x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski

Claire Berlinski, Dan Perry

Analysis of geopolitics, economy, and society, mostly by Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski. Supporting reason, culture and the liberal order now beset from all sides. claireberlinski.substack.com

news news commentary

All Episodes

2:02

THE INVISIBLE FRONT

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/11/23

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.comAlex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She now lives in Brussels and writes, on Substack, about foreign influence operations:I’ve spent the last several years screaming from the rooftops about the corrosive effects of foreign influence operations on democratic societies. Now, I’ve decided to put all that information into a newsletter

en

40:19

A Bleak Week for Ukraine

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/11/19

August 1968The Ogre does what ogres can,Deeds quite impossible for Man,But one prize is beyond his reach,The Ogre cannot master Speech:About a subjugated plain,Among its desperate and slain,The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,While drivel gushes from his lips.—WH AudenBelgium has suddenly gone wobbly about seizing Russia’s frozen assets, spooked by the thought of Russian lawyers. Pokrovst will fall imminently. The Kremlin is dismantling Ukraine’s electrical grid as the winter arrives. A sprawling

en

29:29

The Weak, with Josh Rosenberg

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/11/09

(Note: This is not Critical Conditions with Dan Perry. I just can’t figure out how to get rid of that logo.)Recently, I had an exchange with our subscriber Josh Rosenberg—who on Substack goes by the name Josh of Arc, and writes at Sic Semper Tyrannis—about the use of violence in resisting authoritarianism. You’ll remember his essay, Force and Freedom: Contemplating the Unthinkable, in which he argues that those opposing Trump have become dangerously alienated from the fundamental fact of political

en

19:27

The Madman Orders Nuclear Tests

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/10/30

From Dan’s notes:In today’s episode of Critical Conditions, Claire and I discussed what may be the most terrifying decision of the Trump presidency: his plan to resume nuclear testing. We’ve seen recklessness before—the gutting of USAID, the tariff tantrums against allies—but this one feels like a threshold moment. As Claire said at the start, “This is life or death.”She began by recalling that the United States signed, though never ratified, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty back in 1996

en

1:58

Madness in the Americas

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/10/27

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.comFrom Dan’s notes: In this week’s episode, Claire and I turned our gaze westward—from the familiar storms in Europe and the Middle East to the gathering tempests across the Americas. What we found was an unsettling picture: saber-rattling, delusion, and a mounting sense that reality itself has become an expendable tool of power.We began in the Caribbean,

en

2:21

Hey, is that really Putin?

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/10/25

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.comChris Alexander, whose Substack I recommend with the highest enthusiasm, joined the Canadian foreign service in 1991. He spent six years at the Canadian embassy in Moscow: He was the deputy head of mission during the first three years of Putin’s presidency. He’s also the former Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, a former Parliamentary Secretary for National Defense, a former Canadian Conservative

en

19:53

Ukraine, Gaza, Hungary and the East Wing

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/10/24

I’m so sorry: I meant to post this last night, but fell asleep while writing the show notes. (I don’t know why everyone goes on about the importance of not looking at screens before bedtime: I fall asleep in front of mine all the time.) Here’s the article Dan wrote for The Forward:There was no sign that the US understands what it will actually take to bring Hamas to heel.Vance, Witkoff and Kushner’s rhetoric was managerial, not martial. It conveyed commitment without urgency. The measured tones

en

18:14

What next in Gaza?

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/10/20

Dan and I decided to turn parts of our ME201 discussion yesterday into today’s podcast, so you’ll hear a few voices from the class asking questions. Supposedly, the ceasefire is now back on. Amit Segal is another great journalist to follow; he writes:It’s Monday, October 20, and the strikes in Gaza have stopped, the ceasefire has been renewed, and humanitarian aid has resumed—and Israel is also preparing to receive a hostage’s body from Hamas tonight. So, does that mean yesterday’s strikes in Gaza

en

26:57

Did the Left create the Trump disaster?

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/09/26

Here are the show notes Dan wrote, which I liked better than mine, so I copied them. Thanks, Dan!In this installment Claire and I take on a reader’s challenge: surely, the left cannot be blamed for the rise of Donald Trump! Fair question. And yet, as we unpack over the course of this episode, the excesses of the progressive wing did play a role in birthing Trump, if only by driving many in the middle into his camp.We explore how Democrats miscalculated their supposed national majority, ignoring the

en

1:09

Russia's Revenge and Afghanistan's Misery

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/09/02

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.comThis is not, actually, an episode of Critical Conditions. It’s a regular Cosmopolicast. But I haven’t yet figured out how to separate the two.In this episode, former Canadian diplomat Chris Alexander and I discuss Russia’s post-Soviet trajectory, the rise of Vladimir Putin, and the West’s repeated misjudgments in dealing with Moscow. We discuss the endu…

en

43:59

How did the media get so sloppy?

