I invited Bob Holley on the podcast to discuss the article he recently published here, Fracturing the Security Map, warning that the return of Donald Trump, coupled with Ukraine’s defeat, could spark a stampede to redraw the world’s nuclear security arrangements. Discussed in the podcast This is the remarkably prescient article by John Measheimer I mentioned: The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent America First I’ve been thinking about this problem since the first Trump presidency. I’ve...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.com “There are smart pollsters, insightful pollsters, accurate pollsters … but few are all three. Christine Quirk is. She makes people who hire her look smarter than we really are.”— Christy Quirk is a more cosmopolitan globalist than most. I met her in Istanbul about twenty years ago, where I discovered she had an interesting job: She’s a public opinion res…

UPDATE: Some of you didn’t care for the sound effects, so here’s a version without them: Since I have a philosopher in the family, I thought you might enjoy hearing a conversation with my father about what it means that we’ve built machines that can think and what we might learn from them about what it means to be human. We discuss the way Large Language Models have altered our understanding of natural languages and learning algorithms, and the possibility that theoretical science may be...

Russia has been hard at work kicking the United States out of Africa. It’s all but chased out France, too. But anyone who imagines Russia to be a kinder, gentler superpower is out of his mind. The investigative journalist Philip Obaji has been following the activities of the Wagner group in Africa for years. He recently spent the months investigating human rights abuses by Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic, where he was abducted and tortured, only narrowly escaping...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.com Claire Berlinski and Judith Levy discuss the escalating tensions in northern Israel with Hezbollah, recent incursions, and the devastating impact of ongoing conflict. They explore the strategic and military implications for Israel, the psychological toll on citizens, and the political maneuvers of Israeli leadership.

Here’s an AI summary of the podcast: Join Clare Berlinski and Judith Levy in this episode of The Elephant Cage as they discuss the Biden administration's inability to understand deterrence and escalation dominance. They provide updates on the Hamas deal, analyze the current geopolitical landscape, and critique the American foreign policy approach towards Russia and Iran. The discussion also covers the implications of the Ukraine war, the role of NATO, and the morality of abducting Ukrainian...

Show notes: Who wants a two-state solution? Not Israelis or Palestinians. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

Show notes Detectives urgently investigating what led to man’s fatal sword rampage. Truly impressive scenes from Tbilisi: Over 100,000 people are protesting against the Russia-inspired foreign agents bill in the capital, with protests also occurring in other cities. Georgians are rallying to defend their country from becoming a Russian satellite state: John adds: “Think we are on the verge of something really happening there, and at a time where Putin would struggle to respond.” This is a...

Show notes Found on the sidewalk, destined for the dump: After my weekend’s ministrations: My brother thinks I could make a lucrative side gig out of writing a newsletter about finding junk in the streets of Paris and restoring it. He thinks more people would subscribe to that than they would to the Cosmopolitan Globalist. I don’t think I have the time to write two full-time Substacks—especially since writing a newsletter about scouring Paris for trash and restoring it would require that I...

Hey, it’s us! John will be in London for a while now, so you can look forward to receiving the Elephant Cage every weekday without further interruption. Show notes: Popular protests continue against Foreign Agents’ law Rallies continue in Tbilisi against the Foreign Agents law, as citizens of all generations gathered again on April 21 in Tbilisi, again blocking Rustaveli avenue. Many demonstrators came with their families, representing several generations. The demonstration began with the...

Show notes: Vows of revenge mark a funeral for Iranian commanders killed in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus: “Our brave men will punish the Zionist regime,” General Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, told the crowd attending the funeral in Tehran. “We warn that no act by any enemy against our holy system will go unanswered and the art of the Iranian nation is to break the power of empires.” This is a public episode. If you’d like to...

Prime Minister Oxley runs through the options for dissuading Iran from targeting dissidents on British soil. Secretary of State Berlinski is worried no one has an Iran policy. The PM realizes he’ll need to lead the Free World in devising a comprehensive plan to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, which will require him to call upon Defense Minister Oxley for a briefing. (The DefMin was in an urgent meeting today but will brief us tomorrow.) Show notes: * Iran is winning the war. Right now...

