The Global Gambit

“The old West is dead.” Mark Leonard argues that Europe must prepare for a lasting change in its relationship with America — and recognise that it has more power to shape its future than it often believes.The director and co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations joins Pyotr Kurzin to discuss how Europe can sustain Ukraine’s defence, use its leverage over Russia and take responsibility for negotiations over its own security. What would a settlement need to protect Ukraine’s independence, and why does Leonard consider Europe’s failure to maintain direct channels with Putin a “catastrophic dereliction of duty”?We also explore the political upheaval reshaping France and the wider continent, why Putin could benefit from Europe’s electoral divisions, and how European investment and a stronger single market could help resist economic pressure from Washington, Beijing and Moscow.Mark Leonard is the author of Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When the Rules Fail.If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Global Gambit and leave a rating or review on your podcast app to help more listeners discover the show.

Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani officials have arrived in Tehran together, and the symbolism is hard to ignore. As the war between Riyadh and the Houthis spills onto Saudi soil, reaching Riyadh and its airport, the kingdom is turning to Iran for help. Tehran, however, is backing the Houthi demand that the air blockade on Sanaa be lifted before the fighting stops.Trita Parsi argues that this is what restrainers have long predicted. When Washington steps back, regional states take on more responsibility for their own security. They will not solve every problem, but they stop relying on American force. In his view, the American military presence has done more to destabilise the Middle East than to secure it.In this conversation, Parsi reveals that Israeli aircraft reportedly breached Iranian airspace over the weekend, and that Tehran deliberately chose not to respond. He explains why Iran judged it a trap, designed to provoke a war without Israeli fingerprints and to sabotage its talks with Gulf neighbours. He also explains why renewed hostility between Iran and the Arab states is exactly what the Abraham Accords depend on.Trita Parsi is Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a leading expert on US–Iran relations. His latest analysis appears on Responsible Statecraft and his Substack.

Donald Trump’s war with Iran is colliding with a growing political struggle at home. With the midterms approaching, the prospect of electoral defeat could increase the temptation to escalate abroad — even as Iran seeks to turn economic disruption and regional instability into leverage against Washington.But Professor Robert Pape warns that the greatest danger may come after the votes are cast. He argues that the period between November’s elections and the seating of a new Congress could create a particularly volatile combination of military escalation, political violence and attempts to expand presidential power.In this conversation, Pape explains how an initially successful American ground operation could become a prolonged military trap, why Iran could respond more aggressively to renewed attacks, and what reported threats against US diplomats could signal about the next phase of the conflict. He also examines the pressures on global oil supplies, whether a change of leadership in Israel could alter the trajectory towards war, and why the interaction between foreign conflict and domestic political turmoil poses such a serious test for American democracy.Robert Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a leading scholar of air power, political violence and international security. He writes The Escalation Trap, examining the dynamics driving the conflict with Iran.

Weeks after signing a sweeping sanctions law against Russia’s energy revenues, Donald Trump has struck a deal to buy Russian diesel, announced while his envoys sat down with Ukrainian officials to discuss ending the war. Trump calls it a win. In Moscow, it looks like something else entirely.In this conversation, I’m joined by Tina Fordham, geostrategist, founder of Fordham Global Foresight, and Wall Street’s original chief global political analyst during seventeen years at Citi, who previously built Eurasia Group’s financial markets research business. We examine why Trump keeps offering deals that Putin never takes, why Putin puts power ahead of any commercial offer, and why the man many in the West mistook for a pragmatist is driven by ideology and legacy. We also look at how the Iran war, launched to project American strength, has left Washington weaker and Trump facing the midterms with soaring prices.We also discuss Putin’s Valdai remarks and nuclear sabre-rattling over Kaliningrad, what happens to Russia after Putin, why China is quietly waiting for Russian decline, why markets keep shrugging off geopolitical shocks, her research showing geopolitical risk has tripled since 2010, and why the world feels worse than ever when by most measures it isn’t. Tina’s latest book is Mad World: A Geostrategy Survival Guide for Leaders: https://link.amazon/B0h8xEhws

Ukraine has transformed Russia’s vast geography from a source of strategic depth into a growing vulnerability. Its long-range drones are striking oil refineries, supply lines and military infrastructure, while Crimea is becoming increasingly difficult for Moscow to defend and sustain.But Sir Lawrence Freedman warns against assuming that Russia’s mounting failures have made Ukraine’s position easy. Ukrainian civilians face another punishing winter, ballistic missiles remain an acute threat, and Vladimir Putin continues to resist any settlement that could be interpreted as weakness.In this conversation, Freedman explains why Putin has boxed himself in, whether Russia can find enough soldiers to sustain the war, how Ukraine remains ahead in the rapidly evolving drone contest, and why the next six months could prove decisive. He also examines the economic pressures building inside Russia, the amateurism of Washington’s negotiating effort, NATO’s struggle to catch up with Ukrainian innovation, and whether Putin will eventually be forced to confront the futility of his war.Sir Lawrence Freedman is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and one of the world’s foremost authorities on strategy, conflict and military history.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has done more than redraw Europe’s security map. It has exposed the limits of military alliances—and triggered a potentially dangerous chain reaction far beyond the battlefield.For Turkey, the choice is not simply between Vladimir Putin and NATO. Ankara is maintaining its relationship with Moscow, strengthening its position inside the Western alliance and reducing its dependence on Russia, all while seeking greater freedom to act alone. That pursuit of “strategic autonomy” may now extend to the nuclear question.Turkey expert Gönül Tol joins Pyotr Kurzin to explain Erdoğan’s carefully calibrated strategy. They discuss how Ukraine changed Ankara’s relationship with Russia; why Turkey has avoided fully choosing sides; its efforts to diversify its energy supplies; and how the Iran war and declining confidence in American security guarantees are reshaping Turkish thinking.Is Turkey actually preparing to build a nuclear weapon—or merely creating the capacity to keep that option open? And what would its choices mean for NATO, Russia, the Middle East and the future of nuclear proliferation?Gönül Tol is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and the author of Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria. Her new report is here: https://mei.edu/publication/turkeys-nuclear-ambitions-in-the-post-iran-war-environment/

General Ben Hodges says Russia is already at war with Europe. Not with missiles striking NATO cities, but through drones, sabotage and attacks designed to frighten populations and weaken support for Ukraine. So why are European governments still reluctant to impose meaningful consequences?Hodges joins me to discuss Germany’s far-right breakthrough, NATO’s response to Russian provocations and the growing uncertainty over American support. We also examine how Ukraine’s long-range strikes are turning Russia’s vast territory from a strategic advantage into a vulnerability—and why Putin faces a dangerous choice over mobilisation as winter approaches.Ben Hodges is the former Commanding General of US Army Europe.

Iran has been militarily devastated — and yet, six months on, it may be winning. General David Petraeus argues that Tehran's control of the Strait of Hormuz has become a "weapon of mass disruption" more powerful than the nuclear program the war was meant to destroy.In this conversation, I'm joined by General David Petraeus — former CENTCOM and NATO commander, former CIA Director, and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute — to examine why Iran's strategy may be succeeding despite its military weakness, why Ukraine's drone war represents a genuine revolution that Western militaries have failed to adapt to, and why Petraeus believes the US and UK urgently need revolutionary, not evolutionary, institutional military reform.We also discuss Russia's deepening economic collapse, the vulnerability of manned military platforms in modern warfare, escalating Russian sabotage against NATO states, and why Petraeus believes nuclear escalation from Putin remains unlikely despite the rhetoric.If war has already changed as fundamentally as Petraeus suggests, the deciding question isn't who has the better weapons — it's who adapts to the new war fast enough to survive it.

Description:Intelligence failures make headlines. Intelligence successes rarely do — which is exactly the problem when trying to understand how the West actually predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and what it can and can't tell us about Putin's next move.In this conversation, I'm joined by Charles Finfrock — a former CIA officer with 18 years of experience across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia — to examine how intelligence assessments are actually built. Why there's a critical difference between a "secret" that can be stolen and a "mystery" that even Putin himself may not have resolved, how human sources, satellite imagery, and signals intelligence get fused into a single judgment, and why getting Russia's 2022 invasion right was a genuine intelligence success even if it couldn't prevent the war.We also discuss Russia's escalating willingness to target Western and dual citizens on NATO soil, Ukraine's campaign against Russian commanders and energy infrastructure, and the historical pattern behind strategic surprise — from Stalin's refusal to believe Sorge's warnings to October 7th.If Russia is preparing for another confrontation, the intelligence may already be there. The harder question is whether anyone is willing to believe it.