The Foreign Affairs Interview
- Episodes
- 100
- Released
- weekly
- Latest episode
- Nov 12, 2026
About the podcast
Foreign Affairs invites you to join its editor, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, as he talks to influential thinkers and policymakers about the forces shaping the world. Whether the topic is the war in Ukraine, the United States’ competition with China, or the future of globalization, Foreign Affairs’ weekly podcast offers the kind of authoritative commentary and analysis that you can find in the magazine and on the website.
Episodes 100
Is China Aging Out of Power? A Conversation With Carl Minzner
In 2021, China’s population hit a peak of 1.4 billion and then rapidly started to decline. This demographic picture presents enormous challenges in its own right. But Carl Minzner stresses in a new essay in …
Show notes
In 2021, China’s population hit a peak of 1.4 billion and then rapidly started to decline. This demographic picture presents enormous challenges in its own right. But Carl Minzner stresses in a new essay in Foreign Affairs that what makes China’s future “especially bleak” is the convergence of a demographic decline and political paralysis. This, Minzner argues, is the real story of twenty-first-century China. That convergence will define Chinese foreign policy, threaten Chinese stability, and call into question the future of Chinese Communist Party rule.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Minzner, a scholar of China at Fordham University and the Council on Foreign Relations, about the drivers of these demographic trends; about how and why Xi Jinping and Chinese policymakers are making the problem worse rather than better; about what those problems portend for Chinese power in the decades ahead; and about why all of this should serve as a warning for 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.
The Coming Battles Over American Foreign Policy: A Conversation With Kori Schake and Thomas Wright
The Democrats’ sweeping victory in the midterm elections this week marks not only the start of a new phase for Donald Trump’s foreign policy. It also kicks off a more intensive discussion among both Democrats …
Show notes
The Democrats’ sweeping victory in the midterm elections this week marks not only the start of a new phase for Donald Trump’s foreign policy. It also kicks off a more intensive discussion among both Democrats and Republicans about the future of American foreign policy beyond Trump.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with two foreign policy veterans who have participated in these debates inside and outside government, including in Foreign Affairs. Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, served in the State Department and on the National Security Council under George W. Bush. Tom Wright was senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council under Joe Biden and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
All of these debates will have to contend with big questions about specific policies, from China and the Middle East to AI and defense spending. They also involve deep and often bitter fissures between and within parties. Meanwhile, the war in Iran is far from resolved and the specter of an already unpredictable president’s lame-duck period introduces even more uncertainty about what the world will look like when Trump leaves the White House for good in January 2029.You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
A Warrior’s View of Why War Fails: A Conversation With William McRaven
William McRaven spent four decades in the U.S. military as a Navy SEAL, a four-star admiral, and head of U.S. Special Operations Command. He led the 2003 operation that captured Saddam Hussein and oversaw the …
Show notes
William McRaven spent four decades in the U.S. military as a Navy SEAL, a four-star admiral, and head of U.S. Special Operations Command. He led the 2003 operation that captured Saddam Hussein and oversaw the 2011 operation that killed Osama bin Laden. But in a new essay in Foreign Affairs, McRaven focuses not on the potential of military force but on its limits—limits that American policymakers frequently disregard, at immense cost. He warns of a persistent “American delusion—our excessive faith in the capacity of military power to achieve victory and thereby fundamentally political ends.” And while the Trump administration’s war in Iran may offer a particularly stark example of this delusion, McRaven worries that the problem will get worse rather than better in the future.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with McRaven on October 26 about the war in Iran and Ukraine; about the damage to civil-military relations and military culture under President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; about how technology is, and is not, transforming the battlefield; and about the risks of a strictly transactional foreign policy for the durability of American power.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
What India’s Protests Reveal About the Future of Liberalism: A Conversation With Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing his biggest challenge since taking office in 2014. But in an essay in Foreign Affairs, Pratap Bhanu Mehta argues that the youth protests that have swept New Delhi …
Show notes
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing his biggest challenge since taking office in 2014. But in an essay in Foreign Affairs, Pratap Bhanu Mehta argues that the youth protests that have swept New Delhi don’t just pose a test for Modi’s authority—they may also mark an inflection point for India itself. “The future of Indian democracy,” Mehta writes, “hinges on whether this contest opens up more democratic space or leads to greater repression.”
Deputy Editor Kanishk Tharoor spoke with Mehta, an analyst of Indian politics and University Lecturer at Princeton University, on October 19 about Modi’s power, about what these protests can and cannot achieve, and about what the battle in India means for the future of liberal democracy around the world.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Iran’s Long War: A Conversation With Ali Vaez and Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar
Nearly eight months since it began, the war in Iran has settled into a grim stalemate. Two essays in the new issue of Foreign Affairs consider just how long this stalemate could continue—and what …
Show notes
Nearly eight months since it began, the war in Iran has settled into a grim stalemate. Two essays in the new issue of Foreign Affairs consider just how long this stalemate could continue—and what decision-makers in Tehran think they can achieve in the coming months. In “The New Forever War,” Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group argues that Iran prefers deadlock to any plausible compromise with Washington. In “Why Iran Escalates,” Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of Texas A&M argues that Tehran will pursue a more ambitious goal: forcing the United States out of the Middle East altogether.
Senior Editor Daniel Block spoke with Tabaar and Vaez on Monday, October 12 to discuss U.S. and Iranian strategies, the future of Iran’s Axis of Resistance, and the durability of a regime that Western policymakers have often underestimated.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Russia’s Widening War on Europe: A Conversation With Julianne Smith
Since the start of the war in Ukraine almost five years ago, Russia has mounted ever more aggressive attacks in Europe, far from the battlefield. These attacks were long talked about as a form of “hybrid …
Show notes
Since the start of the war in Ukraine almost five years ago, Russia has mounted ever more aggressive attacks in Europe, far from the battlefield. These attacks were long talked about as a form of “hybrid warfare.” But as Julianne Smith, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, notes in a new piece in Foreign Affairs, they have reached a level of risk and flagrancy where that label may no longer apply. And these attacks come in the context of escalation in Ukraine and dissension in the transatlantic alliance, as the Trump administration calls into question basic commitments to Europe.
Smith has warned of the dangers of Russian escalation and urged NATO to do more in response. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to her on Tuesday, October 6, about the options for raising the cost on Russia—as well as about the future of the war in Ukraine and the prospects for the United States and Europe in the wake of President Donald Trump.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
What America and China Fear Most About AI: A Conversation with Kyle Chan and Helen Toner
Over the course of just a few months, artificial intelligence has become one of the most central issues, and one of the most fraught issues, in the relationship between the United States and China. Policymakers …
Show notes
Over the course of just a few months, artificial intelligence has become one of the most central issues, and one of the most fraught issues, in the relationship between the United States and China. Policymakers in Washington and in Beijing simultaneously worry about which country’s tech sector has the advantage and wonder whether the search for advantage will itself lead to catastrophe for both countries and everyone else. Recent bilateral meetings, including the one last week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, have yielded only minimal progress toward cooperation—agreement to start talking about talking about AI.
