Rear Vision — How History Shaped Today

President Trump has made it clear he doesn’t think diplomacy on its own will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.So what does history tell us about what actually works? We’re looking back at one of the greatest nuclear risk reduction efforts ever — when the US and Russia joined forces to contain the weapons fallout from the Soviet collapse and convince countries like Ukraine to give up the nuclear arsenal they inherited.
An effort that was led by diplomacy, pragmatism and scientific expertise during a brief period of goodwill between the two countries.
GUESTSGraham Allison - Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy SchoolMariana Budjeryin - Senior Researcher at the Centre for Nuclear Security at MIT and author of Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of UkraineDavid E Hoffman - author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms
GUESTSGraham Allison - Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy SchoolMariana Budjeryin - Senior Researcher at the Centre for Nuclear Security at MIT and author of Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of UkraineDavid E Hoffman - author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms

Gerrymandering is endemic in the United States and could determine the outcome of this year's mid-term elections. It has been a feature of the American political system since the beginning of the republic, according to Princeton University's Samuel Wang. So, how did the self-styled “world’s greatest democracy” end up with a system that former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, says is being rigged by both major parties?
Guests:
Dr John Hart – School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University
Dr Samuel Wang – Professor of Neuroscience and Head of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, Princeton University 
Dr Ben Reid – data analyst and researcher, Australian and European history, Parliament of Victoria 
Dr Melissa Rogers – Professor, Politics & Policy and Co-Director, Inequality and Policy Research Center, Claremont Graduate University

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect economies around the world.  But Russia has not only escaped the financial fallout, but has prospered.

It may surprise you to know that the Australian parliament has no real say over whether the country goes to war. In the United States its effectively the same, with analysts saying the US Congress has now basically ceded its war powers to the president. A process, by the way, that began long before the arrival of Donald Trump. In this episode we look at how that happened and why calls for war powers reform have had so little success.
Guests:
Dr Russell Berman – Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University 
Dr Sarah Percy – Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Queensland
Dr Sarah Burns – Rochester Institute of Technology 
Dr Alison Broinowski - Australians for War Power Reform
Dr Nicole Townsend - lecturer in War Studies – University of New South Wales, Canberra

The Federal Government is hoping tax reform will help address the widening generational wealth gap and rebalance the tax system in favour of younger people.One policy being targeted for an overhaul in this year's budget is the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount.
Australia started taxing capital gains in the mid-1980s to tackle tax avoidance and evasion which was a huge problem at the time.So why in 1999 did the Howard government introduce a discount on that tax? 
And why does the concession encourage investment in established housing stock? 
Guests:Chris Evans - Emeritus Professor UNSW Business SchoolPeter Martin - economist and presenter of The Economy StupidRick Krever - taxation law and policy specialist at UWACraig Emerson - economist and former Federal Labor MP Joe Aston - author and business journalistPeter Tulip - Chief Economist at the Centre for Independant StudiesRichard Holden - Scientia Professor of  Economics at UNSW Business School