Jeremy Dicker | 10 Geopolitical Predictions For 2026

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Jeremy Dicker is a co-founder of International Intrigue, a daily geopolitics newsletter delivered to over 150,000 inboxes worldwide.

Before entrepreneurship, Jeremy spent 14 years as an Australian diplomat, with postings in both Latin and North America, Peru, Mexico and LA specifically.

International Intrigue was born during London lockdown when Jeremy and his co-founders (fellow former diplomats) jumped on the new media of newsletter’s nascent industry and decided to write to make geopolitics accessible, witty, and funny

Jeremey boasts that the writers from ‘The Diplomat’ read the newsletter which is a huge flex given just how good that TV show is. 

Jeremy and his team published a 25 predictions for 2026 article just a few weeks ago and that’s exactly what we go through on todays episode. 

Timestamps

00:00 - Jeremy & International Intrigue
01:01 - Taiwan & Global Disorder
11:35 - Prediction 1: Europe's Reliance on the US
21:09 - Prediction 2: Cryptocurrency's Mainstream Adoption
28:22 - Prediction 3: Nuclear Energy and Tech Giants
33:13 - Prediction 4:AI and the Bubble Debate
39:59 - Prediction 5: Russia Ukraine
42:44 - Prediction 6: The Pink Tide: Shifts in Latin American Politics
58:24 Prediction 7: Climate Change
01:08:32 - Diplomacy and National Interests: Balancing Values and Policies
01:09:03 - Prediction 8: BRICS vs Quad
01:15:12 - US Foreign Policy and Global Dynamics
01:19:11 - Diplomatic Challenges Under Trump
01:26:12 - Prediction 9: The Future of the UN and Global Governance
01:30:02 - Prediction 10: China's Technological Ascendancy
01:34:53 - Australia's Role in Global Affairs

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Jeremy Dicker is a co-founder of International Intrigue, a daily geopolitics newsletter delivered to over 150,000 inboxes worldwide. Before this journey into entrepreneurship, Jeremy spent 14 years as an Australian diplomat with postings in Latin and North America, Peru, Mexico, and LA specifically. International Intrigue was born during London, out of the COVID lockdowns, when Jeremy and his co-founders, all fellow former diplomats, jumped on the new media of newsletter's nascent industry and decided to write in a fashion that made geopolitics accessible, witty, and funny. Jeremy boasts that the writers from The Diplomat read the newsletter, which is a huge flex in my opinion, given just how good that TV show is. And that brings us to the subject of today's episode. Jeremy and his team published an article recently, which was titled 25 Predictions for 2026. The full link to that newsletter is in the description, but today we went through a select 10 of those predictions, offering Jeremy time to unpack the reasoning behind the prediction and the broader context behind each one of those standalone predictions. It was a really fun episode to record. As always, you can refer to the timestamps if you want to jump around to each particular prediction. And please, if you wouldn't mind, consider leaving this podcast a five-star review on either Apple or Spotify. Nothing does more for the show. And now, with absolutely no further ado, it is my pleasure to welcome Jeremy Dicker. Welcome, JD. Absolute pleasure to have you. Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan. What are some of the wild predictions you would have liked to have made, but it just felt sort of irresponsible to do so?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

That's a really good question. Um we're mindful of the fact that um there's like a double author authorship of life. We're sort of talking about these big world forces, but they are world forces that completely transform and sometimes shatter and end people's lives. Um, and so you know, um I guess we try to strike that balance um in a way that's respectful of the human angle of everything. Um so, you know, I mean, we could have picked 10 other wars that may well break out. Um, but it it, you know, um, partly because we want a breadth of topics and um geographical coverage and tone, um, and but also just partly, you know, we're mindful of being too flippant about just casually predicting um, you know, anarchy engulfing another another country or two this year. But I just think statistically that that's we're gonna see more and more of that um this year and every other year to come for the you know foreseeable future. Would you be comfortable being flippant right now? Uh using one of those lines? Well, yeah, I mean uh it it's it's it it's seesaws back and forth constantly, but the South China Sea and this constant um standoff that we've seen between um Philippines and and China. China has made these vast um claims over almost the entirety of the South China Sea and they've been completely rejected as unlawful by um permanent court of arbitration in The Hague, but but Beijing's powering on. And the reality is that um when you have these kinds of standoffs, it just really rapidly and um alarmingly jams up the chances of some kind of miscalculation or an accident. We've seen a couple already. Um, you know, one we saw only a few months ago was actually two Chinese warships hitting each other when they were trying to cut off um um a Philippine resupply. Um, you know, that could have very easily gone uh you know a few degrees in another direction, and instead it was um Philippine Marines um being injured or God forbid killed. Um, and then you have a you know a U US treaty ally calling on on backing to to take some some action. So I mean that is that is a real you know, people talk about Taiwan, I guess, a lot more because it's just so binary and stark and um and that's where I guess cinematic. Yeah, and that's where that's where China pumps out a lot of its propaganda as well. It tends to downplay what it's doing in the Philippines, but you know, I guess I would um I would hazard um a guess or a bit of analysis that I think South China Sea is is the more risky one this year. Um yeah, so there you go. Flippin'.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Uh your colleague, or at least comrade, uh Kerry Brown, who was a British diplomat to China, are you familiar with his argument on the Taiwanese question? R refresh my memory. Just essentially that China treats Taiwan as its sort of lost little sister, and it is not interested in any type of military invasion or especially some type of forceful takeover, and rather just a very, very soft, inevitable enveloping over time as Taiwan becomes more shut off from the rest of the world is the most likely outcome.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah. No, I think I think that's fundamentally right. I think basically Xi Jinping wants wants Taiwan for free. Um, he doesn't want to have to fight for it. Um, and I just think this constant purging uh and sort of scandal that we're even able to see from the outside of the upper echelons of the PLA um is it's a reflection of a few things, but one of those things is that he has real doubts about the battle readiness of his own forces. Um and and the reality is, I mean, you you can you can be awestruck by the scale of China and its military buildup. Um but at the same time, I think history suggests we should also be awestruck by the scale of the challenge of invading and controlling um an island like Taiwan across, you know, um a hundred miles of of open sea. So um uh yes, I think ideally Xi Jinping wants Taiwan for free. Um, but I think the reality is this, I mean, this this military buildup is is not for show. Um, I think he does want options. Um he wants his generals to come to him with options if if he feels like that's the way he's got to go. Um and um yeah, it it it it leaves us in a very strange limbo. It's a limbo that that has enabled Taiwan to thrive and um it's it's the sort of status quo that everyone says we just want to stay. No unilateral change to the status quo. Um, but you know, um it's it's it's a pretty wild, um at times terrifying situation to be watching from afar.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

One more quick one before we get into the predictions. What do you make of Peter Zion?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Um Yeah, I get asked that question a fair bit. There's he he's sort of in a in a constellation of other sort of geopolitical influences. Um you know, I I I like Peter, um, very intelligent, I think very prescient. Um, one of his books from a few years ago, you know, the beginning of the end of the world or something, I think very accurately charted um the course that we're now seeing play out of of a US sort of pulling back from its traditional role of providing these, you know, international global public goods, um, you know, like uh patrolling the sea lanes and you know, enforcing whatever you think of as the international world order. Um, you know, so I think he's very interesting, very prescient. Um, you know, I think I think when you're a kind of uh an influencer, you know, I mean he's he's he deserves a more respectful term than that, but like let's just choose that one. Um, you know, you kind of need to generate clicks and buzz and and sales. And one way that he's been doing that for a while is confidently predicting the the imminent collapse of China. Um and and you know, um he you know he may well be proven right at some point um in China. Um friends of mine um who are just deep China experts who live there, speak the language, you know, it's their full lives' work is to understand and and engage with China. They they you know they don't necessarily see that happening, although they're very aware of the massive historic challenges economically, demographically, uh politically facing, Suji, being in his party. Um but yeah, I mean I yeah, I think he's I I like him. That being said, like a lot of these sort of public figures, um, you know, I I spent 14 years sort of on the inside with a top secret security clearance having all these conversations, and never once did anyone in 14 years say, let's check what Peter Zihan says, or let's check what Ian Brahmer says. Like they're then they're brutal. No, but it's not to say that that um he's not brilliant and prescient and intelligent, it's just to say that his mission is not to um um engage in a kind of think tank conversation that governments think about and reflect on. His mission is more to connect that stuff out to a broader public. Um in some ways that's a partly admission as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Okay, well, on the theme of prescience, um obviously a prediction, you know, we we cannot predict a an infinite future based off a finite experience of the past. So let's see. But I really like how you gave a percentage weight to each of them, which was a way to sort of hedge yourself, come next year and to be held accountable for them. Yeah. Um, and then there were 25 in total, and they sort of descended in likelihood, according to you and the team. I've chosen, I think, 15 or maybe 20 of them that we'll go through. So the plan is to just go through them, get your take, get your justification, and then just rock on to the next. Let's do it. All right. Prediction one. Europe can't shake the US. These are a master card processed over 7 trillion euros in European transactions in 23, which is 95% of UK payments. So the hugely important piece of infrastructure. The three major US hyperscalers, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, hold 70% of Europe's cloud market. And then 64% of NATO weapons in the last five years have been imported from the US. So it's uh some very thick cables to try and move away from.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah. And I think we gave it like a 99% um probability. Um That's correct. Yeah. I mean, you know, so yeah, I just like this is w what we are seeing now is um a continent sort of waking up, um, maybe more slowly than many would like and wish and hope. I mean, more slowly than even Donald Trump himself would probably wish. Um, but a continent kind of waking up um after decades of, you know, probably over-reliance on the US in many ways, um, in in uh you know, capital tech, defense, um, financial infrastructure. I think that was that was great. Um, like probably a lot of the world was doing that um because we had this, you know, um global security guarantor that just kind of patrolled the sea lanes and enforced a few rules, and we were able to just kind of flourish and and do our thing within that system. But that system is now, you know, breaking down. I mean, we saw Mark Carney and Davos say it's not breaking down, it's not transitioning, it's it's been ruptured. Um, the wild thing about that is it's been ruptured um not by a US inability to sustain that system. I mean, we've seen in Iran and Venezuela, the US is still just incredibly powerful. It can just do stuff the rest of the world um assumes is not possible. Um I do think the the US still's still had more time to go to kind of um sustain the system, whether you believe it was real or a pleasant fiction, as Mark Carney sort of said in Davosum overnight. Um, but um but the bottom line is that the system's breaking down not because of a US inability, it's because of a US um complete um pivot away from what it's interested in under Trump 2.0. Um and that's a pretty wild thing. I don't think any of us really ever expected that. We always in the Western sort of strategic community most of us think expect it would more just be a a stretching of US power. But here we are. And I think, yeah, um, Europe is waking up to the reality of what that means. Um it can't rely on all the stuff that um it's it's been enjoying um and thriving under for decades. And what are the implications of that? Well, I mean, you know, you can um pick your sector and and it's gonna be rocked by that. Um you know, I think right now the most um imminent and alarming implication for me is uh Putin's imperialism. Um it's just naked expansionist imperialism and it's right on Europe's door. Um and you know um the the the reality is um that uh Putin's ability to keep going um is a lot is a lot higher um the the lower US engagement gets in Europe. Um I think that's what Putin's backing on and banking on. Um longer term Putin doesn't stand a chance. Um it's just a complete strategic catastrophe for him. Um but I think what we're really talking about is um the the speed with which Europe can really wake up to that reality. Um rearm itself, it's already moving really quickly, but re-arm itself, re-establish that deterrent that is you know potentially crumbling um under Trump 2.0.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Well what about economically? That's militaristically, but if there is such a great reliance on US infrastructure and US tech, did is the assumption that you can continue with that? I mean, there's no that's not necessarily going to be taken away just because the politics decides it's no longer inter interested in the continent?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, I mean that that's breaking down as well on both sides. Um so for example, um, you know, the Americans are really frustrated with the way the EU's powerful regulators um are fining and blocking and restricting um tech giants um and what they do and how they access consumers in Europe. Um and um, you know, and then vice versa, you know, the US is responding with you know um Trump's tariffs limiting Europe's market access to the world's what is still the world's biggest economy. Um, you know, so I think that's sort of we're already seeing that kind of um breakdown. I think that will um produce some shifts in the way um European entrepreneurs think. Um, you know, there's a lot of um amusement on Twitter about how much regulation and bureaucracy there is in Europe to just, you know, get a startup off the ground and and start a business and whatever. Um and I, you know, I am pretty optimistic and hopeful that that will change. I also just think you know Europe is the home of just some incredible RD and research um and and um you know brilliant entrepreneurs. So many of them go to the US to pursue their dreams. Um I do I do think that will gradually change. I think it needs a change of political mindset and regulatory mindset in Europe. I think we're seeing that already play out. Um and you know, one you know, one of our we've got a community of Europe and one of them sort of said, you know, Europe is always late, um, but rarely, rarely too late. But I think I think that's right. You know, they're gonna be late to this party, but they've just got some real assets that they're sitting on. I think they will um that will play out to their advantage over the longer term.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah, I love that uh meme caricaturing the European innovation where it's America and it's the NVIDIA chip and then it's Europe and it's the water bottle with the screw attached to the top of the bigger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah, it's it's heartbreaking. Um it's heartbreaking, but yeah, I I I do think there's a course correction underway.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Um Do you think there's a um like an oversubscription to just how vulnerable and victimized Europe is in all of this? Because it would be pretty devastating to the North American companies as well, if all of a sudden a continent that combined has a bigger population, a bigger GDP than the USA, uh now has all their own local competitors that they're going to shift to because of tariffs or regulation or for s for some other reason.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, I I think right now there's a uh a reasonable case that this is you know a woe is me moment for for Europe. Um but yeah, like as I was saying before, I do think all the assets there and the the the fundamentals are there to um fill the gaps and get more self-sustainable. A big part of that question depends on how Europe handles China. Um you know, so for example, um, you know, massive European automakers in in Germany and France um and others, um, Czech Republic, Spain, I mean, they're just in the process of getting wiped out by ultra low cost, pretty high quality EVs um getting you know pumped out of China. Um and I just think you know the reality is um to the extent that that's allowed to continue, it's just gonna um accelerate even the deindustrialization of Europe, and it's pretty alarming to watch. Um so it like at some point, you know, Europe's already um exploring its responses and it's issued threats and probes or whatever. Um, you know, I think at some point it's it's gonna pull up the drawbridge. Um, and I think the question of when depends on how much damage it sustains in the meantime. But the tricky thing is Europe, just like the US, just like every economy, um, we're all so integrated. And it's not simply a matter of um pulling up the drawbridge and saying no more EVs, end of story. Um, because you know, China or any of us, we always have agency and we always have um counterpunches. Um and the reality is China just has so much leverage across the broader European economy to say, okay, if you're not letting us sell EVs, we're no longer gonna sell you, you know, X. And it's just a vast array of um, you know, uh processed raw minerals or or niche electronic inputs or you know, um, some of the precision tooling that um that you know ASML relies on um to produce its lithography chipmaking machines, whatever it is, there's just it it's not so easy as just you know, haha, we got you pull up the drawbridge. Um it's just this con is this total um uh strategic um entanglement, um, which is going to be very painful um for everyone involved as it sort of continues to de-risk itself.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Prediction number two with a 90% accuracy, or rather 90% likelihood likability, likelihood, uh cryptocurrency goes mainstream. So what what does that look like? What is mainstream?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, I mean it's I I wouldn't say it's there yet for those of us living in Australia. Um, you know, there's a certain kind of subculture of crypto that um is charging ahead, and it's you know, this kind of wild and hyper masculine kind of subculture, which probably has clouded the ability of many of us to really think soberly about about crypto as a tech. Um, you know, but the reality is we've just had uh um you know a year ago a historically crypto-friendly president um retake the White House, and he's brought with him um, you know, um very crypto-friendly advisors, people like David Sachs in the White House, um, and managed to push through um some very crypto-friendly legislation um through con through Congress. So, yeah, and and we're seeing um Wall Street um, you know, receive and follow those signals. Um I guess in terms of going mainstream, I guess one way I answer that is over the relatively brief history of crypto, we've been seesawing wildly from uh use case to use case. It's there's a sense of this is cool, interesting tech, but what what do you do with it? And so it's like it was like, oh, it's just a uh a form of transaction. Um and then people at, no, no, it's a store of value. Um others being like, no, no, it's like a YOLO investment. Um it's this, you know, constant seesaw between these different use cases, trying to figure out what really works and what really takes. And I guess the thing that's sort of maybe changed in the last couple of years is the um popularization of stablecoin, um, which I guess harmonizes two of those use cases. One, it's both a store of wealth, um, store of value, and uh and a medium for transaction. Um, and I I just um think that has sort of unlocked a lot of practical use cases. Um and you know, one of our other predictions that um is a little further down in our um edition talked about how, you know, Argentina is looking like it's basically going to dollarise its economy or already is dollarizing its economy through the back door by just the reality of so many folks in Argentina using stablecoin as a way to live their life, you know, buy their groceries and store their wealth, um, rather than as has happened to their parents and then grandparents and great grandparents over the generations, just periodically get wiped out by some monetary stuff up um, you know, um at the at the government level. So yeah, um I don't think we all really know what it means, but I just think we're gonna um it's we're gonna just notice it and feel it more, and it's gonna be less of a weird hyper-masculine subculture and more of just a helpful practical way for us to do business and travel and um and trade.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

