China doesn't need to invade Taiwan to win.A blockade could bring the global economy to its knees — without firing a single shot. In this episode of The Next Best, political scientist Marcel Dirsus sits down with Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann to map out the most dangerous flashpoint in global politics: the China–Taiwan conflict. From a full-scale Taiwan invasion to a blockade strategy to gray zone pressure campaigns, they break down every realistic scenario — and ask the harder question: what would actually deter Xi Jinping?

Russia didn't just invade Ukraine. It's trying to break the rules of the international system.In this episode, I sit down with James Ker-Lindsay — one of the world's leading authorities on secession and self-determination — to trace exactly how the sovereign state was built, why the rules against conquest exist, and how Russia is now dismantling them one fake referendum at a time.

About James Ker-Lindsay:James Ker-Lindsay is one of the world's foremost experts on secession, self-determination, and state recognition. He has advised governments and international organizations on questions of statehood and has authored more than a dozen books on conflict and international relations.

Russia says it's winning. The front line tells a different story. Military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady just returned from Ukraine — here's what he actually saw. Russia is betting on spring advances in the Donbas. Ukrainian soldiers say they'll stay "till hell freezes over." So who's right — and does it even matter if nobody has a theory of victory?

Xi Jinping may be the most powerful man in the world. But that power may also be a trap he can't escape.In this episode of The Next Best, Marcel Dirsus sits down with Rory Truex — Princeton professor and leading expert on Chinese politics — to unpack how Xi Jinping consolidated control over China's political system, why his grip on power may have made China more fragile, and what happens to the world if he suddenly disappears.

NATO isn't just weakening. It's basically dead — and that's not a headline. It's an analysis.In this episode, I break down exactly what killed the alliance: Donald Trump's deep, structural hostility to multilateral commitments, decades of European governments free-riding on American security guarantees, and a geopolitical reality that was already pulling U.S. attention toward China long before Trump returned to the White House.But here's what most people miss: NATO was never an automatic defense guarantee. It always ran on trust — on Putin believing the United States would risk its own cities to defend a European one. That belief is now gone. And without it, deterrence collapses.

I also explain why this probably isn't just a four-year problem. The Republican Party has changed. Europe has lost trust in the United States. And America's strategic focus on China isn't going away. The result: Europe will need to plan its own security — and pay for it — without counting on Washington.That's bad for Europe. But it's also bad for America.

Trump's approval rating tells a story his supporters don't want to hear — and the data backs it up.

Pollster and journalist G. Elliott Morris joins me to break down Trump's poll numbers and explain why he may be one of the most unpopular presidents in modern American history.

If that's true, how does he keep winning?

We cover:

- Trump's approval ratings vs. past presidents

- Why voters still support him despite the polls

- The role of the economy in elections

- Public opinion on the war with Iran

- What polling data really tells us — and what it doesn't

Subscribe to Elliott's newsletter here: https://www.gelliottmorris.com/

The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus offers deep dives into geopolitics and international relations. We provide serious political commentary on foreign policy challenges, modern warfare, and global security.

Putin spent two decades demanding a multipolar world. Now he's getting one — and it might destroy Russia.In this episode of The Next Best, I speak with Seva Gunitsky, professor at the University of Toronto and author of Aftershocks, about the irony at the heart of today's geopolitical shift: the global order Putin wanted may be far worse for Russia than the one he helped dismantle.We discuss why the invasion of Ukraine may be the biggest strategic blunder of the century, how personalist dictatorships distort decision-making, and why a world dominated by leaders like Putin, Trump, and Xi Jinping could become more unstable — and more dangerous.We also examine whether Putin could survive peace, how dictators actually lose power, and why nuclear risk may be rising again.

Is Congress irrelevant in U.S. foreign policy? Is bipartisanship a myth? And what happens when the biggest threat to a NATO ally might be the United States itself?

This week on The Next Best, I'm joined by Elizabeth Saunders, professor at Columbia University and author of The Insider's Game: How Elites Make War and Peace. We unpack how American foreign policy really works — not in theory, but in practice.

From the slow erosion of congressional war powers after World War II to the sweeping authorities passed after the September 11 attacks. From Harry S. Truman and the myth of Cold War unity to Donald Trump threatening Greenland.

This conversation cuts through nostalgia and looks at the raw politics of power.