Fridays are the day we talk about happy and beautiful things, and what could be happier or more beautiful than our golden, wine-and-poetry soaked youth at Oxford and Cambridge? I wrote a short story some time after I went down from Oxford. (You “go up” and “go down” from Oxford, and you pray that you’re never “sent down,” because that is very, very bad.) The story is a love letter to Oxford, its beauty, its history, its weirdness, and the dizzying excitement of being young. I still think it...

It’s a beautiful day in Europe. Jake Sullivan visits Ukraine and tells them the aid is coming. The EU is meeting in Brussels and going “on a war footing.” The Elephants are relieved by these faintly encouraging signs. The German economy is in a world of hurt. Let’s be careful what we wish for, folks: The Elephants look at Germany and wonder if we should be excited about German rearmament. Leaked Russian Education Ministry documents show Russia’s plans for “reeducating” kidnapped Ukrainian...

Hey, has anyone else had this problem? I received this message from a subscriber: [T]he podcast episodes are no longer appearing in the subscriber podcast feed. Last week episodes for Monday-Thursday appeared and I listened to them but disappeared from the full list of episodes in the podcast app feed for all episodes. Please let me know if you’ve had this problem, too. It will help me figure out how to fix it. Show notes European GPS-disturbance: multi-faceted. I have no idea if this is...

Show notes: * One year after Ohrid agreement, there is little commitment from Kosovo and Serbia to its implementation. EU High Representative Josep Borrell called the lack of progress in implementing obligations “regrettable.” To date, only the declaration on missing persons, the Joint Monitoring Committee, and the draft on the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo. * Putin wants war in the Balkans. Russia is exploiting ethnic tensions as Serbia threatens violence against...

Sorry folks, it’s Monday. We have to think about this again. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

We decided that every Friday, we’re going to talk about things that don’t involve any of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. From now on, we’re dedicating Fridays to the cosmopolitan part of the globalist. We’ll talk about great cities, great books, the world’s best gardens, Roman history, our favorite languages, travel by train, cooking, the best music by which to drive through the American southwest in a convertible, writing and literature, the world’s best restaurants, the world’s best...

Show notes Background: Why I don’t trust news organs I usually find reliable to report the news from Israel and Gaza accurately: * What COGAT says: The image above came from a video; here’s the full footage: COGAT didn’t provide a translation, and I don’t speak Arabic. So I put the video through an AI program for translation and subtitles, which resulted in gibberish: My best guess, from the context, is that they’re saying something like this: First Man: We’re now living from day to day,...

Okay, so we changed the name. The new name was Thomas Gregg’s suggestion, and we love it. I can’t tell whether I forgot to speak slowly, or if I made a mistake in the editing that sped up the recording. I don’t know what I could have done, if so. It’s not bad—but I’m not speaking slowly. I’ll work at that more. Trump is “unhinged” but we love him, say Kremlin mouthpieces, by Julia Davis Peace talks “just because” Ukraine is running out of ammunition are “ridiculous,” says Putin This is...

Here it is: The long-awaited report. This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (Pub. L. No. 116-260). This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is committed every day to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and...

Show notes: * India joins the elite list of nations with test of Agni-V MIRV tech * Mission Divyastra: What Agni-5 missile with MIRV tech can do * Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan: self-reliant India * Why “poverty first, moon next” is an absurd argument * IAEA: Iran is “not entirely transparent” on its atomic program * West concerned over Iranian nuclear bomb in IAEA meeting * Too close for comfort: Cases of near-nuclear use and options for policy * Twenty mishaps that might have started...

We have a name! This podcast will from now on be called ‘Round the Globe with John and Claire. We like it because it’s simple and it says what it’s about. From now on you’ll receive ‘Round the Globe with John and Claire every weekday. It’s a bonus, not a substitute for any of the other things we do. We’d love it if you subscribed: What’s your verdict so far? How can we improve it? The show notes are interleaved among the other articles, below. I’ve appended GLOBAL EYES to the podcast...

My father didn’t understand what a “Cosmoberjoxlicast” was, and who can blame him? Pop, it’s short for the Cosmopolitan Globalist Claire Berlinski and John Oxley podcast, but just a placeholder until we think of something perfect, catchy, and memorable. A month of the Cosmopolitan Globalist on the house to the reader who comes up with a name that makes both of us immediately say, “Yes! That’s perfect.” We discovered today that twenty minutes isn’t a long time. We had a long list of things we...