NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Understanding Iran's Grand Strategy: A discussion with Vali Nasr” from July 15, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

The statements made and opinions expressed in this publication are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Security in Context network, its partner organizations, or its funders.

Security in Context Senior Researcher Negar Razavi interviews Vali Nasr about his new book, "Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History."

Vali Nasr is the Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He served as the eighth Dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS between 2012 and 2019 and served as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke between 2009 and 2011.

Nasr is the author of "Iran's Grand Strategy" alongside other books, including "The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat"; "Forces of Fortune: The Rise of a New Middle Class and How it Will Change Our World" and "How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare."

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on X @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “India-Pakistan Tensions and the Indus Waters Treaty: An Interview with Daanish Mustafa” from Jun 20, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

The statements made and opinions expressed in this publication are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Security in Context network, its partner organizations, or its funders.

Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Daanish Mustafa on the recent India-Pakistan crisis.

Professor Daanish Mustafa obtained his BA in Geography from Middlebury College, USA, his MA from University of Hawai'i Manoa, and his PhD in Geography from University of Colorado. He has taught at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA and then at the University of South Florida, St Petersburg, before finding his intellectual home in the Department of Geography. While at King's, he has received the School of Social Science and Public Policy excellence in teaching award.

His research has been funded by the Belmont Forum, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Department for International Development (DfID), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), National Geographic Society, Royal Geographical Society, and the British Academy. Daanish was the co-author of the first climate change response strategies for Pakistan, in addition to being the lead author for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Pakistan five-year flood response strategy. In addition, he has also undertaken policy-related work with the DfID, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Stimson Centre, and United States Institute for Peace (USIP).

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on X @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Kenya, the United States, and the War on Terror: An Interview with Samar Al-Bulushi” from May 22, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

The statements made and opinions expressed in this publication are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Security in Context network, its partner organizations, or its funders.

Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Samar Al-Bulushi about her book, "War-Making as Worldmaking: Kenya, the United States, and the War on Terror."

Samar Al-Bulushi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UC Irvine. She obtained her PhD in Anthropology at Yale and her MA in International Affairs at Columbia University. Prior to obtaining her PhD, she spent ten years working in the field of international human rights with the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). She is currently a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, D.C., and previously served as contributing editor for Africa is a Country.

Al-Bulushi’s research is broadly concerned with militarism and geopolitics.  Her book, War-Making as World-Making: Kenya, the United States, and the War on Terror (forthcoming with Stanford University Press), argues that Kenya has emerged as a key player in the post 9/11 era of endless war. Her next project, The Afterlives of Non-Alignment, explores how Africans re-engage with the concept of non-alignment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While contemporary invocations of non-alignment are not necessarily grounded in a commitment to anti-imperialism, memories of European colonialism loom large, as do memories of the Soviet Union’s support for African independence struggles. This project aims to shed ethnographic light on how asymmetrical yet shifting global power relations are interpreted and contested, shaped simultaneously by colonial legacies of exploitation and inequality, by affective discourses that invoke memories of these legacies, and by everyday forms of geopolitical knowledge.

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

This episode is an audio version of our video interview “How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy: An Interview with Van Jackson” from May 18, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

The statements made and opinions expressed in this publication are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Security in Context network, its partner organizations, or its funders.

Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Van Jackson about his new book with Michael Brenes, "The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy."

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Understanding Trump's Tariffs” from April 14, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

The statements made and opinions expressed in this publication are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Security in Context network, its partner organizations, or its funders.

In this video, Security in Context's Omar Dahi moderates a discussion between SiC co-founder Firat Demir and economist Francisco R. Rodriguez to discuss Trump's tariffs and their impact on the world.

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Dissecting Europe’s Political Landscape: German Elections and U.S.-Ukraine Tensions” from March 7, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Anatol Lieven about Europe's political landscape, in particular Germany's elections and the newfound tensions between the US and Ukraine.

Anatol Lieven is the Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Lieven is a former professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London.

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Israeli Aggression in Syria” from March 3, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

Security in Context Project Director Omar Dahi interviews Wael Tarabieh about the history of the Israeli occupation in the Syrian Golan.Wael Tarabieh - Syrian Artist and activist, based in the Occupied Syrian Jawlan. Graduated from St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture named after Ilya Repin. A Co-founder of the “Fateh Al-Moudarres Center for Arts and Culture” - in Majdal Shams. He has been teaching fine arts since 1996. He has worked with fellow artists and cultural activists on developing the local artistic and cultural space in the occupied Syrian Jawlan, and sought to link it to the democratic cultural movement in Syria, Palestine, and the world. He joined Al-Marsad- The Arab Human Rights Center in the Occupied Jawlan, in 2018, as a project manager for the cultural program “New ways of seeing”, and is currently managing Al-Marsad’s program on economic, social, and cultural rights.

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Dr. Viviana García Pinzón on Trump's Foreign Policy in Latin America” from February 26, 2025. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

Security in Context's Roosbelinda Cárdenas speaks with Dr. Viviana García Pinzón about US President Donald Trump's foreign policy in Latin America, with a focus on Colombia.Dr. Viviana García Pinzón is Senior Researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI) in Freiburg and an Associate at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). She has a PhD in Political Science with a focus on peace and conflict studies from the Philipps University of Marburg.

