The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been tracking American views on foreign policy since the end of the Vietnam War. Last week, it released its 2025 survey—and the results point to a widening partisan divide on some of the most fundamental questions about America's role in the world.

That was not always the case. For most of the past 50 years, Democrats, Republicans, and independents largely agreed on the proper role of the United States in the world. There were always differences, of course, but they tended to exist at the margins. On big-picture questions—such as alliances and working cooperatively with other countries—there was broad consensus. That consensus began to shift in 2015 with Donald Trump's entry into the American political scene. Now, ten years later, this latest survey shows partisan divides that are deeper than ever. America's domestic polarization has finally caught up with its foreign policy.

To discuss these survey results, I'm joined by Jordan Tama, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, who specializes in the intersection of American public opinion and foreign policy. We begin by discussing the historical sources of bipartisan foreign policy consensus, before turning to a longer conversation about how and why that consensus has fractured—and what this shift suggests about the future of American foreign policy.

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For the past year and a half, South Sudan has been on the brink of a new civil war. A 2018 peace deal that ended the last civil war has been faltering, while the war across the border in Sudan has threatened to spill south.

According to my interview guest, Daniel Akech of the International Crisis Group, the tipping point has been breached. We are now in the early stages of a new civil war in South Sudan—one that may prove even more destructive than the 2013–2018 conflict, which left an estimated 400,000 people dead.

There are a number of reasons for this—not least the civil war in Sudan, which has decimated oil revenues that long underpinned South Sudan's political economy. And, as in the first civil war, ethnic tensions are being deliberately stoked, raising the prospect of mass atrocities.

We kick off by discussing recent events on the ground in South Sudan, including an offensive by opposition forces sparked by the arrest and prosecution of Riek Machar, a former vice president who led one side of the previous civil war. We then explore the potential trajectory of this conflict, how it is intimately tied to the war in Sudan, and the role of key regional actors.

South Sudan is a new country, having gained independence from Sudan in 2011—but just two years later, civil war erupted, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, and destroying infrastructure across the country. This new outbreak of violence may lead to something just as bad— or worse — but has received little attention in the Western press.

One year ago, the United States was winning the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Thanks largely to American leadership, infections and deaths from HIV/AIDS have dropped precipitously over the past 20 years, ever since the U.S. government made combating the disease a global priority. Some once–hard-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa were even on track to become AIDS-free by 2030.

But then, suddenly and without warning, Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 24, 2025 that all but ended U.S. funding for global HIV/AIDS relief. One year on, people have lost access to treatment, and the specter of a resurgence of HIV/AIDS—after years of steady decline—now looms. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is cutting bilateral deals with countries like Zambia, releasing health and development assistance in exchange for access to natural resources and mining concessions.

Joining me from rural Zambia is journalist Andrew Green, who is in the midst of a reporting project documenting the impact of these cuts on HIV/AIDS prevention efforts around the world. We kick off by discussing the historic role the United States played in the fight against HIV/AIDS before turning to what has been lost—and how countries across sub-Saharan Africa are responding.

Can Donald Trump's new Board of Peace really compete with the Security Council? Will we even be discussing it a week or two from now, or will Trump and other world leaders simply move on? And what's with the Board's logo, which looks almost like a parody of the United Nations emblem?

Mark and Anjali break down the newest—and perhaps strangest—entrant into the multilateral peace and security space, answering these questions and more. But first, they take stock of the major stories set to dominate the agenda at the United Nations as the world body closes out its 80th year.

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Protests sweeping Iran are unlike anything the regime has faced since coming to power in 1979. What began as demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran over the sharply devalued Iranian rial quickly morphed into sustained, nationwide anti-government protests. The government responded with extreme brutality, killing thousands of people—and in doing so, once again put itself in the crosshairs of the United States. Donald Trump has publicly encouraged the protesters and is threatening military action against the Iranian government.

Could the United States strike Iran yet again? Why are Israel and America's Gulf allies—normally among the loudest advocates of confronting Tehran—suddenly urging restraint? And if the U.S. does launch a strike, how might Iran respond?

My guest today, Dalia Dassa Kaye, literally wrote the book on the long and fraught relationship between the United States and Iran. A senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and the author of Enduring Hostility: The Making of America's Iran Policy, she has spent years studying how escalatory cycles between Washington and Tehran unfold. We begin by discussing why this protest movement is fundamentally different from those that came before—and then examine why the military options now being debated in Washington are unlikely to produce their intended results.

As a crackdown intensifies in Iran and Trump weighs conducting strikes, this conversation gives you useful context for understanding events as they unfold.

On Christmas Day, the United States launched a series of missile strikes in Nigeria, ostensibly against jihadist groups. In the weeks prior, Donald Trump had been claiming that Christians in Nigeria were being subjected to systematic attacks by such groups, and he framed these strikes as a "Christmas present" that killed jihadist leaders and destroyed terrorist camps. But that does not seem to have been the case.

The strikes largely targeted an area in northwest Nigeria that is not home to any major jihadist group, and credible independent analysts have not found evidence of any deaths. Last week, a New York Times report found unexploded Tomahawk missiles lying in a field.

So what is actually going on here? My guest today, Amaka Anku, is the head of Eurasia Group's Africa Practice. She was in Nigeria at the time of the strikes, which she said caused considerable bewilderment among Nigerians. We kick off by discussing what we know about the missile strikes and why the region targeted was politically convenient for both the American and Nigerian governments. We then have a longer conversation about what these American missile strikes say—and don't say—about Nigeria's multiple security challenges.

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Danes are reeling from the aggressive nature of Donald Trump's designs on Greenland — but there is little they can do to stop the United States from acquiring the territory, whether by force or coercion. This is an odd position for Denmark, which has long been one of America's staunchest allies, as well as a core member of the European Union and NATO.

My interview guest, Søren Lippert, is the CEO of an independent security policy think tank in Denmark, Ny Verden ("New World" in English). We kick off by briefly discussing the historic, cultural, and political relationship between Greenland and Denmark before moving into a longer conversation about the vast implications of America's aggressive posture toward Greenland. As he explains, Denmark, Europe, NATO, and the very foundations of the transatlantic alliance are all imperiled by Trump's quixotic desire to make Greenland part of the United States.

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I'm joined by one of my favorite fellow podcasters and Substackers, Kaiser Kuo, host of the long-running Sinica Podcast, for a wide-ranging conversation on China, Venezuela, and America's shifting role in the world. We start by unpacking how trade ties between Venezuela and China have produced a deeply imbalanced relationship between Caracas and Beijing, before turning to Beijing's reaction to Trump's audacious move in Venezuela and the broader foreign-policy message it sends.

What does China make of this "Donroe Doctrine"? What does it mean for Beijing's claims in Asia, including Taiwan? And as the United States retreats from the liberal international order it once championed, is China prepared—or even willing—to step into the void?

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