Carnegie Council Podcasts

With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting all aspects of daily life around the world, what will be the effect on international relations? Will it increase cooperation among nations, or will it lead to more conflict and competition? Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev and host Alex Woodson discuss these scenarios and also touch on how the virus has affected the Democratic primary, in which Joe Biden now has a commanding lead.

On February 29, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement that could potentially end the longest-running war in American history. Jonathan Cristol, author of "The United States and the Taliban before and after 9/11," discusses the specifics of the deal, the role of the Afghan government, women's rights, and how this all fits into the worldview of the Trump administration.

Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev looks at the foreign policy discussions after Super Tuesday, with only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders left with realistic chances at the Democratic nomination. When it comes to the U.S. role in the world, what are the big differences between these two candidates? Is Biden's "restorationist" agenda risky? And looking ahead to a post-Trump future, how have relationships changed between the U.S. and its allies?

Are there norms when it comes to cybersecurity? How should governments regulate this emerging domain? What's the role of the private sector? SIPA's Jason Healey discusses all this and more with cybersecurity analyst Alicia Fawcett. Plus, he explains some of the risks associated with cyberattacks and why, so far, they haven't escalated into anything "kinetic."

UC Berkley's Professor Stuart J. Russell discusses the near- and far-future of artificial intelligence, including self-driving cars, killer robots, governance, and why he's worried that AI might destroy the world. How can scientists reconfigure AI systems so that humans will always be in control? How can we govern this emerging technology across borders? What can be done if autonomous weapons are deployed in 2020?

With record-breaking winter warmth in Europe, catastrophic fires in Australia, and deadly flooding in Indonesia, we are deep into a climate crisis. In this wide-ranging talk, Janos Paztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G), talks about his organization's work on the governance of emerging technologies that intentionally seek to change the Earth's climate system, including carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation modification.

Peter Asaro, co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, has a simple solution for stopping the future proliferation of killer robots, or lethal autonomous weapons: "Ban them." What are the ethical and logistical risks of this technology? How would it change the nature of warfare? And with the U.S. and other nations currently developing killer robots, what is the state of governance?

With the (incomplete) results of the Iowa Caucus putting the spotlight on Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, what do we know about their foreign policy platforms? How do they differentiate themselves from Joe Biden? Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev shares his thoughts and touches on voters' possible perception of Sanders as a "socialist" and how climate change could become an issue in this election.

How much do morals matter for U.S. presidents when it comes to international affairs? What are the ethics of "America First" or the 2003 invasion of Iraq? Joseph Nye, former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, works through each presidency from FDR to Trump and scores their foreign policy on three ethical dimensions of their intentions, the means they used, and the consequences of their decisions.

At the end of World War I, colonial powers carved up the Ottoman Empire and the reverberations are still being felt today. Historian Ted Widmer discusses the circumstances that led to this fateful episode and why Woodrow Wilson wasn't able to extend his principle of "self-determination" to the Middle East. How should we think about the Trump-Netanyahu peace plan in the context of what happened in Palestine in 1919?