This is going to be the first in a series of episodes where we talk about economics and war. I know – economics is a scary boring subject, but it’s really just the study of how people make and spend money. In this episode we’re going to argue that economics (money) was a significant factor in the genesis of the Cold War (and pretty much every other war in history too). We’ll talk about imperialism, gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy, dollar diplomacy, propaganda, Edward Bernays, Walter Lippman, economic hit men, and the Monroe Doctrine. As Major General Smedley Butler wrote: “War is a racket”.

In this raucous and revelatory episode of _The Cold War Podcast_, Cameron and Ray finally reach the man of the hour: Fulgencio Batista. From humble military stenographer to kingmaker of a chaotic Cuba, Batista’s rise is traced through coups, constitutions, and crushing dissent. Cameron performs a blistering freestyle rap tribute to Ray (“Ray Bear Has No Hair”), then the duo dive into Batista’s reign, the boom years of WWII, puppet governments, violent suppression of opposition, and the eerie parallels to authoritarian creep in modern democracies. The episode also explores the cultural fallout of constant violence, Fidel Castro’s formative influences, and the suicide of Eduardo Chibás on live radio—a moment that cemented Castro’s revolutionary zeal. Come for the history, stay for the dick jokes, cos this one’s got everything.

Things in Palestine really started to heat up in 1908 – the year of The Young Turk Revolution. It was around this time that the violence between the Jews and the Arabs started to escalate beyond what was mostly localised troubles over property rights. And it took on a nationalist feel. The Jews started to arm themselves. The governor of Jerusalem, Azmi Bey, wrote: “We are not xenophobes; we welcome all strangers. We are not anti-Semites; we value the economic superiority of the Jews. But no nation, no government could open its arms to groups … aiming to take Palestine from us.”

In 1915, Britain and France sat down to work out who was going to control what in the Middle East after the war – what became known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. By 1917, when the Allies were bogged down on the Western Front, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. They hoped it would bring the American Jews to their cause, would help bring the United States into the war and keep Russia involved – and would stop the Jews from allying themselves with Ze Germans.

Part two of our “quick” biography on Fidel Castro, using the New York Times’ obituary, breaking it down, line by line, to uncover the propaganda. And we’re making these Castro episodes free to guests.

For nearly two decades, the CIA ran a covert operation designed to train Tibetan insurgents and gather intelligence about the Chinese, while smuggling weapons and money into Tibet, pushing Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama to launch violent uprisings, and using “black propaganda” to spread lies about Chinese atrocities in the region. But the U.S. never supported Tibetan independence. They were just another pawn in the Cold War.

Professor Campbell Craig is the Professor of International Relations at Cardiff University.

He has held senior fellowships at Yale University, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the European University Institute, and, most recently, at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bristol, and has given invited lectures at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Chicago, Columbia, Cambridge, Sciences-Po, the Free University of Berlin, the London School of Economics, University of Copenhagen, and other universities.

His most recent books are The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War (with Sergey Radchenko), and America’s Cold War: the Politics of Insecurity (with Fredrik Logevall).

After the assassination of Razmara, Mossadegh’s oil committee voted unanimously to nationalise the AIOC. Iran went crazy for Mossadegh. It was Mossa-Mania. The British were furious and tried to appoint a new Prime Minister, the latest in the line of “guys they were sure could get the job done”. It backfired. Massively.

Although you may not think of Israel as part of the Cold War paradigm, it’s played such a huge role in American foreign policy, and we have to cover it. It’s also played, and continues to play, a huge role in the story of oil, which is, of course, a huge part of the Cold War story. Because, as you know, the Cold War was all about economics. In this episode, we give a quick overview of anti-Semitism and the creation of the State of Israel. In our next episodes we’re going to go deep into the story of Zionism. 

Cameron and Ray pick up Fidel Castro’s story in 1948 as he returns from Colombia in the wake of the Bogotazo riots. We follow Castro through his early 20s as he campaigns for Eduardo Chibás, clashes with Havana police over accusations of corruption, and narrowly escapes being framed for murder. The conversation dives into the student-led bus fare protests—linked to shady U.S. business deals—that propelled Castro into the spotlight. We hear about his whirlwind romance and three-month honeymoon in the United States, his growing fascination with Marxist thought, and his balancing act between rival student gangs and political factions. The episode ends with the murder of his close friend, fellow activist Manolo Fuentes, a turning point that forces Castro to reconsider his alliances and the dangerous reality of Havana’s violent political landscape.

Fidel Castro’s first attempt to ignite revolution in Cuba ends in disaster — but also forges the legend. We follow the aftermath of the failed 1953 Moncada Barracks raid: the brutal reprisals, Fidel’s near-execution, the unlikely lieutenant who saves him, the public opinion shift as Batista’s regime overreaches, and Fidel’s transformation from fiery idealist to imprisoned revolutionary intellectual. We hear how History Will Absolve Me is born, what Fidel is reading behind bars (spoiler: Trotsky and Roosevelt), and how his personal life gets… complicated. By the time he’s released after only two years, Castro is no longer just a nuisance — he’s become the most famous man in Cuba and an unstoppable symbol of rebellion. 

In this episode, we delve into the history of Iran, focusing on the US’s role in ending democratic rule in 1953 and installing Mohammad Reza Shah’s dictatorship, a fact well-known in Iran but only admitted by the US in the 90s. This event led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, and fueled anti-Western sentiments across the Middle East. We discuss the significant figure of Mohammad Mossadegh, and the history of Iran under the Qajar shahs, the stagnation and foreign exploitation during this period, and the controversial Reuter concession of 1872, which was a significant surrender of Iran’s industrial resources to foreign control, but was quickly cancelled due to widespread opposition.

Today we have another special guest – Pulitzer Prize-winning author, the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of History in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences – Prof Fredrik Logevall. He’s also the co-author of America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity (co-authored with Campbell Craig, who we had on in episode 20).