Speaker 1: Let's give you something to worry about. It's Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Getty extra large, because four hours, simply enough, this is
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty extra large. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: years in a row we've been checking in with Ian
Speaker 1: Bremer to see what the biggest risks to the planet are,
Speaker 1: but we've been doing it for quite a while. I
Speaker 1: really only look forward to three things every year. Number one,
Speaker 1: two weeks off at Christmas. Number two, the Master's golf tournament.
Speaker 1: Number three talking to Ian Bremer, the president of your
Speaker 1: Asia Group, about the Global Um Global Risks List, the
Speaker 1: top risks of three, for instance, and Mr Bremer joins us. Now, Ian,
Speaker 1: how are you happy? Now? You're gonna talk to you guys?
Speaker 1: Now this is a podcast, So if you have to
Speaker 1: use your salty language, you can. When we had you
Speaker 1: on the radio show once you did drop an s bomb.
Speaker 1: You're like a really filthy sailor who got a pH
Speaker 1: d in polly Cy, but kind of like a merchant
Speaker 1: marine exactly. We both spent six months in fc SEE
Speaker 1: prison and thanks. Meanwhile, I was in the Stychelles, so
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so you can't do much better
Speaker 1: than your number one risk and that is a rogue Russia.
Speaker 1: Explain that to us. Yeah, Well, I mean, the funny
Speaker 1: thing is, the Risk report has a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: things that are connected. It's a bunch of individual leaders
Speaker 1: with a lot of power, surrounded by yes men, no
Speaker 1: checks and balances, and they can make really bad decisions.
Speaker 1: It's the Iranian leadership, it's the Chinese leader, it's the
Speaker 1: Russian president, and it's a bunch of technic founders that
Speaker 1: have the same sort of challenges, even if occations are
Speaker 1: not as momentous on the nuclear front. Putin's number one.
Speaker 1: It's pretty clear, and it's the worst decision that's been
Speaker 1: made by any leader on the global stage since the
Speaker 1: wall came down. And and you know, it's basically he's
Speaker 1: got a chess player, he's a poker player. He made
Speaker 1: a big all in that on a bad hand, and
Speaker 1: he's gotten called and now he's in very serious trouble
Speaker 1: and he's not going anywhere. He's not gonna be forced
Speaker 1: out of power. So the question is, as this war
Speaker 1: doesn't end, but as they can't win, what will Russia
Speaker 1: do as the most powerful rogue state globally? And that's
Speaker 1: a danger to all of NATO while they are they
Speaker 1: are the biggest nuclear power on the planet, so the
Speaker 1: idea of them being you know, beholden to nobody is
Speaker 1: pretty troubling. Yeah, And you know, the funny thing is,
Speaker 1: for me, the nuclear weapons strike is the least of
Speaker 1: my worries because they you know, the leader is not
Speaker 1: looking for armageddon, but it's all the things he can
Speaker 1: do because he has his nuclear weapons, so you know,
Speaker 1: fiber strikes, pipeline strikes, cyber attacks, espionage, disinformation. It's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine that Putin facing an expanded NATO, a much
Speaker 1: stronger Ukraine, and and feeling like he's losing the war
Speaker 1: because he's fighting NATO. Not he's not just fighting Ukraine,
Speaker 1: he's fighting all of that support is gonna lash out
Speaker 1: against at least for line NATO countries. And it's not
Speaker 1: like he's gonna engage. He's not gonna do ballistic missile strikes.
Speaker 1: But when he hits them with cyber and fiber and
Speaker 1: the rest, and their massive economic consequences of that and
Speaker 1: political disruption, what are they going to do to Putin
Speaker 1: and the answers They don't have much more they can
Speaker 1: do to p Well and what worries me is that
Speaker 1: the old dodge of dictators and frankly democracies from time
Speaker 1: to time too, is that if you've lost your legitimacy domestically,
Speaker 1: you will invent or exacerbate some foreign issue so that
Speaker 1: the folks can rally around you. And Putin, as as
Speaker 1: you've indicated, has made such a horrific decision that ought
Speaker 1: to so diminish his legitimacy as a leader. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's going to have to take some extraordinary steps to
Speaker 1: get the people to rally around him. In other words,
Speaker 1: he's gonna have to cook up some pretty serious foreign conflicts,
Speaker 1: and he's done some incredibly unpopular things. I mean, his
Speaker 1: decision to call up an additional three hundred thousand reservists
Speaker 1: from the population and throw them into the eat grinder
Speaker 1: of the front line. We know there's been a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand Russian casualties in this war so far. It hasn't
Speaker 1: even hit the one year date, and and not going
Speaker 1: to end anytime soon. You know, these parents are not
Speaker 1: going to be happy on the ground in Russia, the
Speaker 1: community is not going to be happy so long term. Increasingly,
Speaker 1: people around Putin feel like dead enders. They're folks that
Speaker 1: know that, you know, whatever they do, whether this peace
Speaker 1: or whether there's war, they end up in the Hague.
Speaker 1: And and that leads to bad decision making. Hey, speaking
Speaker 1: of the folks around Putin, Uh, we have come across
Speaker 1: quite a few accounts of the number of oligarchs and
Speaker 1: insiders who have slipped on apparently the very very slippery
Speaker 1: floors in Russia and fallen out of windows, for instance,
Speaker 1: are committed suicide by shooting themselves ten times. Um, did
Speaker 1: you buy those reports? Is that stuff legit? You know
Speaker 1: it's about twenty mid tier aliars have have jumped out
Speaker 1: of windows, probably already dead. Um. And uh, you know
Speaker 1: the funny that you kind of have to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: why doesn't Putin just execute them? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody knows who's responsible for their death. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a taller dictator might feel more confident. Wow, now
Speaker 1: that's analysis. Yeah, exactly how much backing does Putin have
Speaker 1: from China at this point or early on? You know
Speaker 1: they were kinda together on this, but are they still
Speaker 1: early on? Meaning before the war? Remember that that big
Speaker 1: statement everyone talks about when he went to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: That was February four, twenty days before they started attacking. Um.
Speaker 1: China is not providing any military support to Russia, and
Speaker 1: lord knows the Russians wanted. They're also not breaking any
Speaker 1: American sanctions because they don't want secondary sanctions that hit
Speaker 1: Chinese companies. China's growth is not exactly staggering right now. UM,
Speaker 1: So the Russians are left with almost no friends. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, when we were fighting the Soviets in the
Speaker 1: Cold War, the world was kind of divided into Europe
Speaker 1: was divided it into. Today, the Russians have made in
Speaker 1: Ukraine and everyone is either with the West or on
Speaker 1: the sidelines. There's really the only people that are actively
Speaker 1: supporting Russia is Belarus, which isn't really a country at
Speaker 1: this point. There United Nations mission actually is literally co
Speaker 1: located inside the Russian mission. It's kind of pathetic. Um,
Speaker 1: the North Koreans who are providing ammunition for the Russians,
Speaker 1: and when the North Koreans or the military support that
Speaker 1: you have face, you're not doing that well. And then Iran,
Speaker 1: which is a rogue state uh in harmony with the
Speaker 1: Russians providing a lot of drones and probably ballistic missiles
Speaker 1: and that is a danger. But that's about it. That's
Speaker 1: all the Russians have at this point, so they're really isolated.
Speaker 1: You'll remember in Bali about a month and a half
Speaker 1: ago we had the G twenty. The Russians didn't even
Speaker 1: show because they knew they were going to be isolated,
Speaker 1: didn't want to be embarrassed. Yeah, no, this is the
Speaker 1: global risks fore and not for the next fifteen years.
Speaker 1: But um, the question of succession in Russia fascinates me
Speaker 1: because anytime he got an oligarch like Putin is so
Speaker 1: you know, gathered the power to himself personally, What the
Speaker 1: hell is the future gonna look like when this guy
Speaker 1: finally croaks. Well, it's not going to be someone like
Speaker 1: Alexey Navalny who's languishing in a heavy labor camp right now.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, Boris Nemsoft type who was like
Speaker 1: a real opposition democrat and was assassinated walking outside the
Speaker 1: Kremlin a few years ago. It's probably a person or
Speaker 1: people from around the military complex in Russia. It could
Speaker 1: be someone like Progoshon, who is the founder and owner
Speaker 1: of the Wagner Group, which is this paramilitary organization that
Speaker 1: has tens of thousands of well trained troops that are
Speaker 1: doing some of the damage right now, both on the
Speaker 1: ground in Ukraine but also in Libya and Mali in
Speaker 1: other countries. It could be someone like the Minister of Defense.
Speaker 1: It's not. In other words, this is a Putinus successor,
Speaker 1: is not someone who is suddenly going to say, wow,
Speaker 1: we need to really open up to the Americans. We
Speaker 1: just got it all wrong. And if we could only
Speaker 1: find a way to engage with those good guys in
Speaker 1: the West, and that's that, that's not the way they feel.
Speaker 1: They feel like the West has humiliated them intentionally for decades.
Speaker 1: So I remember when they had the voulte in there
Speaker 1: in China with the weird thing where they came over
Speaker 1: and hustled that one old dude out of there. You
Speaker 1: tweeted out that she was now the most powerful person
Speaker 1: in the world. Explained that, yeah, well, I mean, China's
Speaker 1: the second most powerful country in the world's second largest economy,
Speaker 1: technologically not quite a parody with the US, but close
Speaker 1: um and Juan Ping has surrounded himself only with loyalists,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't true when he became president ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Back then, there was a need for consensus building on policy.
Speaker 1: You had hardliners, you had technocrats, you had economic pragmatists,
Speaker 1: you had Shanghai faction, you had those that you know
Speaker 1: came up through the Beijing Communist Party. App right, it's
Speaker 1: not true anymore. Now. It's basically you're supporting jan thing.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that is he doesn't get the
Speaker 1: same level of information, doesn't benefit from the same level
Speaker 1: of internal part up policy debate. And that's that's how
Speaker 1: you can move from zero COVID to everybody gets COVID
Speaker 1: in a week and the and the Chinese aren't aren't
Speaker 1: ready for it. It's because they're not having these thoughtful,
Speaker 1: coordinate debates. I mean, you know, China's always been authoritarian um,
Speaker 1: but but it hasn't been a closed decision system in
Speaker 1: terms of policy leaders. Now is, and that of course
Speaker 1: makes it a much greater risk on the global stage,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of the zero COVID thing, it's it's
Speaker 1: so easy for those of us who are lovers of
Speaker 1: liberty to see the least tremor in China and say,
Speaker 1: look at that resistance to the communists. How much trouble
Speaker 1: are they in over the zero COVID shutdown, which costs
Speaker 1: them tremendous amounts of revenue both going out and in.
Speaker 1: People don't tend to talk about that, but also caused
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of resent going forward, they
Speaker 1: might see millions die. How big a problem is this
Speaker 1: for the communists? Well, they won't see millions die because
Speaker 1: they won't admit to it. So far, As of this morning,
Speaker 1: the Chinese government said that thirty seven people have died
Speaker 1: from COVID in the last month, um, which is uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe who knows, maybe they're shooting them after
Speaker 1: they die from COVID. There's not It's ridiculous, it's ludicrous.
Speaker 1: It's not believable at any level. I mean literally, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got some provinces where you've got nine of the
Speaker 1: population that's gotten COVID in the past weeks that they're
Speaker 1: probably experiencing hundreds of thousands of death that might be
Speaker 1: a million or more, and they're just not going to
Speaker 1: talk about it. And you know, the dead don't protest,
Speaker 1: so that's not going to be much of an issue.
Speaker 1: And all those people that did protests when they were
Speaker 1: angry and really fed up with with zero COVID lockdowns,
Speaker 1: they weren't arrested, but they all got visits from local police.
Speaker 1: They were made to sign pledges that said that they
Speaker 1: understood that what they did was illegal and if they
Speaker 1: did it again, there would be very serious consequences. That
Speaker 1: lose their jobs, that probably lose their liberties. And you know,
Speaker 1: these were not professional activists, they weren't anarchists. They were
Speaker 1: just regular people that had enough and they were pretty scared.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've spoken with some of them. They were
Speaker 1: surprised that the Chinese government was able to find them
Speaker 1: and track them down. They shouldn't be, it's a surveillance state,
Speaker 1: but they were. And so I personally don't think that
Speaker 1: there's any meaningful threat to shijin Ping or to Communist
Speaker 1: Party rule as a consequence of all these challenges they've
Speaker 1: had with zero COVID going forward. Kind of a general
Speaker 1: question before we go back into the particular risks, how
Speaker 1: do you grade the the scariness of the world right now.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be guilty of present is um
Speaker 1: and you know, ignore the fact that the world has
Speaker 1: always been kind of a scary place, but it seems
Speaker 1: particularly unsettled right now. UM. I think there are three
Speaker 1: different things to think about. The first is that democracies
Speaker 1: like the United States and Brazil and like in Europe
Speaker 1: are stronger and more resilient than people think. And everyone
Speaker 1: wants to panic and say, oh my god, we could
Speaker 1: be an authoritarian state. It could be fascism that had
Speaker 1: their brains destroyed by four years of Trump this kind
Speaker 1: of thing, or social media are watching too much cable
Speaker 1: um that that's overstated by a long margin, and that
Speaker 1: should make us feel much more comfortable about where we are,
Speaker 1: how we live, what the future boats um compared to
Speaker 1: a lot of what we hear in the headlines um.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we have all these issues I've
Speaker 1: just been talking about where things, especially from a guy
Speaker 1: like Putin with six thousand nuclear warheads. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a meaningful chance. It's not a high chance that we
Speaker 1: could see a nuclear war between Russia and Ukraine. I
Speaker 1: could launch anook and then we could be fighting the
Speaker 1: Russians directly. I'm not saying it's a fifty percent chance,
Speaker 1: but it's at least a five percent chance. That's higher
Speaker 1: than at any point since the Cuban missile crisis. So
Speaker 1: that's a that's a horrible thing to think about and
Speaker 1: then more broadly, um, you have the fact that fifty
Speaker 1: years of globalization, where the world was getting wealthy and
Speaker 1: where a global middle class was getting bigger, we now
Speaker 1: get eight billion people on the planet. We just hit
Speaker 1: that mark a couple of weeks ago, more than ever before,
Speaker 1: and yet a majority of the people on the planet
Speaker 1: are getting poorer. We're having more people slipping into poverty,
Speaker 1: more women slipping into the informal economy, more kids leaving
Speaker 1: school because of the pandemic, because of the high inflation,
Speaker 1: because of the Russia War, because of the supply chain
Speaker 1: challengesn't because of climate change, and long term, we've got
Speaker 1: to do something to turn that around. That that is
Speaker 1: not sustainable. That's not a one year issue, but that's
Speaker 1: like a generational issue. We can't end up in this
Speaker 1: fundamental fragmentation between the West and the South. And that's
Speaker 1: right now where we're heading. Well, you know, that actually
Speaker 1: reminded me of something I'm meant to ask about China,
Speaker 1: and that is um And again, this is more long
Speaker 1: term than immediate. But China's demographic situation, the aging of
Speaker 1: their population is astounding. The more you look into tell
Speaker 1: us about that, Well, it's the worst defographic trend of
Speaker 1: any major country ever in peace time. At one point
Speaker 1: four billion people right now. The population maxed last year
Speaker 1: and assume me two years ago, and uh, they are
Speaker 1: heading towards the range of projections are between nine million
Speaker 1: to five hundred million. By so I mean, in other words,
Speaker 1: that population is going to go down by either a
Speaker 1: third to two thirds in the course of in the
Speaker 1: course of a few generations. That is uh. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, for so many years we talked about the
Speaker 1: coming China century. Right there's no China century in that
Speaker 1: environment there. You might have a China decade, you might
Speaker 1: have a China decade. It's not even clear that China
Speaker 1: is going to become the largest economy. It's possible they won't.
Speaker 1: But if they do, they're not going to maintain a
Speaker 1: dominant position at all for long. They can't because the
Speaker 1: population just won't wow it, it it won't be there. They
Speaker 1: won't be able to grow the way they will need.
Speaker 1: So in the United States we deal with a low
Speaker 1: birth rates by importing plucky young Venezuelans and folks from
Speaker 1: a Central American all over the world. Does China have kids?
Speaker 1: We have some kids. You know occasionally, but not not barely.
Speaker 1: Two point one per woman, a lot, a lot more
Speaker 1: than in China, is the point. Well, China would have
Speaker 1: to change fundamentally though to have any sort of significant
Speaker 1: immigration right. Well, first of all, when Jumping took power
Speaker 1: ten years ago, the first thing he did as a
Speaker 1: major policy was he got rid of the one policy,
Speaker 1: had no impact. Then he got rid of the two
Speaker 1: child policy, had no impact. So that ain't working. So
Speaker 1: you're not you're not getting Chinese women to have more kids.
Speaker 1: They refuse um and you know, especially as they get wealthier. Um,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't expect that trying to change without massive economic
Speaker 1: intervention that China is not planning on doing. And it's
Speaker 1: it's almost inconceivable that they would open up immigration in
Speaker 1: a way that would have a meaningful packed on that.
Speaker 1: The population is so culturally homogeneous. It's just it's almost inconceivable.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. Okay, one more thing before we get to
Speaker 1: number three on the risk list, which I just blew
Speaker 1: my mind. But back to the theme of loadsome regimes
Speaker 1: and how how rock solid they are. The protests in
Speaker 1: Iran again dramatic, moving morally powerful, how significant, um bigger
Speaker 1: than two thousand nine all over the country, but leaderless,
Speaker 1: very hard to shut down as a consequence, but not
Speaker 1: really much of a threat to creating a new regime.
Speaker 1: And so far the i r C, the Revolutionary Guard
Speaker 1: cores UM has not been using UM anywhere near the
Speaker 1: level of violence that is available to them. UM. Some
Speaker 1: have died, certainly, but I mean we're not talking about
Speaker 1: like going in and just clearing out with with guns
Speaker 1: and heavy weapons, except in the Kurdish region where they
Speaker 1: have done some of that, but not not as much
Speaker 1: of a problem for the regime as a whole. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's been no willingness to UH to to in any
Speaker 1: way compromise on the way that head scarves are mandated
Speaker 1: or the way that the religious police can impose their
Speaker 1: will in unilateral and arbitrary fashion. So what you have
Speaker 1: is a regime that is run by an eighty three
Speaker 1: year old who is not very good health, supported by
Speaker 1: the military that's been kind of kicking the can and
Speaker 1: hoping that this is going to eventually stop. But there's
Speaker 1: willing to deal with this level of instability at the
Speaker 1: same time that providing all the support to Russia and
Speaker 1: they are getting closer to a nuclear weapon, and what
Speaker 1: that means is Iran is not likely to implode. Rather,
Speaker 1: we're getting closer to confrontation between Iran, Israel, the Saudiast,
Speaker 1: the United States UM in trying to prevent them from
Speaker 1: becoming a nuclear weapons state. Lovely to look forward to.
Speaker 1: I've seen a bunch of different interviews with you on
Speaker 1: this this list, so I know this one one of
Speaker 1: the one of the headlines was written for the first
Speaker 1: time by a robot or a bot or whatever. What's
Speaker 1: up with that? Yeah, my my risk was written by
Speaker 1: a bot of was called weapons of mass disruption. We
Speaker 1: input at the risk and we said what would you
Speaker 1: call this? And that's sort of came up with thought
Speaker 1: that was pretty good, Like I can fire a bunch
Speaker 1: of my people and that's pretty cool. So, you know,
Speaker 1: certainly the headline writers for the New York Post, we're
Speaker 1: not going to need those guys going forward. What the
Speaker 1: risk is about is that the United States, you know,
Speaker 1: is creating these tools that actually really disrupt democracy and
Speaker 1: we saw that. We saw that in Brazil this weekend.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean the same social media that allowed
Speaker 1: Trump to build his popularity and build you know conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories that made people really believe that the stolen and
Speaker 1: if their patriots they should come out and support him
Speaker 1: and occupy the capital. That's exactly the playbook that Bolson
Speaker 1: Arrow has been playing for the last year, that the
Speaker 1: only way he can lose the fitz Reagan's using these
Speaker 1: algorithms on social media UM to challenge democracy and the
Speaker 1: problem in the coming year UM is that increasingly the
Speaker 1: power of these AI tools both to be used to
Speaker 1: create malware that will help cyber tax and also to
Speaker 1: create bots that you and I can't tell aren't human beings.
Speaker 1: And the danger of that in terms of the ability
Speaker 1: to promote disinformation for elections around political movements and extremism UM,
Speaker 1: as well as the next time we have a game stopped,
Speaker 1: meme stock episode and disrupting markets. We just never dealt
Speaker 1: with anything like this in democracies and we're not ready
Speaker 1: for it. So it's a it's a pretty meaningful danger,
Speaker 1: and it's one that you know the companies are aware of,
Speaker 1: but their business models are aligned to maximizing engagement and data,
Speaker 1: which means that they really don't want to fix the problem.
Speaker 1: For ways to fix the problem, you just verify everybody online,
Speaker 1: but they won't do that because it would destroy their
Speaker 1: market cap. Yeah, I've got to admit that all of
Speaker 1: this stuff is so interesting, and we we bow in
Speaker 1: appreciation to your expertise and the rest of it. But
Speaker 1: this section in particular just blew my mind the idea
Speaker 1: that AI, through its sheer, you know, productivity, it can
Speaker 1: churn out so much content that the bulk of the
Speaker 1: content is going to make it harder and harder to
Speaker 1: find the truth. And then you combine that with the
Speaker 1: algorithms for its distribution and tweaking people the way they
Speaker 1: want to be tweaked. I mean, truth seeking is going
Speaker 1: to become It seems it's already hard. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's gonna get damn near impossible. And even
Speaker 1: even worse than that, I think empathy seeking is going
Speaker 1: to become impossible because we treat you, we still treat
Speaker 1: human beings in a different way because we feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, we are they and they deserve a level
Speaker 1: of engagement and solicitousness and trust and all the rest.
Speaker 1: And suddenly, when we can no longer determine who is
Speaker 1: a human being and who is a bot, it's not
Speaker 1: just we get fooled by bots and treat them like humans.
Speaker 1: It's also that we stopped treating human beings like humans,
Speaker 1: we start treating them like bosts. Never you ever been
Speaker 1: on Twitter? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: think that's bad, that's nothing. That's nothing. Can we get
Speaker 1: the bots to argue with each other and then just
Speaker 1: lock them in a room and leave them alone or
Speaker 1: all the way down? I think that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 1: The problem is that they can those bots can fucking multitask.
Speaker 1: That's the problem. Yeah. Yeah, Well I was gonna say
Speaker 1: I don't give a crap about empathy, but no, so
Speaker 1: I so you Uh yeah, I heard you say that
Speaker 1: you could. I don't argue with people on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: think that's a real waste of your time. But um,
Speaker 1: you could end up in an argument with someone and
Speaker 1: it is a computer and you don't know it. And
Speaker 1: that's coming this year, and that's coming this year. Ye yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. I think that the advances. The people
Speaker 1: I talked to that are very involved in these new
Speaker 1: AI startups, one of whom as a founder, tells me that,
Speaker 1: you know, the Turing tests will be fundamentally broken. Uh,
Speaker 1: sometime in the next twelve months, meaning that you could
Speaker 1: no longer with a fifteen minute conversation between you and
Speaker 1: something online through texts not videos, Yet UM would not
Speaker 1: be able to distinguish whether that was a human being
Speaker 1: or not. Well, let me be the first to welcome
Speaker 1: our new robot overlords. UM. You know, the Polish people
Speaker 1: I think are underappreciating in the United States. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: because I grew up in Chicago Lands surrounded by Polish Americans,
Speaker 1: but I mean the Poles have endured horrors and hardships
Speaker 1: and shown courage the likes of which we could only
Speaker 1: hope to imitate over the last century. And you cite
Speaker 1: the upcoming Polish parliamentary elections as a likely target of
Speaker 1: Russian aggressive inner parents. What would that look like? Well,
Speaker 1: because Poland, after the United States, is providing the most
Speaker 1: defense support for the Ukrainians, and they're on the front lines,
Speaker 1: and they're arguing for much sharper policies. They're the ones
Speaker 1: that want the US to send to do a no
Speaker 1: fly zone, to send advanced battle tanks UM and UH
Speaker 1: and and aircraft bombers fighters into Ukraine to let them
Speaker 1: like actually take the war to Russia. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is massively oscillatory stuff. But the Poles, who have been
Speaker 1: housing millions of Ukrainians in their homes over the past year.
