CONFLICTED

Latest Episodes:

Simon Sebag Montefiore: How the Modern Middle East Was Made Aug 25, 2026

Show notes

In this Conflicted Conversation, Simon Sebag Montefiore returns to the show, this time to talk about his new book The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East.

Simon explains:

How Britain and France tried — and often failed — to shape the post-Ottoman Middle East
Why Sykes–Picot is a misleading shorthand for the region’s modern borders
How Atatürk, Nasser and other Middle Eastern leaders remade the region through their own choices
The violent shift from Ottoman pluralism to nationalist, more homogeneous states
Why Nasser’s charisma produced a powerful Arab myth but a disastrous authoritarian model
Why traditional monarchies in Morocco, Jordan and the Gulf often outlasted revolutionary republics
How America became the Middle East’s dominant anti-imperial imperial power after Europe’s retreat
Why militias, parastates and insurgencies make “total victory” in today’s Middle East so elusive

Find Simon on X: x.com/simonmontefiore

Visit Simon’s website: www.simonsebagmontefiore.com

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small .

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The Rise of the Offshore World Aug 20, 2026

Show notes

In this Conflicted Conversation, Ian Kumekawa (a fellow of Harvard University and a lecturer at MIT) talks about his book Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Ship.

Ian explains:

The offshore global economy: where loopholes, ships and responsibility slip beyond ordinary jurisdiction
From Little Toot to rusting barges: how industrial capitalism lost its confident postwar world
Sweden’s socialist shipyards, private tax dodges, and the strange birth of the Vessel
Containerisation’s hidden cost: how global trade hollowed out Manhattan’s working waterfront
The Falklands War, Thatcherism, and the private infrastructure behind imperial sovereignty
New York’s floating prison: mass incarceration meets offshore legal ingenuity
Wall Street goes offshore onshore: banks, deregulation and International Banking Facilities
Neoliberalism, legality and injustice: when the modern economy makes the immoral lawful

Visit Ian’s website: www.iankumekawa.com

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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The Battle for Yemen Begins Again Aug 18, 2026

Show notes

Yemeni researcher and political analyst Baraa Shiban (and dear friend of the show) is back not only to give us an update on Yemen now that the civil war (and Saudi Arabia’s role in it) are heating up again, but also to give Thomas a much-deserved dressing down for not going far enough to hold Jeremy Hunt to account for his role in the Stockholm Agreement.

Baraa explains:

The collapse of the 2022 Yemen truce and renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and Red Sea shipping
The Yemen battlefield map: Houthi control of Sanaa, Hodeidah and the northwest versus government-held south and east
The strategic importance of Marib and Hadramaut, including Saudi-trained National Shield and Emergency Forces
Mocha, the Giants Brigades and the impact of the UAE withdrawal on anti-Houthi military capabilities
The Stockholm Agreement and how the 2018 ceasefire strengthened long-term Houthi leverage
Why the Houthis are escalating now and how renewed fighting serves Iran’s regional strategy
Houthi links with the IRGC, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, including operations and financial networks in Iraq
Saudi war aims, the Mecca Accords and the emerging Saudi–Turkey–Pakistan security architecture

Follow Baraa on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/baraashiban/⁠

Follow Baraa on X: ⁠https://x.com/BShtwtr⁠

Join the Conflicted Community here: ⁠https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm⁠

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small .

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Libya: The Return of the Arab Strongman? Aug 13, 2026

Show notes

Turning their attention away from Iran and toward another Middle Eastern hotspot, Aimen and Thomas explain the course of events in Libya since the Arab Spring. Seismic political events are underway in that sad country, which has been riven by civil war and political division for over fifteen years.

They discuss:

The difference between East and West Libya
First Libyan Civil War: state collapse and militia fragmentation
NATO intervention and Western short-termism
Khalifa Haftar: from Gaddafi officer to eastern strongman
Second Libyan Civil War: Operation Dignity and divided government
Libya proxy war: Egypt, UAE, Russia, Turkey and Qatar
Libyan oil politics: NOC, Central Bank and Haftar’s leverage
U.S.-backed Libya deal: Saddam Haftar, Dbeibah and Pakistan mediation

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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The Crusades: What Was Really Going On? Aug 11, 2026

Show notes

In this Conflicted Conversation, Nicholas Morton discusses his new book The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East.

Associate Professor in History at Nottingham Trent University, Nicholas reframes the Crusades as one part of a much larger transformation of the medieval Middle East, driven above all by Seljuk-Turkmen expansion, Byzantine contraction, Fatimid decline and the fragmentation of political power.

Nicholas explains:

The Seljuk-Turkmen transformation of the medieval Middle East
Why the Crusades were not the region’s main event
Dandanqan, nomadic warfare and the rise of Seljuk power
Abbasids, Fatimids and fragmented government before the First Crusade
Manzikert, Byzantine civil war and the Turkish conquest of Anatolia
Frankish-Turkish rivalry, alliances and shared warrior culture
Crusader violence and Christianity’s uneasy relationship with holy war
Nizari Ismailis, Seljuk civil wars and competing Muslim priorities
Damascus and Byzantium as key powers in Crusader geopolitics
The Middle East as a crossroads of trade, ideas and cultural exchange

Follow Nicholas on X: https://x.com/NicholasMorto11

On Bluesky: @nicmorton.bsky.social

On Instagram: @Nicholas Morton

And his You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MedievalNearEast

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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Slavery and Islam: The Whole Story Aug 06, 2026

Show notes

In this Conflicted Conversation, Justin Marozzi discusses his new book Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World.

Justin traces the long, varied history of slavery in the Islamic world, arguing that slavery could sometimes offer remarkable paths to freedom and power, but that these exceptions never erased the violence of capture, ownership and exploitation—or the uneasy entanglement of abolition with Western imperialism.

Justin explains:

The scale and longevity of slavery in the Islamic world
The spiritual status of enslaved people in early Islam
The Quran, manumission and the legal regulation of slavery
The Islamic conquests and the expansion of slave-taking
Anti-black racism and the Zanj Revolt in Abbasid Iraq
Concubines, eunuchs, and sexual slavery
Mamluks, Janissaries and elite forms of servitude
Christian and Muslim slave-raiding across the Mediterranean
Ottoman abolition and its entanglement with Western imperialism
Modern slavery, Daesh and hereditary servitude in Mauritania

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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Will America Cut and Run? Aug 04, 2026

Show notes

Donald Trump has once again stepped back from a threatened major attack on Iran. So has America lost the Iran War? Or is Trump’s apparent hesitation part of a longer strategy to exhaust the Iranian regime?

Aimen and Thomas discuss:

Whether Iran has outmanoeuvred Trump despite America’s overwhelming military superiority
Aimen’s three possible futures for the war: US withdrawal, prolonged attrition or extreme escalation
Why an American retreat could unleash an even more destructive regional war
Israel, the Gulf states and Pakistan in a Middle East without American restraint
The revival of the US–Iran MoU and President Pezeshkian’s lack of authority over the IRGC
America’s possible ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strategy against Iran’s military and economy
Iran’s collapsing currency, soaring inflation and ability to withstand prolonged pressure
Trump’s highly personal style of government and the absence of a stable American war strategy
The limits of air power and America’s repeated failure to convert destruction into political victory
The danger of nuclear escalation if Iran races towards a bomb or misreads Trump’s restraint as weakness

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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U Thant: The Diplomat Who Defined the 1960s Jul 30, 2026

Show notes

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

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Visit Thant’s website: thantmyintu.com

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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Wassim Nasr: My Inside Account of Macron’s Syria Visit Jul 28, 2026

Show notes

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

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Follow Wassim on X: https://x.com/SimNasr

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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Indo-European: The Language Family That Went Global Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

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

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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

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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