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The Second Cold War Observatory

Jessica DiCarlo and Seth Schindler

Welcome to The Second Cold War Observatory, where we explore the histories and grounded realities of geopolitical rivalry from the Cold War to the present. We host conversations with academics, policymakers, and activists about how competition affects places, people, and politics around the world to foster more nuanced and open debate on contemporary rivalry. We cover diverse themes from the environment to digital connectivity and finance. Our guests present in-depth research from the institutions and places that become flashpoints of great power rivalry.

This podcast is part of the Second Cold War Observatory, a global collective of scholars committed to understanding how geopolitical and geoeconomic competition influences and is influenced by societies, economies, and ecologies worldwide.

This original podcast series is available on Spotify, Apple, and Buzzsprout.

www.secondcoldwarobservatory.com

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21 episodes
Avg 47 min
English

Episodes 21

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#20
August 21 · 48 min
China Comes to Town: Chinese Investment and Local Politics in the U.S. with Emily Conrad
Chinese investment in the United States has become an increasingly contentious issue that is much more complicated than headlines suggest. In this episode, we reflect on recent debates in Michigan’s democratic primary and use it as a jumping-off point to examine more than 25 years of Chinese investment in the US and subnational relationships with Chinese business. We’re joined by Emily Conrad, whose research examines Chinese manufacturing investment in the US. We discuss where investment is conc
#19
June 24 · 40 min
Infrastructure, Nickel, and the Politics of Polyalignment in Indonesia
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia’s own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private part
#18
April 11 · 40 min
Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic with Mia Bennett
Nowhere is the dual threat of climate change and geopolitical contest felt more strongly than in the Arctic. Sea ice is declining rapidly, wildfires are burning, and permafrost is thawing. All the while, global interest is gathering apace as the region transforms from being a frozen desert into an international waterway. In this episode, Mia Bennett—co-author with Kalus Dodds of Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic (Yale UP, 2025)—discusses the state of the Arctic today, highlightin
#17
January 6 · 1 hr 10 min
Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism with Thea Riofrancos
Lithium, a crucial input in the batteries powering electric vehicles, has the potential to save the world from climate change. But even green solutions come at a cost. Mining lithium is environmentally destructive. We therefore confront a dilemma: Is it possible to save the world by harming it in the process? Having spent over a decade researching mining and oil sectors in Latin America, Thea Riofrancos is a leading voice on resource extraction. In this episode, we discuss her 2025 book Extract
#17
Dec 24, 2025 · 40 min
Weila Gong, "Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities" (Oxford UP, 2025)
This episode explores what China’s subnational climate experiments tell us about the possibilities and limits of climate leadership in an era of intensified geopolitics. We discuss how China’s domestic governance dynamics matter for international climate cooperation and competition, especially as Chinese actors become central in the global low-carbon transition. Thus, we turn our attention away from headline-grabbing climate summits and national pledges to examine the less visible, but often dec
#15
Aug 28, 2025 · 48 min
The end of aid? US, China, and the future of development
In early 2025, headlines announced that the Trump administration would move to dramatically slash USAID—the United States’ flagship development agency. For many, the move was surprising, even self-defeating: why would a president so focused on countering China weaken one of Washington’s most effective tools of soft power? At the same time, China’s development finance continues to expand, and geopolitical competition over infrastructure intensifies, raising alarm bells across Washington and beyon
#14
Jul 9, 2025 · 48 min
Seeing China’s Belt and Road with Ed Schatz and Rachel Silvey
EPISODE SUMMARY: What becomes visible when you shift the lens away from Beijing to how China’s Belt and Road projects unfold on the ground? Seeing China’s Belt and Road, edited by Edward Schatz and Rachel Silvey, answers this question by reorienting conversations on China’s global infrastructure development to their “downstream” effects. Instead of analyzing the BRI through grand geopolitical narratives or a national strategic lens, the book draws on fieldwork across Asia, Africa, and Latin Ame
#13
Jun 20, 2025 · 42 min
Judicial Territory: Law, Capital, and the Expansion of American Empire with Shaina Potts
In this episode, we sit down with Shaina Potts, author of Judicial Territory: Law, Capital, and the Expansion of American Empire (Duke University Press, 2024)—a groundbreaking book that reveals how U.S. courts have quietly become instruments of global economic governance. Drawing on legal geography and a sharp understanding of finance and political economy, Shaina uncovers how American judicial authority has extended beyond borders to discipline postcolonial states, enforce the primacy of privat
#13
May 4, 2025 · 52 min
Catching the China-Europe Express: Logistics, Local Agency & Eurasian Geopolitics in the Polish Borderlands
In this episode, we focus on the often-overlooked geographies of Eurasian connectivity with Dr. Wojciech Kębłowski, whose research brings attention to the Polish border towns of Małaszewicze and Narevka, key yet rarely discussed nodes in global infrastructure networks. As Eurasia undergoes a dramatic reconfiguration—with initiatives like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, and numerous regional projects vying for influence—we discuss what happens at the edges
#12
Mar 10, 2025 · 40 min
Cotton, Central Asia and the New Great Game
On this episode, rural sociologist Dr. Irna Hofman explores how Tajikistan’s cotton fields illuminate shifting power dynamics in Central Asia, historically and in the present. She discusses how the Soviet Union once showcased cotton production to visiting delegations—particularly from Muslim-majority countries—as evidence of its development model. Now, as global powers, including Russia, China, and the EU, vie for influence in the region, cotton has again become a strategic commodity—used to for
#11
Nov 7, 2024 · 42 min
Why Can’t the US Compete with China in Infrastructure?
In this episode, Dr. Shahar Hameiri and Dr. Lee Jones discuss the political economy and financing behind global infrastructure development, with a focus on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The discussion explores the driving forces behind Chinese infrastructure investment, while addressing the crucial question of why American and European initiatives such as Global Gateway and the Program for Global Infrastructure and Investment struggle to compete with the BRI. We discuss dynamics of pub
#10
Oct 23, 2024 · 53 min
India Rising: Navigating the Second Cold War in South Asia from Nepal to the Maldives
What is the role of India in the Second Cold War (SCW) in South Asia? How do local histories, internal politics, and subnational dynamics shape relations with India and China? How does connectivity and infrastructure become a tool for geopolitical competition in the region, from China’s BRI to India’s infrastructural collaboration, and the US’s Millennium Challenges Corporation? On this episode we sit down with Dr. Dinesh Paudel and Aaron Magunna to answer these questions and discuss how it unfo
#9
Jun 28, 2024 · 1 hr 4 min
Industrial Policy and Energy Transition amidst Geoeconomic Restructuring: Perspectives from Eastern Europe
This episode features scholars who research East European countries situated on geopolitical border zones and characterized by long-term external economic dependence. Current geopolitical tensions and geoeconomic restructuring are rapidly transforming the maneuver space of local regimes. What do these positions tell us about third-country maneuvering and its limits in the current global context? How are these positions transformed in the context of global industrial restructuring? And what theor
#8
Mar 2, 2024 · 40 min
US-Soviet Scientific Cooperation & Implications for Environmental Politics Today with Dr. Vladimir Jankovic
In this episode, we look to history to consider areas of potential areas for US-China environmental politics and cooperation today. Dr. Vladimir Jankovic discussed US-Soviet scientific cooperation in the 1980s, early climate cooperation, and the 1989 Sundance Symposium on Global Climate Change dubbed ''greenhouse glasnost'' by its sponsors. What are the legacies of this conference and partnership, and how did they move the needle on our understanding of climate change? What happened after the co
#7
Oct 2, 2023 · 1 hr 6 min
Africa and the Second Cold War: Infrastructure, Corridors, and Critical Minerals with Dr. Tim Zajontz
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Tim Zajontz to discuss growing geopolitical and geoeconomic competition across infrastructure, economic corridors, and resource extraction in Africa, specifically Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia. Dr. Zajontz is a Lecturer in Global Political Economy at the Dresden University of Technology, Germany. He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His research focuses on Africa’s int
#6
Jun 27, 2023 · 32 min
Extractivist Projects and Environmental Justice Struggles on the Polar Silk Road with Dr. Ksenija Hanaček
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ksenija Hanaček about her research on the Polar Silk Road and extractivism and environmental conflicts in the Arctic region. Dr. Hanaček is a political ecologist and a Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellow at Global Development Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki and at Institute for Science, Technology and Environment Global (ICTA), at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she is working on the Atlas of Environmental Justice. Her r
#5
May 22, 2023 · 44 min
Technological Competition in Argentina: Nuclear Energy and Smart Cities, with Dr. Maximiliano Vila Seoane
This episode centers on competition in two technology sectors in Argentina: nuclear energy and smart cities. While they may seem like disparate sectors, Dr. Maximiliano Vila Seoane shows how both illustrate the interest of Argentine state actors in cooperating with Chinese counterparts in science & technology, specifically in areas that used to be dominated by US or Western partners. He offers a nuanced and localized understanding of how competition in these sectors is unfolding in various provi
#4
Apr 20, 2023 · 40 min
The Micro-Geopolitics of Kenya's Digital Renaissance with Andrea Pollio
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Andrea Polio about his research on Chinese technology companies in Nairobi, Kenya, and how African cities have emerged as proxy arenas where different modes of international relations are given effect through the development of infrastructure. He discusses how African cities are crucial actors and sites of the geopolitics of digital infrastructure, which will increasingly be one of the key geopolitical arenas of the 21st century as the US, China, and the EU comp
#3
Mar 8, 2023 · 48 min
Debt & Development Finance in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape with Nick Jepson
In this episode, Seth and Jess are joined by fellow Second Cold War Observatory research associate and professor Nick Jepson. The conversation explores debt in the context of China-US rivalry while considering the nature of the current crisis/impasse and how we arrive here. It then turns to cases in Sri Lanka and Laos to explain the drivers of national debt and join many others who have debunked 'debt trap diplomacy. Nick concludes with thoughts on the border global financial system, where it mi
#2
Feb 2, 2023 · 32 min
The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy and Resource Extraction in Argentina with Marcelo Saguier
A conversation with Marcelo Saguier (Director of the Area of International Studies, National University of San Martín) on the relationship between domestic politics and geopolitics surrounding resource extraction in Argentina. Argentina is a leading producer in the minerals and petroleum sectors. With the global energy transition, countries have ramped up investment in renewable energy sources, particularly the critical minerals used in Lithium batteries. In this episode, Saguier explores the mi

Showing 1–20 of 21 episodes