What does it mean when a sitting US President keeps demanding the return of a lost airbase? President Trump has repeatedly asked for the return of Bagram airbase? Can he get it back?

Is the Taliban regime more durable than many assumed and what does Pakistan’s recoil mean for its future?

Has the Ukraine war already rewritten the logic of modern power or is the decisive phase still ahead? And in the shadows, is China quietly building the largest war-making machine of the 21st century?

In this special Geopulse episode, Shashank Joshi, the Defence Editor of The Economist, joins the host Tamim Asey for a candid, deeply insightful, off-camera conversation. Shashank is one of the most influential analysts of contemporary war and strategy. Before joining The Economist, he served as Senior Research Fellow at RUSI, taught at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies and authored major works on airpower, nuclear strategy, South Asian security and great-power rivalry.

The discussion ranges across:

•Bagram Air Base and Trump’s repeated desire to “get it back”.
•Taliban regime durability and regional coercion dynamics.
•Ukraine and the future of Europe’s security order.
•Drones, EW, industrial mobilisation and the new grammar of war.
•China’s military-industrial base and long-horizon ambitions.

A dense, lucid, and ominously relevant conversation about the world as it is — and the conflicts it may yet descend into.

Must listen.