Speaker 1: I feel like if it wasn't for Ukraine, this war
Speaker 1: would be im Poland. And you'll remember that one Ukrainian
Speaker 1: air defense missile actually went down in Poland after the
Speaker 1: Russians were attacking border targets and killed two Polish farmers, right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean they're part of the war, and and uh,
Speaker 1: the response to that aggressiveness, the Russians have a very
Speaker 1: strong interest in doing what they can um to undermine
Speaker 1: those in Poland that are trying to promote that kind
Speaker 1: of political argument. And so yeah, I think that first
Speaker 1: of all, we've seen far more Russian cyber attacks against
Speaker 1: Poland than any other NATO state. Um, just a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, they were engaged in all these attacks against
Speaker 1: logistical companies. Some were humanitarians, some were providing devents logistics,
Speaker 1: and suddenly they all got hit by Russian Now where
Speaker 1: expect we'll see a lot more of that. Wouldn't surprise
Speaker 1: me if we see hits on pipelines, critical infrastructure in Poland,
Speaker 1: as well as espionage efforts I mean, frankly and the
Speaker 1: worst you could even imagine a fascination attempts. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of things. Remember when the Iranian
Speaker 1: has tried to kill John Bolton? Remember that? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they're hard, They're horrible at the stuff. The
Speaker 1: Russians are better at this stuff. So I mean silence
Speaker 1: fy versus By and James Bond. But this is the
Speaker 1: position the Russians increasingly see themselves. So you put a
Speaker 1: nuclear exchange at five per cent, Well, where do you
Speaker 1: put to China invading Taiwan for the next year, in
Speaker 1: the next year functionally at zero? I mean, yeah, long term,
Speaker 1: it's a threat. In there were Taiwanese presidential elections. If
Speaker 1: the Chiwanese were to elect someone who supported independence, that
Speaker 1: would be a much greater risk scenario. But for now,
Speaker 1: Taiwan is so economically critical to both the Americans and
Speaker 1: the Chinese we really don't want to fight over Um.
Speaker 1: Here's the question. A guy like you, the first thing
Speaker 1: you do in the morning is probably a feed moose
Speaker 1: your dog. But after that, what do you check for?
Speaker 1: What's yours demanding? Little fuck? Yeah? What's your first uh
Speaker 1: choice to look at the headline New York Times Financial Time.
Speaker 1: Where where do you look first? Actually, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: it's probably thirty minutes of in the background listening to
Speaker 1: NPR Morning Edition while I'm going about my morning of blutions.
Speaker 1: Got you yours. It's just such a tradition. I love radio.
Speaker 1: I like listening to you know, to baseball on the radio.
Speaker 1: Just do something about it that I find deeply relaxed.
Speaker 1: You're aware of that there are liberals. I they are liberals.
Speaker 1: They are. Yeah, as it turns out, yes they are, clearly.
Speaker 1: But my shows on TBS, for Christ's sake, and I
Speaker 1: had Steve Bannon on, it didn't stop me there you go. Well, hey, congratulations,
Speaker 1: I just saw years in the Eurasia group, and we
Speaker 1: we enjoy the report every year thirty well twenty five
Speaker 1: years as the talk show, the arm Strong Show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're common law married in most states, I think us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, it's always a pleasure. I wish we had
Speaker 1: time to talk about some of the other points, like
Speaker 1: water stress, although the radio ranches underwater currently now, so
Speaker 1: that's not going to be as top of mind for folks.
Speaker 1: But um, great to talk to you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but let's do it again soon. Thanks a million, whenever
Speaker 1: you want. Hey, great talk you guys. All right, thanks.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't answer. He didn't give me a straight answer
Speaker 1: on the how sky of the world is clearly dodging.
Speaker 1: It's because he's building. You know how people have a
Speaker 1: panic room. He's got a panic palace, twenty stories underground, impenetrable,
Speaker 1: built entirely of titanium and diamonds. I go back and
Speaker 1: forth in this in my own mind. Actually, Like there's
Speaker 1: a new book out about uh Reagan in the State
Speaker 1: of Things between the United States and the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: in the eighties, and I read them thing I yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember that, or I was too young to
Speaker 1: like fully appreciate it. Are you look at night or whatever.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, people like Henry Kissinger, who has
Speaker 1: been around a hundred years, say this is unsettled now
Speaker 1: since World War Two on the global stage. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think he would Ian would agree. And he
Speaker 1: made reference to this that your rogue states of the
Speaker 1: past could stir up some pretty serious ship, but they
Speaker 1: didn't have nuclear weapons like RAN's gonna have in a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee or so, and you know, in in
Speaker 1: North Korea, I'm convinced North Korea is overrated as a
Speaker 1: global threat. Honestly, dopey little hermit kingdom only does his
Speaker 1: generate you know, noise so that he can tell his
Speaker 1: his people, look, we're under threat, keep me as your dictator,
Speaker 1: and then try to find a grain of rice to eat. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, some of these other regimes, they definitely
Speaker 1: heightened the tension Pakistan. You know, talk about underrated regimes
Speaker 1: for for instability Pakistan, and they're hanging by a thread.
Speaker 1: That government anyway, extra large