Your Chance to Guest-Host My Podcast — and Interview Me

We are turning the tables in the upcoming second season to explore more topics that interest you. Here's how to make a pitch.

We are living through one of the worst periods for diplomacy in modern history — and this week is a frightening reminder of just how bad things have become. Violently kidnapping a foreign head of state — however terrible a dictator he may be — to make U.S. oil giants even richer, and openly threatening to invade the territory of a NATO ally to steal its natural resources, obliterate every line of decency and dignity in international relations.

When the Trump White House sends adviser Stephen Miller to proclaim on TV that “the world is governed by force” and “we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower,” none of us should harbor any illusions — we’ve entered a whole new and deeply disturbing dimension. This isn’t merely giving diplomacy the middle finger. It exposes a small but determined cabal’s efforts to drag the world back a century, to a place where most of humanity has no desire to return.

I refuse to accept Miller’s repugnant premise. It’s obvious he has little understanding of how the world has worked for the last 80 years, or that no country has benefited from that arrangement more than the United States. If only he’d been to a fraction of the 110 countries I’ve visited — actually, in his case, probably nothing would have made a difference.

So I’ll continue to write and speak about the power of diplomacy — not deadly force.

As I prepare for the second season of “The Diplomacy Podcast,” I’d like to make it more of a conversation with you, my followers. Instead of repeating the first season’s format — having a guest on each episode and asking them questions — this time, we’ll have guest-hosts who will interview me. I’ll invite some of them myself, but I also want to give some of you a chance to volunteer as guest-hosts.

Your topics and questions can be very broad, as long as they relate to diplomacy. You might focus on current events, history, any world region, policymaking, the profession of diplomacy, required skill sets, the lifestyle, the global diplomacy system, protocol, immunities, visas and other consular matters, cross-cultural communication and public diplomacy, negotiations, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, trade and commercial diplomacy, health, science and cyber diplomacy. And much more.

If you’d like to throw your hat in the ring, send me a pitch with the topics you’d like to explore, as well as a brief bio. If you already receive my emails, just hit “reply.” If you don’t, you can subscribe, which will trigger a welcome message. You can also contact me through the Substack app.

Let’s make the new podcast season a unique and enriching experience for all of us — and a genuine conversation about how diplomacy can shape a better and safer world.

---

Both The Diplomacy Notebook and The Diplomacy Podcast are free, but you can show your support by making a donation to help us continue to produce unique and timely content.

Nicholas Kralev is the founder and executive director of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy, and a former Financial Times and Washington Times correspondent. His books include “Diplomatic Tradecraft,” “America’s Other Army” and “Diplomats in the Trenches.”