Disorder

The crises across our disordered world are more interconnected than ever. As states pursue their own self-interest, genuine collective action for mutual shared benefit seems further away than ever before. How can we ever hope to Order this Disorder?

To try, Jason is joined this week by his old friend David Tafuri. David previously served as the US Department of State’s Rule of Law Coordinator for Iraq, was an outside foreign policy advisor to President Obama’s campaign in 2008, has worked for the United Nations in Turkey, and is the founder and current President of the US-Kurdistan Business Council.

The pair start with the latest in Ukraine--following up on David’s recent visit there. Then they embark on a whistle stop tour of the Middle East, exploring the latest in Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. And… as they Order the Disorder, the discuss the situation in the Gulf, how the Gulfis and European Allies could help open Hormuz, the need to tackle misinformation, and why the Trump admin needs to put aside its destructive unilateralism and work more closely with traditional American allies on Ukraine and the Iran war.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Watch more on David’s attempts to address misinformation in Ukraine:  https://youtube.com/shorts/TWRqQNojKvg?si=dRu81hERC5-HYGNz

More on David’s career here: https://www.afslaw.com/attorneys/david-tafuri 

Plus his reporting from Ukraine’s frontline: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYX_0c8kTjl/?igsh=eTY2dHh4Zm44eTJp 
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Today marks the 18th anniversary of the arrest of Ryan Cornelius, a British businessman stuck in jail on dubious charges over a real estate development project gone awry. And yet… the UK Government is doing nothing substantive to get his release, too scared to pressure a close ally. Does this episode showcase a key aspect of the Enduring Disorder: medium power democracies are too scared to pressure their wealthy allies to abide by the rule of law?

Originally sentenced to 10 years for a ‘crime’ -- that the first Emirati judge that saw the case declared was unsubstantiated -- he remains still detained after his initially unproved sentence was extended by a further 20 years. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found his detention to be arbitrary, and his family has spent years campaigning for the UK and UAE authorities to secure his release. 

To find out more about this case and what it reveals about international relations, Jason is joined by Chris Pagett, Ryan’s brother-in-law. This is the first in our ever-other Thursday Disorder Latest series. Chris and Jason discuss what the UK Government should (and has so far failed to) do, the ways that automatic sanctions could order the disorder, and why cases like this spread in our era of Enduring Disorder and in turn spread yet further Disorder.

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To tell us more about Disorder, visit disordershow.com/survey 

Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Read: MPs call for sanctions over British man detained in Dubai for 17 years

https://www.irishnews.com/news/uk/mps-call-for-sanctions-over-british-man-detained-in-dubai-for-17-years-HSOY7IGZZRJGNEO5TA3KGFZUYA/ 

Read: Dubai prisoner: Wife pleads for help to get husband home https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62162686 

Read: Families of UK prisoners detained abroad urge ministers to keep promises of help https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/16/families-of-uk-prisoners-abroad-urge-ministers-to-keep-promises-to-help 

Watch Chris in conversation with Iain Duncan Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9QXdNGsj_A 

A brilliant article from a few years back that tells the story in its entirety: https://www.economist.com/1843/2021/12/15/the-dubai-debt-trap 
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This week on Disorder, in a slight break from the Mayhem in the UK over the possible Leadership challenge to Starmer, Jane catches up with the President and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and host of the Deep Dish podcast, Leslie Vinjamuri. Leslie and Jane used to work together at Chatham House. They start by discussing Leslie’s final project for Chatham House where she worked with a host of experts to analyse how rising powers, middle powers and US adversaries see the international order as well as new possible ideas of global Order. 

Surprise, surprise mega-orderers, the conversation proves the depressing result that we already know! -- i.e. that there are no serious alternative visions of order that are emerging and no non-neo-populists are putting forth compressive visions of global order. Will the continuance of the Enduring Disorder therefore be the hallmark of our times?

Probably yes :-< On a brighter note, Leslie thinks the US will revert to a more “normal” politics in Trump’s wake. Jane is not so sure: she and Leslie discuss why the UK hasn’t been able to “get back to normal” under Keir Starmer and how the breakdown of the political centre is making it harder and harder to address the long-term economic issues that underpin Britain’s current malaise. 

This week we also delve into Trump’s trip to China; the role of Europeans in enabling China, and how different camps in Washington are looking at the China trip - with think-tankers pretty skeptical that it will make any difference, while business leaders are eager to join the trip to what is, after all, the world’s second biggest market for most of them. No matter what happens there we must ask is Europe working with or against the US’s China policy? And will any coherent transatlantic order emerge out of a re-alignment over China?

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

To tell us more about Disorder, visit disordershow.com/survey 

Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Leslie’s podcast, Deep Dish - https://globalaffairs.org/commentary/podcasts/deep-dish-global-affairs-podcast 

Leslie on Bloomberg about Trump and Xi - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-05-11/us-iran-tensions-flare-ahead-of-trump-xi-meeting-video 

Leslie’s Chatham House project on competing visions of the international order - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/03/competing-visions-international-order 
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In the May 7, 2026 UK elections, Reform won biggly. They did so well that they even stole the show from the ascendent Celtic nationalists in the periphery. Gaining thousands of councillors in England, becoming the second largest party in Wales and the joint second biggest in Scotland. Meanwhile, in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland the biggest parties (Plaid Cymru, SNP, and Sinn Fein) are all separatists. This has ushered in disorderly ‘five party politics’ in England and a real threat to the union emanating from a Celtic periphery led by parties that wish to break up the UK. 

On this special episode of Disorder we ask: does the UK have a future at all anymore? Will it be very disorderly? And what are Reform’s actual policies?

To find out – and in our attempt to present a range of views on Disorder – Jason and Mark are joined by Alan Mendoza, Chief Advisor on Global Affairs to Reform UK. The duo push Alan to clarify Reform’s actual policies around local government, migration, and Reform’s attitudes to Brexit. Jason sees Reform as Disorders, but Alan makes a full throated and quite eloquent case as to why he sees Reform as Orderers rather than Disorderers. 

Hopefully the debate is podcasting at its best, filled with respectful disagreements that elucidate the underlying differences in world views. Either way, Reform UK is here to stay so we might as well understand them.

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

To tell us more about Disorder, visit disordershow.com/survey 

Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

How the winner-takes-all voting system has turned on Labour and the Tories: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxpqyndqwlo

How Reform won votes from Swansea to Sunderland

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2nz4gwj5o

Hear Alan’s previous appearance on Disorder: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/YTk0MzNmZDQtY2JhMS0xMWVmLWJjYTQtOGJjMjMxNmNhZTli 
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Something smells royally fishy. The stench has been detected wafting from Sandringham all the way to Balmoral. The scandals around Lord Mandelson and former Prince Andrew have showcased that the rich and powerful have been operating beyond the law and that royal sinecures have been used to obscure the provenance of ill-gotten gains.

Consider: In America, you make your money. But in Britain, you can use it for access. If the Epstein affair has shown us anything, it’s that a royal seal of approval is infinitely valuable. Friendship with a top working Royal takes one from the shady jet set into the global elite establishment. And if you can buy a royal seal of approval - like Epstein did with former Prince Andrew -- you get the keys to some of the most influential people in the world.

To discuss Epstein’s relationship with Prince Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sarah Ferguson, Jason is joined this week by Andrew Lownie, author of the Sunday Times number 1 Best Selling book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York. The pair look at what made Andrew’s personality so easily corruptible, how Andrew’s narcissism and megalomania were fueled, the role of Royal Reputation Washing across the globe, and why there could be more nasty revelations about what the royals have been up yet to come. Plus, as they Order the Disorder, they discuss making the royal family more accountable, transparent, and better at serving the British people.

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit ⁠disordershow.com/club⁠

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For more on our partnership with the New Books Network visit: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/up-partners/disorder⁠ 

Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit ⁠disordershow.com/club⁠

Get Andrew’s Book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York ⁠https://www.amazon.co.uk/Entitled-bestselling-devastating-biography-written/dp/0008775451
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