Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with James D Lindsay, a Research Fellow at University College London and an author of a book on what’s called a Madman theory - a foreign policy strategy in which a leader attempts to present himself as completely irrational and willing to inflict great damage on themselves and the others in order to improve their negotiating position and create fear around possible escalation - even if in reality, they are actually a lot more restrained and not as mad as it may seem. The pioneer of this theory was Richord Nixon but the person who is often speculated to truly master the theory is Donald Trump - although there is a big debate over whether he is playing a madman to get what he wants - or whether that’s just really who he is.With James we talk about how Nixon tried and failed to use this strategy and pioneering this approach but we mostly focus on Donald Trump - about his first term and threatening North Korea with fire and fury, assassinating the Iranian general Qaseem Soleimani and threatening to leave NATO and his second term and his tariff war and attempt for Greenland takeover.To be honest, I don’t actually agree with most of James’s conclusions. I’m not nearly as sure that Donald Trump is just playing a madman and that it’s all part of a rational, negotiating tactic as he is - I can think it could just as well be a genuine chaos and irrationality. And even if it is a rational strategy, I really don’t think that it has been nearly as successful as James argues, especially in Trump’s second term. And that - whether it is a rational strategy or not - it causes more damage to US interests than it helps them. And so in the podcast, we disagree and argue about both of those things. But nevertheless, I do think that the theory and the concept, the arguments and this whole conversation is really interesting.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with John Foreman - someone with a fairly unique background to talk to on the Russian war in Ukraine. John spent several decades as an officer in the British military but more importantly he served as the British defence attache first in Kyiv and then in Moscow where he witnessed Russia first preparing and then launching the war in 2022 up close - both of which gives him a unique insight into both the Ukrainian and Russian military, political strategic thinking - and in this conversation we talk about all of that.We talk about what have the four years of war actually done to the Russian military. Is it broken? Is it adapting? Is it hollowed out and beaten down by the years of war - or is it battle hardened with unique combat experience and more dangerous than before?And then we move to the underlying question of where is this war going: whether the current Ukraine negotiations are actually leading anywhere or are they are simply diplomatic theater, what is the fundamental flaw at the center of Trump’s approach to the negotiations, and whether Moscow is - with increasing casualties and economic pressure - starting to actually look for a deal or whether it’s just pretending and dragging out the negotiations indefinitely.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Dr. Yun Sun, a Senior Fellow and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. Yun is one of the most experienced China watchers and researchers, analyzing China’s foreign and domestic politics for over two decades which makes this conversation and her arguments both extremely interesting and kind of concerning. Because Yun argues that we are gravely under-estimating the risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan - not in some distant future but as soon as this year, 2026. She believes that the thinking in Beijing among China’s leadership is quickly changing: that they are abandoning the idea that time is on their side and that instead, China now believes that if it ever wants to get Taiwan, it’s now or never and the longer it waits, the harder it will get. And that we are now witnessing a confluence of several dynamics - none of which were likely or expected - but that are now all happening at the same time. And that together they are - as Yun Sun puts it - creating a “perfect storm for Taiwan in 2026” - and significantly increasing the odds that China might make its move. In this conversation, we talk about what these factors are - from the US foreign policy and China’s perception of Donald Trump to the Ukraine war - how likely a Chinese invasion this year is or what the recent purges of the leadership of the Chinese military - and the fact that Xi Jinping now has direct, unlimited command of China’s armed forces - mean in this context.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Carlo Masala, a professor of international politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich and author of a book that got quite a lot of attention all across Europe called “If Russia Wins”. In the book Carlo portrays a hypothetical scenario - in which Russia ends up achieving a limited victory in Ukraine, pursues a period of normalization with Europe and a few years later, launches a limited attack on Estonia, in an attempt to break up NATO unity - which - in the scenario - turns out to be a success. Carlo is not the first person to present a scenario in which Russia tests NATO but what makes this different and unique is how exceptionally realistic this one is. From the start to finish, I could genuinely see most of it happening - and in many instances, I thought the scenario was not just plausible but the most likely way things would happen - which makes it all the more frightening and worth consideration. In the conversation, we pick it apart, explore how it would play out and what would it mean. We talk about whether Russia would have an appetite for another military gamble after Ukraine, whether the Estonians would just let it happen, whether Europe has learned its lesson on how to deal with Russia in the past 4 years, what would not wanting to risk a World War 3 over a small town in Estonia mean for NATO and European security - or whether there is any hope that an American president would come to aid of Europe at a time when Trump is literally demanding Greenland. And whether - effectively - NATO just isn't already dead anyway - and if it is, what does that mean for all of us.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Andrias Kubilius - the European Union’s Commissioner for Defense and Space. For those not that familiar with the European Union - a commissioner is kind of like a minister in a nation state, a top politician, responsible for a particular area. Historically the EU has never had a Defence Commissioner because it is not a military organization but since the invasion of Ukraine that has changed quite radically and in 2023, Andrias became the first ever EU Defense commissioner, responsible primarily for rebuilding the European defense industry, rearming Europe and making it ready and able to defend itself. Needles to say, it’s a pretty important role and as the European Union is trying to act more as an independent geopolitical actor, it’s only becoming more important. And for how important his role is, he was extremely open and transparent in this conversation. We talked about how to make Europe prepared to survive in an increasingly dangerous world and defend itself on its own, without anyone coming to save it. Both about what is he doing to make that happen but also how the European Union needs to change to make it possible , including why he believes that we need a true European army. We talk a lot about the complicated relationship with the United States - about why and how Europe needs to immediately prepare for United States withdrawing from Europe, about what will be the future of NATO once that happens and whether the EU could replace it, and how would Europe respond if the United States decide to take Greenland by force and how destructive that would be for everyone. And about his views on the new US National Security Strategy - which he is very critical of and which frames the very institution he represents - the European Union - as an opposition to the interests of the United States and something that the US should try to dismantle. And of course we talk about Russia - about how likely is the threat of a Russian aggression against EU and NATO or how prepared Europe is right now to face it. And much more.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Andrew Badger - a former human intelligence officer at the DIA - the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, a lecturer at Oxford University, an advisor on geopolitics for some of the world’s largest corporations, and an author of an upcoming book on what I think is mostly overlooked but an extremely interesting topic - of how China in the past decades managed to mobilize its vast intelligence apparatus, its citizens living abroad, its private companies and basically everything it has at its disposal to covertly obtain some of the most advanced technology belonging to American companies. And how this technology helped China to massively develop its economy, its private companies and its military in an extremely short timespan and basically catch up to the United States in a way that otherwise might not have been possible. We talk about how China actually does that on a practical level and why is it so good at it, even though it’s not at all the country doing that or how is the intelligence competition shaping the race for AI dominance and much more.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Steven Everts, a former EU diplomat and the director of the EU Institute for Security Studies. Steven recently wrote a really interesting article that went sort of viral in European policy circles where he argued that at the heart of Europe's geopolitical problems is what he calls its "Psychology of Weakness” and called out what he says is the failing strategy of European leaders. I thought it was really interesting since it managed to cut to the core of the chaos, uncertainty and anxiety that dominates Europe these days as we find ourselves stuck between pressure from Donald Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia. But since it only touched on many things that deserved more more attention, I wanted to have a proper discussion about it.And so we talk about all of it: about what is Europe’s Psychology of Weakness and why it’s putting Europe in such an uncomfortable spot. About why there is often a big difference between what European leaders say and what they actually do. About what is Europe going to do with the frozen Russian assets, how it should and could stand up to the US or what could change the failing strategy and psychology it has today.