Tycho van der Hoog, "Comrades Beyond the Cold War: North Korea and the Liberation of Southern Africa" (Hurst, 2025)
North Korea was an important player in the decolonisation of Africa. Freedom fighters across the continent received vital assistance from Pyongyang, and almost all southern African independence leader...
16 Mar 202541min
Fractured Alliances: Trump, Ukraine, and Europe's Security Dilemma
In this episode, RBI director John Torpey speaks with Estonian parliamentarian and defense expert Kalev Stoicescu about the recent tensions between the United States and Ukraine following a contentiou...
15 Mar 202531min
Matthew Fuhrmann, "Influence without Arms: The New Logic of Nuclear Deterrence" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
How does nuclear technology influence international relations? While many books focus on countries armed with nuclear weapons, this volume puts the spotlight on those who have the technology to build ...
12 Mar 202557min
Cotton, Central Asia and the New Great Game
On this episode, rural sociologist Dr. Irna Hofman explores how Tajikistan’s cotton fields illuminate shifting power dynamics in Central Asia, historically and in the present. She discusses how the So...
10 Mar 202544min
Sabrina P. Ramet and Lavinia Stan, "East Central Europe Since 1989" (Routledge, 2025)
East Central Europe Since 1989 (Routledge, 2025) examines politics, economics, media, religious institutions, transitional justice, gender inequality, and literature, highlighting the overt functions...
9 Mar 20251h 29min
Kishore Mahbubani, "Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir" (Public Affairs, 2024)
Kishore Mahbubani, longtime Singaporean diplomat and academic, opens his new memoir with a provocative line: “Blame it on the damn British.” Kishore, who later served as Singapore’s ambassador to the ...
27 Feb 202541min
Doina Anca Cretu, "Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania" (Stanford UP, 2025)
The decades following World War I were a period of political, social, and economic transformation for Central and Eastern Europe. Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania (Stanford UP, 2025)...
26 Feb 202558min
Marion Laurence, "Intrusive Impartiality: Learning, Contestation, and Practice Change in United Nations Peace Operations" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Impartiality is a guiding principle in United Nations peace operations that has helped legitimize multilateral intervention in dozens of armed conflicts around the world. In practice, it has long been...
24 Feb 202549min
