Luke Harding Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest

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Is the world returning to an age in which powerful nations can seize territory, redraw borders and impose their will on weaker neighbours? And what happens when the United States, long the principal defender of the post-war international order, begins to question the very rules it helped create?Drawing on his powerful new book, Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest, award-winning foreign correspondent Luke Harding examines the dramatic unravelling of the international order established after 1945 and the return of great-power rivalry, territorial ambition and the politics of conquest.Drawing on frontline reporting from Ukraine, conversations with Greenlanders facing the prospect of an American takeover, travels across the divided Korean peninsula and a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Harding takes us to the heart of some of the world's most dangerous confrontations. He explores Russia's war in Ukraine, Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin, China's ambitions towards Taiwan and the growing pressure on the principle that international borders should not be changed by force.Described by Bill Browder as "dark and compelling" and "brilliant", and by Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov as "more gripping than a thriller", Betrayal combines remarkable eyewitness reporting, history and geopolitical analysis. Charlie English calls Harding "a master chronicler", while his investigations into Russian espionage, political interference and the relationship between Trump and Putin raise troubling questions about the vulnerability of Western democracies.In this timely and thought-provoking talk, Harding takes us from villages in eastern Ukraine under Russian bombardment to the corridors of power in Washington, Moscow and Beijing. Why has the international order become so fragile? What explains Trump's approach to Putin and the war in Ukraine? Could Europe's security arrangements survive a fundamental change in American policy? And are we witnessing a return to the great-power politics of the nineteenth century, with potentially devastating consequences for the twenty-first?Luke Harding is an award-winning journalist, author and senior international correspondent for The Guardian. He has reported from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, and served as the newspaper's Moscow bureau chief from 2007 to 2011. He was expelled from Russia by the Kremlin in 2011, becoming the first British journalist to be expelled from the country since the Cold War, and was subsequently placed on an official Russian blacklist in 2022.His bestselling books include Mafia State, The Snowden Files, A Very Expensive Poison, Collusion and Invasion: Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival. His work has exposed Russian espionage, political interference and the activities of the Kremlin, while his reporting on Ukraine has provided an eyewitness account of Europe's largest war since 1945.A Q&A Session will follow.