The Elucidators: Decoding Global News

Happy Birthday to the PRC, Happy Birthday to the PRC... it doesn't really flow that well, does it? But if you live in China and you know what's good for you, you were singing along to Xi Jinping's tune this week, when the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China's founding. Since 1949, the PRC has come from abject poverty and starvation all the way to the doorstep of global hegemony -- only to run smack into an increasingly hostile United States, which isn't exactly ready to vacate the premises! This week, we dig into China's troubles from Hong Kong to Xinjiang, China's big military modernization, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Great Firewall of China, Trump's trade war, and oh so much more!

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This past week, both in protests around the world and at the annual meeting of the United Nations, demonstrators young and old demanded immediate action to combat climate change. But what would that really, concretely mean -- and is it politically possible? In this week’s episode, Steve and Soumi delve into the history of climate change and its predicted impact on the environment and humanity. The Elucidators ask, “how are governments going to handle a challenge that’s on a scale bigger than any other international issue in the history of our species?”

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BOOM! Faster than you can say "Happy Saturday," Saudi Arabia's main oil processing facility goes up in a big drone and cruise missile strike, global oil prices go vertical, and Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman's big IPO plans for Saudi Aramco go horizontal. Who the heck are these Houthi guys claiming credit for the strike... and why are the Iranians over here playing dumb? In this episode, we get into proxy wars, regional hegemony, Sunni vs. Shia Islam, the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, the new pay-as-you-go model for U.S. alliances, and much much more! 

This week we get into the thorny problem of the United States' "Forever War" in Afghanistan. We're 18 years in. Is there an end in sight? It may actually have been, unbeknownst to almost everyone, until President Trump announced that he had canceled secret peace talks in literally the least secret way possible -- on Twitter! Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, isn't it? In this episode, we discuss nation-building in difficult places, the sad(?) fate of John Bolton, civil-military relations, counterinsurgency policy, the allure of international summitry, and much more!

We had really hoped to delay our first Brexit episode to the point that Brexit failed and we wouldn't have to talk about it... but we didn't quite get there :( Thanks a lot, Boris Johnson! In this episode, we delve into BoJo's Brexit-related tricksiness vis-a-vis the British Parliament, along with the governing structures of the United Kingdom and the European Union, the status of Northern Ireland and Scotland, the connection between populism in the UK and the Great Recession, and quite a bit more.

Special Bonus: an update on the goings-on in Hong Kong, where Carrie Lam desperately wants to quit her job as Head Administrator and go live her best life.

Don't look now, but the Amazon Rainforest -- which is the size of the entire continental United States -- is on fire in an unusually big and dangerous way. Is the Brazilian government under right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro to blame, or is the story much more complicated than that? Probably the latter because we're talking about it! In this episode, Steve and Soumi discuss national sovereignty vs. globalism, developing vs. developed countries, the international security implications of widespread climate change, twitter diplomacy, trade sanctions, and oh so much more!

As always, we value all questions and feedback, please send it along to theelucidators@gmail.com. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe!

Eleven straight weeks of massive protests have paralyzed Hong Kong, one of the wealthiest and most politically important cities in the world. In this episode we discuss: "One Country, Two Systems," Shenzhen, Xi Jinping, income inequality, the Umbrella Movement, Opium Wars, and so very much more! Bonus: Russia's turned off its (voluntary) international radiation monitoring equipment after last episode's nuclear disaster. Hmm....

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Uh oh, something blew up in a village in Russia's Far North. Steve and Soumi investigate. Topics covered this week include: nuclear weapons strategy, arms control, the Cold War, shirtless Putin, Kim Jong Un's hair.