For it to be mainstream, properly mainstream, I I think it has to be to the point where we have a Apple ID to our crypto wallet, and I can therefore buy coffee and the groceries and petrol and so forth. Is that your 90% likelihood this year we'll be able to see that? Maybe not in Australia, but elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah. Um it's hard to see that happening in Australia, but you know, the RBA is has got its own sort of crypto project that it's thinking about. But yeah, I think that's a good example, um, exactly as you described. There have been experiments that we've seen play out, like in ASEAN, for example, they've um done some experiments with crypto wallets where um, you know, if you're a Malaysian and you're going on a holiday to Thailand, you can um you can spend your Malaysian currency whilst um shopping in Thailand. And and probably a lot of us feel like we're just doing that anyway, because we just use the same card and and tap at the terminal, but but um in the back end there's there's a lot um of intermediary steps um and charges and um you know and value and middlemen that's that's sort of erodes the process behind the scenes that we probably don't think about most of us in our daily life. But um, you know, stablecoin has the ability to streamline and simplify that massively.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Is it within your purview at International Intrigue to explore? Or examine all the money laundering capabilities and enabling the scale of these criminal organizations because of cryptocurrency as a part of the prediction or as a consideration in it?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

So our co-founder John dug a bit deeper into the crypto question in in the subsequent edition in his intro. You know, ask these sorts of questions in response. He sort of doubled down and reflected that when he was serving in Beijing, um, at the time the Communist Party saw crypto as like an existential threat to its grip on power. Um and you know, now to the contrary, um the the People's Bank of China is sort of um charging ahead with its own um crypto project. Um but yeah, at the same time, the reality is um you know it clearly is empowering and enabling um organized crime, drug trafficking, um, all kinds of horrible stuff. Um yeah, I mean that's that's the reality. Um I think um where this settles in terms of regulatory and technological um uh spectrum, um I I think where it now that the US has led the charge and kind of um being crypto-friendly um but regulating um and and um centralizing some authority in that space, um, yeah, I think we'll see um you know hopefully some good practical uh you know police-led um responses to all the organized crime currently enabled by crypto. Um but I I think it's just gonna keep you know, same with um, you know, uh encryption technology that's now pretty readily available. I mean, there's there's a lot of tech that is empowering and protecting criminals. Um at the end of the day, though, um I I having worked in government, I just feel pretty confident that eventually um our cleverest people find a find an answer. Um occasionally it gets out into the news, you know, like there was a pretty spectacular story a couple of years ago of this like you know bulletproof uh encryption service that turned out to have been entirely compromised by the FBI and they were using it to they were using it to eavesdrop on what all these criminals were saying to each other. So I mean I just you know I I I'm an I I'm a hopeless optimist and I I do feel that at some point um we'll we'll find a way. But yeah, it's a real challenge in the meantime.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Prediction number three. Tech giants go more nuclear with an 85% likelihood. So the prediction is driven by increasing energy demand from data centers powering AI. Uh, but I just wrote here, why nuclear versus some more readily accessible energy since the timeline for construction for a nuclear plant is much longer than the timeline for construction of a data center?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah, no, that's a good question. I mean, um basically um the demand for energy is skyrocketing um and and moving way more quickly than um the policymakers can can keep up, let alone set a direction. Um and there is some sort of latent capacity um in America's um you know nuclear sector, and Trump has now declared a uh nuclear renaissance, um, which is resulting in easier financing and easier you know regulatory rules. So I mean, personally, I don't necessarily think that um nuclear is um you know is the best uh you know magical answer to our energy security problems. But in terms of right now, if you're in the border on one of these tech giants, um you need massive 24-7 stable, secure supply of energy. And ideally, a lot of them um still want it to be um low carbon or carbon-free. Um, and and nuclear ticks that box. So, you know, in one way it's sort of the the picking the low-hanging fruit was um was a Google kind of recommissioning Three Mile Island in in Pennsylvania, you know, like so there's an asset that was sort of underutilized, and they're saying, you know, here's $20 billion, um, let's utilize it. Um the other, yeah, I don't I don't foresee these tech giants building massive nuclear plants like that going forward. I just think it's gonna be more um, you know, there's a lot of buzz around the small modular reactors, um, which can, you know, I mean, there's still not actually many of them working in reality. Um, but but the tech does seem pretty promising and inherently stable. Um, and you know, there's some excitement there. Um so yeah, I think we'll see some more kind of low-hanging fruit on on nuclear. It ticks plenty of boxes at the moment. Um, you know, longer term though, I I think um uh you know our economy is going to decarbonize and and surge to a future of energy abundance more through um mass uh solar and battery adoption more than um uh necessarily you know massive uh you know uh risky nuclear plants.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

If we turn within the border of the country we're both sat, there's a lot of nuclear, there's a lot of data centers being constructed here. Do you know what energy supply we are securing for those?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Well, I mean, it's funny you say that, because um one of my neighbors um works on land deals um for these, you know, out in the middle of paddocks, whatever, for these massive data centers. And um one of the constant struggles that he's coming up against is the fact that a particular plot of land will tick all the boxes for these big um data center players. Um but the missing piece um is energy, um, not just necessarily a source of supply, or that's a big problem, but also the transmission. Um and you know, just the the the massive regulatory headaches in in trying to tick both those boxes basically results in um a lot of these announcements on data centers um not actually happening. Um I don't think it's for real. I don't think it's countrywide, but um in in a couple of parts of the country, um that's that seems to be a pretty real problem. Yeah, but no, I don't know which specific energy sources um we're we're expecting to to to fill the gap. But you know, um it's been a toxic issue in this country, which it I've been delighted to try and stay out of because I just find these these yelling debates on stuff like nuclear just you know kind of kind of tough.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

But it's just uh like I follow Craig Scogie, I really admire him as an entrepreneur, and I see all of the press releases he might write or uh communications that he'll put out into one of his various channels. And I'm left with the impression that Australia is a global leader and data center creation. But I'm always left wondering, d don't they all require so much energy? Where on earth are we finding this giant bits of energy out of the middle of some random Australian plot of land?

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Well, I mean, long-term um you know, solar and battery, I think, is is gonna be a big part of the answer. Um but whether this is what the the investors are banking on right now is another question. Um and yeah, I'm I'm very mindful, particularly for example in Victoria, just anecdotally a few um a few uh you know blueprints that are struggling to get to reality and and the biggest challenge has been energy and and and a real you know it's tied up in the complicated regulatory environment that they're in down there at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Prediction number four, with an 80% likelihood, there's no AI bubble.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah. Um, I mean, you know, if we're a team and we've got different we've individually got different views. Um I think that might have been um um the the the the the view of John, um one of our co-founders. Um like you know, certainly some of the valuations right now are just staggering, and there's just this constant drip feed of um of data points that just you know make you think, ooh, you know, one we looked at at Intrigue was this very strange situation where um you can buy shares in the same company, so TSMC, the massive Taiwanese um chipmaker, you can buy them in Taiwan or in New York. If you buy them in New York, um they cost about 20% more than if you buy them on Taiwan. So it's like you're literally buying a share in the same company, but somehow it costs 20% more over in the US. And there are all kinds of debates playing out. Some of the suggested explanations are sort of very technical or regulatory, and and that may well be the case. But there is a history of um that kind of situation pointing at um the the formation of a significant um tech bubble in the US. Um it certainly happened um with TSMC, I think actually, um at the dot-com um explosion. There was um, I think the the it was way bigger than 20% the gap between the two um share prices. So you like that just by way of an example Yeah, so I mean there are you know signals that people um look at and and get a bit cheery. Um but at the same time, I mean, um Nvidia just keeps um exceeding expectations. Um it's it's its tech is remarkable. Um and Ditto, the race um at the software end, the application end, you know, open AI thinks sits in the boss, and then out comes goo with Gemini that just kind of you know knocks it out of the park in many ways. Um and you know, China had its deep seat moment. Um so you know, um it there there is real progress there, there is real excitement. Um and again, I think probably for most of us in just living our normal lives, we see AI as like just good Google. Um, you know, a bit easier to find stuff, a bit easier to find information, and it hasn't maybe disrupted or changed our lives too much just yet.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

But I find it way more disruptive than just another Google.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yes. Yeah. So um others, I mean, so I'm you know, where I'm sitting now, I'm sort of surrounded by entrepreneurs in the in the tech space. I have a desk here at this innovation hub. And so I see um the other side of that where it's it's staggering what it can do. Um but again, it fills me with a lot of optimism. Um, not just at the big end of town, like um, you know, I guess we we we see the fearful claims of losing our job to a robot or whatever. Um rather I'm seeing lots of really cool adaptation anecdotes of small businesses like um building really popular portable sheds or uh um, you know, an NDIS program for kids with special needs. Um these are people who are good at building sheds or good at looking after kids with special needs. Um and I've been kind of inspired to see the way that um people who know what they're doing with AI can help unlock those small businesses, just massively streamline the whole back end of their operation and focus on what they love and what they do. Um, and and so you know, I'm optimistic about that. That's like more of doing what we love. Um, and um, and you know, I'm excited about where that goes. So, yeah, um, will there be a bubble this year um in terms of you know a massive US stocks correction? Um, you know, we simply know. Maybe we'll be wrong.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, you've put a one of five chance of being wrong there, which feels like a pretty good bet, actually, if you were gonna make it. Smart money might take five to one that there is gonna be a collapse and get a really nice return. Yeah. But it does feel like I'm in agreement with you. It feels less likely that there is gonna be an AI bubble. Certainly some companies are severely inflated in valuation, yeah. And the actual value that they're delivering uh is probably marginal in the majority of cases. Um, but I think there's enough evidence on the edge that shows that it's genuinely transformational. Yeah. And therefore not bubbly. Prediction number five. No Russo-Ukraine peace, 80% likelihood. And I wanted to ask, has your percentage shifted given only a few days ago when this was written, given how brazenly imperialist Trump is behaving?

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

I mean, that's one of the um I mean, just overnight, Trump sort of did the classic uh taco uh and tweeted that uh tweeted that no, no, it's all good. I've spoken to Mark um Rute, the the NATO boss, and we've got a framework on Greenland, it's all gonna be fine. And you know, it's hard to know if that's just bluster or if there is something real. I but I I I suspect he's basically just hit control Z on a big on a big part of his whole Greenland thing. Um but one of the you know, one of the great bits of damage that the the US president does with this kind of rhetoric, like it started off um, you know, talking about taking Canada as the 51st state, and then you know, talked about taking Greenland. And by the way, I mean this there's a long story to this Greenland stuff. I mean, the US has been looking longingly at Greenland for 150 years. Um, there's lots of reasons why it wants Greenland, and I understand those reasons, and it mostly satisfies those reasons through um a very generous treaty arrangement with Denmark that basically enables it to have as many troops and bases on Greenland as it wants. Um I you know, I think it's I think the US can and will be able to um address whatever strategic vulnerabilities it sees on Greenland within the realms of its current treaty or anything. But in in the way that he's handled it, it's just um, you know, um it's fuel for the propaganda machines um out of the Kremlin or out of um out of the CCP in Beijing. Um I think though, the bottom line though, um, you know, um that we're not gonna see a Russo-Ukraine peace this year. I mean, you know, um we've put our percentages there, so maybe we will, but um, it's it's very, very hard to see any sustainable, meaningful peace deal um between Russia and Ukraine so long as Vladimir Putin um remains in power. Um and the reason being that I mean this whole war is just um the the is downstream of this kind of imperialist nationalist um virus in his head. Um he he has just grown up um in a bubble of resentment um at you know at at the the what happened to the Soviet Union and what happened to post-Soviet Russia. Um and you know, I mean he's come up with all kinds of bullshit reasons um why he needed to invade Ukraine, but the bottom line is he's doing it because he wants it. But the even bigger bottom line is the fact that he's just completely failed. Um and that's partly and counter-trutily why he can't stop. If he stops now and accepts um a peace agreement, I mean he he basically then has to confront um the own, you know, his own secure crats and oligarchs that he's kind of you know glued together with a network of patronage and corruption and organized crime, he he sort of becomes answerable to explain why he just completely rooted his economy, um, you know, wiped out a generation of of men, um to us and turned Russia into a complete pariah, um, you know, over a million casualties. Um and you know, there's a pretty funny stat going around that if literally if a snail had crossed the Ukrainian border the same day that um Putin's tanks crossed the border, they would already be in Poland by now. Um and if and then I mean and Alexander Stubb, the brilliant Finnish president, he made another point that like um by now, I mean it's now been four years. It took Stalin four years for his tanks to reach Berlin, you know, in in you know um so Putin has just completely um I don't know what your language rules are, but just completely shat the bet and long term um his Shat is okay. Uh long term he there's no way out for him. Um the question is just how much devastation and trauma he puts the rest of us and you know, particularly the people of Ukraine through until um reality catches up with him. Whether it's a bullet in the back of the head or polonium in his morning tea, um or or whatever it is, um, there's no way out for him, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Isn't it incomprehensible that there's a million casualties?

SPEAKER_00 37:33

It's staggering. Casualties um in include uh injured who are no longer of any military use. Um so yeah, you might have lost a leg or something. Um but yeah, um it's it is staggering. Um it it at this point, you know, I might be about to butcher a stat, but there was a a wild stat that it was something like one in nineteen um uh I don't know if that's one in nineteen Russian men. Um, but you know, like a pretty yeah, everyone knows someone, you know, unless you're really in the in the elites of uh the you know the leafy streets of Moscow getting chauffeured around in your armored SUV or whatever, but really most people um know someone and and as the recruitment gets closer and closer to Putin's urban bases in St. Petersburg and and Moscow, that that you know gets harder and harder to pretend like it's someone else's problem or someone else's war.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Unbelievable. Prediction six. With a 70% likelihood, the pink tide recedes across Latin America. I first wanted to ask, what is a pink tide?

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Yeah. So the Latin America is where I spent um a good chunk of my career, and it's a part of the world I I really love. Um Pink Tide was the the nickname that the the Western media gave when there was a series of left-leaning leaders that were sort of swept to power um across Latin America. So like Petro in Colombia, who's the first, the country's first leftist president. Um, you know, Lula back in Brazil. Um there, you know, um there were a couple of left-leaning presidents um in Peru, um, just yeah, Ecuador, um, Rafael Correa, who's you know, now gone. But there was just this whole just kind of it seemed like a wave. Um, and so that was called the pink tide. Um I think in some ways it was backed by um high oil prices. Um and so, you know, for example, uh, you know, uh commodity prices, so you know, Colombia's sitting on enormous natural wealth, and so you can you can promise these big social programs when you're um you know just printing money through your resource sector. Um, you know, same thing happened with Venezuela. Um, Chavez was riding high on $120 barrels of oil or whatever it was, and then um sort of a bit of a hosp hospital pass to his you know very inept, still very inept successor, Nicolas Maduro, who just still had his foot to the floor in terms of social spending, even though um revenue just totally collapsed. So anyway, um all that to say that that's what the pink tie was, it was this sort of um over the last 15 years, a sort of um a succession of left-leading governments elected by the people um of Latin America. And I just think that's um that that happens naturally, I think, in every democracy where just all you know, the alternative government says, hey, let's do it this way, this isn't working, and folks think, yeah, let's give that a try. But I also think it's it's a little different this time, um, because I think two of the biggest challenges for folks in Latin America, um, no matter where you are, no matter who you are, they'll they'll say they want a better economy and they want more security. Um, and two of the most spectacular uh answers to those problems we've seen emerge over the last couple of years from from you know conservative leaders. Um, and that that's not me taking sides politically, just uh speaking factually about that that the world has been stunned by what Bukele did in El Salvador. It's a country I spent a lot of time in. And I just could never imagine that someone could do what he's done, like you know, collapse the murder rate from 120 or 100 per 100,000 people down to like two, you know, just just incredible. Um and and of you know, there's all kinds of very fair and um and and right questions about the way he's gone about. Um but for the for the average person in El Salvador, it is just historic, and that explains why he's got an incredibly high um approval rating. Then, you know, you look over um down the other end of the continent um in Argentina, and again, you've got um it's kind of hard to describe him, um, but a Javier Malay, just a very uh indescribable sort of a goat. Yeah, but yeah, I would I would just say I mean he's just I think a bit too hard to people describe his far right or whatever. I I just think that's not a very helpful description for him. I just because he's just very, very strong.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Anarcho-libertarian.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yeah, yeah, and a populist. And yeah, he he he's a very interesting cat. But um but basically his economic diagnosis and prescription has been pretty orthodox orthodox. Like, you know, most Australian economists would, if they saw an economy like that, they would prescribe the same medicine. It's just that we haven't had to do that before because we've not found our country in a situation like that. Um but um yeah, he he has managed to stabilize inflation. Um particularly after he managed to pull off a pretty big upset in his midterms a couple of months ago, markets have really rallied around him. Um so Argentina's borrowing costs are plummeting. Um and you know, it's it's caused a lot of heartache and a lot of um a lot of hurt for households as he's you know cut helpful and popular subsidies to energy and transport. I mean, I'm not saying these things aren't hard. Um and he always said it was going to be hard, but I think his point was that it was just unsustainable to continue on with the peronist big spend um interventionist approach to the economy. Um and and you know, I think the rest of the economy, the the rest of the the continent are kind of looking at Bukele, looking at Millet. Um, you know, some hate him, um, but I think the sort of balance of power are looking at them both and thinking, look, maybe there are some ideas we can we can take from these guys because we want a little bit of what they're having.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

So your your prediction is that the pink tide receding means that there is a appetite for more right wing, whether it's populists or politicians across Latin American countries.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah, there's some there's some big elections coming up. So Colombia in sort of May, June, um Petro the incumbent, he's a former guerrilla, um, and Colombia's sort of first left-leaning president. Um he's pretty unpopular. Um he he rose to power promising something called total peace. That was his phrase. Um, trying to put an end to just this the violence with Colombia's armed groups and negotiations that would collapse, and he kind of wanted to bring them in and share the spoils of development. And and and you know, it's a pretty compelling and powerful message for a country that's been um racked by this kind of violence for for decades. But the reality is it just it just hasn't worked. Um and to the contrary, things have gotten worse there. Um and you know, the one of the main groups, the ELN ELN is now just openly fighting a war against Colombian the Colombian state again. So I just think, you know, voters there are say, okay, well we tried that and this is where it got us. And so in response, in the sort of natural cyclical response, there's a pretty firebrand conservative senator in Colombia who, you know, it's still too early, there's still a lot of candidates who are going to get whittled down, but, you know, it it he's got the most buzz at the moment. And it was looking like it'll go to power will get handed to him or someone like him. It just got handed to someone like him in Chile, a guy called Cast, who's you know another firebrand conservative. We're going to see it happen in Peru. Their elections are in July, I think. Again, a sort of left leading a left-leaning government. I'm not saying it's 'cause they're left, I'm just saying um just the fact. Sure, yeah. The the uh the we're just so ap apolitical um at intrigue. But like the incumbents in Peru um have been left and it and they have been a disaster. And so again people say all right well we tried you guys so now we're going to try someone else. And you know I uh uh Brazil also has elections in in October um that one's a little tougher to call um um but um you know it the the the the right leaning base um um there does have a lot of strength a lot of numbers um emotions are running high with what happened to the the former president uh Bolsonaro who you know has been convicted of effectively trying to mount a coup to stay in power which is just just wild wild shit um what what what he's been convicted of doing so um that one's a little tougher to call but um but my my gut is it it might head somewhere um a little closer to the center if not over to the right as well but we'll see and what would the implications be where many of the major Latin American economies become more right wing well you know I'll give you an example um because a lot of the time we think oh who cares it's it's you know if if you're not there it it's it doesn't feel directly relevant. But it it does play out on the world stage. One example um so the last before this pink tide um there was um whatever the opposite of a pink tide is there was sort of a ring of conservative governments um in um Mexico Peru Chile and Colombia and they formed something called the Pacific Alliance um which is was a really interesting block of kind of like minded pro-business um pro-democracy um not kind of crazy right or anything but just that sort of that sweet spot of set a right um and then they became a bit more of a force I mean they coordinated their approaches to the rest of the world they coordinated on free trade agreements they um you know they they it they were all of a sudden um carrying more heft more weight than than maybe what they would have individually in a lot of these international conversations so yeah it does it does play out um you we also saw for example um uh Colombia wanted to join APEC for example um under um you know during that Pacific Alliance time because it really started to feel like it you know wanted to be a free trading open um you know open economy um and and you know so it you see you you do see things change it's not just like fiery retick in the the presidential palace um you you feel it um when you're sitting across the table as as an you know even as an Australian diplomat.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Can can we think about Latin American right wing philosophically similar to what conservatism might be in in Australia or the UK or the US and therefore they'd have a significantly different attitude towards the drug economy that dominates so many of these Latin American countries and therefore you could expect perhaps a little bit more intervention at the supply side yeah no that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

I I do think left and right and conservative and liberal um they're often unhelpful labels and they're ones that we try to avoid um but sometimes they're they're good shorthand. I do think um right-leaning or conservative governments in Latin America they they they look different. I think they look different everywhere um it depends on the specific character of the leader and and the national philosophy that they're kind of you know wielding um at the head of power. You know like someone like Malay like like in some ways he's conservative because he talks about um ditching taxes um but in some ways he's not because um he raises some taxes um or wants to retain some taxes because really his guiding philosophy is less conservative or liberal but more that kind of economic liberalism um which in which it does entail sort of hardcore libertarian yeah it does entail balancing your book so um um you know and you also get very very different approaches to things like Israel like you know he's he's got a very I think he converted to Judaism so he has um he has a very unique relationship to to what he sees as the role of Israel in today's world um pure you know yeah he went to the wailing wall and and kissed the stone and um and and you know completely transformed Argentina's approach to the fact that they had 20 citizens being held captive by Hamas. So um you know it it it's it's a lot more complicated than sort of binary left to right and I know you weren't suggesting otherwise but I guess just by way of caveat um when it comes to the security question um yeah I mean these economies are so much more than you know and I know you know that there's so much more than than organized crime and drugs but um the reality is you know I I spent years in the continent years in Mexico at the arguably at the height of their drug wars the reality is it does shape the way foreign investors and domestic investors think about what to do with their money, where to try and build a business where to store their wealth where to send their kids to school um it it totally warps and transforms entire generations and entire um you know segments of the economy. So there it is a big deal. And you know um Mexico for example had a president called Calderon who was the one that launched the sort of war on drugs a tough kind of militaristic approach. And in some ways it was just disastrous um because what we saw happen was um organized crime um when you kill the boss or or or grab him put him in cuffs and put him on a private deer a private jet with a DEA to face trial in the US that organized crime doesn't just stop. Those five or six lieutenants that he leaves behind, a lot of the time they started fighting with each other um to carve out their own power. And so we just saw a complete fragmentation of the um criminal landscape and the result was um it became more violent um and and it became an even tougher challenge for the government to confront because they were confronting you know dozens and hundreds of smaller but equally ruthless and well-armed organized criminal groups rather than you know three or four or five massive cartels. So um yeah you do get this sort of seesaw um between what Calderon was trying to do and then he handed the reins to someone called Ambller Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador who's a more of a hard left guy and he's like he had this whole again as a little bit like Petro in Colombia he had this whole philosophy of like hugs not bullets like let's just hug it in guys like we're we're all Mexican. And again it yeah and and it and it's appealing I get it it's appealing for a country that's just traumatized and tired of this shit just staying at just shocking headlines. But again I mean in in Amler's case it just it just hasn't worked I mean some of these I mean you know the vi you know you know I would say by definition these organized criminal groups are just evil um and and you can't hug evil you need to fight evil um and and you know sometimes the headlines are so shocking that we kind of blind ourselves to what they do but it's like just horrible horrible stuff and yeah you don't hug those pricks you you you maybe they sound you you shoot them dead and you chug them behind bars and you extradive them to the US and and I I it's hard for us living in a safe bubble in Australia to hear someone like me say that. But it's just the live reality of of human nature that that there there is evil among us and you don't hug it. Sometimes you can hug it and persuade it but by the time it is a heavily armed um you know paramilitary disrupting a major G20 country um you know the twelfth biggest economy um in Mexico's case you don't hug it you you you deal with it. So yeah we I think we will we you know we may well see more engagement from Colombia with the US again on um welcoming security cooperation which has kind of collapsed under Petro and yeah likewise probably um you know Chile is less of a it's it's left a less of an issue for Chile they're more fo focused on irregular migration out of Venezuela but you know they'll be more excited to work with the US again I think um in the spirit of just regaining control, re-establishing borders, you know, populists and nationalists they like borders um and to the extent the DEA or whoever is happy to help then I think they'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Prediction number eight the world breaches at 60% likelihood 1.4 the 1.4% barrier for the fourth year running. So just a very nihilistic cynical question but does this even affect policy making or corporations anymore?

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Yeah um I that is a that is a nihilistic question. The reality is the world is now too divided um and and too suspicious and too hostile and and trust has broken down um and you know um our biggest economies now go to these cop climate talks actively assuming bad faith on the other part and that this is a zero sum game and we've got to stop ourselves from being screwed over or we've got to screw them over whatever it is. And you know there is some um justification for that like um you know for for a long time China has uh cruised along in the strips the the the slipstream of um being designated in various international bodies and as a developing nation um which you know meant that um it sort of got softball treatment in some of these um forums that's that's gradually changing but that's that's one reason why the US comes so resentful to these sorts of talks right um you know cynically you know every increasingly we just see these shocking videos of floods in Sumatra or or Bangladesh or um Pacific Island beaches getting you know submerged or whatever. Someone who I really respect um put it like this which is that um it's going to get to a point where we're no longer just watching these handheld videos um on Twitter. We're gonna be watching them out our window um and and that's that's dramatic and I don't necessarily buy into the full drama of what that what that's saying in terms of happening right now, tomorrow. It's also but too late once that happens. Yeah exactly but I I do think though cynically that um if we haven't already turned back from the brink by that point I think that will also be just a a a radical forced moment for all of us as human beings. I'm pretty optimistic though that um um technologic technologically where we are rapidly solving a lot of the processes um the a lot of the problems to kind of unlock energy abundance and do it in a way that doesn't um destroy our environment um it's just gonna take some time and a lot of vested interests um a lot of investment um a lot of courage to kind of make that play out um so yeah we're it is gonna go on for decades.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Can you imagine any implications were we to breach that barrier for a fourth year in a row?

SPEAKER_00 55:53

No not in an immediate sense. I mean these um these these these are you know straw bits of straw in the wind um they're they're pointing in a direction and in a statistical sense they write that they raise the likelihood of more dramatic swings in in local weather patterns and regional weather patterns. So you know so you can sort of dial up the likelihood of bad stuff happening um but you know you I I don't think anyone um is saying that you you magically clip over 1.4 for the fourth year and therefore X it's just a it's a probability game and you know unfortunately we've been staring at um in the whites of the eyes and saying all right we're going to keep rolling the dice because so far um you know those of us um with the money and the power are um getting by um you know and that's one of the great tragedies of this situation is that those who've contributed the least to climate change are the ones getting the hardest hit by it. But yeah no I I don't I don't see I you know it's impossible for me to um point to any immediate impact from from that record being hit for a fourth year in the row.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

The prisoners of geography narrative really is true the longer you play it out. Yeah yeah yeah uh as a diplomat when you were representing Australia's interests abroad how often would you how often did you have to deal with the negative externality that you would just be sh pushing off onto others because you were not willing to impose it yourself specifically regetting climate change yeah okay um like how much did it feel like me as a diplomat actively palming this problem off uh from my country as an exporter of fossil fuels to to others how much were you conscious of the morality underneath that decision where this is bad for the whole planet but it's good for us and it's in our interests this is my we're doing it yeah uh I mean personally um it wasn't something um in my face because um I didn't really do any meaningful stints on climate negotiations.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

Um that being said friends of mine who have dedicated years of their life you know countless sleepless nights at all these cops um these are like deeply pat you know not all of them but some of these people are just deeply passionate and knowledgeable um in that space and they're there on the front lines um behind the Australian flag um negotiating um you know actively and passionately and creatively um so you know I think um I I I wouldn't speak for them. I think though like for example when the UAE hosted the COP um and it came up with a pretty historic formulation that um because there was this argument about um phase out or um or phase down or whatever the the terminology was about what we do with and they came up with a a just a third option which is always the way right the genius of the the the the and just like let's not go binary, let's find some other words and they came up with you know transition away. And so I think you know I think they would rightly take pride in being there and helping push through some kind of creative solution that like even if it's one degree it's something and you know they take more pride in that maybe than necessarily um you know quit over um and not maybe help get a get that across the line um by you know um losing sleep over Australia's specific position. I think you definitely also feel it in the Pacific Islands um and you know that being said I mean we're we're you know we we have baggage in the Pacific Islands and and there's there's um there's history there and not everyone loves us as as much as maybe we think in the Pacific Islands. It's a part of the world I spent some time early in my career and I love it. But we are I mean we are we're not just friends we're not just neighbours we're family I mean you know huge percentages of these countries have their populations living in Australia. So there's there's just so much you know Gareth Evans used the term ballast there's so much ballast in these relationships culturally you know through sport, tourism education I mean we're there's just so much ballast that um that you know they are able to raise pretty frankly and forthrightly with us their concerns about our um you know energy policy and um we can work through them and you know maybe that's one of the big tragedies of the fact that Australia kind of and the Pacific Islands ultimately lost out on hosting COP this year. You know, it was a a compromise with Turkey hosting and Australia chairing. But really I think the whole value of that proposition was to really bring the Pacific Islands um in into the tent a lot more um and you know what else we have about before you go from looking at this stuff on your phone to like looking at it out your window um and I I think you know um hosting some of these meetings in the Pacific Islands and having Pacific Island voices right there at you know behind the president's uh the cop president's flag I think um would have been powerful they they they found some compromises and they're hosting some meetings in in parts of the Pacific but I yeah I don't think it's gonna have the same impact but I mean I was just gonna say Ryan I mean you know to your border you know you're asking I guess really a a broader question as well which is like how do you work as a diplomat um where really your job is to pursue the national interest and that may well clash with your values um and yeah the the truth is that's a real that's a real uh thing that's a real struggle um and people you know folks maybe you have you know students listening and thinking that they like to be a diplomat you know I'd absolutely encourage them to do it. I think it's an amazing career and I got nothing but love for my 14 years on the inside. And for the most part I think working for a liberal um uh open stable respectful democracy I think for the most part um we we can when we're pursuing our national interest it it it it very very rarely put me in a position where I felt like that was coming at the cost of some kind of you know value or or principle that I held dear. The times when that did happen um the reality was that um really what I was doing was saying well I I you know I can't stand this policy but there's an even bigger principle at play which is um the democratic principle which is that this is the government that um our you know my fet that I and my fellow Australians and my mum and dad and my neighbours like all of us collectively put this government in power and gave them a mandate to try this and the the basic principle of democracy is that they they deserve my full effort and my full brain power and my sleepless nights to try and figure that out and help them figure that out. And and that's I think the most common way that people reconcile the the tension that you very rightly identified.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

Well said JD prediction number nine the bricks stack up the quad breaks down likelihood of 60% and I'll just read what you wrote underneath that one here. India will host the 18th BRICS summit in Delhi in August welcoming a significantly expanded block. In stark contrast the quad USA Japan India and Australia got one fleeting mention in Trump's new national security strategy for the supposed cornerstone of the US Indo-Pacific strategy that feels like the eulogy yeah uh so let's start with the BRICS I mean there's a lot of hype and headlines and oh the BRICS they're gonna you know um they're gonna set up their own currency and they're gonna you know change the world order.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

I think it's mostly just bluff um the BRICS um they just have almost nothing in common um other than the fact that other than the fact that they they share a sense of bristling um and bumping up against the reality of a post-World War II order you know dominated by the US um and so I I think really a lot of the time these BRICS headlines and these summits and these statements um it's like a symbolic thing. And there's also symbolism in the extent to which that BRICS tent keeps expanding. I think at the moment um the Saudis are in the pro like they've sort of signed on saying yes we're joining and it's not technically formal yet um but like that's the latest one to join. It's it's just a it's a it's a symbolic flex to say that you know we've got options and we're over here you know coming up with our own multilateral solutions and um but I you know I continue to be pretty skeptical about whether they'll actually get anything meaningful done. But that being said, um yeah they they're still going they still meet um and they're still growing um and and so there is substance to that symbolism. And then you contrast that to um the quad which um was has you know in the last decade or so been a big part of it was Obama who announced the US quote unquote pivot to the Asia Pacific. I mean the quad's been around since before then but the um the quad was sort of was one component of that pivot and then Biden um talked more about like a a lattice work of US partnerships and alliances and frameworks um and the quad again was a big part of that um you know you added you know the US alliance with Australia and with Japan and the Philippines Korea um and all these different partnerships and exercises the whole thing is to try and stitch together this lattice work of an Indo-Pacific that is better able to withstand um um dominance but you know from the the Chinese Communist Party. But yeah it's it was a bit a bit interesting to see the quad sort of really almost dismissed um from the national security strategy. I mean you can't um you can't say everything and cover everything but really one brief mention in a also in a very relatively brief couple of paragraphs on India um probably did confirm the gut of many um US watches and India watches and quad watches um which is that it's not necessarily something that Trump is particularly interested in investing in. Um, I think that's partly because of his more transactional and bilateral instincts. You know, why why work in in a group of four when I can just go one-on-one and dominate each of these players and just get a better deal for the US? I mean, that's how I guess he and his supporters would see it. Um but yeah, and uh uh that's another thing. Like, I mean, I was sort of just dunking on bricks. Um, but you can just as well dunk on the quad. Um it's you know, by design, um, it's not like a formal alliance. Um, you know, India is very careful and very sort of omnidirectional. Um, it it it kind of will dance with any willing partner, um, depending on the dance floor. Um, and you know, the quad just happened to be a dance floor that it was happy to dance with because it's a little worrying about um China um pushing its luck along their shared border where they've had some pretty spectacular violence over the last few years. Um so um, you know, and at one point Australia was even um the most reluctant part of the quad, um, you know, um, I think under the Rudd um Prime Ministership. Although, you know, he has his own views on that and and would push back on that. But like we've had our own ups and downs, India's had its own ups and downs. So I I think, you know, you can um Japan too. I mean, I guess it was at its strongest when um Shinzo Abe was Prime Minister, you know, a real singular intellect and a real clear philosophy about the way that the region should look, and he saw um the quad as a as a big part of that kind of coastal uh marine democracies kind of working together um to ensure a favorable balance of power that enables democracy to thrive and you know economies to thrive. Um, but yeah, like it's not to suggest that the quad was this you know brilliant um um silver bullet either. Um but I you know I definitely think the more talking the better, and I thought that was a pretty useful um you know group of powers to bring together.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

