The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus

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.

Can Europe defend itself without the United States? The uncomfortable reality is that Europe’s security architecture is completely dependent on Washington—and that foundation is cracking.In this episode of The Next Best, Marcel Dirsus speaks with Max Bergmann (Director at CSIS and former US diplomat) about the depth of this military dependence. They break down exactly what would have to change if Washington steps back, covering the "fatal flaws" in European defense—from procurement failures and intelligence sharing to the growing risk of a prolonged war with Russia.Topics Discussed:• The Command Problem: Why Europe lacks a unified military structure.• The NATO Paradox: How the alliance entrenched US leadership in European defense.• Industrial Failure: Why increased spending isn't translating into stockpiles.• The "Euro Eyes" Problem: Europe’s reliance on US intelligence and logistics.• Future Scenarios: What happens if there is a rupture in US–EU relations?Chapters:00:00 Intro00:30 Europe, NATO, and US security dependence01:18 Post-WWII origins of Europe’s defence model05:03 Why European militaries declined after the Cold War07:02 The real source of Europe’s military dependency09:49 US troops in Europe and rapid reaction forces13:09 Can a pan-European force work?16:49 Who decides? The political control problem19:56 Why Europe stopped thinking strategically21:50 Defence procurement and industrial fragmentation27:03 Ammunition, stockpiles, and production capacity30:32 Ukraine and the war of attrition problem33:04 Intelligence, “Euro Eyes,” and hybrid warfare37:08 US–EU relations and the risk of rupture40:04 Are European leaders responding fast enough?43:20 Final thoughtsIf you’re interested in geopolitics, European security, and how power actually works, subscribe to The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus.

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Tim Weiner joins Marcel Dirsus to discuss his book, The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.

This episode is a deep dive into the CIA, the failures of the War on Terror, and the future of modern warfare. Weiner traces the agency’s evolution from the Cold War through 9/11, revealing how fear drove the CIA into torture, secret prisons, and paramilitary operations that reshaped America’s moral standing.

He argues that while the agency has had tactical successes—like dismantling nuclear smuggling networks and stealing Vladimir Putin’s invasion plans for Ukraine—it faces a strategic crisis.

The conversation warns of a catastrophic intelligence failure fueled by Donald Trump’s rejection of intelligence, ideological purges within the national security apparatus, and China’s surveillance-driven operations.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Vladimir Putin’s shadow war across Europe

00:20 – Introduction: Tim Weiner & The Mission

00:49 – The CIA after the Cold War and before 9/11

01:01 – Ignored warnings about Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden

02:59 – The Bush administration’s obsession with Saddam Hussein

03:29 – Iraq, neoconservatives, and the democracy delusion

04:20 – How 9/11 transformed the CIA

04:49 – Fear, raw intelligence, and the road to war

06:36 – Torture, black sites, and “enhanced interrogation”

07:17 – How the CIA justified torture

09:26 – Did torture actually work?

09:41 – The A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling operation

11:26 – Pakistan, the ISI, and playing both sides

12:47 – The CIA’s lost focus on Russia and China

13:14 – Russia, political warfare, and the 2016 election

15:17 – Stealing Putin’s Ukraine invasion plans

17:39 – CIA support for Ukraine before and after the invasion

18:02 – Why subscribing helps the podcast

18:15 – How the CIA rebuilt Ukraine’s intelligence services

20:18 – Trump, Putin, and spheres of influence

21:11 – Authoritarianism and the logic of force

22:20 – Trump vs. intelligence agencies

23:05 – Ideological purges inside the CIA

25:35 – China’s intelligence services and surveillance strategy

27:45 – CIA successes—and failures—against China

29:04 – What CIA officers are really like

31:38 – Democracy, dictatorship, and a personal warning

31:49 – Closing remarks

About The Next Best:

Deep dives into geopolitics, international relations, and history with political scientist Marcel Dirsus. If you found this conversation valuable, please subscribe and leave a comment.