Kyle Chan is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Helen Toner is executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Both fairly uniquely combine deep knowledge of AI and deep knowledge of China, which they bring to their work in Foreign Affairs and beyond. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Chan and Toner about how the two countries think and approach AI, with real differences as well as some new convergences; what it means to compete; and what it will take for the United States and China to find some way to reduce the biggest risks.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Caught in the Middle of the Iran War: A Conversation With Anwar Gargash
By all accounts, Iran’s neighbors, even those long at odds with the Islamic Republic, opposed the U.S.-Israeli war that began on February 28. Yet it is those Middle Eastern states that have paid some of the …
Show notes
By all accounts, Iran’s neighbors, even those long at odds with the Islamic Republic, opposed the U.S.-Israeli war that began on February 28. Yet it is those Middle Eastern states that have paid some of the highest costs in the months since. As their governments grapple with the consequences of a war that is still far from settled, they are also struggling to shape a new Middle Eastern order. But there is little consensus about what that order should be—or what it should mean for relationships with the United States and China, for future economic models, or for the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Anwar Gargash is one of the region’s most experienced diplomats and foreign policymakers. He long served as the minister of state for foreign affairs in the United Arab Emirates, and is now diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Gargash on Monday, September 21, about the war in Iran and where it may end; the UAE’s rift with Saudi Arabia and approach to Israel, Gaza, Sudan, and more; and what a new, better Middle Eastern order might look like.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
How to Understand the New Age of War: A Conversation With Lawrence D. Freedman
By some measures, there is more war in the world today than at any point since World War II. Today’s wars have brought a level of destruction, disruption, and global risk that would have been hard to imagine …
Show notes
By some measures, there is more war in the world today than at any point since World War II. Today’s wars have brought a level of destruction, disruption, and global risk that would have been hard to imagine not long ago, often in places where such combat seemed a thing of the past. Policymakers once again worry about nuclear use, and military planners once again contemplate war between great powers, including the United States and China, and NATO and Russia. And all of this comes as the Trump administration dismantles key pieces of the international system and technology scrambles expectations about how wars start, unfold, and end.
No one has left a greater mark on our understanding of wars past and present than Lawrence Freedman. Freedman has written a slew of definitive books on military strategy and history, and he has offered some of the most penetrating analysis of Iran, Ukraine, and more, in Foreign Affairs and elsewhere. He is emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Freedman on Monday, September 14, about the course of today’s conflicts; about what is and is not changing in the nature of war; and about why policymakers, military officers, and strategists so often start wars based on bad assumptions—and how those bad assumptions explain some of the biggest calamities in global security today.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The Iran Shock Is Not Over: A Conversation With Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O’Sullivan
When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz six months ago, the world seemed on the verge of an energy crisis that would upend economies, governments, and much else. It was, as Meghan O’Sullivan and Jason Bordoff …
Show notes
When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz six months ago, the world seemed on the verge of an energy crisis that would upend economies, governments, and much else. It was, as Meghan O’Sullivan and Jason Bordoff pointed out in Foreign Affairs at the time, the largest disruption of global energy flow in history.
The world’s ability to manage that disruption has been surprising—the crisis many expected has not come. But in just the last few years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fits and starts of the green transition, and the AI buildout have remade energy markets and the politics undergirding them—and shown energy to be a devastating economic weapon. Bordoff and O’Sullivan have mapped out this new energy order across a series of essays for Foreign Affairs. They warn that the relative stability of recent months cannot be cause for complacency.
Bordoff is director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and was senior energy adviser in the Obama administration. O’Sullivan is director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center and was the deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to them on Tuesday, September 8, about the future of the Strait of Hormuz; China’s clean-energy dominance and the Trump administration’s Venezuela oil deal; and how the return of the energy weapon is transforming geopolitics and national security.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
What Does China Want? A Conversation With Jessica Chen Weiss
There has been no shortage of dizzying shifts in American foreign policy since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. But perhaps none have been as surprising as the shift on China. In his first …
Show notes
There has been no shortage of dizzying shifts in American foreign policy since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. But perhaps none have been as surprising as the shift on China. In his first term, Trump helped create a hard-line consensus centered on fears of a growing threat. Now, he seems much more interested in striking deals—as he presumably will be when Xi Jinping comes to Washington later this month.
Many analysts of U.S. China policy have reacted to this reversal with dismay. But Jessica Chen Weiss sees it as an opportunity to forge a more sensible approach. Weiss, a professor and the faculty director of the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former State Department official, has warned of the dangers of zero-sum thinking about China in a series of essays for Foreign Affairs. Her most recent essay, in the September/October issue, focuses on the myth and the reality of China’s critical mineral dominance.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Weiss on August 31 about what China wants—which is also the title of her forthcoming book—and what U.S. foreign policy can do to meet those ambitions without resorting to dangerous confrontation.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Afghanistan After America: A Conversation With Laurel Miller and Graeme Smith
Five years ago this month, the United States ended its war in Afghanistan. Washington’s exit was chaotic; as Taliban forces swept through the country and the U.S.-backed government collapsed, officials …
Show notes
Five years ago this month, the United States ended its war in Afghanistan. Washington’s exit was chaotic; as Taliban forces swept through the country and the U.S.-backed government collapsed, officials scrambled to evacuate tens of thousands of Afghans who might fall victim to repression and retribution. In the years since, Afghanistan has practically vanished from American foreign policy discussion. But the situation in the country remains dire, and the collective forgetting of the United States’ longest war carries costs of its own.
Laurel Miller and Graeme Smith have each spent many years working on and within Afghanistan. Miller, now president of the Asia Foundation, was a longtime U.S. diplomat who became a top official focused on Afghanistan from 2013 to 2017. Smith worked as a political affairs officer for the United Nations in Afghanistan from 2015 to 2018 before serving as an Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Miller and Smith on Tuesday, August 25, about the lessons and legacy of the American war in Afghanistan, how the country has changed under Taliban rule, and the questions that U.S. policymakers should grapple with moving forward.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Is a Post-American World Inevitable? A Conversation With Kurt Campbell, Rush Doshi, and Mark Leonard
Ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, a big question has loomed over any discussion of global politics: How much of the change he has brought to U.S. foreign policy, and to the …
Show notes
Ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, a big question has loomed over any discussion of global politics: How much of the change he has brought to U.S. foreign policy, and to the international system, will endure beyond this presidential term?
Two essays that open the new issue of Foreign Affairs offer different answers to that question. Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi, two senior officials in the Biden administration, argue that the U.S. alliance system will not just survive Trump but can emerge stronger, even better suited to countering China and its partners. Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, argues that policymakers in allied capitals and beyond must accept that the United States has fundamentally changed—and get ready to survive a more turbulent and contested world.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan wanted to bring Campbell, Doshi, and Leonard together in one conversation to lay out and test these contrasting arguments. They spoke on August 12 about possible futures for U.S. foreign policy—and what those paths mean for a global order built by a very different United States.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
From the Archive: How the Past Shadows China's Future: A Conversation With Odd Arne Westad
At the end of last year, editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with the historian Odd Arne Westad about China’s complicated past and how that history shapes the way Chinese leaders see their country’s place in the …
Show notes
At the end of last year, editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with the historian Odd Arne Westad about China’s complicated past and how that history shapes the way Chinese leaders see their country’s place in the world today.
Policymakers and analysts argue over the implications of China’s rise, the extent of its ambitions, the nature of its economic influence, and the meaning of its growing military strength. Underlying these arguments is a widespread sense that where Beijing once seemed likely to slot comfortably into a U.S.-led international order, China now poses a profound challenge to American interests. And as leaders in Beijing watch Washington struggle against Iran, rankle allies and partners, and retreat from the international system it built, they sense a moment of opportunity—and are looking to their own history for the lessons, or warnings, it might hold.
No one brings more perspective to these arguments than Westad. In a series of essays in Foreign Affairs over the past few years, Westad has explored the drivers of China’s foreign policy, its approach to global power, and its fraught ties with the United States. He sees in the long arc of Chinese and global history a stark warning about the potential for greater conflict, including a war between China and the United States. He also, however, sees lessons for policymakers today about how to avert such an outcome.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Cyberwarfare in the AI Age: A Conversation With Jen Easterly
It’s been nearly 15 years since Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned of a “cyber–Pearl Harbor.” Since then, most people have become fairly inured to such a risk. That’s true even as there’s been a steady …
Show notes
It’s been nearly 15 years since Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned of a “cyber–Pearl Harbor.” Since then, most people have become fairly inured to such a risk. That’s true even as there’s been a steady clip of cyberattacks on the United States and other countries, some of them quite alarming, and even as a new, more powerful AI model is released by an American or Chinese lab seemingly every week.
