How Worried Are You?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
04/14/22
•34m
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One of the many unintended consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the renewed discussion among politicians, as well as in the popular media, of nuclear war. President Putin may have cast the first stone, but many others have quickly followed. Would Russia have dared invade Ukraine if that latter had not traded in their stockpiles of nukes in the 90s? Would Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi still be in their palaces if they had nuclear weapons to scare off the Americans and the Europeans? Are the North Koreans simply internalizing those lessons, and why does anybody think that the Iranians have not drawn similar conclusions, especially since their arch enemy Israel crossed the nuclear threshold a long time ago?
How worried should we be about Russian or Korean or Chinese or prospectively Iranian nukes? Have we suddenly moved from a world of nonproliferation to a world of proliferation?
Dr. Tytti Erästö is an expert on nuclear weapons at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). For her, a key assumption has long been that rational leaders would never use nuclear weapons. But now she is asking, what about irrational ones?
Previous Episode
Does China Have Russia’s Back?
April 7, 2022
•39m
Perhaps the biggest known unknown in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is China's role. But we have some clues: during the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese and Russian presidents issued a communique saying their country's relationship has "no limits."
What does that actually mean? How far will China go to keep Russian troops in the field? Promises aside, are there in fact limits?
Tough questions that are very difficult, maybe impossible to answer, but our guest on this episode of New Thinking For a New World recently offered some possibilities in Can China Bail Out Putin? Alicia Garcia-Herrero is a senior fellow at the European think-tank BRUEGEL, as well as the chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, a French investment bank.
What do you think?
Next Episode
Poland to the Rescue
April 21, 2022
•29m
Russia’s war on Ukraine has set off the largest movement of refugees in Europe since the last World War. Around 5 million people, 90% women and children, have fled the country and at least another seven million people have been internally displaced. Those numbers, as well as the uncounted thousands of civilians who have been killed or wounded, are rising rapidly as President Putin intensifies his strategy of war on cities and on the people who live in them.
At least 2.7 million of these refugees have fled to Poland, a country with a spotty record—at best—when it comes to accepting migrants. But this time is different: even as the country builds a wall on its border with Belarus to keep out migrants from the Middle East, Poles and their government are welcoming the Ukrainians pouring across their border. Why the difference? What do the ordinary Poles who are receiving and sheltering the refugees think? Will there be limits to the hospitality as the war drags on? Could there be a silver lining to this horrible tragedy if it produces new attitudes to migration—or is that too naive?
Marta Górczyńska, a Polish human rights lawyer, is hopeful. She has seen and dealt with her country’s efforts to close the border with Belarus as well as its enthusiastic opening of the border with Ukraine (at least for Ukrainians). Will the better angels prevail? Are there implications for other situations as the tide of migrants rises globally?
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