GUEST HOST: Basil Valentine filling in for Patrick Henningsen.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Ian Proud was a member of HM Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. Ian was the only member of the current generation of British diplomats who saw Vladimir Putin during his last visit to the UK in 2013 for the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland, which he organised. He was one of the Foreign Office's most accomplished crisis experts, having been involved in the response to 9-11, the first Bali bombing, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Arab Spring, and Fukushima disaster. From July 2014 to February 2019 Ian was posted to the British Embassy in Moscow where he advised UK Ministers on sanctions against Russia; he also authorised a significant proportion of the sanctions imposed on Russia by the UK after war broke out in 2022, although he considers western sanctions policy to have been a failure. While in Moscow, Ian was Chair of the Russia Crisis Committee, and played a pivotal role in the response to the Salisbury nerve agent attack of March 2018 and the subsequent mass expulsion of diplomats and local staff. He was also Director of the Diplomatic Academy for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Anglo-American School of Moscow. He speaks Russian, fluent Thai and a smattering of six other languages. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Bonner R. Cohen is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, where he concentrates on energy, natural resources, and international relations. He also serves as a senior policy adviser with the Heartland Institute, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, and as adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, New York Post, Washington Times, National Review, Philadelphia Inquirer, Detroit News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. He has been interviewed on Fox News, CNN, Fox Business Channel, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, NBC, NPR, N 24 (German language news channel), Voice of Russia, and scores of radio stations in the U.S. Dr. Cohen has testified before the U.S. Senate committees on Energy & Natural Resources and Environment & Public Works as well as the U.S. House committees on Natural Resources and Judiciary. He has spoken at conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. Dr. Cohen is the author of two books, The Green Wave: Environmentalism and its Consequences (Washington: Capital Research Center, 2006) and Marshall, Mao und Chiang: Die amerikanischen Vermittlungsbemuehungen im chinesischen Buergerkrieg (Marshall, Mao and Chiang: The American Mediations Effort in the Chinese Civil War) (Munich: Tuduv Verlag, 1984). Dr. Cohen received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and his Ph.D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.