Conversation with Ian Bremmer — 2024’s Top Geopolitical Risks

25:50I mean, death threats and the rest, which has kind of been shocking to me, right? Obviously, if you're hitting that to me, then I mean, just imagine what my Jewish friends are getting hit with, right? So I get that. I think that the anti-Israeli sentiment is much more understandable. The United States is quite isolated in its level of support for Israel today. Other countries around the world, including most U.S. allies, do not support this government to anywhere close to the degree that the United States does politically. Part of that is Netanyahu's democratic failings inside his country, the judiciary, the corruption, all of the rest.

26:37Some of that bigotry, right? Extremism and bigotry on the Knesset, right? And some of this is earned. Members, members of his own cabinet who are calling for ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which is the opposite of what the United States should be standing for. We don't know what our values are anymore today in America, which is part of this top risk. But but to the extent that we have values that we believed in historically ethnic cleansing you know let's leave aside the treatment of the natives in the united states but we don't believe that that's what we actually stand for that's not those aren't the values enshrined to the declaration of independence ethnic cleansing so that's a problem that that not in yahoo's government represents that but also we in the united states like underdogs you see it in march madness and we love the cinderella 16 you see it in Ukraine you know we didn't we thought they were going to lose and we're trying to help get Zelensky out and then he says no I don't need a ride I need ammo and they fight and we say you know what we're going to stand up for these guys because you know we don't care much about Ukraine but we support the underdog and we don't like the idea the Russians are coming in and destroying these people and you know Israel has been making this argument that they face an existential threat from Hamas and it's not true It's not true.

27:59They faced more violence against the civilian population in the most brutal possible form that any Jews have seen since the Holocaust on October 7th. And we must condemn that without any caveat. But Israel has the ability to defend itself. And the reason they didn't defend themselves is because Netanyahu took his eye off the ball, supported Hamas and took the IDF and the border controls off of Gaza focused on taking more land of the Palestinians in the West Bank with the settler populations so that he could stay in power because that was the nature of his coalition government. Now, Israel has by far the strongest military in the Middle East, largely through their own capacity, but also bolstered and supported by the U.S.

28:44Their defenses, Iron Dome, we provide that support. We help them defend themselves. The Israelis have a right to self-defense. Of course they do. The Palestinians also should have a right to defend themselves. They should have a right to govern themselves, but they do not have that right. And I think that a lot of Americans, especially young Americans who are increasingly cynical about the legitimacy of American institutions, look at what's happening to the Palestinians and say, yeah, these horrible things were done to the Israelis. Yes. Yes. Okay. I don't believe that a majority of young people are sympathetic to Hamas.

29:23You will find that on social media and it will be exploited and expanded by people that can't stand them. I get it, but that's not the majority. But I think the majority of young people look at these Palestinians and they say, wow, Israel's rich and they've got all these weapons and they don't care what happens to these Palestinians. They're going to defend themselves. It doesn't matter how many Palestinians die. And Biden has slowly but surely and Blinken come to try to understand that sentiment of the United States supporting an underdog. that I think that's a big part of what young people are feeling in the United States.

30:09And I don't I don't think we should be surprised by it. In some ways, we should be inspired by it, but we need to channel it much more constructively than what we're seeing today. So I think it's difficult. A lot of people will say there's a difference between anti-Semitism and being anti-Israel. And that is a legitimate fair point. And I've been and I know you have critical Netanyahu. And I mean, I think you're a little bit younger than me, but we're kind of the same age. Yeah, absolutely. For Israel among our generation, I think, was the 67 war and fighting back against Goliath. It was 72 as Munich.

30:46They were the good, you know, they were the good guys. And they were the underdogs. And they were the underdogs. And slowly but surely, they've kind of transitioned to the bad guys, at least in the eyes of younger Americans. And the eyes of the world. Do you sense, though, what I sense? And that is, I'll use a recent current event. I think it was Suleiman, I forget his name, the Iranian senior security officer who was taken out by a U.S. drone. And they had a memorial forum, terrorism, I think 100 plus people killed, front page. And then, and it's getting tons of coverage. And then they find out ISIS takes credit for it.

31:27Right. And then it just disappears. Yeah. And I interpreted it, and maybe this is incorrect, but I interpreted it as, oh, it's just Muslims killing Muslims. That's okay. But when Jews do something, it gets much more scrutiny and a much finer eye. And I joked on my and this is well, I I used an analogy that if you wanted to bring more attention to the fentanyl crisis, just start a conspiracy theory that Jews are responsible for trafficking it. I'm sure that Alex has already done that. Right. I mean, so we just need it. We just need to. That's hurt when you compare me to Alex Jones. But it seems to me that, and I look at this war, Israel is not allowed to win a war.

32:07They're allowed to respond to aggression and prosecute it to a truce. And then they're expected to, okay, now hold up. Whereas when Al-Qaeda comes in and kills 2 ,800 Americans, we respond by killing 400 ,000 people in World War II. I mean, you can just go on and on and on. That they are held to a different—Israel is held to a different higher standard. That people have decided that essentially the last true Christians in the world should be Jews. I sense a double standard. Do you see that same double standard, or is there more at play here? I think the reason that it got more coverage when people thought it might have been Israel, and it made no sense, no experts would have thought it was Israel because it was not a targeted military assassination or attack.

32:52It was a whole bunch of civilians getting killed. That's not the way Israel engages in fights. So it should have been obvious this wasn't Israel. It got coverage, I think, in part because of the focus on what Israel is doing. and some of that I'm sure is anti-Semitism informed by anti-Semitism, but also because if it was Israel, it was very likely to significantly escalate the war. And that has a very meaningful impact for the United States, for our economy, for our troops in the region, all the rest. So I think it was very legitimate that it got a lot more attention. And when it's Muslims on Muslims, yeah, we don't care.

33:26We should care, but we don't care. And that reflects Islamophobia and a different value of Muslim life out there in the Middle East or in the global South, Indonesia, Nigeria, you name it, than if it's people that look like us, like the Ukrainians who are Europeans and white. So, I mean, I would not solely put that focus on the question as you raised it, but I think it's part of it. So, I mean, is there a double standard? The Americans should have taken out al-Qaeda. That was perfectly reasonable. A 20-year war against Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq, which had nothing to do with the fight, does not seem like a legitimate response by the United States.

34:09Now, the U.S., of course, operates in a different standard because the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world and all other countries rely on it to different degrees. So you can criticize the United States, but if you're a government, in many cases, you've got to suck it up. That is not the case for Israel, right? Israel is in a much stronger position today because they have normalized relations through the Abraham Accords, for example. And so the geopolitically, they were in a much better position. They haven't at any point since independence before the October 7th event. And some of that is still true today, though they've done damage to it.

34:39But I think very few people, I mean, if Israel were a different country, we're not a Zionist Jewish state, but instead were another dominant military country that we felt neutral towards and someone engaged in terrorism against them and killed, you know, a thousand of their citizens and they respond with a multi-month war that kills tens of thousands of civilians, I think you get outrage. Absolutely. I think you get outrage. And to a degree, that outrage has been minimized by the fact that the United States is an incredibly powerful protector of Israel. And the Israeli government has the ability to say, screw you to everybody else because they have that support from the United States, which they know will not go anywhere.

35:31They know is not at the end. In the form of two carrier strike forces sitting offshore, right? For example, and not only, but also intelligence cooperation and continued provision of critical defense materials like Iron Dome and all the rest. So all of that is real. I mean, Israel is the one country that has a nuclear, a significant nuclear force and has never admitted to actually having a nuclear force. Is that a double standard in Israel's favor that they're allowed to do that? Yeah, probably. But I mean, historically, it's because, you know, there are good reasons for us to support the existence of an Israeli state where Jews can defend themselves.

36:10And that comes out of the Holocaust. I feel that history, but it's hard for that. That history doesn't last forever. And especially when their own government is undermining their own democratic values and is committing atrocities against civilians. And yes, Hamas is also responsible even for those atrocities because they operate in those civilian areas and they put their own people at risk. But anyone who thinks that the civilian casualties are only the responsibility of Hamas and not of the Israeli government at all is crazy. Like that's not acceptable. And that's a position the Americans were on the wrong side of two months ago.

36:52And that Tony Blinken is trying to tack back ineffectually because he doesn't have a lot of influence, but he's more aligned with most of the world and many, many Americans. as a consequence of doing that. This is a no win for Biden. And I think it's going to affect the elections. And I think it's going to undermine them. And that is if the war stays where it is. But you said, where'd the war going? Far more likely this war is going to expand going forward. If it does, in fact, become a regional conflict, where do you think that fires up? And what do you think happens? Do you think we're slowly but surely being drawn into a regional conflict?

37:35Do you think, because my sense is the Arab states, other than Iran, don't have appetite for that as well. Iran doesn't have appetite for it either. The big states don't want it. The Israeli war cabinet is more tolerant of it. The Houthis in Yemen certainly are moving in that direction. And Hamas and Hezbollah are increasingly moving. Hamas is all in, and Hezbollah is increasingly moving in that direction. But isn't Hezbollah effectively a proxy force for Iran? Yes, but proxy force does not mean that they are being ordered. I mean, the Iranians have been very happy to continue to provide weapons and for these forces to attack Israel.

38:23Yes, and the United States. But Iran does not want to be involved in that fight itself. That's somewhat analogous to the United States with Ukraine and NATO with Ukraine, right? But at some point, if this war continues, the Iranians could easily get involved. Now, we're several steps away from that. If the United States start attacking the Houthis in their bases in Yemen, we get a little bit closer. If the Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq start attacking American bases with significant casualties on the part of American servicemen and women, we get closer. If the Israelis engage in direct strikes against Iran, not like the ISIS attack, but targeted military strikes, we get closer.

39:10If Trump becomes the nominee and starts calling for direct military attacks against Iran and the Republicans move in that direction, we get closer. I mean, you know, if Hezbollah is involved in a direct war with Israel and the U.S. is providing lots of intelligence support and some military support, even if they're not directly involved in the fighting, we get closer. Now, none of that is a regional war with the Americans fighting Iran. If we get into a hot war between the Americans and the Iranians, Biden is going to lose and we'll be in a global recession and oil prices will be 150, 200 or more.

39:47We're several steps away from that. But but we are not, as I said, I don't think we land where we are right now. I think we land in between those two places with a risk that an all out war is is possible. I think that's that's where we are. This is a horribly dangerous environment. Biden hates it. He knows it's a problem, but there's actually very little he can do to stop it. That's what we've seen over the last three months, is that he's been very ineffectual in being able to contain Israeli decision makers. We'll be right back.

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41:34So you've been very indulgent with me. I'm obviously very preoccupied with Israel and Hamas, So we'll do a lightning round on some of these. I don't mind at all. That's fine. So you wrote in your kind of your risk for 2024 that you thought Ukraine would be partitioned. Yeah. Go ahead. I fear that that is not going to go over well among a lot of people that are all in for Ukraine. It has been I mean, you can get pasted pretty badly publicly for for not being seen as sufficiently patriotic in your support for Ukraine. I I want to be very clear that when I say that Ukraine is going to be partitioned, I do not believe that is right.

42:18It is not just I do not favor it. I want the Ukrainians to be able to take back all of their territory. I believe they should be able to do so, but it's not going to happen. And I'm not going to lie to people. And there are lots of things that we don't like that we find unacceptable, but we have to live with. North Korea has nuclear weapons. We've said it's unacceptable. OK, that's not a policy. You know, Taliban can't run Afghanistan 20 years later. There they are. Assad's in Syria. So Ukraine is going to be partitioned, but it's not going to be accepted or recognized by Ukraine or by the Americans or by most of the Europeans.

42:55It might be by some. And Zelensky is likely to get increasingly desperate. as a consequence of that. And that's even before we start talking about a potential President Trump, who if he wins, NATO is going to get fragmented. And Ukraine is going to be thrown under the bus and the Poles and the Balts and the Finns and the Swedes are going to be very, very deeply concerned about that in a way that NATO will not be providing support. The U.S. will not be providing support. So I think that there's a lot of time pressure right now on Zelensky. And the average age of a Ukrainian draftee today is about 45.

43:36It was 26 when the war started. They only have 44 million people. I mean, their ability to keep fighting, to maintain even the 82 % of the territory that they now control is going to get a lot harder. So, yeah, looking forward, I mean, the last two years, I would argue I would give Biden an A minus in the way he's managed the Ukraine war since 2022. I think he's done a good job, especially in marshalling bipartisan support in the U.S. and broad support among American allies, not just in NATO, but even countries like Japan and Australia and South Korea has gotten a lot of support for Ukraine. And he's kept those countries all together and on side.

44:18I think that's now starting to fall apart. fall apart domestically, fall apart internationally, not helped by the fact that Ukraine's counter-offensive, much vaunted and expected, was a failure. And Putin knows it, and he knows that he needs to hang tight to see if Trump wins, in which case he's hit the jackpot. And, you know, we're 40 minutes into the conversation before you're even asking me about Ukraine. It's not what you're interested in. I remember when the war was, you know, just about to start and I was with you in Miami and we had this conversation. Everyone's like, it's going to be OK.

44:55I'm like, no, this is going to be a fucking disaster. Like, I'm sorry. But like, you know, the next few days, this war is going to start. Then the war started and that was pretty intense. But Americans, this is this is not a priority right now. The Middle East is the priority. Blinken's been, you know, in Israel four times since October 7th. I mean, you know, the secretary of defense, when he's not missing in the hospital, has been traveling to the Middle East. The National Security Advisor, they're not going to Ukraine. And if they're not worried about the Middle East, they're worried about the elections.

45:27So, I mean, Ukraine is a distant third, maybe even fourth these days compared to the border issue on some weeks. You're just not going to be able to continue to provide the Ukrainians the support they need to fight this war. That's where we're going. I mean, hasn't Russia, at the end of the day, leveraged their core competence in that as a willingness to endure just immense amount of suffering and patience? Yes, they have, Scott. Yes, they have. But but they are not winning. They will be able to take over a fair amount of territory in Ukraine at the expense of NATO having expanded significantly far more of their border than they should defend.

46:03They've lost a third of their kinetic power. I mean, it's been they've lost incredible reputational capital. Frozen half of their international assets. Can't trade with Europe anymore. Can't send gas is going to be stranded. They won't have the pipelines to send it anyplace else. A million of their population fleeing. So the capable, smart men that they need for their economy. I mean, this has been a horrible situation for Russia. Let's go to China real quick. A thesis, you respond to it. The West has an inflation problem or a threat of inflation rebounding. China has a growth problem. Our IP, our capital, our consumer economy, their manufacturing economy.

46:44Wouldn't the greatest tax cut in history be for a thaw in the relations between U.S. and China? And don't they have a mutual interest that just brings them back together in 2024? There, I think, is a mutual interest to at least manage the relationship more effectively. A thaw is hard to imagine. They don't trust each other at all. There are lots of areas of conflict that are zero sum. The Taiwan relationship, depending on how the election goes next week, would be one big piece of that. South China Sea, territorial issues. And the export controls the U.S. is putting in place on semiconductors, cloud computing, and other pieces of advanced technology that the Chinese don't have access to.

47:26So these are hard things to unwind. But given the economic challenges, given the geopolitical dangers in the rest of the world, and given the United States election coming up, neither Biden nor Xi are looking for yet another crisis. And I think that the flurry of high-level bilateral engagement we've seen between the United States and China on the diplomatic, economic and military fronts over the past months is likely to persist through the election. It will not create an entente, it will not create a breakthrough, but it will be a better managed relationship than it had been for most of the first three years of the Biden administration.

48:13You also wrote, and this really struck me, and we disagree on this issue, your predictions, my prediction was totally contrary to the one the risk you outlined. You think there's going to be a rebound or that inflation will persist in 2024. Say more. Yeah, I think that it's going to persist more than the markets presently think. I think the markets are pricing in more reduction in interest rate by the U.S. Central Bank, by the Fed, than we believe is going to happen. I think that the geopolitical risks that I spoke about are going to cause more supply chain challenges. I think that the likelihood of unforeseen risks, the last two years we've had Russia, Ukraine, the last year we had Israel, Hamas.

49:03I think there's going to be more in this environment, and I think that makes it more challenging to suddenly bring rates down significantly. What we say is no room for error. In other words, everything has to go kind of right for the markets to be correct about the soft landing that is going to be engineered in the United States. And I would bet on that not being as successful. This is a comparatively low risk in our report. It's only number eight. Number eight out of ten. And it involves the whole world and especially the United States. And given that we measure our risks on the basis of likely imminence and impact, that means that we're not saying no room for error is an American recession.

49:44What we're saying is that right now we believe the markets are priced for perfection, especially around the Fed. And we expect that the reality of that outcome is going to disappoint somewhat on the downside. Yeah, to your point, the market is pricing in several rate cuts in 2024. For a lot. Yeah, exactly. But I would argue, and I'd like you to respond to this, that because these conflicts have been going on for a while, that a lot of supply chains have demonstrated agility. And for example, a lot of Mexico is now our largest trading partner. It's no longer China. Yep. People are saying there was so little slack in the system, everything was so optimized for costs that when, whether it was COVID or war in Ukraine, we found that the part for garage doors or batteries, it just totally mucked up or gunked up the supply chain.

50:35And slowly but surely, I see corporations ungunking or creating more diversification, heterogeneity in their supply chain. In addition, I think AI is highly deflationary because if you look at inflation, one of the stickiest parts, at least in the U.S., of inflation has been wage pressure. And I think people in services industries are going to have a lot, not on the front lines, but I'm talking about lawyers, sort of like, you know, white collar services are going to have much less confidence asking for raises as they look around over their shoulder at generative AI and worry that their job's about to be replaced.

51:07I see, I think we might actually have deflation in 24. What are your thoughts? It's interesting. I find your second argument very compelling. I don't know if it comes fast enough. I thought it was very interesting and a little surprising to me to see how far and hard the UAW was willing to fight at a time for much higher wages and win and benefits at a time when electric vehicles and drivetrain and batteries and all of the rest. are gonna push for far less skilled, less well-paid workers. I mean, that has the potential to really backlash for them, but we didn't do it. And that implied to me that as much as this AI and new technology train, which is coming, which is massive, which is gonna be deflationary, until it is really seen at scale, labor has, if they're in a position where they have an advantage, they're gonna use it.

52:12And they're not going to think long term and strategically. So I'm not sure this plays out in 2024, but I agree completely with your analysis. I think it's coming. I think the question is when it's coming, how it's coming. I agree with your ungunking and creation of resilience and supply chains, but I also see huge political drivers of industrial policy, national policies, subsidies that are increasing costs dramatically. in that new environment. This is not a free trade environment. This is an environment where even the Americans and the Europeans are hitting each other with tariffs and hitting each other with export controls and, you know, carbon border adjustment mechanisms that the Europeans have, which don't work well with the Americans are going to hurt the global South, global South with critical minerals, and they want to get up the supply chain.

53:04So they're going to make it much more costly for you to do that new business. I mean, the politics are really invasive here, and they create significant costs. Now, some of those costs create redistribution, which is necessary for the social contract. Some of it is nationalism, corruption, and wasted. And I don't have a good sense of, you know, where the balance of the scale falls between those two, but I know it's costly in the near term. I don't think either of us is right or wrong on this. I think that the truth is in between, but it's a question of when it's going to hit, right? That's the issue.

53:37You mentioned the upcoming election in Taiwan, which I would argue is the most underreported story relative to its importance. What, in your view, is the biggest risk that is getting no coverage right now? Yeah, Taiwan is, I think, getting a fair amount of coverage. But it's, you know, among... I would bet 90 % of Americans don't even know there's an election. I think a lot of people have heard about the election. They don't know when it is, but they've heard, oh, yeah, Taiwan elections. I think people have said it. Because, you know, there's been a lot of conversation in Congress about war and the Pelosi visit and all that kind of stuff.

54:07I mean, it's played out. But the fact is that there's a 50-50 chance that the guy that is pro-independence, though he was not going to put it that way, is not going to win. So, I mean, next week that risk could go away. And if he does win, I think that there will be some trade challenges. And there may be at the extreme some inspections of boats, some forcible boarding by the Chinese, more exercises. But I think this stuff is manageable. people because of the reason what's the risk what's the risk we're not talking about well i mean there are definitely risks we're not talking about one that doesn't matter but it matters a lot locally is the horn of africa doesn't matter economically or strategically but ethiopia is about to be at war with somalia because they're going to recognize a breakaway secessionist province that's going to give them access to portway i mean no one's going to care it's not going to get any attention but it really matters if you're ethiopian or somali and i mean i don't know.

55:06I think that that's a pretty big deal. North Korea, it gets very little attention. I mean, what's Kim Jong-un's birthday, by the way? I think it's kind of cool that these three rogue states I talk about, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, their leaders are all five foot seven. I think that's interesting. You know, nobody talks about that. Different sizes and shapes, though. Small man syndrome, though. Maybe that's the biggest risk that no one's talking about, a small man syndrome. Paint the optimistic case around 24 in the U.S. What do you think the optimistic? I find that when, generally speaking, when we're really worried about stuff, that the market and the world climbs the wall of worry.

55:48And it strikes me that when we're most worried and most anxious about things, that things usually, it's the shit you're not expecting that hits you hard, right? It feels like we're expecting such doom and disaster. I've never felt such negative sentiment going into 24. And I don't know if it's because I'm getting older because things are really scary right now. But what's the optimistic scenario for the U.S. through 24? Well, the realistic optimistic scenario is that Biden, either Biden wins big or Nikki Haley gets the nomination on the Republican side and then she wins big. either of those two would be optimistic scenarios.

56:30I think they're very unlikely, like sub 10%, but they could happen. And that's a jackpot. Like if Nikki Haley is able to come in a very strong second or even first in New Hampshire, take South Carolina, get a wall of money. She's suddenly the favorite. People can become favorites very, very quickly. Trump attacks her, attacks her, attacks her, throws her a whole bunch more attention. She is now getting huge attention in the United States. People are plausibly talking about her as the first woman president. I think she beats Biden, too. She crushes Biden. It's not even close. But I mean, then you have a free and fair election and Trump is a washed up loser after four elections that he can't get right.

57:20and he's still facing legal jeopardy and maybe she pardons him, but she pardons him in part with a promise that he goes away. That would be huge. I think it's very unlikely. The other unlikely scenario is Biden wins by such a large margin that Trump and his supporters who refuse to accept it go nowhere and the Republican Party jettisons Trump. Trump may create his own party in that environment, but he only has a group of rump supporters and the Republican Party falls apart and eventually coalesces into something else. And Trump is irrelevant. But you do have like, you know, paramilitary crazies in the U.S., but they're not an extant threat to the system.

58:04And, you know, that's that. And you no longer have Biden is, you know, too old to be president, but he allows somebody else to take over after a year, after two years. And then you move to another generation. that won't resolve the deep-seated challenges that Americans have that you and I talked about earlier in the conversation, but it gives us some breathing room, right? And right now, this is a country that needs breathing room. It's a country that really does not need to have an election in 2024. This election, we'd all be much happier if this election were in 2028, right? For every reason, we don't want this election right now.

58:43So, and I recognize this statement is rife with bias, but I think there's some legitimacy and some veracity behind it. Don't all the rivers of risk kind of lead to the Amazon of risk, and that is the re-election of Donald Trump? No. No, I think that that is a bias. Because Trump, in my view, is, of course, it's much worse if Trump wins. I get that. But he is not the problem. He is a symptom of a much bigger structural challenge in the world's largest democracy, which is dysfunctional. It is not in crisis because of Trump. Trump has taken advantage of a system that is weak and vulnerable and deteriorating and eroding that people don't believe in.

59:23And you need to turn that around. That I think is the problem. It's too easy to blame this on a guy. I don't believe that that is where we are. And I'm not just saying that. I'm not just saying that. It's also, you say that it involves a bias, but you think it's true. My response involves a bias. My bias is I don't want to broad brush as irredeemable a large percentage of the American population. I believe these people are misled, but they're also angry for legitimate reasons. And those reasons must be addressed or they will become increasingly hostile and threatening. I think that is, we've seen that play out over and over and over again.

1:00:14And the threat doesn't come in the final version from those people. It comes from the elites that take advantage and can channel the rage and get the support and power from those people. And that is where we're heading in the United States. Yeah, to your point, I think it would be a disaster for America if Trump is removed from the Colorado and Maine ballots. I agree. That strikes me as as I mean, last time that happened, they were trying to remove Lincoln from ballots and started a civil war. Yeah. Most important. And what are your New Year's resolutions for 24? What's what's up with the world of Ian Bremmer and the Eurasia Group?

1:00:49Well, it's why I started with the South Pole. I thought that, you know, a week and a half of no Internet was really, really bad. And now you're working away north. No, I mean, just just, you know, you and I have talked about how polarizing and how toxic social media is. And I recognize for what I do, for what you do, it's very important to be able to get our voice out there. It's not feasible to be relevant and to have influence and to be off. But it's not good for my psyche. And I say that as somebody who does not really get worked up. But I just don't it just depresses me to see all of this misinformation and hate constantly.

1:01:28So to get away, completely away and to read, you know, some big think books about philosophy and consciousness and anything that sticks out that you especially enjoyed while you were frolicking with penguins. I really enjoyed that book by Watts from, I think it was 1953, the one that had the intro from Deepak Chopra. It was about the wisdom of insecurity. I thought it was wonderful. It was a great book to read at the bottom of the planet. And it was a great book to talk about how irrelevant our worries, our concerns are about the future and about the past and what it means to be in the present.

1:02:11What it means to engage and enjoy what we have right now, which is all we actually have and ever have. I thought that was a wonderful way to start the year. So this was not a year of resolutions for me. This was a year of resetting, of reviving, of revitalizing. I was consciously aware of how hard 2024 is going to be, especially not for you and me, but for people you and I care about, for people that you and I touch. And we have to be resilient. We have to have energy. We have to reset to be there, to have the strength for those people. You know, we've got to be able to give and not lash out over a really challenging year.

1:02:50And I thought that the best way for me to do that was to really recharge. That was that's what I tried to do. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world's leading political risk research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. He is also the author of 11 books, including his latest, The Power of Crisis, How Three Threats and Our Response Will Change the World. He joins us from New York. Ian, as always, it is great to converse with you, and welcome back from the South Pole. And most importantly, he cares a lot about you, Scott.

1:03:28You're a really good guy. I love what you do. It's always a joy to spend some time either privately or publicly as we do. And it's nice to kick this off with you again.

1:03:51Algebra of happiness. I've been thinking a lot about New Year's resolutions. I don't really have New Year's resolutions. What I do is sort of a bottoms-up valuation of my life, and I bucket my life into three, if you will, buckets. The professional, the personal, and the physical. And I'm embarrassed to say the professional comes first, but I've always been obsessed with my work and economic security. And I'm just being, I don't, not suggesting that's the right way, it's just my way. I just look through that lens. And then I think about how I can improve my relationships and what I need to do physically to try and stay sane because physical activity for me and being in shape is really my antidepressant.

1:04:30Anyways, I try and look for content or something that has inspired me and build up from there and say, why did that inspire me? And how will it change my behavior? What can I take from it? Because if I, for the most part, eat and drink whatever I want. Now, I realize that salty, sugary and fatty food, I need to take that down. I probably need to take grains and vegetables up a little bit. I dial up or I dial down based on what I know about nutrition. But for the most part, I think the body is, again, for the most part, a really good regulator of what it is you need. And I take the same approach here.

1:05:03And that is when something inspires you, when something really moves you, take pause and say, why did that inspire? Why is that so meaningful to me? And what does that mean in terms of my own life? How will that change my activity? How will that change my approach to life? And what I'm about to play you is the sound from a video that for me was the most inspiring and moving video I saw in 2023. And it's from a guy named Leslie Jordan, who was an actor who tragically passed away in a car accident in late 2022. But I'm going to play you the audio for it, and then I'm going to come back and comment on it.

1:05:41When I was three years old, I asked Santa Claus to bring me a bride doll. I was sitting on his lap at the Loven's apartment store. My daddy was with all his army buddies. It might have embarrassed him. So he told mother no bride doll. Mother said, well, Alan, just don't mention again. Maybe he'll forget about it. Christmas Savior was all I could talk about. Mama Santa Claus is going to bring me a bride doll, and I'm going to brush her hair, and I'm going to play wedding. And Mama went in to tell Daddy, she said, are you going to explain it to him in the morning? Because I won't know what to say.

1:06:11She went to cook the Christmas dinner. She heard that front door shut. 1958, my lieutenant colonel of a daddy scoured Chattanooga, Tennessee, and found his beautiful son, the most beautiful bride doll. She was life-size to a three-year-old. And when I came down and saw her under the tree, I squatted on the floor and I peed.

1:06:34Happy holidays. I just love what Leslie says here. And I think about a guy in the 50s who's in the armed services and his son, his son wants a bride doll. and the pressure and the paternal instincts and the societal, I don't know, the societal view that this kid should not, a boy should not have a bride doll. And that if you're doing that, you may be setting them on quote unquote, the wrong path back then, that that was just all washed over this Lieutenant Colonel by his just love for this kid, how he just saw his job, his job as a father was to, to make his three-year-old happy on Christmas morning.

1:07:15And I, I just love it. And I thought about, okay, I know what inspires me about that, but how am I going to use it to change my life in 2024? And it's the following. I spend so much time with my boys, mentoring, coaching, correcting, editing, counseling, and not enough time just getting to the core. And what's the core? The core is unfiltered actions and words that demonstrate just how much I love them. I spend so much time, so much time fathering, but not enough time just being dad. So as we move into 2024, I want to invite all of you to join me in thinking about how you get to the core. And that is with respect to your parents, with respect to the loved ones in your life, with respect to your children, trying to ignore the advice, the social mores, what is appropriate, editing, coaching, how a friend should behave, whatever it might be.

1:08:19when you see the opportunity just to express just how deeply you love them, and everything else is unimportant, everything else falls to the wayside, move to that. Move to that. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin, Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And on Monday with our weekly market show, 2024, bitches! Support for this show comes from Airbus. It took 100 years for electric vehicles to catch on.

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