Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

On February 3, the United States deployed a warship and Coast Guard vessels off the coast of Haiti, near Port-au-Prince. The move came amid political wrangling within Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, as some members sought to block Washington's preferred candidate from becoming the next prime minister.

This deployment comes amid a deepening political, security, and humanitarian crisis in Haiti that stretches back to the 2...

The New START treaty, signed by the United States and Russia in 2010, limited both countries to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, placed restrictions on how those weapons could be deployed, and included strong verification mechanisms to ensure compliance. On February 6, 2026, that treaty formally expired. And now, for the first time in decades, there is no bilateral nuclear arms agreement between t...

Donald Trump doesn't much like Pedro Sánchez — and the Spanish prime minister is perfectly fine with that. Unlike other European leaders who reflexively genuflect to the American president, Pedro Sánchez stands apart for his willingness to confront Trump—not for its own sake, but in service of a theory of politics that diverges sharply from many of his European counterparts. As my guest, journalist Dave Keating, puts it: "While oth...

For the first time in history, multiple countries have jointly nominated a candidate for UN Secretary General. Earlier this week, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico endorsed Michelle Bachelet—a former president of Chile, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and a survivor of brutal repression under the Pinochet regime. The move is unprecedented—and potentially transformative. What does it signal about the race to replace António Gu...

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been tracking American views on foreign policy since the end of the Vietnam War. Last week, it released its 2025 survey—and the results point to a widening partisan divide on some of the most fundamental questions about America's role in the world.

That was not always the case. For most of the past 50 years, Democrats, Republicans, and independents largely agreed on the proper role of the U...

For the past year and a half, South Sudan has been on the brink of a new civil war. A 2018 peace deal that ended the last civil war has been faltering, while the war across the border in Sudan has threatened to spill south.

According to my interview guest, Daniel Akech of the International Crisis Group, the tipping point has been breached. We are now in the early stages of a new civil war in South Sudan—one that may prove even more...

One year ago, the United States was winning the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Thanks largely to American leadership, infections and deaths from HIV/AIDS have dropped precipitously over the past 20 years, ever since the U.S. government made combating the disease a global priority. Some once–hard-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa were even on track to become AIDS-free by 2030.

But then, suddenly and without warning, Donald Trump i...

Can Donald Trump's new Board of Peace really compete with the Security Council? Will we even be discussing it a week or two from now, or will Trump and other world leaders simply move on? And what's with the Board's logo, which looks almost like a parody of the United Nations emblem?

Mark and Anjali break down the newest—and perhaps strangest—entrant into the multilateral peace and security space, answering these questions and more...

Protests sweeping Iran are unlike anything the regime has faced since coming to power in 1979. What began as demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran over the sharply devalued Iranian rial quickly morphed into sustained, nationwide anti-government protests. The government responded with extreme brutality, killing thousands of people—and in doing so, once again put itself in the crosshairs of the United States. Donald Trump has publi...

On Christmas Day, the United States launched a series of missile strikes in Nigeria, ostensibly against jihadist groups. In the weeks prior, Donald Trump had been claiming that Christians in Nigeria were being subjected to systematic attacks by such groups, and he framed these strikes as a "Christmas present" that killed jihadist leaders and destroyed terrorist camps. But that does not seem to hav...

Danes are reeling from the aggressive nature of Donald Trump's designs on Greenland — but there is little they can do to stop the United States from acquiring the territory, whether by force or coercion. This is an odd position for Denmark, which has long been one of America's staunchest allies, as well as a core member of the European Union and NATO.

My interview guest, Søren Lippert, is the CEO of an independent security policy t...

I'm joined by one of my favorite fellow podcasters and Substackers, Kaiser Kuo, host of the long-running Sinica Podcast, for a wide-ranging conversation on China, Venezuela, and America's shifting role in the world. We start by unpacking how trade ties between Venezuela and China have produced a deeply imbalanced relationship between Caracas and Beijing, before turning to Beijing's reaction to Trump's audacious move in Venezuela an...

The Security Council convened an emergency meeting on Monday in response to American military operations in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife— forcing dozens of countries to publicly respond to one of the most audacious U.S. actions in recent memory.

Anjali and Mark break down what unfolded in the chamber: which countries issued the strongest condemnations, which were more restrained, and which attempted to thread...

In a stunning U.S. military operation carried out in the early hours of Saturday, January 3rd, American forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. As of Saturday afternoon Eastern Time, the two were en route to New York, where they are expected to face criminal charges tied to a U.S. indictment issued roughly five years ago.

The operation fo...

In 2022, countries agreed to negotiate an international treaty to end plastics pollution. They gave themselves a two-year deadline to finalize the treaty text — and needless to say, that deadline has not been met.

The conventional wisdom is that these treaty negotiations are hopelessly gridlocked, with some countries pushing for a wide-ranging agreement while oth...

Today's episode is produced in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to raising awareness of global catastrophic risks and strengthening global governance to address them. Global Challenges Foundation's 2026 Global Catastrophic Risks report outlines five of the biggest risks facing humanity today, including ecological collapse, the topic of this episode. Yo...

Your very own To Save Us From Hell co-host Anjali Dayal briefed the United Nations Security Council on Monday! She was paired with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a special meeting of the Council dedicated to examining the role of the Secretary-General and the process for selecting Antonio Guterres's successor. Anjali gives co-host Mark Leon Goldberg a behind-the-scenes account of what it's like to sit in the briefers' ...

In 1998, 120 countries came together to adopt the Rome Statute, creating what would become the International Criminal Court. Four years later, that treaty entered into force, and the ICC officially opened its doors as a permanent court tasked with prosecuting individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Now, looking around the world today, it's ...

2025 was a year of global protests. More than 70 countries across every region of the world experienced anti-government demonstrations. Some of these movements — such as those in Nepal and Madagascar — led to the toppling of governments; others emerged in countries with little history of protest, like Tanzania. Many were youth-led, with Gen Z protesters drawing inspiration from one another across ...