Multipolarity

This week: Halloween Fright Night on Multipolarity. We’re taking various geopolitical doomsday scenarios, and running through how they would play out, in full ghoulish detail. From Britain disintegrating, to America crashing the global economy, to Forever War on the Eastern Front. And stay tuned for an extra special guest… The Headless Norseman himself, Malcom Kyeyune. Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

This week: two audio essays.Peace is coming to Budapest… whether you believe it or not. So says Philip Pilkington, our man on the ground. The show may be paused, but that doesn’t change the fundamentals: Trump and Putin need a meeting; they need a venue; the Russian President can’t be arrested on sight. And Hungary’s nous in positioning itself as a true neutral makes it the ideal venue. He talks through the implications of the next phase of bargaining. Meanwhile, from the front pages to the middle of the paper: Andrew Collingwood says that we’re missing a really big story on Nexperia. The Dutch chip maker is now owned by the Chinese, and has become a resource allocation geopolitical football of late. Volkswagen has warned of temporary production outages citing China’s export restrictions on semiconductors made by Nexperia.In response, the Dutch government has intervened to take control of Nexperia’s governance under national security laws.  He warns that Europe could be sawing off the branch it sits on.  If they steal Russian sovereign reserves – and at the same time go around stealing Chinese businesses is Europe even investible anymore, is using the Euro and sterling even possible anymore for third countries?Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

About a month ago, the foreign affairs and geopoltical media was abuzz with talk about the Victory Day military parade in Beijing. What had shocked was that, unlike the standard communist bloc military parades, with their thousands of Soviet-style tanks and armoured personnel carriers and well trained goose-steppers, this one showcased weaponry that could have come from a science fiction film: mobile, directed energy laser weapons; hypersonic glide vehicles; futuristic looking, fighter jet sized, loyal wingmen stealth drones; robot wolves; space defence systems.But was it real, or just a Potemkin arsenal driving past the Forbidden City? And if they were real, what do these things actually do? What do they mean for the balance of power in the western pacific? And, finally, as China climbs at breakneck speed up the military tech ladder, what does it mean for Washington's efforts to hold its defensive perimeter at the first Island Chain?Anybody interested in China's military tech, and especially its military aviation, will know TP Huang, an invaluable provider of detailed analysis on Beijing's ever greater military arsenal, and China's Beijing's technological progress more generally. He joins us for a special interview with Andrew. Multipolarity dialogues is a series of interview that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now.Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel.

If you’re an enterprising nine year old looking to top up your pocket money, get yourself a bar of bullion. Gold is up to $4000 an ounce for the first time ever – while the dollar is down ten per cent on the year. The biggest drop since, well, since the gold window closed in 1971. Dedollarisation will always mean something-else-isation — this week’s rally seems to be the latest shake out. Between 2021 and 2027 the EU budget for NGOs was around €1.5bn. The new EU budget proposal is advocating increasing that 600%. While America now thinks that USAID is outdated political technology, the EU is trying to buy the dip.   Finally, we’ll have an update on three countries teetering on the brink: France, The Philippines and Georgia. Could the third world quasi-dictatorial basket case on that list actually topple over? And what about the Philippines? You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Welcome to Multipolarity Dialogues –  a series of interview that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now.On this episode: Anusar Farooqui. Like the public intellectual equivalent of a DC comics superhero, Anusar lives a double life. By day he’s a man who wrote his PhD research on the geometric noise arising from black hole rotation, and went on to found Systematic Portfolios, the New York hedge fund he currently leads as CEO. By night, he is Policy Tensor the writer of a highly regarded Substack that focuses on international relations, grand strategy and economics. Policy Tensor was one of the few analysts to argue in 2022 that the Russian economy was far stronger than commonly believed – in other words, that sanctions would fail.He joins Multipolarity with another warning – about an even greater danger, arguing that the United States might be preparing for the wrong war against China.We will be looking at the big picture strategic position between the US and China – the Thucydides Trap – and why Xi Jinping might take an entirely different route to win back Taiwan. 

Modern Monetary Theory. Magical Money Tree. Whichever name you know it by, everywhere, these days, the intellectual salons hum with people trying to say that they’ve invented that most terrifying of things: a new paradigm. That they have the economic equivalent of Einsteinian Relativity. These people profess that debt is no issue. That a country that prints its own currency can’t go broke. And rather, that by a canny toe-heel on the brakes, countries can juice their economies without slamming into a wall.  This week, after talking around the topic on any number of previous episodes, we’re tackling MMT head-on, in an hour long special edition.  Andy Collingwood is grilling Philip Pilkington, who claims to have been there at the birth of modern monetary theory in 2013 — and asking him whether there is much more here than a placenta, some hair and three teeth.    The answer, it transpires, is yes and no. MMT does indeed represent a new vein of insight. But that insight is only partial. Misapplied, it is as catastrophic to a monetary system as liquid Robert Mugabe.  So join us, on a journey, to a magical money tree not so far away…You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

This week, it's the sensual adventure in Geopolitical ASMR you've all been waiting for.Our two men talking to themselves on their mobile phones in separate locations. With Philip Pilkington presently locked in a hotel room in China, it seems Andrew is penning him Sleepless in Seattle-style voice notes from Northumberland. Dynamic. Digital. Dangerous. Disestablishmentarian.How much of this you can handle is up to you? Two audio essays, half a world away. Later, Phillip Pilkington talks about how much he hates Javier Milei and how hard you should short your pesos.But first Andy Collingwood talking about a nuclear umbrella and how it could be flopped out right in the middle of a Persian Gulf. This is geopolitics, as you've never heard it before.You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Multipolarity Dialogues is a new series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We’ll be talking to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers, experts, about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now. This week: Carlos Roa is the Director of Research at the Washington DC Danube Institute. He was formerly the executive editor of National Interest magazine. Last time on the show – an episode well worth seeking out – he offered us a DC Rake’s Progress, sketching the shape of the technocrat class who run Washington, from first infant mewling as a Pentagon intern, to final wrinkled Cruise strike on a Middle Eastern country. This time, he’s got his eyes on something more global. The New Golden Road – and its rivals. There is the Silk Road, there is the Belt-and Road, but there is also a third way to move goods from East to West overland.  It is this that Roa has been studying in his recent paper, also titled The New Golden Road. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, quietly unveiled at a G20 summit in 2023, is designed to link India with Europe via the Arabian Peninsula, stitching together ports, railways, energy pipelines, and digital cables. In this episode Andrew Collingwood talks to Carlos about the deep mechanics, the economics, and the distortions of geopolitical gravity that this grand new interconnector will bring.You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Recently, Philip Pilkington and David Lloyd Dusenbury published a couple of papers and an article on the long story of China's intellectual history with the West. A story that extends beyond Marco Polo, and has far more breadth and interchange in pre-modern times than most would suspect. Lloyd Dusenbury is an Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida, author of three well-regarded books of religious history, and a frequent writer and thinker on the history of ideas. Last month, our duo sat down to comb over what they'd learned in the project for the Danube Culture podcast. We're bringing you their exchange as a bonus this week.

