Worldly

Zack, Jenn, and Alex move from Biden’s foreign policy to Trump’s — examining the record the incumbent president has racked up in his first term and what might happen if he wins a second. They debate what accomplishments the president can claim (if any) and discuss the ways his reelection could transform the world. Come for the foreign policy analysis, stay for the monologue about Jean Baudrillard.

References:

The Council on Foreign Relations has a good overview of Trump’s first-term foreign policy moments.

Alex wrote a story about how Trump could plausibly tout some foreign policy successes during the campaign.

Jenn mentioned how Trump ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani.

Zack cited the book The Gulf War Did Not Take Place by Jean Baudrillard.

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

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Zack, Jenn, and Alex take the Democratic National Convention as an opportunity to talk about Joe Biden’s foreign policy. They go deep into his long and seemingly contradictory record as a policymaker, discuss what he’s said he’s going to do if elected, and contrast his worldview with the views of Trump and Obama. Ultimately, it seems like Biden wants to take the world back to the way that it was before Trump was elected — but has a very personal way of trying to get there.

References:

Here’s Alex’s feature on what Joe Biden’s foreign policy would look like

And this is Alex and Tara Golshan’s story on Joe Biden’s complicated Iraq war history

Jenn mentioned this Politico story, which noted Biden’s lack of preparation for meetings

And she referenced Biden’s detailed answers to foreign policy questions in this New York Times interview 

The Council on Foreign Relations has a useful guide on where the two presidential and two VP candidates stand on foreign policy

Joe Biden’s foreign policy speech during the Democratic primary last year is definitely worth a read

The New York Times has a great story on Biden’s personal touch to foreign policy and his use of “strategic empathy”

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

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Alex and returning guest Jen Kirby talk about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Moscow has developed a coronavirus vaccine. They discuss how Russia skipped several safety steps and how the announcement highlights the troubling problem of “vaccine nationalism.” Basically, it’s every country for itself when creating a Covid-19 vaccine instead of working together — which could make it harder for the world to stop the pandemic.

References:

Here’s Jen Kirby’s excellent “vaccine nationalism” explainer

Science Magazine explains why Russia’s vaccine announcement isn’t as impressive as it seems

Harvard Business Review details why vaccine nationalism is so dangerous

Yes, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he wanted to take the Russian-made vaccine, but has since walked back his boast

Vox’s Umair Irfan outlined why Covid-19 trials show promise, but are still rife with complications

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

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Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To mark the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Zack, Jenn, and Alex talk about an alarming series of recent US withdrawals from nuclear arms control agreements. They explain the history of nuclear arms control, why the US has turned against them (especially in the Trump era), and why this makes the small but still very scary risk of nuclear war go up. They also talk about some other scary nuclear news — China’s recently uncovered support for Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program — and how progress could be made on saving the international arms control regime.

References:

Here’s Alex’s long feature on “the end of arms control as we know it.”

He also wrote about how a nuclear war kills you.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Saudi Arabia’s secret nuclear facility.

Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary in the Obama administration, thinks the risk of nuclear weapons use is at its highest point since the Cuban missile crisis.

The US military just showed off its new hypersonic missile.

Vox has a story on the Soviet colonel who stopped a nuclear crisis from escalating.

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jenn and Alex discuss the Trump administration’s controversial decision, formally announced this week, to move forward with a plan to withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from Germany. Critics from both parties say it’s a gift to Russia, while the Pentagon argues it’s a necessary repositioning of forces to better deter Russia in Eastern Europe. President Trump, though, says he’s doing it because Germany isn’t paying its fair share in NATO (a misleading claim at best). Alex and Jenn talk through the merits of the different arguments and examine what the troop reduction could mean for the future of Europe.

References:

You can find the official Pentagon statements on the decision here and here

NATO has a bunch of defense spending charts

Deutsche Welle has what you need to know about the troop withdrawal decision here and here

Members of Trump’s team seem to really like the idea

That time when Merkel rebuffed Trump’s G7 summit invitation, kicking this whole drama off

Find Trump’s comments for the decision here

The Biden campaign sent Alex a statement on the troop withdrawal issue

And here’s that Twitter question Alex asked that got a major conversation going about the “gift” to Putin charge

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zack, Jenn, and Alex talk about the Chinese government's systematic detention of tens of thousands of Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, where many are subjected to torture, brainwashing, and other human rights abuses. They get into the disturbing details of what China is actually doing in these camps, what’s motivating the Chinese leadership to engage in such atrocities, and why the US and international community aren't doing enough to stop it. They conclude by discussing what we can all do to try to change that.

References:

Vox’s Jen Kirby has a 2018 explainer on China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.

China is forcing the sterilization of Uighur Muslims, and is using Uighur labor to make coronavirus-related PPE.

You can find How China Sees the World: Han-Centrism and the Balance of Power in International Politics, the book Alex read from, here.

The New York Times reported on about 400 leaked papers from the Chinese government detailing its plan to harshly treat Uighur Muslims.

Axios reports how the Chinese government has struggled to explain reports and images of Uighurs put into concentration camps.

The BBC reports how companies like Apple and Nike are facing pressure to cut ties with suppliers that use forced Uighur labor.

Vice has a stunning documentary on “China’s Vanishing Muslims,” and PBS’s Frontline went “undercover” to see what’s really happening in Xinjiang.

There are many groups accepting donations if you want to try to help Uighur Muslims in China. 

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zack, Jenn, and Alex discuss the stalled Israeli plan to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank. The deeply controversial move was supposed to take place on July 1, but at the last minute Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to go through with it — for now, at least. The Worldly crew looks at what factors may have led to his sudden reversal and what might happen next. In the second half of the show, the gang examines how the politics in the Democratic Party around the US-Israel relationship are shifting and what all of this means for the future of the two-state solution.

References:

Here’s Jen Kirby’s piece on the annexation plan.

Alex wrote about what Trump’s peace plan actually said.

This New York magazine story talked about the Bowman-Engel race and how Israel played a part in it.

You can find Peter Beinart’s essay that Zack mentioned in Jewish Currents, and here’s Ilan Goldenberg’s op-ed in the Washington Post.

Back in 2016, Zack wrote about how Bernie Sanders broke the Israel taboo.

Polls show most Americans support Palestinian statehood, while another poll shows Americans — but not liberal Democrats — are mainly pro-Israel.

Vox’s Conor Murray wrote about how Israel’s second coronavirus wave is a problem for Netanyahu. 

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zack and Jenn talk about China's new national security law in Hong Kong, a ploy by Beijing to seize more control of the semi-autonomous city. They explain how the law vacates Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms and how Hongkongers have been responding. Then they zoom out to talk about what the world can do to address the increasingly horrific human rights abuses of Xi Jinping’s government — and why the integration of China into the global economy, while tremendously beneficial in many ways, makes this all so much harder.

References:

Here’s Jenn’s piece with Conor Murray on the Hong Kong national security law and the immediate aftermath, which includes the photo Jenn mentioned of a pro-democracy lawmaker being arrested by riot police.

And Vox’s Jen Kirby’s bigger explainer on the law and what it means for Hong Kong’s future.

You can read the official English translation of the law itself here. 

This is the tweet from the Hong Kong Police Force announcing the first arrest under the new law.

A good piece from the Atlantic detailing how the law was crafted in secrecy without the input of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam or Hong Kong’s legislature.

The NPR report Jenn referenced that talks about the new “National Security Committee” established under the law that allows Beijing to oversee prosecutions of the law in Hong Kong.  

Here’s a chapter from a book from the Peterson Institute for International Economics that looks at the question of whether and under what conditions economic sanctions work to compel countries to change their policies.

This is a great video explainer on China’s secret internment camps for Uighur Muslims; Jen Kirby has a thorough written explainer on the subject here; and Vox’s Sigal Samuel, who spent months reporting on the Uighur situation, did a Reddit AMA on the subject, the highlights of which you can read here.

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zack and Jenn break down the growing scandal surrounding intelligence reports that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to attack US troops in Afghanistan. They walk through the evidence so far that Russia did this and what Vladimir Putin’s motivations might have been. Then they talk about the evidence that Trump knew about it and did nothing — and how this points to a much bigger problem for American foreign policy in the Trump era.

References:

Zack has a really great explainer on the entire scandal 

Here’s a collection of some of the key New York Times reports on the story: the first story they broke; the story about the data on financial transfers from a bank account linked to Russia’s GRU to a Taliban-linked account; and the story about the Afghan businessman alleged to have been the intermediary in the Russian scheme.

Here’s Trump’s tweet calling this all a “Fake News Media Hoax” nearly a week after the news first broke

This is the AP piece reporting that Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton personally briefed Trump on the intelligence in March 2019

And this is the New York Times report in which an intelligence official says the information was specifically included in Trump’s February 27 President’s Daily Brief

Here’s more about one of the attacks on US forces in Afghanistan, outside Bagram Air Base, that is reportedly being investigated in connection with the Russian bounty scheme 

This is a New York Times piece from May 2020 about how hard it is to get Trump to pay attention to and absorb the information he’s being given in his intelligence briefings, based on interviews with 10 current and former intelligence officials

And here’s a Politico report that talks about how White House officials particularly don’t enjoy having to brief Trump on Russia-related issues because of his negative reactions when they do: 

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zack and Alex cope with Jenn’s absence by talking about one of their favorite topics: North Korea. In recent weeks, North Korea ramped up military tensions with South Korea and literally blew up the latter’s de facto embassy in the country. It seems that the US-led negotiating process with North Korea, ongoing since 2018, has conclusively failed. The team explains what happened, the deep strategic and political reasons behind the talks’ collapse, and then predict what might happen with North Korea if Biden wins the 2020 US election.

References:

The New York Times has a great write-up for North Korea’s hot and cold strategy.

Zack wrote for Vox that the US should contain North Korea’s nuclear program, not seek to end it.

Alex did an interview with Kim Jong Un biographer Anna Fifield about what makes him tick.

If you want to learn more about North Korea, here are your main nine questions, answered.

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

Consider contributing to Vox:

If you value Worldly’s work, please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

More to explore:

Subscribe for free to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast to help you understand the news, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Follow Us:

Vox.com 

Newsletter: Vox Sentences 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices