President Xi Jinping followed up his summits with Presidents Putin and Trump with his first foreign trip of the year. The destination – North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a nation of some 26 million normally portrayed in the Western media as a dangerously authoritarian state, an economic basket case, worthy of attention only for its nuclear weapons – may seem a surprise to many.

However, as veteran Korea observer, Keith Bennett and Radhika Desai discuss, neither the destination nor the timing should surprise anyone with a sense of the intertwined histories of the Chinese and Korean revolutions (not to mention the Soviet) and the continuing cooperation between the two countries, founded on socialist solidarity. Nor should it surprise them that, amid the chaos unleashed on the world by a declining West, China and North Korea are quietly renewing their relations for a new phase of history, and their common history.

Keith and Radhika discuss the socialist foundations of one of the most enduring international relationships of the modern era, the myths Western journalists and scholars perpetuate about North Korea, and the unexpected twist the matter of Korean reunification has taken.

Is the US military worth the $1.5 trillion being spent on it? President Biden called the US militarily ‘the most powerful nation in the history of the world.’ On the campaign trail Kamala Harriss called it the ‘strongest most lethal fighting force in the world. President Trump has called it ‘the strongest military on the face of the earth’. Events, however, have belied this cross-party consensus.

The Iran is clearly failing. The international relations specialist Stephen Walt today called on Trump to ‘just admit defeat’. And this most recent failure is not an exception. The ignominious defeat in Afghanistan recalled that in Vietnam, Iraq became a quagmire within a couple of years. Apart from overrunning tiny countries like Grenada and Panama, the US has no military successes to name. Before Vietnam, Korea ended in stalemate.

How can such an astronomically expensive military fail so abysmally? That is the question I discuss with K J Noh, the superbly informed scholar, journalist and activist with a knack for excellent analogies…..

The relationship between the United States and Europe is often portrayed as a partnership of equals. But has Europe instead become subordinate to American financial, political and military power?

In this interview, German left-wing intellectual Werner Rügemer examines the historical foundations of U.S. dominance over Europe, drawing on his book Fatal Friendship: How the USA Conquered Europe.

The conversation explores Wall Street’s role in reshaping Europe after the world wars, the growing influence of firms like BlackRock and Vanguard over European capitalism, NATO and EU expansion, the confrontation with China, and the deeper crisis of the transatlantic order. At a moment of intensifying geopolitical conflict and economic instability, this discussion asks whether Europe still acts in its own interests or increasingly in Washington’s.

Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman discuss observations from their recent trip to Russia with Michael Hudson, analyzing the political economy of Russia today and situating its place in the shifting world order.

The discussion covers Russia's efforts at Eurasion integration, the Chinese development model, prospects for multi-polarity, the connection between fascism and imperialism, and popular and political sentiment around the Ukraine War.

Today, as capitalism takes ever more volatile, dangerous, destructive, environmentally devastating, unequal, racist, mysogynist, exploitative, and war-like dimensions, there has been renewed critique and, inevitably, it comes from many directions. In this Geopolitical Economy Hour, Radhika, who is among these critics, is joined by a prominent representative of a different tradition of critique, someone who has spoken about escaping from capitalism, underlined its fundamentally anti democratic character, insisted on its fascistic tendencies, and criticized the fairy tales of neoclassical economics that are decreasingly able to camouflage the ills of capitalism, Clara Mattei, author of The Capital Order and Escape from Capitalism, President of the Foundation for Real Economic Emancipation (FREE) and Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa.

What does the future look like for Dedollarization? How does BRICS play a role? Radhika takes a deep dive with co-founder of New Development Bank, Paolo Nogueira Batista.

In this interview, Radhika Desai speaks with Mohammad Marandi about Iran’s nuclear programme, the latest escalation with the United States, and the wider geopolitical struggle behind the so-called “Iran nuclear threat.” Is Iran really trying to build a nuclear weapons, or is the nuclear issue being used once again as a pretext for sanctions, pressure and imperialism? Professor Marandi explains how Iran views its nuclear rights, why Western governments continue to portray Iran as a danger, and how the confrontation fits into the broader decline of US power and the crisis of the Western-led order.

German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz says, before an audience of schoolchildren, that Iran has humiliated the US. Donald Trump announces the withdrawal of 5000 of its troops from his country. Meanwhile, Minister Donald​Tusk, Prime Minister of the most loyal of East European states loyal to the US and the Atlantic alliance, told the Financial Times that Europe's "biggest, most important question is if the United States is ready to be as loyal as it is described in our (NATO) treaties.

The question is if NATO is still an organisation ready, politically and logistically, to react - for example, against Russia if they try to​attack." The trouble is not recent but in the first year and a half of Donald Trump’s second administration these strains now seem to be building up to breaking point. The two sides of the Atlantic find themselves on opposite sides of both the major conflicts of our time, that in Ukraine and that against Iran. Tariffs on the European Union are hurting its economy.

There is increasing discussion particularly in Brussels, on how that body should seek an autonomous defence infrastructure. Europe and Canada are ramping up defence expenditure and if such an infrastructure were to be built, notwithstanding the interminable squabbles of EU member countries, it would represent a major reversal of the foundation of the post Second World War North Atlantic alliance, the security umbrella that the United States provided to Europe in acceptance of US leadership. Radhika Desai and Kees van der Pijl, foremost critical international relations scholar of the Atlantic Alliance discuss

Trump had hoped to go there in triumph after an easy victory over Iran. He actually went there in despair, hoping for China’s help in cleaning up the mess he made there. Last year, he had hoped to cow China into submission with his tariffs, only to push himself in a submissive position.

In Beijing, the very tone of his comments – what a great leader Xi is, how wonderful China, is, how well he gets on with everyone, and how the US and China are going to have a ‘fantastic future together’ shows that for all his grandiose plans to project US power, he has ended exactly where China wanted him, having to accept parity with China. How else did he manage to expose the reduction of US power in Beijing? Given that the meeting was initiated by the Chinese, how well did they realise what they wanted?

Who budged or blinked on all the major issues: tariffs, investment, Hormuz, Taiwan, Iran’s nuclear programme? How will this summit re-shape the contest between China and the US that has shaped the 21st century? Will the retinue of CEO’s that went there get what they want? Where will it leave the Iran war? and, above all, where will it leave the world which the Trump regime, shall we call it that, has landed in chaos of one sort or another since Trump’s election, let alone his inauguration…..

With me to discuss all this is the most regular of regulars, Professor Michael Hudson.

In this episode, I am joined by Michael Hudson to discuss how the United States is attempting to defend dollar hegemony at a time when its global financial power is facing mounting pressure. We examine the role of swap lines, dollar liquidity, sanctions, oil politics, and the Iran crisis in sustaining a world economy still organised around the US dollar.

Although swap lines may appear to be a technical instrument of central banking, they reveal something much larger about who has access to liquidity in moments of crisis, who remains dependent on Washington, and how the United States continues to use the dollar as a tool of geopolitical power. As more countries search for alternatives to the dollar system, this conversation asks whether these new financial arrangements are signs of strength or signs that the old order is beginning to crack.