Switzerland with Tom Switzer

Episoade

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  Max Hastings: What History Tells Us About Trump and the West | Tom Switzer 07.10.2026 48min

  Sir Max Hastings on what a lifetime studying war can tell us about 2026 -- Trump and the Western alliance, Ukraine, Iran and China -- and on Plunder, his account of the final weeks of the Second World War in Europe, from the Rhine crossing to the liberation of Belsen.
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  Trita Parsi | China could break the US-Iran diplomatic deadlock | Tom Switzer 05.10.2026 40min

  Tehran calls it an economic war, and the pressure is extraordinary -- but Iran still holds Hormuz. Trita Parsi on how fragile the recovery in Gulf oil exports really is, and why China may be the one country with both the leverage and the incentive to break the deadlock.
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  Steve Hanke: Is America Heading for Economic Catastrophe? 01.10.2026 42min

  Steve Hanke on America’s cost-of-living crisis, a $40 trillion national debt and the warning signs in the bond market -- plus why he thinks the AI boom is a bubble, how much economic damage Iran can still inflict, and why he has broken with JD Vance over the future of conservative economics.
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  Mearsheimer & Cockburn | Trump warns he will resume bombing after midterms 28.09.2026 44min

  Trump has rejected Tehran’s seven-day ceasefire proposal and told aides he expects to resume bombing after the November midterms. Patrick Cockburn and John Mearsheimer on whether the blockade is finally producing Iranian concessions -- or whether Washington has just turned down its best exit.
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  Why Is the Populist Right Rising Across Europe? | Simon Heffer 22.09.2026 41min

  The AfD’s gains in Germany’s state elections are part of a populist surge across Europe. Simon Heffer on why support for the established parties has collapsed, why working-class voters are turning to the AfD, Le Pen and Reform, and whether the neo-Nazi label actually fits.
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  John Mearsheimer: Trump’s Mideast morass deepens 21.09.2026 44min

  The most revealing development in Trump’s war with Iran may be happening hundreds of kilometres from Tehran. John Mearsheimer on the Houthi advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, whether the United States can defeat them, and the point at which attrition threatens not just Ukraine’s army but the Ukrainian state.
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  Is Ukraine winning the war? Lieven 17.09.2026 33min

  Western coverage says the tide is turning in Ukraine. Anatol Lieven on what is actually happening on the battlefield as the war enters its fifth year, whether Russia can consolidate the Donbas, and how much the Iran war has drained the weapons stocks Kyiv depends on.
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  Robert Pape: Iran Is Escalating — Is Trump Losing Leverage? 14.09.2026 43min

  The Houthis have seized Perim Island at the Bab el-Mandeb, and an attack from Iraqi territory has shut Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. Robert Pape on what Iran is trying to achieve through its proxies, and whether the strategy can force Trump to reconsider the war.
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  Jeffrey Sachs: 911, Iran & Ukraine 12.09.2026 39min

  Twenty-five years after September 11, Jeffrey Sachs asks what America learned -- and what it refused to. Plus: is the tide finally turning against Tehran, and are Moscow’s gains in eastern Ukraine now irreversible?
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  Has Iran lost? Trita Parsi & Stephen Wertheim 07.09.2026 43min

  Six months in, the question is getting harder to avoid: who is actually losing this war? Trita Parsi and Stephen Wertheim on Iran’s failure to close Hormuz, the blockade squeezing its oil exports, and whether the strategic clock is now ticking against Tehran or Washington.
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  Mearsheimer: Has the War Turned Against Iran? 03.09.2026 34min

  Washington went to war with four objectives and has achieved none of them -- but what if Tehran is the one in serious trouble? John Mearsheimer on the case that Iran has overplayed its hand, and why he still thinks Trump has presided over a foreign-policy debacle.
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  Iran at six months: Cockburn 31.08.2026 34min

  Six months into Trump’s war, Iran’s air force is destroyed, its nuclear programme set back and its economy in ruins -- yet the regime survives and Tehran remains defiant. Patrick Cockburn on how you end a war when military power cannot deliver political capitulation.
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  Eberstadt: Trump, Asia & the Koreas 26.08.2026 39min

  Trump is reviving his personal diplomacy with Kim Jong Un while scaling back exercises with South Korea. Nicholas Eberstadt on what that means for deterrence on the peninsula, whether the Iran war has left America overstretched in Asia, and how Beijing is reading it all.
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  Mearsheimer & Kelanic: economic D-day on Iran 24.08.2026 52min

  Trump has promised to intensify the economic war on Tehran, but Iran can still threaten the Strait of Hormuz and US naval and munitions stockpiles are under strain. John Mearsheimer and Rosemary Kelanic on why time is not on Washington’s side.
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  Iran, Syria, Shia update: Joshua Landis 17.08.2026 49min

  The US naval blockade has left Iran with soaring inflation, a collapsing currency and troops it reportedly cannot pay. Joshua Landis on whether the Islamic Republic could still fall, what a Sunni-run Syria means for the Shia crescent, and the deal Damascus has struck with Moscow.
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  Tom Switzer: Why WW3 is closer than you think 15.08.2026 6min

  For eighty years, nuclear weapons made a Third World War almost unthinkable. Tom Switzer on why that confidence is now being questioned -- and why the real danger is not that leaders seek global conflict, but that separate crises from Ukraine to the Taiwan Strait begin to reinforce one another.
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  Stephen Walt: Why the US keeps losing wars 14.08.2026 46min

  The Iran war has been a spectacular failure -- but it is only the latest. Stephen Walt on why the United States, for all its overwhelming military superiority, keeps choosing objectives it cannot reach and keeps fighting the wrong war for the wrong reasons.
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  Mearsheimer, Nasr: What Comes Next in Iran? 10.08.2026 51min

  John Mearsheimer and Vali Nasr on the Iranian-Omani talks over the Strait of Hormuz, the widening split between hardliners and the Pezeshkian camp in Tehran, and what the new Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani defence pact reveals about the emerging balance of power in the Middle East.
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  Trump's latest Iran 'deal' | John Mearsheimer & Paul Kelly 03.08.2026 48min

  Over the past week, the world appeared to be edging towards another dangerous military escalation in the Persian Gulf, with both Washington and Tehran issuing fresh threats. But this weekend Donald Trump abruptly called off the planned attack on Iran. The President says diplomacy has made further military action unnecessary. But are Washington and Tehran genuinely prepared to reach a meaningful peace agreement? Or is this merely a temporary pause before the next crisis? And what has the conflict done to American credibility, prestige and influence around the world? John Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and author, most recently, of How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy. Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large of The Australian and author, most recently, of The Twilight of Exceptionalism: The Liberal and Conservative Era. John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001).
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  Peter Oborne: “America Is Far More Dangerous Than Iran” 01.08.2026 39min

  Peter Oborne on why he believes the war against Iran is illegal, why he considers America a more dangerous actor on the world stage than the Islamic Republic, and how cricket went from gambling entertainment to imperial ethics and back again.