The Rachman Review

By Financial Times

Social Sciences

What's The Rachman Review about?

Gideon Rachman, the Financial Times chief foreign affairs columnist talks to the decision-makers and thinkers who are shaping world affairs. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Can EU unity on Ukraine hold?

06.23.2022

European leaders have been united in their support for Ukraine against Russia’s aggression. But as costs mount they could face growing calls to compromise with Russia. Gideon talks to Ulrike Franke, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign ...

The Rachman Review episodes:

07.01.2021 Can Germany atone for its colonial-era genocide? Gideon speaks to Esther Muinjangue, a former chair of the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, and Franziska Boehme, a professor of political science, about the decades-long journey towards official recognition of Germany’s colonial-era atrocities in Namibia as genocide and why the apology ...
06.24.2021 Coming to terms with Putin's Russia Gideon talks to Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution about the recent US-Russia summit and what the former presidential adviser sees as the best way to deal with a state 'run by operatives' who don't play by the rules. See ...
06.17.2021 Martin Wolf on G7 opportunities missed Gideon talks to Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, about the pressing problems requiring international co-operation, and asks him if, in light of the G7 summit, the west is up to the task. Review clips: The Guardian, WION See ...
06.10.2021 Can Asian prosperity survive US-China rivalry? South-east Asia has enjoyed a long period of sustained economic growth. But is this endangered by rising tensions between the US and China? Gideon puts this question to James Crabtree, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in ...
06.03.2021 Belarus: more than a moral dilemma The decision by Belarus to divert a plane to Minsk to arrest a dissident journalist was intended to send a message to opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko, whose 27 years in office have seen him dubbed Europe’s last dictator. However, ...
05.27.2021 Washington’s will to find a Middle East solution A ceasefire is in place and an 11-day war is over, but that may not move Israelis and Palestinians closer to a two-state solution according to Martin Indyk, of the Council on Foreign Relations. Indyk has experience at the negotiation ...
05.20.2021 Myanmar on the brink The military coup in Myanmar threatens to roll back a decade of democratisation. In the months since the February coup, there have been strikes and protests as well as mass arrests and escalating violence as the junta attempts to quell ...
05.13.2021 A crisis in the Middle East Protests in Jerusalem at the beginning of the week have escalated to rocket launches, retaliatory airstrikes and civilian deaths. Gideon talks to Diana Butto, a Palestinian lawyer, and Noga Tarnopolsky, a journalist based in Jerusalem, about the political conditions that ...
05.06.2021 Why we should all give up meat Gideon talks to the FT’s Henry Mance about why he became a vegan. He says it's not just about preserving wildlife and the environment, it’s also about being true to our human values. Henry’s book How to Love Animals: In ...
04.29.2021 India’s wake up call to the world Gideon Rachman talks to Abraar Karan, a physician at Harvard Medical School and a specialist in global health, about the current surge in coronavirus cases in India and why nationalistic approaches to curbing the pandemic will not help solve a ...
04.22.2021 Leaving Afghanistan Gideon talks to Tom Tugendhat, head of the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee, about the US decision to finally withdraw from Afghanistan. How will this affect the credibility of the western powers and their ability to conduct successful military interventions ...
04.15.2021 Britain's legacy of empire Gideon talks to Sathnam Sanghera about his book Empireland and the legacy of racism and nostalgia that Britain has yet to come to terms with. Warning: This episode contains references to racist language. Clips: Sky News; Conservative party See acast.com/privacy ...
04.08.2021 Are the US and China entering a Cold War? The US president has promised that, after four years of retreat from the global stage, “America is back”. Over the past few years, China has continued to expand its economic and political influence and matched its growing clout on the ...
04.01.2021 Britain shifts its military focus The UK’s defence forces are slimming down and harnessing the power of AI and satellites to meet the emerging threats of the 21st century. Helen Warrell, the FT’s defence and security editor, talks to General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of ...
03.25.2021 Europe's Mr Normal Ben Hall, the FT’s Europe editor, talks to Dutch historian Luuk van Middelaar about Mark Rutte’s re-election as prime minister of the Netherlands and his country’s changing role within the EU. Clips: Bloomberg, Reuters See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out ...
03.18.2021 Spying in the digital age Helen Warrell, the FT’s defence and security editor, talks to cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch about the SolarWinds and Microsoft hacks. How extensive was the damage inflicted and how should the west respond to such attacks? Clips: CBS, CNN, NBC See ...
03.11.2021 Could this year mark a turning point for climate? Britain is hosting this year’s UN climate summit, COP26, in Glasgow. Pilita Clark discusses what these summits have achieved over the past three decades and what needs to be done to make the talks a success. Her guest is Richard ...
03.04.2021 Italy’s make or break moment Ben Hall, the FT’s Europe editor, discusses Italy as former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi takes on the premiership. How Draghi decides to spend up to €200bn in grants and loans from the EU recovery fund will be crucial, ...
02.25.2021 Michael Mann on the politics of global warming Pilita Clark talks to Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State university, and one of the world’s best-known climate scientists. They discuss the evolution of the climate change debate, from the war on science to denialism, doomism ...
02.18.2021 The world in review In a special retrospective episode, Gideon Rachman looks at some of his favourite podcast conversations that illuminate the state of geopolitics today, asking whether the pandemic has permanently changed the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
02.11.2021 Britain’s post-Brexit role as ‘global broker’ Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s diplomatic skills will be tested as host of both the G7 and UN COP26 climate change summit this year. Gideon talks to Robin Niblett, director of the Chatham House think-tank and economist Linda Yueh, currently a ...
02.04.2021 Navalny’s crusade against the Kremlin Gideon talks to journalists Arkady Ostrovsky and Max Seddon in Moscow about why Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny decided to return home after he was poisoned and what his political movement can achieve if its leader is in jail. Max ...
01.28.2021 António Guterres on the United Nations in a fractured world The pandemic, climate change and peacekeeping are all priorities for the UN in 2021, but these challenges require multilateral solutions at a time when the world's superpowers are drifting further apart. Gideon Rachman talks to António Guterres, secretary-general of the ...
01.21.2021 Germany after Merkel Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union has chosen Armin Laschet to replace Angela Merkel as party leader ahead of September’s federal elections, paving the way for the end of the Merkel era. Gideon discusses what a post-Merkel Germany will look like ...
01.14.2021 America’s political meltdown After the storming of the Capitol, can America recover its democratic values? Gideon discusses what the recent lawlessness means for the US and its place in the world with Anne-Marie Slaughter, head of New America, a think-tank. See acast.com/privacy for ...
01.07.2021 David Miliband on the global leadership vacuum The former British foreign secretary championed the UK to remain in the EU. As head of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband has seen the consequence of a lack of global leadership in helping the world’s vulnerable populations. In this ...
12.17.2020 The best and worst of 2020 Gideon talks to Roula Khalaf, FT editor, and Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator, about the extraordinary events of 2020 - from Covid-19 to the US election and unexpected signs of reconciliation between Israel and Arab Gulf states. See acast.com/privacy for ...
12.10.2020 EU at a turning point EU leaders are facing showdowns on several fronts this week, with the UK over Brexit, and with Hungary and Poland over the rule of law. Gideon discusses what’s at stake with Professor Catherine De Vries of Bocconi University in Italy. ...
12.03.2020 Thai students call for change Gideon talks to Thai opposition leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and John Reed, the FT’s Bangkok bureau chief, about the student protests that have challenged Thailand’s traditional power structures by demanding constitutional change. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
11.26.2020 Ethiopia’s struggle with ethnic nationalism A country that enjoyed decades of economc growth and stability now risks being torn apart by ethnic divisions. Gideon discusses what’s behind the outbreak of violence with Gabriel Negatu, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, and David ...
11.19.2020 Macron's world Gideon discusses the international ambitions, and problems, of the French president with Sylvie Kauffmann, editorial director of Le Monde. Are Emmanuel Macron’s views on European integration and strategic independence winning out? Clips: Reuters See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
11.12.2020 Biden’s global goals Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, served as US ambassador to Nato during the Obama years. He joins Gideon Rachman to talk about how Joe Biden may seek to rebuild the US’s broken alliances and project ...
11.04.2020 An American chasm Americans woke on November 4 to find that the result of their presidential election remained unclear. President Donald Trump’s statements about the integrity of the vote and his plan to dispute the final result at the Supreme Court signalled that ...
10.29.2020 Susan Glasser on the pandemic election The columnist has written about life in Trump’s Washington for The New Yorker magazine for almost four years. As voters head to the polls to elect the next US president, Gideon Rachman talks to Glasser about what to expect on ...
10.22.2020 Bringing history back to Burma Western nations have tended to regard the recent history of Myanmar, formerly Burma, as a struggle between democracy and dictatorship. But the country’s colonial past and climate change have also played a key role in its complex problems, Burmese historian ...
10.15.2020 Why humans wage wars Gideon Rachman talks to historian Margaret MacMillan about her study of warfare through the ages and why she fears that, while the manner in which we wage war has changed, our propensity to stumble into conflict remains the same. Clips: ...
10.08.2020 American entanglement in the Middle East Philip Gordon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a long-time Washington insider who worked on Middle East policy for the Obama administration and is now an informal adviser to the Biden campaign. In this episode, Gideon ...
10.01.2020 China’s second world war obsession China’s authorities have started to celebrate the country’s role in the second world war after long regarding it as a subject best forgotten. Gideon talks to the historian Rana Mitter about what’s behind this revised outlook on such a tormented ...
09.24.2020 Mexico's populist president When Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also known as Amlo, took office in late 2018 he promised a fourth political transformation of the country. Gideon Rachman talks to Jude Webber, the FT’s Mexico and Central America correspondent, about how Amlo’s plans ...
09.17.2020 German diplomacy tested by multiple crises From the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and pressure to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, to the refugee catastrophe in Greece and headaches over Brexit, Germany has no shortage of foreign policy crises to deal ...
09.10.2020 Netanyahu's diplomatic success Israel’s new deal to normalise diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates comes without any concessions on the Palestinian peace process. Gideon Rachman talks to Anshel Pfeffer, author of Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, about whether ...
09.03.2020 Putting existential risk on the agenda What are the biggest threats to the future of human existence on the planet? Not nuclear war or climate change as some might think, but man-made pathogens and thinking machines, the Australian philosopher Toby Ord tells Gideon Rachman. He talks ...
08.27.2020 Investigating ‘the doubts’ about the US presidential election Rumours about the US presidential election abound: is voting by mail secure, can Donald Trump postpone it, will the United States Postal Service be able to deliver ballots in time. Gideon Rachman sorts through what is fact and what is ...
08.20.2020 What China makes of ‘new cold war’ with US Gideon Rachman discusses how America’s tech war on China has affected Beijing’s long-held plan to assert its economic and military strength on the global stage with Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute of SOAS at London University. See acast.com/privacy ...
08.13.2020 The future of Lebanon The Lebanese have survived civil war, decades of rolling blackouts and even managed the influx of 1.5m Syrian refugees, about a quarter of the country's population. But the explosion in Beirut's port in early August that killed scores of people, ...
08.06.2020 Turkey’s assertive foreign policy Gideon Rachman talks to academic and writer Sinan Ulgen about Turkey’s foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, focusing on the controversial decision to turn Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque and the rationale behind Turkish military interventions ...
07.30.2020 US economist William Spriggs on scars of the pandemic Many countries agreed that the best way to stem the pandemic was to shut down movement, but the US took a different path than its peers in handling the economic fallout. Instead of being kept on payrolls through furlough schemes, ...
07.24.2020 Is US global leadership still possible? Donald Trump’s “America First” policy represented a marked shift in how the US engaged with its allies. Now Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden is focusing his campaign in part on restoring US leadership on the world stage through strategic alliances. ...
07.16.2020 Fabulists and the limits of deception Gideon Rachman talks to FT journalist Michael Peel about the use of false and misleading narratives by world leaders in democracies and dictatorships alike, and how the pandemic may have exposed the limits of doing politics "according to the world ...
07.09.2020 Putin: a president trapped in power Now in power until 2036 after a recent constitutional change, Vladimir Putin is nevertheless facing a difficult future as the Russian economy stagnates and popular unrest grows. Gideon Rachman and Catherine Belton, author and former FT journalist, discuss how the ...

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