The Foreign Affairs Interview

Foreign Affairs has been the journal of record for international relations since 1922, and this podcast is basically the audio version of getting the magazine's best thinking delivered straight to your ears. Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan hosts, and he brings the same intellectual rigor you'd expect from the publication -- but in a conversational format that works surprisingly well. Episodes run long, usually between 50 and 80 minutes, which gives guests room to actually develop their arguments. This isn't a show where someone gets three minutes to explain the future of the liberal international order. Recent conversations have covered U.S.-China competition, the scramble over global migration policy, artificial intelligence as a great power tool, and the shifting security architecture in Europe. The guest list reads like an international relations syllabus: former secretaries of state, leading academics, ambassadors, and the kind of policy thinkers who shape how governments actually make decisions. With 100 episodes since 2022, a 4.7-star rating, and over 400 reviews, the show has quickly established itself as essential listening for anyone serious about understanding global affairs. Kurtz-Phelan asks genuinely probing questions and isn't afraid to push back when an argument feels thin. The trade-off for all that substance is that this isn't light listening. You need to be in the mood to engage, and some episodes assume familiarity with ongoing policy debates. But if you want the kind of analysis that diplomats and foreign policy professionals actually read and reference, this podcast delivers it in a format that's more accessible than a 10,000-word essay.