Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran lays bare a major rift within Republican foreign policy. Until recently, the more isolationist “America First” wing seemed ascendant, sidelining the hawks. But th…

From June 9th to 13th, some 15,000 participants—including more than 60 Heads of State and Government—convened in Nice, on France's Mediterranean coast, for a major UN-sponsored conference on oceans. …

After years of threats, the Israeli government launched a major attack overnight, targeting both Iran’s nuclear program and several senior Iranian military and political leaders. At the time of writi…

There are nearly 70,000 UN peacekeeping personnel serving in 11 missions around the world. My guest today, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, is in charge of them all. He has served as the United Nations Under-Sec…

Global Dispatches is entering a new era—and I need your help to keep it going. For years, I’ve been able to produce this show thanks to institutional support, especially from the UN Foundation, which…

After an 80-day total blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza, a new scheme to distribute food to desperate Gazans began operations this week. The “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” is an Israeli-American…

The General Assembly selected five new members of the Security Council and one new President of the General Assembly this week in not-so-hotly contested elections. These new Security Council members …

On May 20th, after years of negotiation, World Health Organization member states adopted the Pandemic Agreement — the first international treaty focused on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and resp…

The Pope is not just a religious leader—he's also a Head of State. The Holy See maintains formal diplomatic relations with most countries on Earth and holds the status of a permanent observer at the …

My guest today, Zia Mian is co-director of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security. He's a physicist who has long studied nuclear weapons and nuclear security. In our conversati…

On April 22, militants launched a brutal assault on a tourist site in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing 26 civilians in what became the deadliest terrorist attack in India in nearly 15 years. What f…

What would actually happen if a nuclear weapon were detonated in space?

This isn't just the stuff of science fiction — it's a scenario that researchers have studied closely, and the implications are …

I've been hanging around the United Nations these past few days attending events related to consultations on lethal autonomous weapons systems—so-called killer robots. These are AI-powered weapons sy…

Eliana Johns hunts for nuclear weapons. She’s a senior research associate at the Federation of American Scientists, where her team uses open-source intelligence — or OSINT — to uncover secrets about …

The race to succeed António Guterres is unofficially underway. His term as UN Secretary-General ends in December 2026, but the backroom jockeying has already begun.  In this episode, Mark and Anjali …

The legendary international relations scholar Joseph Nye passed away on May 7th at the age of 88. He’s best known, of course, for developing and advancing the idea of “soft power”—the ability to infl…

In just the first four months of the Trump administration, several pillars of American foreign policy have been upended — USAID dismantled, most foreign aid frozen, and the rules-based international …

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, better known as the CTBT, expressly prohibits its signatories from testing nuclear weapons. It was opened for signature in 1996 and is now one of the most widely ad…

Ankit Panda’s new book delivers a stark message: we’ve entered a new nuclear age. This one is shaped by rising U.S.–Russia tensions, China’s emergence as a major nuclear power, and a wave of tech bre…

The escalating trade dispute between the United States and China has, in the view of my guest today, unofficially crossed the threshold into a full-blown trade war. Wendy Cutler is Vice President at …