Uncommon Decency

"I think this administration—and President Biden personally—is very much attached to Europe, but when you look at the situation today, there is indeed a de-synchronization." In an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, French President Emmanuel Macron highlighted the growing tension in the transatlantic relationship as the United States and Europe rift apart in a number of areas such as economics and energy. The EU has raised concerns that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a major package of legislation signed into law by President Biden earlier this year, will severely damage European industry through its use of subsidies and tax credits to promote manufacturing in the US. The dispute was at the core of discussions between the US and France during President Macron's state visit to the US last week. Another area of disconnect relates to the differing approaches the EU and the US take towards China. While the US views China as a threat, European countries have a more dovish approach, favoring cooperation to competition. This was underscored by the recent visits of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the former of whom recently declared in an essay for Foreign Affairs that the world is facing a "Zeitenwende"—the end of an era. Both visits were criticized by China hawks given their proximity to the party congress where President Xi was enshrined for another five years, becoming its most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. This week in a bonus episode, Jorge, Francois, and Julian discussed the fractious state of US-EU trade relations, as well as the diverging approaches to China.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

On May 7, 1999, five bombs rained down from U.S. jets on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, as part of NATO's air campaign to halt the deadly assault by the forces of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Nearly a quarter of a century later, China is transforming the site of its bombed former embassy into an expansive cultural center, set to be one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Once opened, the center will serve not only as a potent symbol of China's growing presence in the Werstern Balkans, but also of the potential kinship between the two regions, not least owing to the shared socialist past that Chinese diplomats often emphasize to advance those relations. In the long-run, some experts deem China's growing economic clout in Europe, primarily through the Western Balkans, a more consequential trend than Russia's invasion of Ukraine itself. To unpack just how deep China's influence on the region runs, we are joined this week by Damir Marusic of the Atlantic Council and Valbona Zeneli of the Marshall Center.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

In 1791, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted one of the world's most avant-garde constitutions, one establishing a progressive constitutional monarchy. And yet in 1795, the Commonwealth altogether disappeared, partitioned between Prussia, Austria and Russia. This contrast between the Commonwealth's seemingly advanced regime and its total collapse in four years has earned it the neglect of historians. Yet for nearly four centuries, it stayed a major actor in central European politics, controlling at its peak somewhere between a third and a fourth of the European landmass, with liberal political and religious rights for its time and vibrant intellectual, economic and cultural conditions. This week, we cover this fascinating history with two leading experts. Norman Davies is the Polish-Welsh honorary fellow at St Antony's College (Oxford). He's a professor Emeritus at UCL and the author of many books on Poland, including God's Playground: A History of Poland (1979). Adam Zamoyski—in his third appearance on the podcast—is the author of Poland: A History (2009).

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"I think people are going to be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won't do it." With those words, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy sparked significant panic in European capitals, with foreign diplomats fearing that a Republican victory in the midterms would lead to diminished US support for Ukraine. Yet the red wave didn't materialize for McCarthy and the GOP. As we recorded this episode, the House had still not been called either way. Nevertheless, the election results do raise important questions for Europe as it thinks about how Congress, which is in charge of allocating funds for Ukraine, will approach the conflict under new leadership. In this bonus episode, Francois and Julian discussed the impact of the US midterms on Ukraine, as well as how France missed its moment to push for strategic autonomy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Here is a double paradox: The European Union's (EU) set of founding principles—its telos, so to speak—are undergoing a two-track inversion. The block was initially designed to slide gently towards federalization whilst remaining a largely toothless actor on the world stage. And yet the opposite has happened: the EU has since grown into a powerful geopolitical player of its own that is internally at peace with the present deadlock of integration. Sometime between the eurozone crisis of the early 2010s and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the EU's entire architecture has been turned inside out. Scholars, journalists and analysts in Brussels and European capitals are still at pains to gauge the depth of this compete revolution. Stefan Auer of Hong Kong University may have lost some sleep over it. A former—and likely future—recipient of the prestigious Jean Monnet Chair for EU studies, he's as astute an observer as any of the block's institutional dynamics. He argues in his most recent book that, instead of seeking to transcend the laws of politics, the EU would be well advised to heed them. In this episode he sits down with us and Glyn Morgan, associate professor at Syracuse University's politics department.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

« Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains." When a fresh-faced Vladimir Putin made those comments back in 2000, Russia had only recently lost its Soviet Empire and endured a series of violent conflicts within the borders of the Federation, most notably in Chechnya. Just like the rest of Europe lost its colonies in the latter half of the 20th century, Russia was forced then to lose large chunks of its imperial Soviet possessions. But over the last two decades, Vladimir Putin nonetheless managed to maintain a strong influence network in his "near abroad," making Russia a central actor in the politics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Yet the increasingly costly and unsuccessful "special military operation" in Ukraine considerably undermines Russia's might and clout. As a result, a series of border conflicts and uprisings sprang up in the former USSR, from the reheated conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan to the skirmishes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Our two guests this week are veteran Russian analysts. Angela Stent is a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings and professor emerita of government and foreign service at Georgetown. She's a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia and the author of Putin's World: Russia against the West and with the Rest (2019) and is about to be republished with an extra chapter on the war in Ukraine. Mark Galeotti is a political scientist specialized in Russian security affairs and the director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He is an Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He's also publishing later this week Putin's Wars, from Chechnya to Ukraine (2022) which should be another incredibly timely read. For our Patreon section, our two experts took an in-depth dive into the Russian Federation itself. War and the ramping up of conscription sparked some major tensions within ethnic minority groups which could upset the balance of power within the nominally federal Federation of Russia. We also had a conversation on Russian imperialism, modern Russian nationalism and whether Russia sees itself as a former colonial power. If you want to listen to this Patreon-exclusive conversation and get plenty of additional content, you can subscribe for as little as the price of a sandwich a month. On to the show!

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them." With those words, Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed fears across the globe that Russia could employ nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine. As we edited this episode, Russia conducted its annual nuclear exercises, drills that had added resonance given the Kremlin's implied threats to use nuclear force in the conflict in Ukraine. But how likely is Putin to use nuclear weapons? And how would Russia use one in the war? To answer these questions and puncture some myths surrounding nuclear weapons and Russian nuclear doctrine, we spoke to Olga Oliker, Program Director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group, and Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French think tank.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Greece, look at history, go back in time; if you go too far, the price will be heavy. We only have one sentence for Greece, do not forget Izmir". After months of hostile aerial and naval encounters between Greek and Turkish armed forces, Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave this remarkable speech last September. By referring to the 1922 burning of the Greek Anatolian city of Izmir by the Turkish army, Erdogan's threat to Greece was crystal clear. It's a snapshot of a foreign policy decried as revanchist by its critics, and as logically assertive by its supporters, but one that from the outside can be hard to understand. How can this NATO member be at loggerheads with its Greek neighbor and trade diplomatic blows with European capitals while still technically applying for EU membership? We invited Ryan Gingeras, an expert of Turkish foreign policy, to take stock of this paradox. Is there such a thing as an Erdogan doctrine? Gingeras is a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and is an expert on Turkish, Balkan, and Middle East history. He is the author of six books, including the forthcoming The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire (to be released by Penguin in October 2022). The views he expresses here are not those of the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

The war in Ukraine keeps looming over Europe's geopolitical landscape, with sanctions, energy price caps, and weapons supplies dominating debates at EU Council meetings. Ukraine's recently successful counter-offensive warrants a check-in on the war itself, and what it means for the continent's geopolitical standing as old Europe fades in influence, and new Europe's voice grows louder. The UK, one of Ukraine's strongest supporters, elected a new Prime Minister and was plunged into economic crisis almost immediately. Why did Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng opt for their economic strategy? Can the Conservatives rebound before the next election? Or will Sir Keir Starmer become the first Labour PM since Gordon Brown? This week Francois Valentin and Julian Graham dove into these topics in-depth.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Civil war politics ended a long time ago in our country, but today it ends in our parliament." Thus welcomed Leo Varadkar—the former and future Irish Taoiseach—the new coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Ireland has been marked by division, between both the Republic's pro- and anti-treaty parties and the North and South on the island itself. Economic progress has brought with it a shift to more progressive values, and this has sparked unprecedented political change. What does this mean for the Emerald Isle, and what can Europe and the world learn from Ireland's success? This week, we spoke about the social and political changes facing Ireland with Daniel Mulhall and Jude Webber. The former is a former Irish Ambassador to the UK and US, and author of Ulysses: A Reader's Odyssey (2022), out this year. The latter is Dublin Correspondent for the Financial Times. And for our Patreon subscribers, a broader conversation on the prospect of Irish unification awaits. If you would like to hear that conversation, you can subscribe for just €5 a month.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.