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The Globalist
The UK, Canada and Australia recognise a Palestinian state as leaders meet for the UNGA
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Emma Nelson
You're listening to THE Globalist, first broadcast on 22nd September, 2025 on Monocle Radio. The Globalist in association with U.
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Nina Dos Santos
Live.
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Emma Nelson
From London, this is THE Globalist with me, Emma Nelson. A very warm welcome to today's program. Coming up, the U.K. canada, Australia and Portugal recognize Palestinian statehood.
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Gregory Scruggs
I set out in July the terms upon which we would act to recognize Palestinian statehood.
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Emma Nelson
That moment has now arrived at the UN General Assembly. The Middle east conflict will be debated, but who will have a voice and what will it achieve? Also ahead in the next 60 minutes, business is brisk at Taiwan's defense show with a rush to supply arms to counter. China will be live in Taipei.
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Ryuma Takahashi
Plus, we're focused on giving the Marines the leaders, the skills to succeed and then trust that our leadership will point us in the right direction.
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Emma Nelson
We'll find out how. The U.S. marine Corps is getting an update. Plus, the newspapers. And we celebrate a bold piece of design tucked away at Washington's Dulles International Airport. That's all coming up on THE Globalist live from London. First, though, a look at what else is happening in today's news. President Trump has described the murdered right wing Christian activist Charlie Kirk as a martyr. An Israeli drone attack has killed five people in southern Lebanon. Israel says it was targeting a Hezbollah operative. And the Pompidou center in Paris shuts its door today for five years to undergo a half a billion euro restoration project. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, Portugal has joined Britain, Canada and Australia informally recognizing Palestinian statehood. The status is meant to revive hopes of a two state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It comes after growing criticism of Israel's military offensive in Gaza. Israel's prime minister says the move rewards terrorism. And world leaders will head to New York this week for the United Nations General assembly to discuss the issue. Well, I'm joined now by Julie Norman, associate professor of politics and international relations at UCL and co author of the upcoming book the Dream and the Nightmare. A very good morning to you, Julie. Welcome back.
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Julie Norman
Good morning.
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Emma Nelson
So this all happened yesterday. It was the U.K. canada, Australia and Portugal at the last minute all recognizing a Palestinian statehood. Could you outline what that actually means.
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Julie Norman
Sure. So this is a move that was announced in the summer. So we were expecting this from these states and France and Belgium probably to follow today. And essentially what this does is recognize obviously Palestine has been recognized as occupied territories, it's had a non state status, so to speak, in the un. And these are the states saying, look, we recognize Palestine as a state just as equal to any other country in this body in our relations as anywhere else. This is done obviously to shore up support for Palestinian self determination at a moment when it's extremely threatened, not only in Gaza, but also in the west bank. And really to jumpstart this idea of the two state solution which has been some say dead, some say dormant for quite a while. But I would point out really has been the main foreign policy aim of these states for some time and they just felt it was being completely derailed by this current Israeli government.
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Emma Nelson
And the fact that this is all being mentioned or being announced just before the unga, the UN General assembly in New York is it's no great coincidence, is it?
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Julie Norman
Absolutely not. Again, this was planned to happen. Now it's happening in coordination with an Israel Palestine summit that is being held today led by France and Saudi Arabia. And I would also point out that it comes on the back of a very overwhelming endorsement of a declaration that was voted on last week by the UNGA, 142 votes again supporting a two state solution, also supporting the disarming of Hamas, the release of the hostages and to the war in Gaza. So a lot going on over last week as well as this week on Israel, Palestine.
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Emma Nelson
What is the purpose of doing this? I mean, given the fact that, I mean Israel has come back and said this rewards terrorism. But the aim is what? It's to actually deepen the diplomatic isolation of an increasingly right wing government in Israel which does not seem to wish to sort of actively seek peace. Or is there a greater project here in order to try to come to some sort of conclusion of the Middle east conflict which anybody who's ever spent five minutes looking at it knows is almost, if not nigh on impossible.
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Julie Norman
I think it's really important to see this as something bigger and of course there will be, you know, criticisms and some, some takes that we'll just see this as political grandstanding, as symbolic only. But again, this move is taking place in a months long process project, if you will, between Saudi Arabia and between France to again focus on getting this two state solution at least beyond the long term realm of possibilities. Everyone is very realistic that the situation on the ground now makes it very difficult to move things forward at all at the time. I think the states making this move are clear eyed that it won't automatically change things in Gaza or the West Bank. But what it does do is again keep this more longer term option on the table to have some option for Palestinian self determination in the way that it's been envisioned for quite some time. And that possibility was just getting narrower and narrower to the point that it seemed if it's not recognized now, there will be nothing left to recognize if we wait much longer.
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Emma Nelson
It's a grand gesture in many ways. As you mentioned a moment ago. You said it's political grandstanding. But what change will this actually enact given the fact that when you look at how countries are reacting to what is happening in Israel and Gaza, many countries have been very, very reticent to actually do anything of great importance because we've got the European Union proposing higher tariffs on Israeli goods. But it's not sure whether that will happen. And we have, you know, various pushbacks from countries from the likes of Germany. There is still a reticence, isn't there, for countries to actually do anything rather than just say something?
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Julie Norman
Well, you know there is, Emma, but I do think that this move provides both, I would say a foundation and even more an obligation to take more of those actual impactful steps. And I think first and foremost that would mean addressing any kind of business with engagement with settlements or settlement made products. And so I think that's one area where you'll see shifts fairly quickly. Ireland and Spain have already made moves in this direction, in which case it would not be cutting off all aid with or all trade with Israel, although some are calling for that. But it would be saying, look, states that are recognizing the sovereignty of Palestine cannot be then supporting and importing goods from another state operating in that territory and claiming it as their own. So I think that's one step that you'll see gaining traction as well as again, more quote, unquote symbolic things like consulates being, admissions being upgraded to embassies, which does again just give a bit more stance and clout to the Palestinian diplomatic presence, which is also part of developing stronger statehood. I can add that I think we'll see a lot more support from European states for Palestinian elections, for Palestinian state building as well as for security kind of training, as has been going on for a while. But the big thing I think is you'll see a very clear shift settlements if they take this move seriously. And again, we need to wait and see if they will.
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Emma Nelson
But it is a year that the UN goes. The UN General assembly voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution demanding Israel brings, and I think I'm quoting here, brings an end without delay to its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory. That was 12 months ago. Nothing has moved since then.
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Julie Norman
That's right. And I would say this is where I think a valid criticism of obviously the international community comes through right now. It's been very difficult for most countries to do anything meaningful, not only regarding Gaza, but regarding the larger occupation, which again was formally declared illegal last year by the icj. And again, I think we see states now saying, look, we know we can't do everything to solve this conflict, but we need to do the things that we can. And that includes diplomatic levers on the one hand and increasingly economic levers on the other. The elephant in the room, of course, is the US the only real international player with, with real leverage over Israel. And I think the question will be is to what extent, you know, Trump makes any, any decisions to change his current, essentially green lighting of Israel's policies in both Gaza and the west bank to this point.
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Emma Nelson
That is unlikely to happen, though that.
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Julie Norman
Is true, I would say. Trump is supposed to be meeting this week also on the sidelines of the UNGA with Arab partners who he sees a close relationship with. Many of these partners, especially Qatar, you know, very, very upset with Israel right now after the STR and Qatar last week. And even Trump does, I think, want some kind of end to the gods of war, but it's figuring out what that's going to be. And again, I think right now we've just heard Trump kind of say this, but he doesn't really do anything concerted to end it. The question will be, I think, his relationship with the regional partners more than with the European partners on how he moves next.
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Emma Nelson
And looking at the region more broadly, the headlines this morning coming out of Lebanon is that an Israeli drone attack killed five people in southern Lebanon. Israel says it was targeting a Hezbollah oper. You also mentioned the targeting of Hamas leaders in Qatar last week. There is a sense that Israel, having been told to not do this, the UN peacekeeping mission has already told Israel to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and to stop carrying out airstrikes. This has not happened. There is a sense that a rules based order here is being challenged very.
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Julie Norman
Strongly by Israel very much. And obviously we've seen that in the region for the last two years with Israel's response not only to initial threats, but then in these last several months too with really trying to establish this, you know, this use of force anywhere that they see it necessary. And I think this altercation in Lebanon is one that is probably we'll see see more of in the future. Again, the situation with Lebanon has been more stable, I think, than many thought. But again, Israel will continue to carry out strikes when they deem it necessary and that is going to result in casualties and that could derail these larger, longer, longer larger agreements. I think Israel's point of view, they see this need for enforcement overweighing respect for the agreements. Whereas of course, most in the region internationally see the respect for agreements they need to outweigh these incidents of enforcement from Israel, which can just derail the whole thing.
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Emma Nelson
Julie Lawman, associate professor of politics and international Relations at ucl, thank you so much for joining us on the globalist just nudging 1412 in Taipei, 712 here in London. Now when it comes to defense spending, Taiwan is splurging. It has set a goal of spending 5% of its GDP on furnishing itself militarily. That's an increase from 3.3%. So it's perhaps no surprise that the country's arms fair is a busy one with almost double the number of exhibitors than in previous years. Now William Yang is a senior Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group. He joins us on the line now from Taipei. Good afternoon, William.
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William Yang
Thank you for having me again.
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Emma Nelson
Good to have you. Now you've been down to the to the show to check it out briefly. What was it like?
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William Yang
So it was definitely much larger, much more vibrant and also much more diverse than the last edition which was in 2023. The number of exhibitors overall is two times more than last year, what two years ago. And then at the same time we are seeing a lot more focus on AI driven and modern type of defense technologies and defense weapon systems. And one of the most important highlight of the entire three day show was Taiwan showcasing progress in its joint manufacturing and production of modern weapons with American companies mostly. And this is really to showcase both the determination from Taiwan to become more self reliant when it comes to the military industrial complex and capabilities, but at the same time also showcasing Taiwan's progress in the so called pivot to asymmetric warfare which is focusing on smaller, more mobile and also more modern and semi autonomous automated kind of weapon system.
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Emma Nelson
Could you give an example of what asymmetric warfare looks like?
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William Yang
So asymmetric warfare focuses a lot on unmanned, on crewed kind of operations. So drones both undersea Drones, but also aerial drones that will be able to supplement a lot of the bigger ticket aircraft that normally traditionally would be used to monitor and track and also surveil the adversaries military activities. And there's also a focus on air defense systems that are automated and also precision strike capabilities are the focus of these type of weapon systems. So it's basically, you know, weapon systems that are smaller, more mobile and also agile in a modern warfare.
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Emma Nelson
You mentioned that the Americans were there. They are the key players in all this, aren't they? I mean who, who is there keen to sell to Taiwan?
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William Yang
So we got the traditional large defense contractors or defense companies like Lockheed Martin. They've been supplying Taiwan with the F16 fighter jets, which is the most advanced military aircraft that Taiwan has right now. But also there are smaller defense startups that have already kicked off joint production and joint manufacturing with Taiwan. There is this particular cruise missile that is joint productive, produced by Taiwan's military owned Zhongshan Institute of Technology and this American startup called Anduro Technology, which is going to be a cruise missile that can strike ships and other targets. And this American startup has already agreed for a low cost mass production here in Taiwan.
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Emma Nelson
At the end of the day, the Taiwanese are strengthening their defenses in order to create some sort of substantial barrier to any Chinese aggression. Would any of what's being put on sale here and the direction that Taiwan is actually taking here, that big jump to 5% of GDP being spent on military defense, would that actually create any kind of barrier or put up any kind of resistance to the likes of China?
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William Yang
I think it's more about strengthening the deterrence. The, the we have been talking about for decades. Because for the Chinese, essentially they, their, the number and also the scale of their capabilities and the quantity of their military weapons are just, you know, entirely outnumbering Taiwan. So I think what is more important for Taiwan to showcase both to international partners but also more importantly to Beijing and People's Liberation army is Taiwan's ability to def, you know, withstand the Chinese attacks to a certain extent. And I think the idea here is to show the Chinese that launching a military attack over Taiwan is not a simple task. And there they would essentially face a layer of uncertainties and also resistance from the these, you know, more modern, modernized defense systems that Taiwan is seeking to build up and establish.
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Emma Nelson
William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group on the line from Taipei. Thank you so much for joining us on the Globalist. Still to come on today's program, Japanese.
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Ryuma Takahashi
Contemporary art is very open and very international, but it has a tendency of thinking that it's actually close.
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Emma Nelson
A new exhibition in Tokyo explores Japan's global influence. Stay with us.
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Emma Nelson
It's what, 7:18 here in London? Time now to have a look at today's newspapers. Joining me in the studio, Nina Dos Santos, international broadcast correspondent, former CNN Europe editor. You've just bounded into the room with bags of energy. Good morning, Nina. How are you?
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Nina Dos Santos
Good morning. Great.
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Julie Norman
Yeah.
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Emma Nelson
See.
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Nina Dos Santos
Thank you.
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Emma Nelson
Start of a new week exit what's in the what's in Nina Dos Santos diary this weekend?
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Nina Dos Santos
Oh, trying to get over the hullabaloo. A big state visit from Donald Trump second time around. And I think we're all sort of digesting what it means for the UK what it means for the US and who gets a better side of the bargain. But we're talking about other deals that Trump might do in the future. Here we go.
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Emma Nelson
I know, because I think we are still scratching our head in the United Kingdom saying, you know, we do pomp and circumstance better than anybody else on earth, arguably. But what we actually got out of that was a big bill and quite a lot of brasso polish for all the things. Okay, what have you spotted?
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Nina Dos Santos
Well, let's start out with the Guardian, which has good piece about how Kim Jong Un, apparently the leader, of course, of North Korea, could be apparently amenable to reviving talks with the United States if, quote, unquote, they gave up their absurd obsession with us giving up our nuclear weapons. Now, Kim and Trump famously held three big meetings during Donald Trump's first term in office. That was largely viewed as a failure from the U.S. s perspective because North Korea appeared to get a lot more in terms of sort of imagery and being able to come out from the cold optically, you know, having the two leaders embrace themselves and Kim Jong Un stepping into, out of the shadow of a sort of prior state and into the situation of possibly being a partner for the United States. Haven't we seen that recently with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? Yes, just last month. But at the end of the day, this did nothing to prevent North Korea from pursuing its nuclear weapons program. In fact, it upscaled it and it got a lot closer to Russia and China after, of course, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia back in 2022. But now Kim Jong Un seems to think that possibly there's wiggle room for a deal to be done with the United States and North Korea in if America agrees only to make the demand of asking North Korea to scale back on its future plans, but not to completely demilitarize and to get rid of its stash of nuclear weapons. That appears to be backed up by a proposal, or at least signals made in a Reuters interview by the new president of South Korea, who said he possibly could be amenable to that as well.
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Emma Nelson
This is personality politics all over again, isn't it? The fact is that when you look, look at North Korea and the United States, objectively, they are miles apart. But when you put Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in a room together, it works. They get on well, clearly. And it begs the question that this now becomes this sort of, I don't know, beauty contest for the likes of Vladimir Putin and for Donald Trump to see who can woo Kim Jong Un first.
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Nina Dos Santos
Yeah, absolutely. And I think Kim Jong Un knows that he's in that position. Having said that, though, I think one thing that the regime in North Korea is very acutely aware of is that for its own personal survival, because obviously North Korea is not a sort of free place where people enjoy prosperity or indeed anywhere near as much prosperity and freedoms in other places that aren't democracies like China and Russia, people still have a worse quality of life, and it's far more draconian in a place like North Korea. So the regime does still need to keep its iron grip over its people in North Korea for Pyongyang to continue to survive in the way it has done before. But I think what they've also learned over the last successive leaders of the Kim Dynasty is that if you give up your nuclear weapons, it doesn't matter what pledges people from east or west make you. What Ukraine, Libya and anywhere else has shown us is that those pledges are not always to be believed.
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Emma Nelson
Thank you for that. Let's move on to an excellent article in Politico, which brings together the Venn diagram of geopolitics and climate change in the Arctic.
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Nina Dos Santos
Yes, that's right. So China has launched just a couple of days ago from one of its northernmost and biggest port, a huge cargo ship which is going to be making a journey across the what has hitherto been a frozen Arctic sea. So we're talking about going up through the north of China across Russia and then all the way down from the north into Europe to eventually dock in Felixstowe, the port of Felixstowe in the UK, in about what's an 18 day journey and they're about two days in. But what's really interesting about this particular route is that it's going to be a container ship that'll stop in various ports along the way. So when it comes to, to the northern part of Russia, obviously all of those places are barren and frozen. It's not going to be stopping in those types of places. But it will stop in at least four Chinese ports along the way and then several other ports in Europe, including the likes of, as I said, not just Felixstowe, but also GDASK in Poland, Hamburg, and also I believe it's going to stop in the Netherlands as well. Now, why is this important? Well, what this does is it could potentially give China a sort of relief valve if, say, we see another situation when the Suez Canal gets accidentally blocked, as we saw with that ship, the Evergreen, a number of years ago, or if there's sort of constraints where there's say, for instance, demand for Christmas decorations, which apparently they will come in at this time of year, believe it or not, into the UK and it gets quite difficult for the ships to wait in line to be able to dock and then offload their cargo. They can sometimes be waiting two to three weeks. Actually, what this can do is give China the option of an extra overflow relief valve to continue to pump goods towards this part of the world. What is crucial about it is that again, this will be viewed by people like Donald Trump on the other side of the world as another reason for concern. Because obviously this melting of the ice caps at the northern poles of the planet is also behind his plans to try and convince Greenland to become another state of the United States. It's also behind the fact that he has his eyes on Canada because he's concerned that the Arctic is melting, that's going to open up shipping routes and that's going to radically change the geopolitical and defense map in the future with China and Russia being big actors in this space.
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Emma Nelson
A bit of a sort of a caveat on the whole article comes, it comes a little bit later on, which is this is just, this is a tiny. I think that the scale, I think the quote here is the scale remains minuscule. Although the geopolitics is huge, although the climate change story is huge, the actual benefit or the actual changing to the way, the way that goods are transported around the World is only marginally.
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Nina Dos Santos
Yes, that's right. And I'd recommend anybody read this article in Politico because full credit to them is it well researched. I learned things about the shipping trade that I didn't actually know before. And I remember covering about a decade or so ago, all the fanfare when China was sending a train all the way from somewhere like Beijing to Upminster in the east of London. And that was a really big deal at the time, this sort of cargo train that was going to sort of revive the Orient Express and end up in East London. And it sort of fizzled out as a story. But I think this one has bigger geopolitical implications. And China, of course, as we know, has huge pockets of money. It likes to test. It likes to test certain geopolitical strategies. It likes to test certain trading strategies. It's also investing a lot in maritime defense and hardware. And so this is really a question of, as I said before, it's a test so that they would have this overflow capability and learn from it, get a great a footprint in the Arctic. No one's saying it's going to replace the Suez Canal or indeed the Panama Canal, by the way. Donald Trump, of course, has made sure that the Panama Canal is not owned by the Chinese, or at least so he says. So again, it just goes to show how China really has its eye on these key shipping routes. I suppose you could call it a modern day Hanseatic league.
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Emma Nelson
Get it? Yes, very much so. Right, let's move to the Independent. Venice has lots of things on its plate. Too much tourism, terrible problems with the collapse of the infrastructure, given the fact that it literally is built on wooden poles into the earth. But they're getting very, very het up about a group of children playing football.
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Nina Dos Santos
Oh, this story really saddened me, honestly. Regular listeners of your show will know I lived in Italy for many years, several years. I actually lived near Venice for about one of those years. And so I'm very familiar with the city and I always find it extremely full on because it's a city that, that is depopulated. And also Italy is a country that is increasingly becoming quite elderly. The birth rate, as we know, is one of the lowest anywhere in the world. Your average median age of an Italian citizen I was reading overnight last night is 49 years old. And so there's not that that sort of famous welcoming spirit towards young children in Italy is at risk of fading. And this is what appears to have happened. According to the Independent, which is citing various Italian media outlets. I won't go into the detail of them. If you read it Italian, that I'm sure you can find them. They're saying that about 14 children or the families of 14 children aged between 12 and 13 found themselves summoned to pay a fine at the local authorities office after their children were knocking a ball about in one of the square gardens on the island of Murano, which is famous for glass makers. An elderly resident complained and as a result, instead of just taking the ball away and having a stiff word with the parents, if these children are making too much noise there, they had to pay fines and they were publicly admonished. I mean, There are only 4,500 residents left on that particular island. And as I was saying before, Venice itself is sort of crumbling and aged and it's sad if you can't even hear children play in the streets anymore because supposedly they're too much of an irritation to local citizens who are getting older and older.
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Emma Nelson
Time is against us. But we must touch on an article in the Times that as an aging population in Italy is being matched by a sort of a tendency or a love for more. More foods, which would be associated with an aging population, but with a younger.
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Julie Norman
That's right.
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Emma Nelson
Have you had your prunes today?
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Nina Dos Santos
You know, look, honestly, I feel really, really bad having just guzzled two crumpets and no fiber on this particular story. But only 36% of over 65s are eating their daily intake of fiber, whereas 62% of Gen Zers are not just eating their daily intake of fibre, which apparently is supposed to be about 20 to 30 grams a day. They're maxing out on fiber, which means they're e to over 100 grams of fiber a day and spending huge amounts of money on things like prunes whose sales are up 60% according to Ocado, that's the online grocery store in the last year. And fruit and fiber sales are up 52%. So all of those sort of things that your mum and dad told you you had to eat in the morning to have a good breakfast and you turned your nose up at apparently it's the secret to staying young, healthy and.
