Geopolitics

Is foreign aid charity — or one of the cheapest instruments of power a country has?

Dr. Samantha Nutt, physician and founder of War Child, has spent thirty years working in Somalia, Sudan, eastern Congo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Michael Brown has spent fifty on land and natural resource governance in many of the same places. In this conversation they take on the questions the aid debate usually avoids:

— Should NGOs be working themselves out of a job — and why is it still so rarely national staff running them? — Being at the table isn't enough. Why local communities need leverage, and what happens to their voice without it — Is civil society making progress anywhere at war? — The resource curse, and whether the US–China competition over Congo's minerals changes anything for Congolese people — Aid as soft and hard power: something to fight, or something to accept? — Why gutting USAID isn't charity withdrawn — and what it has to do with the next pandemic — Can the current cynicism about foreign aid be overcome — and what's actually in everyone's best interest?

The Unpopular View challenges assumptions and takes positions many in the aid and development world don't like. Host Michael Brown is the author of Redeeming REDD+ and Climate Mitigation in the Land Sector of the Global South.

Dr. Samantha Nutt is the author of Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies, and Aid.

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Website/All epsidoes: https://theunpopularview.com/

Europe talks tough on Russia — but how consistent is it actually?

Armin Sumansky, a Gen Z Czech student at Bates College, turns the usual question around in Part 2 of our conversation: where Europe's line on Russia goes soft when it's inconvenient, where European consensus on migration is really heading, whether American power makes the world safer or more dangerous, what Europe and the US should actually do about Ukraine, and whether his generation's views travel beyond college-educated peers.

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Armin, a second-year student at Bates College triple-majoring in Economics, Politics, and European Studies, heading to the London School of Economics next year.

Part 1 covered Gen Z framing, why he chose an American college, and how his family's history under Soviet-bloc Czechoslovakia shapes his read on Russia.

Watch Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IxoT5YY__c&t=804s

Topics in this segment: 0:00 Cold open — Ceuta and Europe's migration contradiction – Where European consensus on migration is actually heading – Is Europe's Russia policy as principled as it claims? – Does American power reduce conflict or cause it? – What should Europe — and the US — actually do about Ukraine? – Is there a real US/Europe Gen Z perception gap? – Armin's new political journal and his plans at LSE

The Unpopular View gives credentialed people a platform to make the case for views that are popular with some and unpopular with others. This episode steps outside the usual development-policy lane to hear directly from a Gen Z European.

Subscribe for more conversations that don't fit either side's script: https://www.youtube.com/@UCW4HD_vP6WXjZPn7_qcTXeQ

All Unpopular View Episodes: https://theunpopularview.com/

Michael Brown concludes a three-part North-South dialogue with longtime colleague Koffi Kouakou on African realities, American assumptions, and the China factor. They examine Africa's youth surge, technology adoption, political risk, and the race between transformation and instability.

Part two of a North-South dialogue with Koffi Kouakou examines critical minerals, China's role, Western assumptions, and whether Africa can turn resource demand into leverage rather than another extraction cycle.

Michael Brown sits down with longtime colleague Koffi Kouakou for a North-South dialogue on African realities, American assumptions, and the China factor. They challenge single-story narratives about Africa and look at what outside observers routinely miss.

Episode 6 critiques how U.S. leaders and institutions repeatedly misread societies they intervene in because they rely on the wrong frameworks and reward the wrong metrics. Michael Brown lays out an operating framework of assumptions that distort analysis from Timbuktu to Tehran.

This episode argues that one of the most consequential developments in the Israel-Palestine landscape is labor migration and replacement. Michael Brown examines what India's workers in Israel reveal about political incentives, economics, and the future for Palestinians.

The American offset model lets the United States outsource the visible costs of mining, emissions, standards, and consumption while preserving a cleaner story about itself. This episode connects copper, carbon, supply chains, and geopolitical risk.

The opening episode introduces The Unpopular View: challenging the narratives dividing Boomers, Gen Z, and the Global South. Michael Brown frames the show's focus on foreign aid, development, climate, governance, and the global realities public debate often ignores.