China’s Growing Power, US Diplomacy, and Ukraine’s Counteroffensive — with Ian Bremmer

Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, joins Scott to discuss why China has a spy base in Cuba, where the US struggles and excels on the global stage, and what to expect now that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has begun. Follow Ian on Twitter, @ianbremmer. Scott opens by discussing how former President Trump exudes corruption and stupidity. Algebra of Happiness: what made you? 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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• 1:18Scott Galloway?

  Episode 254. 254 is the area code covering parts of central Texas, including the Waco area. In 1954, the kidney became the first successful organ transplant. What did the PC say when it was blocked by a kidney stone? You're in my way. Hey, you're the ones that wanted me to tone down the sex jokes. Go, go, go!

• 1:49Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 254th episode of the Prop G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group and G Zero Media. He's also the author of 11 books and has a great TED Talk out about all the connection between tech companies and political power. It's about political power! We're gonna have a election. That's my impression of James Carville. But more importantly, he's Prop G Pod's most featured guest at six appearances. Seven, if you count an interview that we split into two episodes anyways. And by the way, I just think the world of Ian Bremmer. I think it's, he's like my Doogie Howser friend. He was a Tulane, no joke, when he was 14. And he was this famous geopolitical scientist, whatever kind of thought leader at like the age of 11.

• 2:34Scott Galloway?

  He's been, he's just an incredible blue flame thinker, a nice guy to get together with and has just a, I like him because he's just unafraid. I can't figure out his politics, which I also like. And he's very open to learning and, and thinking, oh, I didn't see it that way. Maybe I have it wrong. Anyways, we discussed with Ian, the state of China and the US's relationship as well as the war in Ukraine. As you know, the situation in Ukraine is moving really crisply right now. So we should note that we recorded this interview prior to the explosion that destroyed the Kahovka Dam. As Ian points out in his newsletter, we don't know who blew up the dam. And in short, it doesn't make any sense on either party to have blown it up. The only clear conclusion, he writes, is greater miscalculations from Russia performing badly in the field,

• 3:17Scott Galloway?

  more accidents and bigger dangers from mistakes being made. Okay, more on the war and foreign policy later. Let's move to what's happening over here in the good old USA. And by the way, I should say the happening over there, former President Trump. I live in London now. I live in London because I'm fancy. Why did I move to London? Because I can, bitches. I get to come here and watch Premier League football and tell my friends I live in London, which is kind of a flex. Like, isn't he interesting? Isn't he cosmopolitan? Anyways, former President Trump, get this, faces 37 criminal charges related to dishandling of classified documents. That includes 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information.

• 3:54Scott Galloway?

  By now, you've seen the photos of boxes of classified documents littered around Trump's Mar-a-Lago state. The documents include information regarding, get this, defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries, US nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to attack by an adversary, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. This is the second time Trump has been indicted this year. And what do you know? He denies any wrongdoing yet again and will continue his 2024 campaign. So I think you can learn everything from cable television or from original scripted drama.

• 4:35Scott Galloway?

  The best original scripted drama of 2022 was Dopesick. The best original scripted drama of 2023 was Blackbird. Fantastic. And there's a moment in Blackbird, and I don't think this gives it away, where they say, we got him. And as it relates to President Trump, I think there are a few things in American history, maybe nothing in American history. And we've had some real stains on our history, whether it was internment of the Japanese, the slaughter of Native Americans, the war on drugs, which was nothing, nothing more than thinly veiled bigotry and attempt to keep people of color down. Income inequality, you know, there's a lot on and on and on, right? I believe in retrospect, we're going to look at Trump is by far the most indelible stain, or the stain that took decades to wash out of the American experience.

• 5:20Scott Galloway?

  And we have had corrupt presidents, we've had visibly stupid presidents, but we've never had a corrupt and visibly stupid president. We got the whole Monty here. Nixon was corrupt, but he was not a stupid man. And I, many people would argue was actually good for America. W made a first-ballot Hall of Fame, head-up-your-ass geopolitical catastrophic stupid mistake of going into Iraq. He wasn't a corrupt man, actually, he was a good man. But here we have both. Here we have both. We have someone who is, who has fostered a culture of cruelty, who has taught young men and people on the right that mocking the disabled, making misogynistic statements, being found liable in the context of sexual assault.

• 6:03Scott Galloway?

  This is an individual who represents everything we don't want to be, in my view. I just, I, that is, this is going to be the stain that just takes about a billion washes to come out. What's different here? What's different here? The case in New York? Stupid. John Edwards paid off his mistress. People just don't care, and I think it's healthy, about lying about sex. What do you know, Bill Clinton? I did not have sex with that woman. I mean, that just wasn't going to go anywhere, nor do I think it's going to go anywhere. The stuff in Georgia is what I thought was going to get him, being caught on tape, trying to coerce a Georgia Republican elections official into finding votes. I thought that was going to get him. But after speaking to several legal scholars and reading the indictment.

• 6:44Scott Galloway?

