Exit Strategy

On July 26, 2023, the West African country of Niger fell to a coup d'etat along with its neighbors of Mali and Burkina Faso. This is a very fascinating part of the world, and holds a ton of geopolitical consequences here. In this video, I try to answer your questions about what's going on in West Africa, and what it will mean for our larger geopolitical world. If you dig what I'm doing, please show your support through Patreon. Please consider supporting this work at www.patreon.com/ExitStrategyShow

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I am also a serious journalist. I also wrote about this story for Jacobin: Check it out:

► https://jacobin.com/2023/08/niger-coup-west-russia-war-mohamed-bazoum-security-democracy

Additional resources for this video include: 

► https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/niger/tentative-de-coup-detat-au-niger-eviter-la-confrontation-armee

► https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/time-running-short-diplomacy-post-coup-niger-talks-stall-2023-08-09/

► https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/08/niger-ecowas-bazoum-nigeria-tinubu-military-intervention/

► https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-drone-missions-niger-halted/#:~:text=Known%20as%20%E2%80%9CNigerien%20Air%20Base,the%20base%20in%20November%202019

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About Me: My name is Jody Ray, host and producer of EXIT STRATEGY. What originally began (and continues to be) a podcast about geopolitics, conflict, and the illicit political economy (https://linktr.ee/exitstrategyofficial) has now grown into a video channel that aims to showcase my personal travels to cover the world's culture, conflict, and cuisine.

This project is entirely self-funded, relying on the generous support of those who find value in what I am trying to do. If you are one of those people, please consider becoming an EXIT STRATEGY Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/ExitStrategyShow) or by making a donation through Venmo [at]ExitStrategyShow.

I speak to writer and journalist, Chris Olaoluwa Ògúnmọ́dẹdé, about Russia's influence in West Africa, Western reporting on elements like Chinese investment, Wagner Group, and the Russian State, and how all of these have been changing over the last few years within the context of the  Ukraine War. 

Chris Olaoluwa Ògúnmọ́dẹdé is an associate editor for World Politics Review. He specializes in diplomacy, development and international security, with a specialist focus on West African history, political institutions and foreign relations. His areas of interest include governance, elections, military dictatorships, comparative authoritarianism, trade and regional integration, migration, diasporism and social movements in Africa, with a focus on the West Africa region. His coverage of African politics, international relations and security has appeared in War on The Rocks, Mail & Guardian, The Republic, Africa is a Country and other publications. Follow him on Twitter at @Illustrious_Cee.

Daniel Studies studied anthropology and archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Aix-Marseille in France, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1981, and has lectured at UC Berkeley, University of Nairobi, University of Paris X and Oxford University, focusing on past and present human ecology and evolution.

Since 1983 Stiles worked in land and natural resource management at UNEP, UNDP, UNICEF and the UN Research Institute for Social Development up to 1997, shifting into contemporary wildlife trade research in 1999, beginning with ivory and branching out to rhino horn, pangolin scales, big cat products and live great apes. These investigations led Stiles to the Internet and social media platforms, where hehas uncovered hundreds of accounts dealing in all manner of illegal wildlife.

We talk about his past work, what it's like setting up sting operations throughout Africa and Southeast Asia to combat illegal wildlife trafficking and sales, and where the big advocacy groups fall short on primates. He also provides a fascinating presentation that can be seen during our discussion on video at: Patreon at www.patreon.com/ExitStrategyShow.

Resource links provided from Stiles: 

Eduardo Soteras Jalil (Twitter: @edusoteras) (IG: @edusonico) (web: https://www.eduardosoteras.com) is a self-taught Argentinian photographer who has covered a variety of news and conflicts from behind the lens. 

In 2009 he worked in Mexico documenting the migration route of Central Americans to the United States that became his book El Camino. In 2014 he fell in love with Gaza and its people, then the bombings started but he decided to stay, creating two projects What Remains and Gaza Mode d’Emploi, which was published by Le Courrier International and Granta magazine. His work is represented by Neutral Grey Agency (France). he most recently returned from covering conflicts in the Congo and then Tigray, where his latest photo from that conflict won the first prize at this year’s UNICEF Photo of the Year award with his image of two children in a partially destroyed primary school library in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region, taking solace in books. 

He is currently based in Nairobi, working as a freelance photographer and an AFP contributor.

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Please consider supporting this project at www.patreon.com/exitstrategyshow or through a one-time donation through Venmo @ExitStrategyShow. Exit Strategy is brought to you by Jody Ray, writer and journalist interesting in discovering more of the world through political conflict, culture, and cuisine. 

