Warpod

At the end of last year, US President Joe Biden hosted the virtual Summit for Democracy. It convened more than 100 countries to draw attention to rising authoritarianism. The summit looked at three themes: defending against authoritarianism, addressing and fighting corruption, and advancing respect for human rights.

How well has the summit, and Biden’s democracy strategy more generally, prepared the US and its allies for tackling the most pressing threats to democracy today? And how has the US’ own two-decade fixation on countering-terrorism and violent extremist groups impacted global democracy?

To ask these questions, and many more, we are joined by:

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld. This podcast was recorded before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and therefore does not reference the latest developments.

#democracy #US #military #conflict #defence #counterterrorism

Over the last seven years, fighting between Ukrainian and Russian-backed separatist groups has been responsible for substantial civilian harm in the region. As well as the use of conventional forces, there has been ‘hybrid warfare’. While the risks of conventional military forces on civilian populations are increasingly understood, we know much less about the risks posed by these hybrid tactics.

In this episode we are joined by two experts who have been doing extensive research on ‘hybrid warfare’ to help us understand more. They are:

Together we explore what hybrid threats are, what risks they pose to people in Ukraine and how Ukraine, the US and others can better respond to these threats.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

#Ukraine #HybridThreats #military #conflict #defence #Russia #futureofwar #industry

Looking ahead to 2022, we think about issues that will define the future of conflict – including space, the arctic, climate change, and cyber – and how policymakers and practitioners need to adapt for them. Three guests join hosts, Abigail Watson and Delina Goxho. They are:

Together we explore how future trends are misunderstood, how they will affect the future of conflict and what we should do about them.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

In the eighth and final episode of Warpod's special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’, our hosts Larry Attree and Delina Goxho ask three experts whether the 9/11 paradigm is here to stay, or the world is now ready to move on.

We talk to:

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

In the seventh episode of Warpod's special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’, our hosts Larry Attree and Delina Goxho ask three experts about how 9/11 “came home” and impacted on the laws, freedoms and ideals of the U.S. and other Western countries.

The three experts are:

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

The sixth episode of Warpod's special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ episode explores how authoritarian governments have taken advantage of the war on terror for their own benefits. Our hosts, Larry Attree and Delina Goxho, ask three experts what effects this has had on peace and democracy, especially in the Philippines, Syria and Egypt.

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

The fifth episode of Warpod's special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ episode considers how the war on terror evolved as problems mounted, especially looking at the rise of Remote Warfare and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programmes. To explore the rise of remote warfare and its impact on communities in conflict-affected countries, hosts Larry Attree and Delina Goxho are joined by Dan Mahanty, Director of CIVIC's U.S. Program, Victoria Ohaeri, founder and director of Spaces For Change, and Abigail Watson, Saferworld’s Conflict and Security Policy Coordinator. 

Then to discuss CVE, our hosts are joined by Graeme Simpson, Director of Interpeace USA and Lead Author of the Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security, and Jordan Street, Saferworld’s Policy and Advocacy Adviser.

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

The fourth episode of Warpod's special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ looks at two countries that became important battlegrounds in the global war on terror: Yemen and Somalia. To discuss Yemen, Larry Attree and Delina Goxho are joined by Iona Craig, an investigative journalist focused on Yemen and a winner of the Orwell prize for journalism, and Awfa Alnami, Saferworld’s Yemen Country Manager.

Our hosts then discuss the conflict in Somalia with Mary Harper, BBC Africa editor and author of a major book on Al Shabaab titled ‘Everything You Have Told Me Is True’, and Dr. Afyare Abdi Elmi, executive director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies in Mogadishu and author of ‘Understanding the Somalia Conflagration’.

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

In the third episode of Warpod's special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’, hosts Larry Attree and Delina Goxho are joined by Emma Sky, author of ‘The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq’, who served as political advisor to General Odierno, the commander of US Forces in Iraq and Renad Mansour, senior research fellow and project director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House, to reflect on how the war on terror became connected to the push to topple Saddam Hussein and the consequences it unleashed in Iraq.

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not necessarily the views or opinions of Saferworld.

In the second episode of the Warpod’s special series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’, hosts Larry Attree and Delina Goxho are joined by Steve Coll, Dean of Columbia Journalism School and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and Huma Saeed, an affiliated researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology. They discuss the first country to be targeted in the war on terror, Afghanistan. We ask, why did this war become so challenging? And what were the consequences for the people who lived through it?

This special Warpod series ‘Reckoning with 9/11’ is created by Saferworld with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and produced by the Podcast Company.

Please note the views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the contributors featured. They are not the views or opinions of Saferworld.