Spring Migrations
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
03/21/24
•39m
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Mass migration is once again in the headlines around the world. This is less because of the numbers of people on the move than because it is an intensely political year—and fear of migrants is grist for politicians’ fear-mongering. The United States is the exception where both apply.
In a world of increasing conflict, weak economic growth, and populist bombast it is easy to blame migrants. And then to tighten asylum policies, pay departure countries to disrupt travel, find supposedly “safe haven” countries to dump unwanted migrants, and imagine other creative ways to broadcast the message: MIGRANTS NOT WANTED!
Andrew Selee, President of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, has a different idea. How about a calm, expletives-deleted, fact-based pragmatic discussion about migration and migration policies? Listen as he makes his case for an approach to migration that is legal, practical, and in the interests of both destination countries and the migrants.
**Should your country accept more migrants? **Tell us what you think and leave a comment on our website
Previous Episode
Worth Repeating: Peace How?
March 14, 2024
•36m
As Ukraine’s war enters its third year, it’s past time to dampen the rhetoric and tune up the reality. The war has shifted from failed Russian blitzkrieg, to valiant Ukrainian defense and then recovery, to unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive, and now to war of attrition. But small countries—Ukraine’s effective population is only 1/5th of Russia’s and its economy only 1/10th the size of Russia’s—rarely win wars of attrition.
The conventional wisdom is that Western support can make up the difference. Wouldn’t a more realistic assessment be that such support—assuming it continues in ever greater magnitudes—can only prevent Ukraine from losing? Shouldn’t the expectation be that Russia, having overcome the bumbling and ineptitude of the first year of the war, is likely to push hard this spring at least to complete the seizure of Ukraine’s eastern oblasts? And then what?
Our guest on this week's New Thinking for a New World podcast has some clear ideas about the balance of forces, the risk of a Russian victory, and the contours of a potential negotiation that might lay the groundwork for renewed peace in Europe. George Beebe, director of the Grand Strategy Program at the Quincy Institute in Washington and a Russian expert, insists that such a negotiation requires continued US support for Ukraine. But he also insists that it's time for diplomacy.
Beebe and co-author Anatol Lieven recently published a must-read analysis entitled The Diplomatic Path to a Secure Ukraine and discussed his conclusions with host Alan Stoga.
What do you think? Should the United States push Ukraine towards negotiations?
You can read the article 'Give Peace a Chance,' which is based on the podcast, here: https://tallbergfoundation.org/articles/give-peace-a-chance/"
Next Episode
“Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War.”
March 28, 2024
•34m
Philosopher George Santayana wrote those words 100 years ago, between two massively destructive world wars. Unfortunately, they continue to ring true today amidst a growing global epidemic of political and civil conflict. That epidemic takes many different forms—wars between countries, civil wars, brutally violent conflicts among armed gangs, large-scale terrorism, government-sanctioned ethnic cleansing—but the terrible consequences for civilians are the same. And, more and more people in more and more places are caught up in extreme violence.
What happened to the “peace dividend” after the end of the Cold War? Or the optimism of scholars like Steven Pinker and Yuval Noah Harari who expected mankind’s “better angels” to produce peace and prosperity? Did the Age of Aquarius already come and go?
Clionadh Raleigh believes it is important to understand and document the nature and extent of violent global civil conflict. She founded and leads ACLED, Armed Conflict Location and Events Data and is a professor of political violence and geography at the University of Sussex. Listen as she describes the world as it actually is.
Tell us what you think and comment here.
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