The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Conversation with Ian Bremmer — 2024’s Top Geopolitical Risks

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the Eurasia Group, joins Scott to discuss what he believes are the year’s top geopolitical risks. These include the United States vs. itself, the Middle East on the brink, and the war in Ukraine on a path to being partitioned.  Scott opens with his thoughts on why we need to rethink affirmative action.  Algebra of Happiness: demonstrating sheer love.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 282. 282 is the area code belonging to a region located in libya 1982 that's right the dog graduated from university high school in west los angeles where he was voted least likely to succeed i hate being a teacher. Go, go, go! Welcome to the 282nd episode of the Prop G Pod. We are back in action. Did you miss us?

So, holidays, time off. What did I do? Let's get back to me in Florida for two weeks that was nice warm thought I'd go in the ocean every day I did not saw much old friends and then went to Majev just outside of Geneva because you know I'm fancy and skied with my boys by the way I'm just coming out of the closet. I fucking hate skiing. I think it's a ridiculous sport. It's cold, a ton of equipment, expensive. I do like the kind of long lunches they have and European ski vacations where you just start getting fucked up at about 2 p.m.

and then pretend you're going to ski. Instead, you just kind of roll down the mountain. And I made the mistake of deciding that my kids should learn how to ski, which I never did. So we try and put them on skis 10 to 15 days a year. And I can't get over, I literally cannot get over how expensive skiing is. Anyways, what do we got going on here? In today's episode, we are speaking with Ian Bremmer for like the 11 millionth time to hear about what he believes are the top geopolitical risks for 2024. We asked Dan to come back in because he's very smart. But the Eurasia Group put out this email of the biggest risks

facing the world in 2024. And I thought it was really interesting. So I pinged him and said, come on. These risks include the United States versus itself, the Middle East on the brink, and ungoverned AI. And the thing that really struck me was he positioned it as Russia versus Ukraine, Israel versus Hamas, and the United States versus itself. And this is a big theme here that I believe the biggest threat to the United States is internal, and that is we are tearing each other apart. Anyways, what's happening? So where to begin? A Boeing 737 MAX 9 lost a door midair. I would describe that as somewhat disconcerting when a door pops open. And I think the last time it happened, nine passengers got sucked out. I remember reading the story and people in the comments section, or at least it was people in business class, but

I don't know. I don't know if that's good for an enjoyable flying experience to have. Why do I find that funny? Why do I find that funny? It's tragic. But to have the door or a piece of the fuselage fly off and then have people sucked out. I think there's a myth or a story about this happening in Russia. And somehow one of the flight attendants fell 30,000 feet and supposedly survived. And of course, in today's age, there's a discussion or a rumor that an iPhone survived. So let's hope the person who owns the iPhone survived and can recover it. I guess,

I don't think anyone has heard. Thank God. Thank God. Thoughts and prayers, though, for the iPhone. Okay, so it lost a panel. Congress avoided a government shutdown. I think you got to give it to Speaker, what's his name? Speaker Phillips, Mike Phillips. The Speaker of the House is largely an administrative position, and I think he's doing his job. I don't agree with his politics. He's sort of, what's the term? Bat shit crazy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bat shit crazy believes that school shootings were a function of them teaching evolution in school, which makes a lot of sense. But he's doing his job and has avoided a shutdown, which I think is a good thing. Stock and bond markets had their worst start to a year in more than two decades.

Think about that. Worse than 20 years. Oppenheimer won best drama during the Golden Globes. I could have predicted that. Nearly 20% of office space was vacant at the end of last year, the greatest number since at least 1979. And plagiarism is taking over the headline. So let's catch up on the whole President Gay or former President Gay, Claudia Gay saga. A couple things. One, the plagiarism stuff is just, in my view, sort of ridiculous. And it struck me that we've had five mass shootings so far in 2024, but the media seems obsessed with defining what plagiarism is.

And neither Claudine Gay nor Neri Oxman, in my view, qualify what happened there, qualified as plagiarism that should be an issue in their present-day careers. And I love what Biden said about gestures, that they should be taken with the intention that they were intended. And I feel the same way about this. In both cases, and I've spent way too much time looking at all of this, did they attempt to steal someone else's ideas and take credit for it? What it was was what I refer to as citation inaccuracy. And sure, should they be reprimanded? Should they be called out? Should they be asked to correct it? Fine, fine. But we got to put the time machine away. And that is people go on a witch hunt and try and find things in their past to play gotcha with.

And I think it's total bullshit. Now, having said that, I think President Gay should have resigned. I'm pretty sure what happened was they called and said, look, a lot of our donors, and let's be honest, we're a giant hedge fund pretending to be a university or a hedge fund that offers classes to 1,500 students, approximately what a Starbucks serves every day. And when funders started calling and saying, that's it, I'm out, they decided it was time for her to go. in anybody. They pick their own members. So there's no real governance. It's not like in a corporation where shareholders vote for the board of directors who then decides who the CEO. They are sort of where the buck stops, which means they can become very insular. Now, technically, the shareholders should be the students or the alumni or stakeholders. It's not. It's donors. Why? Because the Rolexification of university campuses over the last 40 years, which has taken UCLA to the Bel Air Mandarin Oriental from what used to be a place with really shitty facilities, but only $450 tuition per quarter. I'll go with the shitty

facilities. Thank you very much because I had a lot of fun regardless of how nice or not nice the gym was. The relaxification of university campuses and the emergence of all of these departments where we hire former important people to develop departments around ethics, leadership, sustainability, ESG that have no measurable outcomes. But isn't that great? Isn't that great? Because I get to teach something and feel important and no one can really assess whether I'm doing a goddamn thing that helps kids develop the currency and the skills to be better citizens and develop economic security for them and their families. Universities have morphed from, slowly but surely, centers of excellence to places of political dogma and sort of, I don't know, faux social engineers. And that is absolutely—no one asked them to do this. And what has happened here at DEI and the original very noble intentions to make universities and campuses more diverse, the snake is eating its tail. And I would argue some of the most racist things that have taken place in America consistently or that are systemic has occurred on campuses over the last several weeks.

And Claudine Gay's firing, granted, did she deserve to be fired? Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter. The earth shifted beneath her. Remember Gary Hart, the presidential candidate? It used to be that your personal life was off limits, and then the media decided it wasn't, and he was having an affair, and he was basically booted out out of the Democratic primary where he probably would have gone on to win the primary. It would have been really interesting. Well, the world would have been different if Senator Gary

Hart had won the Democratic nomination. Anyways, the ground shifted beneath all of these university presidents. McGill was fired and then eventually Claudine Gay was fired. She, I think in my view, handled it poorly in that, as she said, she was fired because of racism. I think there's a better argument that she was hired because of racism, not specifically racism, but affirmative action, which is a wonderful thing and was needed. Sixty years ago, there were 12 black people at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale combined. This year, we've made incredible progress.

Fifty-one percent of Harvard's incoming freshman class is nonwhite. And that's great. The problem is that across those non-whites or that population of non-whites, 70 percent are from dual-parent households that are in upper-income households. So what have we done? We have just reshuffled the elites. What is affirmative action? It is noble. Most Democrats and most Republicans agree or can come together on the basic notion that some Americans face more adversity than others, and that it makes sense to bind together through taxes and policy to give those people a hand up. I think most people agree on some form of affirmative action. The problem is, or where the emotion gets injected, is what are the criteria for who qualifies for affirmative action? And traditionally, it's been race-based. And it's not working. It

needs updating. It did work. It made sense. The academic gap between black and white 60 years ago was double what it was between rich and poor, and that has flipped. And as we stand here today, the academic gap between rich and poor kids is double or is twice what it is between black and white. That represents huge progress and also a mandate to change affirmative action. Also, it creates racism. It creates racism. Every kid at an elite university should be able to look left and right, and every member on the faculty and every administrator should be able to look left and right and go, this person is really good, maybe even outstanding, and not wonder if they got him because of the color of

their skin. The best way of identifying people who deserve a hand up and would be best for society in terms of giving them the opportunity to be productive citizens. The best litmus test for that is not the color of their skin. It's not their sexual orientation. It is their income. And this is what happens if you just had income-based affirmative action, which, by the way, the University of California adopted 26 years ago when they did away with race-based affirmative action. You get to nearly the same place. So kids who are born in low-income households deserve and need a hand up. And the ROI here would be huge, because who is most likely to be a drain to cost us more down the road in terms of diabetes or depression or incarceration? You guessed it, kids from lower-income homes. In America, you'd rather be born non-white, you'd rather be born gay than born poor. And that's a wonderful thing. So now it's time to turn our attention to the people who need our

help the most, and that is kids who, no fault of their own, are born into low-income households. We're in a capitalist society, and one of the externalities is that money talks, and these kids are silenced in terms of opportunity. We'll be right back for our conversation with Ian Bremmer. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. Ian, where does this podcast find you? I am in New York City, back home.

Back from the South Pole, Antarctica, is that right? Back from the South Pole, yeah. It was a crazy trip. I've always wanted to do it. It was about as hard as I imagined, but was pretty rewarding. I'm glad I went. Yeah, that sounds crazy, but a nice escape. It seems like that is arguably the most stable place in the world. It is. It's the first arms control agreement that was signed between the U.S. and the Soviets, and that treaty from 1959 is holding true, will until 2048. That's the next time we have to all sit down and discuss it. There's no use for military exercises or basing. There's no natural resource exploitation. There are no territorial disputes. And of course, there are no people particularly, which also makes it easier. But yeah, it was nice to be in a piece of territory that was so big. Also, no internet.

So it was like a week and a bit of just connecting with this little ball we're on. There were worse things to do at the beginning of the year. More penguins, that's the answer to world peace. Okay, so let's bust right into it. You published or Eurasia Group published a list of the biggest risks in 2024. And I've's bust right into it. You published, or your Asia group published a list of the biggest risks in 2024, and I've already parodied it. I love that you said that Israel's at war with Hamas, Ukraine's at war with Russia, and America is at war with itself. Let's start there. America's at war with itself. Aren't we? Doesn't it feel that way? A hundred percent. Yeah. Say more. Say more.

Well, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say it's all about Trump. I think that Trump is a symptom and he's certainly making it worse. But, you know, we put in the report, we went and we looked at American trust for all of these institutions in the country, the Supreme Court, Congress, the presidency, organized religion, public schools, newspaper, internet news. They've all been going down. They've all been going down for decades. They're reaching crisis levels. Three years of Biden as president. I mean, I'd like to believe that he is trying to end this challenge, but he's not in any way been successful. The U.S. is more divided and polarized three years after the Biden presidency than it was when he first came in.

So this is not going to get fixed no matter what the outcome of the election is. The stakes of the election are much higher. For Trump, they're jail. Biden and his team believe that if Trump wins, he will politicize the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS and other organizations that they will face legal jeopardy themselves. So it's becoming increasingly existential on a personal basis for the leaders of these two movements. And well, before we get to the election itself, which is a very juicy target for people in and outside the U.S. that would like chaos in America and more broadly, you have the fact that Trump is very soon very likely to get the nomination. And when he gets the nomination, he will become far more powerful immediately. He will have the Republican

Party declaring loyalty to him with their media and with a lot of money. And that means that his policies, his stated policies, whether it's on Ukraine and ending support for Zelensky, or it's on the Middle East and showing the Iranians what's what, or it's on the border, or it's on the treatment of Muslims or any trade with the Chinese, all of those will become policies, not that he's just throwing out there, but that are being supported by half of the country. And that has an impact well before the election in November. So for all of those reasons, it was inconceivable to me that we wouldn't have the United States as the top risk for 2024. And I say this as someone who back when I started my company in 1998, we didn't even focus on domestic politics in the

United States because a consolidated democracy, I mean, why would you bother? And now, I mean, it's the most important focus. What do you think, what are the root causes of this? Is it income inequality, young people not doing as well for the first time as older generations? Is it social media platforms that are polarizing us, including some that are controlled by, you might argue, bad actors? If you were to try and diagnose the underlying cancer, not just the tumor, but what is driving division in the U.S. And I agree with you. I think we could, from our interests, handle, I don't want to say handle Ukraine, but deal with it, deal with the conflict in the Middle East. The thing that might disrupt the world order is if the global cop or the most prosperous economy, the multicultural democracy, whatever you me. I have it and I'll give it to you. But I want to say a couple of things that I think will help set the stage for that answer, which is that, you know, I travel around the world a lot and talk with foreign leaders in the way that you talk to, you know, a lot of students, a lot of business leaders here in the United States. And there's an analogy. Every leader I talk to of every U.S. ally is deeply concerned about the state of U.S. democracy and believes that if Trump wins, there is going to be chaos

against the context of a couple of major wars that is really dangerous. It's really problematic. They don't want it. And yet they are unwilling to say any of that publicly because, well, Trump might win and then they're going to have to work with them, which feels just like the way CEOs talk about it, which feels just like the way Republicans in Congress talk about it. And so you do have this collective action problem of it's getting worse and worse incrementally. And we normalize it. We normalize all of it. And the reason being is because we have lots of good reasons, good reasons in the near term that our own personal interest, business interest, national interest tell us that, well, someone else should deal with that problem because we've got to go along to get along. And I, I, that's not the reason for the problem, but there are a lot of things that are facilitating it getting worse. And this is one of them, you know, I mean, American allies, if they really care about us, they should be out there saying you guys cannot allow your democracy to implode. And no, we think that Trump is a real danger.

Because, I mean, if all of the leaders of these countries around the world were to say publicly what they are saying to me privately, that would have an impact on the way the average American thinks about this election going forward. It would, but they won't say it. If all the corporate leaders were to do that, it would have an impact, but they won't say it. If Republicans that felt that way privately said it, it would have an impact, but they won't say it. And so all you have are the partisans saying it, and it's in their interest anyway. And so nobody believes it. And I mean, it does seem to me that if you have an election where the former president who did everything in his capacity to

overturn illegally a free and fair election is then running again in any normal, well-functioning democracy, that would be the number one issue. But the United States is not a normal, well-functioning democracy, that would be the number one issue. But the United States is not a normal, well-functioning democracy. So it is not the number one issue. Now, you mentioned a bunch of stuff that I think all is relevant. And I know that you've been very thoughtful about this. You've written about it. You've spoken about it. You and I have spoken about it. So, of course, I think inequality plays and identity politics plays. But I think that if there were one thing I would focus on in the United States that's really made a difference, it would be that over the last 40 years, the nurture part of raising Americans has eroded across the board. That all of the institutions like the family and church and community groups and Little League and all of the rest, like those institutions have gotten weaker and more atomized and our young people are less affected by them. And so we don't, we still have genetics, we still have nature,

but nurture is falling down on the job in the United States. We don't have that in a way that Japan still does in a way that a lot of Europeans still do to a greater degree. And replacing that for a while, nothing replaced it. But for the last 15 years, something has replaced it. And that's algorithm. And now we're raising people in America through algorithms, algorithmically. And that is not raising them to be good citizens and to be functional as human beings. It's raising them to divide and to hate and to feel anger and to feel tribal and to be better consumers and more addicted. But algorithms do not replace nurture. They really don't. And there's no regulation around this. The

business models are anti-human. I think if I had to put my finger on one thing, it would be replacing nurture with algorithm. I like that. I think that's really a great word, nurture. David Brooks has written eloquently on this for a long time. And I find that the left is afraid to talk about the importance of church and community and nod their head to the importance of dual-parent homes for fear that it comes across as being, I don't know, not progressive. What do you think of the idea of national service, mandatory national service as a means of trying? I love it. I love it. No, I love it. I mean, I talk with Chris Coons, who's one of my best friends in Washington, about this all the time.

It doesn't have to be, you know, the Peace Corps. It doesn't have to be military, but it has to be some form of voluntarism that's civic. Young people need to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves. One of the reasons Israel has been so successful for its own citizens, not for the Palestinians, obviously, is because everyone has to engage in service. That's where you meet everybody. It's a leveler. And by the way, one of the things that's been positive about this war in Gaza, and there's almost nothing that's been positive, is that the far right in Israel, the Hasidim, who used to always say, we don't want any part in national service, are now increasingly saying, no, we don't want that exception.

We think that we need to actually fight like everybody else does. We can't be free riders. We need to be a part of the country. And that will help integrate the Israeli people together to a greater degree. I think that's important. So before we actually talk about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, let's talk about the perception of the conflict here in the U.S. I'm curious if you've been as shocked as I have been. I grew up, so I'm Jewish. My mother, maiden name Levine, but I never felt any connection to Judaism or Israel. And if someone had said to me, I have quite a few Jewish friends who talk fairly frequently about antisemitism and it's still

all over the world and we're still rife with this rot that is anti-Semitism. And quite frankly, I always said, I don't see it. I don't feel it. I think you're overplaying your hand and being a little bit paranoid. And then this happens, October 7th happens, and I have been profoundly rattled and just flummoxed at the level of anti-Semitism in the U.S. One, what has been your reaction to or your thoughts around, and do you agree with that, this level of, let's not even call it anti-Semitism, let's call it anti-Israel sentiment in the U.S.? 70% of people my age support Israel, 20% of people under the age of 25, 18 to 24-year-olds, 50% support Hamas. What is your reaction to this, America's response, if you will, since October the 7th? And where do you think it comes from? Again, if you can, what is going on here? Well, it's complicated. I'm not going to sit

here and say that anti-Semitism is not a big structural problem in the United States. It obviously is. We saw it with the Tree of Life attack, the Pittsburgh synagogue, which was shocking in terms of the level of violence. People were not ready for that, and that was well before October 7th. I'm not Jewish. I was raised Catholic. But I've faced a lot of anti-Semitism for people that assume I'm a Jew. I don't know, but I've faced a lot of anti-Semitism for people that assume I'm a Jew. I don't know, because I'm intellectual and have glasses, mostly on social media, but not only. I mean, death threats and the rest, which has kind of been shocking to me, right? Obviously, if you're hitting that to me, then I mean, just imagine what my Jewish friends

are getting hit with, right? So I get that. I think that the anti-Israeli sentiment is much more understandable. The United States is quite isolated in its level of support for Israel today. Other countries around the world, including most U.S. allies, do not support this government to anywhere close to the degree that the United States does politically. Part of that is Netanyahu's democratic failings inside his country, the judiciary, the corruption, all of the rest. Some of that right bigotry, right? Extremism and bigotry on the Knesset. And some of this is earned. Members, members of his own cabinet who are calling for ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which is the opposite of what the United States should be standing for.

We don't know what our values are anymore today in America, which is part of this top risk. But but to the extent that we have values that we believed in historically, ethnic cleansing, you know, let's leave aside the treatment of the natives in the United States. But we don't believe that that's what we actually stand for. That's not those aren't the values enshrined to the Declaration of Independence, ethnic cleansing. So that's a problem that that not in Yahoo's government represents that. But also we in the United States like underdogs. You see it in March Madness and we love the Cinderella 16. You see it in Ukraine. You know, we didn't we thought they were going to lose and we're trying to help get Zelensky out. And then he says, no, I don't need a ride.

I need ammo. And and they fight. And we say, you know what, we're going to stand up for these stand up for these guys because we don't care much about Ukraine, but we support the underdog and we don't like the idea that Russians are coming in and destroying these people. And Israel has been making this argument that they face an existential threat from Hamas

and it's not true. It's not true. They faced more violence against the civilian population in the most brutal possible form that any jews have seen since the holocaust on october 7th and and we must condemn that without any caveat but israel has the ability to defend itself and the reason they didn't defend themselves is because not yahoo took his eye off the ball supported hamas and took the idf and the border controls off of Gaza and focused on taking more land of the Palestinians in the West Bank with the settler populations so

that he could stay in power because that was the nature of his coalition government. Now, Israel has by far the strongest military in the Middle East, largely through their own capacity, but also bolstered and supported by the U.S. Their defenses, Iron Dome, we provide that support. We help them defend themselves. The Israelis have a right to self-defense. Of course they do. The Palestinians also should have a right to defend themselves.

They should have a right to govern themselves, but they do not have that right. And I think that a lot of Americans, especially young Americans, who are increasingly cynical about the legitimacy of American institutions, look at what's happening to the Palestinians and say, yeah, these horrible things were done to the Israelis. Yes. Yes. OK. I don't believe that a majority of young people are sympathetic to Hamas. You will find that on social media and it will be exploited and expanded by people that can't stand them. I get it. But that's not the majority. But I think the majority of young people look at these Palestinians and they say, wow, Israel is rich and they've got all these weapons and they don't care what happens to these Palestinians. They're going to defend themselves. It doesn't matter how many Palestinians die. And Biden has slowly but surely and blinken come to try to understand that sentiment of the United States supporting an underdog. I think that's a big part of what young people are feeling in the United States today. I don't think we should be surprised by it. In some ways, we should be inspired by it, but we need to channel it much more constructively

than what we're seeing today. So I think it's difficult. A lot of people will say there's a difference between antisemitism and being anti-Israel, and that is a legitimate fair point. And I've been, and I know you have critical Netanyahu. And I mean, I think you're a little bit younger than me, but we're kind of the same age. Yeah, absolutely. For Israel among our generation, I think was the 67 war and fighting back against Goliath. It was 72 as Munich. They were the good guys. And they were the underdogs.

And they were the underdogs. That's right. And slowly but surely, they've kind of transitioned to the bad guys, at least in the eyes of younger Americans. And the eyes of the world. Do you sense, though, what I sense, and that is, I'll use a recent current event. I think it was Suleiman, I forget his name, the Iranian senior security officer who was taken out by a U.S. drone. Qasem Suleiman, yeah. terrorism, I think 100 plus people killed, front page. And then, and it's getting tons of coverage, and then they find out ISIS takes credit for it. And then it just disappears. And I interpreted it, maybe this is incorrect, but I interpreted it as, oh, it's just Muslims killing Muslims.

That's okay. But when Jews do something, it gets much more scrutiny and a much finer eye. And I joked on my, and this is, well, I used an analogy that if you wanted to bring more attention to the fentanyl crisis, just start a conspiracy theory that Jews are responsible for trafficking it. I'm sure that Alex Jones has already done that, right? I mean, so we just need to focus on that. That's hurt when you compare me to Alex Jones. But it seems to me that, and I look at this war, Israel is not allowed to win a war. They're allowed to respond to aggression and prosecute to a truce, and then they're expected to, okay, now hold up. Whereas when Al-Qaeda comes in and

kills 2,800 Americans, we respond by killing 400,000 people in World War II. I mean, you can just go on and on and on. That they are held to a different, Israel is held to a different higher standard. That people have decided that essentially the last true Christians in the world should be Jews. I sense a double standard. Do you see that same double standard or is there more play here? I think the reason that it got more coverage when people thought it might have been Israel, and it made no sense. No experts would have thought it was Israel because it was not a targeted military assassination or attack. It was a whole bunch of civilians getting killed. That's not the way Israel engages in fights. So it should have been obvious this wasn't Israel.

It got coverage, I think, in part because of the focus on what Israel is doing. And some of that, I'm sure, is anti-Semitism, informed by anti-Semitism, but also because if it was Israel, it was very likely to significantly escalate the war. And that has a very meaningful impact for the United States, for our economy, for our troops in the region, all the rest. So I think it was very legitimate that it got a lot more attention. And when it's Muslims on Muslims, yeah, we don't care. We should care, but we don't care. And that reflects Islamophobia and a different value of Muslim life out there in the Middle East or in the global South, Indonesia, Nigeria, you name it,

than if it's people that look like us, like the Ukrainians who are Europeans and white. So, I mean, I would not solely put that focus on the question as you raised it, but I think it's part of it. So, I mean, is there a double standard? The Americans should have taken out al Qaeda. That was perfectly reasonable. A 20-year war against Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq, which had nothing to do with the fight, does not seem like a legitimate response by the United States. Now, the U.S., of course, operates on a different standard because the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world, and all other countries rely on it to different degrees. So you can criticize the United States, but if you're a government, in many cases, you've got

to suck it up. That is not the case for Israel, right? Israel is in a much stronger position today because they have normalized relations through the Abraham Accords, for example, and so that geopolitically, they were in a much better position than they have been at any point since independence before the October 7th event, and some of that is still true today, though they've done damage to it. But I think very few people, I mean, if Israel were a different country, were not a Zionist Jewish state, but instead were another dominant military country that we felt neutral towards, and someone engaged in terrorism against them and killed, you know, a thousand of their citizens, and they respond with a multi-month

war that kills tens of thousands of civilians, I think you get outrage. Absolutely, I think you get outrage. And to a degree, that outrage has been minimized by the fact that the United States is an incredibly powerful protector of Israel, and the Israeli government has the ability to say, screw you to everybody else because they have that support from the United States, which they know will not go anywhere. They know is not at threat. In the form of two carrier strike forces sitting offshore, right? For example, and not only, but also intelligence cooperation and continued provision of critical defense materials like Iron Dome and all the rest. So all of that is real. I mean, Israel is the one country that has a nuclear, a significant nuclear force and has never admitted to actually having a nuclear force. Is that a double standard

in Israel's favor that they're allowed to do that? Yeah, probably. But I mean, historically, it's because, you know, there are good reasons for us to support the existence of an Israeli state where Jews can defend themselves. And that comes out of the Holocaust. I feel that history. But it's hard for that. That history doesn't last forever. And especially when their own government is undermining their own democratic values and is committing atrocities against civilians. And yes, Hamas is also responsible even for those atrocities because they operate in those civilian areas and they put their own people at risk. But anyone who thinks that the civilian casualties are only the responsibility of Hamas and not

of the Israeli government at all is crazy. Like that's not acceptable. And that's a position the Americans were on the wrong side of two months ago. And that Tony Blinken is trying to tack back ineffectually because he doesn't have a lot of influence, but he's more aligned with most of the world and many, many Americans as a consequence of doing that. This is a no-win for Biden. And I think it's going to affect the elections. I think it's going to undermine him. And that is if the war stays where it is. But you said, where's the war going? Far more likely this war is going to expand going forward. If it does, in fact, become a regional conflict, where do you think that fires up and what do you think happens?

Do you think we're slowly but surely being drawn into a regional conflict? Do you think, because my sense is the Arab states, other than Iran, don't have appetite for that as well. Iran doesn't have appetite for it either. The big states don't want it. The Israeli war cabinet is more tolerant of it. The Houthis in Yemen certainly are moving in that direction. And Hamas and Hezbollah are increasingly moving. Hamas is all in.

And Hezbollah is increasingly moving. Hamas is all in and Hezbollah is increasingly moving in that direction. But isn't Hezbollah effectively a proxy force for Iran? Yes, but proxy force does not mean that they are being ordered. I mean, the Iranians have been very happy to continue to provide weapons and for these forces to attack Israel, yes, and the United States. But Iran does not want to be involved in that fight itself. That's somewhat analogous to the United States with Ukraine and NATO with Ukraine, right? But at some point, if this war continues, the Iranians could easily get involved. Now, we're several steps away from that. If the United States start attacking the Houthis in their bases in Yemen, we get a little bit closer. If the Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq start attacking

American bases with significant casualties on the part of American servicemen and women, we get closer. If the Israelis engage in direct strikes against Iran, not like the ISIS attack, but, you know, targeted military strikes, we get closer. If Trump becomes the nominee and starts calling for direct military attacks against Iran and the Republicans move in that direction, we get closer. I mean, you know, if Hezbollah is involved in a direct war with Israel and the U.S. is providing lots of intelligence support and some military support, even if they're not directly involved in the fighting, we get closer. Now, none of that is a regional war with the Americans fighting Iran. If we get into a hot war between the Americans and the Iranians, Biden is going to lose and we'll be in a global recession and oil prices will be 150, 200 or more. We're several steps away from that. But we are not,

as I said, I don't think we land where we are right now. I think we land in between those two places with a risk that an all out war is possible. I think that's where we are. This is a horribly dangerous environment. Biden hates it. He knows it's a problem, but there's actually very little he can do to stop it. That's what we've seen over the last three months, is that he's been very ineffectual in being able to contain Israeli decision makers. We'll be right back. So you've been very indulgent with me. I'm obviously very preoccupied with Israel and Hamas. So we'll do a lightning round on some of these other issues. So you wrote in your kind of your risk for 2024 that you thought Ukraine would be partitioned? Go ahead. I fear that that is not going to go over well among a lot of people that are all in for Ukraine.

It has been, I mean, you can get pasted pretty badly publicly for not being seen as sufficiently patriotic in your support for Ukraine. I want to be very clear that when I say that Ukraine is going to be partitioned, I do not believe that is right. It is not just. I do not favor it. I want the Ukrainians to be able to take back all of their territory. I believe they should be able to do so. But it's not going to happen. And I'm not going to lie to people. And there are lots of things that we don't like that we find unacceptable, but we have to live with. North Korea has nuclear weapons. We've said it's unacceptable. Okay. That's not a policy.

You know, Taliban can't run Afghanistan. 20 years later, there they are, Assad's in Syria. So Ukraine's going to be partitioned, but it's not going to be accepted or recognized by Ukraine or by the Americans or by most of the Europeans. It might be by some. And Zelensky is likely to get fragmented and Ukraine is going to be thrown under the bus and the Poles and the Balts and the Finns and the Swedes are going to be very, very deeply concerned about that in a way that NATO will not be providing support, the U.S. will not be providing support. So I think that there's a lot of time pressure right now on Zelensky. And the average age of a Ukrainian draftee today is about 45. It was 26 when the war started. They only have 44 million people.

I mean, their ability to keep fighting, to maintain even the 82% of the territory that they now control is going to get a lot harder. So, yeah, looking forward, I mean, the last two years, I would argue, I would give Biden an A- in the way he's managed the Ukraine war since 2022. I think he's done a good job, especially in marshalling bipartisan support in the U.S. and broad support among American allies, not just in NATO, but even countries like Japan and Australia and South Korea has gotten a lot of support for Ukraine. And he's kept those countries all together and on side. I think that's now starting to fall apart, fall apart domestically, fall apart internationally, not helped by the fact that Ukraine's counteroffensive, much vaunted and expected, was a failure. And Putin knows it. And he knows that he needs to hang tight to see if Trump wins, in which case he's hit the jackpot. So and, you know, we're 40 minutes into the conversation with you in Miami and we had this conversation and everyone's like, is this going to be OK?

I'm like, no, this is going to be a fucking disaster. Like, I'm sorry, but like, you know, the next few days this war is going to start. Then the war started and that was pretty intense. But Americans, this is this is not a priority right now. The Middle East is the priority. Blinken's been, you know, in Israel four times since October 7th. I mean, you know, the Secretary of Defense, when he's not missing in the hospital, has been traveling to the Middle East.

The National Security Advisor, they're not going to Ukraine. And if they're not worried about the Middle East, they're worried about the elections. So, I mean, Ukraine is a distant third, maybe even fourth these days compared to the border issue on some weeks. You're just not going to be able to continue to provide the Ukrainians the support they need to fight this war. That's where we're going. I mean, hasn't Russia at the end of the day leveraged their core competence and that as a willingness to endure just immense amount of suffering and patience? Yes, they have, Scott. Yes, they have. But they are not winning. They will be able to take over a fair amount of territory in Ukraine at the expense of NATO having expanded significantly, far more of their border they should defend. They've lost a third of their kinetic power. I mean, they've lost incredible reputational capital. Frozen half of their international assets.

Can't trade with Europe anymore. Can't send gas. It's going to be stranded. They won't have the pipelines to send it anyplace else. A million of their population fleeing so that they're capable, smart men that they need for their economy. I mean, this has been a horrible situation for Russia. Let's go to China real quick. A thesis, you respond to it. The West has an inflation problem or a threat of inflation

rebounding. China has a growth problem. Our IP, our capital, our consumer economy, their manufacturing economy. Wouldn't the greatest tax cut in history be for a thaw in the relations between U.S. and China? And don't they have a mutual interest that just brings them back together in 2024? There, I think, is a mutual interest to at least manage the relationship more effectively. A thaw is hard to imagine. They don't trust each other at all. There are lots of areas of conflict that are zero-sum. The Taiwan relationship, depending on how the election goes next week, would be one big piece of that.

South China Sea territorial issues and the export controls the U.S. is putting in place on semiconductors, cloud computing, and other pieces of advanced technology that the Chinese don't have access to. So these are hard things to unwind. But given the economic challenges, given the geopolitical dangers in the rest of the world, and given the United States election coming up, neither Biden nor Xi are looking for yet another crisis. And I think that the flurry of high-level bilateral engagement we've seen between the United States and China on the diplomatic, economic, and military fronts over the past

months is likely to persist through the election. It will not create an entente, it will not create a breakthrough, but it will be a better managed relationship than it had been for most of the first three years of the Biden administration. You also wrote, and this really struck me, and we disagree on this issue, your predictions that my prediction was totally contrary to the one, the risk you outlined. You think there's going to be a rebound or that inflation will persist in 24. Say more. Yeah, I think that it's going to persist more than the markets presently think. I think the

markets are pricing in more reduction in interest rate by the U.S. central bank, by the Fed, than we believe is going to happen. I think that the geopolitical risks that I spoke about are going to cause more supply chain challenges. I think that the likelihood of unforeseen risks, the last two years we've had Russia, Ukraine, the last year we had Israel, Hamas, I think there's going to be more in this environment. And I think that makes it more challenging to suddenly bring rates down significantly. What we say is no room for error. In other words, everything has to go kind of right for the markets to be correct about the soft landing that is going to be engineered in the United States.

And I would bet on that not being as successful. This is a comparatively low risk in our report. It's only number eight, number eight out of 10. And it involves the whole world and especially the United States. And given that we measure our risks on the basis of likely imminence and impact, that means that we're not saying no room for error is an American recession. What we're saying is that right now we believe the markets are priced for perfection, especially around the Fed. And we expect that the reality of that outcome is going to disappoint somewhat on the downside.

Yeah, to your point, the market is pricing in several rate cuts in 2024. For a lot. Yeah, exactly. I would argue, and I'd like you to respond to this, that because these conflicts have been going on for a while, that a lot of supply chains have demonstrated agility. And, for example, Mexico is now our largest trading partner. It's no longer China. Yep. People are saying there was so little slack in the system. Everything was so optimized for costs that when, whether it was COVID or a war in Ukraine, we found that the part for garage doors or batteries, it just totally mucked

up or gunked up the supply chain. And slowly but surely, I see corporations ungunking or creating more diversification, heterogeneity in their supply chain. In addition, I think AI is highly deflationary. Because if you look at inflation, one of the stickiest parts, at least in the US, of inflation has been wage pressure. And I think people in services industries are going to have a lot, not on the front lines, but I'm talking about lawyers, sort of like, you know, white-collar services, are going to have much less confidence asking for raises as they look around over their shoulder at generative AI and worry that their job's about to be replaced. I think we might actually have deflation in 24.

What are your thoughts? It's interesting. I find your second argument very compelling. I don't know if it comes fast enough. I thought it was very interesting and a little surprising to me to see how far and hard the UAW was willing to fight at a time for much higher wages and win and benefits at a time when electric vehicles and drivetrain and batteries and all of the rest are going to push for far less skilled, less well-paid workers. I mean, that has the potential to really backlash for them, but we didn't do it. And that implied to me that as much as this AI and new technology train, which is coming, which is massive, which is going to be deflationary, until it is really seen at scale, labor has, if they've got, if they're in a position where they have an advantage, they're going to use it and they're not going to think long-term and strategically.

So I'm not sure this plays out in 2024, but I agree completely with your analysis. I think it's coming. I think the question is when it's coming, how it's coming. I agree with your ungunking and creation of resilience and supply chains. But I also see huge political drivers of industrial policy, national policies, subsidies that are increasing costs dramatically in that new environment. This is not a free trade environment. This is an environment where even the Americans and the Europeans are hitting each other with tariffs and hitting each other with export controls and, you know, carbon border adjustment mechanisms that the Europeans have, which don't work well with the Americans are going to hurt the global south, global south with critical minerals. And they want to get up the supply chain. So they're going to make it much more costly for you to do that new business.

I mean, the politics are really invasive here and they create significant costs. Now, some of those costs create redistribution, which is necessary for the social contract. Some of it is nationalism, corruption and wasted. And I don't have a good sense of, you know, where the balance of the scale falls between those two, but I know it's costly in the near term. I don't think either of us is right or wrong on this. I think that the truth is in between, but it's a question of when it's going to hit, right? That's the issue. You mentioned the upcoming election in Taiwan, which I would argue is the most underreported story relative to its importance. What, in your view, is the

biggest risk that is getting no coverage right now? Yeah, Taiwan is, I think, getting a fair amount of coverage. But it's, you know, I would bet 90 percent of Americans don't even know there's an election. I think a lot of people have heard about the election. They don't know when it is, but they've heard, oh, yeah, Taiwan elections. I think people have said it because, you know, there's been a lot of conversation in Congress about war and the Pelosi visit and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's played out. The fact is that there's a 50-50 chance that the guy that is pro-independence, though he was not going to put it that way, is not going to win. So, I mean, next week, that risk could go away. And if he does win, I think that there will be some trade challenges and there may be at the extreme, some inspections of boats,

some forcible boarding by the Chinese, more exercises. But I think this stuff is manageable because of the reason. What's the risk? What's the risk we're not talking about? Well, I mean, there are definitely risks we're not talking about. One that doesn't matter, but it matters a lot locally, is the Horn of Africa. Doesn't matter economically or strategically, but Ethiopia is about to be at war with Somalia because they're going to recognize a breakaway secessionist province that's going to give them access to Portway.

I mean, no one's going to care. It's not going to get any attention, but it really matters if you're Ethiopian or Somalian. I mean, I don't know. I think that that's a pretty big deal. North Korea, it gets very little attention. I mean, it was Kim Jong-un's birthday, by the way. I think it's kind of cool that these three rogue states I talk about, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, their leaders are all five foot seven.

I think that's interesting. You know, nobody talked about that. Different sizes and shapes, though. Small man syndrome, though. Maybe that's the biggest risk that no one's talking about is small man syndrome. Paint the optimistic case around 24 in the U.S. What do you think the optimistic? I find that when, generally speaking, when we're really worried about stuff, that the market and the world climbs the wall of worry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. the market and the world climbs the wall of worry. And it strikes me that when we're most worried and most anxious about things, that things usually, it's the shit you're not expecting

that hits you hard, right? It feels like we're expecting such doom and disaster. I've never felt such negative sentiment going into 24. And I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or because things are really scary right now, but what's the optimistic scenario for the U.S. through 2024? Well, the realistic optimistic scenario is that Biden, either Biden wins big or Nikki Haley gets the nomination on the Republican side and then she wins big. Either of those two would be optimistic scenarios. I think they're very unlikely, like sub 10%, but they could happen. And that's a jackpot. Like if Nikki Haley is able to come in a very strong second or even first in New Hampshire, take South Carolina, get a wall of money.'s suddenly the favorite people can become favorites very very quickly trump attacks her attacks her attacks her throws

her a whole bunch more attention she is now getting huge attention the united states people are plausibly talking about her as the first woman president um i think she beats Biden, too. She crushes Biden. It's not even close. But I mean, then you have a free and fair election. And Trump is a washed up loser after four elections that he can't get right. And, you know, he's still facing legal jeopardy. And maybe she pardons him, but she pardons him in part with a promise that he goes away. That would be huge. I think it's very unlikely. The other unlikely scenario is Biden wins by such a large margin that Trump and his supporters who refuse to accept it go nowhere,

and the Republican Party jettisons Trump. Trump may create his own party in that environment, but he only has a group of rump supporters and the Republican party falls apart and eventually coalesces into something else. And Trump is irrelevant, but you do have like, you know, paramilitary crazies in the U S but they're not an extant threat to the system. Um, and, uh, you know, that's that, and you no longer have Biden is, you know, too old to be president, but he allows somebody else to take over after a year, after two years, and then you move to

another generation. That won't resolve the deep-seated challenges that Americans have that you and I talked about earlier in the conversation, but it gives us some breathing room, right? And right now, this is a country that needs breathing room. The country that really does not need to have an election in 2024. This election, we'd all be much happier if this election were in 2028, right? For every reason, we don't want this election right now. So, and I recognize this statement is rife with bias, but I think there's some legitimacy and some veracity behind it. Don't all the rivers of risk kind of lead to the Amazon of risk, and that is the re-election of Donald Trump? No. No, I think that that is a bias. Because Trump, in my view, is, of course, it's much worse if Trump wins. I get that. But he is not the problem. He is a symptom of a much bigger

structural challenge in the world's largest democracy, which is dysfunctional. It is not in crisis because of Trump. Trump has taken advantage of a system that is weak and vulnerable and deteriorating and eroding that people don't believe in. And you need to turn that around. That I think is the problem. It's too easy to blame this on a guy.

I don't believe that that is where we are. And I'm not just saying that. It's also you say that it involves a bias, but you think it's true. My response involves a bias. My bias is I don't want to broad brush as irredeemable a large percentage of the American population. I believe these people are misled, but they're also angry for legitimate reasons. And those reasons must be addressed or they will become increasingly hostile and threatening. I think that is, we've seen that play out over and over

and over again. And the threat doesn't come in the final version from those people. It comes from the elites that take advantage and can channel the rage and get the support and power from those people. And that is where we're heading in the United States. Yeah. To your point, I think it would be a disaster for America if Trump is removed from the Colorado and Maine ballots. I agree. That strikes me as, I mean, last time that happened, they were trying to remove Lincoln from ballots and started a civil war. Yeah. Most important, Ian, what are your New Year's resolutions for 24?

What's up with the world of Ian Bremmer and the Eurasia Group? Well, it's why I started with the South Pole. I thought that, you know, a week and a half of no internet was really, really valuable. And now you're working your way north? Nah, I mean, just, you know, you and I have talked about how polarizing and how toxic social media is. And I recognize for what I do, for what you do, it's very important to be able to get our voice out there. It's not feasible to be relevant and to have influence and to be off,

but it's not good for my psyche. And I say that as somebody who does not really get worked up, but I just don't, it just depresses me to see all of this misinformation and hate constantly. So to get away, completely away, and to read some big think books about philosophy and consciousness and who we are. Anything that sticks out that you especially enjoyed

while you were frolicking with penguins? I really enjoyed that book by Watts from, I think it was 1953, the one that had the intro from Deepak Chopra. It was about the wisdom of insecurity. I thought it was wonderful. It was a great book to read at the bottom of the planet. It was a great book to talk about how irrelevant our worries, our concerns are about the future and about the past and what it means to be in the present, what it means to engage and enjoy what we have right now, which is all we actually have and

ever have. I thought that was a wonderful way to start the year. So this was not a year of resolutions for me. This was a year of resetting, of reviving, of revitalizing. I was consciously aware of how hard 2024 is going to be, especially not for you and me, but for people you and I care about, for people that you and I touch. And we have to be resilient. We have to have energy.

We have to reset to be there, to have the strength for those people. You know, we've got to be able to give and not lash out over a really challenging year. And I thought that the best way for me to do that was to really recharge. That's what I tried to do. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group,

the world's leading political risk research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. He is also the author of 11 books, including his latest, The Power of Crisis, How Three Threats and Our Response Will Change the World. He joins us from New York. Ian, as always, it is great to converse with you, and welcome back from the South Pole. And most importantly, he cares a lot about you, Scott. You're a really good guy. I love what you do.

It's always a joy to spend some time either privately or publicly as we do. And it's nice to kick this off with you again. Algebra of happiness. I've been thinking a lot about New Year's resolutions. I don't really have New Year's resolutions. What I do is sort of a bottoms-up valuation of my life, and I bucket my life into three, if you will, buckets. The professional, the personal, and the physical. And I'm embarrassed to say the professional comes first, but I've always been obsessed with my work and economic security. And I'm just being, I'm not suggesting that's the right way, it's just my way. I just look through that lens. And then I think about how I can improve my relationships and what I need to do physically to try and stay sane, because physical activity for me and being in shape is really my antidepressant. Anyways,

I try and look for content or something that has inspired me and build up from there and say, why did that inspire me and how will it change my behavior? What can I take from it? Because I, for the most part, eat and drink whatever I want. Now, I realize that salty, sugary, and fatty food, I need to take that down. I probably need to take grains and vegetables up a little bit. I dial up or I dial down based on what I know about nutrition. But for the most part, I think the body is, again, for the most part, a really good regulator of what it is you need. And I take the same approach here, and that is when something inspires you, when something

really moves you, take pause and say, why is that so meaningful to me? And what does that mean in terms of my own life? How will that change my activity? How will that change my approach to life? And what I'm about to play you is the sound from a video that for me was the most inspiring and moving video I saw in 2023. And it's from a guy named Leslie Jordan, who was an actor who tragically passed away in a car accident in late 2022. But I'm going to play you the audio for it, and then I'm going to come back and comment on it. I was three years old. I asked Santa Claus to

bring me a bride doll. I was sitting on his lap at the Lubman's apartment store. My daddy was with all his army buddies. It might have embarrassed him. So he told mother, no bride doll. Mother said, well, Alan, just don't mention again. Maybe he'll forget about it. Christmas Eve, it was all I could talk about. Mama, Santa Claus is going to bring me a bride doll and I'm going to brush her hair and I'm going to play wedding. And mama went in to tell daddy, she said, are you going to explain it to him in the morning? Because I won't know what to say. She went to cook the Christmas dinner. She heard that front door shut.

1958. My lieutenant colonel of a daddy scoured Chattanooga, Tennessee, and found his beautiful son, the most beautiful bride doll. She was life-size to a three-year-old. And when I came down and saw her under the tree, I squatted on the floor and I peed. Happy holidays. I just love what Leslie says here. And I think about a guy in the 50s who's in the armed services and his son, his son wants a bride doll. And the pressure and the paternal instincts and the societal, I don't know, the societal view that this kid should not, a boy should not have a bride doll, and that if you're doing that, you may be setting him on, quote unquote, the wrong path back then, that that

was just all washed over, this lieutenant colonel, by his just love for this kid. How he just saw his job as a father was to make his three-year-old happy on Christmas morning. And I just love it. And I thought about, okay, I know what inspires me about that, but how am I going to use it to change my life in 2024? And it's the following. I spend so much time with my boys mentoring, coaching, correcting, editing, counseling, and not enough time just getting to the core. And what's the core? The core is unfiltered actions and words that demonstrate just how much I love them. I spend so much time, so much time fathering, but not enough time just being dad. So as we move into 2024, I want to invite all of you to join me in thinking about how you get to

the core. And that is with respect to your parents, with respect to the loved ones in your life, with respect to your children, trying to ignore the advice, the social mores, what is appropriate, editing, coaching, how a friend should behave, whatever it might be. When you see the opportunity just to express just how deeply you love them and everything else is unimportant, everything else falls to the wayside, Move to that. Move to that. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer. And Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.

And on Monday with our weekly market show, 2024, bitches!