Friend of the Pod Malcom Kyeyune is back, and he’s got that late empire feeling. After the Chinese Military staged an extraordinary parade in Beijing, Washington is worried. The top dog question has resurfaced. In the same week, Elbridge Colby released a new strategic document effectively telling Washington it needs to be far more selective in military affairs. After they spent a quarter of their entire interceptor missile stocks shoring up Israel, and with the Abrams tanks proving ineffectively heavy in Ukraine, US procurement is looking shoddy in a way it never has before. No wonder Colby increasingly senses the Taiwan question must be gently settled. As  Malcom puts it: “Times were when the US could just pick up a small country and smack it against a wall in order to show who’s boss.” Are recent manoeuvres off the Venezuelan coast a last gasp of smack-it-against-the-wall hegemonic diplomacy?In this typically ranging hour long special, The Lads look into the abyss called Kyeyune – and he stares back. You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Narendra Modi. In Shanghai. In the back of a car. With Vladimir Putin. Positively glowing.  The tweets the Indians sent out at the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation were the equivalent of a taken for granted girlfriend openly flirting with the jocks at the big keg party. The key question: is this obvious piece of signalling going to be stronger than the thick skulls of the lugs in Washington? Meanwhile, in Venezuela, US destroyers are patrolling the coastline. Ostensibly to stop cartel shipments. Are they about to make a Noriega of Maduro? Finally, in Britain, the bond yield has hit a thirty year high. At the same time, France can’t pass a budget, and has 114% debt to GDP. What’s going to happen when two of Europe’s big three economies both try to squeeze through the door of the IMF at the same time? All this and more in an hour of super soaraway subscriber special. That’s right – it’s that time of the month. Time to put down five Dollars, Pounds, Euros to get to eavesdrop with your fellow subscribers in the secret Multipolarity green room. Go to patreon.com/multipolarity. Slap down your cash. And get backstage, where the real action is.

As they say in the Economist: "Serbia is at a crossroads..." Anti-corruption protests after the collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad have not gone away, now many months after the event. The country's leader, President Vučić, is under pressure as never before, after 13 years in power. He has offered 'televised dialogues': his opponents have declined. The standoff continues. Meanwhile, in the tiny breakaway relic of the Bosnian War, Republika Srpska, the crossroads has come to a fork.In February 2025, the President of the RS region of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, was stripped of his office, for planning to hold an independence referendum to break away from Bosnia. He was handed a one-year prison sentence plus a six-year political ban. Christian Schmidt, Bosnia’s High Representative, froze budgetary support for RS ruling parties after attempts to arrest Dodik were thwarted by Republika Srpska police. Two concurrent crises, oddly twinned: as we all know, when Serbia goes off, the world needs to stand well back. Miša Đurković is head of the MCC-MKI Center for Geopolitics at the School of International Relations at MCC. . This week, he joins us to unpack the dense politics of this geopolitical pocket rocket.

With EU leaders summoned to the White House to take dictation, it seems as though the Ukraine War is entering its final phase. Can the Europeans take their medicine? Or will they stay doolally on the happy pills? India has made it easier for Russian banks to operate. Turns out, Trump’s capricious decision to threaten them with swingeing sanctions has had second order consequences. These days, the monkey’s paw is twitching so hard it’s tapping out morse code. Finally, Goldman Sachs has estimated the winners and losers of the tariff wars. And the loser is – US consumers, who can expect to bear 64 per cent of costs before Xmas. You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity is now open. Only problem? It goes through a geopolitical electromagnet pulling all the badboys of the region into its tractor beam. The US has taken out a 99 year lease on a corridor that connects Armenia and Azerbaijan. It’s a breakthrough peace deal, certainly. But is it a silk road through a minefield? Meanwhile, in Alaska, Vlad is about to jet in for talks. Is there some historical echo in doing it in a territory Russia once signed away? Or merely a historical echo of a big empty nothing? Finally, Trump’s new 401k rules mean that Americans will soon be able to invest their money in crypto. And to create their own retirement tontines — that’s to say, when one pension saver dies early, the rest inherit their forfeited funds. Is this more genius from the great negotiator? Or just a fantastic chance to turn America into a series of Agatha Christie-style bump-off clubs? You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Lawds malarkey guv’nor, Blighty’s popped its clogs. Americans have been hoovering up ‘UK doom’ content ever since Elon Musk decided to push the grooming gangs scandal on X at the start of the year. On the inside, everyone understands the Notting Hill days are long gone. Only some have clocked that the Children of Men era is upon us.Now, with the banning of a viral ad for a crypto exchange describing the dismal state of the country, we’re checking in on the dismal state of the country. Meanwhile, America is pushing India to cut its oil trade with Russia. Obviously, this will never have any bad second order consequences. Finally, having exposed their air defence nakedness in one wild weekend, the Iranians are in the market for a new system. And the news is they’re going Ali Express. Can China succeed where their own engineers failed? Watch this underground bunker. You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Get on the bus. Or get on the Trump train. At this week’s Chinese trade talks, Europe has found itself piggy in the middle in the great global realignment. After Team Ursula were shunted off an airport bus by their Chinese hosts, – and given no official welcome, it’s clear which side is now entering their Hundred Years of Humiliation.  We’ll be clipping the tickets of both delegations, and trying to piece together where the Great Tariff Wars of 2025 are up to.  But as this is a pay week, we’re also going to have to impose a 75% tariff of our own, until you come to heel. For those inside the customs union - Multipolarity’s Patreons - this episode is entirely free throughout. For the rest of you – you’ll get the first quarter and no more. But all is not lost. Join us, in an ever-closer union, by going to patreon.com/multipolarity, and paying five Euros, Pounds, or Dollars a month. 

