Carnegie Council Podcasts

Driverless cars, designer babies, crypto currencies, cyber warfare, pervasive "sousveillance" that erodes our privacy, often with our consent--what are the upsides and downsides of this brave new world? Alec Ross, who is neither a utopian nor a dystopian, expertly guides us through it.

Around the world from Afghanistan to Nigeria, systemic corruption is fueling instability, declares Sarah Chayes in this electrifying conversation. And the United States and other enablers are part of the problem. "If we don't prioritize corruption more—and that means here as well as there—the world is going to become an increasingly dangerous place."

The migrant/refugee crisis is a defining moral issue for our generation, declares Peter Sutherland, UN special representative on international migration. And proximity should not define responsibility. It's a global responsibility.

Senior Fellow Devin Stewart speaks to scholar Jeffrey Wasserstrom, of University of California, Irvine, about the current state of Chinese media, politics, leadership, and human rights. They also discuss the country's anti-corruption campaign, Chinese history, and Wasserstrom's new book "Eight Juxtapositions: China Through Imperfect Analogies."

David Speedie discusses the situation in Ukraine with Nicolai Petro, including the political crisis for the governing party in Kiev, the situation in Eastern Ukraine, and the state of the Minsk accords.

The United States must stop its demonization of President Putin, according to members of this distinguished panel, all with long associations with Russia and all founding members of the American Committee for East-West Accord. Syria, Ukraine, the UN, nuclear weapons: compelling reasons why the United States and Russia must work together.

In the early days of the Arab Spring, non-violent civil resistance helped topple authoritarian governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. Yet these apparent triumphs were followed by disasters. What went wrong? Was the problem rooted in the popular movements themselves, or in their societies? And what's the best way forward now?

"What is Europe? Where is it going in this current crisis?" The answers are all here, from what Kaplan describes as the redivision of Europe into two Cold War halves over Russia's involvement in Ukraine, to the enduring importance of historical imperial borders, to Europe's urgent need for structural economic reform--and much more.

The term global governance grew up to describe the fact that there is an increasing number of civil society actors. Nevertheless, these new actors are not going to solve terrorism; they're not going to halt mass atrocities; they're not going to halt Ebola. States are still the main actors and they must be pushed and shoved by all the rest to take effective action.

"At this very moment, ISIS is recruiting probably 100 people a week from all over the world, including this very country. So it is not a European problem, it is not an Arab issue; it is a global threat and global challenge. That is why I insist on the fact that the threat has to be dealt with at the source, which is basically Syria."