Decoding Geopolitics Podcast

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Dr. Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute. Jack works closely with the British military on the development of concepts of operation, assessments of the future operating environment, and conducts operational analysis of contemporary conflicts. In this conversation, we talked about two wars that Russia is currently waging: an overt one against Ukraine and a covert war against the West. Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon - and if you want to support what I'm doing, do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon as well.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Jake Broe, a former Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer and one of the biggest Youtubers providing daily updates on the war in Ukraine.

We talked about why Jake thinks Donald Trump will leave NATO, why the war will end with a political and economic collapse of Russia and much, much more.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
This is a conversation with Mykola Bilieskov, a Ukrainian analyst and a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies of Ukraine institute under the Ukrainian presidential administration.

We talked about why Ukrainians are hesitant to join the military, why Western model of support for Ukraine is not working anymore, why he is more worried about the next year than this one and why NATO might have to join the conflict one way or another.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Minna Alander - a research fellow at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs who's focusing, among other topics on Finnish security and defence policy, Nordic defence cooperation and Arctic security. 

Finland is quite an exception among European countries - because while today many are panicking and trying to make up for years of underfunding, Fins seems to be quite calm - as they have been ready to fight Russia on their own for decades - as they have done in the past in multiple iconic conflicts.  

In this conversation we talk about why is Finland prepared for war better than almost anyone else, what is the Finnish perspective of the Russian threat, how did Finland joining NATO completely changed the calculus for both NATO and Russia and what would a Russian invasion fo Finland look like.

Thank you to everyone who is supporting this podcast on Patreon - it's incredibly helpful. And now, enjoy the conversation. 

This is a conversation with Thomas Van Linge - a freelance journalist and a researcher covering the world's forgotten conflicts, including the civil war in Myanmar. Recently, he came back from a research trip to the rebel-held areas in Myanmar where he stayed with the rebels, visited the frontlines and saw up close what the war looks like.

In this conversation, we talk about why is the military starting to lose and how close it is from a final defeat, why is Russia supplying the military dictator, what is China's role in the conflict and what will happen to Myanmar once the dictatorship falls.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Ben Hodges, a retired three star general of the US army, the former Commander of US Army Europe and someone who spent more than three decades as a military officer and achieved one of the highest posts in the US Armed Forces.

In this interview, we discussed what the latest military package means for Ukraine, why the West seems to prioritize avoiding escalation more than defeating Russia, whether we should send troops to Ukraine, how could Ukraine retake Crimea or whether we should worry about the fall of Putin's regime. 

Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon - and now, enjoy the conversation.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
This is a conversation with Lukas Milevski, a professor at Leiden University and an expert on strategy and defense and security of the Baltic countries. In this interview, we talk about what would happen if Russia invades the Baltics, how prepared they are, if they could be successful and how big of a risk it actually is.

Thank you to everyone supporting this podcast - and now, enjoy the conversation.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Brian Hart - a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and an expert on China's military and its foreign and security policy. We talked about what is the real capability of China's military, whether it's a paper tiger or if it's prepared and ready to take Taiwan by force, if 2027 is the year when we should expect the war to happen or how ready is Taiwan to fight back. 

This is a conversation with David Gioe. David has two decades of experience as an intelligence officer, starting his career in the FBI and then joining the CIA, first as an analyst and later as an field-qualified operations officer. He deployed a number of times overseas and worked on counter-intelligence, clandestine operations and covert action. After retiring from the CIA, David has moved to academia and today he works as a professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and he is a visiting professor of Intelligence and and International Security in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

We talked about how the world of intelligence really works, how it has changed since the cold war or how agents working in the field do their job at a time when anonymity is increasingly disappearing. And how the CIA manages to stay ahead of the Russians, why Chinese spies work differently than anyone else and much much more. 

Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon. If you want to follow David you can go to his Twitter or website and now, enjoy this conversation.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Mark Galeotti - an honorary professor at UCL, a senior associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute, director of Mayak Intelligence and one of the most renowned experts on Russia and Russian politics.

We talked about the attacks in Moscow - whether he thought it could have been a false flag, or whether the Russian propaganda will succeed in shifting blame to Ukraine. And about the broader picture - when might the war in Ukraine end and how, whether Russia is weaker than it looks and much more.

Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast on Patreon, and now enjoy the conversation.

➡️ PATREON:  https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Support this podcast on Patreon, help me make more episodes and get bonus content, early access and ask questions to the upcoming guests.

Dr Ulrike Franke is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who's focusing on German Security, Foreign and Defense policy and has a deep insight into the inner workings of German political and security institutions.

We talked about how Germany has changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, why it struggles so much to rebuild its military, why it still refuses to provide Taurus missiles to Ukraine, whether the German public has abandoned its pacifism or whether Germany should get a nuclear bomb.

Thank you to everyone who's supporting this podcast on Patreon and now enjoy the conversation.

Follow Dr. Franke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RikeFranke

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Alex Vatanka - a Tehran-born expert on Iranian domestic and foreign policy and a director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute.

In this conversation we talk about Iran's geopolitical strategy - what is it trying to achieve, what are its motivations and goals but also about whether it would benefit from a large regional war, to what extent it controls Hamas, how stable is the Iranian regime and much much more.

Thank you so much to everyone for supporting this podcast. And now enjoy the conversation.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

Support this podcast on Patreon, help me make more episodes and get bonus content, early access and ask questions to the upcoming guests.

This is a conversation with General Mick Ryan. Mick is a former high commanding officer in the Australian Army and today works mostly on the topic of the future of war. He wrote two excellent books - War Transformed in which he explains how technology will shape future conflicts and White Sun War - a fictional account of war over Taiwan in which he brings these ideas to life and shows how devastating a superpower conflict would look like. In this interview we talk about all of that and much more.

Enjoy the conversation.

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics Support this podcast on Patreon, help me make more episodes and get bonus content, early access and ask questions to the upcoming guests.
This is a conversation with Szabolc Panyi, a leading Hungarian investigative journalist who's been working for years on Hungarian Russian relations and Russian influence activities in Hungary.

He was trying to help me understand why Viktor Orban acts like a Russian Trojan Horse, what is he trying to get from the European Union and what's behind the unlikely alliance between him and Tucker Carlson. And now enjoy the conversation. 

Do you want to support the podcast and get bonus content, early access and much more? Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with Vlad Vexler, a fellow Youtuber and a political philosopher with excellent insight into the Russian state and society. We talked about Navalny, Tucker Carlson's Putin interview, why there is a lack of opposition to Putin's regime and what would it take for someone to successfully challenge him and many other things. It was one of the most interesting conversations I've had on the channel so far and I have a lot to think about now. 

Listen to the full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

This is a conversation with David Rennie, a China-based reporter for the Economist, a head of their Beijing Bureau and a co-author of an excellent podcast on China, the Drum Tower. David has lived and worked in China for decades, he speaks fluent Chinese and talks to both Chinese officials and people on the ground on a regular basis. 

And so we talked about whether the Chinese leadership wants to take Taiwan by force and if it's preparing to do that, why the growing disillusionment with the economy is making the government very nervous and why even Chinese leadership has to care about what people think. And about many other things. Thank you to everyone who has decided to support this podcast on Patreon, it means a lot. And now enjoy the conversation.

You can find the bonus part of the interview on ➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

Support this podcast on Patreon, help me make more episodes and get bonus content, early access and ask questions to the upcoming guests.

Check out Anders's YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@anderspuck

This is a conversation with Anders Puck Nielsen, a military analyst at the Royal Danish Defence College, a former Captain in the Royal Danish Navy and a fellow Youtuber. We talked about which of the two sides in the war in Ukraine actually has time on their side, why Russians use meat wave tactics, why do we misunderstand what a NATO-Russia conflict would look like and how can Ukraine win this war. And many other things. 

Thank you to all the people who support this podcast on Patreon because you make this possible. And now enjoy this conversation. 

0:00 - Intro

01:19 - Ukraine War & Naval Warfare

09:59 - Ukraine War & Air Warfare

09:59 - Ukraine War & Air Warfare

14:39 - Land Warfare & Russian "Meat wave" Tactics

29:41 - How can Ukraine Win the War?

41:11 - Who has time on their side?

44:27 - What if General Zaluzhny gets replaced?

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics
Support this podcast on Patreon, help me make more episodes and get bonus content, early access and ask questions to the upcoming guests. This is a conversation with General Richard Shirref. General Shirreff was one of the highest ranking British military commanders and a second in command of NATO forces. He has been warning of the Russian threat long before it became mainstream and in 2016, after he left the military he published a book called War with Russia in which Russia attacks Ukraine and afterwards continues to invade the Baltics, catching NATO completely unprepared - a book that was meant as a warning for what might be coming. In this conversation, we talk about why he was one of the few people who saw the threat clearly years before everyone else, why it would be extremely dangerous to underestimate the Russians and how prepared is NATO for a Russian aggression. Richard is extremely candid in his answers and he's not afraid to be critical and say things as they really are and so I think it's an extremely interesting conversation. Thank you to everyone who supports this show on Patreon because you make this possible, and now enjoy the podcast. 00:00 - Intro 01:17 - Predicting Russian Invasion 06:51 - Why we refused to see the Russian threat 11:09 - Russian Invasion in 2022 13:15 - Underestimating the Ukrainians 18:05 - Overestimating the Russians 21:55 - The Russian Threat for NATO 34:06 - How Prepared is NATO? 36:54 - The state of the British Military 40:42 - Do we need to introduce conscription? 44:31 - Is Taiwan a window of opportunity for Russia 46:47 - Can Europe defend itself without the U.S.?

