The State of the World — with Ian Bremmer

Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, joins Scott to discuss major themes and forces shaping the current geopolitical landscape, including the wars in the Middle East and Russia, the impact of China’s ‘managed decline,’ and the impending US election. Follow Ian, @ianbremmer. Scott opens with his thoughts on the WaPo deciding to skip an endorsement. Algebra of happiness: against the grain. Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

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• 0:48Speaker 01

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• 1:19Speaker 02

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• 1:48Scott Galloway?

  Episode 323. 323 is the area code covering Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and parts of Hollywood. True story. I've invested in a Beverly Hills plastic surgery clinic that specializes in low-cost breast enhancements. It's called Nordstrom's Rack.

• 2:07Scott Galloway?

  All right. Go, go, go!

• 2:19Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 323rd episode of the Prof G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Ian Bremer, the president and founder of Your Asia Group, the world's leading political risk research and consulting firm. We discussed with Ian major themes and forces shaping the current geopolitical landscape covered in his recent 2024 State of the World speech in Tokyo, including the wars in the Middle East and Russia, the impact of China's managed decline and the impending US election. I'm an enormous fan of Ian. I think he's been on, he's our Alec Baldwin. I think he's been on six or eight. Actually, no, he and Aswath Damodaran are our two go-tos for all things geopolitics and the markets. Anyways, the

• 3:01Scott Galloway?

  dog is in Delray Beach. The dog loves the beach. And we're seeing our friends Jojo and Bobby, and they're so infinitely Canadian, they'll drive in and they'll use the other driveway because they don't want to bother us. They act as if it's our home and they're the guests. Meanwhile, I would take my socks off, hit their kids. I make myself right at home. I don't, you know, I'm literally the, I'm either the worst or the best house guest because as far as I'm concerned, I'm not a guest, I'm family. Anyways, in Delray Beach, I love it here. I went to a fundraiser for JED where I was given an award. I was given an award for the support or raising awareness around mental health issues for

• 3:40Scott Galloway?

  teens. The JED Foundation raises money or is a nonprofit focused on teen mental health. They leverage the infrastructure of schools to try and identify or distinguish between what is kind of aberrant but somewhat normal teen behavior and a teen who might be on the precipice of an episode of self-harm. When I think about the joy in my life, a lot of it is a function of the things I've avoided or that I've been blessed enough not to have to endure. And one of the reasons I love the JED Foundation is it's one of those charities that they can't say, oh, we saved 1,100 dogs with our rescue shelter

• 4:18Scott Galloway?

  or we housed 4,000 people who are homeless. All of those wonderful things. The success of this charity will never be measured because it's about, it's about staving off or,

• 4:33Scott Galloway?

  Cauterizing or reducing despair and depression before it happens. We'll never really know the, the success here. They do have metrics in place around schools. They're, they have JED programs versus schools where they don't. But one of my favorite quotes is from this wonderful series that Ricky Gervais did that didn't get nearly enough attention. It's on Netflix called Afterlife. And he's been coached by a woman who's also lost her husband. He loses his wife in the show. And she has one of my favorite quotes. She says, "The good people plant trees the shade of which they will never sit under." And I just love that, that that's real character, right? You take care of yourself.

• 5:17Scott Galloway?

  You gotta fix your own oxygen mask before you can help others. You help your family, you take care of your family, you take care of your extended family, you start taking care of your community. And then real ballers, real success in this world is you help people that you will never meet and will never have an opportunity to say thank you to you. So anyways, here we are, some big news in the journalism world. The Washington Post has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years. By the way, I was worried that I was giving into the crowd. I have a newsletter that goes out every Friday to about half a million people called No Mercy, No Malice. And I try to not play to the crowd. I write stuff and I think, okay, this is gonna piss people off. I love it when people say I'm unsubscribing. It's like, well, let me do it for you, bitch. I don't, I don't care.

• 6:01Scott Galloway?

  We don't monetize this thing. Or people say, you know, complain and I'm like, well, full refund coming your way. I don't mind feedback. The most unsubscribes we've ever received. So I came out and I endorsed a presidential candidate. I'll give you one guess. I'll give you one guess. It's the guy that doesn't demonstrate fascist tendencies. Anyways, that probably triggers about 47% of you. So the Washington Post decided to skip an endorsement. And although Will Lewis, the paper's publisher, Anseo, says he killed the endorsement, many believe the call came from the Post billionaire Jeff Bezos. Jeff, Jeff wrote a big thing saying it was. That he was not in fact influenced by the fact that his company had met with a Trump

• 6:44Scott Galloway?

  official. I gotta be honest, Jeff, I think you're lying. I think you're full of shit. Supposedly, The Washington Post, or it's not supposed, it's been reported that Washington Post had an endorsement ready to go. And I go back to the notion of why an autocracy is so dangerous but so effective. And that is, there is very little downside, or less downside, to shitposting Kamala Harris. Because if she's elected, she has fidelity to the Constitution, and she's not going to weaponize the DOJ or the IRS to go after her political enemies. Whereas Trump, and I love how the Republicans, when he says shit like, I'm gonna round up people, they're all like, oh, isn't he funny? He's just, he's just, Donald's just being Donald, and they act all fucking cute. They turn into Sarah Palin,

• 7:28Scott Galloway?

  like, oh, that's just, that's just him being him. Well, I don't know, he's, he's kind of done what he said he was gonna do, specifically around bodily autonomy. But when this guy shows these sort of fascist tendencies, it's a really good strategy, from the sense that if Donald Trump is in fact elected, he might go after the people who supported Harris or didn't support him. So you have what I think of as traditional leaders, whether it's Jamie Dimon, or some of the other folks in the valley, all kissing his ass. Because I think a lot of them are like, they do the algebra, and they think, okay, if Harris wins, we can kiss and make up, it's not a big deal, it's a democracy, all is forgiven. If he wins, the guy might steer contracts and business away from me. He might take

• 8:11Scott Galloway?

  government contracts and say, fuck you, you didn't support me, I'm not giving you a government contract. And this is a dangerous thing about autocracy, is that it creates a new math, and it absolutely discourages people to speak their mind, and to speak truth to power for fear that it's going to impact their livelihoods. And what's really disappointing is I think this is occurring at the highest levels, where the fourth richest man in the world is being intimidated. And I want to be clear, Jeff, despite the size of your, your very bulbous and engorged biceps, by the way, I do think you're sexy. I get it, I get it, Lauren, I get it. You're sexy, my man, you look good. It's working. But here's the thing, why the fuck do you work so hard and aggregate so many resources and

• 8:53Scott Galloway?

  become a billionaire in a capitalist society, if you're gonna be some autocrat's bitch? This is just incredibly disappointing. And then the same thing happened. At the LA Times, they decided not to endorse a presidential candidate. The decision made by the LA Times owner, Patrick Sun Jeong, I'm not sure I got that right, led to the resignations of the paper's editorials editor and two editorial board members. You've also seen a bunch of defections at the Washington Post. In addition, in addition, supposedly 8% of its subscriber base is unsubscribed. Does everyone need to endorse a candidate? No. As a matter of fact, I believe most CEOs should probably stay out of politics. I think most of it is virtue signaling that's just going to piss off half their employees on average, maybe 47%, maybe 53%, depending on where you're working.

• 9:38Scott Galloway?

  But it's generally a good idea for CEOs to stay out of it. But when you're the biggest paper, the media company that has traditionally endorsed a candidate in what is probably the premier political brand in the United States, and you have a habit of always endorsing candidates, and you had an endorsement ready to go, and then the owner meets with the potential Trump administration official and pulls the endorsement, boss, that's just not fucking cool. What's the point of being a billionaire? This is what's so dangerous about an autocracy, is that it creates a new math that discourages open, honest dialogue. The autocrat wins here, and it is not good. We'll be right back for a conversation with Ian Bremmer.

• 10:21Scott Galloway?

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• 11:05Scott Galloway?

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• 11:38Scott Galloway?

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• 12:49Scott Galloway?

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• 14:06Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world's leading political risk, research, and consulting firm. Ian, where does this podcast find you?

• 14:16Ian Bremmer?

  I am at home right now in New York. I'm going to go to my office right after this.

• 14:20Scott Galloway?

  Let's bust right into it. You recently delivered your anticipated 2024 State of the World speech in Tokyo, where you outlined the major themes and forces shaping the geopolitical landscape, including the wars in the Middle East and Russia, the impact of China's managed decline, I love that term, the impending US election and AI. You said we should be most worried about the absence of global leadership. What do you think is driving this leadership vacuum? And who is, if anyone, poised to step in?

• 14:52Ian Bremmer?

  I don't think anyone's poised to step in right now. I mean, you know, you look at what's happened in the Middle East over the last year. And the United States is by far the most powerful ally of Israel, but has been basically hands-off on the Israelis have been making the decisions as they choose fit. The Chinese are the most important ally out there, most powerful of Russia on the global stage. They've had no impact on what the Russians have been doing in Ukraine over the course of the last few years, and no one else is close to the Americans or secondarily the Chinese.

• 15:33Ian Bremmer?

  So, I mean, it's not as if, I mean, there's all sorts of leadership, but not global leadership. It's national leadership. It's leadership at home. It's focusing more on the stuff that you have going on in your own country, especially when people, when most people around the world are not comfortable or not happy with the direction that their countries are heading. And we're seeing that play out in elections all over the world.

• 15:54Scott Galloway?

  What is the downside of that? Do you feel, I mean, I'll give you an example. It feels like, I can't figure out if Israel is ignoring the US or the US is actually quietly coordinating and trying to, trying to pretend that they're going against their wishes, you claim or you state, and it feels obvious now that Russia is sort of ignoring China. Is that a good thing, where we have a more diverse ecosystem? Or do we need one or two superpowers kind of moving the pieces around on the chessboard?

• 16:24Ian Bremmer?

  It's a more uncertain thing. I mean, certainly if you're Russia, you like it more. If you're Israel, you like it more. If you're North Korea, you like it more. If you're Iran, you like it more. I mean, generally speaking, you know, countries that want to be able to act unconstrained from the international norms, multilateral architecture, you know, sort of collective security alliances, countries that don't like to be, you know, sort of contained by that are happier. When you have an absence of global leadership, I mean, I can tell you quite strongly, Scott, that the Israelis have been ignoring what the United States would prefer.

• 17:08Ian Bremmer?

  But the US has been unwilling to do very much to try to get that outcome, to be fair, which is very similar to what's been happening with the Russians vis a vis China. And I'm not trying to suggest that these wars are the same, but I think it's just interesting that if you talk to the Chinese, they'll say, oh, but we support Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty. And I can say in response, well, sure, well, the United States supports a two-state solution. Well, we have pretty good relations with the Ukrainians. Well, the Americans are doing what they can to get humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. But is that actually happening? And the answer is no.

• 17:49Ian Bremmer?

  How much effort are these countries willing to deploy? How much political capital to try to ensure that the outcomes they say they want, they're actually getting? And the answer is very little. The answer is very little. And I don't see that changing in either place anytime soon.

• 18:07Scott Galloway?

  So whenever we have you on, we kind of do this around the world, around Robin, so to speak. So let's start and we'll end up with the US election. But first, give us your state of play or your view on the state of the war in the Middle East right now.

• 18:22Ian Bremmer?

  So you and I are talking, Scott, on Monday. I know this is coming out on Thursday. Oil price is down 6% today. And why would that happen? Because this round of escalation is over. You know, Israelis hit Iran back after waiting almost a month.

• 18:43Scott Galloway?

  Sort of, right? Sort of.

• 18:45Ian Bremmer?

  Yeah, no, they hit them back. They did more damage to Iran on the ground than the Iranians did to Israel. I mean, so you could say, I mean, I don't know if you said sort of when Iran hit Israel.

• 18:55Scott Galloway?

  I find the whole thing, the word I would use, I'm curious if you agree with this, the word I would use on both parties, Iran and Israel, is performative.

• 19:02Ian Bremmer?

  Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. I don't think that what set this all off, which was the assassination of Hamas's political leader during the inauguration of Iran's president in Tehran, that was not performative.

• 19:21Ian Bremmer?

  Israeli strikes killing Hassan Nasrallah, who runs Hezbollah and blowing up Hezbollah's leadership. That's not performative. But the last two rounds, absolutely performative. The Iranians waited for, you know, weeks and weeks. And when they finally did engage in strikes, they gave the Americans a heads up in advance. And that ensured that there was going to be minimal damage on the ground in Israel. And the only person that was killed, you may remember, was a Palestinian living in the West Bank. Right? And the Israeli response was also restrained. And here, I haven't given the Americans

• 20:04Ian Bremmer?

  much credit in restraining Israel. But here, I think they deserve a little because the United States really wanted to ensure that Israel did not hit Iranian nuclear facilities or energy facilities, and they didn't. And in part, that's because the United States offered some incentives to Israel over the last few weeks. They fast-tracked the THAAD missile defense, stood it up in less than two weeks on the ground in Israel, a new system that they already had one from the US at the beginning of the war. They gave them another. And then they also started sanctioning some of the ships that had turned off their transponders,

• 20:49Ian Bremmer?

  shipping oil tankers out of Iran, illegally exporting and breaking US sanctions. The US probably should have done that a year ago, but did that to basically show the Israelis, hey, you know, we're going to ensure these guys have less money to spend on the proxies that are attacking you. And I think that both of those things, plus a little diplomacy, helped restrain Israel's response more than they would have done absent that.

• 21:17Scott Galloway?

  So give me the other side of the argument. Well, I'll put forward an argument. You give me the other side of the argument for de-escalation here. And that is, whether it's the Houthis, Hamas, or Hezbollah, the credit card funding all of this chaos and terror, if you will, is oil coming, oil revenues coming out of Iran. Wouldn't this sort of cut the head-off-the-snakes strategy of going in and basically saying, we're going to start shutting off this credit card unless you stop funding these proxies? And they did not do that. Give me, give me the political calculus for why they did not do that.

• 21:50Ian Bremmer?

  I think it's a really good question, Scott. I mean, they're exporting right now over a million barrels a day. And the typical argument you'd give, and this is the argument the Americans have quietly given over the last almost three years for why Russian export of oil has not been cut off, right? I mean, America's friend, the Indians, are buying an obscene amount of Russian oil, some of which they're refining and then sending on to Europe. And the reason that wasn't cut off is because the US is concerned that that would spike oil prices and lead to a global recession. That's just not true with the million barrels that the Iranians are exporting.

• 22:32Ian Bremmer?

  OPEC has over a million barrels right now that they are holding back. I mean, what's driving prices, which are pretty low, is the fact that there isn't a lot of demand, and particularly that Chinese economy is performing so poorly, Chinese consumption. So, given all of that, there's not a really good argument for why you want doing more to cut off Iran, which is why I said I'm a little surprised that the Biden decision to hit these ships with the transponders, they didn't do that, why didn't they do that six months ago, nine months ago? Like, why are you letting the Iranians export illegally? Now, some of that, getting all of that million-plus off the market would have also involved probably

• 23:17Ian Bremmer?

  sanctioning some Chinese institutions that the Americans have been loath to do because China is a lot more powerful and has the capacity to hit you back. So, I mean, there's definitely some narrow economic self-interest playing out here, but I am in the camp that more can and should have been done to cut off Iranian export. Absolutely.

• 23:40Scott Galloway?

  Russia, Ukraine?

• 23:41Ian Bremmer?

  Where we're going, where we are?

• 23:43Scott Galloway?

  What, state of play, how things have changed? I would argue the biggest winner, or one of the biggest winners in the Middle East conflict, has been Putin because it's taken the Western gaze off of Ukraine. And where are we? People haven't been focused on it. What's the state of play on the ground? What do you think if, what do you think 2025 holds for Russia, Ukraine?

• 24:03Ian Bremmer?

  Well, Scott, by people, you mean Americans, because Europeans are relentlessly focused. They're spending more overall, and they have been, than the United States, something the Americans probably don't appreciate. And they recognize that if Trump comes in and cuts off the Ukrainians, they are going to have to do more. And I think they will. Is it enough for the Ukrainians? That's another question. But this is and will remain a much more existential issue for most of the Europeans, who see not only that in many cases, they've got a border with Ukraine or a border with Russia, but also they're engaging in all sorts

• 24:47Ian Bremmer?

  of asymmetric fighting with Russia directly. You know, I mean, if you, if you go on Telegram, I mean, the Russian GRU, I mean, their spies are paying lots of money for locals, Russian speakers, ethnic Russians in many countries across Eastern Europe, to engage in acts of espionage, vandalism, arson, other criminality, you name it. This is a war that is being fought on the ground in Europe. It's well beyond disinformation. So they are, they are focused like a laser on what happens going forward. And that conversation, the conversation across Europe has not slipped to the Middle East. It is focused on Russia, Ukraine, where

• 25:29Ian Bremmer?

  in the United States, Russia, Ukraine is a decided, you know, number two, if even that. So there's a real gap. You know, I'll tell you one thing that I think the media has gotten wrong recently, and because it's attracted a lot of headlines, I think it's worth you and I going into for a couple of minutes, is the North Korea angle. People are talking about North Korea and saying it shows desperation, that Russia's going to get 10,000 troops from North Korea, and it means they really can't fight. They can't go anywhere else. They're scraping the bottom of the barrel. In the broad scheme of things... 10,000 poorly trained troops from North Korea being sent as cannon fodder to the

• 26:12Ian Bremmer?

  front lines who don't speak the Russian language, won't be effectively trained or integrated, matters almost none to the fighting. That is not what's going on here. What the North Koreans have done that really matters is a solid majority of all the artillery that is being used against Ukraine and the ammunition being used against Ukraine, that is North Korean. That means the war, North Korea is absolutely the war machine behind what's happening on the front lines right now. And that's been going on for months and months now. What's interesting about the North Korean decision to send troops is it really solidifies

• 26:53Ian Bremmer?

  a military alliance that Russia has now signed with North Korea. It's made them closer to North Korea than the Chinese are. The Chinese are not aware of what the details of that military agreement comprise, and they're deeply discomforted by that. And historically, of course, the Chinese are the ones that called the shots for Pyongyang if anyone did. So that's what's really different here. And the fact that they are, you know, a nuclear weapons state that is developing aggressively much more advanced technology, including like nuclear submarines that the Russians are clearly helping them with, advanced ballistics, you know, maybe even some space stuff, that

• 27:38Ian Bremmer?

  is, that's a serious problem. And that's something that the Russians are 100% behind.

• 27:43Scott Galloway?

  In the last few months, what has happened on the ground? Have the Russians been making progress? Is it a stalemate or Ukrainian army pushing back? What's the state of play on the ground?

• 27:54Ian Bremmer?

  So the big thing that happened, the spectacular thing that happened a couple months ago, is the Ukrainians decided to take almost 40,000 well-trained troops and send them into Russia. The territory of Kursk, which they have taken and they have held much of it. They're now losing territory to the Russians, but the Russians have largely ignored that. They've referred to it as terrorism internally. And they have instead sent more troops to inside Ukraine and they are taking, which is now less well defended, and they are taking more of the Donbass.

• 28:34Ian Bremmer?

  So I would argue, and most NATO leaders would argue, that this was Zelensky, both with the flair for the spectacular to show that the Ukrainians can still do very unexpected things and cause pain for Putin, and also getting desperate because they're increasingly recognizing that they aren't going to have the capacity to keep fighting the way they have for the last two and a half years. This is a dangerous move for them. This makes it a lot harder for them to hold their own front lines with the Russians having already taken about 22% of the country and threatening to take a lot more. So if you ask me over the next three, six months,

• 29:20Ian Bremmer?

  you know, I think that there's a much higher likelihood that the Russians take all of the Donbass. And that is, you know, going to lead to more displacement and also reduce morale on the part of the Ukrainians. Russia's also in the last couple of months done unprecedented damage to Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure as winter approaches. And that's going to make it a much harder winter for the average Ukrainian. Only about 40 million people live in Ukraine right now. There was over 50 million before the war. And those numbers, I suspect, are going to continue to go down over the next several months.

• 30:02Scott Galloway?

  You refer to China's quote-unquote "managed decline." That's your term, and I like it. What do you mean by that?

• 30:09Ian Bremmer?

  Well, I'm talking in part about the relationship between China and the United States. That, I mean, we are heading towards confrontation, but both countries are trying to avoid sudden crises and ensure through a lot of high-level communication that the relationship doesn't deteriorate any faster than it needs to and any more broadly than it needs to. The Americans are doing that, I think, in part because we've got our hands full with a couple of different wars and an election cycle. The Chinese are doing that because their economy is performing worse than I've ever seen it,

• 30:52Ian Bremmer?

  certainly since the early 90s, maybe since the 70s. I was just in Beijing a couple of weeks ago. I spent the week there. And every provincial government is bankrupt. And real estate is in crisis. That is 70% of Chinese consumer wealth and about 30% of Chinese government revenue. And they're not going to come close to their 5% growth target this year. This is a new Chinese economic leadership put in place by Xi Jinping. They are suddenly telling the president, "We're not going to be able to perform like we told you we were. Not a good place to be on your first year."

• 31:36Ian Bremmer?

  And that's also the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. So there was a lot of panic going on among the top economists a couple of weeks ago in China. And that's why they're all trying to run around and say, "What do we do? What kind of stimulus do we put in place?" It was, it was, it's the same kind of transition that we saw when they went from zero COVID to suddenly overnight, "We're just going to rip up the QR codes and everyone can do what they want." Remember, Scott, you know, for a year, a solid year, this was Chinese officials crowing internationally about how they cared about their people and the Americans didn't, the Europeans didn't, the Japanese didn't. "We didn't take care of our citizens. We let them get sick and die."

• 32:21Ian Bremmer?

  And the Chinese were the one country that really cared. And they literally ripped that up overnight. Overnight, it was as if they had nothing to do with zero COVID. So the Chinese leadership got it wrong. They didn't get good information. And now for the second time in only a few years, we're seeing the same thing. The Chinese leadership thought they had like a decent control on their economy, thought it was just incremental challenges that they'd be able to effectively respond to this year. Nothing major required. And then suddenly, almost overnight, realizing that isn't the case at all.

• 32:57Scott Galloway?

  It really is striking. It's like, you know, you don't, you don't, humans are adaptable and it's been so incremental. But the changes, I think about it, pre-COVID, call it, late teens. I was in China two, three times a year, doing business, advising American companies on their efforts in China, advising some Chinese companies on their efforts in America. And I have not been to China in four or five years and have no plans to go back. And I realize that's pulse marketing, but as I think about, I mean, the freeze is pretty deep here. Would you agree with that?

• 33:34Ian Bremmer?

  Yes, and you see it across the corporate community. Now, if you are a big Western multinational with exposure in China, you don't want to make announcements that you are making layoffs. You don't want to make announcements, you're taking money out because, you know, that will, that will get you punished by the Chinese. But quietly, everyone is trying to reduce exposure. The only part of the Chinese economy right now that is actually performing and keeping their numbers up is the manufacturing sector. And it's manufacturing without consumer demand. So there's massive overproduction right now. And that's leading, that's not politically sustainable in other parts of the world.

• 34:16Ian Bremmer?

  It's causing backlash, you know, complaints of dumping, all of this sort of thing. And it's making the relationship with, between China and other countries more, more confrontational. So they're really in a corner here. They're gonna need structural reform. They it's it's essentially a major financial crisis. And and in fact, the one thing that I was quite surprised by when I was in China was just how much violent crime there is right now. A lot of people talking about, you know, stabbings and people driving their car into crowds and high-profile suicides. And some that got public notoriety and then immediately taken down off of WeChat. And some, just people talking about things happening in their own neighborhoods, happening

• 35:01Ian Bremmer?

  on their own street corners, that sort of thing. Now, I mean, if this was happening in any normal country around the world, and by normal, I mean, a country that you get reporting out of, information out of, it's all we'd be talking about. But because it's China, and because very few people go to China right now, I mean, there just is nowhere near the level of travel that you saw pre-COVID. And and because the Chinese don't actually report on any of this stuff, we're not really talking about it. And that's a, I think that's a really big deal.

• 35:35Speaker 02

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• 37:49Scott Galloway?

  So as a means of beginning to talk about the US election, what I like to do is I like to go through all three of these. The war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, and the impact of China's managed decline. And do for us some scenario planning. How do each of those play out differently in a Harris or a Trump administration? Let's start with the war in the Middle East.

• 38:13Ian Bremmer?

  Okay. So Biden has been one of the most strongly pro-Israel candidates we've ever seen, presidents. And it is unclear that Harris would significantly alter that. She's made, you know, repeated statements that the alliance between the US and Israel is sacrosanct and the US will do everything to defend Israel. She clearly is much more concerned. About the Palestinians, about their ability to self-govern, about getting them humanitarian aid.

• 38:53Ian Bremmer?

  I think some of that is because of the changing demographics of the United States on Israel-Palestine. Young people in particular being much less motivated by a pro-Israel policy, much more sympathetic to the Palestinians. And some of it is that as a lawyer, she's just generally more interested in rule of law and international norms and feels like the Americans are supporting a policy that undermines that and that undermines US influence around the world. So I do suspect that under Harris, US policy on Israel-Palestine would be more aligned with the Europeans than it is right now.

• 39:35Ian Bremmer?

  Where with Trump, I mean, actually, if anything, he is a little more hawkish than even Biden. He would, he certainly has, I mean, he's indifferent to what happens to the Palestinians. He says he no longer supports a two-state solution, though he did when he put together the Abraham Accords. And he was the guy that, of course, recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. He has no problem with further illegal settlements of Israel on the ground in the West Bank.

• 40:13Ian Bremmer?

  I suspect that he would be fine with a more assertive and expansionist Israeli military strategy in the region, including against Iran's nuclear capabilities, which he might be inclined to help Israel with. So there's a little bit of a difference there, but it's not, it's not dramatic, in my view.

• 40:35Scott Galloway?

  Russia-Ukraine?

• 40:37Ian Bremmer?

  Russia-Ukraine is much more different. Now, both Harris and Trump would want the war to end. But their modalities would be very different. Trump is much more of a unilateralist. He's not interested in coordinating with the Europeans at all. He would call Zelensky and call Putin and basically say, you're going to end this war. You're going to accept a ceasefire, territorial delineation where it is right now. Or else, what's the or else? With the Ukrainians, or else we cut off support. With the Russians, or else we sanction you a lot tougher. And would he follow through on that? Would the Ukrainians and the Russians listen to him? Interesting question.

• 41:22Ian Bremmer?

  Certainly a better deal for the Russians than they're getting presently or than they'd get under Harris, but that doesn't mean that Putin would find it acceptable. There's a big difference between, you know, Trump's rhetoric with Russia in his 2017 presidency and actual policy towards Russia, which was harder line, the Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, tougher sanctions than it was under Obama. So I think that there's, what was clear is if Trump became president again, the Europeans would feel very much cut loose from this process. And that would be, that'd be a crisis for Europe.

• 42:02Ian Bremmer?

  If Harris comes in, she would want to coordinate a policy towards Ukraine that would lead to a ceasefire, but she would coordinate that with NATO and then take that joint policy with the Ukrainians if she could make it happen and try to get everyone to force Russia to the table. Would that work? Or would that just be a continued drip, drip, drip as the Russians continue to fight? Very interesting question, hard to know. But I mean, certainly Biden's policy, Russia, Ukraine, has been great in keeping the alliance together, hasn't been so great for the Ukrainians long term. And then if you want to go to China, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, went

• 42:46Ian Bremmer?

  to Beijing a few weeks ago, spent 14 hours with Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister. Then he spent an hour and a half with Xi Jinping. And the purpose of that trip was to ensure a stable transition in policy if Harris becomes the president. I spent an hour and a half with Wang Yi when I was there a couple of weeks ago. He told me he was very appreciative of the effort that Jake and the Biden administration have put into the relationship, the time, the communications and the rest. So I think that if Kamala were to become president, I think that US-China policy would remain very consistent with where it is right now.

• 43:28Ian Bremmer?

  Trump, of course, sees China policy and sees much foreign policy through a more economic and transactional lens, through the lens of tariffs. He has talked about a 60% across-the-board tariff on Chinese exports. Six months ago, 12 months ago, China wasn't sure if they would prefer Harris or Trump. Trump might be someone they could do a deal with. Trump also will antagonize a bunch of allies, creates more flexibility for the Chinese potentially. This trip, everyone in China says, "We want Harris." Why? Because the state of their economy means they can't handle the uncertainty.

• 44:06Scott Galloway?

  So another thesis. I find that Americans, because of our prosperity and our blessings and the fact that we really haven't been attacked, I mean, you could say 9/11 was an attack, but domestically, the homeland has been pretty, pretty kind of attack or threat free. That as a result, we always believe that all peace is a good peace. And I would put forward that there is a bad peace and there are good wars. And what's happening in the Middle East over the mid and long term might be seen in retrospect as having been a good war, where we end up with stronger alliances in the Middle East and the equivalent of a much stronger Iron Dome and what might end up being a sustained peace. Your thoughts?

• 44:47Ian Bremmer?

  Well, first, more broadly, I agree with the thesis that there are good wars. There aren't many of them, but there certainly are. World War II was a good war. The Americans took way too long to enter it and to fight it, and we almost lost as a consequence, but it was a good war. We needed to win that war. We needed to enter that war. The first Iraq war and defending Kuwait was a good war, in my view, and one that we needed to enter. And I think the Ukraine war, which we are partially responsible for because we told the Ukrainians we were going to bring them into NATO and then we didn't. And when the Russians invaded in 2014, a little bit, we did nothing.

• 45:28Ian Bremmer?

  And basically, a blinking yellow light, we're finally late defending Ukraine. I think that's a good war. Israel, Palestine, Lebanon is more complicated for me, for a couple of reasons. First, the United States is losing a lot of influence around the world as a consequence of supporting Israel in a full-throated way, in an undifferentiated way, which is virtually isolated compared to other countries. You see, I mean, at the Security Council, the Americans making vetoes, that even the allies of the US won't stand up for the French, the Brits, for example.

• 46:10Ian Bremmer?

  The fact that in countries across, say, Southeast Asia, the Americans are losing influence dramatically. Indonesia is the largest Muslim population in the world of any country, and the Indonesians were strongly pro-US and anti-China 10 years ago. That has now flipped, and it's flipped almost completely because of Gaza, which is considered to be a domestic issue by the Indonesian population and the government. Malaysia also flipped. Brunei, who cares? But still, same thing. Singapore, a little bit. So there are places that the US is definitely losing influence because of that.

• 46:49Ian Bremmer?

  Now, having said that, Scott, I agree with you that the Israelis and the Gulf states are aligned here, and they're becoming more aligned irrespective of the Saudis saying that they need a Palestinian state to do a deal, to get to finally open relations with Israel. Generally speaking, Israel is in a strong position vis-à-vis the Gulf states, and also in terms of its own defense and military capabilities. Now, what we don't know, and even leaving aside any humanitarian concern for the 2-plus

• 47:29Ian Bremmer?

  million Palestinians living in Gaza, leaving aside any humanitarian concern for the over 1 million Lebanese that have been displaced over the last month, the question is...

• 47:43Ian Bremmer?

  Will they have any capacity to take action against Israel? Or against the US and its allies in the region or more broadly? Are we going to see more radicalism for a generation, which the US intelligence agencies believe we will, on the back of the way that this war has been fought by Israel? And yes, a lot of Hamas operatives and leaders have been killed, Lebanese operatives and leaders have been killed. But the humanitarian damage that has been attendant to that as a consequence of the war is utterly staggering. And I assume a price will be paid for that at some point.

• 48:28Ian Bremmer?

  But and that's again, that's leaving aside just the humanitarian point, which as Americans, I think we shouldn't leave aside. We certainly are the history of our country is not that we leave it aside.

• 48:41Scott Galloway?

  But implicit in that statement is a very rational argument that I would reduce to, you know, are you are you creating more terrorists than you're killing? Right with this incredible humanitarian disaster? I would argue on both sides, but obviously in terms of civilian population, the Palestinians have paid a huge price. You know, I do think it's important to note that the Israelis have prosecuted this war with a lower civilian to enemy combat mortality rate than any war we've prosecuted. And what I come to, or the argument I would put forth is it's about incentives. And we, at the end of World War Two, continued to bomb Hamburg and Dresden despite the fact

• 49:26Scott Galloway?

  we had won the war at much greater civilian to combat mortality ratios. And when asked why Eisenhower and the generals responded, they need to know they lost. Is there an argument that as horrific as this is, this damage, that you're creating an incentive system where it essentially gets people, quite frankly, to think twice before continuing to constantly arm, rearm, and have a zeitgeist and an entire constitution that is just, you know, basically attack Israel and attempt to affect what is, I see, as a genocide. I see one side, Israel is accused of genocide. I think they could, they don't. I think the proxies would but can't.

• 50:09Scott Galloway?

  Is there something to the notion that, quite frankly, counter punching much harder creates a safer region with incentives that finally line up not to, to, to stop attacking Israel?

• 50:23Ian Bremmer?

  Um, it is an unanswerable question, Scott, but I mean, of course, it is hard to argue that the Palestinians don't know that they're losing. They've been losing territory for a long time now, right? I mean, again, in the West Bank, while the war has been prosecuted in Gaza, they're losing a lot more territory illegally to the Israeli settlers with the support of the Israeli government. I, I don't think that helps Israel's cause personally.

• 50:53Scott Galloway?

  Oh, they've gone from the good guys to the bad guys. In terms of global perception, they've managed their brand terribly. I would, I would argue like when, when you and I were kids, you know, and they were the good guys. They were the David, now they're the Goliath.

• 51:06Ian Bremmer?

  Well, of course, because, and to be fair, some of that, even if they had handled this war as well as possible, which they have not, but even if they had, and even if they had showed so much more restraint and gone in with a multinational force after October 7th, and you know, Macron said, I'm willing to fight with you. Okay, well, let's do this together and let's be targeted. Even if they'd done that, you know how much antisemitism there was running up to October 7th. A lot of people would have said they were the bad guys and would have said that because they're more powerful, because their military is more capable, because they're a lot richer, because the Palestinians are living in a horrible environment. And you, the Palestinians own some of the blame for that. And so do the Gulf states for not doing anything about it. So does the Americans, so do the Israelis.

• 51:51Ian Bremmer?

  There's plenty of blame. But you're not asking me who's responsible. You're asking me, what's the smart strategy? I have a hard time believing that after the, you know, the, the massive depredation, the, you know, sort of 90% of Gaza Palestinians without enough water before the October 7th, 50% without enough food before October 7th. And, and then following that on with one 10th as much humanitarian support getting in for the last year. I don't think that that is going to lead to better behaved, more quiescent Palestinians willing to work with Israel over the long term. I don't believe that. Maybe I'm wrong.

• 52:34Ian Bremmer?

  I mean, I, look, my, my mom was Armenian before she passed. And, you know, the Armenians, for generations, harbored irrational hatred towards Turks, Turks that had done nothing to the Armenians, but historically they had. More recently, we've just seen about 120,000 Armenians ethnically cleansed from mountainous Harabach, which oddly, former President Trump just tweeted about a couple of days ago, but otherwise, nobody talks about it. Because we're living at a time of greater impunity, where if you have the military might to ensure that you're in charge, you get to win.

• 53:19Ian Bremmer?

  And that's what happened. The Americans complained, the French complained, but Baku is about to host their COP Summit for global climate as a petrostate. And they're occupying that territory and the Armenians aren't going to get it back. And that's just the way it is. So I, I think that we're heading towards a different global order, going back to the beginning, one without global leadership, one that feels more anarchic, one where the relatively loose rules and norms that we have, that we largely, the Americans have created with allies to try to reduce instability around the world is breaking apart. So that's why I was just in, you know, Asia. That's why our allies, the South Koreans and the Japanese are talking more about getting

• 54:04Ian Bremmer?

  nuclear weapons. I don't think that's a good thing. Why? Because they're concerned that the Americans might not be willing to defend them and countries might be willing to use nukes in a more likely in this environment than they would have 10 or 20 or 30 years ago because those norms are eroding. I think there's lots of stuff like that happening that makes our world more dangerous.

• 54:25Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I would I would agree that the world's policeman did in fact have some upside. So I'm curious if you, well, I'm gonna ask you, I want to return to the domestic, to return to the homeland in our remaining minutes here. Curious, A, if you have any predictions about the election and also, I mean, most of the smart people I know have said it's a toss up. They kind of shrug their shoulders. They might have a thesis, but then they shrug their shoulders and say it's it's within the margin of error. What do you think about how such contrasting candidates and the fact that it's a toss up? What do you think it says about America? And just curious if you have any thoughts or predictions about this election and what might happen after?

• 55:06Ian Bremmer?

  I think, I mean, we're saving this for the end, so it's an abbreviated conversation. It deserves more, but, you know, as someone who looks at the world more than I look inside the United States, the common thesis this year is throw the bums out. We're not happy with where our country's going. We want somebody different. We just saw that in Japan this weekend, stable Japan. We've seen it, you know, even in India where Modi is so incredibly popular, but has to govern in coalition, South Africa, UK, Austria, Germany, France, I mean, you name it around the world. This is what we're seeing. So this election in the United States with inflation having been high and now it's coming

• 55:49Ian Bremmer?

  down, but the prices haven't gone down and illegal immigration having been really high and now it's coming down, but the illegal immigrants are all still here. You know, whoever's holding the bag is probably gonna lose. So, I mean, you know, ex ante, your view of this election should be it's a change election and the Republicans should win. Having said that, Trump is the least attractive, least fit candidate the Republicans could possibly run. I mean, any other Republican candidate would win easily, in my view, certainly against Biden and against Kamala Harris as well. But Trump is not any other candidate.

• 56:29Ian Bremmer?

  He is a uniquely unfit candidate, and therefore it's a toss-up. So that's my thesis. And if you ask me, like, you know, if I had a bet, what would I bet? I guess I would bet that Trump is going to win by a really slim margin, because ultimately, I think that structural, you know, vote for something different really matters. And it seems to me that the Harris Democrats are playing defense and Trump's playing offense. And on balance, defense doesn't turn out the voters effectively. But those are very soft theses in an environment where everything is within the margin of error. So I don't, like your other friends,

• 57:14Ian Bremmer?

  Scott, I don't have a strong, I don't have a strong view. I could easily be surprised on this one. I think we're all going to be. I'm more worried about the disinformation environment. I'm more worried about how Americans, I mean, you're right, that the two candidates are so different, because the people that are supporting the two candidates believe completely different things. And it's getting worse and worse and worse every day. And we see it in our mainstream media. Lord knows, we see it in our social media. I mean, we even saw it in the response to FEMA and the hurricane. We saw it in response to the pandemic. And now it's in our election. If you're a Dem or a Republican, your views of what matters

• 57:55Ian Bremmer?

  and what is true has never been more different than your fellow Americans since the Civil War. And I think that's what's driving these candidates being so radically different. And that bodes badly for what happens to the US after next Tuesday.

• 58:09Scott Galloway?

  Well, just going back to incentives, and this will be my last question or thesis. The dangerous thing about an autocracy and why it's so effective is that I see it again. Jeff Bezos, it appears was incentivized or forced supposedly as a representative of one of his companies was meeting with Trump. And there was pressure applied to someone you would think would be immune from pressure in a capitalist society, being the third or fourth wealthiest person in the world. And the story running around was that he was essentially pressured into pressuring the Washington Post to not issue an endorsement. And this is the danger I see of an autocracy, that the upside of supporting this person or supporting each of them, I don't want to say it's bigger than autocracy because you

• 58:53Scott Galloway?

  get the sense he's a bit of a kleptocrat and will do money good for you regardless of the Constitution or the DOJ to pay you back. And on the flip side, go out of his way to use the full power and influence of the government to prosecute his political enemies. Whereas if you don't support Harris, the downside I see is much less because I think she has respect for the law and she's not going to go after her political opponents. They might not get appointed to be ambassador, but she's not going to weaponize the DOJ against them. So all of the incentives on a risk-adjusted basis, you know, I see these heads of investment banks, I know they support Harris, but I keep seeing them hedge their bets because they're worried that Trump would be more punitive and loss than Harris.

• 59:38Scott Galloway?

  I see this as just, I never recognized just how effective autocracy is, the perception of a lack of concern for the law. Your thoughts?

• 59:47Ian Bremmer?

  Yeah, and it's because people are insufficiently valuing the importance of democratic institutions and rule of law. Those are long-term things that they don't care enough about. And America's really good, capitalism is really good at short, valuing short-term things, but not long-term things, not public goods, not negative externalities. And I mean, you remember after January 6th, there were a lot of American CEOs that finally said, you know what, we've got to value this. If you were a member of Congress and you refuse to certify a free and fair election, those are table stakes for democracy. We're just not going to, our PACs aren't going to give you money anymore. That's it.

• 1:00:32Ian Bremmer?

  And you and I know a lot of the CEOs that made those decisions, and I was glad they did it. That didn't even last a year. And it's not because those members of Congress apologized and changed their behavior. It's because, eh, well, you know, it's kind of convenient. We want to like give them money again and, you know, let's get in the game and we, you know, our competitors are going to do it. And it was such weenie behavior, you know, it was, I mean, again, this is from someone, these are from companies that didn't need to do it. Jeff Bezos doesn't need, he is wealthy enough, powerful enough, he can stand up. You know, it wasn't comfortable or convenient for me to, uh, to go after Elon when he did something that I thought

• 1:01:14Ian Bremmer?

  was really problematic. He's not an enemy I need, believe it. Uh, but I, I can't live with myself, um, if I can't be honest about what I think on the global political stage. Like, that's just who I am. And if I lose money for that, who gives a shit? It doesn't matter. I lose a client for that, I don't care. But, you know, I do think that if you spend all of your time, I mean, maybe the problem with a person like Bezos is, once you become that rich, the only way you become that rich is by that becoming the only thing you value, right? It shows that money is the only thing that is truly important for you. That is, that is what you orient all of your time and being towards. And if that's

• 1:01:56Ian Bremmer?

  true, there's not much space in your value set for valuing democracy, rule of law, a community, a family, any of those things. Um, and, and therefore, you know, having his guys get the meeting and, you know, telling the people of the Washington Post to go scratch, it, it does reflect who he actually is as a person. Uh, but, you know, we as America are incenting a lot of the wrong kinds of behavior by lionizing someone like that as a captain of USA, because they are not leading by example. That's pretty clear.

• 1:02:33Scott Galloway?

  Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world's leading political risk research and consulting firm, and G Zero Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. He's also the author of 11 books, including the New York Times bestsellers, Us Versus Them, The Failure of Globalism, and his latest, The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats and Our Response Will Change the World. He joins us from his home in New York and off to his new office that he purchased. Because Ian is a baller. Ian is literally, Ian is the guy, he's like one of my peers that is just like killed it both, both in terms of influence and actually knows how to build a business. Ian, I always enjoy our conversations and I'm glad you continue to thrive.

• 1:03:19Ian Bremmer?

  Me too, Scott. It's great to talk to you, man. Good to see you.

• 1:03:33Scott Galloway?

  Algebra of Happiness. One of the people who sent in a question said, I don't always agree with you, but I enjoy your comments. To me, that's arguably one of the nicer things I hear from people. And that is, what is your job if you're an academic? If you're a thought leader? If you're someone, if you're someone engaged in discourse? You want to inspire thinking. And this is the fear, and I fall into this a lot. There is a narrative out there. As soon as you get on social media, it's going to shove you into a bubble that it perceives as your narrative. And it's going to surround you with content and other people who have signed up for a certain narrative. And unfortunately, kind of the narratives out there, the ones that people digress to are generally political. I'm either a progressive or I'm a conservative.

• 1:04:17Scott Galloway?

  It used to be religions, or it used to be nationalism, or your country, or you know, whatever it might be. But now it's basically left or right. And you're treated like an apostate if you veer from the party line. And that is not how we move things forward. We have to be able to think, okay, generally speaking, I agree more with these people, more with these people, whatever it might be. But if you don't have issues where you kind of color outside the lines, it probably means you're not a critical thinker because nobody has, no political party, no ideology, no religion has a monopoly on the truth. And there's so much incentive to sign up for the narrative and you get so much positive feedback. If I go on, you know, Meta has decided, figured out I'm a progressive.

• 1:05:01Scott Galloway?

  So all of these, I've been suggested as a follow to a lot of progressives. So when I put out a thing saying that the October surprise might be this shithead comedian who insulted Puerto Ricans and there's 400,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, this might be the October surprise that swings Pennsylvania to Harris. Five or 6,000 likes because, oh, my gosh, my, my algorithmically chosen progressives love that shit. But if I come out and say, you know, I don't think, I think Trump actually going on Rogan was a great idea. I think the energy distinct of, distinctive, the ridiculous rhetoric that was at that MSG meeting, the energy there, I think, was really surprisingly strong, given that they came to the bluest of blue.

• 1:05:44Scott Galloway?

  I thought it was smart for Trump to go on Rogan and people treat you like you're an apostate. I knew when I put out an endorsement of Harris, I was going to lose subscribers because I have a lot of people who are center right and a lot of conservatives who listen to our stuff. And I like that. And I knew when I put that out, I would lose subscribers. And we actually lost more subscribers than we ever had off a single post. But here's the thing, if you're wealthy and you have people who love you unconditionally, you have an obligation to speak your mind and it's okay. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay to disagree. It's okay to move the ball forward. Progress is a function of evidence and argument. And when we all bark up the same tree, we get stupid.

• 1:06:27Scott Galloway?

  If you put out a viewpoint that is not part of your policy, not part of your tribe's narrative, that's okay. If you have a civil discussion around it, people will forgive you and you're both going to be fine. Are you a critical thinker or have you just signed up for a narrative? Progress is a function of the former.

• 1:06:46Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Shageran and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prof G Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

• 1:07:10Scott Galloway?

  Voy italiano. Ya ya. Ven a que noche y mira mis skins.

• 1:07:20Speaker 05

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• 1:07:49Speaker 06

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