The Negotiators Podcast
1) Negotiating with the Taliban
The Afghan government spent nearly a year trying to reach a power-sharing agreement with the Taliban—until the group’s fighters swept into Kabul this past August. Those negotiations failed to produce ...Show More
2) The Afghan Impasse, Part 7: Talking to the Taliban
Since taking power, the Taliban have cracked down on human rights and deprived Afghan women and girls of fundamental freedoms. The outlook for productive engagement is dim. Yet there may have been a w...Show More
3) The Afghan Impasse, Part 6: Digital Dunkirk
Once it became clear that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan, the situation on the ground turned to panic. In August 2021, radio reporter Shirin Jaafari found herself in the middle of the effort to ...Show More
4) The Afghan Impasse, Part 5: The Envoy Speaks
When a diplomatic deal goes bad, the blame usually falls on the politicians. Often, we don’t even remember the names of the negotiators. But in the wake of the return of the Taliban, a lot of people h...Show More
5) The Afghan Impasse, Part 4: History Repeats
As soon as the Doha Agreement was signed, the clock started counting down to May 1, 2021—the day the United States had agreed to withdraw all troops. That gave the Afghan Republic and the Taliban 14 m...Show More
6) The Afghan Impasse, Part 3: The Art of the (Separate) Deal
As a candidate for the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump vowed to end the war in Afghanistan. But seven months after his inauguration, he changed his mind, saying that the United States should “fight to w...Show More
7) The Afghan Impasse, Part 2: Secret Talks
By 2006, the United States and the Afghan Republic had been fighting the Taliban for five years. Neither side was poised to win. That’s when U.S. political scientist Barnett Rubin received a phone cal...Show More
8) The Afghan Impasse, Part 1: Original Sin
All manner of the rich and powerful have passed through the doors of the mountaintop Hotel Petersberg in Bonn, Germany. But perhaps never as motley a cast as the one that arrived on November 27, 2001 ...Show More
9) Season 4: The Afghan Impasse Trailer
We all remember how the story ends, with the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban. But in this special seven-episode season of The Negotiators, we’re going back to the beginning, to try to unde...Show More
10) The Maestro of Mediation
William Ury is one of the most famous negotiation experts in the world. He co-wrote the classic book Getting to Yes and co-founded Harvard’s Program on Negotiation. On today’s episode of the Negotiato...Show More