New Thinking for a New World

Europe is in a bad place: the war in Ukraine, energy crisis, inflation, looming recession, political and social tensions—the list seems endless. Perhaps most importantly, key elements of Europe's grand strategy are in trouble. Dependence on cheap Russian energy has ended catastrophically. Reliance on soft power, while effectively disarming, has proven to be a bad idea. Deepening economic and trade ties with China when that country and the United States seem headed towards confrontation is at best problematic for Europe’s future.

Over the last several decades, the relationship between France and Germany has been central to Europe's success. Regardless of who’s been in power in Berlin or Paris, that relationship has always been made to work. Now, however, those countries are obviously out of sync. Their leaders lack a shared vision of where Europe should go or how to get there. Their political and business elites seem increasingly at odds. The mood is bad and getting worse.

The question, of course, is how—perhaps if—Europe can recover if the French and Germans can't figure out how to work together. What ails Europe’s traditional leaders? Can this marriage be saved?

Laure Mandeville, a senior reporter at Le Figaro with considerable expertise in French, European and Russian politics and Friedbert Pflüger, a former German parliamentarian and state secretary for defense joined Tällberg’s Alan Stoga for this conversation about Europe through the lens of France and Germany. It was originally recorded during a recent Tällberg Foundation webinar and lightly edited for this presentation.

What do you think?

Europe is under considerable stress from the Ukraine war, a deep energy crisis, inflation, roiled financial markets, looming recessions, social unrest, and political turmoil—on top of longstanding tensions between northern and southern countries over economics and western and eastern countries over cultural and social issues.

Arguably, Europe in general (and the EU in particular) is a mess.

The question is whether these forces will combine in ways that could produce less Europe or more Europe in the coming years. Is there leadership at the national levels or at the European level that instead of merely muddling through could find new pathways to a prosperous, secure European future? What are the new ideas to cope with new problems?

In this special edition of the New Thinking for a New World podcast, Anna Palacio, former Spanish Foreign Minister, and Jakob Hallgren, an experienced Swedish diplomat who now heads the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, join host Alan Stoga to discuss how Europe might get from where it is to where its citizens need it to be. Their conversation was recorded during a Tällberg Foundation webinar on October 27.

After the tragedy of the Pinochet years, Chile had evolved into one of the most successful countries in the Americas in economic terms, but perhaps more importantly, in terms of the health of its democracy. Right and left-wing parties and presidents alternated power, the judicial system worked, corruption was low, Chilean political leaders were respected at home and abroad. All of that came to a screeching halt in 2019 when protests escalated into widespread violence.

Chile was suddenly at, what in almost any other country, would have been a revolutionary moment. However, instead of a civil war, the Chileans launched an inclusive political process to write a new constitution. They wanted a fundamental rethink of political rights, obligations, institutions and processes. Fast forward to September of this year, and the new constitution that was three years in the making was overwhelmingly rejected in a national referendum.

What happened and what happens next? What lessons can others learn from Chile's efforts to reimagine its democracy?

Isabel Aninat, Dean of the Law School of the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, in Chile has been a keen observer of the constitution-writing process and, more generally, of Chilean politics. She is fundamentally optimistic that Chilean democracy is headed in a good direction. What do you think?

Rapidly accelerating climate change is uniquely modern — but climate change is not. The planet has warmed and cooled in the past, even during mankind’s time. What can we learn from those events that might help us cope with the extremes that are our present and future? Can indigenous people who understand nature differently than most of us teach us how to cope with today’s terrifying challenges?

Our guest on this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast, Tero Mustonen, is a climate scholar who combines indigenous knowledge with academic research. He is also a leader of the SnowChange Cooperative that works with indigenous people and climate issues throughout the Arctic, and currently the head of his town of Selkie in North Karelia, Finland.

Listen to his insights on how to promote positive change on a damaged planet.

This episode was originally published on September 23, 2021.

We live in a world of converging crises. War in Europe, food and energy insecurity, historic flooding in Pakistan and historical drought in the US, COVID shutdowns in China, American and European sanctions that disrupt supply chains…the list goes on. The good old days probably were not as good as we now like to remember, but they certainly were more predictable.

We can forget about that new normal thing we hoped would emerge as the pandemic receded: No normal is the new normal.

But life goes on. We need to make decisions about a future that is blurry at best. Imagine that you're a CEO of a big company. How do you cope with a world that seems to be spinning off its axis? How do you find workers when you need them, decide where to open new plants, assure a reliable supply chain. And what do you do about climate change?

Our guests on the New Thinking for a New World podcast are in the business of thinking about converging crises and trying to help corporate executives cope with them. Tom Armstrong is president of Madison River Group, which specializes in advising on climate change and Earth systems outcomes. Diane Osgood is a sustainability strategist with deep practical experience in the real world. How do they help corporate leaders not only peer around the corner, but formulate strategies that make sense in our changing world?

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine ebbs and flows, the whole world is watching—and wondering. What does Putin want? How far will he go in his efforts to subjugate Ukraine? Does he have limits? Has he, as Angela Merkel said a few years ago, lost touch with reality? If so, then what?

