A View from Afar: In the first half of this week’s podcast Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan are joined by Dr David Robie to examine instability in the Pacific’s Polynesian region – specifically to identify what’s going on in: New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa. In the second half, Buchanan and Manning analyse the latest on Afghanistan and consider whether the USA’s humiliating withdrawal suggests an end to liberal internationalism.
Specifically the first half of this episode looks at:
- New Caledonia where there’s the third and final referendum on Kanaky independence;
- In Samoa there’s a new government but only after the old guard attempted to resist democratic change, a move that caused a constitutional crisis; and
- Fiji, to add to its Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama’s politics headache, is the question of how Fiji gets its NGO and aid workers out of Afghanistan.
THEN, in the second half of this episode Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning dig deep into the latest from Afghanistan. The deadline for western personnel to have withdrawn from Afghanistan is looming. The Taliban leadership states it will not extend the negotiated deadline of August 31, and United States president Joe Biden insists the US will not request nor assert an extension. But Biden has instructed his military leaders to prepare for a contingency plan.
- But what does this humiliating withdrawal indicate to the world?
- Is this the realisation of a diminishing United States, a superpower in decline?
- Can the US reassert itself as the world’s Police, or does Afghanistan confirm the US is in retreat and signal an end of liberal internationalism?
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The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
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