The Great Power Show
The Great Power Show
Podcast Description
The world is changing fast. Developing countries are on the rise, politics in the West is more turbulent than ever, technology is advancing at breakneck speed, people are moving across borders in new ways, and global institutions are struggling to keep up. In the middle of all this, a new world order is taking shape—but what does it really look like?
On The Great Power Show, Manoj Kewalramani dives into these big shifts and what they mean for all of us. Join him for candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores themes such as the shifting global power dynamics, India's role in international affairs, and the challenges of modern political environments. For example, episodes like 'India's Tryst With Destiny' delve into the historical context of India's foreign policy, while 'Steering the Wild Horses of American Power' examines the consequences of changes in American foreign policy under new leadership.
The world is changing fast. Developing countries are on the rise, politics in the West is more turbulent than ever, technology is advancing at breakneck speed, people are moving across borders in new ways, and global institutions are struggling to keep up. In the middle of all this, a new world order is taking shape—but what does it really look like?
On The Great Power Show, Manoj Kewalramani dives into these big shifts and what they mean for all of us. Join him for candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners.
When we talk about US-China competition, we often tend to focus on the obvious: trade, technology and Taiwan. But there’s a deeper question that doesn’t get enough attention. How does China actually think about fighting a war against a far more powerful adversary?
PLA writings describe modern conflict not as something waged simply between militaries. Rather it is conceptualised as system against system—the whole national apparatus on one side against the whole national apparatus on the other. Financial infrastructure, space capabilities, information networks, industrial base, all of it is part of the fight. The PLA calls this systems confrontation. And it shapes everything about how Beijing is preparing.
My guest for this episode of The Great Power Show is Howard Wang, a political scientist at RAND, whose recent work examines a concept emerging from this strand of Chinese strategic thinking, total war.
Wang tells me that in 2021, China embedded total war into its national security strategy. He describes it as a mobilisational concept. The idea is that civilian capabilities need to be developed in peacetime so that Party leaders can translate them into war-fighting advantages during conflict. We also talk about escalation and coercion, what does the theory of victory look like, what lessons Beijing is drawing from conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia, and what the ongoing purges tell us about the gap between the PLA’s ambitions and reality.
As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work that I do, please feel free to reach out to me.
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