Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

The leaders of NATO met in The Hague on June 25th for a rather truncated meeting with a limited agenda. Unlike recent NATO summits, this one did not focus much on the war in Ukraine, countering China, or other broad international security concerns. Rather, this meeting was dedicated to securing a commitment by most NATO members to double their defense spending from 2.5% to 5% of member states' GDP. This is a massive increase with profound implications for both European security and, according to my guest today, European society as a whole. Zachary Paikin is a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. We kick off by discussing why Ukraine was not on the agenda and the odd comportment of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, before having a broader conversation about what this summit says about the future of Europe and transatlantic relations.

Will the ceasefire between Israel and Iran actually hold? How might Iran respond to the unprecedented American attacks on its nuclear program? And more broadly, how have events over the last two weeks  changed the entire security dynamic of the Middle East? I’m privileged to bring you a conversation with one of the foremost experts on these questions. Dalia Dassa Kaye is a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and author of the forthcoming book Enduring Hostility: The Making of America’s Iran Policy, which will be published in December. We kick off by discussing the events of the last few days before having a deeper conversation about Israel’s strategic calculus moving forward, Iran’s options for retaliating against the United States, and whether the American bombing of Iran may have traded short-term gains for a long-term disaster. https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff [https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff] Or, support the show at full price:  https://www.globaldispatches.org/ [https://www.globaldispatches.org/]

Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran lays bare a major rift within Republican foreign policy. Until recently, the more isolationist “America First” wing seemed ascendant, sidelining the hawks. But that dynamic decisively shifted on Saturday when Trump ordered American strikes on several targets in Iran My guest today is Andrew Prokop of Vox, who recently wrote a deep dive into the GOP’s foreign policy divide. In our conversation, we explore the history of these two Republican camps—and how the debate over Iran is playing out now. We also discuss the potential domestic fallout of dragging the U.S. into another Middle East war. https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff [https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff]

From June 9th to 13th, some 15,000 participants—including more than 60 Heads of State and Government—convened in Nice, on France's Mediterranean coast, for a major UN-sponsored conference on oceans. So what happened at the UN Oceans Summit, and why does it matter? Joining me to answer these questions and more is Bruna Campos of the Center for International Environmental Law. We caught up last week as the conference was coming to a close, and in our conversation, Bruna Campos explains why this summit was convened in the first place, which governments are pushing for more robust protections of our oceans, and which countries are standing in the way. https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff [https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff] https://www.globaldispatches.org/20PercentOff [https://www.globaldispatches.org/20PercentOff] Support the show at full price here: https://www.globaldispatches.org/ [https://www.globaldispatches.org/]

After years of threats, the Israeli government launched a major attack overnight, targeting both Iran’s nuclear program and several senior Iranian military and political leaders. At the time of writing, Iran had yet to respond in a major way, though the expectation is that the regime will hit back—and much harder than it did last year after a previous (and more limited) Israeli strike on Iran. The key question now, according to my interview guest Barbara Slavin, is whether this inspires Iran to gather the nuclear material it has and make a sprint toward weaponizing its stockpiles of enriched uranium and becoming a nuclear weapons state. Barbara Slavin is a longtime journalist and think tank expert focusing on Iran and U.S.-Iran relations. She is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center and the editor of Middle East Perspectives. We kick off by discussing what Israel’s target list suggests about its intentions behind these major strikes, before having a longer conversation about what Iran’s response may entail and what role the United States might play in a widening conflict in the Middle East. https://www.globaldispatches.org/ [https://www.globaldispatches.org/]  https://www.globaldispatches.org/20PercentOff [https://www.globaldispatches.org/20PercentOff]  https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff [https://www.globaldispatches.org/40PercentOff]