American Prestige

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Danny speaks with Nando Vila, of the Shoot the Messenger podcast, about Sunday’s general election in Spain, including the issues at play, how it was something of a victory for the left, and more.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny welcomes back Aziz Rana, the provost’s distinguished fellow at Boston College, for a discussion of the US Supreme Court from a comparative international perspective. They get into the Court’s domestic role, when and how it assumed an anti-democratic function, how it compares with other supreme courts around the world, the possibility for reform, a…

Danny and Derek are joined by Noah Gordon, acting co-director of the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to talk about how violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) might be empowered by climate change and the responses to it. They get into how climate change will likely affect state capabilities, the strategic implications of increasingly inhospitable areas, how the wealthy might be insulated from VNSAs, resource conflicts, the role of climate migration, and more.

Check out Noah’s piece around which the episode is centered, “How Climate Change Helps Violent Nonstate Actors”.

Noah also recently wrote this piece for The New Republic on water scarcity near the Colorado River as well as this article for the journal Environment on climate finance.

Recorded on April 19, 2023

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny and Derek welcome back Gregory Brew, analyst at Eurasia Group in energy and Iran, for a discussion of the 1953 ousting of then-prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran. They discuss the background of Iran’s oil history starting with the 1901 D’Arcy Concession, Great Britain’s interest in and control of the commodity, the Tudeh party, the Abadan C…

Danny and Derek power through the heat to hit the headlines. This week: a new UN global poverty report (0:54), more depressing climate news (2:47), the UN ends Syrian aid operation (5:02), a Sudan update (6:40), protests in Peru (10:30), a defection to North Korea (12:28) and a ballistic missile test (13:45), Russia cancels Black Sea grain deal (14:40), Putin decides to skip August BRICS summit (18:20), Wagner apparently arrives in Belarus (20:25), a Ukraine war update (22:20) and a NATO summit (26:07), a Sweden/NATO update (29:11), and a New Cold War update featuring John Kerry in China (33:16) and the vice president of Taiwan coming to the US (35:08).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny and Derek welcome back Christopher McKnight Nichols, Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies and professor of history at Ohio State University, to the program for a chat about rethinking American grand strategy. They talk about what exactly “grand strategy” is, grand strategy vs. first principle, the role of WWII and the end of the Cold War in US grand strategy, PEPFAR and the Bush administration, climate change vs other low-success grand strategies, technology and grand strategy, and more.

Be sure to check out the volume Christopher co-edited, Rethinking American Grand Strategy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny welcomes back Terry Renaud, assistant instructional professor in social sciences at the University of Chicago, to the pod to conclude the series on “new lefts”. They discuss the legacy of the 1960s in the American imagination, criticisms of the new left movements of that decade, neoliberalism and the “‘Me Decade”, how the US higher education syste…

Note: Team AP is on the road this week, so no news. Instead, please enjoy this bonus episode on gaming!

Danny speaks with Clayton Kozan, a graduate student at Texas Tech University who analyzes how the Vietnam War is portrayed in video games. From 1980s-era games that have you playing as a lone wolf; to Call of Duty: Black Ops, which makes the Vietnam War about Nazis (??) and Soviets; to the more recent When I Was Young, which focuses not only on combat but the social experience of being a soldier, Danny and Clayton discuss how and why video games' portrayal of Vietnam changed over time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny welcomes Terry Renaud, assistant instructional professor in social sciences at the University of Chicago, back to the pod to continue the series on “new lefts”. This episode focuses on what most people know as “The New Left”, i.e. the new left movements of the 1950s and 1960s. They compare the new lefts of postwar decades vs. those in the prewar y…

Danny and Derek are back with the #1 news digest in Rákosszentmihály. This week: climate news featuring skyrocketing ocean temperatures and the return of El Niño (0:34), Israeli military strikes in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp (2:22), Saudi Arabia and Russia cut oil production (6:11), Afghanistan sees more restrictions on women and a grim aid forecast (7:53), Rapid Support Forces gradually gain ground in Sudan (11:07), the government and ELN guerillas cease offensive operations in Colombia (13:57), former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro temporarily banned from political office (15:42), NATO sees more Sweden-Turkey tension and another year for Jens Stoltenberg as secretary general (17:14), a Ukraine update featuring American cluster bombs (22:05) and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant threat (24:28), the whereabouts of Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin remain uncertain (27:04), and a New Cold War update with Janet Yellen in China (29:08) and the United States’ glorious return to UNESCO (30:40).

Recorded Thursday, July 6, 2023

Note: There will unfortunately be no news update next week, but we will unlock a fantastic episode for everyone!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com