Angry Planet

On July 26, a military junta deposed and imprisoned Niger’s duly elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. You are probably saying three things—perhaps all at the same time:

Where the hell is Niger? Who is Bazoum? Why the fuck would I care?

That’s what this episode is all about. We answer those three questions and fill you in on the context around the event as well as the region where it happened, the Sahel, which is where Saharan Africa meets sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a place that’s at the mercy of natural disasters like severe drought and extreme flooding, and human disasters like mismanagement of the land and laws, jihadists, and just plain bandits.

Aneliese Bernard joins us and knows what she’s talking about to a simply frightening degree. When not slumming on podcasts like ours, Bernard is director at Strategic Stabilization Advisors and Director of Research and Programs at Elva Community Engagement, and formerly worked in the Sahel with the U.S. State Department.

She’s not a spy. She said so herself.

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Christopher Atwood returns to the show this week to talk about a report he helped write for at the New Lines Institute. It’s an in-depth analysis of Russia’s ongoing genocide in Ukraine.

Here’s a link to the report:

The Russian Federation’s Escalating Commission of Genocide in Ukraine: A Legal Analysis

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Joe Cirincione is back on the podcast this week to walk us through the science of nuclear weapons and give us his preliminary thoughts on Oppenheimer.

Cirincione is a national security analyst and author with over 40 years of experience. He’s been a congressional staffer, a program director, a philanthropist, an advisor the the State Department and three presidential campaigns. Now, he writes at a substack.

He’s recently completed a six part series detaling the history of the nuclear world. Get started on it by clicking below.

https://joecirincione.substack.com/p/history-of-the-nuclear-world-part

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Freelance journalist Kelsey Atherton joins Angry Planet to talk about Oppenheimer. The movie does a good, but not perfect, job with history and tends toward mythmaking. Matthew loved it and Atherton had some issues with it. In this wide-ranging conversation that covers nuclear history, our renewed atomic fears, and the people left out of the story, the two nuclear journalists dissect Hollywood’s latest blockbuster.

The People Building AI with 'Existential Risk' Are Really Not Getting 'Oppenheimer'

We Are All Oppenheimer

Atherton’s Wars of the Future Past

12 Books and Movies to Check Out After 'Oppenheimer'

What ‘Oppenheimer’ doesn’t tell you about atomic bombs

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When you’re talking about disasters, natural and manmade, it’s always the first responders—soldiers, police, EMTs—who get all the credit. But what about the people who not only support the first responders, but who help people once the front line has moved on?

On this show, we talk a lot about wars and weapons and such. We talk about geopolitics and strategy. We rarely talk about people who are working to make things just that little bit better.

Today we’re changing that in the case of Ukraine. We’re going to talk about humanitarian efforts and what’s happening to people—not just soldiers—on the ground.

Joining us are Britta Ellwanger of For Peace and Nelli Isaieva of Helping to Leave. Their efforts, and the efforts of those they work with make a huge difference in people’s lives in Ukraine, getting civilians and soldiers the aid they need when they need it, but also helping people get out of some pretty sticky situations using mostly the power of the mobile phone.

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On this subscribers only episode of Angry Planet, Kremlin expert Mark Galeotti comes on to walk us through the military and political machinations of Russia’s “adhocracy.” According to Galeotti, Russia is a modern state that’s run by a Medieval court.

He walks us through the implications of the Wagner mutiny, the different court players, and what the future of Putin’s court might be.

Here’s Mark’s piece in The Economist that details Putin’s “self inflicted wounds.”

Mark’s excellent podcast In Moscow’s Shadows is avaiable everywhere.

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Nobody outside of the Kremlin—and maybe inside the Kremlin, too—knows exactly what happened over the last weekend. We do know that Yevgeny Prigozhin led something that looked like a rebellion against Vladimir Putin’s government. 

Columns of troops and tanks turned toward the motherland and elements of the Wagner Group made it inside of 200 miles from Moscow. What did Prigozhin really want? And what happened to end the crisis? And is the crisis really over?

Joining us today is Mark Katz of George Mason University. He’s a longtime Russia watcher and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, in addition to his teaching duties.

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Ukraine’s counteroffensive is well under way. One of the best places to go to get stories and reporting about what’s happening is counteroffensive.news, a substack run by former U.S. Army Medic and NPR investigative journalist Tim Mak.

He’s here with us today to talk about the war, the counteroffensive, and the charms of Kyiv.

This is my mom’s brain on Russian propaganda

French fighter for Ukraine, musing about God, heads to the frontlines; update on early counteroffensive

She secretly sneaks to the frontlines to feed cats and dogs in the ruins of her city

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The results of Turkey's presidential election are finally in and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been forced into a runoff against his chief opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, gets to keep his job as leader of NATO’s most troublesome member.

Were the elections free and fair? Meh, says Foreign Policy/Council on Foreign Relations expert Steven Cook. This week he joins us to wrap up one of the world’s most anticipated elections—even if the suspense was never more than mild.

Erdogan isn’t either a benevolent dictator or a tyrant. He's an authoritarian of his own flavor—and at least 52 percent of Turks can’t get enough of it. In the 20 years he's been in power, he's mostly been a man for his moment, mixing Islamist beliefs with strong ties to at least military modernity. Before the May 28 vote, the 69-year-old had won many elections—by a lot. He was a popular reformist mayor of Turkey’s largest and most storied city, Istanbul. He did so well there that he and his Islamist Justice and Development Party, AKP, moved up to the national stage.

So, Steven, what’s next for Erdogan and the rest of the world that has to deal with him?

Listen to the show to find out.

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World War II is still killing people. Unexploded ordnance, the remnants of globe spanning conflict, litters the fields of Europe and the waters of the Pacific. The world spends a lot of money and time cleaning up UX in Europe and helping its victims. In the Pacific? Well, there it’s a different story. Especially in the Solomon Islands.

Thomas Heaton is a reporter for Civil Beat and the author of its ‘Lethal Legacy’ series, which focuses on the devastation World War II is still wreaking in the Pacific.

Civil Beat’s Lethal Legacy series.

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