Departures Podcast with Rebecca Tapscott, author of ‘Arbitrary States: Social Control and Modern Authoritarianism in Museveni’s Uganda’
Yoweri Museveni’s 35 years of iron-gripped ruthless authoritarianism in Uganda did not take place in a vacuum. It has instead been a years-long process of converting the country’s institutions into instruments of arbitrary power, which has been fueled by a series of targeted moves to destabilize the social coordination that would be needed to hold […]
Departures Podcast with Klaus Dodds, author of ‘The New Border Wars: The Conflicts That Will Define Our Future’
It was once the dream of starry-eyed proponents of globalization that the increasing pace of trade, travel, and exchanges of ideas would lead to a “borderless” world of reduced conflict and cosmopolitanism. Instead, the opposite has happened, as the lines and demarcations between nations struggling to manage their conflicts have become paramount and subject to […]
Departures Podcast with David Claydon, founder of Kaya Group
As world leaders gather in Scotland for the COP26 climate change summit this week, there’s a tremendous level of scrutiny not over the ambitions but the shortcomings of the world’s biggest sources of emissions. This week, Departures is pleased to invite David Claydon, the founder of Kaya Group, which is an advisory firm which helps […]
Departures Podcast with Douglas London, author of ‘The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence’
Many of us have wondered what it would be like to be a real spy. Not necessarily the James Bond-esque car chases and shootouts, but the real practice of exercising tradecraft in the field, recruiting and handling assets, and maintaining such a complex web of relationships between your colleagues, family, and sources. There could possibly […]
Departures Podcast with Shivshankar Menon, author of ‘India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present’
We are no longer living in a unipolar world of US dominance, argues India’s brilliant former Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon in the latest episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam, but neither have we transitioned to multipolarity or whatever is coming next. Former Ambassador Menon’s new book, “India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present,” is slightly […]
Departures Podcast with Patrick Wyman, Author of ‘The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World’
History is not a single continuum. There are certain stretches in which momentous change occurs in a very compact timeframe. The forty-year period between 1490 and 1530 is one of these bursts of revolutionary change. In The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World, Patrick Wyman, a historian and the host of […]
Departures Podcast with Serhii Plokhy
Looking back almost 60 years ago when the United States and the Soviet Union came within an inch of destroying the world via all-out nuclear war, we continue to gain new insights into the dramatic events, the changing of thinking and decision-making that went on in both ExComm and the Presidium. This week we’re proud […]
Departures Podcast with Martin Sherwin, author of ‘Gambling with Armageddon’
As Kennedy and Khrushchev just barely navigated their way out of a world-destroying nuclear armageddon, there remain many lessons to be explored with regard to statecraft, diplomacy, and decisionmaking in a crisis. The Pulitzer-winning historian joins the Departures podcast this week to discuss his book, “Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban […]
Special Departures Podcast Episode on Afghanistan featuring Alexander Cooley
The rapid collapse of Kabul in the final weeks of the US withdrawal has forced a reckoning of not only Washington’s failure in the region but broader questions about US foreign policy and what the Biden administration wants (or is actually able) to achieve. This week Departures with Robert Amsterdam is pleased to welcome a […]
Departures Podcast with Robert Draper, author of ‘To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq’
The chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and rapid fall of Kabul to the Taliban brought back in sharp focus the misguided policies of the George W. Bush administration that led the US into the War on Terror. In “To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq,” Robert Draper, a […]
Russia News Blast
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RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – August 17, 2021
Today in Russia: Moscow’s change in tone about the Taliban; Russia ready to work with Taliban, which it says is “restoring order; Russia jails 4 Crimean Tatars for “extremism”; Russia’s battle for the Black Sea; Russia’s inflation battle paying dividends in bond market; Hackers against drugs
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RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – August 16, 2021
Today in Russia: Russia to partially evacuate staff from Kabul embassy; Russia in talks with the Taliban; Moscow envoy demands that ex-President Ashraf Ghani be “punished” for leaving his country, denied landing rights in Tajikistan; Likely winners in September Duma elections; US to review Russia’s status as ‘market economy’
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RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – July 15, 2021
Today in Russia: Prosecutor wants 6-year suspended sentence for Calvey; Election monitor decries new restrictions on live polling feeds; Proekt and more declared undesirable foreign agents; Russian swimmers suspended from Tokyo games over doping allegations; Get out, stay out of Central Asia, Russia tells US post-Afghanistan on post-Afghanistan presence in the region; Biden and Merkel to discuss Nord Stream 2
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