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Emma Nelson
Very Gen Z and not very sociable. Nina Dos Santos, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. The time here in London is just nudging. 7:30am you're listening to Globalist with me, Emma Nelson. A look at some of the other headlines are following. Today, President Trump has described the murdered right wing Christian activist Charlie Kirk as a martyr. Mr. Trump was addressing thousands of mourners who'd gathered at a stadium in Arizona for a memorial service for Mr. Kirk, who was shot dead while talking to students at a university in Utah earlier this month. An Israeli drone attack has killed five people in southern Lebanon. Israel says it was targeting Hezbollah operatives. The country's president has condemned the strike as a massacre. And the Pompidou center in Paris is shutting its doors today for five years. The museum, famed for its architecture and its art, is undergoing a half a billion euro restoration. This is the Globalist. Stay tuned. Now. The U.S. marine Corps is long regarded as the tip of the spear in foreign combat operations. It's undergoing a 10 modernization drive, trying to get it up to speed with traditional adversaries like China. But with Donald Trump finding new threats both at home and abroad, how is the elite force adapting? Well, Monocles correspondent Charlotte McDonnell Gibson observed training exercises at their Quantico military base to find out how the Marines are coping not just with a changing world, but with changing politics at home as well.
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Charlotte McDonnell Gibson
It's a blazing hot, early autumn day deep in the woods of rural Virginia, and Mount Town is eerily deserted. The basic concrete structures, a bank, police station, a shop are empty, their windows oddly lacking glass, and there are no signs of life. That is, however, until a company of young Marines comes storming through the trees and launches an assault. Gunfire, cracking and smoke grenades flying as they attempt to take the town and impress their superiors who are guiding them through basic officer training. Mount Town is one of a handful of urban warfare training facilities on Marine Corps base Quantico, a 59,000 acre property an hour's drive from Washington, D.C. this mocked up cityscape is a curious place, reflecting the changing priorities of the Marine Corps. It was built during the Cold War, and its structures are meant to roughly resemble a European in town. But the signs above the doors are in Dari, the language of Afghanistan, a key battleground for this elite branch of the US Military these days. Mount Town is getting plenty of action as the Marines pivot for a new age of technological warfare where the urban environment plays an increasingly central role. Company commander Captain Micah Thomas talks me through what the trainee officers are learning on the ground in Mount Town today.
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Captain Micah Thomas
The very basics of operating in the urban environment. We use what's called the urban attack cycle, so reconnaissance, understanding the terrain, understanding the buildings that we are going to, how we're going to get in, how we're going to get out, how we're going to the next building, isolation. So how do we cut off the building that we are trying to get into from everything else. We have another staff member here, they are going to help paint. So they help say, hey, you're taking suppressive fire or hey, you have a casualty, you have an injury to your right leg. Second deck window. So if you hear that, that's what we call a paint. So that's telling. That's without being able to have actual rounds. We have to explain to them what they're seeing so we can actually drive an action or a decision from that paint.
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Nina Dos Santos
It's painting. We call them paints because they're painting the picture of this scenario.
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Captain Micah Thomas
So it looks like these Marines decided that they weren't covered and concealed. So they're going to try to make entry from another way or they're going to wait till they actually can put everything down together to cross into this building right here. So the job of the people on our right is when we decide to make entry into that big building is where are they going to suppress and obscure with smoke to allow them to actually come out of the front in front of the enemy and it make entry into their objective building. And the inevitable nature of urban combat is that there will be casualties. So when we sent about eight people across the road, I assess that's probably too much. So that's something they could course correct. But because we sent that many people across the road with machine gun fire going back and forth rockets, we assess casualties because they were moving across the road.
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Charlotte McDonnell Gibson
Monocle watched 300 trainee officers being put through their paces at the basic school, a 29 week program which gives the men and women selected as Marine Corps officers the fundamental grounding to lead their troops into battle. Lt. Col. Nathan Domachowski, Operations officer for the basic school, said the program includes weapons training, martial arts, arduous hikes, land navigation and tactical planning. But now there is also training in unmanned drones, thermal sensors and masking communications as the Marines try to keep abreast of technological change.
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Emma Nelson
How do we better integrate technology and.
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William Yang
How do we establish foundational requirements for that that we want all officers in.
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Emma Nelson
The Marine Corps to, to have?
- [35:30]
William Yang
Because the commandant says it every time he comes here. If you want to change the Marine Corps, it's here.
- [35:35]
Charlotte McDonnell Gibson
This is part of force design, a 10 year modernization drive launched in 2020 to better equip the Marines to deal with the modern threat landscape. In particular the military threat from China. Force design involves reorganization and elimination of units such as tank battalions and a pivot to naval expeditionary warfare. It's also meant to be a technological revolution for the Marines with a doubling of the number of unmanned aerial systems and a plan to integrate artificial intelligence into combat logistics and planning. But what were considered threats to national security in 2020 may well have shifted today under the presidency of Donald Trump. In June, The Pentagon deployed 700 Marines to Los Angeles to assist in quelling protests, the first domestic deployment for the Marines in 33 years. The National Guard have also been deployed in some cities, raising fears that Trump is militarising the presidency. Trump has also deployed Marines to the Caribbean as he targets alleged drug running cartels out of Venezuela. It's a branding overhaul, too. Trump has renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War, and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has vowed to reinstate warrior ethos to the armed forces. As is expected from serving military officers, the trainers at Quantico decline to be drawn into a political discussion, although Domachowski seems a little nonplussed about the latter move.
- [36:54]
Emma Nelson
Obeysi School does not need its warrior.
- [36:56]
William Yang
Ethos restored, but there will be an.
