Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share CONFLICTED
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
CONFLICTED
Based on Podcast App listening data
CONFLICTED episodes
- Re-Interrogating 9/11: A 25th Anniversary Debate
To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Aimen and Thomas take a deeper, wider look at the historical, ideological, and geopolitical context on either side of that momentous world-changing event.
Join the CONFLICTED COMMUNITY here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Aimen and Thomas discuss:
- Was 9/11 an ending as well as a beginning?
- The myth of the peaceful 1990s
- America inherited a geopolitical mess after the USSR's collapse
- America as a revolutionary power
- Could preserving Middle Eastern monarchies have prevented later disasters?
- Al-Qaeda and liberal globalisation
- Jihadism amid the wreckage of earlier promises
- Was the War on Terror a rupture or an acceleration?
- Bin Laden’s selective use of history
- History without a puppet master
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 7 min - The End of the Nation State?
Where did the nation-state come from—and what happens if the conditions that made it powerful are now disappearing?
Thomas discusses these questions and much more in this wide-ranging Conflicted Conversation with award-winning novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta, whose new book After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order sets out to explain where our world order came from and where it could be going.
Rana explains:
- The origins of the modern nation-state and the decline of universal sacred empires
- Louis IX, the Crown of Thorns and the sacralisation of the French state
- How Enlightenment political theology transformed God, sovereignty and individual rights
- Industrialisation, mass democracy, welfare states and the political power of workers
- Liberalism, populism and the changing relationship between elites and mass democracy
- The origins of international law in empire, property rights and global capitalism
- Why the postwar rules-based international order is now weakening
- The East India Company, Silicon Valley and the rise of quasi-sovereign corporate power
- China as an alternative model of state power and control over private capital
- Climate change, mass migration and whether the nation-state can survive a new ‘nomad century’
Find Rana on X: x.com/byranadasgupta
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small .
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 34 min - The Battle for Taiwan
In this Conflicted Conversation, journalist Chris Horton talks about his new book Ghost Nation: The Story of Taiwan and Its Struggle for Survival.
Chris explains:
- Why China wants Taiwan and why the island is vital to control of the western Pacific.
- Taiwan’s strategic position in the First Island Chain between China, Japan and the Philippines.
- How a Chinese invasion, blockade or maritime quarantine of Taiwan could unfold.
- Why a war over Taiwan could devastate global trade and the world economy.
- What Taiwan’s fall would mean for US power, Japan and the Philippines.
- Why Taiwan is an independent democracy but still officially called the Republic of China.
- Who the Taiwanese are: Indigenous peoples, Hoklo, Hakka and post-1949 mainlanders.
- How martial law, dictatorship and democratisation created modern Taiwanese identity.
- Why the Kuomintang, once Communist China’s enemy, is now Taiwan’s most Beijing-friendly major party.
- Whether Taiwan could eventually choose closer integration with China through democracy rather than war.
Find Chris on X: www.x.com/heguisen
Visit Chris’s website: www.chrishortonwriter.com
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small .
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 14 min - Trump's Strangulation Strategy
Aimen's prediction on 4 August came true, and in the intervening weeks the United States have ramped up the economic pressure on the Iranian regime. The question is: how with the IRGC react? The war re-escalated over the weekend, and as the Iranian people began to make their feelings felt, all indications are that peace is farther away than ever.
Aimen and Thomas discuss:
- Operation Economic Outcast: US sanctions and regional trade restrictions tighten Iran’s economic isolation.
- Strait of Hormuz: US demining, Gulf oil exports and Iran’s new underwater drone threat reshape the naval war.
- Iran’s economic crisis: collapsing rial, inflation, shortages and possible unrest increase pressure on the IRGC.
- UAE-Iran trade: Dubai’s historic commercial role shrinks as Gulf states join Washington’s economic campaign.
- US strategy in the Gulf: Trump administration cohesion, long-term military deployment and growing concern about China.
- Iran escalation risks: attacks on Gulf infrastructure, domestic repression and renewed US-Iran fighting.
- Tactical nuclear weapons: Aimen warns the conflict could cross the nuclear threshold if escalation continues.
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
58 min - Simon Sebag Montefiore: How the Modern Middle East Was Made
In this Conflicted Conversation, Simon Sebag Montefiore returns to the show, this time to talk about his new book The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East.
Simon explains:
- How Britain and France tried — and often failed — to shape the post-Ottoman Middle East
- Why Sykes–Picot is a misleading shorthand for the region’s modern borders
- How Atatürk, Nasser and other Middle Eastern leaders remade the region through their own choices
- The violent shift from Ottoman pluralism to nationalist, more homogeneous states
- Why Nasser’s charisma produced a powerful Arab myth but a disastrous authoritarian model
- Why traditional monarchies in Morocco, Jordan and the Gulf often outlasted revolutionary republics
- How America became the Middle East’s dominant anti-imperial imperial power after Europe’s retreat
- Why militias, parastates and insurgencies make “total victory” in today’s Middle East so elusive
Find Simon on X: x.com/simonmontefiore
Visit Simon’s website: www.simonsebagmontefiore.com
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small .
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 12 min - The Rise of the Offshore World
In this Conflicted Conversation, Ian Kumekawa (a fellow of Harvard University and a lecturer at MIT) talks about his book Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Ship.
