6. A Multipolar World

Tristan Redman is joined by the BBC’s International Editor, Jeremy Bowen, Professor Margaret MacMillan, an historian based at the University of Oxford, and essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra, to examine the last decade of global upheaval.

Together they explore what the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 did to America’s standing on the world’s stage and examine the consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They also discuss what the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces earlier this year tells us about where the rules-based order is today, and what might happen next in an increasingly fragmented world.

A BBC News Long Form Audio production.

Presenter: Tristan Redman
Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle
Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Mike Regaard
Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison
Editor: Matt Willis
Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson