Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and a special advisor on Russia to president Obama, professor of international relations at Stanford University and one of the most respected American experts on foreign policy and geopolitics. He is someone that I would call a typical transatlanticist - someone who spent his whole career working on build a strong alliance with Europe, promoting democracy abroad and deterring autocratic adversarial regimes - and so it’s really interesting to talk at a time when both US foreign policy and the world looks very very different.And so we talk about his thoughts on the war with Iran, whether it will end up as a strategic defeat for the United States and how it will change America’s standing and influence around the world. About the current crisis in the relations between Europe and the U.S., Trump’s desire to leave NATO, whether it's going to happen and whether it wouldn't be for the best in the end. And about the fight between autocracies and democracies that he writes about in his new book and how this fight changes if the world’s leading democracy doesn't seem that sure on which side it actually is and what it means for the rest of us - and much more.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/For over 4 years, Russia has been fighting its full scale war in Ukraine and despite all its efforts it’s not particularly successful at it. But for much longer than that, Russia has been fighting a second war in parallel, one that gets far less attention but which is arguably far, far more successful. It's the war for hearts and minds: in Europe, in Ukraine and across the Global South  - and while it might seem abstract, it’s very much real and it’s bringing Russia very real benefits - often enabling it to win battles without needing to fight a single shot. To understand how that war is being fought - and why is the West on the backfoot - I'm talking to Janis Sarts, the Director of NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. This is the organisation that sits at the heart of NATO's efforts to understand and counter Russian information warfare, which makes Sarts one of the most informed people in the world on how this domain actually works.We get into why Russia is so effective at this despite being outmatched in almost every other domain, why Western governments talk about the threat constantly but do so little to counter it, and what it would actually take to fight back - including the lessons from Ukraine, which has done something no Western country has managed: take the information fight directly to Russia.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with John Bolton - a former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump in his first administration, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and one of the most hawkish public figures in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. I wanted to talk with John about the war with Iran because he is in an absolutely unique position. He’s someone who has been long publicly advocating for a policy of a regime change in Iran and who during his time in the White House tried to make it a reality - he is in many ways the ultimate Iran hawk. But unlike almost all the other Iran hawks and despite the fact that this could be seen as the realization of his lifetime goal, he is fiercely critical of the current war with Iran and of how it has been planned and executed. And so we talk about why Bolton thinks this war is heading for failure, why was there such a lack of planning and strategic thinking, whether Trump is already looking for the exit even with the Strait of Hormuz still closed - and what that would mean for America's standing in the world - and why, the United States might very likely end up in a much worse position than before the war started.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/In all the analysis of the war with Iran, most of the focus has been on the American side - on what Donald Trump might want or what’s his next move. And somehow, we focus a lot less on Iran itself - the country that might have the final say in all of this and that is now harder to read than ever before. After all, who is even running Iran at this point? Is the regime really as stable as it presents itself or is it falling apart underneath the surface? Is there anyone left to negotiate with - and is a deal even possible? And could this war end up pushing Iran to finally acquire nuclear weapons?To answer those questions, I'm joined by Professor Ali Ansari, the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews and one of the world's leading authorities on Iranian politics and history. He has a view that goes against a lot of the conventional wisdoms and mainstream narratives about Iran and he argues that we largely misread the regime and its stability. And that it’s both much weaker than it seems and more dangerous and irrational at the same time.We talk about how this war will most likely end, what might happen afterwards and why the situation will be even more unstable once the fighting eventually stops - or why what the regime is afraid of is not war but peace. And much more.

➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/The Russian economy is in trouble and the trouble is getting bigger - but its problems are different than what most people imagine them to be. Usually, the arguments tend to be that the Russian economy is either doing fantastic or that it’s about to collapse. In reality it’s none of that, but there is something else that is making the Kremlin worried, that will become a bigger and bigger problem for it to deal with and that will influence all of its decisions - and that could potentially present a problem for the stability and survival of the regime. I talk about that - and much more, like why the Iran war matters far less for Russia’s economy than most people assume - with Janis Kluge, a foremost European expert on Russian economy and a Senior Associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with General HR McMaster - one of the most experienced, respected and impressive military and national security thinkers and practitioners of our time. He is a military historian, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump in his first term and a former three star general in the U.S. Army - who among other things commanded US troops during the Gulf War in the biggest tank battle since the 2nd world war and who has been called the “best brigadier general of our time” and “the pre-eminent warrior-thinker of the 21st century”. As we're recording this, the United States and Israel are two weeks into a war with Iran, and the war in Ukraine is still grinding on. And General McMaster has been warning for years that these - and other conflicts - aren't separate crises - but that they're part of one connected, escalating struggle between the West and an axis of authoritarian aggressors. In this conversation, we get into why he thinks the West is dangerously underestimating this threat, what's really driving Putin's strategy and why does Trump keep refusing to increase pressure on him, whether starting a war with Iran war was a good decision and how will it end, whether the West still even exists if U.S. president threatens to take Greenland or why is the momentum of escalating and cascading events only picking up steam - and what comes next.

➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Take a look at Nigel's IISS analysis here: https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2026/02/russiaukraine-war-escalation-not-stalemate➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/For a long time, the war in Ukraine resembled a bit of a stalemate. Russia gradually pushed into Ukrainian territory, Ukraine fought back and Russia, although suffering great costs, managed to keep going. But that is now changing - as the dynamics of the war are undergoing major shifts - and as those shifts are quickly picking up pace. Ukraine has a new strategy to win the war. The gradual Russian push has been slowed to a halt and Ukraine has increasingly been able to go on the offensive, capturing lost territory and pushing back Russian forces. And Russia is increasingly struggling with something that was never really expected to become a major issue - and it’s getting so bad that it’s quickly approaching an inflection point where something will have to break - one way or another.I talk about all that - and much more - with my guest, Nigel Gould Davis, a Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director of Eurasia Group Europe and an insider and one of my go to sources on European politics. It has been a very dramatic year for Europe and it only seems to get more dramatic - and so we go through how has Europe been holding so far and where are we gonna go from here. We talk about the U.S. war with Iran - specifically about the chaotic European reaction to it and how that has shown how much Europe is still lacking any common unified foreign policy or about why are European powers willing to shoot down Iranian drones in the Gulf but not in Western Ukraine. And why Mujtaba believes that Greenland is still a major underpriced risk and why crisis over Greenland might have only paused and restart at any point. About Friedrich Merz in the White House and whether European unity towards Trump has started to fall apart - and much more. 

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Jeremy Schapiro - the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, focused on US foreign policy. We talk about one thing - Trump’s war in Iran - one of the biggest US military operations in two past two decades which - the longer it goes on and the more we find out about it - seems to get more and more confusing. We talk about what was the primary reason to start the war and why now and how to make sense of the variety of contradicting reasons that Trump and his team gave on this and about the equally confusing war aims of this operation and whether this is a regime change or not . About whether the U.S. was just following Israel in its decision and if that’s the case why, what are the chances of success of this operation and what does success actually mean, or whether Trump will now seek to de-escalate and retreat or whether he will double down - and much more.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with James D Lindsay, a Research Fellow at University College London and an author of a book on what’s called a Madman theory - a foreign policy strategy in which a leader attempts to present himself as completely irrational and willing to inflict great damage on themselves and the others in order to improve their negotiating position and create fear around possible escalation - even if in reality, they are actually a lot more restrained and not as mad as it may seem. The pioneer of this theory was Richord Nixon but the person who is often speculated to truly master the theory is Donald Trump - although there is a big debate over whether he is playing a madman to get what he wants - or whether that’s just really who he is.With James we talk about how Nixon tried and failed to use this strategy and pioneering this approach but we mostly focus on Donald Trump - about his first term and threatening North Korea with fire and fury, assassinating the Iranian general Qaseem Soleimani and threatening to leave NATO and his second term and his tariff war and attempt for Greenland takeover.To be honest, I don’t actually agree with most of James’s conclusions. I’m not nearly as sure that Donald Trump is just playing a madman and that it’s all part of a rational, negotiating tactic as he is - I can think it could just as well be a genuine chaos and irrationality. And even if it is a rational strategy, I really don’t think that it has been nearly as successful as James argues, especially in Trump’s second term. And that - whether it is a rational strategy or not - it causes more damage to US interests than it helps them. And so in the podcast, we disagree and argue about both of those things. But nevertheless, I do think that the theory and the concept, the arguments and this whole conversation is really interesting.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Dalibor Rohac - a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a long-time observer of European and transatlantic politics, and someone who is living intellectually and professionally between the United States and Europe. He’s originally from Europe, specifically Slovakia but he has worked in Washington for well over a decade - and so he has a unique view into a relationship in which the two sides are increasingly failing to understand each other.We recorded this a few days after the Munich Security Conference, where this year the crisis in transatlantic relations became by far the most dominant topic even as we have the war in Ukraine still going on right here in Europe. And so we talk about what did the conference tell us about where we are - what was the point of Marco Rubio’s speech and his visit to Hungary right after, why did Europeans give him a standing ovation and whether Europe now believes that everything is fine again - or to what extent does it actually even matter what the US Secretary of State says in an administration where everything is decided by Donald Trump anyway. And we take a step back and talk about the bigger picture as well - whether Donald Trump is more a historical aberration and in 2028 everything will go back to normal or whether he is the start of a bigger systemic change in America - and why this question is fundamentally important to Europe and the rest of the democratic world. About whether the US is now trying to dismantle the European Union and how Europe should react or about the fundamental contradictions at the center of US foreign policy - and much more. 

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with John Foreman - someone with a fairly unique background to talk to on the Russian war in Ukraine. John spent several decades as an officer in the British military but more importantly he served as the British defence attache first in Kyiv and then in Moscow where he witnessed Russia first preparing and then launching the war in 2022 up close - both of which gives him a unique insight into both the Ukrainian and Russian military, political strategic thinking - and in this conversation we talk about all of that.We talk about what have the four years of war actually done to the Russian military. Is it broken? Is it adapting? Is it hollowed out and beaten down by the years of war - or is it battle hardened with unique combat experience and more dangerous than before?And then we move to the underlying question of where is this war going: whether the current Ukraine negotiations are actually leading anywhere or are they are simply diplomatic theater, what is the fundamental flaw at the center of Trump’s approach to the negotiations, and whether Moscow is - with increasing casualties and economic pressure -  starting to actually look for a deal or whether it’s just pretending and dragging out the negotiations indefinitely.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and an excellent analyst of transatlantic relations and European security - both of which are undergoing some pretty fundamental shifts. We talk about Greenland and why Trump’s attempt to annex it will be remembered as the beginning of a historic rift between Europe and the United States, why do MAGA Republicans seem to have so much vitriol against Europe and insult and berate it at every opportunity they have, about what should be Europe’s takeaway from this whole episode or about if after all this has happened, does NATO now only exist on paper - and if in practice, it isn't already dead. And about the concrete things that Europe needs to do to get ready to defend itself without the U.S. - and about the historic and completely transformational shift in European security and politics that’s still largely ignored - but that is now already happening.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Dr. Yun Sun, a Senior Fellow and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. Yun is one of the most experienced China watchers and researchers, analyzing China’s foreign and domestic politics for over two decades which makes this conversation and her arguments both extremely interesting and kind of concerning. Because Yun argues that we are gravely under-estimating the risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan - not in some distant future but as soon as this year, 2026. She believes that the thinking in Beijing among China’s leadership is quickly changing: that they are abandoning the idea that time is on their side and that instead, China now believes that if it ever wants to get Taiwan, it’s now or never and the longer it waits, the harder it will get. And that we are now witnessing a confluence of several dynamics - none of which were likely or expected - but that are now all happening at the same time. And that together they are - as Yun Sun puts it - creating a “perfect storm for Taiwan in 2026” - and significantly increasing the odds that China might make its move. In this conversation, we talk about what these factors are - from the US foreign policy and China’s perception of Donald Trump to the Ukraine war - how likely a Chinese invasion this year is or what the recent purges of the leadership of the Chinese military - and the fact that Xi Jinping now has direct, unlimited command of China’s armed forces - mean in this context.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Andrew Monaghan, a longtime Russia analyst and one of the most interesting – and contrarian – voices in the Western debate about Russian strategy and power.A lot of Andrew’s recent work focuses on a simple but uncomfortable idea: that the West fundamentally misunderstands Russia - not because we lack information, but because we keep using the wrong lenses. We tend to see Russia as irrational, tactical, reactive, or simply blundering its way through events – especially since the invasion of Ukraine. Andrew argues something quite different. That Russia is strategic, that it has a long-term view of where it’s going, and that many of the things that look like chaos or incompetence make a lot more sense once you look at how Russian strategy is actually conceived and implemented.In this conversation, we talk about whether Russia really has a grand strategy, what that strategy is trying to achieve, and how the war in Ukraine fits into it – or doesn’t. We get into Russian geoeconomic thinking, mobilization, maritime power, and why focusing only on battlefield performance might be misleading when thinking about where Russia is heading over the next decade. Throughout the conversation, we push back on each other a lot and I'd say that even now I still disagree with much of what he says. But I find his perspective that challenges a lot of deeply held assumptions in Western analysis really interesting - and definitely worth a listen.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Carlo Masala, a professor of international politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich and author of a book that got quite a lot of attention all across Europe called “If Russia Wins”. In the book Carlo portrays a hypothetical scenario - in which Russia ends up achieving a limited victory in Ukraine, pursues a period of normalization with Europe and a few years later, launches a limited attack on Estonia, in an attempt to break up NATO unity - which - in the scenario - turns out to be a success. Carlo is not the first person to present a scenario in which Russia tests NATO but what makes this different and unique is how exceptionally realistic this one is. From the start to finish, I could genuinely see most of it happening - and in many instances, I thought the scenario was not just plausible but the most likely way things would happen - which makes it all the more frightening and worth consideration. In the conversation, we pick it apart, explore how it would play out and what would it mean. We talk about whether Russia would have an appetite for another military gamble after Ukraine, whether the Estonians would just let it happen, whether Europe has learned its lesson on how to deal with Russia in the past 4 years, what would not wanting to risk a World War 3 over a small town in Estonia mean for NATO and European security - or whether there is any hope that an American president would come to aid of Europe at a time when Trump is literally demanding Greenland. And whether - effectively - NATO just isn't already dead anyway  - and if it is, what does that mean for all of us. 

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Rory Cormac, a professor at the University of Nottingham who’s professional is on a very particular subject - how states engage in and deploy “covert action” - subversive actions against their opponents carried out in secrecy with that the state itself denying its own involvement. Or in other words, the shadiest stuff that spies from nations all around the world do - from overthrowing foreign governments, arming proxy groups and carrying out sabotage and assassinations.If you are interested in geopolitics, this probably naturally comes as a fascinating subject - and so we talk about how various nations approach and engage in this area - from the U.S. effort to overthrow Maduro’s regime in Venezuela and its rich history of overthrowing foreign regimes, Russian wave of covert action in Europe and what European countries like the UK and France covertly do or not do themselves, how does China approach this and why does it seem to stay under the radar - or why if covert action is meant to be secret, we seem to read about all the time in mainstream news - and much more.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Andrias Kubilius - the European Union’s Commissioner for Defense and Space. For those not that familiar with the European Union - a commissioner is kind of like a minister in a nation state, a top politician, responsible for a particular area. Historically the EU has never had a Defence Commissioner because it is not a military organization but since the invasion of Ukraine that has changed quite radically and in 2023, Andrias became the first ever EU Defense commissioner, responsible primarily for rebuilding the European defense industry, rearming Europe and making it ready and able to defend itself. Needles to say, it’s a pretty important role and as the European Union is trying to act more as an independent geopolitical actor, it’s only becoming more important. And for how important his role is, he was extremely open and transparent in this conversation. We talked about how to make Europe prepared to survive in an increasingly dangerous world and defend itself on its own, without anyone coming to save it. Both about what is he doing to make that happen but also how the European Union needs to change to make it possible , including why he believes that we need a true European army. We talk a lot about the complicated relationship with the United States - about why and how Europe needs to immediately prepare for United States withdrawing from Europe, about what will be the future of NATO once that happens and whether the EU could replace it, and how would Europe respond if the United States decide to take Greenland by force and  how destructive that would be for everyone. And about his views on the new US National Security Strategy - which he is very critical of and which frames the very institution he represents - the European Union - as an opposition to the interests of the United States and something that the US should try to dismantle. And of course we talk about Russia - about how likely is the threat of a Russian aggression against EU and NATO or how prepared Europe is right now to face it. And much more. 

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.comThis is a conversation with Olivier Schmidt, head of research at the Institute for Military Operations at the Royal Danish Defence College and expert on military strategy. As you might have noticed, especially if you listen to this podcast, Europe is not having the easiest time when it comes to geopolitics - it’s trying to support in its Ukraine with Russia, rebuild its militaries after decades of hibernation, deal with increasingly unpredictable and sometimes openly hostile United States, all while trying to understand and adapt to the entirely new geopolitical reality we find ourselves in. And from the European perspective, understanding where are we going and how to best adapt to it is both really important and really difficult. And that’s why I’m speaking with Olivier today. He recently wrote an academic paper that basically lays out the 4 different scenarios that Europe might experience in the coming years - based on how hostile the United States will get and how united Europe manages to stay. It’s an extremely interesting and helpful approach that moves away from abstract anxieties and towards tangible realistic scenarios that help us understand what’s ahead and how to prepare for it. In this conversation we talk about all of them as well as what each of them would mean and what would be the best course of action in each of the four different futures we might find ourselves in. 

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Andrew Badger - a former human intelligence officer at the DIA - the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, a lecturer at Oxford University, an advisor on geopolitics for some of the world’s largest corporations, and an author of an upcoming book on what I think is mostly overlooked but an extremely interesting topic - of how China in the past decades managed to mobilize its vast intelligence apparatus, its citizens living abroad, its private companies and basically everything it has at its disposal to covertly obtain some of the most advanced technology belonging to American companies. And how this technology helped China to massively develop its economy, its private companies and its military in an extremely short timespan and basically catch up to the United States in a way that otherwise might not have been possible. We talk about how China actually does that on a practical level and why is it so good at it, even though it’s not at all the country doing that or how is the intelligence competition shaping the race for AI dominance and much more.