This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Donald Trump’s failing war on Iran has emboldened China. Beijing is trying to build relationships to counter Washington, as it looks to fill a vacuum in power globally left by the United States as it shifts its geopolitical strategy. Gavin Esler is joined by Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, to discuss how China is trying to capitalise on America’s failings. 

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/drill

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/drill

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this. 

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just days into the Iran conflict, strikes had taken out much of the country’s military leadership. Yet the conflict continues with a new regime installed in Tehran. With the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei unseen since the outbreak of war, who is really in charge now? And as peace negotiations continue to stall, what drives Tehran’s decisions?

Gavin Esler discusses the latest from Iran with Professor Ali Ansari, founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews.

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/drill

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/drill

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A week of turmoil within Ukraine’s armed forces has seen protestors take to the streets and a chaotic series of changes at the very top of military command. 

What comes next for the future of Ukraine's defence, after a week of damaging political upheaval? And what does it mean for Zelenskyy’s military strategy?

Oz Katerji is joined by Jimmy Rushton, special correspondent at the Kyiv Independent, for the background on a story which has rocked Ukraine and its armed forces as they continue to hold out against the Russian invasion.

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Oz Katerji. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

European security is in a state of crisis that would have been hard to imagine when Emmanuel Macron took office as French President in 2017. What happens when a President whose term has been so dominated by the threat of Russia, the fate of NATO and fears for Europe’s independence comes to the end of his term? Fresh from the NATO summit, Macron turned his final Bastille Day into a statement of European unity and resolve – but questions remain over his successor, European rearmament and America’s commitment to NATO. Could the ‘true European Army’ that Macron once posited by the answer? Gavin Esler talks it over with Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief at The Economist.

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As member states gathered for the NATO conference in Ankara this week, leaders faced a series of questions over the future of the security alliance.

As President Trump flew into Turkey criticising allies over spending commitments and their support in the Iran conflict, could they rely on the US commitment to NATO any longer?  And with Russia’s war on Ukraine ongoing, and the looming threat that Putin may yet test NATO’s resolve by targeting a member state, can allies meet defence budget pledges and defend Europe within a NATO less reliant on America?

Oz Katerji hears the latest from the conference halls from Ed Arnold, Senior Associate Fellow, International Security at RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute.

• Special offer! Get 20% off any vehicle history check at carvertical.com/drill

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Oz Katerji. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The United States’ war with Iran is a reminder that it’s easier to start a war than to end it.

Many other lessons from the conflict are also being analysed right now, from how relatively low-cost weapons change the economics of war, to how even a far-away war can affect all of us in our daily lives.

Dr Neda Bolourchi, Middle East historian and nonresident fellow with the Institute for Global Affairs Eurasia Group, joins Gavin Esler to explore some of the ways in which the Iran war is making military strategists, politicians, governments and ultimately the rest of us think very differently about conflict in the 21st century.

Read Dr Bolourchi’s article The Hidden Systems of Modern War: Ten Takeways from the Iran War for the Modern War Institute here.

• Special offer! Get 20% off any vehicle history check at carvertical.com/drill

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ukrainian drone swarms have hit targets in major Russian cities, while disrupting its military assets and vital oil supplies. Could this be a turning point in the war more than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion began? 

Gavin Esler is joined by John Lough, senior research fellow at the New Eurasia Strategies Centre and associate fellow in the Russia Eurasia programme at Chatham House.

• Special offer! Get 20% off any vehicle history check at carvertical.com/drill

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

News of the framework for a peace deal between Iran and the United States - if it holds - might be the beginning of the end of a conflict that has unsettled not just the Middle East and the world economy but also Washington’s relationships with its allies. 

Even if President Trump claims some kind of victory in Iran - with stories about arguments and possible rifts between Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, how far will the United States and Israel agree on the way forward? 

Gavin Esler is joined from Washington by Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and African studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Germany is rearming as the Russian threat looms over Europe and much of the continent’s security rests on its success. Backed by an emergency ‘Zeitenwende’ fund and an ever-expanding defence budget, Germany is undertaking a profound military transformation with the aim of becoming Europe’s strongest conventional army. What does this mean more broadly? And where do they need to focus?

Jörg Lau, foreign policy correspondent at Die Zeit, joins Gavin Esler to discuss how the budget will be spent and the challenges facing Germany – from domestic politics to European unity and the uncertainty over relations with Trump’s US administration.

You can buy Jörg Lau’s new book Der Westen Sind Jetzt Wir (in German) here.

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beyond the pomp and pageantry of Vladimir Putin’s Beijing summit with Xi Jinping, what do Russia and China need from each other? And how strong is their relationship? Plus, coming hot on the heels of Donald Trump’s own Beijing visit, what does it mean for the geopolitical balance in an era of great power competition?

Gavin Esler joins Joseph Webster, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and editor of the independent China-Russia Report to discuss.

• Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this.

Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices