Best of the fortnight - 17 December 2021

Each fortnight BISA Director, Juliet Dryden, scours the internet for IR-related content that might interest you. Here she brings you this week's best readings and podcasts to keep you up to date with what's happening around the world.

Global politics

• How US policy failure post-9/11 has undermined the international order. Emma Sky for Engelsberg
• Xi Jinpings new world order: can China remake the international system? Elizabeth Economy in Foreign Policy
• The Eurasian Century: a series of essays on geopolitics for Engelsberg Ideas by Hal Brands. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

Europe

• The roots of the crisis in Ukraine. Liana Semchuk in The Conversation
• Podcast: What the 1848 revolutions in Europe teach us about political change. David Runciman and Helen Thompson talk to historian Christopher Clark in TALKING POLITICS
• Podcast: It’s time to bring Russia in from the cold: rapprochement is in the West’s best interests. An Intelligence Squared debate chaired by Nik Gowing, with Vladimir Ponzer, one of Russia’s best TV journalists, Domitilla Sagramoso, a leading expert on security in Russia, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden and Radek Sikorski, foreign minister of Poland from 2007 - 2014.
• As Russia masses troops and the West warns against escalation, in Ukraine the fighting grinds on as it has for years. David Herszenhorn in Politico
• A former BBC Moscow correspondent reflects on the end of the USSR. James Rodgers in The Conversation
• Deadlock in Nagorno-Karabakh. Peace initiatives since the end of the 2020 war have failed to win more than rhetorical support and risks are multiplying, writes Laurence Broers for Chatham House
• Russia’s presence in Mali is raising concerns and angering the West. Aanu Adeoye for Chatham House
• Can Germany’s new traffic light coalition deliver on climate, Europe and defence? Paul Level writing for Prospect Magazine.

China and Asia

• The Evergrande collapse could have devastating consequences for China’s economy and political landscape, including for Xi Jinping, writes George Magnus in the New Stateman
• Podcast: The role of the digital space in Chinese lives. In the wake of the silencing of tennis star Peng Shuai and amid concerns about her safety, Cindy Yu talks to a number of experts about how censorship and state monitoring affects online discussions. From Chinese Whispers
• How Narendra Modi’s hyper-nationalism is reconfiguring India’s politics. Ravinder Kaur on the risks to Indian democracy in the New Statesman
• Podcast: the unfolding economic crisis in Afghanistan – why the economy has deteriorated so quickly and the role of the United States. From the Daily podcast
• How releasing Afghanistan’s frozen assets cannot help as long as the Taliban remain in power. Weeda Mehran in The Conversation
• Aung San Suu Kyi is facing life imprisonment in Myanmar in a “politically motivated” prosecution, writes Anna B Plunkett in The Conversation
• Podcast: Samira Ahmed speaks to the author Fatima Bhutto about the power of writing fiction, growing up in one of Pakistan’s most famous political dynasties and why she blames her aunt, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, for the death of her father. An Intelligence Squared podcast.

Middle East

• Israel’s multidimensional warfare. Eyal Weizman writing in the London Review of Books
• Israel and the Gulf are becoming closer but this is unlikely to make the US’s perpetual Iran headache easier to deal with. Former State Department advisor and negotiator Aaron David Miller in Politico
• The risks to national and transnational security posed by foreign terrorist fighters and the families and the need for global leadership and multilateral solutions. RUSI paper by Sabin Khan and Imogen Parsons
• Legacies of the Islamic State. RUSI conference report by Michael Jones
• Podcast: Keeping the faith in the Middle East. Journalist and author Janine di Giovanni discusses her new book, The Vanishing, which focuses on the plight of Christians in the Middle East with  Lina Khatib, Director of Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House. An Intelligence Squared podcast.

Latin America

• Speculating on the upcoming elections in Chile. Michael Chessum writing in the London Review of Books
• Nicaragua’s dreadful duumvirate: how Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s corrupt and paranoid dictatorship has destroyed the Sandinista movement’s proudest achievements. Alma Guillermoprieto writing in the New York Review of Books
• Podcast: why was Haiti’s president assassinated? In July, a group of men stormed the presidential compound in Haiti and assassinated the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Months later, the case remains unresolved. From the Daily – a New York Times podcast.

Covid

• The deep roots of vaccine hesitancy. How understanding the battle over immunisation between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment. Mark Honigsbaum in the New York Review of Books
• Podcast: The Omicron wave. John Lanchester and Rupert Beale talk to Thomas Jones about the spread of the latest variant, where we might stand in the story of the pandemic and the failures of state
• London Review of Books articles: As the Lock Rattles, John Lanchester, and On Omicron, Rupert Beale
• The dangerous consequences of vaccine hoarding by wealthy countries – a stark warning by COVAX head Aurelia Nguyen. Harry Clarke-Ezzidio and Katharine Swindells in the New Statesman.

The best of the rest

• Podcast: how misinformation spreads online. Who is pushing it, what are they trying to achieve and how can we stop it without censoring free speech. David Spiegelhalter on Risky Talk
• Why did independence parties boycott New Caledonia’s independence referendum? Adrian Muckle for Novara Media.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash