TikTok Dictators and the End of Hegemony

'cause you might remember Marco last year on a podcast with you. I said there was no chance that Jason Tatum. Was good enough to lead a team to the NBA championship. I think in retrospect, that was the correct call. It was just everybody else was so shitty. Anyway, we're not supposed to do that. So anyway, why don't we start here.

Um, there's been a lot of weird stuff in the Middle East the past couple of days. Um, I. Kind of started with actually something you sent me with RFK Junior and Nancy Pelosi, both raging at King Abdullah the second of Jordan. Also, star Trek's most famous Extra, made an appearance in the Star Trek Voyager for you. Star Trek nerds out there. And apparently the, the issue is that King Abdullah said that he would accept 2000 till children from Gaza who had cancer and other illnesses.

Um, he's only taken in 44 now. He's slow playing it. And Jordan says that the king is slow playing it because he is not sure they're gonna be able to return to Gaza. I don't know who would wanna return to Gaza. There's nothing left of it, but we can get into that later. And Kennedy and Pelosi are taking this as a personal affront and a betrayal. We can get into that, um, later. Then earlier this week. The Houthis struck Israel with a missile. Um, this was not your garden variety missile.

It got past missile defense. It made a huge crater near the Tel Aviv airport, shut down flights in and out of Israel for a while. So it got the Israeli's attention. Israel went back and hit them. In the meantime, uh, apparently Donald Trump had a call. With the Houthis and agreed that the United States would stop bombing them as long as the Houthis stopped bombing shipping to which the Houthis, and I mean, we're, we're, we have to take this, you know, at face value from the source.

But according to Mr. Trump, the Houthis said, cool, we're just gonna keep bombing Israel. And Trump was cool with that. Uh, there was no objection from the United States that the Houthis were gonna keep on with Israel as long as they stopped bombing ships. Um, I, some of the quotes here about the Houthis are also incredible. Trump's saying that he had a good outcome, they had a great capacity, withstand punishment, uh, quote. You could say there's a lot of bravery there.

It's amazing what they took. End quote, um, Israeli Prime Minister of Benjamin Netanyahu has come out and said, fine, the Israelis will defend themselves alone against the Houthis, if they must, if the United States is not on their side. Um, and then amidst all of this, Israel also in the last week or two, has been talking about. Basically just annexing the Gaza Strip.

There have also been rumors and various reports that the United States has agreed to administer the region on a temporary basis until the Israelis or some other group of countries or whatever else can take it over. Like there's a lot that is unclear here and in the background. Iran and the United States continue to have negotiations, and Marco Papich has been running around the Middle East briefing clients and learning things from the ground up. Marco, where should we start?

I consider this matter over actually Vice President Harris is, you know, brought that up in the debates, if you remember. And she actually accused him of being callous and glib about, uh, American servicemen being, you know, put in harms ma away. Um. You know, I think it's appropriate given that the world is multipolar and you can't, uh, enforce some sort of a unipolar normative hegemony. So you've got to, you know, recognize the reality.

But what's interesting to me is just how quickly apparently the deal was struck between the US and the Houthis, and what's not clear to me, but I lean towards the view that President Trump. And the Houthis actually agreed that they would not target American vessels and American shipping. It didn't seem to me like the Houthis said that they would like stop targeting all shipping, but I. You know, I guess that's yet to be confirmed or, you know, seen in reality.

So, um, it does seem to me like the US is, you know, effectively just pursuing its own interests. And I think that, uh, most countries in the Middle East, uh, already knew that. In fact, one of the interesting things that I did found out while I was in, uh, Saudi Arabia was that for many Saudis, it was really after. Various drones attacked their infrastructure, energy, infrastructure, um, that Saudi Arabia took seriously.

Uh, this idea that Americans wouldn't be there to actually prevent any conflict with Iran, and therefore they went ahead. And made their own detant, I don't wanna call it a peace deal 'cause it's not Iran and Saudi Arabia are always gonna be rivals and they're all always gonna look at each other as skew. But, uh, it was interesting that that was, that was the narrative that, uh, was very prevalent in Saudi Arabia. It was like an obvious thing, like Yes.

I mean, once we realized that Iran can strike in inside Saudi Arabia, you know, relatively, uh, with little costs from the American perspective, we decided to make our own deal with them.

But, but that's neither here. And nor there.

Um, well, let me just, let me cook on Israel for a second, uh, for all three of our Israeli listeners and Yes, yes, I'm gonna do that. The thing I hate the most in the world, a guy with the last name Shapiro, is gonna tell you about Israeli geopolitics. Um,

And I think long term in Israel's grand strategy, it's the exact wrong thing to do because the long term threat to Israel is not from Iran, from a Shiite Persian country that is many thousands of miles or however much it is away from Israel. It's from. Local Sunni Arabs and from Turkey, and those forces have been sort of gaining in power, gaining in wealth around Israel, even as some of them, like the Saudis are batting their eyelashes at it. And Netanyahu continues to hammer on the Houthis.

The other thing that Netanyahu did was he completely tripled down in his relationship with Donald Trump. Thought that Donald Trump was gonna look out for Israeli interests, thought that, you know, he had the measure of the man, and that was a miscalculation. Huge. He didn't have the measure of the man. I have been saying for years that the United States would jettison Israeli interest just as soon it was as it was in US interest to do so.

And that would've been Biden, it would've been Harris, it would've been Trump. It would've been anybody. There was nobody who was gonna have that ironclad commitment. I. With Israel, and I don't care that Jared Kushner's in the background, like it's just, it's just not gonna work. And Israel long term, if it's thinking about its future, it really needs to start thinking about a world in which it doesn't have, um, sort of unqualified US support.

It needs to think about threats that are much closer to home, whether that's Turkey, in its navy, in its backyard, or going after their natural gas interests or, uh, you know, the breaking up of trees with Egypt and Jordan or real insurgency in the West Bank. Because the Palestinians realize they have nothing less left to lose. Like it's a very difficult position that Israel has put itself in.

And I, I think from just a grand strategy point of view, it's short-term politics is affecting Israel's long-term strategic interests. And this should be a big warning sign to Israeli strategic decision makers, security officials, they probably won't listen to it 'cause they're all obsessed with, you know, the Iranian nuclear weapon. And I get it, I get why you're obsessed with that. But there are much bigger fish to fry closer to home, and I don't think anything's gonna change.

And, and that's just the way that it's. And, and ramp.

I. I think that they would've been accused immediately by the Republicans of being weak. Donald Trump can do it in a second. And by the way, Donald Trump can pretty much do anything he wants, and there's very little criticism he will receive, um, from I would argue a majority of Americans. And so this is, this is a big one. This is, this is where I think, um, you know, president Trump has a mix, I think of. Pretty solid instinct on us. Interest at times.

At times, particularly tactically, maybe long term no. But tactically, yes. And second of all, you know, Donald Trump's interests are what's good for Donald Trump and continued conflict in the Middle East is not, I. He has branded himself very powerfully. This is important. Part of his brand is someone who can get deals done and more importantly, create geopolitical, equilibrium, equilibrium around the world.

And I think Israel is making a, a, you know, a very big mistake by continuing the Gaza operation. Uh, and I don't mean that from a operational perspective or tactical perspective of like, let's find hostages and destroy Hamas. You know, that's all fine and good, and Israel could do whatever they want. I understand that, but it's more from a perspective of like, is that aligned with President Trump's interests? And they should probably fall in that line.

I. If they want to continue to receive his support. And I think this Houthis deal is a great example of that. I mean, like the Houthis attacked Tel Aviv airport either right after the deal was struck, or while President Trump was, you know, phoning the Houthis. And uh, and there was no, and there has been like no comment from the United States on that. And that should be a really, that should send very cold sweat down the spine of anyone in Netanyahu's government.

What about, what about, uh, king Abdullah and, and Jordan and RFK Jr? I'll, I'll let you cook on that.

So that's where I think I disagree with you. I think Turkey and Israel can coexist. They can be rivals, they can be even enemies, but it's not an existential risk. I I, I don't see why Turkey would have that kind of a, you know, confrontation with Israel.

It was the Ottoman Empire that they, they inserted themselves and then the British Empire that held it afterwards. And if you are, if you have imperial ambitions in the region, that the area that is Israel or Palestine or whatever you wanna call it, based on your politics, has always been important for those types of regional powers that are thinking about connecting Middle East, Eurasia, all these other things. So.

Treaties that they have with Israel. Um, and I would say that that could happen because those states collapse due to Israeli actions. Now, that's less likely to happen with Egypt because it's such a large country and an influx of Palestinian refugees into Egypt I think is relatively manageable. And it's uh, you know, it's basically run by the military and so on and so on. But what's happening in Jordan is I think, very concerning. And this is, uh, this is where the west can really be callous.

Like if we had a TikTok camera, I would ask for you to like, shine it on me, because here's a country that's done nothing but like right by the west, by its allies. It's, uh, it's stable monarchy, uh, you know, king Abdullah is doing the best job he can do. Um, it's a country where Palestinian, uh, Palestinians either descendants of refugees or refugees themselves, uh, form a very large majority. It's a country where the PLO.

At one time in its, uh, in its sort of rambunctious youth when they had their hair down and they were smoking cigarettes and. Running around hijacking planes, tried to overtake King Abdullah's father King, uh, in, uh, 1971, where the United States effectively had to bring in the pa, uh, the Pakistanis to save the Hashemite kingdom. So this is a country with a history of problems between the monarchy and the Palestinians. I think King Gah has really, uh, worked on fixing that.

He is married to a very eloquent, very, uh, I think, uh, you know. Well-spoken Palestinian himself. Um, so he's tried to create this kind of syncretic culture, but the, that makes it more difficult for him to ignore what's going on. And over the past, you know, 18 months, I would say. Did the delta, the change in tone. From the monarchy of Jordan is probably the most severe when it comes to Israel out of any country in the world.

You know, people talk about Europeans not sending weapons to Israel anymore. Like that's, that's neither here nor there. The real change in attitude and tone is from Jordan, and I think King Abdullah is basically telling the world like, Hey guys, like. I can't hold back the dam any longer.

And if, uh, you know, if Israel Annexes Gaza, I think that's, you know, uh, perhaps neither here nor there, but I think the biggest problem is what happens to the Po Palestinians, the West Bank, and if they start coming across the border to Jordan, I think that Israeli threat perception is going to diametrically change. Israel has not had to guard its eastern borders, which are massive. It hasn't had to deal with them in over. You know, 30 years, it hasn't had to really worry about them at all.

And so I think that this is an existential risk to Israel. I believe that the pers, the preservation of the Hashemite monarchy dynasty in Aman is more important to, honestly, Israeli continued existence then. I mean, anything in the world. And yet they're treating it so callously because you're completely right.

Benjamin Netanyahu is perhaps one of the greatest domestic politicians in the world, but I think that he has absolutely no interest in what happens to his own country 24 months after today.

You know, I mean, like it is shocking that they would've publicly voiced this. And anyone who's watching this and hates Trump and the Republicans or hates Democrats, uh, and you know, Joe Biden, please for the love of God, realize they're kind of all morons. You know, the Nancy Pelosi and RFK can be on the same page. And that page is quite frankly, like. I mean it, it's embarrassing for the United States of America to be putting that kind of pressure on a country that's trying to balance.

I. Incredibly difficult politics and geopolitics. So, you know, God bless Jordan. Obviously I'm biased. I spent four years of my life there as a kid, and I think it's an awesome country and I think that, uh, they're doing the best in a very, very difficult region to balance all sorts of different, very difficult landmines. Um, so.

I think it's embarrassing what, uh, Nancy Pelosi and RFK said, they're basically accusing, you know, king Abdullah of reneging on his promise to bring sick children into Ahman. But it's not that simple, you know? And if, and if, if they understood that, they would just, you know, swallow the bullet and say, you know what? United States of America will take them, because it's become a very difficult thing for King Abdullah too. To, to act on.

