My guest today, Thordis Gylfadottir, served as Iceland's foreign minister until 2024. We spoke last week at the Aspen Security Forum, where she delivered a forceful case for the necessity of continued military and diplomatic support for Ukraine. However, that view—once broadly shared across Europe and the Atlantic—is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. In our conversation, I wanted to learn from her exactly how firm support for Ukraine remains across Europe, both in politics and in society. And what, if anything, can be done to shore up that support. 

We begin, however, with a discussion of her current work as the Special Envoy for the Council of Europe on the situation of children in Ukraine, where she helps bring home Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia during its invasion.

Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador, Mike Waltz, faced questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week. You may recall he previously served as National Security Advisor before being sidelined by Trump after “Signalgate.” But Waltz was never officially fired — he was banished to the United Nations instead. For over two hours, he fielded questions from senators.

So, what did we learn about how the Trump administration might approach diplomacy at the United Nations with Mike Waltz as U.S. Permanent Representative? Mark and Anjali watched the full two-and-a-half-hour hearing so you don’t have to.

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A furious backlash against gender equality, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights is sweeping the globe. In a new report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, my guest today, Saskia Brechenmacher, shows that this backlash is not just a temporary reaction to recent progressive reforms but a key front in a larger cultural and political realignment taking place across a diverse set of countries.

Saskia Brechenmacher is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. In our conversation, she explains how this backlash is manifesting across regions and the multitude of forces driving this trend.

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The farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria is a long-running and deadly struggle over land and resources, primarily between nomadic herders—mostly from the Fulani ethnic group—and settled farming communities. Driven by factors such as desertification, population growth, and shrinking grazing land, herders increasingly move south in search of pasture, leading to violent clashes with farmers over farmland and water access. The conflict has intensified in recent years, contributing to insecurity and displacement, particularly in Nigeria's Middle Belt region.

It was there, in the middle of the night on June 13th, that an unknown group attacked the village of Yelewata. An estimated 200 people were killed, mostly farmers and their families, in what is considered the single deadliest massacre of its kind. The attack sparked a massive public outcry over the government's apparent inability to prevent such violence.

Joining me to discuss what is driving this conflict—and why Nigerians are increasingly losing confidence in the government's ability to provide security in the Middle Belt region—is Isaac Albert, a professor of African History, Peace, and Conflict Studies at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.

We begin by discussing the recent attack on Yelewata before taking a broader look at what his research suggests is fueling this conflict—and what may be done to prevent massacres like this in the future.

The major Financing for Development Conference wrapped up in Seville last week with the so-called Compromiso de Sevilla, which commits countries to accelerating efforts to fund the Sustainable Development Goals and support economic and social development in lower-income countries. In our first segment, we are joined by Michael Sheldrick, co-founder of Global Citizen, who explains what was accomplished at this major UN meeting — and what was left on the table. Then, Anjali and Mark discuss the current predicament facing IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi as he tries to navigate the capricious sensitivities of Donald Trump following the U.S. bombing of Iran.

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As of July 1, what remains of USAID’s programming is being folded into the State Department. The independent agency, created 64 years ago to advance American values and support global humanitarian causes, is no more. With USAID’s demise comes a staggering human cost. The Lancet today published a study finding that more than 14 million people — a third of them children — will die by 2030 if current U.S. foreign aid cuts remain in place.

Behind those numbers are countless stories of tragedy — and heroism.

My guest today, Katharine Houreld, is the Bureau Chief for East and Southern Africa for The Washington Post, who recently reported from Sudan on the devastating impact of the swift and sudden cutoff of American aid. We begin our conversation with the stories of individuals living through it — from the grieving mother of a toddler who died of an easily preventable chest infection, to the soup kitchen volunteers fighting to keep their neighbors alive as food supplies vanish.

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The leaders of NATO met in The Hague on June 25th for a rather truncated meeting with a limited agenda. Unlike recent NATO summits, this one did not focus much on the war in Ukraine, countering China, or other broad international security concerns. Rather, this meeting was dedicated to securing a commitment by most NATO members to double their defense spending from 2.5% to 5% of member states' GDP. This is a massive increase with profound implications for both European security and, according to my guest today, European society as a whole.

Zachary Paikin is a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

We kick off by discussing why Ukraine was not on the agenda and the odd comportment of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, before having a broader conversation about what this summit says about the future of Europe and transatlantic relations.

Will the ceasefire between Israel and Iran actually hold? How might Iran respond to the unprecedented American attacks on its nuclear program? And more broadly, how have events over the last two weeks  changed the entire security dynamic of the Middle East?

I’m privileged to bring you a conversation with one of the foremost experts on these questions. Dalia Dassa Kaye is a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and author of the forthcoming book Enduring Hostility: The Making of America’s Iran Policy, which will be published in December. We kick off by discussing the events of the last few days before having a deeper conversation about Israel’s strategic calculus moving forward, Iran’s options for retaliating against the United States, and whether the American bombing of Iran may have traded short-term gains for a long-term disaster.

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Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran lays bare a major rift within Republican foreign policy. Until recently, the more isolationist “America First” wing seemed ascendant, sidelining the hawks. But that dynamic decisively shifted on Saturday when Trump ordered American strikes on several targets in Iran

My guest today is Andrew Prokop of Vox, who recently wrote a deep dive into the GOP’s foreign policy divide. In our conversation, we explore the history of these two Republican camps—and how the debate over Iran is playing out now. We also discuss the potential domestic fallout of dragging the U.S. into another Middle East war.

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From June 9th to 13th, some 15,000 participants—including more than 60 Heads of State and Government—convened in Nice, on France's Mediterranean coast, for a major UN-sponsored conference on oceans. So what happened at the UN Oceans Summit, and why does it matter? Joining me to answer these questions and more is Bruna Campos of the Center for International Environmental Law. We caught up last week as the conference was coming to a close, and in our conversation, Bruna Campos explains why this summit was convened in the first place, which governments are pushing for more robust protections of our oceans, and which countries are standing in the way.

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