At the end of the Cold War, the international system underwritten by American power, liberal democracy and free markets looked to many like the high-water mark of a new world order. Fast forward to 2026, and that certainty looks far less solid.

Tristan Redman is joined by journalists and experts who had ringside seats to the biggest moments since the end of the Cold War. Together, they ask whether this rules-based order is ending, what might replace it, and whether it ever really existed.

From the collapse of communism and the conflicts of the 1990s to the wars in Georgia and Ukraine and the realignment of global power today.

A BBC News Long Form Audio production

Presenter: Tristan Redman Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Michael Regaard Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison Editor: Matt Willis Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson

Jonny Dymond and guests explore the complicated back-story of the Middle East conflict.

Tristan Redman is joined by Cindy Yu, a columnist at the Times and author of the Substack newsletter Chinese Whispers, and Pierre Haski, a longstanding foreign correspondent and commentator on France Inter radio, to examine a five-year period in which China's confidence grew as the West's certainties came under strain.

They begin with the Beijing Olympics of August 2008, which opened as Russia invaded Georgia, and the global financial crisis that followed within weeks of the closing ceremony, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered the largest bankruptcy in US history and shook confidence in the American economic model.

They also discuss the Arab Spring of 2011, and the Nato-led intervention in Libya that followed a UN resolution to protect civilians, an operation China and Russia came to see as having gone beyond its original mandate.

The episode also covers the crackdown on civil society and the internet that followed inside China, and concludes with Xi Jinping's appointment as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012.

'How Did We Get Here: No World Order' is a BBC News Long Form Audio production

Presenter: Tristan Redman Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Mike Regaard Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison Editor: Matt Willis Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson

Tristan Redman is joined by Gabriel Gatehouse, an investigative journalist and former international editor of BBC Newsnight, and Luke Harding, the Guardian's senior international correspondent, to trace the decade in which Russia moved from a brief partnership with the West to open confrontation with it.

They begin in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, when Vladimir Putin was among the first world leaders to offer support to the United States, and Russian and American forces cooperated over Afghanistan. They discuss how that cooperation gave way, within two years, to Russian opposition at the United Nations to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, an invasion carried out without Security Council authorisation.

They also discuss the near-fatal poisoning of Ukrainian opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko during the 2004 presidential election, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, and Vladimir Putin's speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, in which he rejected the idea of a unipolar, US-led world order.

The episode concludes with Russia's invasion of Georgia in August 2008, an operation carried out on the pretext of protecting Russian citizens and peacekeepers in South Ossetia.

A BBC News Long Form Audio production

Presenter: Tristan Redman Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Michael Regaard Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison Editor: Matt Willis Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson

Tristan Redman is joined by Carrie Gracie, former BBC China editor and a reporter in China throughout the 1990s, and George Magnus, an economist and research associate at the China Centre, Oxford University, and former chief economist at UBS.

Together they examine the decade in which China reshaped its relationship with the international system. They begin with Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour of 1992, when the then-retired Communist Party leader travelled to China's special economic zones to press the case for economic reform, a trip widely seen as decisive in setting China's course for the following decades.

They discuss the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, under the "one country, two systems" framework, and the Asian financial crisis of the same year, which left China's capital controls looking vindicated while much of the region required IMF assistance.

The episode also covers the 1999 Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and concludes with China's accession to the World Trade Organisation in December 2001, an agreement built on Western assumptions that economic integration would bring political liberalisation, and one whose consequences are still being worked through today.

A BBC News Long Form Audio production

Presenter: Tristan Redman Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Michael Regaard Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison Editor: Matt Willis Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson

Tristan Redman is joined by Lindsey Hilsum, international editor of Channel 4 News, and Allan Little, former BBC correspondent in Moscow and Africa, to look back at the decade after the Cold War in which the question of international intervention was repeatedly tested.

They discuss Nelson Mandela's release in February 1990, the United States' retreat from Somalia after American soldiers were killed in Mogadishu in 1993, and the international community's failure to act during the Rwandan genocide the following year.

They discuss Srebrenica, where UN peacekeepers were present but around 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in 1995, and Nato's intervention in Kosovo in 1999, which went ahead without UN Security Council authorisation.

The episode traces how these events fed into debates around the principle that became known as the Responsibility to Protect, and ends on 31st December 1999, as Boris Yeltsin resigns and Vladimir Putin becomes acting president of Russia.

'How Did We Get Here: No World Order' is a BBC News Long Form Audio production

Presenter: Tristan Redman Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Michael Regaard Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison Editor: Matt Willis Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson

In the last of ten programmes exploring the origins and tracing the history of the Middle East conflict, presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by journalist Jane Corbin, who has covered the region for three decades, and the BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen.

They start by discussing Israel’s economic success in the 2010s, and the situation in that period for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This episode also covers Gaza’s “tunnel economy”, continuing Hamas attacks on Israel, the wars in Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014, the expansion of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the stalling of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the 2010s, and the Abraham Accords of 2020 between Israel and several Arab nations.

Jonny and his guests conclude the series by looking at the impact and significance of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023. How has that event and the war in Gaza that followed affected the long-term prospects for an end to the conflict?

'How Did We Get Here? Israel and the Palestinians' is a BBC News Long Form Audio production. The presenter is Jonny Dymond and the editor is Penny Murphy. The Radio 4 commissioners are Hugh Levinson and Dan Clarke. The studio engineers are Neil Churchill, James Beard, Rod Farquhar, Mike Regaard and David Crackles.

In the ninth of ten programmes exploring the origins and tracing the history of the Middle East conflict, presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by journalist and film-maker Jane Corbin, who has been reporting from the region for more than 30 years, and by the BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen.

They begin by examining the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising – bloodier than the first – which began on the West Bank and in Gaza in 2000 and lasted till 2005.

They go on to discuss Israel’s construction, from 2002 onwards, of the West Bank separation barrier, the last years and legacy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005, the rise of Hamas, its victory in the Palestinian elections of 2006, and its violent takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Jonny and his guests examine reactions in Israel and in the international community to Hamas rule in Gaza and discuss the blockade of the territory. They finish this episode by looking at how the Middle East conflict was affected by the election of Barack Obama as US president in 2008, and the re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu for a second term as Israeli prime minister in 2009.

'Israel and the Palestinians' is a BBC News Long Form Audio production. The presenter is Jonny Dymond and the editor is Penny Murphy. The Radio 4 commissioners are Hugh Levinson and Dan Clarke. The studio engineers are Neil Churchill, James Beard, Rod Farquhar, Mike Regaard and David Crackles.