Foreign affairs with historical teeth.
The gist
Between the Lines treats international politics as an argument with a long memory. Its interviews move from AUKUS, Iraq, China, Russia-gate, reparations, and American elections to the assumptions sitting underneath public debate.
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About Between the Lines
Between the Lines is a completed ABC program about foreign affairs, history, and the political ideas behind the news. It favors long context over instant reaction. Recent episodes range from Russia-gate and media credulity to AUKUS, American politics, the Iraq invasion, China's Cultural Revolution, North Korea, ISIS, Afghanistan after withdrawal, and the debate over reparations for the African slave trade. The show’s method is conversational but pointed. A guest is introduced through a specific controversy, then pressed toward causes, consequences, and the assumptions driving public debate. Its worldview is often skeptical of consensus. That skepticism appears in segments on Western guilt, culture-war language, university speech disputes, and the portrayal of empire, but also in criticism of intelligence failures, military overreach, and strategic wishful thinking. Australia is a constant reference point. Even when the subject is Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Baghdad, or Hong Kong, the question often becomes what the issue means for Australian security, public life, or intellectual habits. The program is not built for neutral briefing-room polish. It has edges. It is comfortable naming failures, challenging accepted narratives, and giving room to historians, journalists, lawyers, and policy voices who argue against the grain. Episodes often pair immediate politics with older history, such as 1848 revolutions, Marxism before Marxism became dominant, the legacy of 9-11, or the roots of Western involvement in Iraq. That gives the show a slower rhythm than a daily news cycle. It asks what people thought they were doing, what they misunderstood, and what their decisions set in motion. The final episode also makes its editorial ethic explicit: disagreement matters, and the opposing case should be understood at its strongest before being rejected. Between the Lines is best for listeners who enjoy serious argument, diplomatic history, strategic anxiety, and public debate with a sharper-than-usual historical spine.
Made for: For listeners who follow geopolitics, diplomatic history, Australian strategic debates, and culture-war arguments with patience for extended interviews. It especially suits people who prefer challenging consensus to receiving tidy news summaries.
What sets it apart: The show links current disputes to older ideological, military, and historical patterns, often from an Australian vantage point. Its interview style is direct, skeptical, and more interested in causes than headlines.
In their own words
This program is no longer in production. Making sense of Australia’s place in the world, Between the Lines puts contemporary international issues and events into a broader historical context, seeking out original perspectives and challenging accepted wisdom.
As heard by us
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Tom Switzer turns foreign policy disputes into searching interviews about history, power and the assumptions guiding political decisions.
Tom Switzer builds each edition around sustained interviews, moving between international relations and disputes over history, media and public institutions.
Why you'd press play
Tom Switzer invites dissent to the microphone, then asks you to test the consensus against history.
Press play if you want
- today's foreign-policy consensus challenged rather than politely recapped
- the connective tissue between Iraq, Ukraine, AUKUS and great-power miscalculation
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Episodes
- 1
Is American support for Ukraine waning? The Russia-gate lie and how the media fell for it and what would a Trump comeback mean for Australia?
·54m - 2
The debate on reparations for the African slave trade
·54m - 3
What can today’s China learn from the Cultural Revolution?
·54m - 4
The most powerful woman in North Korea
·54m - 5
The one-sided attitude of the media toward the Ukraine war.
·54m - 6
Britain three years after Brexit. The Liberal party quandary. Remembering diplomat Richard Woolcott
·1h - 7
Jacinda Ardern's legacy, is a Ukrainian victory against Russia inevitable and is there a political future for Tony Abbott?
·1h - 8
Best of 2022; Against an Indigenous voice to parliament. How Britain beat France in the race for Australia. Setting the record straight on the ‘mad’ King George III
·1h - 9
A look back at the world in 2023
·54m - 10
How did China corner the green energy market?
·54m - 11
Eliot Cohen on Israel, Ukraine, Trump and the US-Australia relationship
·54m - 12
Ukraine says it fears the conflict is fast becoming a 'sideshow'
·54m - 13
Can former British PM David Cameron save the Sunak government?
·54m - 14
From wine and lobster to human rights and trade pacts: The PM's trip to China
·54m - 15
Are the US Republicans incapable of governing in Washington?
·54m - 16
John Mearsheimer on Israel, Russia-Ukraine and the US pivot to Asia
·54m - 17
The Voice has been silenced - why did it fail so badly?
·54m - 18
Israel faces its September 11 – but can it destroy Hamas?
·54m - 19
Conrad Black on Murdoch, Trump, Trudeau and Cancel Culture
·54m - 20
Rupert Murdoch: Supremacy, scandal and succession
·54m - 21
Republican political strategist Karl Rove on a Trump-Biden rematch
·54m - 22
Is a "woke" assault undermining the history of the West?
·54m - 23
The Voice is cracking - can the Yes vote be salvaged?
·54m - 24
Did a bitter 1968 US election set the tone for the future of American politics?
·54m - 25
Is time running out for Ukraine to win the war?
·54m - 26
The rise and fall of ISIS: Could it make a comeback?
·54m - 27
Almost 21 since the Bali terror attacks - is radicalisation again on the rise in Indonesia?
·54m - 28
The Gerontocracy and the 2024 presidential poll
·54m - 29
Don't write off Ukraine's counter-offensive
·54m - 30
Is democracy dead in Thailand? and historian Geoffrey Blainey's views on the Uluru Statement from the Heart
·54m - 31
Are a series of European uprisings 175 years ago still leaving their mark?
·54m - 32
Has a 17-year-old Brisbane schoolboy got the answer to our energy woes? and the long shadow of China's Cultural revolution
·54m - 33
Is Vladimir Putin out for the count? A new strain of Covid is on the way - but do we care? and the latest on the Voice to Parliament.
·54m - 34
Are net zero emissions by 2050 realistic? The events behind the U.S. decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan and avoiding the recession we don't have to have.
·54m - 35
Could China's meddling in Canadian politics bring down Justin Trudeau? Tony Abbott on the Libs demise & The Voice and why Trump and Johnson lost high office for similar reasons.
·54m - 36
Is Ukraine's fight also Australia's fight? North Korea's nuclear ambitions and its border crackdown and Gough Whitlam's foreign policy, 50 years on.
·54m - 37
The fabrication that was “Russia-gate”
·54m - 38
Why support is waning for The Voice, Syria's Assad coming in from the cold and the fight to free Hong Kong's billionaire pro-democracy activist, Jimmy Lai
·54m - 39
Albo's report card, Thailand election shock and the life and times of US statesman, George Shultz
·54m - 40
Israel turns 75. The Suharto legacy. The campaign against British colonialism.
·54m - 41
Australia’s head of state? Trump, Fox and the crisis in the American right. Remembering Allan Gyngell.
·54m - 42
Australia becomes more American. A bad idea - Biden’s 2024 bid. A nuclear power accident waiting to happen
·54m - 43
Macron’s Europe. A conservative backs The Voice. Why DeSantis took on Disney.
·54m - 44
The Voice: a debate. Is the Liberal party doomed?
·54m - 45
A new low for American politics. Don't 'sensitise' children's literature.
·54m - 46
Macron’s France. Iraq bounces back. Sport and Australia’s soft power advantage in the Pacific
·54m - 47
Responding to a rising China. The Republican party’s divide over Ukraine. Australia’s economic outlook
·1h - 48
Why was there a war against Saddam in 2003. South Africa in a geo-politically polarised world.
·1h - 49
The US and its great power rivals. Are Australia's neighbours ready for AUKUS? The UK lockdown files.
·1h - 50
China's population decline. Afghanistan after the US withdrawal. Is it a public debate or a culture war?
·1h - 51
The earthquake and its geopolitical consequences. Are the UN's Sustainable Development Goals achievable? Jimmy Carter's foreign policy.
·1h - 52
Israeli - Palestinian prospects for peace. A liberal's lament. The writer and cultural appropriation.
·1h - 53
Groupthink and Ukraine. Resistance in Myanmar. Europe's energy war with Russia
·1h - 54
Best of 2022; John Howard’s 'Sense of Balance'. What Osama bin Laden’ declassified personal papers reveal
·1h - 55
Best of 2022; Australia’s China challenge, a short history of the Soviet Union and the new space race
·1h - 56
Best of 2022; 804 days in an Iranian prison, Francis Fukuyama’s liberalism and Kevin Rudd on Sino-US relations.
·1h - 57
A turbulent year in international relations, Indonesia's morality laws and China’s spies and subterfuge
·1h - 58
Federal politics 2022, the legal cannabis paradox and why the future for feminism is conservative.
·1h - 59
Peter Costello on the Australian economy, what happened at COP 27 and problems with the EU's asylum system
·1h - 60
Xi, Putin and the West, Iranian women resist and countering China’s Belt and Road
·1h - 61
The US midterms, superconductors are the oil of the digital age and Malaysia goes to the polls.
·1h - 62
Can the world agree on carbon reduction at COP 27? What demography tell us about geopolitics and what's wrong with identity politics
·1h - 63
Rifts, divisions and the future for centre right parties, and how women in Iran have had enough
·1h - 64
Kevin Rudd on Xi’s China, Jonathan Sumption sees real threats to democracy and the shift in Swedish politics
·1h - 65
Geopolitics, the view from Washington and Japan, Also anti woke warrior Lionel Shriver
·1h - 66
Four big events that shaped and changed our world.
·1h - 67
Putin raises the stakes over Ukraine, a green leap forward and setting the record straight on King George III
·1h - 68
What’s behind Europe’s energy crisis? And is Australia’s connection to Britain fading?
·1h - 69
What might happen when a progressive new King has to work with a very conservative new PM.
·1h - 70
David Flint on the Queen, the Monarchy and why renewed calls for an Australian republic will not succeed.
·1h - 71
John Howard on a Sense of Balance and why concerns about the inevitability of China surpassing the U.S are misplaced.
·1h - 72
Geopolitics with John Bolton. Australia's economic outlook.
·1h - 73
Australia’s China challenge. Dame Leonie Kramer's biography. The future of welfare
·1h - 74
Against the Voice. Geo-politics hampers energy transition
- 75
Between The Lines
·1h - 76
The West’s war in Ukraine. Malcolm Turnbull: Australia, China, and U.S relations. The Albanese agenda.
·54m - 77
Insurrection in the US. Silencing critics in the Philippines. Investigating war crimes in Ukraine.
·54m - 78
2015 attack on France. Our jungle origins. Russia's polar ambitions.
·54m - 79
Japan mourns Shinzo Abe, the housing and homelessness crisis in the United States, and solutions to growing homelessness in Australia.
·54m - 80
Australia is ill-prepared for the new reality of climate disasters and the growing crisis in Sri Lanka
·54m - 81
What Australians think about foreign policy. How effective are UN Peacekeepers. PNG elections.
·54m - 82
Jan 6th attack testimony. Commonwealth heads meet in Rwanda. The view from the Pacific.
·54m - 83
Ukraine’s bid for EU membership. Too many regional strategic groups. The state of Florida vs Disney
·54m - 84
The PM’s visit to Indonesia. Boris survives. Watergate and the Jan. 6th insurrection.
·54m - 85
Ukraine's MP Kira Rudik. Australia's covert action. The myth of primitive communism.
·54m - 86
U.S politics and fault lines. Diplomacy and grand Asia Pacific tours. Congestion and conflict in space.
·54m - 87
Bin Laden's secret letters. Testing times for Lebanon.
·54m - 88
Marcos return to power. Afghanistan failed and now forgotten. Geopolitics and Eurovision.
·54m - 89
(Rpt) John Howard. Home Affairs - too big ? China, nationalism & WW2.
·54m - 90
Revolution and the U.S constitution. The Koala manifesto. How Hitler lost the war.
·54m - 91
Election 2022. Strongmen and autocrats. 804 days in an Iranian prison.
·54m - 92
North Korea. 21st century enlightenment. USSR: a short history
·54m - 93
Francis Fukuyama's liberalism and its discontents. Kevin Rudd's China, the US and an avoidable war.
·54m - 94
Global consensus on Ukraine? China’s foothold in the Solomons. Britain vs France and the colonisation of Australia
·54m - 95
Alexander Downer on Ukraine 2022. Max Hastings’ Cuba 1962. A global economic outlook.
·54m - 96
The West re-energised. Putin's war in Syria. Malcolm Fraser's foreign policy.
·54m - 97
Backlash: Pacifist nations rearm
·54m - 98
It’s all about Ukraine
·54m - 99
Best of 2022; What demography tells us about geopolitics. Lionel Shiver speaks her mind and Ron DeSantis vs Disney
This episode revisits interviews on demographic trends shaping geopolitics, Ron DeSantis's anti-woke crusade, and Lionel Shriver's critique of contemporary culture.
·54m - 100
Prospects for Pakistan’s Imran Khan and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, also David Kemp on Australian liberalism.
Analysis of Imran Khan's political career, his rise and fall as Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the challenges facing the nation.
·1h - 101
The fabrication that was “Russia-gate”
Hidden gem["Tom Switzer closes Between the Lines by pressing Aaron Marte on Russiagate, where Marte says John Durham found the probe baseless and the Steele dossier turned a Trump-Russia story into a media obsession.", "Marte says Christopher Steele's dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign, published by BuzzFeed in January 2017, and amplified by figures at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the FBI.", "Margaret Simons then describes AUKUS as the product of years of debate about China's military rise, Australia's fear of abandonment, and Labor's 2021 worries about cost, sovereignty, and nuclear policy.", "Simon Heffer ends the episode by rejecting the idea that the British Empire was \"entirely a good thing,\" while arguing that Britain should also be judged by the aid and advice it gives developing countries."]
Jan 19, 2024·54m·3 clips - 102
The debate on reparations for the African slave trade
Between the Lines host Tom Switzer presents a three-part episode examining culture wars, the Australian Voice referendum, and reparations for the transatlantic slave trade.
Jan 12, 2024·54m·3 clips - 103
What can today’s China learn from the Cultural Revolution?
Between the Lines host Tom Switzer presents a two-part summer episode: first, Cambridge historian Christopher Clarke on his book 'Revolutionary Spring' and why 1848 — the year of the Communist Manifesto and revolution across Europe — was 'the only truly European revolution' and one triggered not by famine but by networked opposition movements and almost accidental public confrontations.
Jan 5, 2024·54m·3 clips - 104
The most powerful woman in North Korea
Between the Lines examines how the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq helped create conditions for Sunni jihadism, according to journalist Patrick Cockburn.
Dec 29, 2023·54m·3 clips - 105
The one-sided attitude of the media toward the Ukraine war.
Dec 22, 2023·54m - 106
A look back at the world in 2023
Dec 15, 2023·54m - 107
How did China corner the green energy market?
Dec 8, 2023·54m - 108
Eliot Cohen on Israel, Ukraine, Trump and the US-Australia relationship
Dec 1, 2023·54m - 109
Ukraine says it fears the conflict is fast becoming a 'sideshow'
Nov 24, 2023·54m - 110
Can former British PM David Cameron save the Sunak government?
Nov 17, 2023·54m - 111
From wine and lobster to human rights and trade pacts: The PM's trip to China
Nov 10, 2023·54m - 112
Are the US Republicans incapable of governing in Washington?
Nov 3, 2023·54m - 113
John Mearsheimer on Israel, Russia-Ukraine and the US pivot to Asia
Oct 26, 2023·54m - 114
The Voice has been silenced - why did it fail so badly?
Oct 20, 2023·54m - 115
Israel faces its September 11 – but can it destroy Hamas?
Oct 13, 2023·54m - 116
Conrad Black on Murdoch, Trump, Trudeau and Cancel Culture
Oct 6, 2023·54m - 117
Rupert Murdoch: Supremacy, scandal and succession
Sep 29, 2023·54m - 118
Republican political strategist Karl Rove on a Trump-Biden rematch
Sep 22, 2023·54m - 119
Is a "woke" assault undermining the history of the West?
Sep 15, 2023·54m - 120
The Voice is cracking - can the Yes vote be salvaged?
Sep 8, 2023·54m - 121
Did a bitter 1968 US election set the tone for the future of American politics?
Sep 1, 2023·54m - 122
Is time running out for Ukraine to win the war?
Aug 25, 2023·54m - 123
The rise and fall of ISIS: Could it make a comeback?
Aug 18, 2023·54m - 124
Almost 21 since the Bali terror attacks - is radicalisation again on the rise in Indonesia?
Aug 11, 2023·54m - 125
The Gerontocracy and the 2024 presidential poll
Aug 3, 2023·54m - 126
Don't write off Ukraine's counter-offensive
Jul 28, 2023·54m - 127
Is democracy dead in Thailand? and historian Geoffrey Blainey's views on the Uluru Statement from the Heart
Jul 21, 2023·54m - 128
Are a series of European uprisings 175 years ago still leaving their mark?
Jul 14, 2023·54m - 129
Has a 17-year-old Brisbane schoolboy got the answer to our energy woes? and the long shadow of China's Cultural revolution
Jul 7, 2023·54m - 130
Is Vladimir Putin out for the count? A new strain of Covid is on the way - but do we care? and the latest on the Voice to Parliament.
Jun 30, 2023·54m - 131
Are net zero emissions by 2050 realistic? The events behind the U.S. decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan and avoiding the recession we don't have to have.
Jun 27, 2023·54m - 132
Could China's meddling in Canadian politics bring down Justin Trudeau? Tony Abbott on the Libs demise & The Voice and why Trump and Johnson lost high office for similar reasons.
Jun 16, 2023·54m - 133
Is Ukraine's fight also Australia's fight? North Korea's nuclear ambitions and its border crackdown and Gough Whitlam's foreign policy, 50 years on.
Jun 9, 2023·54m - 134
Is American support for Ukraine waning? The Russia-gate lie and how the media fell for it and what would a Trump comeback mean for Australia?
Jun 2, 2023·54m - 135
Why support is waning for The Voice, Syria's Assad coming in from the cold and the fight to free Hong Kong's billionaire pro-democracy activist, Jimmy Lai
May 27, 2023·54m - 136
Albo's report card, Thailand election shock and the life and times of US statesman, George Shultz
May 19, 2023·54m - 137
Israel turns 75. The Suharto legacy. The campaign against British colonialism.
May 12, 2023·54m - 138
Australia’s head of state? Trump, Fox and the crisis in the American right. Remembering Allan Gyngell.
May 5, 2023·54m - 139
Australia becomes more American. A bad idea - Biden’s 2024 bid. A nuclear power accident waiting to happen
Tom Switzer discusses why Joe Biden's re-election is a bad idea and how Australia is becoming more like America in its public debate.
Apr 28, 2023·54m - 140
Macron’s Europe. A conservative backs The Voice. Why DeSantis took on Disney.
Apr 21, 2023·54m - 141
The Voice: a debate. Is the Liberal party doomed?
Apr 14, 2023·54m - 142
A new low for American politics. Don't 'sensitise' children's literature.
Tom Switzer discusses Donald Trump's criminal charges and the potential 2024 election rematch with Joe Biden, featuring insights from journalist Andrew Neal.
Apr 6, 2023·54m - 143
Macron’s France. Iraq bounces back. Sport and Australia’s soft power advantage in the Pacific
Mar 31, 2023·54m - 144
Responding to a rising China. The Republican party’s divide over Ukraine. Australia’s economic outlook
Mar 24, 2023·1h - 145
Why was there a war against Saddam in 2003. South Africa in a geo-politically polarised world.
Historian Melvin Loeffler discusses the reasons behind the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, focusing on fear of another attack after 9/11.
Mar 17, 2023·1h - 146
The US and its great power rivals. Are Australia's neighbours ready for AUKUS? The UK lockdown files.
Mar 10, 2023·1h - 147
China's population decline. Afghanistan after the US withdrawal. Is it a public debate or a culture war?
Tom Switzer interviews Barclay Bram about why China's youth are choosing not to have children and the implications of population decline.
Mar 3, 2023·1h - 148
The earthquake and its geopolitical consequences. Are the UN's Sustainable Development Goals achievable? Jimmy Carter's foreign policy.
Tom Switzer discusses the political consequences of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria with journalist Mary Dujeski.
Feb 24, 2023·1h - 149
Israeli - Palestinian prospects for peace. A liberal's lament. The writer and cultural appropriation.
Feb 17, 2023·1h - 150
Groupthink and Ukraine. Resistance in Myanmar. Europe's energy war with Russia
Hidden gem["Between the Lines opens with Tom Switzer arguing that the ABC, News Corp, Nine, the Guardian Australia, the BBC, Sky News, and major U.S.
Feb 10, 2023·1h·4 clips