Start Close In: Diplomacy, Technology, and the Ground Beneath Our Feet

Start Close In: Diplomacy, Technology, and the Ground Beneath Our Feet In this episode of The Next Page, we talk with Anja Kaspersen — an IEEE director and former director of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs in Geneva and Deputy Secretary General of the Conference on Disarmament — about having more confident discussions on technology, and how poetry, attention, and disciplined perception can guide diplomacy in an age of emerging technologies.

Anja argues that the ground for engagement is not technical mastery but institutional literacy. She explains why diplomats should remain at the table, ask architectural questions, and translate between technical and policy worlds.

The conversation covers science diplomacy, the changing nature of arms control and dual-use technologies, the importance of redundancy, resilience, and interoperability, and the need for anticipatory governance rather than reactive responses.

Takeaways include strengthening discernment, preserving archives and institutional memory, resisting binary framings, and investing in human skills to govern technology responsibly.

Resources: Ask a Librarian!

David Whyte: https://davidwhyte.com/ Maria Popova: https://www.themarginalian.org/

Where to listen to this episode

• Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-next-page/id1469021154
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/10fp8ROoVdve0el88KyFLy
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/w4L1S0nhCoo

Content

Guest: Anja Kaspersen

Hosts: Amy Smith and Wouter Schallier Production and editing: Amy Smith

Recorded & produced at the United Nations Library & Archives Geneva