  Folks, I think we got him. I think this guy is so visibly stupid that he can't hide his own criminality. What do we have here? The severity of the crime. Well, guess what? Nuclear secrets, plans on when would you actually, what would trigger a nuclear exchange and what wouldn't in terms of attacks on our allies by adversarial nations, information on perhaps a proposed invasion or attack on Iran. Okay, pretty severe crime, pretty severe crime. In addition, state of mind, Hillary Clinton didn't realize she was committing a crime, didn't realize she was doing anything wrong when she was receiving emails, 110 emails of about 100,000 emails that included confidential information. So they decided not to pursue

• 7:27Scott Galloway?

  a criminal case. He not only knew this was classified information, he bragged that it was classified, and then he purposely transported it elsewhere such that he could show it off. He then goes on tape, he then goes on tape and admits that it's classified information, and has attempted since then to cover it up. Where is he truly and visibly fucked? His lawyers, in what is an exceptional moment in any legal case, went to the judge and said, "We want to violate client attorney privilege and get off of this case because he has enlisted us in his corruption." Our editor in chief here, Jason Stavers, who was a very successful

• 8:11Scott Galloway?

  lawyer for a better part of a decade, said he has never read a case where he feels the defendant is more fucked than this case against Donald Trump. And these laws are pretty severe. We take, as we should, very seriously, the mishandling and the casual approach to information that could kill agents overseas, diminish our standing globally, put us at huge risk. Militarily, this is, in my view, finally, and I've said this before and I've been wrong. This is the beginning of the end. America's experiment with the visibly stupid and the corrupt is in its final moments. This is an individual who is a criminal.

• 8:53Scott Galloway?

  This is an individual who represents everything that America is not. This is an individual that is tapped into the anger that America, those on the right and those on the left have fomented by not sharing in the immense prosperity we've registered over the last 40 years with the bottom 90%. We have had tremendous prosperity in this country. What we have not had is progress. And rather than having an open, honest conversation around the struggles that middle America has faced over the last 40 years at the hands of both Republican and Democratic administrations, the void has been filled by a culture of cruelty, criminality, and corruption. And now, and now what's going to end it? Visible stupidity. This is the beginning of the end. We've got them.

• 9:37Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back for our conversation with Ian Bremmer. Support for the show comes from Nutraful, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand used by over one and a half million people. With age comes knowledge, patience, and for some, hair loss. Didn't say it was all good things. And for those who want to do something about it, there's Nutraful. Nutraful has formulas built for men at different life stages. They have Nutraful Men for Guys Age 18 to 49, plus the new Nutraful Men 50 and Older. That's the first product of its kind specifically for men over 50. You can now address the key root causes of thinning wherever you are in life. Grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in just three to six months. Start Nutraful today and make the hat optional.

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• 12:07Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Ian Brimmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group and G0 Media.

• 12:16Scott Galloway?

  Ian, where does this podcast find you?

• 12:18Speaker 02

  I'm in Chicago.

• 12:19Scott Galloway?

  I'm going to start referring to as our Alec Baldwin. Why would I call you some critical thinking? Why would I refer to you as Prop G's Alec Baldwin?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Alec Baldwin. Jeez. Now, I mean, you're assuming that I have a level of Hollywood pop culture knowledge that aligns with my geopolitical experience. And I'm not thinking well about that.

• 12:43Scott Galloway?

  So Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL 17 times. He's hosted SNL more than any person, any other person. And I think you now have been on Prop G more than any person. I think you've been on five or six times now. So anyways, you're, you're Alec Baldwin.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Oh, that's cool. Well, I'm delighted to hear that, Scott. I mean, I love being on with you. I feel like it's, it's always an open and fun and sometimes unexpected conversation, right? We bring each other places we wouldn't necessarily otherwise go. It's a good thing.

• 13:12Scott Galloway?

  I like that. So let's, let's bust right into it. China is paying Cuba several billion dollars so it can host some sort of espionage or listening facility in Cuba. What are your thoughts here?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  A lot of thoughts. First of all, it's going to be a lot more effective than sending balloons over the country. Which was, I mean, that was, that wasn't a non-issue, frankly, remember? Because the balloons were a backup. They were in case the Americans got into a fight with China and we took out their satellite capabilities. They still wanted to have the ability to do surveillance. And so that was the purpose of ramping up their balloon program. It wasn't like they were getting additional useful intel out of that. This is additional useful intel. This is, these are direct listening devices that would give the Chinese government much greater ability to surveil

• 14:04Speaker 02

  a big swath of the United States and, you know, the Cuban government, which is heavily sanctioned by the United States and is authoritarian, is far more aligned with China than they are with the US. The Chinese don't have great security capabilities, military capabilities, but they got a lot of money. And so, I mean, why wouldn't they throw a bunch of cash at Cuba to give them a little more leverage over the Americans? It's, you know, not so different. Uh, from the United States, uh, having allies and military bases all over the world,

• 14:46Speaker 02

  including right across China's border. There is, of course, one difference, which is significant. And that is, uh, that Cuba is not in a position, uh, for its people to decide that they want this base, uh, there or not. Whereas in Japan or in Australia, this is a democratically elected government. So what the government does reflects the will of the people. Having said that, of course, Scott, the United States, uh, maintains a major base in Qatar, uh, in the Gulf, um, and of course, uh, has enormous military cooperation with Saudi Arabia, and those are authoritarian governments. So, I mean, as much as the United States isn't going to like this, uh, it's not

• 15:27Speaker 02

  like the US is about to do anything about it. We're certainly not going to invade or annex, uh, Cuba, uh, which is, uh, you know, sort of what the Russian argument on NATO expansion basically was.

• 15:40Scott Galloway?

  Doesn't this reflect, and this is an opinion, and I want you to validate or nullify this. In my view, it doesn't it reflect poor policy on the behalf of Americans that we should have normalized relations with Cuba a decade or two ago, and then a small tale of very conservative Cubans in Florida, in a swing state, are driving US policy and have maintained an adversarial relationship with an island nation, you know, a hundred miles from Miami, and now it's coming back to haunt us?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Um, I, I want to agree with that, Scott. Um, and I don't, and I don't, and, and, and it's not that you're wrong. Um, it's absolutely true that a small number of relatively conservative and very strongly anti-Castro and post-Castro regime, um, emigres to the US have been very hawkish on any normalization with Cuba. But most Cuban Americans are younger now, uh, and they're not driving that policy right now. More importantly, In fact, most of them want to go and want to travel there. They want to do business there, all that. The thing is that the Cuban government has strongly resisted normalization.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  I mean, remember, under the Obama administration, you tried to reduce sanctions. You tried to get a level of direct trade and investment and openness to the US economy. And the Cuban government stopped it. And the reason they stopped it is because they are very small as an economy. They are very close to the United States. And they understand that if they open up and normalize with the US, their government is gone in short order. Right? Because the investment from the US will overwhelm them. Um, the Cubans will travel, um, they will get out, they will see it vastly better. A lot of them will leave and stay gone. Um, they're worried in the same way the North Koreans won't open their economy to the world because it would be the end of the North Korean regime.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  It's not that easy to just say, okay, let's open. It does take two to tango. And the Cuban government, very different from the Cuban people, have no interest in opening their diplomacy and their economy uh to the United States. That's a serious problem.

• 17:51Scott Galloway?

  It's really interesting. And and just sticking with China, it strikes me the between. And I don't know how much of this is Western media engaging in, you know, hyperbole. But you you hear reports of Chinese naval vessels really getting aggressive with American vessels. You see balloons coming over. Uh, and now you see what's happening in Cuba. This definitely feels like China is puffing out its chest or flexing a bit and asserting their authority and their power. Your thoughts?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  I think that's right. Um, but I I also think that um American and Chinese power are so very different. Uh, the United States is the world's dominant security power. No one else is close. US outspends the next 10 countries combined uh in defense. And most of the next 10 are aligned with the United States. Uh, militarily, and they also, of course, have their systems very integrated by the US. In many cases, American defense contractors are providing them. Um. China does uh have a much cheaper labor and they can get some cheaper components. So I mean, it's not, you're not exactly comparing apples to apples, but still it's overwhelming.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  And the US is the only country in the world that can project its power militarily in every corner of the world. And so you've got bases everywhere and the Chinese, you know, not just China in the Western Hemisphere, China in their own backyard feels militarily surrounded by the Americans. Those bases are everywhere. But China has the second largest economy in the world. It'll probably be the largest by twenty thirty. And the Chinese government actually controls the economy as opposed in the US where, you know, the private sector is the dominant actor, dominant set of actors. Um. And that means that China has become the dominant trading partner of pretty much every country, even in the Western Hemisphere, certainly around the world, but every South American country.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  You look in the Caribbean, China is increasingly economically dominant. And that is the way as a power. And that's the way that they actually get things done. So in the G seven summit recently, you saw the US and its allies bitterly complaining that the Chinese are engaging in coercive economic activities to get the political outcomes they want. And, you know, both sides are right. The Chinese are more effective in leveraging their commercial authority to get power outcomes they want. The Americans are more effective in leveraging security outcomes to get the power that we want. And now you see backlash from both.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  You see more sanctions, you see the CHIPS Act, you see a critical minerals club that the Americans are driving with our allies. And you see the Chinese engaging more um with the Cubans uh on military and the surveillance front. You see them, um, you know, as you say, puffing out their chest, trying to resist some of that dominant American military influence in their own backyard. So I'm not surprised at all. I think you're right. But if we take a step back and we look at the global perspective on power and the geopolitical balance, we see that it's actually a more complicated story.

• 21:09Scott Galloway?

  So what, using as an example, what do you do in Cuba? Do we just, I mean, you can't invade it because doesn't that, I mean, we can't tell the Chinese not to invade Taiwan and then we go and invade Cuba, or at least it doesn't, theoretically, it seems so inconsistent. If you were advising the White House, what would, how would you address this problem?

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Um, well, first of all, I do think that there is a useful point to be made, that the Americans do not think it's legitimate to invade a country for making sovereign decisions on its territory about their military alignment. This is not the Cold War, it's not 1962, and we're not Russia. And again, the people that are making, that are trying to justify that the Russians invaded Ukraine because Ukraine as a sovereign democracy isn't allowed to decide they want to join a defensive alliance. Look, I mean, I don't trust the Chinese as far as I can throw them on security, but if the Cubans want to set up a listening base on their own sovereign territory,

• 22:10Speaker 02

  they have the right to set up a listening base on their own sovereign territory. Now, the United States can counter that base, and they can counter it with jamming, they can counter it, you know, with espionage, and I suspect that the Americans will do those things. And it would not shock me if down the road at some point, if those things were ineffective, if you saw sabotage of some degree and the Cuban listening base was not as effective as you thought it might be. Now, that's a risky decision to take, but those sorts of things happen a fair amount in the history of international geopolitics. But of course, the best way for the Americans to compete against the Chinese is to out-compete them.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  And that means doing the kinds of things the United States has done, be more attractive to more people around the world economically, militarily, and also diplomatically. US is very attractive as a military ally. The US is pretty attractive as an economic cooperator for the advanced industrial economies. The US has not been so effective. As a diplomatic partner, and I mean, you you and I have seen that recently um in the Middle East with the Chinese brokering that Saudi Iran deal. Where are the Americans? We'll see if a Saudi Israel deal gets brokered by the Americans, but you want the Americans to still be seen as the dominant useful diplomatic partner and ally and the level of dysfunction in Washington and also

• 23:40Speaker 02

  the on again, off again, depending on who the president happens to be and you can go back on agreements you used to do. That makes the Americans much less reliable than say from many countries than a China that will be run by the same guy for decades. And that's a problem. That's a problem. So I mean, it's it's the United States does have, you know, a little bit of its hand tied behind its back because some of its diplomatic capabilities are not expressed well by its political system.

• 24:11Scott Galloway?

  There was a moment you said something along the lines of that America doesn't invade sovereign nations. And the the word that popped into my mind was Iraq.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 24:21Scott Galloway?

  So you you would argue that was a legitimate invasion and that we haven't lost a ton of moral authority there?

• 24:27Speaker 02

  I I think the US, it was an illegitimate invasion and the US lost a ton of moral authority there. I think that's absolutely the case. Um, I I know, by the way, we're not talking about um the first Iraq Gulf War uh when the Americans with allies invaded Iraq because they invaded a sovereign nation Kuwait. Um, and I think that was a wholly uh justifiable and legitimate war and one that I'm glad the Americans fought. Um, but uh but the second war uh in Iraq under Bush was a war of choice uh fought under uh faulty intelligence, false political statements um and against a brutal dictator and I'm perfectly happy to see him gone uh and so are many Iraqis.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Uh, but that doesn't justify the war and and I think that the United States uh did a lot of damage uh to its own moral authority by engaging in that illegitimate war. Um, and by the way, I mean, we, you know, we just uh all celebrated Kissinger's one hundredth birthday, someone I know very well. Um, but I mean, you know, he was also involved historically in a lot of illeg- support for illegitimate wars and genocide. Um, you know, you saw in Cambodia, of course, the secret war that went on there. Uh, I mean, supporting a Suharto in Indonesia against East Timor, which now legitimately uh has independence. But of course, at the time was basically facing a genocide. I mean, the Americans have been on the wrong side of a lot of policy historically.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  And I'm certainly not going to sit here and try to argue otherwise. But um, that does not mean uh that what we have, the wrongs that we've experienced historically are are things that presently reflect in US policy globally. I mean, you know, the United States had slavery too. The United States committed a genocide against uh Native Americans. Uh, we don't think those things are appropriate or correct. Uh, we fought a civil war over one of them. So um, you know, it's I I I I don't necessarily also believe that things that happened in history, whether it's, you know, old, old history or even recent history have to define the Ameri- the United States that you and I live in today.

• 26:32Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I mean, the list is long, right? Japanese in tournament camps. The going back to or before we shift to Ukraine, isn't

• 26:42Scott Galloway?

  isn't America struggling with? Well, first, is this is the shift I'm about to articulate happening? And is you at the US struggling with this shift? The shift being that we're no longer the dominant player on the global stage. That China, because of its economic might and ability to attract partners. I was talking to someone who's the CEO of an Indian company and he said, three percent of our exports go to China. Thirty percent of our imports come from China. So at the end of the day, when we sit down at the table with them, they just have a lot of power. Because they could, he said, China, with a stroke of a pen from one person, and you referenced that autocracies are actually quite efficient on certain levels and around decision making. One call from Xi at night, they could shut down our automotive industry.

• 27:26Scott Galloway?

  And millions, if not tens of millions of people would be out of work in India. And they're exerting that power. And is America having a tough time adjusting? To the fact that you call it G zero, but there's no, it's not, it's definitely not a G one world anymore?

• 27:40Speaker 02

  It's definitely not a G one world. Um, and uh, the United States still has a lot of advantages. You've got the global reserve currency, the dollar, which is a large majority of the holdings of all central banks in the world. It's higher than the the yen, the euro and the one together combined. Um, you've got massive oil and gas and food production exporters, the Chinese are importers. That's a problem. It's a vulnerability for them. You've got strong demographic growth, uh, which is the only true, the only major economy in the world with the exception of India where that's true. China's got massive demographic contraction that's coming up. U S is still dominant in most technologies of the Chinese are parity and some that are very important.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Um, so I mean, the baseline of American power continues to be very significant and not just about its military capabilities, but you're absolutely right, Scott, that on the global stage, the economy is no longer driven by the U S. The economy is not driven by anyone. It is multipolar. And some of that is because China's bigger than it used to be. Some of it is because they're consolidated state capitalist under one leader. Some of it's because the Americans are so divided and no longer have a trade policy and can't provide market access. There are lots of reasons for it, but it's a frustration. It's a frustration for Americans in part because

• 29:09Speaker 02

  the reason why China was brought into and welcomed into American institutions for the last forty years. Part of it was because the U S knew it would make Americans wealthier, American corporations wealthier. But part of it was a mistake in assumption that as the Chinese became wealthier and more powerful that they'd become Americans. And they're not. They're still authoritarian. They're still state capitalists. They're just wealthier and more powerful. And, and you know, Americans are not prepared to accept that. Um, whether or not Americans should and to what degree is another question, but they're not. Democrats and Republicans are not prepared to accept an authoritarian state capitalist China

• 29:50Speaker 02

  at the table with the same level of influence and respect that an American ally would have. Um, that bet for the Americans did not work out. Um, and, and that means that we now have this relationship, the two most powerful countries in the world really have zero trust. And it's, it's certainly the worst relationship we've had with them since Tiananmen. And that's a problem. And it's particularly a problem because you've seen Scott Jamie Dimon just got back from China, had great things to say about the Chinese. Elon Musk just got back from China, had great things to say about the Chinese. I'm sure if we sent LeBron to China, he'd have great things to say about the Chinese.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Um, most American corporations uh are more aligned with Canada, uh, Japan, South Korea, the UK, Germany, France, than they are with Washington when it comes to China. And that is a challenge for the Democrats and Republicans in formulating China policy.

• 30:53Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, it's, it's really, I mean, a couple of things that, that struck me as really insightful. The Americans, one of our superpowers is our optimism. Sometimes that bleeds into narcissism. And I think the general assumption was that if a nation became capitalist, they'd immediately be an ally and sign up to Baywatch and apple pie. And there's definitely, it just because they go capitalist, I would argue Saudi Arabia is going embracing capitalism. China, I would argue on many levels is more capitalist than we are, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to be great. Great friends. And the other thing that strikes me, what you just said, I see, I work with a lot of big American companies. And their attitude is, as it relates to our supply chain and manufacturing our shoes

• 31:35Scott Galloway?

  and our, our, our components in China, it's business as usual. And we have a great relationship with them on the ground. That you see this level of rhetoric and heat around policy. But when it comes to actual business relationships, they continue to have a very productive ecosystem.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you know, we talk about de-risking, that is the term of art presently between the United States and China. But of course, the, the, the fact is that the United States is doing an extraordinary amount of business with China. And, and most of these corporations, not all, but certainly a large majority want to continue to have global supply chain, access to global markets, access to a large and fast growing consumer base. You know, you've got eight hundred, nine hundred million people online in China.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  They're still growing faster than the United States from an overall economic perspective. Any luxury goods producer, any major hotel chain, you know, the sports industry. You know, Hollywood a little bit less because the Chinese are developing a lot more of their own content. But most of them see China as not only a core market, but the principal growth market that they have globally. Now, the counter indicators there, Scott, one is that Chinese labor today is more expensive than Mexican labor. It has gone up a lot as China's gotten wealthier. So the idea that you would use China as your factory for global production

• 33:21Speaker 02

  is less attractive just for, on a pure economic. Dollar for dollar basis than it used to be. And of course, the Chinese don't have rule of law. They don't have an independent judiciary. And they support a lot of their own national champions and people that are connected to their government. So it is getting harder for companies to feel like they have a level of clarity and visibility into how they're going to engage in their business practices over the next five, 10 years. So I do see a lot of baseline Chinese American companies in China that are now saying, we may not want to expand our investments the way we have. I see a lot of movement. Tech companies now opening a lot more in India than they used to, especially as

• 34:05Speaker 02

  India develops a much more improved regulatory environment in technology and invest in their own tech infrastructure, digital infrastructure. I see that with Apple. I see with Cisco. I see it with Google, a bunch of other companies like that. Those are big moves that five years ago they never would have made. And then I see just the general populism in the United States saying, hey, we we went too far with globalization. We hollowed out our own middle and working classes. We want to now get a lot more investment back in the U.S. So of course, no more chip production in Taiwan. That should all be in the U.S. Want to promote a lot more local investment, even if it's more expensive. And, you know, some of that is national security.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Some of that is, you know, a deep seated concern about about undervalued American workers. And some of that is the failure of the U.S. social safety net over the past decades that should have been working for Americans, but wasn't.

• 35:04Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

• 35:08Scott Galloway?

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• 35:53Scott Galloway?

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• 36:16Speaker 03

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• 36:47Scott Galloway?

  Let's shift to Ukraine. And we haven't, since we last spoke to you a couple of months ago, there's been a lot of attention on the counteroffensive, spring counteroffensive, and then a discussion around, what is the staying power of Russia here? Anyways, state of play. What do you think has changed in the last two months? And if and how? Has it changed your view of the situation there? And any predictions or thoughts around the next six months?

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Well, we're very close to the counteroffensive beginning in earnest. It has started in the sense that the Ukrainians have already ordered a number of probing attacks across the front lines to see where the Russians are defended well in-depth, where they're not. And that is, should be a precursor to... A Zelensky order for about fifty thousand Ukrainian troops on the field to try to break the land bridge that the Russians have between Russia and Crimea. And, you know, they will probably take some territory. This area is well defended by the Russians, but they probably won't break the bridge. And that's one thing that's happened is we'll watch and see that counteroffensive and the Ukrainians

• 37:56Speaker 02

  will probably be in a better position after the counteroffensive than before. We also see a lot of movement on the part of NATO to put Ukraine in a much better position after the counteroffensive so that negotiations might start, so that a pause in the fighting, a ceasefire might occur. I'll tell you a few of those things. First of all, the Americans are working with allies to create military guarantees for Ukraine that would fall short of full NATO membership, but would treat Ukraine like Japan or like Israel, to provide a level of certainty to the Ukrainian people that the Russians aren't

• 38:38Speaker 02

  going to get a second bite at this apple, that they will continue to have that level of defense on an ongoing slash permanent basis. Secondly, you see the Americans, the Brits and others ramping up their willingness to provide more advanced weapon systems to Ukraine. The F-16s, for example, the long-range missiles from the UK soon from the US, for example. These are weapons that are not going to be deployed in the counteroffensive, but they're weapons that will show Ukraine that you're going to have a very capable military to defend your territory after this offensive is over. This is longer-term planning. You also see the Americans, the Europeans ramping up support for the hundreds of billions

• 39:23Speaker 02

  of dollars that will be required for rebuilding, for reconstructing Ukraine after the counteroffensive. And that includes seizing some of the Russian frozen assets, sovereign and oligarch, to use those. To rebuild Ukraine, which has some precedent in international law, given that the invasion was illegal as declared twice in a strong majority vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations. So the idea here is, I mean, there are some people that support Ukraine that say Ukraine has to win. The only way they can win is if they get all their territory back, including Crimea. And I'm telling you, Scott, that is not going to happen militarily.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  We know that. The Ukrainians know that. They certainly know that when it comes to Crimea. Zelensky has admitted that privately to NATO leadership repeatedly. So what does that mean? Well, what that means is if you can have a successful counteroffensive and they get some more of their land back so that Ukraine hasn't lost 20% of the land, it's more like 10% or 8%, and they have security guarantees, and they've got massive military support and training and intelligence, and they have money for reconstruction, and they're joining the EU. That, to me, looks like a win for Ukraine. I mean, nothing will bring back the 40,000 civilians that are dead. Nothing will bring back the people that have suffered from tens of thousands of war crimes. Nothing will obviate the suffering

• 40:51Speaker 02

  of 8.5 million Ukrainians who have been forced into refugee status, had their homes blown up, all the rest. I mean, you know, these, these things, this feels like a genocide for the Ukrainians and will for generations. But from, in terms of what will happen going forward, if you're China looking at Taiwan, if you're any country looking at NATO or the G7, you would say that the West stood up for the, for the independent sovereignty and territorial integrity of a democratic country that was illegally invaded and did their damnedest to make it right. And, you know, as you mentioned, given the spotty history of the United States and its allies on this stuff, you know, getting it right in a big case here is important.

• 41:36Scott Galloway?

  So it sounds, you sound hopeful to me. It sounds to me like you're sort of fashioning or envisioning a counteroffensive that is modestly to significantly successful, which puts Ukraine and the West in a position of negotiating a decent deal that all parties could sort of claim some sort of victory. And then we move on with a Ukraine that's more tightly integrated into the West diplomatically, economically, militarily, and that you see that might happen, say, call it fall.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that there's a reasonable possibility that by the end of the year, Ukraine will be in a markedly better position than they are right now, and we will have some level of a freeze in the fighting. I think that's wholly plausible. That's the good news. And by the way, the markets will like that, the global economy will like that. But there is, there is bad news here, Scott. And I focus on two pieces of really bad news. You said, you said that I could see a deal that everybody can get behind. Well, the Russians are not winners in that deal. Russians are big time losers. Their economy's still cut off from the G7. Their assets still frozen. Some of them seized for reconstruction. Putin is still considered a war criminal. So very interesting. You know, I, you-

• 42:53Scott Galloway?

  Wouldn't that be up for negotiation though, Ian? Wouldn't part of the, wouldn't that be up for negotiation? Part of the settlement would involve all of those things most likely?

• 43:00Speaker 02

  You know, I think it's going to be hard. I am optimistic that we might be able to get to a frozen conflict. I am pessimistic that we can get to successful negotiations. By the way, I do think that China will be a part of any negotiation, and the Americans at the highest level accept that. They recognize that you're not, you're not going to get Russia to the table unless Russia has someone they can talk to, and they can't talk to the Americans. They can't talk to the Europeans. So having Xi Jinping a part of this is something that probably will eventually happen. But I still think-

• 43:33Speaker 02

  That um this relationship is fundamentally broken and that Putin has lost too much and he can't get back from that. So he will still be a rogue state. He will still see himself at war with NATO. And I think that's a very dangerous place for the Europeans to be. That's a very dangerous place for the world to be. I mean, just a few months ago, we saw this UK reconnaissance airplane that was over the Black Sea, international waters, operating perfectly legal illegally, just uh get collecting information on the Russian forces for NATO for Ukraine. Um, a a Russian fighter jet um locked its weapons on.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  The fighter pilot misunderstood uh the order from his superior officer, fired his missiles and they misfired thankfully, or thirty eight British airmen would have been dead. Uh, we were really close to a Cuban missile crisis right there. And and we all need to recognize that this level of ongoing war footing with the Russians against the Russians is a very dangerous place to be. And we just saw all these massive Russian criminal cyber attacks against a whole bunch of UK companies. Uh, there's gonna be, you know, more attacks on critical infrastructure. Uh, there's gonna be all sorts of espionage and they've got nuclear weapons. You know, when when Trump was on CNN, he didn't make much news.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, he beat up on Caitlin Collins and had his laugh track audience there. But the one place he did make news was on Ukraine because Trump hasn't really said very much on Ukraine since the war started. And and Caitlin was pushing him on whether or not he was willing to call Putin a war criminal. And and and his response was very interesting. He said, now is not the time for that. And and Caitlin pushed him again. How how what do you mean? You know, he's done all these horrible things. Hey, uh, you know, I I right now, we're trying to like end this war. We call him a war criminal. We're putting him in a corner. It's it's much harder for him to actually be willing to come to the table. Um, I happen to agree with that. I think that Putin is a war criminal.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  But I also know that war criminals, you know, the only ones I can think of are people like Milosevic, Gaddafi, Basir. I mean, these people end up in jail or dead. We don't have a way to take out Putin. The guy's got 5,000 nuclear warheads. It's not helpful for us to be engaging in that way with him at this point. And by the way, I will tell you that a lot of Biden's advisers privately feel the same way. So, and they can't say that. You can't say that publicly because, you know, we're all us versus them in this country right now. And if Trump says something on Russia, Ukraine, he's only carrying water for Putin.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  But, but the reality, I think, is more nuanced here and it's, it's going to be really tough to get this genie back in the bottle.

• 46:27Scott Galloway?

  So bringing Ukraine into domestic politics, it struck me, I watched the town hall with Ambassador Governor Haley, and she is trying to differentiate herself from the other Republican candidates by saying, you know, she's quite hawkish on Ukraine, you know, saying this is important. This is more than about Ukraine. This is about the West. What role do you think Ukraine will play in the election, the 2024 election? And who do you think it favors or what? How, how does the chessboard play out here?

• 46:59Speaker 02

  So DeSantis was taken out of context and had an unawful response to that Tucker Carlson request on Ukraine. And he then really, you know, sort of backtracked and said, absolutely not, I need to support, we need to support Ukraine. This is, this is really significant. We're, we're, you know, we have to defend the Russian invasion was illegal. In other words, I see most of the Republican candidates actually pretty aligned with Haley on this and aligned with McCarthy on this and aligned with McConnell on this. I think that that is a very strong Republican policy that is aligned with Biden on continuing to provide strong support for the Ukrainians militarily

• 47:43Speaker 02

  and continuing to maintain very tough sanctions against Putin and Russia. Trump is obviously on the other side of that.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Vivek Ramaswamy is definitely taking on the Trump line on Ukraine and it is end the war. Zelensky is not to be trusted. Ukraine is corrupt. And you can find, you know, some of that with J D Vance, some of that with Marjorie Taylor Greene. In other words, I'm, I'm really cherry picking to find the Republicans that have that perspective. Except it's Trump. And of course, for any of you that had the misfortune of watching the 10 minute rant by Tucker Carlson in his first Twitter show

• 48:34Speaker 02

  the other day, which included a really a direct dog whistle anti Semitic screed against Zelensky. Um, it was deeply disturbing. It was pretty much blood libel. You know, he knows what he's doing. Um, he's definitely promoting that too. I do think that there is, you know, a, a potential for a growing knee jerk MAGA populist. Um, the Ukrainians are evil. They are corrupt. They're run by a dirty Jew. And Soros is backing them and we need to do something about that. I mean, I hate to say it, but there is that, that, that is definitely coming.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  And, you know, our friend Elon has done a lot to help those dog whistles get more broadly distributed. I worry about that, but it's still early days and it's very far. It's a fringe Republican perspective at this point, thankfully.

• 49:36Scott Galloway?

  And then just to wrap up here, we had Jeffrey Sachs, the economist from Columbia on, and I know you're friends with Jeffrey. I think a lot of Jeffrey because he's fearless. Some of the themes though, Verge went from sort of a balanced viewpoint where, you know, a sober view of America's role in the world. It felt a little bit. I don't know, self-loathing around America. And one thing that caught our attention, I wish now, looking back, we talked about this off mic, I'd push back harder, is that he believes, and I don't want to put too many words on his mouth, but reductively, that we kind of provoked Putin and put Putin in a corner before the invasion. He wanted America to take some responsibility for Russia's incursion into the Ukraine. What are your thoughts?

• 50:19Speaker 02

  I do like Jeff. I've known him for easily 20 years. I think he's a really smart guy. And he's, you know, kind of a strongly knee-jerk anti-imperialist. And there are lots of reasons to feel that way when you look at US history. Ukraine is not one of them. And the Ukrainian people are an independent people. Putin has, on a number of occasions, said that he doesn't accept that. He's called the Ukrainians Nazis. He doesn't respect their sovereignty. He believes that the country should be a part of Russia. And I think that what the Americans did was

• 50:57Speaker 02

  less provoke the Russians than make Putin believe that the West wasn't going to do anything. After 2014, when, you know, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and had their little green men in operation that they denied in southeast Ukraine, they said, oh, they're just soldiers on vacation, on leave, which is ludicrous on its face. The Americans didn't respond, and the Europeans did virtually nothing. In fact, when the Russians then hosted a World Cup, a lot of European leaders, including Macron, others traveled to Russia. This was while the Russians were illegally occupying Ukraine. No consequences. And I think that

• 51:42Speaker 02

  when you add that... To the failure of the US in Afghanistan, the unilateral withdrawal of the United States, so embarrassing, so painful to watch after twenty years of war, to have lost that war in such an ignominious way. Uh, when he saw um that Merkel, who was such a strong supporter of the Ukrainians and a strong opponent of the Russians, left for uh Schulz and the social democrat that was more, they were the ones that were really responsible for engaging more with the Russians. Um, I think he saw opportunities. I think he saw, I can go in and take Ukraine and they're not gonna do anything. It's gonna be like twenty fourteen

• 52:26Speaker 02

  all over again. So, no, I mean, in fact, quite to the contrary, I don't think the Russians were provoked. I think the Russian Putin felt like he had impunity. Felt like there wouldn't be consequences. Felt like he could, he already saw that he bullied and got away with it. Two thousand eight in Georgia, two thousand fourteen in Ukraine, and then two thousand twenty-three. And, you know, finally, this guy's sitting around um continuing to bluff on a short stack, throwing all in, and he finally got called by a bigger staff. That's what happened. Um, but he he thought he could get away with it. And

• 53:06Speaker 02

  the idea that the Ukrainian nation doesn't have the unilateral right to join a defensive alliance. Uh, I mean, NATO doesn't have to let them in. But, you know, it wasn't like the West was saying, we we're gonna take over Ukraine. The Ukrainian people wanted to join NATO, just like they wanted to join the EU. Um, you know, the Soviet Union was incredibly repressive from Moscow. These these independent countries, the the the former Soviet republics that became independent after decades of brutal Soviet rule, they wanted out. And, and thank God, there were places for them to go.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Um, and you know, I, I feel for, for them and, and I was, I was a little sad. I heard some of, uh, Jeff's comments on your pod and I, I, I think it's, I was a little sad that, that he puts it in that way, um, that the United States is responsible by provoking Russia and somehow, somehow justifying Putin's behavior because of what the US did to him. I, I don't think that's, I don't think that's reasonable at all.

• 54:17Scott 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 is the author of 11 books, including his latest, The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats and Our Responses Will Change the World. He joins us from, did you say Chicago, Ian?

• 54:39Speaker 02

  I said Chicago, yeah.

• 54:40Scott Galloway?

  And also, let's talk about our Twitter Spaces.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 54:43Scott Galloway?

  What are we talking about? What are we doing?

• 54:44Speaker 02

  I think we're announcing our run.

• 54:47Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, you're, I'm, you're running for president. I'm going to announce that. And the technology will break down.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  It's gonna be fantastic. We're gonna break, we're gonna break Twitter.

• 55:06Scott Galloway?

  Algebra of Happiness, what and who made you? Uh, no one is self-made. That's a myth we tell ourselves to take credit for things and feel good about ourselves and kind of fall into this narcissism that's fomented by an American culture on individuality. But I think it, I think it makes sense and it's a healthy practice to, on a regular basis, sit down and say, am I American-made? Is it a function of this incredible culture I was born into where I could take advantage of entrepreneurship or great universities or the ability to move or, uh, an environment that let me practice free speech or value the arts? What is it about the country you live in that has made you who you are? What is it about the people who made you who you are? Do you have a certain sense

• 55:51Scott Galloway?

  of humor that was genetically passed on? You know, is it experiences you've had that have kind of shaped you? I think it's important to just sort of say, if you were to disarticulate who you are, Where did the pieces come from? What were the factories that made them such that you can appreciate them? You can be grateful for them and you can think about being a better shepherd and investing in the future for other people? What made you? What external forces made you? Are you a function of tragedy? If you think about comic books or you think about Marvel movies, the hero and the villain are both shaped by tragedy. The hero is usually the orphan and the villain is usually someone who has a big scar. And the difference is how they each responded to tragedy.

• 56:36Scott Galloway?

  The hero decides that he or she wants to protect people based on their suffering and the villain has decided that they're angry and they want to punish other people based on some traumatic event that's happened in their life. Are you shaped by trauma? But what is it that's made you? What are the factories you were made in? And what does that say about the rest of your life where you want to invest your resources? Who you want to love? What you want to foster? What values you want to promote in terms of your own relationships? Are you American made? Who made you? What factories are you from? This episode was produced by Caroline Shageran. 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.

• 57:19Scott Galloway?

  We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.

• 57:35Scott Galloway?

  That wasn't that funny? Okay. All right, we'll go with the first one. There was literally an uncomfortable pause.

• 57:42Scott Galloway?

  It's like, oh my God, who's gonna tell him? You think I got guns like this naturally? Hello, supplement. Hello, sup- supplement. Supplama.

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