It's actually a, a nice piece, a nice slice of humble pie for geopolitical analysts, because everything that I know about geopolitics tells me that Jordan should have collapsed during the Arab Spring. And the fact that they're still, they're still alive and kicking after taking all the Syrian refugees after everything with the Palestinians, after Isis on his borders with the rock, Saudi, all these things, sorry, lemme go further.

But I would also say that it has to do a lot with the Bedwin culture that they've adopted. The ability to sort of, you know, listen to everyone, you know, try to be. Try to take a cold shower before making any big decisions. So there's a lot of reasons for that. And obviously the support of the United States has helped, uh, support of Saudi Arabia as well at times.

Although King Hussein kind of made some mistakes, specifically with supporting Saddam a little bit during the Gulf, the first Gulf War. But the point that I'm making is you're absolutely right, and it could be even worse, not just not exist. Israel cannot ask for an, honestly, a better neighbor. And, and yet the actions of Israelis are in the long term imperiling.

That. So if you are pro-Israeli, if you care about Israel and its existence in the long term, cast your eye across the river Jordan, and take a moment to consider what would happen if Jordan, um, you know, destabilized. What's gonna happen then? Israel's gonna take the East Bank, you know, I mean, I mean, yeah. So anyways, that's, I'm, I'm, that's a ran today.

I know you wanna talk about social media and branding. But you were the one who sent me that you've been getting. Pro Ibrahim Chore, I don't think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Videos, um, on your YouTube algorithm, uh, this is the leader, dictator, president General, whatever he wants to call himself of Burkina Fasu. Uh, probably most of our listeners, uh, I don't know, we have a lot of nerds here, but so Burkina Fasu, landlock country in Africa. Uh, borders on places like Mali.

Uh, yeah, Mali to the north, Ghana to the south. Um, doesn't quite touch Nigeria has some Niger, um, that's in there. Um, also to the south is, um, ivory Coast. Um, it's about in terms of population, the size of Florida, so landlocked Florida in the middle of Africa. Um, over 40% of the population below the poverty line. Um, agriculture is the primary sector. It employs 80% of the workforce producing 35% of GDP. So we're basically in the middle ages here.

Basically, peasants, uh, gold is their biggest export, roughly 70% of exports. They also export some cottons, some zinc, some phosphates, some livestock. I hope you're getting the picture of what kind of country this is. Um, they have a penant for coups. Um, gosh, how many coups have they had in recent years? Uh, it's, uh. 19 66, 19 80, 19 82, 19 83, 19 87. Twice in 2000, 2020, uh, 2022. They also had failed coups in 19 89, 20 15, 20 23. Um, so, I mean, not exactly the most stable place.

They actually did have a very famous leader named Thomas Sakara. I was reading about him. I didn't know about him until I was, uh, doing the background on this. Marco, who was the 1983 successful coup guy, he got assassinated a couple years later in coup of 1987. Um, but was a really interesting guy. Um, embarked on a nationwide literacy campaign, land re redistribution to peasants, vaccinating Burkina Faso's children, outlawing, polygamy, and, uh, female general mutilation.

I mean, was a really, really interesting guy and talked about Burkina Fosso being the vanguard of the Third world again, assassinated after like three or four years by his friend in the Burkina Fa military. Amidst all that Ibrahim chore is now the dictator. Uh, it seems to me that he has none of. Those classically liberal, uh, policies of Thomas Sankara. Uh, but he fancies himself a dictator. He is cozying up with Russia.

He, uh, went to, I forget which country he was going to for an inauguration, but he came with a sidearm strapped and like gloves on, like has a whole like thing for theatrics and things like that. And Margo, you're getting pro videos of this guy on your YouTube algorithm. So I hand it over to you. What have you been watching that? This is what you get on YouTube my friend.

So there's geopolitical sort of side issue here, but I wouldn't overstate it. No one's gonna fight over Burkina Faso in his gold mines. Like I bet you anything geopolitical YouTubers are like all up in arms about that. No, that's not gonna happen to me. What's interesting about it is that basically I'm sitting out, I'm sitting, uh, I think like, I don't know, somewhere trying to watch some NBA highlights.

You know, and one of these YouTube shorts pops up and it's about, it's a pro like video, so I click on it 'cause I'm like, what? Burkina Faso. I haven't heard that country in a long time. And it's basically some, you know, chill dude who keeps pronouncing the country's name as Burkina Facia. Well, I mean, and he just goes, I'm not an

And then I realized like, wait a minute, this guy is literally. Like paying people around the world to make these videos. Like can we just stop for a second and acknowledge that Ibrahim tra dude with a sidearm and white gloves and like he's actually paying people around the world or some PR agency to create these poorly engineered yet organic videos about how he's an awesome revolutionary leader. I'm just like, wow, geopolitics is gone.

Like, no. All I'm thinking about like, Jacob, you and I are gonna become like absolute millionaires and here's why geopolitics is gone like mainstream. You know, just this guy tr he's, he's on our side. He's on our corner. God bless him. In fact, let me tell you something. He has shown perseverance. Fighting off the colonial French who wanted his minds. I, I'm just kidding. He actually hasn't paid me yet, so I can't really do the whole bit. But the point is, it's insane.

Like social media has become a geopolitical battleground now. I know a lot of people are gonna say, dude, that's always been the case. Like, you know, Russia has stole the election. Like, no, no, no, no. This is much more organic, much more low key, much more lowbrow, and it's kind of awesome.

Yes. And I, I will say, I'll, I take that, I'll take a little bit of the other side, which is to say, this is obviously Russia is pushing this like the, like this has the Kremlin's propaganda fingers all over it. And why they're, maybe they're testing something out. I don't know. Like I don't think that Chori was sitting there and was like, haha, I will use you YouTube. No disagree. In order to

I looked him up. Yes. He's like 37. Right.

I will do a live show out of Burkina Faso, like bring it.

I mean, no, this guy, well, his biggest challenge

And you're probably gonna have a population that is willing to trade. You know, whatever the heck he wants to do, wearing gloves with his side arm. If he gives them security, I don't know if he's gonna be able to give them security. This is a tall task. This is not, uh, this is not like bouquet le where he can just lock them all up and then start, you know, uh, uh, harvest, uh, mining Bitcoin with the powers from the volcano.

Like Burino FSU doesn't really have much that it can really go with, and he's gonna have to really defeat the GI and listen and he's gonna survive. So,

So what if the gold bugs are right and gold goes to 5,000, right? Like, look, I just, I just wanna say right away, uh, I Raheem, uh, sorry. President Tro I, Marco Poppi, I was pretty much the first to notice what you're doing on social media and call it brilliant. Uh, when you set up your Sovereign Wealth fund, I. You got your CIO right here. Boom. There you go.

But I wonder if any other of our listeners were targeted with these random videos of a random president. Like, and, and to what end? I don't know, but I do know that geopolitics is becoming far more mainstream than just a bunch of nerds. You know, IR nerds who like went to model United Nations in high school.

So something is happening where he is like, he's winning, getting on the radar of, of Western states and of English press to, to what end? Like, like with you? I'm not quite sure, but it's happening. It's, it's interesting that it's happening. So, um, okay. Um, that is segment number two. Segment number three. You wanted to talk about geopolitical quantitative. Quantitative titan. Yeah, I have no idea where you're going with this. Why don't you lead us off?

Well, the, you know what, uh, two, so I've been traveling the world, um, over the last three weeks. So I did an around the world trip to visit my clients and give some speeches. It started with Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, musket, Riyadh. I'm actually recording this out of Vadu in Liechtenstein, um, where I had some great fun with clients and, and, and good friends. And, uh, it's interesting to me that nobody's really panicking.

You know, Americans are kind of panicking about President Trump and the tariffs. The rest of the world is not, they're not happy about it. But I didn't get a sense of, you know, that the rest of the world thinks that the world is collapsing. So that was, that was interesting. I did not get asked about a recession at all. No, I got asked about

Saudi Arabia realized that it was, you know, it, it was kind of on its own, and so it had to make the deal with Iran without American participation. And then two things happened over the past week or so. First of all, we have India, Pakistan exchanging fires. We talked about that last podcast. And Vice President Shady Vance said very similar to President Trump's comments in the Houthis. He basically said like, look.

America wishes that these two countries would settle their differences peacefully, and we certainly would hope that they do so, but it's not our fight. So you've got JD Vance basically saying like, look, India and Pakistan, like, God bless you both. We hope that you figure it out. And then President Trump saying like, well, we made a deal with the Houthis, like everyone else have fun. And so there are two ways to interpret this one.

Is this hegemonic stability thesis, you know? This is why Unipolarity is so good. Charles Kindleberger famous economic historian, wrote about this in various books. Um, this idea that the Hegemon provides, uh, it solves the collective action dilemma of the world by providing global public goods such as literally the freedom of navigation. So the Houthis ex, uh, example being very important because the US has effectively just announced that it will no longer.

Provide a very expensive global public good, which is free seaborne transportation. Like they, they will do so for their own ships and so. So the, the consensus view is basically that without hegemonic stability, you have, you know, multipolar instability. There is no more America ensuring that the rest of the world is going to be safe. This is effectively the beginning of the end of the world as our former, uh, colleague and, and good friend Peter Zion, you know, wrote his book. But then.

I have a different way to interpret this, especially when I look at what's happened with Iran and Saudi Arabia making a, a, a very stable detant, which has ensured that the Israeli Palestinian conflict doesn't actually spill over the rest of the Middle East. I mean, yes, Iran and Israel Exchange missile fire, but it hasn't spread to the rest of the Middle East. And in fact, the rest of the Middle East is quite. Quite stable. I just visited three countries in the Persian Gulf and they're awesome.

There's absolutely nothing. No, I mean, there's absolutely nothing going on there. That's wrong. It would be like saying West Germany and Denmark are unstable because the Iron Curtain is next door during the Cold War. Well, that wasn't the case. Yes, iron Curtain countries behind it. Were in a bad shape, but West Germany was freaking awesome. So what I'm saying is that. Iran and Saudi Arabia actually came to an agreement. They had to sit down like adults.

They had to, they had to talk, they had to delineate their interests and they had to resolve their differences in, in a very frosty way. No one's saying there's peace between them. What I'm getting at is this, yes, you can view American hegemony and provision of all these public goods as a very. Very stable, but at some point it can also become like quantitative easing qe and, and many people in finance know that with a central bank flooded the economy with effectively cheap money with qe, it's.

It saved us from the great financial crisis and it's aftermath. Absolutely. I'm definitely not one of those people who shaked their little fist and angrily, you know, because I was short for the next four years and got my face ripped off. But at the same time, we all know that it created distortions in the economy.

So, in other words, when, when a hegemon provides stability, it does so in a way that distorts reality and often countries and regions and entire geographies become addicted to that provision of, you know, cheap geopolitical. Um, stability. You have vassal states that effectively act with impunity because they are supported by the hegemon.

You have rivals that feel slighted, that feel normatively and ideologically opposed in an existential way where they cannot come to an agreement and that creates instability. So the Withdrawal Withdrawal of American support or American oversight or American Geopolitical qe, so that you know, in financial terms would be quantitative tightening, which by the way, the Fed has been doing for several years and everybody thought it would end humanity. It hasn't at all.

Similarly. The United States of America withdrawing its overarching support may not create instability. In fact, it may create stability because countries have to act with each other, like adults. They no longer, you know, countries that are American allies like Israel or Ukraine or Taiwan, may not have the blank check that they once had. Which is not a bad thing.

It may force them to actually consider their security and threat environment and say, look, we don't have America at their back all the time, so we should actually sit down with our neighbors, with our rivals and create a geopolitical equilibrium that is effectively, you know, uh, more durable. They can, they can withstand a Donald Trump, they can withstand in the future a president, a OC.

And so that's, that's kind of my lesson over the last couple of weeks that that's gotten me thinking that maybe we overstate how beneficial. Hegemonic stability is,

Those places get worse because those places become the proxy wars that the Olympians use to fight their battles because they're not gonna fight their battles. So sort of to your point with real wars, Russia tried to do that and look where Russia is right now. Nobody else is gonna do that, China included with Taiwan in my opinion. But it's in those like forgotten places of the world that nobody really cares about.

I think that actually the lack of hegemonic power, and it's not even hegemonic power, the lack of international order, like those are the places that I think it shows up the most. And the second is, um. I think you're right for, for the snapshot in history where. Countries are all trying to take advantage of the multipolar system.

But previous area eras of multipolarity eventually go to the point where you have countries that get strong enough in their own backyards where they think they can be the global hegemon, or they have an imperative, say like Japan in the early 19 hundreds to become a hegemon because otherwise they can't continue to grow or can't continue to do the things that geopolitics is forcing them to do. So you have this. Period.

I think you're right of like stable dynamism where you have balancing against each other. But if you get to the point where say, uh, and we're not there, people have been calling this about China for example, for decades. The moment where China really can't feed itself or can't power itself and it has to go out and get those things from other places, and it needs, you know, a Blue Water Navy to do that.

It needs to fight the Americans or the Russians or anybody else, wherever they are, in order to secure access to those resources, and they think that they're strong enough to do it. Well, suddenly you can get sort of global war.

So I, the caveat there is, I think you're right in the short term, I just think that if you go too far in that direction and you get countries that begin to drink the Kool-Aid and believe that they are themselves, regional hegemons, then you get the, the possibility of some of these global conflicts. And I think the hardest thing for countries in navigating the multipolar era.

We'll be 20 years from now that we're not in World War ii because I think if things go unchecked and if you get the US on one side and China on one side, and Europe and all of these mutually exclusive interests and countries that think they are strong enough or deserve different things, like then you can get into the situation that we were in in the early 19 hundreds and, and mid 19 hundreds.

But I, I think broadly speaking, like that's the reason I am so like optimistic from an investment perspective over the next 10 to 15 years. This should be a time of booming, not of, to your point, like constraint.

But every great power is a nuclear power. Mm-hmm. So Serbia is not a great power. So no nukes for Serbia, but also Hungary is, they have nukes, Russia has nukes. Uh. German Empire has nukes, France has nus, have

So it was only with a third attempt that the Austrians actually won, and it was because the Germans came along this third time. And so I think what happens in. The world, if everybody has nukes, is that basically Austria-Hungary versus Serbia becomes a Russia versus Ukraine conflict, United Kingdom, France. Then Russia supports Serbia with weapons, um, and Germany supports Austria-Hungary with weapons.

And it's basically, you know, like these two blocks fighting a proxy war such as the Korean warp, such as Vietnam warp to an extent. And ultimately what's happening right now, uh, in other words, we don't get to World War I. We get to an Austria-Hungary versus Serbia conflict over effectively Bosnia here, governor, which Austrians lose.

Now, the extent to which the trade war has already gone shows you that economic interconnectedness does not stop countries when they think their geopolitical interests are at stake. The, the way I'm gonna push back against you though, is that.

The notion that nukes will prevent great power conflict from breaking out feels a little bit to me, like, oh, economic interconnectedness will obviously prevent countries from going to war with each other because it would destroy them like it has worked that way thus far. But I, I don't know. I'm not so saying when that, that is always gonna be the case.

The second way to think about it is that you are correct. I'll be wrong. There'll be the nuclear war and then we'll all die. But I'm gonna stick to my view because, and I'll tell you why. If there is a thermonuclear war and you are correct. The entire listening base of geopolitical cousins will, for a split second, think that Marco Pop is a moron, and that will be the last thought they have as they're incinerated, and I'm just comfortable with that view.

