Globalisation Made Global Jihad Possible

2026-09-17

In this week’s Conflicted Conversation, UCL associate professor Philip Cunliffe makes a provocative case: far from being polar opposites, global Islamism and American unipolarity were born of the same globalised order. But what happens when that order starts to fall apart? And is today’s rising New Left inadvertently fighting to save the liberal-imperial system it says it wants to destroy?

For deeper dives and world-class Q&As with Aimen Dean, join the CONFLICTED COMMUNITY here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm

Philip and Thomas discuss:


How U.S. unipolarity and globalisation reshaped the world after the Cold War

Why Cunliffe thinks ‘global Islam’ is a distinctly modern political phenomenon

How early state-seeking Islamism gave way to transnational Islamism and jihadism

Why neoliberal globalisation weakened state sovereignty and boosted Islamist networks

The strange overlap between liberal humanitarianism and jihadist causes

How the CIA, Afghanistan and Syria blurred the line between ally and enemy

Why the new American Left could revive the logic of liberal interventionism over Israel

What comes after the decline of American empire: sovereign nation-states or rival new blocs?


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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small .
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Latest episode

2026-10-15

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An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.