For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “UN 1701 & Peacekeeping in Lebanon: An Interview with Karim Makdisi” from November 1, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Karim Makdisi about UN Security Council Resolution 1701 as well as peacekeeping in Lebanon amid attacks from and conflict with Israel. Karim Makdisi is an Associate Professor of International Politics and Founding Director of the Graduate Program in Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut (AUB). He served as Associate Director in AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, where he also directed the “UN and the Arab World” research and policy program. He currently directs the environmental policy program within AUB’s interdisciplinary graduate program in Environmental Sciences. He was a founding member and served on the first Board of Trustees of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences. Prior to joining AUB, he worked for three years at the Economic and Social commission for Western Asia, focusing on the global and regional UN sustainable development agenda and the inter-connected issues of crisis, intervention and reconstruction. He is the co-editor of Land of the Blue Helmets: The United Nations in the Arab World (University of California Press, 2017); and Interventions in Conflict: International Peacemaking in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). He has published in journals such as Global Governance, Third World Quarterly, International Peacekeeping, and International Studies Perspective. His current book project is: Disarming Syria: The International Politics of Eliminating Syria’s Chemical Weapons. He obtained his BA from Georgetown University and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Iran's Foreign Policy Since the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation: Interview with Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi” from October 25, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Omar Dahi interviews Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi about Iranian foreign policy since the Al-Aqsa Operation by Hamas. Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi is a Senior Lecturer in the History of the Middle East at the University of York. He is a historian of West Asia (Middle East), with a particular focus on the modern intellectual and political history of Iran and the wider Shi'i Muslim world. In disciplinary terms, he works at the intersection of intellectual and political history, the history of political thought, and postcolonial theory. Sadeghi-Boroujerdi has also extensively researched and published on the history of Iranian intellectuals, political militants and clandestine organisations during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the intellectual lineages of “Third Worldism” in modern Iran. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Is Israel Implementing Gaza Policy in Lebanon? An Interview with Hicham Safieddine” from October 24, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Omar Dahi speaks with Professor Hicham Safieddine about Israeli policy in Lebanon and its intersection surrounding their policies in Gaza as well. Hicham Safieddine is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the History of the Modern Middle East. He researches financial, economic and intellectual history (19th and 20th centuries) with a particular emphasis on the MENA region. He is currently examining the emergence and transformation of global and national monetary regimes and financial systems under capitalist expansion, debt, war, colonial conquest, national liberation and revolution. In addition to his academic research and teaching, he is the co-founder of e-zines Al-Akhbar English and The Legal Agenda’s English Edition. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “AI and Global Security: Edward Ongweso Jr. Joins SiC” from October 23, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews our newest team member, Edward Ongweso Jr., about his work and research involving AI and global security issues. Edward Ongweso Jr. is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor, and a Senior Researcher in Technology, Finance and AI at Security in Context. He’s the finance editor at Logic(s) (a Black, Asian, and queer critical tech magazine) and the co-host of the This Machine Kills (a podcast on the political economy of technological development). His work has appeared in Motherboard, The Guardian, The Baffler, The Nation, Dissent, WIRED, Slate, and elsewhere. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Understanding Sudan's Counter-revolutionary War: An Interview with Khalid Mustafa Medani” from August 25, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Dr. Khalid Mustafa Medani on Sudan's ongoing war, including its historical context and global implications. Dr. Khalid Mustafa Medani is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at McGill University. He also serves as the university's Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies and Chair of the African Studies Program. Dr. Medani received a B.A. with Honors in Development Studies from Brown University, an M.A. in Development Studies from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on globalization, and the political economy of Islamist and Ethnic Politics in Africa and the Middle East with a special focus on Sudan, Egypt, and Somalia. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Seeking Justice for Israel's Genocide in Palestine: An Interview with Inès Abdel Razek” from July 12, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Inès Abdel Razek, Co-Director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD) and its digital platform Rabet, about Gaza, Palestinian solidarity, and the quest for justice amid genocide from Israel. Inès Abdel Razek is the Executive Director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD) and its digital platform Rabet, an independent Palestinian organization focusing on international mobilization and digital campaigning for Justice, Freedom and Equality. From 2019 to 2022, Inès was the Advocacy Director of the PIPD, helping to develop the political networks and international advocacy pillar of the organization. Prior to joining the PIPD, Inès held policy advisor positions in the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona, the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi and the Palestinian Prime Minister’s Office in Ramallah, where she advised executive leadership on international aid for development policies. Inès is also a board member of the social enterprise BuildPalestine, Advisory board member of Palestine DeepDive, and policy member at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Sciences-Po, Paris. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Branko Milanovic on Global Inequality: Past Lessons and Future Prospects” from June 21, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Branko Milanovic on global inequality and how the subject's past can inform the future. Branko Milanovic is an economist best known for working on income distribution and inequality. He is a research professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. Milanovic obtained his Ph.D. in economics (1987) from the University of Belgrade with a dissertation on income inequality in Yugoslavia. He served as lead economist in the World Bank’s Research Department for almost 20 years, leaving to write his book on global income inequality, Worlds Apart (2005). He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington (2003-2005) and has held teaching appointments at the University of Maryland (2007-2013) and at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (1997- 2007). He was a visiting scholar at All Souls College in Oxford, and Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (2010-11). For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Analyzing Mexico's Election: Claudia Sheinbaum's Landslide Victory” from June 6, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. In this interview conducted by Security in Context's Margaret Cerullo, Mexico-based independent investigative journalist, John Gibler, author of Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, To Die in Mexico: Dispatches From Inside the Drug War, and I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of the Attacks Against the Students of Ayotzinapa, provides in-depth analysis of the political landscape in Mexico in light of the most recent elections on June 2, 2024. Gibler analyzes the context in which Claudia Sheinbaum emerged victorious with a whopping 30+ point margin. In the interview, Gibler analyzes Sheinbaum’s party, Morena, and the legacies of her predecessor, López Obrador by looking at the war on drugs, immigration policy, state violence and the lingering impunity surrounding human rights, as well as the significance of Morena's triumph for Mexico and the region. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Nayib Bukele's Policies in El Salvador - An Interview with Amy Fallas” from May 3, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

Security in Context's Janaina Maldonado interviews Amy Fallas on the policies of President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele. Amy Fallas is a Salvadoran-Costa Rican writer, editor, and historian. She is a former editor of the Yale Journal for International Affairs and a current assistant editor at the Arab Studies Journal. Her published work has appeared in The Washington Post, Jadaliyya, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Mada Masr, HAZINE, the Revealer, Sojourners, Contingent Magazine, and more. She received her MA in History from Yale University and is currently a PhD Candidate in History at UC Santa Barbara. Her research examines religious difference, communal institutions, sectarianism, and historical memory in modern Egypt as well as transnationally between El Salvador and Palestine during the 20th Century. Her creative nonfiction explores these questions through personal and investigative essays on race, religion, and politics in and between Egypt, El Salvador, and the United States. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Returning Public Funds To The Public: An Interview with Stephen Semler” from April 29, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Stephen Semler about his paper, "Returning Public Funds To The Public: A Plan To Convert Excess US Military Spending Into $600 Tax Rebates," in which he lays out a plan aimed at refunding taxpayers for the dramatic increase in military spending that we’ve seen over recent years in the United States. Semler's paper can be read here: https://www.securityincontext.org/posts/returning-public-funds-to-the-public-a-plan-to-convert-excess-us-military-spending-into-600-tax-rebates Stephen Semler is co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute and author of the newsletter Speaking Security. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Countering “Day After” Narratives in Palestine: An Interview with Mandy Turner” from April 26, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

Security in Context's Anita Fuentes interviews Mandy Turner about her February 2024 paper for the project, "Countering “Day After” Narratives: Notes Towards A Practical Program For Palestinian Liberation And Global Solidarity." Her paper can be read here: https://www.securityincontext.org/posts/countering-day-after-narratives-notes-towards-program-palestinian-liberation-solidarity Mandy Turner is a senior researcher with Security in Context. Her research focuses on the political economy of conflict and peace, humanitarianism and multilateralism, and the situation in Israel and Palestine. She has 25 years’ experience of these issues and has pursued research, writing and consultancy work through a variety of sectors. She is the author of over 50 articles and book chapters, has edited or co-edited four books and three journal special issues, and writes for media outlets. She holds a PhD in International Relations (2000), an MSc in International Relations (1994), and a BSc in Sociology (1993) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She started her career as a journalist with The Guardian newspaper in London (2000-2004), then re-entered the academy as a research fellow then senior lecturer in the peace studies department at the University of Bradford, UK (2004-2011). From 2012-2020, Mandy lived and worked in Palestine as director of a British Academy international research institute. She left this position to become professor of conflict, peace and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester, UK, which she held until she joined Security in Context in January 2024. Her most recent book is an edited collection called From the River to the Sea: Palestine and Israel in the Shadow of ‘Peace’ (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), which will be published in Arabic by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (Doha) in 2024. Her previous books are: The Politics of International Intervention: The Tyranny of Peace (co-edited with F.P. Kühn. Routledge, 2016); Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De development and Beyond (co-edited with O. Shweiki. PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), and Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (co edited with M. Pugh and N. Cooper. PalgraveMacmillan, 2008). She can be contacted on: mandy@securityincontext.org For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Milei's election and the Argentinian economy: An interview with Matías Vernengo [Part 2]” from February 2, 2024. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠.

In this interview, Executive Producer of the Security in Context Podcast Anita Fuentes talks with Matías Vernengo, about his recent book "Dollar Hegemony," and the economic circumstances that contributed to Javier Milei's election in Argentina. Matías Vernengo is a Professor of Economics at Bucknell University. He was formerly Senior Research Manager at the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA), Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Utah, and Assistant Professor at Kalamazoo College and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He has been an external consultant to several United Nations organizations like the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). He has seven edited books, two books and more than one hundred and twenty articles published in scientific peer reviewed journals or book chapters. He specializes in macroeconomic issues for developing countries, in particular Latin America, international political economy and the history of economic thought. He is also the emeritus founding co-editor of the Review of Keynesian Economics (ROKE), and co-editor in chief of the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Vernengo's book "Dollar Hegemony" can be found here: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/dollar-hegemony-9781035320929.html For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext