Over the course of just a few months, artificial intelligence has become one of the most central issues, and one of the most fraught issues, in the relationship between the United States and China. Policymakers in Washington and in Beijing simultaneously worry about which country’s tech sector has the advantage and wonder whether the search for advantage will itself lead to catastrophe for both countries and everyone else. Recent bilateral meetings, including the one last week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, have yielded only minimal progress toward cooperation—agreement to start talking about talking about AI.

Kyle Chan is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Helen Toner is executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Both fairly uniquely combine deep knowledge of AI and deep knowledge of China, which they bring to their work in Foreign Affairs and beyond. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Chan and Toner about how the two countries think and approach AI, with real differences as well as some new convergences; what it means to compete; and what it will take for the United States and China to find some way to reduce the biggest risks.

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

By all accounts, Iran’s neighbors, even those long at odds with the Islamic Republic, opposed the U.S.-Israeli war that began on February 28. Yet it is those Middle Eastern states that have paid some of the highest costs in the months since. As their governments grapple with the consequences of a war that is still far from settled, they are also struggling to shape a new Middle Eastern order. But there is little consensus about what that order should be—or what it should mean for relationships with the United States and China, for future economic models, or for the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Anwar Gargash is one of the region’s most experienced diplomats and foreign policymakers. He long served as the minister of state for foreign affairs in the United Arab Emirates, and is now diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president.

Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Gargash on Monday, September 21, about the war in Iran and where it may end; the UAE’s rift with Saudi Arabia and approach to Israel, Gaza, Sudan, and more; and what a new, better Middle Eastern order might look like.

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

By some measures, there is more war in the world today than at any point since World War II. Today’s wars have brought a level of destruction, disruption, and global risk that would have been hard to imagine not long ago, often in places where such combat seemed a thing of the past. Policymakers once again worry about nuclear use, and military planners once again contemplate war between great powers, including the United States and China, and NATO and Russia. And all of this comes as the Trump administration dismantles key pieces of the international system and technology scrambles expectations about how wars start, unfold, and end.

No one has left a greater mark on our understanding of wars past and present than Lawrence Freedman. Freedman has written a slew of definitive books on military strategy and history, and he has offered some of the most penetrating analysis of Iran, Ukraine, and more, in Foreign Affairs and elsewhere. He is emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London.

Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Freedman on Monday, September 14, about the course of today’s conflicts; about what is and is not changing in the nature of war; and about why policymakers, military officers, and strategists so often start wars based on bad assumptions—and how those bad assumptions explain some of the biggest calamities in global security today.

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