We discuss:

• Why Congress keeps giving away authority — and why it can't claw it back

• The structural political advantage of "hawks" over "doves"

• Whether Trump has fixed foreign policy beliefs (spoiler: he does)

• Why Trump and Greenland may have been a turning point for NATO

• The internal camps shaping Trump's decisions — and what a President JD Vance might mean for Europe

• Whether congressional Republicans would ever break with him

• Will Europe's rearmament outlast Trump?

One key argument: Trump isn't a "peace president." He's comfortable with force — drones, bombing, special operations — but reluctant to launch large-scale wars with U.S. casualties. That distinction matters.

If you care about how war powers actually function, why sanctions are easy to impose but nearly impossible to remove, and whether Europe's rearmament will outlast Trump — this episode is for you.

The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus offers deep dives into geopolitics and international relations. We provide serious political commentary on foreign policy challenges, modern warfare, and global security.🔔 Subscribe for more analysis: https://www.youtube.com/@TheNextBestPod📺 Watch our most popular video: https://youtu.be/OhI17ztUvzY

Apple doesn’t just manufacture in China. It helped build the system that now holds it hostage.

In this episode of The Next Best, I speak with Financial Times journalist Patrick McGee, author of Apple in China, about one of the most important – and least understood – geopolitical entanglements of our time.

• How did Apple become dependent on the Chinese Communist Party?

• Why can’t it simply move production elsewhere?

• And what does this tell us about authoritarian leverage in a globalized world?

We explore the rise of China’s manufacturing dominance, the scale of Apple’s exposure, and why decoupling may be far harder than many policymakers assume.

The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus offers deep dives into geopolitics and international relations. We provide serious political commentary on foreign policy challenges, modern warfare, and global security.

How powerful is propaganda—really?

In this episode of The Next Best, Marcel Dirsus speaks with Gavin Wilde, a former White House official and U.S. intelligence analyst, about why we consistently overestimate the impact of fake news, disinformation, and "information warfare."

From World War I and Edward Bernays to Russian hybrid warfare, social media bots, and AI-generated deepfakes, Wilde argues that propaganda is far less decisive than we like to believe.

We discuss:

• Why democracies struggle with persuasion and media literacy

• How Russia exploits existing social fractures rather than creating them

• Why calling out disinformation can sometimes backfire

• Why "ignoring it" might be a more rational strategy than constant outrage

The conversation also explores AI, deepfakes, hybrid warfare, and the limits of deterrence in the information age—challenging many of today’s dominant assumptions.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Why ignoring propaganda might be the most rational response

00:29 — Introduction: Gavin Wilde on propaganda, Russia, and hybrid warfare

00:53 — What propaganda actually is (and how it differs from persuasion)

01:04 — World War I, democracy, and the birth of modern propaganda

03:40 — Edward Bernays, psychology, and “torches of freedom”

05:10 — Propaganda as belonging, not mind control

06:29 — Propaganda in democracies vs. autocracies

06:50 — Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and reinforcing existing beliefs

09:18 — The internet, bots, deepfakes, and how the game supposedly changed

09:57 — Computing, social science, and the myth of predictable persuasion

12:20 — Why propaganda and advertising oversell their own effectiveness

13:50 — Russia, hybrid warfare, and election interference

14:17 — Do we know Russia interferes in Western elections?

15:30 — Soviet history and the roots of Russian information warfare

17:32 — Opportunism vs. grand Kremlin strategy

18:58 — The risks of overestimating foreign interference

19:28 — Why blaming propaganda undermines democratic agency

21:35 — Exploiting existing divisions & the Doppelgänger operation

23:10 — When exposing disinformation backfires

24:40 — Policy takeaway: why “ignore it” may be the best option

25:58 — Should democracies fight back with information warfare?

26:11 — Why information warfare is fundamentally autocratic

27:30 — Telling a better democratic story (not just better facts)

29:24 — Kinetic hybrid warfare: sabotage, terrorism, and fear

31:34 — Attribution, deterrence, and why resilience matters more

34:10 — Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and the “dog that didn’t bark”

36:51 — What we still get wrong about human behavior and propaganda

37:54 — Closing remarks

The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus offers deep dives into geopolitics and international relations. We provide serious political commentary on foreign policy challenges, modern warfare, and global security.