Kendra Jones examines the future. Through Laka Consulting, Jones speaks, writes, and educates on leadership and futures studies topics such as emerging, intertwined trends, technology, power, and how things change.

She has worked internationally with Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations across industries. We spoke about her time tracking and writing around emerging technology on the US-Mexico border, border security, and how this relates to futurism and future studies. 

Read her article at Palladium here.
Follow her on Twitter here.
Or connect with Kendra at Laka Consulting. 

I speak to Brian Fairbanks, author of WIZARDS: David Duke, America’s Wildest Election, and the Rise of the Far Right. 

On October 19, 1991, former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke stunned the world by defeating Louisiana’s centrist governor in the primary and vaulting himself into a runoff against corrupt, but popular, former governor Edwin Edwards. Official Democratic and Republican campaigns had mistakenly seen Duke as a Republican longshot. When his campaign later lost the general election in a landslide, many assumed that Duke and his white supremacy movement were in permanent retreat. They were very, very wrong.

Brian Fairbanks examines Duke’s rise and and how it foreshadowed the political ascendency of Donald Trump. With gripping detail, he shows how the Far Right took control of the local and federal government with Duke’s message. It’s a full history that shows where the Republican Party has been, and offers a warning about where it’s going. To do this, Fairbanks follows Beth Rickey, a little-known social justice activist and elected Republican official, who sacrificed her career to warn the country about Duke and his followers.

The pandemic changed the way we work forever. As many companies were already in the progress of making their digital transformation, so to was its labor force becoming new remote workers, telecommuting employees, and digital nomads. The new situation in which people began working from anywhere took form, now forcing us to ask questions about what it really means to be a citizen of a country. I spoke with Lauren Razavi, the Director of Special Projects at SafetyWing, where she leads the Plumia mission to build a country on the internet. Would you leave your old citizenship behind to become a citizen of an intangible, borderless internet country? Is this some libertarian wet dream? What is the foreign policy of an internet country? Domestic policy? Why this? Why now? Razavi answers all of this in the last Exit Strategy podcast of the year. Enjoy!

I spoke to Emile Ghesson, a British conflict documentary journalist and reporter who bridges the gap between conflict reporting and entertainment filmmaking. Ghesson was recruited to the elite Royal Marine Commandos as a young man and has since toured action in Afghanistan and Iraq theaters. He now shoots documentaries in conflict zones, most recently Syria and Armenia. We talked about his previous work, what it's like making film in conflict zones, and what he is about to begin filming next. 

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THIS EPISODE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MY PRODUCER PATREONS:
◉ MICHAEL WRIGHT - Producer
◉ ALAN SIMPSON - Producer
◉ SHAYLYN BROUSSARD - Producer
◉ NICOLE FAURE - Producer

★★★
Exit Strategy Podcast is a #podcast about #geopolitics, #conflict, and the illicit political economy, and discusses some of the lesser known topics in international affairs with real experts like journalists, academics, conflict reporters, Human Rights activists, political dissidents, authors, and more. Please consider supporting this 100% ad-free podcast where most podcasts are found. By supporting long-form conversation about geopolitics, you are advancing fascinating and thought-provoking conversations toward an effort to better create a more informed and worldly citizenry.

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The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) is a disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project that collects information on the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events around the world.

I spoke with the creator, Clionadh Raleigh, a Professor of Political Violence and Geography at the University of Sussex. Since 2014, ACLED has operated as a non-profit, non-governmental organization incorporated in the USA. In 2022, ACLED expanded coverage to the entire world, collecting data in real time and publishing weekly updates. So far, ACLED has recorded a total of more than one million individual events globally.

IMPORTANT NOTE: VISIT https://youtu.be/sGQdXoodoRE to find the FULL video FREE on YouTube that showcases ACLED in action. Please also visit and subscribe to that channel - EXIT STATEGY TV, a channel dedicated to my personal coverage of culture, conflict, and cuisine at: http://www.youtube.com/@exitstrategytv 

James Barnett is a research fellow at Hudson Institute, based in Lagos, Nigeria, where he studies conflict, terrorism, and geopolitics in Africa. He has worked extensively in conflict environments across Nigeria, studied and traveled widely in East Africa and the Middle East, and reported from Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion.

His writing has appeared in publications such as Foreign Policy, New Lines Magazine, War on the Rocks, African Arguments, and the Los Angeles Review of Books as well as research journals such as West Point’s CTC Sentinel.

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