Ian explains:
- The offshore global economy: where loopholes, ships and responsibility slip beyond ordinary jurisdiction
- From Little Toot to rusting barges: how industrial capitalism lost its confident postwar world
- Sweden’s socialist shipyards, private tax dodges, and the strange birth of the Vessel
- Containerisation’s hidden cost: how global trade hollowed out Manhattan’s working waterfront
- The Falklands War, Thatcherism, and the private infrastructure behind imperial sovereignty
- New York’s floating prison: mass incarceration meets offshore legal ingenuity
- Wall Street goes offshore onshore: banks, deregulation and International Banking Facilities
- Neoliberalism, legality and injustice: when the modern economy makes the immoral lawful
Visit Ian’s website: www.iankumekawa.com
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 1 min - The Battle for Yemen Begins Again
Yemeni researcher and political analyst Baraa Shiban (and dear friend of the show) is back not only to give us an update on Yemen now that the civil war (and Saudi Arabia’s role in it) are heating up again, but also to give Thomas a much-deserved dressing down for not going far enough to hold Jeremy Hunt to account for his role in the Stockholm Agreement.
Baraa explains:
- The collapse of the 2022 Yemen truce and renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and Red Sea shipping
- The Yemen battlefield map: Houthi control of Sanaa, Hodeidah and the northwest versus government-held south and east
- The strategic importance of Marib and Hadramaut, including Saudi-trained National Shield and Emergency Forces
- Mocha, the Giants Brigades and the impact of the UAE withdrawal on anti-Houthi military capabilities
- The Stockholm Agreement and how the 2018 ceasefire strengthened long-term Houthi leverage
- Why the Houthis are escalating now and how renewed fighting serves Iran’s regional strategy
- Houthi links with the IRGC, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, including operations and financial networks in Iraq
- Saudi war aims, the Mecca Accords and the emerging Saudi–Turkey–Pakistan security architecture
Follow Baraa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baraashiban/
Follow Baraa on X: https://x.com/BShtwtr
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small .
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
57 min - Libya: The Return of the Arab Strongman?
Turning their attention away from Iran and toward another Middle Eastern hotspot, Aimen and Thomas explain the course of events in Libya since the Arab Spring. Seismic political events are underway in that sad country, which has been riven by civil war and political division for over fifteen years.
They discuss:
- The difference between East and West Libya
- First Libyan Civil War: state collapse and militia fragmentation
- NATO intervention and Western short-termism
- Khalifa Haftar: from Gaddafi officer to eastern strongman
- Second Libyan Civil War: Operation Dignity and divided government
- Libya proxy war: Egypt, UAE, Russia, Turkey and Qatar
- Libyan oil politics: NOC, Central Bank and Haftar’s leverage
- U.S.-backed Libya deal: Saddam Haftar, Dbeibah and Pakistan mediation
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 20 min - The Crusades: What Was Really Going On?
In this Conflicted Conversation, Nicholas Morton discusses his new book The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East.
Associate Professor in History at Nottingham Trent University, Nicholas reframes the Crusades as one part of a much larger transformation of the medieval Middle East, driven above all by Seljuk-Turkmen expansion, Byzantine contraction, Fatimid decline and the fragmentation of political power.
Nicholas explains:
- The Seljuk-Turkmen transformation of the medieval Middle East
- Why the Crusades were not the region’s main event
- Dandanqan, nomadic warfare and the rise of Seljuk power
- Abbasids, Fatimids and fragmented government before the First Crusade
- Manzikert, Byzantine civil war and the Turkish conquest of Anatolia
- Frankish-Turkish rivalry, alliances and shared warrior culture
- Crusader violence and Christianity’s uneasy relationship with holy war
- Nizari Ismailis, Seljuk civil wars and competing Muslim priorities
- Damascus and Byzantium as key powers in Crusader geopolitics
- The Middle East as a crossroads of trade, ideas and cultural exchange
Follow Nicholas on X: https://x.com/NicholasMorto11
On Bluesky: @nicmorton.bsky.social
On Instagram: @Nicholas Morton
And his You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MedievalNearEast
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 20 min - Slavery and Islam: The Whole Story
In this Conflicted Conversation, Justin Marozzi discusses his new book Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World.
Justin traces the long, varied history of slavery in the Islamic world, arguing that slavery could sometimes offer remarkable paths to freedom and power, but that these exceptions never erased the violence of capture, ownership and exploitation—or the uneasy entanglement of abolition with Western imperialism.
Justin explains:
- The scale and longevity of slavery in the Islamic world
- The spiritual status of enslaved people in early Islam
- The Quran, manumission and the legal regulation of slavery
- The Islamic conquests and the expansion of slave-taking
- Anti-black racism and the Zanj Revolt in Abbasid Iraq
- Concubines, eunuchs, and sexual slavery
- Mamluks, Janissaries and elite forms of servitude
- Christian and Muslim slave-raiding across the Mediterranean
- Ottoman abolition and its entanglement with Western imperialism
- Modern slavery, Daesh and hereditary servitude in Mauritania
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 7 min
About CONFLICTED
From the publisher's feed
An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of…
war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
Best of CONFLICTED
Ranked by our users in the last 21 days
More shows like CONFLICTED
Dan Snow's History Hit
4,761 Listeners
TRIGGERnometry
2,161 Listeners
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
1,411 Listeners
Conflicted: A History Podcast
541 Listeners
The Story
240 Listeners
In Moscow's Shadows
366 Listeners
The Rest Is History
15,577 Listeners
This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler
151 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics
3,043 Listeners
Battleground
335 Listeners
Empire: World History
2,431 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics: Leading
917 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics: US
2,288 Listeners
The Rest Is Classified
1,089 Listeners
The General & The Journalist
25 Listeners