It has become a trope to lament and lambast the wishful thinking that shaped U.S. policy toward China in the two decades after the Cold War. That policy rested on a prediction about China’s future: that with economic growth and ongoing diplomatic, economic, and cultural engagement—with the United States and the rest of the world—China would become more like the United States—more politically open at home and more accepting of the existing order abroad.

It is hard to deny that this prediction proved wrong. But Rana Mitter, the S.T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and one of the great historians of China, reminds readers that predictions about China almost always prove wrong. And as he writes in a new essay in Foreign Affairs, it would be equally foolish to assume that China must remain on its current trajectory of more confrontation abroad and repression at home. “Another China remains possible,” Mitter argues. And how that China develops will be one of the most important factors in geopolitics for decades to come.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

The war in Sudan gets only a fraction of the attention that conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and potential conflicts elsewhere get. But after two years of fighting, it has created the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded. And as the two sides in the conflict, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, vie for control of the country and its resources, there is little hope of a conclusion any time soon. As the war goes on, and a growing number of outside powers look for advantage in the carnage, the consequences are likely to get even worse, argue Mai Hassan and Ahmed Kodouda in a recent Foreign Affairs essay—not just for Sudan, but for the rest of its region as well.

Both Hassan, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Kodouda, a humanitarian policy expert who was based in Sudan until March 2023, have spent years watching what is happening in Sudan. They joined senior editor Eve Fairbanks to discuss the roots of what has become an intractable conflict, and whether a path out of it is possible.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Donald Trump just finished his first tour of the Middle East since returning to the White House. The region has changed a lot since he was last there as president. There’s been Hamas’s attack on Israel, the ensuing Israeli retaliation, the weakening of Iran and its proxies, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Trump used the visit to announce flashy deals with Gulf leaders and to commit to lifting sanctions on Syria. But with big questions remaining about Gaza and about nuclear negotiations with Iran, the future of the region and the U.S. role in it remain unsettled.

In a recent essay for Foreign Affairs, Dana Stroul argues that a new regional order could emerge from the recent upheaval—but only if Washington takes the lead in what will undoubtedly be an intricate political process. Stroul is director of research and the Shelly and Michael Kassen senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. During the Biden administration, she served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, witnessing firsthand how quickly new regional power dynamics can take shape—and how quickly they can unravel.

Stroul spoke with Dan Kurtz-Phelan on May 20 to discuss the prospect of a new Iranian nuclear deal, the future of Israeli policy in Gaza, and what Trump’s recent moves herald for the new Middle East.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.