Best of the week - 19 June 2020

19 June 2020

Each week 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.

COVID-related news

Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times explains what the pandemic reveals about the male ego
Is the pandemic reshaping geopolitics? Foreign Affairs asks the experts
UK Parliament Post: International Affairs and COVID-19. What are the experts saying?
The New Stateman looks at the scale of the economic crash
Podcast: What is Rishi Sunak up to? Listen to Red Box with Steven Swinford, deputy political editor of The Times, and Salma Shah, former special adviser to Sajid Javid, about the game the chancellor is playing.

Geopolitics

The new world disorder. Analysis from the Economist
Does the UN have too much on its plate? The Economist.

Brexit

James Melville for the London Economic says Brexit is set to cost more than £200billion.

US Politics

Michael Tomasky on Biden’s presidential campaign for the New York Review of Books
David A. Graham for the Atlantic looks at Bolton’s damning indictment of Trump
Did Trump ask China to help him win the election? The Washington Post looks at Bolton’s allegations
Jim Gobly for Foreign Policy argues the case for keeping the military out of American politics (and the American election)
Podcast: Intelligence Squared asks why Trump has such a good relationship with white evangelical Christians despite his questionable conservative credentials? With Sarah Posner
Podcast: American Fascism: Then and now from Talking Politics. Historian Sarah Churchwell about the origins, uses and abuses of the idea of American fascism. Does it make sense to call Trump a fascist?

Middle East

Proxy battle in Mosul. Jon Davison for Reuters investigates how Mosul is being kept on its knees allies of Iran and those supporting the West
Charles Lister asks: is Assad about to fall? Read in Politico.