Steve Hsu is a physicist, a tech founder, the hub of a network of cutting edge thinkers, and the host of the excellent Manifold Podcast.  After a record-breaking first appearance, this week, he returns to Multipolarity for his second turn. This time, we want to ask him about the big picture on China’s tech frontiers. Six months on from the Deep Seek shock, it’s clear that China is making leaps not just in AI, but a range of high-end technologies, from materials science to robotics, semiconductors and telecoms. Far from the old paradigm of ‘China doesn’t innovate; it copies’, we’re seeing genuinely novel applications: from beetle-inspired heat censors, to synthetic biology, to silicon wafer replacement.Beyond the immediate economic implications, how does their coming prowess relate to the strategic balance of power? We talk military hardware: the debate about tech missiles versus jets, China’s 6th generation fighters, drones, and the battlefield of the future.And given all this – what can the US do to claw back the high ground? Can Washington accept their diminished status? Or will they end up both more insular and more aggressive on the world stage? You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Philip Pilkington is away in Belgrade on a foreign assignment, which means we’re serving up a Sleepless In Seattle-style double header, on tariffs. First off: what is the end game for trade and the dollar? With Liberation Day now a distant memory and the passing of The Big Beautiful Bill, Philip has crunched the numbers, and figured out that all is not what it seems. Meanwhile, Andrew, casts his eyes eastwards. How are tariffs affecting the geopolitical balance of power in south-east Asia? Are the Japanese slicing up some lessons in Cakeism for Trump?You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

In a viral video clip, tantric sex expert Javier Milei once said that he only makes love once every three months. Let’s see if he goes to the IMF any more regularly. In the wake of an enormous bailout, we’ll be busting some myths on the grand schemes of Captain Ancap. Meanwhile, in Britain, the finance minister is crying in Parliament, and the Prime Minister is too socially awkward to comfort her. At least Milei made the cuts first; and then went to the lender of last resort after. What happens when a dying G7 economy is too proud to cut anything, and too paralysed to do anything? Looks like they’re also ready for a visit from a certain monetary fund. Finally, the Stablecoin revolution is here. That’s right: you can now buy one dollar you don’t physically hold, for the price of one dollar you do hold. Sounds a bit silly? Welcome to crypto, bro. We’re asking: Is the GENIUS Act actually the DURR BRAIN Bill? You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Nothing Ever Happens. Or does it? A week on from a one act play of a war, we pick through the charred remains of the Fordow Nuclear Site. We’re looking for clues. A smouldering nothingburger here; or a flambéd Middle Eastern order there?  Meanwhile, Daddy got his five percent — NATO members have signed up to splash the cash on the next generation of weaponry. But is this wise defensive spending, or just a fully-armoured hypersonic pork barrel? Finally, the S&P has rallied this week - just as the dollar has dipped enough to offset the wins. Now, with bond yields also on the up, we’re into an era of two snakes for every ladder. Is this a weird blip - or the first horseman of dedollarisation? You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity