Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a high-stakes meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and, according to several news reports, delivered an ultimatum: either Anthropic drops the safety guardrails built into its AI model, Claude, or it faces potentially punishing consequences—including invoking the Defense Production Act to effectively seize Claude, or banning Anthropic outright by declaring the company a "supply chain risk."

At issue are Anthropic's terms of service for Claude, which prohibit the model from being used to develop or deploy lethal autonomous weapons systems—so-called "killer robots" that can identify and strike targets without meaningful human oversight. The Pentagon wants a free hand to potentially use Claude to develop these systems; Anthropic wants to prevent Claude from doing so.

The outcome of this dispute is highly consequential—potentially even for the future of humanity. So-called swarms of drones and other military hardware could operate autonomously, coordinating among themselves to kill with impunity. The Pentagon worries that if it doesn't develop these systems, China might. Anthropic considers these systems an ethically abhorrent line it does not want to cross.

Joining me to discuss the details of this clash between a leading AI company and the Pentagon is Anna Hehir, head of Military AI Governance at the Future of Life Institute. We kick off with a discussion of how AI systems are already integrated into the U.S. military, before turning to a longer conversation about the vast implications of whether Anthropic complies with the Pentagon's ultimatum. We also discuss how this incident illustrates the need for international agreements on lethal autonomous weapons systems, including a potential treaty now being hashed out at the United Nations.

Ethiopia is on the brink of a war that could turn into a major regional conflagration. Over the past several weeks, military forces have been moving into position across the region in a conflict that would pit the government of Ethiopia and some allied militias against Eritrea and a rebel faction from Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, among others.

There are several concurrent forces driving the region toward conflict: lingering resentments and unresolved disputes from Ethiopia's civil war from 2020 to 2022; a move by the government of landlocked Ethiopia to potentially claim a Red Sea port in neighboring Eritrea; and spillover from the civil war in Sudan, where outside forces like the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are seeking to expand their regional footprint. All of this is pushing the region, seemingly inexorably, toward war.

This would be a disaster. The civil war from 2020 to 2022 killed an estimated 500,000 people and exposed violent ethnic fissures in Ethiopia. This time around, many of the belligerents are the same—but they have switched sides. Back in 2020, Eritrea and Ethiopia allied to fight a rebellious group in the Tigray region. This time, Eritrea and Tigrayan rebels are joining forces to fight Ethiopia, with several other ethnic militias joining in. Also different this time is the active presence of malicious Gulf actors. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Ethiopia had established, with UAE backing, a training camp for the Rapid Support Forces militia that is ravaging Darfur in Sudan.

Several NGO groups, think tanks, and regional or specialty news outlets have picked up this story—and are sounding the alarm. But so far, we have not yet seen much Western media attention to this incipient crisis. That's tragic, given the sheer human calamity that would unfold if Ethiopia and Eritrea once again descend into a conflict that reverberates across the region.

My interview guest today is journalist Zecharias Zelalem. We kick off by discussing recent moves that suggest war could break out at any moment, and then have a longer conversation about what is driving this conflict—and what might bring the region back from the brink.

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It was an odd juxtaposition: Trump's inaugural Board of Peace gathered in Washington, D.C. as the U.S. appeared to be readying for war with Iran. In this week's To Save Us From Hell episode, Mark and Anjali discuss why this Board of Peace can't really compete with the Security Council, and what its advent says about international relations today. They then discuss a looming American attack on Iran, and what that suggests about the diminishing role of international law and the much-lamented rules-based international order. Finally, they unpack a bizarre confirmation hearing for Trump's pick for assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs—who appears to be too racist for this particular role.

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On February 3, the United States deployed a warship and Coast Guard vessels off the coast of Haiti, near Port-au-Prince. The move came amid political wrangling within Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, as some members sought to block Washington's preferred candidate from becoming the next prime minister.

This deployment comes amid a deepening political, security, and humanitarian crisis in Haiti that stretches back to the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. In the wake of that killing, armed criminal gangs—once largely confined to a handful of neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince—began seizing territory. Today, a gang alliance controls most of Port-au-Prince and some surrounding areas. Meanwhile, a new UN-backed multinational security force of roughly 5,500 troops is expected to deploy in the coming weeks to help the Haitian National Police confront these gangs.

My guest today is Diego Da Rin, Haiti analyst at the International Crisis Group. We begin by unpacking what this American show of force is meant to accomplish, then turn to the interlocking political, security, and humanitarian crises facing Haiti—and whether the UN-backed force can make a meaningful difference.

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The New START treaty, signed by the United States and Russia in 2010, limited both countries to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, placed restrictions on how those weapons could be deployed, and included strong verification mechanisms to ensure compliance. On February 6, 2026, that treaty formally expired. And now, for the first time in decades, there is no bilateral nuclear arms agreement between the world's two foremost nuclear powers.

Joining me today to discuss the implications of the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is Corey Hinderstein, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. We kick off by discussing how New START built on previous arms control treaties between the United States and Russia, what it means that no such treaty now exists—and why China's rapid nuclear buildup adds a vexing new challenge to future arms control efforts.

There are very few media outlets these days that consistently cover nuclear security issues, despite the existential risks posed by nuclear weapons. I'm glad to bring you this episode. If you care about the future of humanity and want to help me continue producing thoughtful conversations like this, please become a paid subscriber. I'm running a subscription drive this month—and believe me when I say every single new paid subscriber makes a real difference.

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Donald Trump doesn't much like Pedro Sánchez — and the Spanish prime minister is perfectly fine with that. Unlike other European leaders who reflexively genuflect to the American president, Pedro Sánchez stands apart for his willingness to confront Trump—not for its own sake, but in service of a theory of politics that diverges sharply from many of his European counterparts. As my guest, journalist Dave Keating, puts it: "While other European leaders zig, Pedro Sánchez zags."

Most recently, Sánchez enacted policies to regularize the immigration status of roughly 500,000 undocumented migrants living in Spain, granting work permits and other pathways to formally enter Spanish society and the economy. He has also resisted efforts to substantially increase defense spending, while boosting Spain's support for international development and foreign aid.

In today's interview, we discuss Pedro Sánchez's unique standing in European politics, why he's sometimes shunned by other leaders in Brussels, and whether his experiment in regularizing half a million undocumented migrants can actually succeed.

Dave Keating is the Brussels correspondent for France 24, writes the Gulf Stream Blues Substack, and is the author of the new book The Owned Continent: How to Free Europe from American Military, Economic, and Cultural Dependence.

For the first time in history, multiple countries have jointly nominated a candidate for UN Secretary General. Earlier this week, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico endorsed Michelle Bachelet—a former president of Chile, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and a survivor of brutal repression under the Pinochet regime. The move is unprecedented—and potentially transformative. What does it signal about the race to replace António Guterres, and how soon might more rival candidates emerge?

Anjali and Mark unpack what this coordinated nomination reveals about shifting power dynamics inside the UN. They then turn to the latest Epstein document dump, which has ensnared several prominent diplomats and sent shockwaves through the diplomatic world. Finally, they confront a looming institutional crisis: the UN's cash reserves are so depleted that even the viability of this year's UNGA is now being called into question.

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The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been tracking American views on foreign policy since the end of the Vietnam War. Last week, it released its 2025 survey—and the results point to a widening partisan divide on some of the most fundamental questions about America's role in the world.

That was not always the case. For most of the past 50 years, Democrats, Republicans, and independents largely agreed on the proper role of the United States in the world. There were always differences, of course, but they tended to exist at the margins. On big-picture questions—such as alliances and working cooperatively with other countries—there was broad consensus. That consensus began to shift in 2015 with Donald Trump's entry into the American political scene. Now, ten years later, this latest survey shows partisan divides that are deeper than ever. America's domestic polarization has finally caught up with its foreign policy.

To discuss these survey results, I'm joined by Jordan Tama, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, who specializes in the intersection of American public opinion and foreign policy. We begin by discussing the historical sources of bipartisan foreign policy consensus, before turning to a longer conversation about how and why that consensus has fractured—and what this shift suggests about the future of American foreign policy.

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For the past year and a half, South Sudan has been on the brink of a new civil war. A 2018 peace deal that ended the last civil war has been faltering, while the war across the border in Sudan has threatened to spill south.

According to my interview guest, Daniel Akech of the International Crisis Group, the tipping point has been breached. We are now in the early stages of a new civil war in South Sudan—one that may prove even more destructive than the 2013–2018 conflict, which left an estimated 400,000 people dead.

There are a number of reasons for this—not least the civil war in Sudan, which has decimated oil revenues that long underpinned South Sudan's political economy. And, as in the first civil war, ethnic tensions are being deliberately stoked, raising the prospect of mass atrocities.

We kick off by discussing recent events on the ground in South Sudan, including an offensive by opposition forces sparked by the arrest and prosecution of Riek Machar, a former vice president who led one side of the previous civil war. We then explore the potential trajectory of this conflict, how it is intimately tied to the war in Sudan, and the role of key regional actors.

South Sudan is a new country, having gained independence from Sudan in 2011—but just two years later, civil war erupted, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, and destroying infrastructure across the country. This new outbreak of violence may lead to something just as bad— or worse — but has received little attention in the Western press.

One year ago, the United States was winning the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Thanks largely to American leadership, infections and deaths from HIV/AIDS have dropped precipitously over the past 20 years, ever since the U.S. government made combating the disease a global priority. Some once–hard-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa were even on track to become AIDS-free by 2030.

But then, suddenly and without warning, Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 24, 2025 that all but ended U.S. funding for global HIV/AIDS relief. One year on, people have lost access to treatment, and the specter of a resurgence of HIV/AIDS—after years of steady decline—now looms. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is cutting bilateral deals with countries like Zambia, releasing health and development assistance in exchange for access to natural resources and mining concessions.

Joining me from rural Zambia is journalist Andrew Green, who is in the midst of a reporting project documenting the impact of these cuts on HIV/AIDS prevention efforts around the world. We kick off by discussing the historic role the United States played in the fight against HIV/AIDS before turning to what has been lost—and how countries across sub-Saharan Africa are responding.