➡️ PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

Listen to the full episode on Patreon, get Patreon-only episodes, early access and ask questions to the upcoming guests by helping me make more episodes and becoming a supporter.

This is a conversation with George Barros. George leads the team at the Institute for the Study of War that is responsible for tracking and analyzing the war in Ukraine and making daily updates on what is going on in the battlefield and on the strategic level. They are now the most quoted think-tank in the world and so there is a good chance that you have seen George's work before. 

In this conversation, we talk about the shape of the Russian military as it's getting ready for a major offensive against Ukraine, what are the real Russian losses and when will the Russians finally run out of tanks and whether Russia would and could attack NATO. And we also talked about the work of his team at ISW, how they track and analyze the conflict and how open source intelligence is changing the character of war. Enjoy the conversation. 

This is a conversation with Francis Farrel, an Australian-born journalist based in Ukraine, Working as a reporter focusing on the war and often reporting directly from the frontlines for the Kyiv Independent, a major Ukrainian English-language newspaper.

We talked about what the situation on the ground in Ukraine looks like, what is the strategy for 2024, how long can Ukraine last without further Western aid or whether journalists should be publishing negative stories about Ukraine in time of war. Make sure that you check out Kyiv Independent, it's a great source of news directly from the source and I also recommend following Francis on Twitter as he shares some really interesting stuff. And now, enjoy the conversation.  

If you want to support the podcast, you can do so here: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics 

00:00 - Intro

01:45 - Situation on the ground in Ukraine

05:29 - Ukraine's Strategy for 2024

10:51 - Is Ukraine Ready for Defense?

16:52 - Rift Between Military and Political Leadership

24:52 - Why Approval for Zelensky Is Going Down

29:07 - How long can Ukraine last without foreign aid

35:01 - What Trump Re-Election Would Mean for Ukraine

39:46 - Ukraine and Further Mobilization

47:04 - Should journalists publish negative stories about Ukraine?

54:46 - Good News from Ukraine

This is a conversation with Mark Cancian. Mark is an incredibly accomplished scholar and a soldier - he has spent three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, served in Vietnam, the Operation Desert Storm and the Iraq War and he has taught and worked at Harvard and John Hopkins Universities and today he serves as a Senior Advisor at the Washington think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But the reason we talked today was because last Mark was one of the leads on an incredibly interesting project that took place last year - the largest and most complex publicly available wargame of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Using an incredible amount of data, a large number of players and 25 iterations, Mark and his colleagues tried to simulate what would happen if China attacked. In this conversation we talked about how this invasion would go down, what would be its result, whether the United States military is ready for it and how to stop it from escalating into a global conflict. You can find the report from the wargame in the description below and now enjoy the podcast.   

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

Wargame report: https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan

00:00 - Intro

01:24 - What would a Chinese invasion look like?

18:19 - Do Chinese wargames have the same results?

23:29 - How should the U.S. military prepare?

34:25 - Is the United States prepared for the mass casualties?

37:05 - Why the U.S. Air Force Needs To Change

39:45 - “The Anti-Chinese Coalition”

43:39 - How to prevent an escalation into a global conflict

46:20 - Probability of a Chinese Invasion

Robert Ward is a Japan Chair at the International Institute for Strategic Studies with decades of experience with Japanese security, defense and foreign policy. We talked about why Japan is abandoning its pacifism, how does it see the threat from China and whether Japan would join a potential war over Taiwan. Enjoy.

Dr. Christian Molling is a deputy director of The German Council on Foreign Relations's Research Institute and the head of its Center for Security and Defense and an expert on German and European foreign and security policy and defense industry.

And he is also a co-author of a recent report called Preventing the Next War which has received an unprecedented amount of attention across Europe and which calls on Germany and NATO to urgently prepare for a potential large-scale war with Russia that might happen in the next 6 to ten years.

Mark Galeotti is the director of the consulting firm Mayak Intelligence, honorary professor at UCL, former advisor to the Foreign Office and one of the most widely recognized experts on Russia and its security and foreign policy. We talked about why so many experts failed to predict the Russian invasion, whether Putin has a grand strategy and why Putin's regime is much more fragile than it seems. Enjoy.

Dr. Jade McGlynn is a researcher at King’s College London that looky at how Russia uses history to shape the present. We talked about why regular Russians support the war in Ukraine, whether Putin believes his own propaganda and why Ukraine is so incredibly important for him and for Russia in general. Enjoy.

How long Russia can sustain its war in Ukraine before its economy will fall apart? Why sanctions didn't work the way we expect them to? And why is the crumbling Russian economy more resilient than it seems?

Maximilian Hess is a Central Asia Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the founder of the London-based political risk firm Enmetena Advisory. He is also the author of Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West. His research focuses on the relationship between trade, debt, international relations, and foreign policy, as well the overlap between political and economic networks.