Carnegie Council Audio Podcast

"There are areas where China lags behind other countries in its power, areas where it's catching up, and areas where China really has leapfrogged some other countries, including the United States, and is pulling ahead," says Bonnie Glaser of CSIS. Certainly, China is investing heavily in promoting a favorable narrative about China around the world, a strategy increasingly being referred to as "political influence operations."

Quinnipiac's Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox discusses her work researching the conception of human rights in a community in rural India. She tells the story of Chaya Kakade, a woman who went on a hunger strike after the Indian government proposed a tax on sanitary napkins, and has since built her own production center in Latur. How does Kakade understand human rights? How can Westerners move beyond a legalistic view of the concept?

"The rise of China is not the biggest story in the world," says Parag Khanna. "The Asianization of Asia, the return of Asia, the rise of the Asian system, is the biggest story in the world." This new Asian system, where business, technology, globalization, and geopolitics are intertwined, stretches from Japan to Saudi Arabia, from Australia to Russia, and Indonesia to Turkey, linking 5 billion people.

How is China influencing democracies such as Taiwan, Korea, and the United States? "I think there are three areas that you can look at," says Asia security analyst Rachael Burton. "The first is narrative dominance, which I would call a form of cognitive warfare. Beijing has been able to set the terms of debate . . . and once you're asking the questions, then you're able to drive intellectuals or policymakers to a certain answer."

In this episode of The Crack-Up series, which explores how 1919 shaped the modern world, film historian David Bordwell discusses two big changes in the American film industry in 1919: the revolt of film stars against the powerful studio system, and Paramount's response, which was to try and control the "product" from creation to point of consumption. He goes on to look at how these creative and commercial tensions still play out today.

Ambassador Sidi Omar, UN representative for Frente POLISARIO, a liberation movement aiming to secure the independence of Western Sahara, discusses the decades-long dispute in Northwest Africa. With negotiations ongoing between Frente POLISARIO and Morocco at the UN, could there be a resolution? How do Europe and the Trump administration fit in?

The Supreme Court's 1919 decision in "Schenck v. United States" is one of the most important free speech cases in American history. Because of it we have an elaborate set of free speech laws and norms, but the context is always shifting. In this fascinating talk Bollinger and Stone explore how our understanding of the First Amendment has been transformed over time, and how it may change in the future to cope with social media and other challenges.

As founder and executive director of The Polis Project, a research and journalism organization, Suchitra Vijayan is helping to document a concerning trend of identity-based violence in India. She discusses her organization's work on this issue, the violence's connection to a rise in nationalism in India since Prime Minister Modi came to power, and some imperfect parallels with the contentious political climate in the United States.

In the third podcast in The Crack-Up series, which looks at how 1919 shaped the modern world, Ted Widmer discusses the story of the Irish Declaration of Independence with fellow historian Christopher Pastore. Although the declaration was signed in 1919, Ireland's quest for self-determination would last for decades. How did America influence these developments? What did the Irish leaders think about nationalism so soon after World War I?

Discussions around cybersecurity often focus on the security and sovereignty of states, not individuals, says Professor Ronald Deibert, director of University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. If you start from a "human-centric perspective," it could lead to policies focusing on peace, prosperity, and human rights. How can we work toward this approach?

Quinnipiac University's Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox speaks about her 2018 campaign for state representative in Connecticut, which she lost by a slim margin. After months of speaking to her fellow citizens and absorbing their differing viewpoints on the campaign trail, she discusses the importance of ethics and political engagement and how we can remain civil in this divisive time.

China's economy has grown exponentially over the last four decades, but George Magnus, former chief economist at UBS, sees four traps that could derail its continued ascent: rising debt, the struggle to keep its currency stable, aging demographics, and the challenges of changing from a low-income economy to a complex middle-income one. Will Xi Jinping be open to reform? What could be the effects of lingering U.S.-China trade tensions?

In the second podcast in The Crack-Up series, which looks at how 1919 shaped the modern world, historian Ted Widmer talks to Harvard's Professor Lisa McGirr about Prohibition's roots in anti-immigrant sentiment and its enforcement, in some cases, by the Ku Klux Klan. Plus, they discuss the Eighteenth Amendment's connections to World War I and the rise of the modern American state.

Historian Ted Widmer discusses his new Carnegie Council podcast series "The Crack-Up" and how 1919 has shaped the modern world. He and host Alex Woodson speak about parallels to 2019, Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, Babe Ruth, the early days of Hollywood, and populism in Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Don't miss a new "Crack-Up" tomorrow with Harvard historian Lisa McGirr on prohibition and the American state.

If populism is a reaction to a globalism that is viewed as unresponsive to the needs of citizens, can populism sustain any version of globalization? Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer and Tom Nichols of the U. S. Naval War College discuss and debate this important question and much more.

The wide array of global issues--more than 90 percent of them--that Eurasia Group follows are now headed in the wrong direction in 2019. Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer break down those risks--from U.S.-China relations and cyberwar to European populism and American institutions--and their ethical implications with Carnegie Council's Devin Stewart for their eleventh annual discussion of the year's coming top risks.

From the U.S. operation against Iran's nuclear enrichment plant, to Chinese theft of personal data, North Korea's financially motivated attacks on American companies, or Russia's interference in the 2016 election, cyberweapons have become the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. "New York Times" national security correspondent David Sanger explains how and why cyberattacks are now the number one security threat.

Now based in California, Mark Payumo previously served as a Philippine Army Special Forces officer. Reflecting on his recent Carnegie Council site visit to Manila to investigate climate change and the role of the defense establishment, he concludes that securitizing climate change--i.e. having the military involved, both in adaptation and mitigation--is a decided advantage for the community.

National security expert and U.S. Army veteran Asha Castleberry makes sense of a busy and seemingly chaotic time for the Department of Defense in the wake of Secretary Mattis' departure. What should we think about Trump's plans in Syria and Afghanistan? How is the U.S. planning to counter China in Africa? And has John Bolton actually been a moderating influence?

This podcast is part of "The Crack-Up," a special series about the events of 1919, a year that in many ways shaped the 20th century and the modern world. In this episode, host Ted Widmer speaks with fellow historian Patty O'Toole about her "New York Times" article on Teddy Roosevelt, who died 100 years ago this week. Why was health care reform so important to him? What did he think about nationalism? How would TR fit in with the modern GOP?