Month: February 2023

Russia’s War on Ukraine One Year Later

 We begin with the one year anniversary of Russia’s war on Ukraine and speak with a reporter who has covered the war from the beginning and prior to that was a correspondent in Russia for more than a decade. Joining us is Simon Shuster, a reporter for Time Magazine based in New York City, by way of Moscow, Kyiv and Berlin.  He has previously covered Russia and the former Soviet Union for Reuters, The Associated Press, The Moscow Times and Foreign Policy. His forthcoming book is The Fight Is Here: Volodymyr Zelensky and the War in Ukraine and we discuss the extent to which claims of a Russian defeat are premature and concerns that there is still a lag in supplying arms to Ukraine and that there could be a steady erosion of support for Ukraine if the war drags on for years.

Skepticism About China’s “Position Paper” on Ending the Ukraine War Although Zelensky Welcomes It

 Then we examine the Chinese peace proposal which they are calling a “position paper” that has been met with much skepticism by the U.S. and NATO although President Zelensky welcomes it and hopes to meet later with Xi Jinping. Joining us is Gilbert Rozman, the Emeritus Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and the editor-in-chief of The Asan Forum, a bi-monthly, online journal on international relations in the Indo-Pacific region. He taught at Princeton from 1970 to 2013, specializing in societies of China, Japan, Korea, and Russia, and he is the author of International Relations and Asia’s Northern Tier: Sino-Russian Relations and North Korea, and Mongolia.

How the Magic of the Free Market Ended Up Impoverishing Democracy and Weakening Our Ability to Tackle Major Challenges

Then finally we look into why Americans are alienated from their own government after decades of a self-serving economic dogma from the captains of industry about the magic of a free market which has ended up serving the rich and powerful while impoverishing democracy and weakening our ability to tackle major challenges. Joining us is Naomi Oreskes, a Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She received the Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, served as a consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was a consultant to the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Her books include Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming and Why Trust Science. Her latest book, just out, co-authored with Eric Conway is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.