Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Dr. Jung Pak - a former senior analyst at the CIA where she specialized on North Korea and who later served as the Special U.S. Representative for North Korea in the Biden Administration. Today she is a Distinguished Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy, and Strategy at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, and author of the book “Becoming Kim Jong Un and someone with more insight into the country than almost anyone in the world. Which is why it’s kind of incredible what she argues today: that North Korea is winning. In just a few years, North Korea went from a basket case to a country that’s never been wealthier with an army and military industry that’s never been more dangerous, fighting a war in Europe in which it plays an increasingly crucial role and a country that’s being courted by Russia, China and maybe even the U.S. to get Kim on their side.With Dr. Pak we talk about how and why did that happen, what is North Korea really doing in Ukraine and what both Russia and North Korea get out of it, why is North Korea’s military so much more capable today than a few years ago, why is the Trump administration cancelling exercises with South Korea to not provoke North Korea or why are North Korea concerned about what Kim Jong Un might do with all this newly found power he now has. And much more.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Michael Clarke, a military analyst, a visiting professor of Defence Studies at King’s College London and Defence Analyst at SkyNews - and this episode is a deep dive into all the chaotic developments happening around the war in Ukraine - and what will they mean going forward. We talk about the United States cutting of intelligence and starlink for Ukraine - why was it taken away and why was it now restored. About the strange and sort of shady negotiations happening, why does Kremlin now says it wants Europe to be a part of it and why are European leaders starting to call Putin on their own, about whether it will lead anywhere and if it’s not exactly what Russia wants and what does the fact the United States seems to have switched sides mean for Ukraine and its military strategy. And about who is winning the war at the moment, whether the long-range strikes, the movement on the frontline or something else is what really matters the most - and why Michael believes that the war is quickly approaching a breaking point.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Timothy Snyder - a historian working on Central and Eastern Europe, politics of Russia and Ukraine and democracy and the threats it faces. We talk about the spectacular shift of the United States to align with Russia against Ukraine, about what is real reason behind it, how far it can go and what it can lead to or about the future of Russia, Europe and the United States - and much more.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Dr. Vali Nasr, a Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University, specializing in Iran’s foreign policy and grand strategy. Seven months in we are at a strange point of the war that Vali calls a holding pattern and which seems like things are kind of stuck. But my guest argues that this status quo is not sustainable - that it doesn't work for either side and that very soon this phase will end - and that and that a next round of war is coming after - one that will be far more destructive than anything we’ve seen before.In this conversation, we talk about the theories of victory and strategies to win against both the United States and Iran, why they are mutually exclusive and why there can't be a negotiated deal. Why the American strategy to starve Iran out will not work, why this war is bound to expand and why Donald Trump has found himself in a similar quagmire as Vladimir Putin in Ukraine - and much more.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Margaret MacMillan, a historian and emeritus professor at the University of Oxford, whose latest work is focusing on the changing of the world order - the collapse of the rules based order that we used to live in and its replacement with something much more chaotic, unstable and dangerous.We talk about why today is as significant as the biggest milestones of the 20th century, like the world wars or the collapse of the Soviet Union, if current American foreign policy is here to stay or if it’s a period of momentary insanity, if there ever was a case of a superpower voluntarily destroying its own alliances and why is she increasingly concerned about America’s future, what will be the long term consequences of the war in Ukraine and what is the future of Europe, or why we are living in a time before a major - and what will that storm look like when it hits.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with David Gioe - a Professor of Intelligence and International Security at King’s College London and a former member of the US intelligence, serving in the CIA and specializing in clandestine operations and covert action. And one of the most qualified people in the world to speak on the increasingly important question of Russia’s campaign of asymmetric warfare in Europe, ranging from sabotage to assassinations and gradually intensifying further and further. We speak about what is Russia’s real strategy behind these attacks, what is it actually planning to achieve and whether it’s working, what has been Europe’s response and why does it seem so limited. About the risks and benefits of what Europe can do to stop Russia’s campaign, what happens if Europe hits back and Russia just keeps doubling down - and how do you escalate to de-escalate if your opponent is willing to take things much further than you are. And about what is actually going to happen - whether Europe will do something or not, whether the United States will join and how far exactly is Russia going to take all this.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Michael Kimmage, a Russia expert, the director of the Kennan Institute who previously served at the US Department of State, where he was responsible for the Russia/Ukraine policy planning. And although he is a big supporter of Ukraine, he has quite a different view of the war and where it is going than most Western analysts.The conventional wisdom is that although the end of the war is not around the corner, we are getting to a final stage - since Russia is coming under an increasing economic and political strain, its military progress is slow and the costs and the pain are growing. But according to Michael, none of that matters because even though the war is damaging Russia, it’s actually making its leader and his position stronger rather than weaker as the war and what he calls Putinism are now the same thing. And the logical conclusion that he argues is that the war is not going to end this year, the next or the one after - but that it’s likely to turn into a generational conflict and one that is unlikely to stay isolated to Ukraine.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with Peter Heather - a professor of history at the King’s College London and the world’s leading authority on the fall of the Roman Empire. Now this might sound a bit random since this is a podcast about contemporary geopolitics but Peter has recently written a book that takes his expertise much further. He makes an argument that all great empires of history go through the exact same cycle of rise and fall - including the present day American empire. And that just like Rome it’s fall is caused by the same thing that made it a superpower in the first place - and that just like for Rome, it’s now on a swift and inevitable fall down. It’s a fascinating argument and one of my favorite discussions that provides a great framework for how to think about today - and what it is that we are - unfortunately - heading towards.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/➡️ Check out Adm. Bauer's book: https://www.amazon.nl/You-Want-Peace-Prepare-War/dp/9046833992This is a conversation with Admiral Rob Bauer, a former Chief of Defence of the Dutch Armed Forces and until last year, the Chair of the NATO Military Committee - the most senior military officer role in NATO and one of the leading roles in the organisation. In that role, he has seen the secret intelligence on the Russian build up in 2021 and their invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He has been in the rooms where world leaders discussed the invasion and he was responsible for the Alliance’s response.All that makes this a unique conversation but today, he warns about a different war - a war between Russia and NATO. A war that he believes is likely coming - and that as he believes - we should all immediately prepare for.

➡️ Watch the full ad-free interview on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://decodinggeopolitics.substack.com/This is a conversation with George Barros, director at the Institute for Study of War and a long time Russia analyst with a deep insight into the war in Ukraine. He and his team believe that over the past 3 years, the war has essentially looked exactly the same with only minor changes - but that has now changed and after 3 years, we have now entered a new and very different phase of the war. And after 3 years of relative stability, things are now quickly becoming a lot more volatile, unpredictable and potentially a lot more dangerous. From the frontlines where both sides are increasingly pushing forward and using new tactics, the long-range campaigns are becoming increasingly destructive and intense to Russia, potentially preparing to attack a NATO member in the coming months and throw hundreds of thousands of new soldiers on the battlefield. And as the final limits that the war seemed to still have so far are increasingly coming off - it seems that things are about to get really out of control.