- [36:58]
Charlotte McDonnell Gibson
Inevitable impact of the changes at the top. Hegseth is pushing for gender neutral training, has banned transgender individuals from the armed forces, and has ordered a review of the standards for fitness and personal grooming. If Trump continues to deploy Marines domestically, there needs to be training in non lethal crowd control and an understanding of the legal limits and rules of engagement on home terrain where they can't in most circumstances make arrests or search individuals back out on the Training field. At Mount Town, Lt. Col. Michael Breslin, the school's warfighting director, says that while they keep across the latest developments, they try and focus on universal skills that would apply across any scenario.
- [37:37]
Ryuma Takahashi
What we're tasked to do here is make sure that lieutenants are able to go out and succeed no matter where their time. So in any sort of threat profile, any sort of pacing threat, you know, violent extremist, whatever this situation is, our duty is to make sure we have lieutenants that are ready to lead wherever we're assigned.
- [37:55]
Charlotte McDonnell Gibson
Pressed on whether that includes domestic deployments, he demures.
- [37:58]
Ryuma Takahashi
We're focused on giving the Marines the leaders the skills to succeed and then trust that our leadership will point us in the right direction.
- [38:05]
Emma Nelson
And that report was by Monocle. Charlotte MacDonald Gibson. You're listening to the Globalist. Let's have a summary of the world's culture news and who else to do it apart from Sophie Monaghan, Coombes Monocle's associate editor for culture. Welcome, Sophie. Good to have you back in the studio.
- [38:29]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
Good morning, Emma. Thanks for having me.
- [38:32]
Emma Nelson
Right, we do need to talk about Intervision, which Was Russia's answer to Europe Vietnam, the winner. I don't think there's any spoilers because it went out on Saturday night, but take us through it.
- [38:43]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
Yes, Intervision is very interesting. It has a very interesting history. So the Intervision Song Contest took place between 1965 and 1968 and then again between 1977 and 1980. And Intervision was an East European network of TV and radio broadcasters, so that's what it went through to be played on national broadcasters kind of across the Soviet bloc. And then, you know, it sort of went away after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And Russia took part in Eurovision. It won in 2008. And then there's been some whisperings of it coming back, basically, since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. The Russian contestant was booed at Eurovision, and also Russia started introducing lots of their kind of anti gay, anti alternative LGBTQ laws across the country. And that was the year that Conchita verse won as well. And then in 2022, Russian broadcasters withdrew from the EBU because they were excluded after invading Ukraine. And this is the first year that Intervision has returned in full force. It was staged in Moscow over the weekend and, yeah, it was enormous and had super high production value and 23 countries took part. So was it any good?
- [40:08]
Emma Nelson
Well, Eurovision has that thing that is unmistakable and wondrous and daft and glorious and highly kemp and has a very strong identity. Given what you've just said, the Russians are going to be a lot more cautious when it comes to pushing the boat out.
- [40:24]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
Yes, definitely. So they have said this event would promote traditional family values. So definitely not going to be as camp or as fun or as outrageous as Eurovision.
- [40:37]
Nina Dos Santos
And.
- [40:37]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
And I think, you know, going into it, lots of people thought that it might be too conservative to be that exciting. But I have to say, I watched the winner's performance on the way here this morning. Duc Phuk from Vietnam, and it kind of went off. It was sort of amazing. It's, you know, he had this incredible costumes, costume change, loads of dancers. The staging looked amazing. So many pyrotechnics, and everyone in the crowd looked like they were absolutely loving it. So I sort of went in with that same view as you, that maybe it wouldn't be. It just couldn't compete with Eurovision. But I actually looked pretty fun.
- [41:20]
Emma Nelson
We had the Russia expert Charles Hecker in the studio yesterday for Monocle on Sunday. We were talking briefly about this, and Charles had lived in Russia for a very long time, and he mentioned the fact that the Russian government Hates Eurovision for all the reasons that you mentioned. How, however, Russians adore it and are absolutely furious about the fact that, you know, the geopolitics politics has got in the way of a big show. Do we think that Intervision might make a play will actually scratch that lovely itch that the Russians have?
- [41:54]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
I don't know. I think Overall, you know, 23 countries to apart and they add up to over half the world's population. So this is a big event. But one thing that differentiates it from Eurovision because it's, you know, you've got Vietnam but you've also got Brazil. You have all of these time zones to battle with. It means that people who take part, you know, the audience can't necessarily watch it live. And also there's no audience voting and it's all done by a professional jury instead. So it hasn't got this, it hasn't got the same excite excitement. It doesn't have, you know, that same pull as Eurovision.
- [42:30]
Nina Dos Santos
But.
- [42:30]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
But I think, you know, maybe it was just the Vietnamese entry, but it was pretty. It was pretty great.
- [42:36]
Emma Nelson
Let's move on to. If you walked down New Bond street in London last week, or in fact for a couple of weeks, you would have been absolutely knocked sideways by the fact that the front of Sotheby's had transformed itself with two huge gold eyes. That doesn't even begin to describe.
- [42:55]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
I know, I was wondering how you going to describe this?
- [42:58]
Emma Nelson
So there is a front of. Well, I'm going to ask you today, big old eyes with blue, blue pupils staring out from enormous sort of like gold skin. It was bonkers and it was real stop you on the track stuff. Now, there's a reason for this. It was a. A single sale and it's not just outrageous in terms of the impression that it made on New Bond street, it is a record breaker.
- [43:18]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
Yes, this was the sale of Pauline Carpidis's London, basically the contents of her London home. She was a. She is a woman who was born in Manchester in a working class family. She ended up moving to Athens, marrying a shipping magnate and importing clothes, creating boutique in Athens and she imported clothes from the uk. She then became this amazingly prolific collector and had a lot of very deep relationships with many of the artists that she collected work from. And Sotheby's on New Bond street, as you say, they kind of took over the entire, you know, whole windows size was made into these eyes and then when you go in, they recreated her London home and it was just an amazing thing to experience there's kind of tiger print rugs that run throughout it, lots of leopard print. And then everything was just, you know, all the furniture, chests of drawers that have been designed specifically for her. Lots of pieces by Claude Lalanne, including jewelry, which was amazing. And an incredible bed that I think is very reminiscent of, you know, the bed and the jewellery that Calder created for Peggy Guggenheim. And she has that kind of sway. She is really, you know, has these close relationships, as I say, and really been a champion for these artists. And as you say, for Sotheby's, it was this extraordinary and very sort of necessary, I think, positive white glove sale, which means that, that everything, totally everything was sold.
- [44:56]
Emma Nelson
Yes. It's interesting that you've talked about Sotheby's reputation, the fact that there has been talk about the owner and how Sotheby's is rather emblematic of some of the crises that quite a lot of the luxury auction houses are going through at the moment. But going back to this article, I think it's. The observer talked about the fact that this is a collection driven by instinct and conviction rather than market fashions, which is a lovely idea, isn't it?
- [45:20]
Sophie Monaghan Coombs
Yeah, I think it is. You know, it's such an extraordinary place to be in and to see her attention to detail. And what I was really struck by was it's just such confident collecting, it's such confidence in your own taste. And I think that's really singular. And she wasn't picking up these works because they were by big name artists or she wasn't thinking about their monetary value. But I think she is just someone who has this incredible, very singular eye and love to be surrounded by.
- [45:50]
Emma Nelson
Sophie Monaghan Coombs, thank you so much for joining me in this studio. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio.
- [46:00]
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- [46:37]
Emma Nelson
It's 7:46 here in London now. Visions from the past for futuristic technology could often seem rather silly in the modern day. But many of the most outlandish ideas from history have become design classics, whether they still serve their original, groundbreaking purpose or not. Well, Monocle's Gregory Scruggs sings appraises of a heritage feature of Washington's dulles International Airport. Now that gives a terminal a unique charm thanks to its once innovative design.
- [47:07]
Gregory Scruggs
In a 1958 promotional film for Washington's forthcoming Dulles Airport, a bow tie wearing traffic traveler with a cheeky grin on his face buys a Playboy magazine from an airport news agent, then darts for gate 29. As the doors immediately close behind him.
- [47:23]
Ryuma Takahashi
The early arrival can spend time and money in the concessions right up until the last minute.
- [47:29]
Gregory Scruggs
Called the expanding airport, the nine minute animated short bears the signature of furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames. The couple were good friends with Finnish architect Iraq Osarinen, who was busy designing a new international airport for the U.S. capitol. He wanted to drum up interest in his ideas for a modern airport through a medium the public could easily understand. The results follow passengers from curbside to takeoff and highlight design innovations along the way. None more so than the mobile lounge for our Playboy reading friend. Making the mad dash just as the doors slammed shut was not actually boarding the plane. Instead, he was entering a mid century vision of an airport lounge replete with travelers dressed in tailored suits and reading newspapers, potted plants for decoration, and a sharp briefcase or two resting against a sofa. But this lounge had wheels.
- [48:23]
Ryuma Takahashi
As the lounge moves from terminal to.
- [48:25]
Gregory Scruggs
Aircraft, the passengers find themselves in a.
- [48:29]
Ryuma Takahashi
Spacious room isolated from fumes and noise.
- [48:34]
Gregory Scruggs
Back in the era when boarding a plane required walking outside no matter the weather, Saarinen's plans for Dulles, and ideally all future airports, was from mobile lounges, also known as plane mates, to ferry passengers from terminal to boarding doors. Instead of braving the elements on the Runway, 90 people at a time would cruise across the tarmac at a top speed of 40 km per hour, roomier than a bus and with rugged wheels that frankly looked suitable for off roading. Some mobile lounges also had hydraulic pistons that allowed them to raise and lower in order to line up with doorways on airplanes and buildings alike. In 1962, Dulles opened to much fanfare. The swooping roof became an architectural icon and arguably one of Saarinen's finest works. The mobile lounges entered service and quickly inspired copycats. Montreal's Mirabelle airport was designed around the concept, and airports from JFK to Jeddah employed them for passenger transport. But the rosy vision presented in the Eames video did not exactly come to pass. The jet bridge was invented at the same time that Saarinen was sketching out his mobile lounges, and they went on to become vastly more popular method of transferring people between aircraft and airport. And as airports grew in size, fixed rail systems ended up proving a economical to move large numbers of people between terminals. But Dulles, true to its master design, held onto its mobile lounges. Here too, the Eames video painted a more glamorous picture than the real world version. The minimalist interior only vaguely suggests a lounge, and I assure you no passenger has ever been served a pre flight cocktail during their few minutes tootling across the room Runway. More to the point, the mobile lounges at Dulles are rarely used for their original straight to plane function. From Noble Plane mates, they've been downgraded to more pedestrian people movers, sending passengers to outer concourses not otherwise connected to the main terminal. More than 60 years after its debut, Dulles has become a major international gateway with flights serving five continents. Last month, the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority approved dulles next, a 25 year expansion plan that calls for adding a fifth Runway, building new concourses and expanding the Aerotrain. With such ambitious growth plans, will the humble mobile lounge be scrapped? The answer is about as certain as the new departure time for a delayed flight. In 2023, the airport's authority announced a $16 million investment to reach refurbish two mobile lounges. Then they'll have to decide whether to proceed with a $160 million upgrade of all 47 still in operation. But the newly approved master plan hints at phasing out the mobile lounges once and for all. Nevertheless, on July 23, a defiant Dulles Airport Instagram account wrote, despite the rumors and misinformation, our mobile lounges aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Published to the tune of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give youe Up, the mobile lounge debate ultimately begs the question of how faithfully the airport's authority takes their role in stewarding a modernist architectural icon. During a 2003 renovation, they commissioned designer Christian Schwartz to recreate the typeface that Saarinen intended for Dulles. The elongated San Serif tail typography gels brilliantly with the main terminal's interior and transports the traveler immediately to the early 60s. Could a similar touch of modernist nostalgia become a permanent fixture even as Dulles grows? I suggest Dulles keep the pair of mobile lounges currently under refurbishment in long term service. Let them go back and forth between the main terminal and the next closest Concord course in perpetuity so that future generations of passengers can still experience a sliver of Saarinen's design vision even as most travelers in a rush will hop on the quicker train. Aviation buffs and design nerds alike will undoubtedly make a mobile lounge pilgrimage when Flying through Dulles today, some passengers treat a gate assignment to the concourses only reached by Mobile Lounge as Siberian exile, as though riding one is an odyssey to the outer edge of the known universe. But I get a secret thrill out of the chance to experience a living, functional piece of modernist design history, even one that's seen better days. Well into adulthood, I still see myself in the excited boy perched at the front of the Mobile Lounge in the Eames film, eager to take in the view.
- [53:26]
Emma Nelson
Lovely stuff there from Gregory Scruggs. You're listening to Monacle Radio. Now, the National Art center in Tokyo is host to Prism of the Real Making art in Japan 1989-2010. It's an exhibition co curated with Hong Kong's M Plus Museum. And through the works of more than 50 artists, both domestic and international. The exhibition explores art made in Japan and the influence Japanese culture has over the world. On Monocle's Ryuma Takahashi, heard from Dorian Chong, who's a curatorial director, director of the exhibition and artistic director and chief curator of M plus Hong Kong.
- [54:22]
Ryuma Takahashi
I thought this studying Japan was very, very important because it has the longest history of modern art or modern anything really, because it began the process of modernization before most of the countries. So I've been really studying and thinking and following Japanese modern history in general. And it's a very interesting time period because of course, 1989 show changes to Heisei. But also globally, 1989 signaled the end of the Cold War. So it was an important year for all over the globe really in terms of ending date of 2010. You know, what happened in Japan in 2011 with the big earthquake in March really changed the whole society, the way that people think about life in general, but also it changed our time making. So those very particular things within Japan and those universal and global phenomena around the world come together to create specific conditions in which the artists were working in and around Japan.
- [55:32]
William Yang
So looking back at this era, what.
- [55:35]
Ryuma Takahashi
Elements do you think make contemporary Japanese art so unique? I think one thing that makes Japanese contemporary art unique is a bit of a contradiction. And then that contradiction is that the field is very open and very international, but it has a tendency of thinking that it's actually closed and there is a. This self perception or almost a myth. I mean, it's a myth about Japan in general. Japan thinking of itself as a Shimaguni, you know, it's an island, it's a big Galapagos kind of country. And that's very much almost a trope, like almost kind of Habitual understanding of itself. So it was very important that in this exhibition I took the responsibility with my colleagues to emphasize that point. Japanese art world has been very international. It has been very welcoming and generous. And then really use that as to counter that that self image or self imposed image of Japan is closed.
- [56:45]
William Yang
Thank you. So from the perspective of artistic expression.
- [56:50]
Ryuma Takahashi
What are the characteristics of Japanese art in this period? We now have in contemporary art, that contemporary art is just almost an ever expanding universe of different mediums and different methods of art, art making. But a lot of times you may have material entities, but in fact it is just about an idea as well. So in this exhibition you really see the all of these different methods and materials represented. But again, what we wanted to show as a big picture are that the artists may be using, say photography or maybe still paint, maybe even in traditional Nihonga style. But they are all looking at history. For instance, especially history has such a weight in Japan because of what happened during the war, because of the legacy of imperialism and the disaster of atomic bombings and whatnot. Forty, fifty years later, artists are still looking back on it. The methods may be different, but that's what actually makes contemporary art very exciting. And sometimes a lot of people think it's difficult, you know, because of the great range and great diversity.
- [58:08]
Gregory Scruggs
Thank you.
- [58:09]
William Yang
Coming from Hong Kong and actually preparing this exhibition, did you discover any new.
- [58:15]
Ryuma Takahashi
Perspective or insights about the Japanese contemporary art? Even though I worked with my colleagues to put this exhibition together for over two years, almost three years, that walking through the finished exhibition, I'm really struck by the very strong images and objects that came out during this period, the kinds of colors that were used or the very striking forms that are used. And I think I can say that if the exhibition was about the previous decade, like 70s or 80s or later decades of the more recently 2000 and tens and 2000 and twenties, we still have such impact for sometimes even in your face kind of images and objects, I'm not sure, but clearly around this time period, especially in the first half in the 1990s, there was almost an explosion of this new bold approaches and voices that came up. So that's what one of the great discovery that we made. And then you can see in the exhibition for Monaco in Tokyo. I'm Ryuma Takahashi.
- [59:27]
Emma Nelson
Thank you, Ryuma. And that's all the time we have for today's program. The warmest of thanks to all my guests and to the producers Hassan Anderson, Carlotta Rebelo and Anita Riota. Our researcher is Daniela Brau Smith and Our studio manager is Mariella Bevan. After the headlines. More music on the way. The briefings live at midday here in London. The Globalist is back at the same time tomorrow. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson. Goodbye. Thank you very much for listening.