Mark Leonard's World in 30 Minutes

In September 2025, Binyamin Netanyahu told Israelis their country was in “a sort of isolation” and would need to become a “super-Sparta”: its economy would have “autarkic characteristics” and its arms industry would be able to produce what it needs. This vision of Israel is a long way from the close ties to the West the country’s founders foresaw. Beth Oppenheim’s new web special for ECFR argues that illiberal and ethno-nationalist forces are remaking Israel in their image, in a shift that runs deeper than electoral politics—and that will outlast Netanyahu.
In this week’s episode, Mark Leonard welcomes Beth, policy fellow with ECFR’s Middle East and North Africa programme, along with Ariel David, PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Neri Zilber, a journalist and analyst who covers Israel for the Financial Times and hosts the “Israel Policy Forum” podcast. Together, they discuss competing ideas of Israel and what they mean for Europe. What are the big ideas defining national identity and politics in Israel? What is Israel’s vision for the Middle East? And how do Israel’s ascendant camps see Europe?

Bookshelf:
“The ideas of Israel” by Beth Oppenheim
“Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy
The works of Michel Houellebecq
“6:29 Anatomy of a Failure” by Amos Harel
“The World of Yesterday” by Stefan Zweig
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This week Mark Leonard welcomes Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, associate senior policy fellow at ECFR and a fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution in Washington, to discuss a recent policy brief for ECFR, authored alongside Evren Balta, professor of international relations at Özyeğin University in Istanbul.

In their brief, Aslı and Evren argue that Turkey is an “embedded outsider”. It maintains relations with Moscow and other Western adversaries, but is also a NATO state with the alliance’s second-largest army; it supports Ukraine and is technically an applicant for EU membership. And nowhere has this embedded outsider status been more apparent than at the NATO summit hosted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July. The Turkish president gave visiting leaders a Turkish-made revolver, loaded with live ammunition: a gift no one could accept from an ally no one can place.

In this week’s episode, Mark and Aslı explore Turkey’s unique position in European and global politics. Together they discuss Turkish autonomy, its relationship with NATO, Russia and the EU, and how Europe can better engage with such a complex actor. How aligned—or misaligned—is Turkey with its Western allies? What role does it play in Ukrainian and Black Sea diplomacy? And to what extent does a shared agenda exist between Ankara and Europe?

Bookshelf:
An outsider within: The paradox of the Europe-Turkey relationship by Aslı Aydıntaşbaş and Evren Balta
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
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This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Jana Kobzova, co-director of ECFR’s European Security programme, to discuss the mounting pressures facing Ukraine as it enters another wartime winter. Despite Ukraine’s success in disrupting Russian logistics and energy infrastructure, Russia has intensified its attacks on cities, energy networks and civilian targets, while Kyiv faces growing domestic political and economic strains.

Jana explains how shortages of air-defence interceptors, political infighting, corruption investigations and economic challenges are converging at a particularly difficult moment for Ukraine. She also examines Russia’s escalating hybrid attacks across Europe and how Europeans can strengthen their resilience—and Ukraine’s defences.
Together, Mark and Jana assess Ukraine’s ability to withstand these overlapping crises, the future of European support and the role Ukraine could play in Europe’s long-term security architecture. As Russia raises the pressure both on and off the battlefield, can Ukraine and its allies maintain the unity needed to hold the line?

This podcast episode was recorded on September 16th 2026.

Bookshelf
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy, by Julia Ioffe.
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This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Cary Fowler, founder and president of the Food Security Leadership Council and former US global food security envoy, and Jim O’Brien, ECFR distinguished visiting fellow and former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

As conflict, climate change and geopolitical fragmentation converge, there is a growing risk of a global food crisis. Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to disrupt grain exports, the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is restricting fertiliser shipments, and a potentially severe El Niño threatens drought and falling harvests across parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

These overlapping pressures will impact hundreds of millions of people who are already food insecure. While mechanisms are in place to mitigate the impact of food insecurity—for example, in 2022, the UN, the US, the EU and regional actors worked together to keep grain flowing from Ukraine and avert a broader catastrophe—many of the conditions that enabled cooperation then are weaker today. This has created a dangerous gap in global leadership.

Together, Mark, Cary and Jim explore how a new international coalition could prevent millions more people from falling into hunger. They discuss the roles of Europe, the UN and major powers such as China, India and Russia; the case for humanitarian ceasefires covering grain exports and fertiliser shipments; and why food security should be treated as a central pillar of global security.

Can governments overcome geopolitical rivalry to address a crisis that no one wants? How severe could the impact of El Niño become in already vulnerable regions? What would a ceasefire covering grain and fertiliser look like in practice? And can Europe coordinate a global response when other leaders are absent?

This podcast episode was recorded on September 9th 2026.

Bookshelf

Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence, Wendy Sherman
The Growth of Biological Thought, Ernst Mayr
The Big Bet, Michael Auerbach
China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping, Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung
Against war, drought and hunger: A global coalition to prevent a food crisis, Cary Fowler, Jim O'Brien and Jana Kobzova
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This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Jana Puglierin, senior policy fellow and head of ECFR’s Berlin office, in a World in 30 Minutes Emergency Room episode to discuss the latest in German politics.

The AfD’s win in the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt was widely expected, but the scale of the result and the collapse of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) have still shocked Berlin. For the first time since the second world war, a far-right party is within reach of governing a German Bundesland. Jana unpacks the AfD’s possible paths to power, the pressure on Merz and his grand coalition, and what the result says about the far right’s continued rise in Europe.

Why does an election in a state of two million people matter so much for a country of 84 million? Can the AfD govern without a formal coalition partner, and would CDU lawmakers break the historic “firewall” to make that possible? Why is the party still treated as beyond the pale, even as it leads national polls? And should Europe prepare for a Germany too absorbed in its own crisis to lead?

This episode was recorded on September 7th 2026
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