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/08/21

Dan Perry led the AP’s coverage of Israel and the Middle East—from Pakistan through north Africa—for most of the 2010s. Before that, he led Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean for AP. He also served as the Foreign Press Association chairman in Jerusalem during the Second Intifada. He now writes at Ask Questions Later. I thought he’d be a good person to talk to about a question one of our ME201 students asked: Why does the media keep getting things wrong? I’ve written about this before—in fact, I’ve

en

104:08

Bibi's Bad Idea

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/08/10

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session today (it’s now Sunday in Paris) to discuss the Israeli security cabinet’s approval of a plan to seize Gaza City. The hostages’ families have called for a general strike over the decision. I spoke to Vivian Bercovici and Judith Deborah Levy to ask how they feel about this. In short: not good. It’s a long podcast—we had a lot to talk about—so I’ve posted a transcript below if you’re in a hurry. * Bucking IDF warnings, security cabinet approves

en

105:13

Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/05/14

While I’m at it, here’s the conversation you missed with Sergei Cristo. He’s the hero of the podcast Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring, in which he offered evidence of a spy ring operating at the heart of the British establishment.I apologize for how long it took me to put this up. My computer wasn’t able to handle a file this big, so I couldn’t get it down from the cloud. Every time I tried, it crashed my computer. I finally broke down and bought a new computer. (It was time. My old computer had

en

135:51

India, Pakistan, and Kashmir

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2025/05/14

For those of you who missed it, here’s the conversation we had on Sunday with Vivek and Raja Muneeb. Here’s an AI summary of the conversation—it’s remarkably accurate:Pakistan’s Nuclear Threat and ImplicationsThe meeting involved a discussion about the potential threat of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the implications of their use. The participants discussed the possibility of Pakistan using nuclear weapons as a bluff and the potential consequences of such an action. They also touched on the issue

en

1:23

Why can't US learn from experience?

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2024/10/04

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireberlinski.substack.comMy friend Ariel Cohen joined us today from Netanya, where he’s celebrating the holidays. A political analyst, Ariel focuses on Russia, Eurasia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and energy policy. Obviously, we had a lot to talk about. We spoke about a question that’s maddening me: Why can’t the people who make our foreign policy learn from experience? W…

en

27:48

Why Ukraine staged the Kursk offensive now

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2024/08/19

Vladislav Davidzon joins us to discuss his latest article in Tablet.Ukraine defies the US to launch a showy offensive into Russia: Observing Israel’s moves in the Middle East, Kyiv gambles on an American power vacuum:… What changed in July is that the Ukrainians, like other embattled US allies, were faced with a new opportunity in Washington: The cognitively impaired president had been forced out of his reelection bid in favor of his vice president, who was now out on the campaign trail, three

en

34:21

Russia goes full Mr. Kurtz

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2024/07/30

Russia has been hard at work kicking the United States out of Africa. It’s all but chased out France, too. But anyone who imagines Russia to be a kinder, gentler superpower is out of his mind. The investigative journalist Philip Obaji has been following the activities of the Wagner group in Africa for years. He recently spent the months investigating human rights abuses by Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic, where he was abducted and tortured, only narrowly escaping alive. His

en

72:33

From the Oslo Accords to October 7

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2024/04/09

For those of you who listen through a podcast player, here’s the edited, one-hour version of our conversation with Judith Levy about the failure of the Oslo Accords and the relationship between that and the present catastrophe. Make time to listen to it: You’ll find it worthwhile. If you’d like to listen to the unedited version—and watch it, too—here’s all three hours. I had to cut lots and lots of interesting stuff to get the podcast down to an hour, so if you’re interested in the topic and have

en

20:38

What's really going on with aid deliveries to Gaza?

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2024/03/14

Show notesBackground: Why I don’t trust news organs I usually find reliable to report the news from Israel and Gaza accurately:* What COGAT says:The image above came from a video; here’s the full footage:COGAT didn’t provide a translation, and I don’t speak Arabic. So I put the video through an AI program for translation and subtitles, which resulted in gibberish:My best guess, from the context, is that they’re saying something like this: First Man: We’re now living from day to day, and our daily

en

17:10

The Elephant Cage with John and Claire

CRITICAL CONDITIONS with Dan Perry and Claire Berlinski ·

2024/03/14

Okay, so we changed the name. The new name was Thomas Gregg’s suggestion, and we love it. I can’t tell whether I forgot to speak slowly, or if I made a mistake in the editing that sped up the recording. I don’t know what I could have done, if so. It’s not bad—but I’m not speaking slowly. I’ll work at that more. Trump is “unhinged” but we love him, say Kremlin mouthpieces, by Julia DavisPeace talks “just because” Ukraine is running out of ammunition are “ridiculous,” says Putin This is a public

en

51 results

Similar Podcasts

Expres Ráno

Expres FM

PBS News Hour - Full Show

PBS News

CD Voice

China Daily

Israel Today: Ongoing War Report

Noa Levi

Jeffrey Epstein: The Coverup Chronicles

Bobby Capucci