Russia

111: Death and Corruption in the Shadows - The Global Arms Trade

While the global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, it’s important to note what that one percent actually buys. Beyond the price tags on the weapons themselves, arms and arms sales have a tremendous impact on all other aspects of global trade, and on relations between trade partners and competitors.

This week's episode is a collaboration between journalist Paul Cochrane and Latitude Adjustment Podcast.

Our guest, Andrew Feinstein, is the author of the best-selling book, "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", published in 2011. In his review Noam Chomsky writes, "This shocking expose unveils a shadow world of corruption, greed, slaughter, and other horrors, tawdry and gruesome in its criminality. It must be brought to a quick and final end".

 
Shadow World was turned into an award winning documentary film, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.

Andrew currently resides in the UK with his wife and children, and much of his current work is focused on Shadow World Investigations, an investigative news website focused on global corruption, often involving, but not limited to, the global arms trade. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

100: Andrius Again!

It's episode 100 of Latitude Adjustment Podcast, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than to bring back our guest from Episode 1? We catch up with Andrius Mažeika in Lithuania, and in the spirit of our very first episode we cover a wide range of topics, from the war in Ukraine to being a Leftist in a post-Soviet context, to lessons learned from photography, and addressing mental health while traveling. Thank you to everyone who has supported the show these past 4 years!

Be sure to follow Andrius on Instagram and on Facebook.

 
 

97: The Russian Presence in Africa

Russia’s relationship with the African continent dates back to the Soviet era and Cold War proxy battles between Russia and the US. These days the Russian presence in Africa might be lighter, but it’s also growing and the dynamics are changing. From the deployment of Russian mercenaries like the Wagner Group, to the politics of soft power and investment, we focus on Russia’s past and present relationship with Africa, the likely impacts of the war in Ukraine on food security in Africa, as well as an examination of the ways in which African countries have been attempting to assert and maintain their sovereignty in the context of this most recent iteration of great power politics.

Our Guest is Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, specializing in Russia-Africa relations. He joins us from Pretoria, South Africa.

69: Armenia - Azerbaijan War

Since September 27th there has been a resurgence of armed conflict in the Caucasus between the small nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno Karbabakh, or Artsakh as it’s known in Armenian. The backstory to this decades-old conflict is complex, so be sure to check the documentary films linked to below if you would like to do a deeper dive into the historical context. And be sure to check out our previous two-part episode on Armenia, Armenians, and Armenian-ness as well.

In short, Nagorno Karabakh is an ethnic-Armenian-majority enclave within the nation of Azerbaijan, and the conflict, at least as it’s commonly framed, is one of territorial integrity for Azerbaijan and of ethnic autonomy and self-determination for the region’s Armenian population. In a referendum that was boycotted by the territory’s Azeri population, the parliament of Nagorno Karabakh declared its desire to be united with the Republic of Armenia in 1988, as the Soviet Union was dissolving. Tensions erupted into a bloody war between 1992 and 1994, and when a ceasefire was signed in 1994, the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh had secured de facto autonomy for the territory as well as a buffer area of occupied Azeri land around it. The body in charge of overseeing negotiations is known as the Minsk Group and its foreign counterparts include Russia, the United States and France. And that is more or less where things have remained frozen since 1994, with the notable exception of a few bloody skirmishes. That is until late September of this year when fighting started along the so-called “line of contact” between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan. What has transpired since is full scale war, complete with the extensive use of drones, heavy shelling, and missile strikes which has resulted in heavy damage and casualties in civilian areas. At the time of publication a very unstable ceasefire negotiated by Russia has been in place since October 10th, but before the ink was dry there were already reports of violations coming from either side. 

Our guest is Emil Sanamyan, a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies.