It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Tom Wright back into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Shaking the Global Order’, the first of the new season. With Tom today I am particularly interested in how he sees the current Trump administration's efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but also take a ‘peek’ at President Trump's ‘New Imperialism’ examining Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and more.

Today, Tom is a senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. In the Biden administration, Tom served as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. At the White House, Tom worked on a wide range of projects and issues, including the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, the Russia-Ukraine war, European security and U.S.-China relations among other issues.

Tom continues his writing and has published relatively recently in Foreign Affairs and he contributes also to The Atlantic magazine.

So, it was with great pleasure that I was able to arrange this podcast with Dan Bilak to discuss:

- the state of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine,

- the prospect for a successful conclusion to the war,

- Ukraine’s efforts to bring about a cessation of the violence,

- he difficult interactions with US President Donald Trump, and

- most importantly Dan’s own involvement in Ukraine and ultimately his involvement in this most dramatic European war.

Dan is currently a partner at Kinstellar, a law firm that acts as counsel to leading investors across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Southeast Europe (SEE) and Central Asia.

Before that Dan served as Chief Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ukraine (2016 – 2019) and headed UkraineInvest, the Ukrainian government’s foreign investment promotion agency, where he supported companies in navigating the Ukrainian investment environment. As Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian State Railways (UkrZaliznytsia), and twice as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Justice of Ukraine, Daniel oversaw governance reforms and developed anti-corruption strategies in the public sector.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Dan has served in the Territorial Defence Forces of Ukraine, a branch of Ukraine’s military. He has been awarded recognition by the Minister of Defence of Ukraine “For Support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.

Though I have not been in touch with Dan for a number of years, in fact we were colleagues at the McGill Law School in the early 1980’s.

As is evident Dan has been personally involved in this still raging war in Ukraine. So let’s welcome Dan to the virtual studio for this podcast.

It was a real pleasure to invite Julia Ganter into our Virtual Studio to talk about today’s role, and possible future roles for Middle Powers, in a world of rising disorder. Which are today’s Middle Powers and what role do Middle Powers play in today’s global order? Is there a characteristic Middle Power Diplomacy?

Julia Ganter is the Programme Director of the Emerging Middle Powers Initiative and Editor-in-Chief of “The Berlin Pulse”, the annual foreign policy publication and public opinion survey of the German foundation Körber-Stiftung. (https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/person/julia-ganter/)

Summit Dialogue S3, Ep 2: Mihaela Papa on the enlarged BRICS Summit in Brazil by globalsummitry

So it was a real pleasure to invite CEIP’s Stewart Patrick back into the Virtual Studio to talk about the shape and influence of the BRICS, or BRICS+, as it is often referred to these days.

Stewart Patrick is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP).

His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges.

Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism. He is the author of a number of volumes and most recently he has led the research at CEIP for the volume: “BRICS Expansion and the Future of World Order: Perspectives from Member States, Partners, and Aspirants”.

Stewart has authored many articles, essays, chapters, and reports on problems of world order, U.S. global engagement, the United Nations and other international organizations, and the management of global issues.

I am pleased to welcome back into the virtual studio, Thomas Wright. After serving in the Biden National Security Council for a number of years, Tom has returned – to civilian life – at the Brookings Institution in Washington. I wanted to begin to explore with Tom his assessment of where US foreign policy is now that Donald Trump has begun in such a flurry the second presidential term. I am particularly interested in discussing Trump’s efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict with Tom. Where is this effort likely to end? And what relationship does Trump want with Putin’s Russia?

Currently Tom is a senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. Tom most recently served as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council in the Biden administration. Before Tom left for the Biden administration, Tom had been very active writing on contemporary politics and in particular the impact of President Trump on US foreign policy, Trump 1.0. Tom continues his writing and just recently published the Foreign Affairs article titled, “The Right U.S. Strategy for Russia-Ukraine Negotiations: How American Pressure Can Bring the War to an Acceptable End”.

US-China relations during the Biden administration was marked by growing competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to a second Trump administration. What are we likely to now see in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will US-China relations likely be going forward? What will be the state of relations of each with players in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific?

To examine these critical matters, it was with great pleasure that I invited my colleague Rush Doshi into the Virtual Studio for our new Season 3 of podcasts of ‘Shaking the Global Order’. Today’s podcast with Rush explores these critical global power issues.

Rush Doshi is the C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program in Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Rush was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan on the National Security Council (NSC) from 2021 to 2024, where he helped manage the NSC's first China directorate. He is the author of The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

So, let’s join Rush in the Virtual Studio to examine all these issues.

US-China relations during the Biden administration have been marked by competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to President Trump. What are we likely to see now in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will be US-China relations going forward? To explore all this I invited back into the Virtual Studio my good colleague Yves Tiberghien.

Yves currently is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves recently completed a study leave and was a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea. His latest book is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox, August 2021.

Come join Yves in the Virtual Studio to examine these issues.

Season 3—The current state of global relations: An introduction by Alan Alexandroff by globalsummitry

US-China relations during the Biden administration have been marked by competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to President Trump. What are we likely to see now in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will be US-China relations going forward? To explore all this I invited back into the Virtual Studio my good colleague Yves Tiberghien.

Yves currently is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves recently completed a study leave and was a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea. His latest book is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox, August 2021.

Come join Yves in the Virtual Studio to examine these issues.