Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to

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becoming one. I am here with Ann Applebaum.

Ann, thanks for joining me again.

Oh, thanks for having me.

It's great to see you.

Well, so you've just written a cover article in the Atlantic.

I titled online at least, I haven't seen the physical magazine, but the title online is the

most nihilistic conflict on Earth.

This is recounting your two trips to Sudan, which has been

plunged into yet another civil war. And I want to use it, as you do in the article, I want to use

your experience of Sudan as a lens through which to look at the consequences of American

retreat from the world. And it's just this kind of general unraveling of the consequences of American retreat from the world and this just this kind of general

unraveling of the system of international law and international aid, which has really underpinned

what we have come to call the liberal world order for more or less as long as we've been

alive a little bit longer. So let's start with your experience in Sudan.

What is happening in Sudan?

So Sudan is engulfed by a civil war.

The two main mooring parties, and actually there are several others as well,

but the two main warring parties are formerly components of the Sudanese military. One part is the Sudanese

armed forces, the kind of main part of the army. And the another is a group called the rapid

...