Jen Easterly has spent much of the past 20 years defending U.S. cyberspace against such threats. She has been both a military officer and a top civilian official, most recently running the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Now, she warns, the danger is about to get much worse. For all the talk of AI-enabled cyberattacks, and the attention on scarily powerful models from American labs like Anthropic and OpenAI and from their Chinese counterparts, Easterly worries that the world still fails to appreciate both the magnitude of the threat and the speed with which a true crisis could be approaching. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Easterly on Thursday, July 30.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The End of Free Trade: A Conversation With Robert E. Lighthizer
Almost no one in the last several decades has done more to change the American approach to trade than Robert Lighthizer. Lighthizer was the U.S. trade representative in President Donald Trump’s first term. In …
Show notes
Almost no one in the last several decades has done more to change the American approach to trade than Robert Lighthizer. Lighthizer was the U.S. trade representative in President Donald Trump’s first term. In that role, he set out to reverse Washington’s long-standing commitment to a global trading system. It was a crusade—using tariffs, among other tools—that targeted China above all but also any other country that, as he saw it, benefited from that system at the expense of the United States.
Lighthizer recently laid out his vision for a new trade order in Foreign Affairs. With Trump levying tariffs and wielding American economic power against both allies and adversaries, Lighthizer argues that the free trade system should be thrown out, replaced with one that is more balanced, sovereign, and transparent.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Lighthizer on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday, July 15.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The Future of Palestine: A Conversation With Salam Fayyad
In the nine months since a cease-fire ended full-on war in Gaza, the world’s attention has in many ways moved on. That has been especially true since February, with the start of the war in Iran. But the …
Show notes
In the nine months since a cease-fire ended full-on war in Gaza, the world’s attention has in many ways moved on. That has been especially true since February, with the start of the war in Iran. But the situation in Gaza remains grim and unsettled, and the state of affairs in the West Bank has become increasingly fraught. Meanwhile, the way forward for Palestinian politics is murky, and the prospect of any durable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems more remote than ever.
Salam Fayyad served as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, after a long career at the International Monetary Fund. In many capitals, including Washington, Fayyad is still considered one of the most effective Palestinian leaders of recent decades.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with him on July 15, on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum, about his proposals for building a Palestinian state, delivering humane and effective governance in Gaza, and finding a viable way forward for the Palestinian cause.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The End of American Military Dominance? A Conversation With Paul Scharre
The war in Iran pitted two of the world’s mightiest militaries against one weakened by years of strikes, sanctions, and sabotage. And yet it was the smaller country that appears to have emerged with the …
Show notes
The war in Iran pitted two of the world’s mightiest militaries against one weakened by years of strikes, sanctions, and sabotage. And yet it was the smaller country that appears to have emerged with the advantage. In Ukraine, similarly, Russia expected an easy victory, only to be repeatedly thwarted by apparently outmatched Ukrainian forces. These outcomes may seem surprising. But Paul Scharre argues that they should not be. The innovations that have in recent years transformed battlefields have also leveled the playing field between powers great and small. And as Scharre wrote in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, the U.S. military is unprepared for a new age of warfare in which drones, AI, and other emerging technologies undercut the dominance it has become used to.
Scharre, the executive vice president of the Center for a New American Security, served as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan and then went on to craft Pentagon policy on drones and autonomous weapons systems. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with him about what the wars in Iran and Ukraine should tell us about the future of warfare more generally, about what China is learning from those wars, and about what the United States must do to adapt.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
What China Thinks It Can Gain From a Disordered World: A Conversation With Oriana Skylar Mastro
Like the rest of us, China’s leaders are confronting a world in turmoil. They see uncertain American commitments to allies, even as many of those allies ramp up their own defense efforts. They see changing …
Show notes
Like the rest of us, China’s leaders are confronting a world in turmoil. They see uncertain American commitments to allies, even as many of those allies ramp up their own defense efforts. They see changing relationships, whether deepening ties between Russia and North Korea or new connections among anxious middle powers. They see American military action in the Middle East and Western Hemisphere, with effects on American power in China’s own region.
And yet, as Oriana Skylar Mastro sees it, far from surprising Beijing, such disruptions are being taken as confirmation of what Chinese leader Xi Jinping often refers to as “great change unseen in a century.” Mastro has written a series of essays for Foreign Affairs on how Beijing aims to shape and exploit that change. She joined Dan Kurtz-Phelan to discuss China’s strategy for navigating this turmoil—and what the United States should, and should not, do in response.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The AI Race Nobody Can Win: A Conversation With Sebastian Mallaby
The breakneck pace of AI progress and the intensity of the competition for AI supremacy has left U.S. policymakers in a difficult position. They must encourage the innovation needed to ensure an advantage over …
Show notes
The breakneck pace of AI progress and the intensity of the competition for AI supremacy has left U.S. policymakers in a difficult position. They must encourage the innovation needed to ensure an advantage over China and to power economic growth; protect against a national security catastrophe; and assuage the concerns of an anxious and skeptical public.
Sebastian Mallaby calls this the “AI trilemma” in his most recent essay for Foreign Affairs. And he argues that it requires more than the piecemeal measures currently on offer in Washington—or, for that matter, in Beijing or Brussels. Mallaby is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the host of a new podcast called The Spillover, as well as the author of The Infinity Machine, an excellent new book about the founding of the AI lab DeepMind.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with him on June 24 about the state of AI competition, about the stakes of that competition, and about how its course will reshape societies, economies, and global politics.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
America, Iran, and a World in Turmoil: A Conversation With Ian Bremmer
The war in Iran may have come to an end, but both the course and the conclusion of that war have brought into sharp relief the forces that increasingly define a world of weaponized power and systemic risk …
Show notes
The war in Iran may have come to an end, but both the course and the conclusion of that war have brought into sharp relief the forces that increasingly define a world of weaponized power and systemic risk: unconstrained leaders willing to gamble with military force; the search for, and use of, economic leverage; technologies destabilizing both decision-making and development models; and old alliances fracturing and new alignments forming.
Ian Bremmer is a leading geopolitical analyst and the president and founder of the Eurasia Group. His most recent piece for Foreign Affairs is about the long-term consequences of the Iran war, but he has also written on shifts in global power, the effect of technology on geopolitics, and much else. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Bremmer on Monday, June 22, about how to make sense of today’s global turmoil.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Is the Iran War Coming to an End? A Conversation With Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr
The Iran war may be coming to an end, as Washington and Tehran prepare to sign a framework agreement later this week. That deal should reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the blockade of Iranian ports, even as …
Show notes
The Iran war may be coming to an end, as Washington and Tehran prepare to sign a framework agreement later this week. That deal should reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the blockade of Iranian ports, even as it leaves unresolved the issues that brought both sides to war in the first place, including the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. But policymakers in Washington and other capitals are just starting to confront the ways in which the war has transformed Iran—and how it could transform the Middle East moving forward.
In a recent essay for Foreign Affairs, Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr argue that members of a new, emboldened generation of Iranian leaders are forging an entirely new approach to their own society, to the United States, and to the region. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Bajoghli and Nasr on June 15 about the potential implications of a deal—and about how the last three and a half months of war will shape both the Middle East’s trajectory and the future of geopolitics more broadly.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Is Cuba Next? A Conversation With Michael J. Bustamante and Ricardo Zuniga
U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that he will have the “honor of taking Cuba.” Although the administration has not specified what that might mean, following interventions in Venezuela and Iran over the …
Show notes
U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that he will have the “honor of taking Cuba.” Although the administration has not specified what that might mean, following interventions in Venezuela and Iran over the past six months, there is reason to take seriously the possibility of some kind of forceful U.S. action, including military action. Already, a combination of U.S. pressure and the Cuban government’s own failures has resulted in unrelentingly dire conditions on the island—leading many to expect some kind of break before long.
In recent weeks, two of the sharpest observers of Cuba and U.S. policy toward Cuba have written essays in Foreign Affairs on the choices facing policymakers in both Havana and Washington. Michael Bustamante is chair of Cuba and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami. And Ricardo Zuniga is a longtime U.S. official who served at the embassy in Havana and helped lead the secret talks that brought the Obama administration’s opening to Cuba. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Bustamante and Zuniga on June 8 about what U.S. policymakers could and should do in the coming weeks and months—and what those decisions will mean for Cuba’s future.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Are America’s Allies Finally Learning to Deal With Trump? A Conversation With Philip H. Gordon and Mara Karlin
Six months ago, Philip Gordon and Mara Karlin wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs about the plight of the United States’ allies in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. What was surprising, they argued, was …
Show notes
Six months ago, Philip Gordon and Mara Karlin wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs about the plight of the United States’ allies in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. What was surprising, they argued, was not the administration’s cajoling and threats, or all the ways U.S. policy had called into question the basic principles of these relationships. The surprise was that allies were surprised by these moves in the first place. Almost a year into Trump’s second term, they had done little to develop a plan B.
The months since have brought a wave of new challenges to U.S. alliances—the threats to seize Greenland and pull out of NATO, the continued warnings to free-riders, the shifting approach to China, and a war in Iran launched with little consultation even of the Gulf leaders who would be most directly affected.
Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Gordon, who was national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, and Karlin, who was assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration, on June 1. They discussed how the responses of U.S. allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have evolved over the course of Trump’s second term, and how those responses will shape and constrain U.S. power in the years ahead.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
How to Prevent the Next World War: A Conversation With Thant Myint-U
The world today is more dangerous and more violent than it’s been at any time since 1945. States everywhere have jettisoned commitments to cooperation and opted for aggression. The so-called rules-based order …
Show notes
The world today is more dangerous and more violent than it’s been at any time since 1945. States everywhere have jettisoned commitments to cooperation and opted for aggression. The so-called rules-based order seems to have come apart. Yet the international body founded after World War II with the charge of preventing World War III finds itself increasingly on the margins.
In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, the historian and former UN official Thant Myint-U considered what it would take for the United Nations to regain a meaningful role in preventing and managing global conflict. That question is particularly relevant as the UN begins the process of picking its next secretary-general. Deputy Editor Kanishk Tharoor spoke with Thant about the past and future of the United Nations, and about how the pillars of global peace can be reinforced before they collapse.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Does Trump Have a Strategy? A Conversation With A. Wess Mitchell
Both of Donald Trump’s presidential administrations have prompted sharp debates about the direction of U.S. foreign policy. But how to discern a strategic logic behind Washington’s approach, and whether it’s …
Show notes
Both of Donald Trump’s presidential administrations have prompted sharp debates about the direction of U.S. foreign policy. But how to discern a strategic logic behind Washington’s approach, and whether it’s even possible to do so, have been particularly vexing questions since Trump returned to the White House.
