{"id":314882,"date":"2026-04-13T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=314882"},"modified":"2026-04-09T20:05:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:05:49","slug":"the-western-empire-is-going-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/04\/the-western-empire-is-going-down\/","title":{"rendered":"The Western Empire Is Going Down!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>24 Mar 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap\" dir=\"auto\" role=\"text\"><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color\" dir=\"auto\">Tonight\u2019s guest is someone who has spent decades studying war, peace, and the dangerous space in between. Jan \u00d8berg is a peace researcher, author, and co-founder of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research in Sweden \u2014 an independent think tank dedicated to conflict analysis, diplomacy, and alternatives to militarized foreign policy. At a moment when global tensions are escalating \u2014 from the dangerous confrontation involving the United States, Israel, and Iran to rising military spending across Europe and the Middle East \u2014 voices calling for diplomacy are becoming increasingly rare. \u00d8berg has long argued that the international system has moved away from preventing conflicts and instead focuses on managing them once they explode. Tonight we\u2019ll look at what\u2019s driving the current wave of geopolitical confrontation, the erosion of international law, and the growing role of military alliances in shaping global politics. But we\u2019ll also bring the conversation closer to home \u2014 to the Balkans \u2014 where the legacy of intervention and international oversight still shapes politics today, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the authority of the High Representative continues to raise questions about sovereignty, democracy, and long-term stability. In a world that seems to be drifting further from diplomacy and closer to confrontation, we\u2019ll ask whether peace thinking still has a place in international politics \u2014 or whether the world has already entered a new era of permanent geopolitical rivalry.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"JAN \u00d8BERG: The Western Empire is going down! | The Weight of Chains Podcast #007\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UpyQOIStE6M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>TRANSCEND VIDEOS <\/em>STAY POSTED FOR 2 WEEKS BEFORE BEING ARCHIVED<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a moment when global tensions are escalating \u2014 from the confrontation of the US, Israel and Iran to rising military spending across Europe and the Middle East \u2014 voices calling for diplomacy are becoming rare. \u00d8berg has long argued that the international system has moved away from preventing conflicts to managing them once they explode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[120,2628,433,742,88,767,70],"class_list":["post-314882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-videos","tag-conflict","tag-conflict-mediation","tag-europe","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314883,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314882\/revisions\/314883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}