By the time historians can answer those questions, it will be too late, certainly for thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and conceivably for the rest of us. Meanwhile, one of the best places to find answers might be in a recently published biography, simply entitled PUTIN by Philip Short.

Short is a British journalist with a long career as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Beijing and Washington for the BBC, The Economist and The Times of London. He is also an accomplished author, having written biographies of Mao, Pol Pot and Francois Mitterand.

Short recently joined the New Thinking for a New World podcast to discuss how Putin looks at the world, what turned him away from a partnership with the West, and the risk that his war could go nuclear.

What do you think?

We live in an era of accelerating, disruptive climate change. This isn’t about the random bad storm, but about systemic, dramatic shifts in climate that manifest as extreme weather of all sorts: wet bulb temperatures that threaten life, droughts destroying crops, floods of Biblical proportions, shrinking ice caps, etc. Change is everywhere, with catastrophic consequences that every credible forecast says will worsen.

But how can we understand the reality of those changes? What’s actually happening in the Arctic and in the boreal forests, in the Amazon and in Africa? How do changes in those disparate ecosystems relate to each other and to places where most of us live? What’s likely to happen next, and what can we do about it?

To look for answers we recently organized a conversation among Ugandan veterinarian Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Colombian Amazon expert and a friend of its indigenous people Francisco Hildebrand, and Finnish fisherman, scientist and village head man Tero Mustonen. All are deeply knowledgeable about the realities of their ecosystems, and even more deeply committed to finding solutions to the challenges thrown up by the changing climate. Our discussion was moderated by Maarten Koets, and hosted by Vamvakou Revival and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

This episode was originally published on May 26, 2022,

Winston Churchill famously described the Soviet Union as "A riddle wrapped in an enigma, inside a mystery.” That seems equally to apply to modern day Mexico.

On the one hand, the country is chronically beset by drug cartels, violence, femicide, corruption, poverty, and political shenanigans. The US State Department says that tourists should absolutely not travel to six of Mexico's 32 states and another seven that are almost as violent and crime ridden. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean says Mexico is the fifth poorest country in the Americas. During the past twelve months, a record 2.3 million people will have been arrested trying to cross the country’s northern border into the United States, including many Mexicans fleeing poverty and violence or simply looking for better lives.

On the other hand, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, commands approval ratings of around 60% which are the envy of almost every other democratically elected president. AMLO’s party—really more of a social movement he created—is far and away the dominant force in Mexican politics, well positioned to win the presidency for his successor in 2024. Almost half of all Mexicans say their country is on the right path—by comparison, in the United States, only about a quarter think the same about their country.

And more than two-thirds of Mexicans expect life to be better for them and their children five years from now. Mexicans, not known for being optimists, apparently are optimistic. Why?

Jorge Castañeda is as well positioned as anyone to solve the riddle. Castañeda is a leading Mexican academic and author, as well as a former foreign minister and an expert on foreign policy; indeed, he is one of his country’s best known, most incisive commentators on all things political. He thinks Mexico is in trouble. What do you think?

We live in a complicated, conflicted world. Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine. US and European efforts to punish Russian aggression in ways that challenge the basic rules of financial and commercial globalization. China's growing geopolitical and military assertiveness, highlighted by increasing threats to repatriate Taiwan. Even Japan and Germany, long advocates of soft power, have announced they will re-arm in the face of rising global threats.

What about India? Today it's the world's sixth largest economy and famously, the world's largest democracy. But it aims higher. Prime Minister Modi recently declared that the country must accelerate its growth and development; by 2050 only China and the US are likely to have larger economies.

However, rapid economic growth might be the easy part compared to figuring out how to live with an expansionist, aggressive China. When Chinese leaders intone their mantra of “Asia for the Asians” they don’t seem to be offering co-leadership to Delhi or anyone else.

Indeed, India shares a border of more than 2000 miles with China and has fought the Chinese repeatedly, as recently as 2020. It seems inevitable that India and China will butt heads again—perhaps repeatedly—as both countries become stronger. And to add a twist, Russia, China's declared best friend forever is India's largest arms supplier.

C Raja Mohan, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Delhi, has a deep understanding of India’s foreign policy challenges. Listen as he explains how India can cope with a dangerous world and a dangerous neighbor.

What do you think?

At a time when autocrats are rampaging and our democracies are weakening, the need for citizens to defend their rights has never been greater. But, does speaking truth to power matter in the real world? While we celebrate the bravery and eloquence of those who stand up to injustice and overweening authority, too often the bad guys seem to win. What would it take to change that outcome?

The Tällberg Foundation recently organized a conversation among three of the good “guys:” Kenyan poet Sitawa Namwalie, Bangladeshi photographer and activist Shahidul Alam, and American human rights lawyer Jared Genser. Their discussion was hosted in Vamvakou, Greece by the Vamvakou Revival and SNF (the Stavros Niarchos Foundation).

Listen as they discuss the reality in the trenches of the fight for human rights.

This episode was originally published on May 19, 2022.