In this episode, Joel Wasserman focuses on Ukraine’s messy internal politics, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cleaning house in his security service and making other moves seen by some as an effort to consolidate his administration’s control. But even if Zelenskyy was anti-democratically inclined, several factors of Ukrainian politics make it an unlikely goal to achieve. Learn more about why the country is inhospitable to autocrats.

In this episode, Alec Dionne and Maggie Sparling lay out a diplomatic framework that centers human security to win the Pacific Island countries’ long-term trust, support U.S. strategic goals, uplift its allies, and improve health outcomes. The United States’ fraught history with the Pacific Island countries has left the door open for increasing influence from China. As Beijing uses aggressive economic tactics to achieve its ends, Washington should rethink its traditional approach to the region.

In this episode, Syed Mohammad Ali writes about Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war, and how the country is facing an economic crisis alongside social and political unrest. These problems, as deeply rooted as they are, have opened a window of opportunity for the United States to offer assistance in regaining stability in Sri Lanka – a development that would serve Washington’s goal of strengthening its presence in the region amid a great power competition.

In this episode, Jeff Hawn discusses Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive, which pushed Russian forces back from Kharkiv to the eastern bank of the Oskil River, benefited from Ukraine’s growing advantages and Russia’s increasingly pronounced weaknesses. Learn about the disparities between the two armies and shows how the success in Kharkiv can be repeatable with continued Western investment.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine heads into its eighth month, the possibility of Russian economic and military escalation increases. In this episode of the New Lines Institute's Contours podcast, host Minna Jaffery-Lindemulder sits down with Senior Analyst Eugene Chausovsky to dive into the role of diplomacy in mediating this escalation and the potential consequences for great-power competition.

In this episode of The New Lines Institute’s Contours podcast series, Content Manager Minna Jaffery-Lindemulder is joined by Indian subcontinent experts Dr. Syed Mohammad Ali and Akhil Bery for an in-depth look at the geopolitics of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Indian Subcontinent as a whole. Highlights of the discussion include how Bangladesh and Sri Lanka balance their relationships with India and China, and the ties between South Asian countries' economic and political policies.

In this episode of Contours, Senior Analyst and Program Head Caroline Rose sits down with Non-Resident Fellow and a co-author of a recent New Lines report, "A Crisis of Conscience: Aid Diversion in Syria and the Impact on the International Aid System," Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, to unpack a recent crisis in the U.N. Security Council over the status and future of a cross-border aid delivery mandate in northwestern Syria.

Gendering Geopolitics with Emily Prey: Iuliia Mendel, former Spokesperson to President Zelenskyy, discusses her book The Fight for Our Lives & how women must have a seat at the table during the #Ukraine #Russia war & in any post-war talks.

In this episode, The New Lines institute proudly presents a new offering, Practitioner’s Perspective, where thought leaders with distinguished careers in foreign policy impart their wisdom from years of experience in the field. In the inaugural entry, former Ambassador Frederic Hof focuses on the ten-year-old case of Austin Tice, an American journalist kidnapped in Syria. Hof details “the enormous difficulty this or any administration faces in trying to free Austin Tice from the clutches of people unencumbered by ethics, morality, or decency.”

In this episode, learn more about why nearly a third of Ukrainian refugees are returning home, choosing to live in danger in Ukraine rather than live with the uncertainties of being a refugee. These Ukrainians are returning home for a variety of reasons – to reunite with family, to find a way to make money, and because of perceived safety in parts of Ukraine. However, better support for these refugees in host countries – childcare, employment opportunities, more freedom of movement – would make premature repatriation less likely, Alice Hickson writes in this Terrain Analysis.