『Navigating the Vortex』のカバーアート

Navigating the Vortex

Navigating the Vortex

著者： Lucy P. Marcus & Stefan Wolff
無料で聴く

このコンテンツについて

 We live in a complex and ever-changing world. To navigate the vortex we must adapt to change quickly, think critically, and make sound decisions. Lucy Marcus & Stefan Wolff talk about business, politics, society, culture, and what it all means.

www.navigatingthevortex.comLucy P. Marcus & Stefan Wolff 政治・政府 政治学 経済学
エピソード
  • New US national security strategy adds to Ukraine’s woes and exacerbates Europe’s dilemmas

    New US national security strategy adds to Ukraine’s woes and exacerbates Europe’s dilemmas
    2025/12/11
    Ukraine is under unprecedented pressure, not only on the battlefield but also on the domestic and diplomatic fronts.Each of these challenges on their own would be difficult to handle for any government. But together — and given there is no obvious solution to any of the problems the country is facing — they create a near-perfect storm.It’s a storm that threatens to bring down the Ukrainian government and potentially the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. This would deal a severe blow to Kyiv and its western allies.On the frontlines in eastern Donbas, Ukraine has continued to lose territory since Russia’s summer offensive began in May 2025. The ground lost has been small in terms of area but significant in terms of the human and material cost.Between them, Russia and Ukraine have suffered around 2 million casualties over the course of the war.Perhaps more importantly, the people of Ukraine have endured months and months during which the best news has been that its troops were still holding out despite seemingly unending Russian assaults. This relentless negativity has undermined morale among troops and civilians alike.As a consequence, recruitment of new soldiers cannot keep pace with losses incurred on the frontlines – both in terms of casualties and desertions.Moreover, potential conscripts to the Ukrainian army increasingly resort to violence to avoid being drafted into the military. A new recruitment drive, announced by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, will increase the potential for further unrest.Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure continues unabated, further damaging what is left of the vital energy grid and leaving millions of families facing lengthy daily blackouts.The country’s air defence systems are increasingly overwhelmed by nightly Russian attacks, which are penetrating hitherto safe areas such as the capital and key population centres in the south and west. It’s a grim outlook for Ukraine’s civilian population who are now heading into the war’s fourth winter. A ceasefire, let alone a viable peace agreement, remains a very distant prospect.The political turmoil that has engulfed Zelensky and his government adds to the sense of a potentially catastrophic downward spiral. There have been corruption scandals before, but none has come as close to the president himself.The amounts allegedly involved in the latest bribery scandal – around US$100m (£75 million) – are eye-watering at a time of national emergency. But it is also the callousness of Ukraine’s elites apparently enriching themselves that adds insult to injury.The latest scandal has also opened a potential Pandora’s box of vicious recriminations. As more and more members of Zelensky’s inner circle are engulfed in corruption allegations, more details of how different parts of his administration benefited from various schemes or simply turned a blind eye are likely to emerge.This has damaged Zelensky’s own standing with his citizens and allies. What has helped him survive are both his track record as a war leader so far and the lack of alternatives.Without a clear pathway towards a smooth transition to a new leadership in Ukraine, the mutual dependency between Zelensky and his European allies has grown.The US under Donald Trump is no longer, and perhaps never has been, a dependable ally for Ukraine. What is worse, however, is that America has also ceased to be a dependable ally for Europe.America’s new national security strategy, published on December 4, has exploded into this already precarious situation and has sent shockwaves across the whole of Europe. It casts the European Union as more of a threat to US interests than Russia.It also threatens open interference in the domestic affairs of its erstwhile European allies. And crucially for Kyiv, it outlines a trajectory towards American disengagement from European security.This adds to Ukraine’s problems — not only because Washington cannot be seen as an honest broker in negotiations with Moscow. It also decreases the value of any western security guarantees. In the absence of a US backstop, the primarily European coalition of the willing lacks the capacity, for now, to establish credible deterrence against future Russian adventurism.Efforts by the coalition of the willing cannot hide the fact that a fractured European Union whose key member states, like France and Germany, have fragile governments that are challenged by openly pro-Trump and pro-Putin populists, is unlikely to step quickly into the assurance gap left by the US. The twin challenge of investing in their own defensive capabilities while keeping Ukraine in the fight against Russia to buy the essential time needed to do so creates a profound dilemma.Without the US, Ukraine’s allies simply do not have the resources to enable Ukraine to even improve its negotiation position, let alone to win this war. In a worst-case scenario, all...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    7 分
  • Navigating the Vortex | Ethnopolitics Edition | Episode 1

    Navigating the Vortex | Ethnopolitics Edition | Episode 1
    2025/11/27

    On 14 November 2025, we spoke to George Kyris about his article on the recognition of Palestine.

    George is an Associate Professor in International Politics at the University of Birmingham and the co-founder and chair of the ECPR Research Network on Statehood, Sovereignty and Conflict. You can find out more about him here.

    You can access the article we discuss in this episode here for free.

    The special issue on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Reflections on the Politics of Stalemate, co-edited by Karl Cordell, Brendan O’Leary and Stefan Wolff (Ethnopolitics 15(4), 2016), is available here.



    Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe
    続きを読む 一部表示
    21 分
  • Trump’s 28-point plan was the result of a well-timed Russian move.

    Trump’s 28-point plan was the result of a well-timed Russian move.
    2025/11/26
    Land for peace, take it or leave it. A deal proposed by the United States to end Russia’s war in Ukraine — negotiated in secret with Moscow — initially appeared to be an ultimatum to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until his US counterpart Donald Trump said on Saturday (November 22) that it was not his “final offer”. Three days later, he reiterated that his original deadline was off.Kyiv and its allies rejected the draft as too favourable to Moscow and discussions on an “updated and refined peace framework” with Ukraine are ongoing. But it is the timing of the leaked 28-point plan that makes it interesting.Before details of this plan emerged, it seemed that Mr Trump was finally acting on his threat to sanction Russia for its invasion and force it to negotiate peace in good faith.Russia has offered no meaningful concessions on the maximalist demands it has stuck to since at least late 2022. There were no tangible outcomes after the Alaska summit between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in August. A follow-up summit was cancelled.Seemingly frustrated and targeting a crucial economic lifeline, Mr Trump ordered sanctions on two of Russia‘s oil majors — Rosneft and Lukoil — which took effect on November 21, albeit with a significant number waivers in place for one of the sanctioned companies, Lukoil. He threatened secondary sanctions on their foreign customers, especially in India, China, and Europe.And more importantly, he apparently gave the green light for US lawmakers to pursue legislation, first introduced in April, that would give him further powers to impose such primary and secondary sanctions.This is classic Russian timing. Just as the US president signals another hardening of his approach, the Russian side indicates a new-found flexibility regarding a deal on Ukraine. That was the case in April and May this year and again in July and August. Each time it appeared that Mr Trump was falling out with Mr Putin, and each time the Russian president managed to lure him back into the charade of Russian engagement — with a phone call in May and then with their summit in Alaska in August.Such moves to appear actively committed to peace negotiations have saved Mr Putin several times from more serious US measures in support of Ukraine.The timing was also advantageous for Russia because Mr Zelenskyy is under serious pressure from a new corruption scandal involving several people from his inner circle. Developments on the frontlines in the east and south of Ukraine, where Russia continues to make steady gains, also endanger Mr Zelenskyy‘s grip on power, making him potentially more likely to accept Russian demands.It is, therefore, not surprising that the original 28-point plan, despite at least some US co-authorship, had significant Russian input. The origins of this particular plan appear to be in an October meeting between US special envoy Steve Wittkoff, Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr Putin’s close ally Kirill Dmitriev, who is the head of one of Russia‘s sovereign wealth funds. The plan was drafted outside the US’ so-called inter-agency process – which would have ensured close coordination, among others, between the state department, the defence department, and the national security council.Mr Dmitriev, by contrast, is unlikely to have acted outside the closely monitored power structures under Mr Putin‘s control. The Russian president‘s assertion that this was “essentially an updated plan“ of what had already been discussed in Alaska, that Russia simply “received … through the existing communication channels with the US administration” is hardly the full story.The source of the original leak story in Axios was an unnamed official on the American side. The plan’s murky origins and the flawed process through which the initial 28-point version of the plan emerged explain its messy contents which would have been a bad deal for Ukraine.Under the terms of what was first leaked, Ukraine would not just cede territory but lose more than what Russia currently — and illegally — occupies. The plan specifically required Ukrainian forces to withdraw from parts of Donetsk it controls, which is something that would be politically very hard for Mr Zelenskyy to accept. According to the original plan, Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk would be wholly considered Russian territory, while Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be frozen along the line of contact.Kyiv was also supposed to surrender sovereignty over key foreign policy decisions, such as its choice to pursue NATO membership, in exchange for weak security guarantees and vague promises for reconstruction. In the typical deal-making approach to foreign policy favoured by Mr Trump, the United States was to be compensated for providing any security guarantees and to profit handsomely from reconstruction projects in Ukraine once the war ended.Unsurprisingly, Mr Zelenskyy was not overly enthusiastic ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    9 分
まだレビューはありません