September 12, 2026 — In this week’s episode of Around the World, Jeremy Shapiro, Director of Research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, joins hosts Dhruva Jaishankar and Rachel Rizzo to explain the rise of Germany’s far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), following its victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, and its growing impact on the country’s political “firewall.” They then break down the Pentagon’s “NATO 3.0” review of U.S. troops in Europe, what it means for the transatlantic alliance, and the prospects for negotiations in Ukraine. The hosts also discuss the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan, the upcoming BRICS summit in New Delhi, and the increasingly tangled dispute between Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Israel over the Falkland Islands, oil drilling, and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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Image: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, via SCO
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