Hot War, Cold War, New War
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
06/22/21
•35m
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A few weeks ago, Belarus shocked the world when it forced a commercial flight from Athens to Vilnius to land and seized two passengers, one a dissident journalist. But that outrage was only the most recent affront to international law and accepted state behavior by Belarusian autocrat, Alexander Lukashenko, and more importantly, his patron, Russia's Vladimir Putin. For years, Putin has pressed the countries along Russia’s border: cyber attacks on Estonia and Ukraine, war with Georgia and then Ukraine, the seizure of Crimea, constant air and naval border violations, as well as aggressive disinformation campaigns—all designed to sow chaos.
Lithuania is a frontline state in the growing confrontation—some think it is already war—between East and West. Dalia Bankauskaitė, a defense and security expert at Vilnius University, and Marius Laurinavičius, a journalist and analyst at the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis are both in that camp. Moreover, in this episode of the New Thinking for a New World podcast, they insist that Russia’s hostility, partly exercised through its puppet Belarus, is aimed not just at Lithuania, but at Europe and the United States.
Is this what war in the 21st century feels like? What do Putin and Lukashenko want? What should we do? What do YOU think?
Previous Episode
Worth Repeating: Live and Let Live
June 17, 2021
•25m
2020 will be remembered as the Pandemic Year, when a deadly pathogen somehow moved from bat to human—and the rest is history still being written. Six out of 10 infectious diseases are zoonotic: everything from COVID and the other coronaviruses to rabies, West Nile, even the plague. In a Croesus-like effort to break the cycle, Denmark recently killed 17 million farmed mink to try to prevent further human infection—but that seems immoral as well as stupid.
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka has a better idea. Dr Gladys, as she is known, believes that zoonotic disease is controllable by simultaneously working to improve the health of humans and animals, at the points where they meet. Her work, primarily with the mountain gorillas of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, has contributed not only to resurgence in the gorilla population, but also to an improvement in the health and welfare of the human communities that live around the Park.
She explains her approach in this episode of New Thinking for a New World.
Next Episode
Worth Repeating: The best of times, and the worst of times
July 1, 2021
•37m
Even as the pandemic, like some giant glacier, slowly and unevenly recedes, the world seems frozen in place as it deals with the mess left behind. Increased poverty and malnutrition; greater inequality; damaged and depleted health care systems; rising social and political tensions. But is this a crisis or opportunity? Or, rather, are we smart enough and driven enough to turn what threatens to be a period of enormous strife—of the kind that often follows pandemics—into a new era of positive, life affirming change?
This week’s guests on the New Thinking for a New World podcast are dedicated to the latter proposition. They both are trying to make the world the kind of place it could and should be. Vidhya Ramalingam is a recognized expert on the use of technology to disrupt violent extremism online. Sarah Durieux focuses on mobilizing citizens online, to help them achieve policies they care about. They both also recently completed the Obama Foundation’s inaugural Emerging Leaders in Europe Program
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