podcast with Nick Mulder about his book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War. Discusses the recent advent of the use of sanctions; why Europeans were reluctant to employ blockades and sanctions in the early 20C, and how their thinking evolved through two world wars; how Wilson’s notion of “moral sanctions” and decision to keep blockades in place after the war were important to the development of sanctions, especially during the interwar period; the League of Nations’ efforts to establish a “positive sanctions” fund, and why the concept never took off; why Hoover is underrated; and when and why Italy almost fought a war against Germany over Austria.

 

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Robert Kaplan: The Tragic Mind

The Book Club | 8 February 2023 | 0h 28m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Robert Kaplan about his book The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate and the Burden of Power. Argues that Greek tragedy has important lessons about how to navigate the 21st century. Reflects on how the book arose from his remorse at having influenced the Bush administration with his support for the Iraq War; why it still makes sense to think about ‘fate’ in a world without gods; and why George H W Bush was a paragon of the tragic mindset while his son George W Bush was a tragic hero.

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The End of History ft. Francis Fukuyama

The Neoliberal Podcast | 15 December 2022 | 1h 01m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Francis Fukuyama about how the ideas from his book The End of History and the Last Man apply to geopolitics today. Discusses whether neoliberalism is to blame for the rise of authoritarianism in recent decades, the contradictions that give strong states inherent weaknesses, and what he’s watching for to see if the world might experience another wave of democratization.

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Anarchy and Empire with Robert Kaplan

The Green Room | 4 January 2019 | 0h 43m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Robert Kaplan looking back on his 1994 article The Coming Anarchy. Traces the ambitions and disasters of the last three decades of American empire, from the early Nineties to the War on Terror and the retreat of the Obama and Trump years.

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Chris Coyne – In Search of Monsters to Destroy

Ideas Having Sex | 5 December 2022 | 1h 04m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Chris Coyne about his book In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace. Uses economics as a frame to critique American interventionist foreign policy. Argues that liberalism cannot be advanced with illiberal means and suggests alternative approaches to conflicts that promote peace.

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