Rethink

21st Century wars aren't turning out quite as planned.
Russia expected to defeat Ukraine within days of the start of its "special military operation" in February 2022, but the conflict has now dragged on longer than the First World War, with more than an estimated 1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded in battle.
In the Middle East, when operation Epic Fury began in February 2026, Donald Trump stated that the US and Israel would topple the Iranian regime within six weeks. Months later, the regime in Tehran has withstood the huge bombing campaign, and there's no current end in sight to the conflict.
Both Ukraine and Iran have been able to resist a much bigger, better-armed enemy, using unconventional means. So has this changed the shape of modern war?
And is that modern war heading in our direction?
Senior figures with NATO, and even our previous Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, have warned that we should prepare for Russia attacking our allies by the end of the decade. So what can we learn from current conflicts to adapt UK military strategy and tactics for the future?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor:' Damon Rose
Contributors:
Dr Florence Gaub, Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defence College in Rome.
Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute.
Stacie Pettyjohn, Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Professor Anthony King, director of the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter.

In June, the US technology firm Anthropic blocked access to its most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos, because the White House wanted to stop foreign nationals from accessing them, citing security concerns.
These actions highlighted the heavy reliance many countries and industries have on american-owned technology, and raised fears the US government could activate a political or literal "kill-switch", shutting down essential services and infrastructure.
In the weeks following this incident, Open AI, Anthropic and Meta all admitted that AI models they were testing had also gone rogue, hacking into other systems without being asked to.
So is it time for a Tech-xit - a move away from the technology provided by Silicon Valley?
The UK, the EU and other middling powers around the world are now seeking digital sovereignty as an active policy goal. But in this interconnected world dominated by US and Chinese big tech, is it possible to take back control?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Damon Rose
Contributors:
Anu Bradford, Professor at Columbia Law School, and author of Digital Empires and the Brussels Effect
Tera Allas, honorary Professor at the Productivity Institute at the Alliance Manchester Business School
Alex Krasodomski, director of the digital society programme at Chatham House.
Yang Li, co-founder of Cosine, the startup behind Lumen Sovereign AI

The United Nations estimates that nearly half of mankind will live in cities by 2050.
And as those cities have grown, the number of people living in slums has also increased. The UN estimates that 1.2 billion people reside in so-called “informal settlements”, mostly in low and middle income countries.
But what if you could build brand-new cities, offering economic opportunity for migrants? What if those cities were built by attracting foreign investment and entrepreneurs, and importing "better" laws, making it easier to operate a business and generate wealth?
That's the idea behind Charter Cities, the brainchild of the Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Romer. He was inspired by the massive growth of Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China. Both cities raised living standards in just two generations, by adopting market-led reforms.
He described it as a global win-win situation. So are these new cities potential utopias of opportunity and innovation? Or are they budding dystopias, where democracy means nothing, and the poor toil at the whim of the ultra-rich?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Justine Lang
Contributors:
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, journalist and author of "The Hidden Globe: how wealth hacks the world".
Tom W Bell, law professor and consultant on alternative governance, special economic zones, and open-source law.
Dr Mark Lutter, founder and executive chairman of the Charter Cities Institute.
Dr Sam Wetherell, Senior Lecturer in the History of Britain and the World at the University of York, and expert in Urban History.

The US dollar is the backbone of global trade and held by governments around the world as a safe haven in times of crisis.
It's so powerful that countries like Ecuador and Panama have adopted the dollar as their official currency, while Argentina for many years has tried to "dollarize" its economy.
But what happens if nations and private institutions were to lose trust in the dollar?
How did we get here? Well, after WWII the world order was re-established in part by tying the monetary systems to the value of the dollar, backed by gold. But since 1971 President Nixon cut that link to gold and the entire exchange system has since been tied directly to the dollar itself, its historic success and access to its financial markets.
That success gave America what was dubbed an "exorbitant privilege" to print money without fear of inflation and to build up national debt without consequence.
It also enables the US to flex its muscles on the international stage by imposing sanctions on countries and cutting off access to their all-important currency. That has led some countries, most notably China, to call for the dollar to be replaced as the world's reserve currency.
How difficult would it be to untangle the dollar from global trade, can any other nations offer the same conditions which has allowed the US currency to thrive, and what would happen if the dollar's role was replaced by newer digital currencies which operate outside traditional government control?
Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell
Producer: George Dabby
Editor: Damon Rose
Contributors:
Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times
Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley
David Shrier, Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation with Imperial College Business School
Stephanie Flanders, Head of Economics and Politics at Bloomberg News
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist
Material from:
British Pathé, "Bretton Woods Money Pact Signed" (1946)

Should we rethink who our city streets are for? It can often feel like there is a hierarchy on the roads, with cars needing to get from A to B as fast as they can, taking priority over people cycling or walking. But what if we flipped it on its head and put pedestrians at the top? Or, what if we saw our streets in a totally new light and instead decided they were places for meeting friends, playing or resting under a tree? Ben Ansell finds the people designing new streets, and he hears one radical idea that requires an entirely new language.
Ben visits a new kind of street where pedestrians have priority, not cars. It has been designed by traffic engineer Keith Firth at NRP. Campaigner Martin Cassini argues we could get rid of traffic lights to encourage drivers to pay better attention to pedestrians and to help ease traffic jams. But would all road users feel confident crossing without a dedicated beep or time to cross? Sohanna Srinivasan, head of Urban Planning Design at North Hertfordshire council, sets out her plan for how streets can have space built-in for people to fully enjoy their neighbourhoods while Dutch author Marco te Brömmelstroet says we need to rethink the language we use about cities. Change the language, change the mind set. Is it that simple?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Phoebe Keane
Editor: Damon Rose