Latest Taliban Podcast Episodes
The Powers that Should Be
Foreign Podicy - December 02, 2020 04:00 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsRobert Gates served as secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He also has served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and he was a member of the National Security Council in four administrations. In all, he worked for eight presidents of both political ...
The Rise of the Illiberal World Order
Foreign Podicy - November 20, 2020 03:21 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsIn theory, the United Nations and other international organizations express the will of something called “the international community,” while enforcing something called the “liberal international rules-based order.” In practice, the UN and other international organizations now pursue different ...
On the Frontline with the ALP
Afghanistan After America - November 15, 2020 19:30 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsThis episode, I speak with Abdul Jamil, a 75-year-old member of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) originally from Marjah in Helmand province. It's a special and sobering episode, because the 33-year-old Helmandi journalist Aliyas Dayee, with whom I'd worked since 2016 and who assisted with this an...
Sharansky’s Lives
Foreign Podicy - November 06, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsNatan Sharansky grew up in the Soviet Union where he became an elite mathematician and chess whiz. But he also became a dissident, a human rights activist, and a supporter of Israel’s right to exist – in other words: a Zionist. In 1978, Soviet authorities arrested him, ran him through a kangaroo...
Helmand on the Brink, Again. With ANA Lt. Gen. Ahmadzai
Afghanistan After America - November 04, 2020 09:30 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsThis episode, the second from my recent trip to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, I speak with the most senior Afghan National Army (ANA) officer in the province, the commander of the Afghan National Army’s 215th Corps’, Lt. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai. I interviewed Gen. Ahmadzai on Octobe...
Forced from Home in Helmand
Afghanistan After America - October 23, 2020 08:30 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsOn October 11, Taliban fighters in Helmand converged on the districts surrounding the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, capturing huge swathes of government-held territory in a matter of days and raising concern that the city would fall to the insurgents. The offensive was the Taliban’s largest, ...
China’s German Connection
Foreign Podicy - October 19, 2020 15:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsChinese President Xi Jinping sees the United States as the primary adversary and rival of the People’s Republic of China. His intention is to end America’s tenure as global leader, and to begin his nation’s tenure as global ruler. Until recently most people in the West didn’t understand that. A...
The U.S. Military’s Southern Exposure: Trouble in the Neighborhood
Foreign Podicy - October 16, 2020 18:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsThe U.S. Southern Command, SOUTHCOM, is one of six geographic combatant commands. It’s responsible for planning, operations and security cooperation in Central America, South America, and most of the Caribbean. It’s a joint command including military and civilian personnel from the Army, the Na...
Leading the Charge with Farahnaz Forotan
Afghanistan After America - October 14, 2020 13:30 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsAt only 28, Farahnaz Forotan has worked at three of Afghanistan’s largest television broadcasters since 2012, hosting flagship talk shows at two of them, including 1TV’s hugely popular weekly program, Kabul Debate, which she's headed since 2019. Forotan is also the founder of My Red Line, an on...
H.R. McMaster and the Fight to Defend the Free World
Foreign Podicy - October 02, 2020 16:57 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsLTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster is a soldier, scholar and strategist. A graduate of West Point, he served in the U.S. Army for 34 years, earning a doctorate in history along the way, and retiring as a Lieutenant General. From February 2017 until April 2018, he was President Trump's National Security Ad...
Corruption Epidemic, with Yama Torabi
Afghanistan After America - October 02, 2020 13:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsDr. Yama Torabi is a Senior Research Associate and a political scientist. He holds two masters degrees, in Political Science and International Relations, and a PhD in International Relations. In 2005, Torabi founded Integrity Watch Afghanistan, which, after completing his studies in France, h...
Talking While Fighting, with a Taliban Military Commander
Afghanistan After America - September 25, 2020 06:30 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsIt was the second time I’d met and interviewed this Taliban commander. I refer to him in the podcast as Ismael. The first time, several weeks ago, he didn’t want me to record our conversation. It did, however, give me the opportunity to obtain the kind of information I needed to be confident tha...
Taliban Military Commander
Afghanistan After America - September 25, 2020 06:30 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsIt was the second time I’d met and interviewed this Taliban commander. I refer to him in the podcast as Ismael. The first time, several weeks ago, he didn’t want me to record our conversation. It did, however, give me the opportunity to obtain the kind of information I needed to be confident tha...
The Iraq-Iran War: An Unhappy 40th Anniversary
Foreign Podicy - September 24, 2020 08:00 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsOn September 22, 1980, Iraq and Iran went to war. The conflict dragged on for eight long years, taking an estimated half million lives. When it was over, both countries and the Middle East had been profoundly changed. Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow at FDD — also a native F...
Our Man in Geneva: The UN is bigger – but not better – than you think.
Foreign Podicy - September 17, 2020 18:34 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsThe U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in New York is often a high-profile figure. Think of Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Jeane Kirkpatrick — or, going back further, Adlai Stevenson, Arthur Goldberg, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Andrew Young. American ambassadors to the United Nations in Geneva ...
Covering the War, with Saad Mohseni
Afghanistan After America - September 15, 2020 10:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsSaad Mohseni is one of Afghanistan’s most influential businesspeople, and the co-founder of it’s most popular television network, TOLO TV. He is the son of an Afghan diplomat who, soon after the 1979 Soviet invasion, sought political asylum in Australia. There, he worked in finance until the fa...
Saad Mohseni
Afghanistan After America - September 15, 2020 10:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsSaad Mohseni is one of Afghanistan’s most influential businesspeople, and the co-founder of it’s most popular television network, TOLO TV. He is the son of an Afghan diplomat who, soon after the 1979 Soviet invasion, sought political asylum in Australia. There, he worked in finance until the fa...
Rahmatullah Amiri
Afghanistan After America - September 11, 2020 13:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsI first met Rahmatullah Amiri as he was being wheeled into an operating theatre in Kabul one night in August 2016. A few hours earlier, Amiri was in an evening class at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) when three gunmen stormed the compound after breaching the front gate with a car...
Mahpekay Sediqy
Afghanistan After America - September 08, 2020 15:30 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsMahpekay Sediqy is the deputy director at the Kabul Orthopaedic Organisation (KOO) in Afghanistan's capital and a bilateral amputee, herself. Sediqy lost both legs to a mine while collecting firewood as a child during the Taliban's time in power in that late 1990s. She had never aspired to anyt...
Dermer’s Diplomacy
Foreign Podicy - August 26, 2020 15:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsAmbassador Ron Dermer has been Israel’s ambassador to the United States since 2013 – not an uneventful period for Israel, America and the Middle East. Most recently he has been encouraged by the prospect of Israel and the United Arab Emirates normalizing relations, and by President Trump’s deci...
Ron Dermer on Israel in a Changing Middle East
Foreign Podicy - August 26, 2020 15:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsAmbassador Ron Dermer has been Israel’s ambassador to the United States since 2013 – not an uneventful period for Israel, America and the Middle East. Most recently he has been encouraged by the prospect of Israel and the United Arab Emirates normalizing relations, and by President Trump’s decis...
The Kasparov Defense
Foreign Podicy - August 14, 2020 15:00 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsGarry Kasparov is a former world chess champion, a former Russian dissident and democracy leader, and a current human rights activist. He’s founded a new organization, the Renew Democracy Initiative, committed to defending democratic values and freedoms in the U.S. and around the world. He joins...
The Failing State of Lebanon
Foreign Podicy - August 06, 2020 15:00 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsLebanon is a small country that has long been facing enormous perils. This week, its capital, Beirut, exploded – literally. An enormous, devastating and mysterious blast in the port killed a still-unknown number of people, but reportedly over a hundred, injured thousands more, and caused billio...
Pivoting Toward China
Foreign Podicy - June 30, 2020 15:00 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsIn 1972, Nixon went to China, where he met with Communist leader Mao Zedong. Thanks to that bold diplomatic initiative, the United States and the People’s Republic learned to peacefully co-exist, living happily ever after. Well, not exactly. What Nixon called “the week that changed the world”...
Israel’s Border Lands
Foreign Podicy - June 03, 2020 15:00 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsIsraelis are now pondering a hugely consequential decision: Should they change the status of some of the territories under their control, drawing borders that have for more than 70 years remained indeterminate? The Trump administration appears to have given a green light to such alterations – s...
War and Peace and Other Options in Afghanistan
Foreign Podicy - June 01, 2020 15:00 - 45 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsIn recent weeks, the pandemic – the global spread of a deadly virus that originated in China – has dominated the news media, and therefore most of the public’s attention. Among the important stories that have been marginalized: the on-going conflict in Afghanistan, as well as America’s diplomat...
National Security Council for Dummies ft. Richard Goldberg (part two)
Foreign Podicy - April 27, 2020 15:00 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsRichard Goldberg just finished a year on the National Security Council (NSC) where he served as the Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction. Now back at FDD as a senior advisor, he’s going to explain to host Cliff May and Foreign Podicy listeners how the NSC operates; its re...
Predators in the Global Jungle
Foreign Podicy - April 20, 2020 15:00 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsDavid Kilcullen is an Australian-American soldier and scholar who served as a top advisor to the U.S. military in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has worked in Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, and Southeast Asia. And he’s an advisor to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). His ...
Special Edition: The U.S. Army and National Security
Foreign Podicy - April 06, 2020 15:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsTo address an increasingly complex and challenging international security environment, the U.S. Army is undertaking a massive restructuring—the likes of which has not been seen for decades. Objectives range from fielding new and innovative weapons to stay ahead of potential adversaries, to deve...
War and Peace, and Wars Between Wars
Foreign Podicy - March 23, 2020 15:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsIn the past — at least in the past as we like to remember it — wars began with declarations and ended with surrenders or negotiated “peace agreements.” In the real world — most emphatically in the real world of the 21st century — there are wars, and there are wars between wars. Jacob Nagel, a ...
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