This week, our guest is Alexander Pilyasov, a professor of geography at Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. We discuss the Russian Arctic, cooperation in the region with China, and growing competition with the United States. We recorded the conversation in Belgrade, following a “Trialogue” on American, Russian, and Chinese interests in the Arctic.

• 00:01:13 The Arctic in the Russian economy
• 00:17:38 Life in the Russian Arctic
• 00:23:56 Energy export from the Russia Arctic
• 00:26:52 Sanctions
• 00:32:41 China in the Arctic
• 00:40:29 Growing competition with the US in the Arctic

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is ZHAO Hai, Director of the International Politics Program in the National Institute for Global Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). We discuss US policy toward China, Sino-Russian relations, the war in Ukraine, and China’s vision of global order.

• 00:01:00 Zhao’s family connections to the PRC Navy
• 00:06:37 Zhao’s graduate study in Chicago
• 00:09:26 Chinese think tanks and the function of CASS
• 00:13:11 China’s reaction to Trump
• 00:22:57 China’s reaction to Biden
• 00:30:22 Sino-Russian relations before the Ukraine war
• 00:34:18 The war in Ukraine
• 00:47:52 China’s vision of global order

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Karl Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, whose many titles include the defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in China, Commander of the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. Because General Eikenberry has had such a long and fascinating career and often occupied key roles at important pivot points in U.S. policy, we decided to devote the whole interview to an examination of his biography.

• 00:01:04 Childhood experience of the Cold War
• 00:06:42 West Point
• 00:10:21 Korea in the 70s
• 00:14:10 China in the 80s and 90s
• 00:35:11 NATO and the collapse of the Communist bloc
• 00:42:14 The Pentagon on 9/11
• 00:44:02 Afghanistan
• 00:51:51 NATO and Putin’s Munich speech
• 00:54:28 Afghanistan
• 01:10:34 Ukraine

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Andrey Kortunov, the founding director of the Russian International Affairs Council.

• 00:01:00 Kortunov’s career before RIAC
• 00:09:22 RIAC’s origins and evolution
• 00:18:36 RIAC’s work on sanctions
• 00:25:40 BRICS and other international institutions
• 00:33:29 China-India relations
• 00:36:06 Russia-China relations
• 00:47:00 Russia-Western relations

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, we discuss China-US-Russia relations with Xiang Lanxin, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center and Professor Emeritus of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

• 00:01:17 The Xiang family’s four centuries in the Chinese military
• 00:07:38 Lanxin’s experience during the Cultural Revolution
• 00:18:00 Graduate school in the United States and the start of an academic career
• 00:23:01 A history of Western misperceptions of China
• 00:34:05 The recent decline in US-China relations
• 00:39:39 Russia’s relations with the West
• 00:47:55 Russia-China relations
• 00:51:56 Taiwan

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey presents the Monterey Trialogue podcast, a series that investigates the relationship among the United States, Russia, and China by engaging with experts from all three countries. At a time when even bilateral channels of communication have begun to break down, the Monterey Trialogue offers a new and necessary perspective on the defining geopolitical relationship of our time.

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.