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CONFLICTED: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Message Heard
An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
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- 2 days ago1h 23m
U Thant: The Diplomat Who Defined the 1960s
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thant Myint-U talks about his new book Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s. It tells the story of his grandfather U Thant, the Burmese schoolteacher turned UN Secretary-General who guided the United Nations through some of the most dangerous crises of the 1960s, yet is now woefully forgotten or badly misremembered. Thant explains: U Thant’s forgotten role as UN Secretary-General during the great crises of the 1960s His sociability, humour, directness, and moral imagination How Buddhism shaped U Thant’s approach to crisis How newly independent post-colonial states tried to remake the world order Burma/Myanmar after empire: colonial destruction, weak institutions, and postcolonial state-building The Non-Aligned Movement: Afro-Asian internationalism beyond the US–Soviet Cold War Congo, Katanga and sovereignty: U Thant’s defence of postcolonial borders against neo-imperial fragmentation The Cuban Missile Crisis: U Thant’s overlooked role in helping Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro de-escalate Vietnam and the lost peace channel: U Thant’s ignored 1964 attempt to open talks with Ho Chi Minh The Six-Day War and the UN-Israel rupture: UNEF, Nasser, Israel, and the myth that the UN abandoned Israel U Thant’s late one-world vision, the decline of Bandung idealism, and the lost promise of postcolonial internationalism Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Visit Thant’s website: thantmyintu.com Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 4 days ago1h 4m
Wassim Nasr: My Inside Account of Macron’s Syria Visit
French war reporter and global jihadism expert Wassim Nasr was part of the presidential press party during Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Damascus. He shares his first-hand account not only of what happened between Macron and Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa during the visit, but also what he discovered afterwards, during a trip to Aleppo and to the northern town of Kobane. Wassim and Thomas discuss: What it was like inside Macron’s presidential delegation to Syria France–Syria relations after the fall of Bashar al-Assad Macron and Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Umayyad Mosque and Mount Qasioun Islamic State bombings during Macron’s Damascus visit French investment in Syrian reconstruction, energy, ports and transport Aleppo’s security, political representation and slow post-war recovery Kobani, SDF integration, PKK influence and Arab–Kurdish tensions Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist pragmatism and Syria’s dependence on his leadership Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Follow Wassim on X: https://x.com/SimNasr Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago1h 14m
Indo-European: The Language Family That Went Global
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas meets Laura Spinney, author of Proto: How One Language Went Global, the story of the Proto-Indo-European language and its descendants, which are spoken today by half of humanity. Laura explains: How, where, and among whom Proto-Indo-European emerged How Indo-European split into English, Hindi, Persian, Russian, Greek, Latin-derived Romance languages, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic tongues How linguists reconstruct an unwritten prehistoric language through sound laws, comparative vocabulary and ancient texts Why ancient DNA has transformed the debate over Indo-European origins by restoring migration to the centre of the story Who the Yamnaya were, and how mobile pastoralists north of the Black Sea spread language through cattle, wagons, dairy and steppe mobility How a small number of steppe migrants may have transformed Europe’s languages through disease, prestige, violence, intermarriage and social networks Why Tocharian, Sanskrit and Persian reveal extraordinary Indo-European journeys from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to China, India and Iran How ‘Aryan’ began as a real Indo-Iranian self-description before being distorted by racial nationalism and Nazi pseudoscience Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find Laura on X: https://x.com/lfspinney And on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/laurainparis.bsky.social And on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laura.spinney Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago1h 6m
Iran Will Never Give Up Hormuz
The MoU with Iran has broken down, war has returned to the Middle East, and so Aimen walks us through the events since the war re-ignited on 7th July. More than anything, the fighting now focuses on the Strait of Hormuz. In Iran’s eyes, it has won control of the Strait as a spoil of war. In the rest of the world’s eyes, freedom of navigation through the Strait remains a cast-iron principle of international law. Aimen and Thomas discuss: Why the US–Iran MoU collapsed over control of the Strait of Hormuz Iran’s attacks on Gulf shipping and the return of the US naval blockade US strikes on Bandar Abbas and Iran’s coastal military infrastructure GCC retaliation: Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Jordan confront Iran Trump assassination threats and divisions inside the US administration Saudi Arabia’s internal debate over Iran and renewed war with the Houthis Houthi threats to close Bab al-Mandab and attack Saudi infrastructure Oman, NATO and Israel’s roles in the widening Iran war Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago1h 1m
How Netanyahu Failed to Prevent October 7
In this latest Conflicted Conversation, Thomas talks with Yaakov Katz, the former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and co-author of While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East. Yaakov explains: October 7 intelligence failure and Israel’s missed warnings Hamas’s ‘Jericho Walls’ plan and ignored Unit 8200 alerts The Israeli conceptzia: why leaders believed Hamas was deterred Netanyahu’s Gaza containment strategy and Qatari money policy Hamas as a political asset against Palestinian statehood Israel’s overreliance on technology, SIGINT and border barriers Unit 504, HUMINT failure and the absence of agents in Gaza Gaza’s tunnel network and Hamas’s hidden underground military city Operation Guardian of the Walls and Israel’s exaggerated ‘Metro’ success Netanyahu’s responsibility, Israeli division and the post–October 7 media war **PLUS: Yaakov answers listener questions! FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY!** Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find Yaakov on X: https://x.com/yaakovkatz And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yaakov.katz And on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaakovkatz Yaakov's website: www.yaakovkatz.com Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago50 min
Ben Hodges: Russia Can Be Defeated
In this latest Conflicted Conversation, Thomas talks with retired US lieutenant general Ben Hodges, former commanding general of US Army Europe. Drawing on his experience at the heart of NATO’s military leadership, Hodges explains: His proposed path to Ukrainian victory Ukraine’s deep strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure Ukraine’s campaign to isolate and recover Crimea Why Hodges overestimated the speed of Ukraine’s victory The risk of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine America’s failure to define clear political objectives in war Ukraine’s emergence as a European defence-industrial centre Why Western armies have been slow to learn from Ukraine Pentagon procurement and the military-industrial complex The NATO summit in Ankara and support for Ukraine The damage Trump has done to trust between NATO allies The geopolitical importance of Ukraine to Europe and the United States Why the Kremlin fears a successful democratic Ukraine Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 3 weeks ago50 min
Syria Turns Another Corner (Conflicted Revisited)
As Aimen works hard to uncover the truth of what's going on in the region now that the MoU has been torn to shreds — or so it seems — and in recognition of Syria being taken off the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, we are rerunning this episode from last year where Aimen tells the story of his nephew who joined the jihad against the Assad regime. Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- 3 weeks ago58 min
Guns, Greed and the Making of Modernity
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas discusses the true foundations of modernity with Clifton Crais, author of The Killing Age: How Violence Made the Modern World. Clifton explains: The Mortecene as an alternative to the Anthropocene Why global violence accelerated after 1750 How firearms destabilised traditional political orders The role of credit and debt in expanding slavery Global complicity beyond a simple West-versus-rest narrative The industrial destruction of whales, elephants and bison Vodun and other religious responses to predatory power What muskets can teach us about drones and AI Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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About CONFLICTED
An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
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