I'm comfortable with being wrong for three seconds, so I'm gonna say that I'll be correct the

It's about like the sort of artificial intelligence and there's a chapter about the intersection with biotechnology where the point that like some kid in his garage with CRISPR could like create a virus that could go after a particular family or a particular ethnicity, ethnic group you can. Um, so like, you're, you're probably right, like in the outlier, thermonuclear war, like, probably not gonna happen. The nuclear powers aren't gonna do battle against each other.

Maybe Austria-Hungary, nukes, uh, Serbia in your, in your metaphor or something like that. But nobody's gonna nuke Austria-Hungary. 'cause then Austria-Hungary is gonna nuke them. But could you have some radical in Austria-Hungary? He was like, okay, I have now created a weapon that will wipe out the Serbians. And then like, you know, what's gonna happen next is somebody gonna create a virus that tries to wipe out the leaders of the, of Austria-Hungary or the Austro-Hungarian themselves.

Like I, I think it starts to take us down these paths where maybe things get really dark and, and really twisty. So, so maybe it's not nukes that we should be worried about. Maybe there are other ways that, that conflict and other weapons that, that make that conflict less safer.

Uh, and yet there's a balance of power. And yet there's this very choreographed, you know, conflict every time. Like nuclear weapons. Clearly. I think clearly like if, if, if the, if the, if the South Asia subcontinent didn't have nuclear weapons, I mean, don't you think that India, given its massively overwhelming now advantage over the last at least 50 years, would have at some point just said like, what are we doing here? Like, these guys can't fight us.

How many Indians would have to die and a conventional war to number, wait a minute, number one, conquer Pakistan, and then to actually govern it, like it's just not realistic, but you could. You could get to a scenario. I don't think China's gonna do this, but let's, so let me say that now, right? This is absolutely fantastical. But let's say United States continues to decline. We don't make ships anymore. We only have 200 ships in the Navy. We're having measles outbreaks everywhere.

China has become a true blue water Navy. It's the everything else, and they decide. Um, you know what? We're gonna sail up the Mississippi and, and take the United States like we think we can do this and we're tired of this Western power, whatever. And it does. The United States at that moment say, oh, the only thing we have is nukes, like existentially. We have to survive. We fire the nukes back.

Like it has to be some type of scenario where a great power thinks it can off another great power and then they have to resort to nuke. 'cause it's like a last. Sort of ditch effort that,

Decide to start a conventional war over, and even that conflict has been prevented. And by the way, India has, has genuine, genuinely an overwhelming conventional military superiority. So clearly the reason it hasn't decided to do that is because of the Pakistani nuclear deterrent. So even a smaller conflict has been prevented.

They had to continue to expand until they had enough control to actually maintain their economy the way that was gonna be. So you'd have to have a, a, a country with that kind of imperative that says, no, I will go after the great powers, because if I don't, then the United States can just cut off my oil and I'm done in six months. Or, you know, China can just say something, great example, and I'm done. That's a, so, um, I think that's a very, a very good

But if you get to the point where China does truly have to look outward and has to secure its interest by being a global hegemon, and if it starts to believe that it can do that or must do that, like then you then multipolarity starts to shift into a sort of darker place.

And then there's the other view which says no. Uh, you know, since the end of the last basically dynasty and the collapse of the SEN temporary regime, China has effectively adopted the operating software. I. From, you know, Europe of a nation state. And that does mean that they will eventually think like Japan did, like the United States does, thinking in terms of spheres of influence, regional hegemony, global hegemony, and so on.

And so, uh, you know, I guess, I guess given your example, the world better hope that the Chinese do think there are different civilization, that they won't fall down the same path as every other regional and, uh. Global Hegemon.

Of course, at the time imperialism was on mode, you know, so like the, you know, Japanese models at the time, their, their example were the expanding German empire talking about its place in the sun, the Russian empire next door, um, you know, Europeans. And so I can see how they. They thought that they were behind on imperialism, but nonetheless, I think your point is valid. Imperialism's back,

All right. I gotta go pick up my kit. That was a good 55 minutes. We'll get back to y'all next week.