The CIRS Long View: Understanding Regional Dynamics
The CIRS explainer series is a podcast platform that brings together academics and leading experts from around the world to deliver historically grounded, policy relevant analysis of regional dynamics across the Middle East and its global intersections.
Each episode offers a focused yet analytically rigorous exploration of unfolding developments, moving beyond immediate headlines to situate events within their broader political, economic, and strategic contexts. The series engages a wide range of themes, including regional security, foreign policy, energy and trade, state-society relations, and the lived consequences of geopolitical change. Designed as an accessible public resource, episodes are structured as concise, in-depth conversations that draw on both scholarly expertise and practitioner insight. By combining diverse disciplinary perspectives with regionally grounded knowledge, the series seeks to unpack complex issues with clarity while retaining analytical depth. As an ongoing component of CIRS programming, the podcast serves as a platform for sustained expert engagement on critical developments across the Middle East and beyond, complementing the Center’s research initiatives and convening spaces.
Podcasts
Episode 2 | The Invisible Human Cost of the Hormuz Crisis | Mohamed Arrachedi & Jatin Dua
This episode examines one of the least visible consequences of the current war: the thousands of civilian seafarers stranded in and around the Strait of Hormuz as shipping routes have become unstable. Moving beyond the familiar focus on oil prices and naval strategy, the episode explores the war through the lives of the workers who keep global trade moving yet remain largely invisible in moments of crisis.