Independent Analysis and Reportage
A View from Afar broadcasts weekly a live and on-demand program featuring Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning where they discuss and debate global topics spanning geopolitics, world news, security, defence and intelligence.
Political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine: The United States and how the world is engaging with it geopolitically. Specifically, Paul and Selwyn analyse what has changed in this regard in 2024, and consider whether some leaders of global, regional, and even small powers are preparing for the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency.
In this , the first episode of A View from Afar for 2024, political scientist Paul G Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning focus on an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ that Paul wrote on how, in 2024, we are living within a decisive moment of world affairs ... a "period where force has become the major arbiter of who rises and who falls in the systemic transitional shuffle.”
Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning note and discuss some of the big world events that have occurred and are occurring in 2023. And in particular, they discuss the rise of the Global South; evaluate the the wars that continue to rage in Ukraine and Gaza; and tensions in the South China Sea. Plus Paul and Selwyn note, with particular reference, the trends that will become prominent in 2024, including the decline of Western democracies and a rightward turn in many places (including in Argentina and New Zealand in their respective 2023 elections).
Dr Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning analyse how a massive shift in geopolitic demarcations is forming, relatively quickly, into a world of bipolarity where on one side we have a multipolar constellation of states, and on the other the traditional western liberal democracies. The catalyst behind this rapidly forming bipolarity is conflict. And, most recently, it is clear, that the Israel-Hamas war – and the atrocities committed initially by Hamas and more lately by Israel forces – is driving the world toward a transitional moment.
Gaza Israel Conflict - In this episode, Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine this most grave situation from a geopolitical vantage point. It may appear as dispassionate, and as so even disturbing, but we will take this approach in an attempt to aide an understanding of why this is happening in Gaza and why it is happening now.
Paul G Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine why events in North Africa are connected to authoritarian multipolarity, a realignment of global power that favours the Russian Federation’s Putin regime.
In this the eighth episode of A View from Afar for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine the risks of a 21st century nuclear war. The movie Oppenheimer has renewed interest in the dawn of the nuclear era. Almost 80 years later, are we safer from nuclear war than we were in the years immediately after 1945?
In this episode political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine the strengths and weaknesses of democracy around the world. In particular Paul and Selwyn consider how and why democracy in many countries around the world is on the slide.
Political scientist Dr Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning present a two-part episode to analyse what to make of the New Zealand-People's Republic of China bilateral leadership meetings. And also, Paul and Selwyn analyse the shifts inside Russia in the weeks after the destabilisation caused by Wagner Commander Yevgeny Prigozhin's pronouncements and challenge to Russia's military heads.
Paul and Selwyn deep dive into the battle to control a narrative, waged by all sides in a polarised combative world, and how modern mainstream media institutions, like Radio New Zealand, fall vulnerable in the absence of robust all-sides-considered analysis and debate.
Political scientist, and former Pentagon analyst, Dr Paul Buchanan, and Selwyn Manning analyse the question: What does the Geopolitical balancing that is taking place in the West and South-West Pacific mean for the region and the globe?
PODCAST: In this the second episode of A View from Afar podcast for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will analyse the question: How stable is Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s regime?