There is a school of thought in international relations that strips away the comforting language—the values, the norms, the rhetoric of solidarity—and looks at the world as it is. States pursue power. Interests are permanent. And the gap between what countries say and what they do is almost always explained by material calculation, not moral commitment.

That school of thought is realism. And when you apply it to India, the picture that emerges is considerably less flattering than the one New Delhi prefers to project.

India likes to see itself as a civilisational voice, a bridge-builder, a leader of the Global South, a power with the strategic autonomy to chart its own course. Realism asks a simpler question: given India’s neighbours, given the gap in material power between India and them, given the choices India actually faces—what are its real options?

The answer is not comfortable. China is on India’s border, vastly more powerful, and actively hostile. The United States is India’s most important strategic partner, but it is also pushing India around on trade, tariffs, and technology. India cannot side with China, and the US seems to increasingly be demanding an uncomfortably higher price for its partnership. Squeezed between two great powers, with neither the material strength to resist alone nor the luxury of genuine non-alignment, India seems to be a power constrained by capabilities.

To discuss all this, my guest for this episode of The Great Power Show is Professor Rajesh Rajagopalan, who teaches International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is one of the sharpest realist voices in Indian strategic studies.

We discuss what the world looks like today from the Realist prism. Can the US and China really build a relationship of constructive strategic stability? What bipolarity actually means for a country in India’s position? Is strategic autonomy is an aspiration rather than a strategy? And what India should be doing in BRICS and the SCO, and how to think about the Russia relationship as it atrophies?

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 do write to me. Your support can make a world of difference.

In May this year, Donald Trump flew to Beijing. This week, Xi Jinping returns the favour. The Chinese leader arrives in the United States on a state visit, with the two presidents set to meet on September 24. This is their second summit in under five months, and quite possibly not their last this year.

But what exactly is happening between these two countries? Because on the one hand, Washington and Beijing seem to be finding ways to manage their differences. On the other, the underlying relationship remains deeply competitive: over technology, trade, military power, and ultimately the shape of the international order.

Beijing is calling this a relationship of “constructive strategic stability”, a new framework it says will guide ties for the next three years and beyond. But what does that phrase actually mean? What does each side really want? And can a relationship this fraught be steadied by two leaders who both prize the personal touch?

To help us make sense of it, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Jonathan A. Czin. Jonathan is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings in Washington. Before that, he served in the Senior Analytic Service at the CIA, where he was the US intelligence community’s top expert on Xi Jinping.

We talk about where the China-US relationship stands, Xi as a negotiator and strategist, and whether chemistry between him and Trump really matters to the broader relationship. We also dig into the mood in Washington and on the Hill, how Beijing reads American politics ahead of the midterms, and how China is positioning itself on Iran, Ukraine, its own neighbourhood and the Global South.

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 do write to me. Your support can make a world of difference.

Ask almost anyone about the state of the world today and you’ll hear the same words: anxiety, disruption, disorder. There’s a sense of flux; nobody quite knows where things are heading. So it’s striking to come across a generation that looks at the very same world and feels, of all things, optimistic.

That’s the finding of the latest Africa Youth Survey, published by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation. The survey is one of the most ambitious attempts to measure what the next generation of leaders across the continent is thinking. This year, the survey polled young people across 16 countries, and the headline finding is Afro-optimism.

To understand the nuances behind this finding, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Ivor Ichikowitz. He explains that optimism should not be mistaken for satisfaction. This is a generation that is deeply unhappy with its governments, but it is also convinced that its future lies in its own hands, and there are opportunities that it can and should capitalise on.

We also discuss the rise of an African consciousness, concerns around great powers’ interests in Africa’s raw materials, why bandwidth costs are stalling AI adoption in Africa, and how the youth are reading the contest between China, the United States.

It’s a conversation that challenged a lot of my own assumptions. I hope it does the same for you.

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 do write to me. Your support can make a world of difference.