A. Wess Mitchell helped shape these debates as assistant secretary of state in Trump’s first term, and he has been uniquely interested in shedding light on them since, including in a number of essays for Foreign Affairs. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Mitchell on Monday, May 18, about how he understands the strategy driving Trump’s second-term foreign policy, and where, after Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping and with wars in Iran and Ukraine far from settled, he thinks that strategy should go from here.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The View From the Front Row of the Trump-Xi Summit: A Conversation With Orville Schell
Orville Schell may be the United States’ greatest chronicler and observer of several decades of U.S.-Chinese relations. Foreign Affairs was extremely lucky to have him in Beijing this week for the summit …
Show notes
Orville Schell may be the United States’ greatest chronicler and observer of several decades of U.S.-Chinese relations. Foreign Affairs was extremely lucky to have him in Beijing this week for the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. It was not the first time Schell has had a front-row seat at a meeting of U.S. and Chinese leaders. Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to him on Friday, May 15, about how he read the interactions between Xi and Trump, what they did—and did not—say about the hardest and most dangerous issues in the U.S.-Chinese relationship, and how this could mark an inflection point for the two countries.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
When Two Superpowers Meet: A Conversation With Nicholas Burns
Not long ago, it was practically a truism to say that a hard line on China was the only real bipartisan position in American foreign policy. To the extent such a consensus ever existed, Donald Trump has upended …
Show notes
Not long ago, it was practically a truism to say that a hard line on China was the only real bipartisan position in American foreign policy. To the extent such a consensus ever existed, Donald Trump has upended it in his second term—leaving considerable uncertainty about just what he wants to achieve when he travels to China to meet with Xi Jinping this week, and what Xi hopes to achieve in return.
To make sense of how the Chinese are approaching the summit and the options U.S. policymakers have at their disposal, Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Nicholas Burns, a longtime American diplomat who served as ambassador to China until January of 2025.
In this special bonus episode recorded on Thursday, May 7, Burns discusses the issues that will take center stage when Trump meets Xi—from trade and technology to Iran, Taiwan, and Ukraine—and the enormous stakes for U.S.-Chinese competition going forward.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Trump, Putin, and Genghis Khan: A Conversation With Fiona Hill
Fiona Hill has spent her career trying to understand—and, in one case, advise— leaders with grandiose ambitions, high risk tolerance, and an unshakeable sense of themselves as world-historic figures. She has …
Show notes
Fiona Hill has spent her career trying to understand—and, in one case, advise— leaders with grandiose ambitions, high risk tolerance, and an unshakeable sense of themselves as world-historic figures. She has been a close observer of Vladimir Putin for decades, as a scholar and a member of the U.S. intelligence community. In Donald Trump’s first term, she was a senior member of the National Security Council before becoming a household name during Trump’s first impeachment, for testifying about his relationship with Putin and with Volodymyr Zelensky.
Now, Hill is watching as Trump and Putin, as well as Xi Jinping and others, upend global order, and policymakers everywhere try to navigate the most turbulent period in recent memory—while the rest of the world tries to discern what might come in its wake.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Hill on the morning of Tuesday, May 5, about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the predicament faced by American allies, and what Trump’s second-term foreign policy will mean for the future of American power.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Learning to Live With a Nuclear North Korea: A Conversation With Victor Cha
For most of the past few decades, North Korea was considered a top challenge for American foreign policy. In the past few years, however, it has mostly receded from attention—not because the U.S. approach to …
Show notes
For most of the past few decades, North Korea was considered a top challenge for American foreign policy. In the past few years, however, it has mostly receded from attention—not because the U.S. approach to the problem succeeded but because it so completely failed. U.S. policy insisted that North Korea could never become a nuclear power, yet North Korea’s program has accelerated year by year, threatening not just American allies, but now the American homeland. U.S. policy aimed to isolate the Kim family’s totalitarian regime, yet the North Korean leadership has managed to skillfully navigate the new geopolitics, solidifying its rule and bolstering ties with both China and Russia. The commitment to pursuing nuclear weapons no matter the cost has looked especially savvy in the wake of U.S. attacks on Iran.
Victor Cha has long been one of the foremost practitioners and analysts of U.S. policy toward North Korea. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, he argues that Washington must reckon with this long record of failure and craft a new strategy for managing the North Korea problem, one that gives up for now on denuclearization and tries to achieve what Cha calls a cold peace.
Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Cha on Monday, April 27, about the misjudgments at the heart of U.S. policy; about the nature of the North Korean threat today; and about what a new approach would mean for the United States, for the Korean peninsula, and for Asia more broadly in the years ahead.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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