Are there any implications for the quad's demise?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

Well, I mean, as you know, maybe it's just a demise for a few months and then you know um maybe Trump changes his tune or whoever replaces him comes with a different philosophy and it's back on again, because that's happened a lot. Um again, you can't point to any it wasn't a formal alliance or anything like that, so you can't point to any immediate, obvious um um thing. And really the thing that's demised is potentially more just the uh the lear level summits that for now everyone's like Delhi was meant to host in November, and for now they're just saying it's it's been postponed. Um so yeah, maybe it'll happen. Um, but like so for example, if if we don't see quad summits, I mean, the you know, we just see the handshakes and the photo ops and and the press conferences or whatever, but behind doors, I mean, these are four human beings, incredibly powerful, some more powerful than others, but four very powerful human beings getting together and talking about um shared problems and coming up with shared solutions. So you you can't discount the value of those sorts of conversations. If they don't happen, that's that's a that's that's a that's a sad thing, um, even though I can't necessarily point to a specific um practical impact. You know, I'm hopeful um, you know, quietly behind closed doors, not at the leader level, but there's this whole other kind of patchwork of activities and cooperation and um you know intelligence sharing and um and you know marine exercises and I think they're pretty careful not to call them quad exercises or whatever, but um, you know, it sort of um happens under the uh under a pretty um similar umbrella with different permutations of the partners. Um, you know, and I'm I'm hopeful and optimistic that that stuff will continue. Um I think it'll continue because it's it's really in the US's own interest. Um, I mean, if you read the national security strategy that the Trump administration put out, um, it's pretty clear that he, you know, for all our you know, understandable hyperventilating about um a sudden US refocus on the Western Hemisphere, um, that doesn't then convert into him saying, oh, and we're handing the Indo-Pacific over to China or we're handing Europe over to Russia. To the contrary, I think the the national security strategy is pretty clear, probably more clear, much more clear, I'd say, in in the Indo-Pact context, but it's pretty clear that no, no, no. Um, we're gonna dominate the West, the Western hemisphere, and we're gonna deny anyone else dominating the Indo-Pacific. I mean, really, that that was about China. Um, and the way you do that is by you know keeping things like um the quad on life support um at the leader level while the quiet practical stuff continues in the background.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:27

You you mentioned in your response there Trump's instinct towards bilateralism rather than dealing with a group. Um, and then as well, how the things happening behind closed doors, you don't necessarily see the conversations, but it might be a group of individuals, all with some individual interest, but with some shared interests, trying to figure things out. I just made me think, how frustrating would it be to be a diplomat under Trump?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

Yeah, so I mean it you know, you don't need to take my word for it, um, or my opinion, because the um American Foreign Service Association, which is like the trade union for US diplomats, has put out um some you know very statistically credible polling and research to suggest that um morale among US diplomats is now um historically low. Um partly that's uh that's just a kind of natural, unsurprising um reaction to what's happening, which is you know, in in my case or in any traditionally in any U.S. case, I mean, if you want to be a diplomat, partly you're a true believer in the international system and in countries working together and dialoguing together and finding solutions. And so there's you know, maybe history will will call me and others naive for believing that when we first joined. But so, you know, foreign services are full of people who are true believers in an international system that the current US president is now intent on um radically redrawing, um, if not dismantling. Um and so it makes sense that um US diplomats would be aghast at that, appalled at that. And and again, I I say that not in a partisan, just in a logical um sense. Um I I think um also um you know many have, you know, there were kind of a a thousand or so who were kind of very unceremoniously sacked via the sort of doge cut cuss-cutting um cross cutting procedure. Um I think the the devastating thing from that is not I mean, like uh DC is just such a massive bureaucracy. Um, and it's just some agencies are just unworkable. And so like to the extent that someone comes to office with an instinct to try and streamline that and to cut out the fat, I mean, that that's a valid thing to run on and and win power on. Um but the way that this was done, it was just so haphazard and random, and um, it just was based on what desk you happened to be sitting at in May 2025. And so it's like, guys, you like you just sacked a bunch of people who happen to like speak fluid Mandarin, and yet you say you want to have a tougher, um, smarter policy on China. Well it's like that that just got a little bit tougher. Um and you know, you just axed um the voice of America's Persian language service, and and yet here we are um watching, you know, riots, uh unrest, protests potentially loosen the mullahs' grip on power, and having that VOA Persian language service, you know, kind of would have been a good idea. So there's just like a lot of um a lot of um you know face palm moments, um, which which I think would be frustrating to any diplomat. Um yeah, I think um at the same time, um, you know, I do have friends in the US Foreign Service, they're very, they're very careful not to they have a real strong tradition of not talking politics, not you could just know them for your whole life and have no idea whether they've a Democrat or Republican. And I think that's kind of a beautiful thing. Like they they they're committed to that democratic ideal. Um and you know, you you know, if you um, you know, you have a beer with them and you you will see them acknowledge how refreshing it is on the other side of like, you know, when there's some kind of a like for example, when when President Petro of Colombia was um saying, no, I'm not gonna take back Colombian nationals who have been committed of crimes and are being deported from the US. I mean, um some of the images and headlines could look shocking, but this is just like, you know, you have no lawful right to be in the United States, you've committed a violent crime, we are sending you back to your country with citizenship. And for that country then to say, no, we're not gonna accept the flights, it's like, oh, you know, what do we do? And probably traditionally it would you have working groups and preparing briefings and meetings, and and you know, um instead Trump just blasted out a tweet saying, if Petro doesn't start taking these flights, um, I'm gonna slap Colombia with 100% tariffs. And sure enough, within a few hours he started taking the flights again. So I'm I'm not endorsing that specific um example or approach, but just by way of example of how it can feel um demoralizing um to be stuck in these vast bureaucracies where stuff just grinds along um and and you can feel divorced from kind of any practical impact. And and whether it's through Trump or or some other administration, um anyone that um you know is is willy to try and cut through that and find a better way is gonna have people on the inside who who who see what they're trying to do and back that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:14

Do you find you've mentioned a lot um in praise of the professionalism and apolitical nature of a lot of the colleagues you may have had, both in Australia and internationally, but do you find a lot of the diplomats you've worked with are themselves politically ambitious?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, Kevin Rudd started his career as a diplomat and you know he went and ended it as one. Yeah. Oh zing. Um and um so yeah, you know, third secretary, Stockholm, you know, um classic, classic D Fat, send a Chinese speaker to Sweden um on your first posting. But um Yeah, definitely. Um and in fact, I can't remember who it was. Maybe it was the economist five or ten years ago. They did a um a study looking at the world leaders and seeing what were the most common professions um through which they um you know emerged um as political players and then ultimately world leaders. Um and diplomat was one of the top few. There were quite a few um former diplomats who I thought was interesting. You know, Kevin Rudd's the most high-profile example, but Dave Sharma, for example, he he was you know a colleague of mine, a fellow public servant, and he went as ambassador to Israel and then um and is now sitting in the Senate. Um and there've been you know others before and there'll be others afterwards. Um I think you know, one of the drivers um from not necessarily talking to Sharma or Rudd, um, I don't want to speak for them, but just generally when I speak to um folks on the inside um who have made that transition transition or who are thinking about it, part of it is that you spend your career working for the elected government and sort of you know briefing these ministers, um, you know, uh sitting next to them in meetings, and you know, you may well reach a conclusion, you're like, I honestly think I could do a better job. And uh and and like I'm tired of putting advice up and watching it get ignored or disagreed with. And you might reach a conclusion that if you really want to make a difference, you've just got to run for office. Um so you know, I think that's it's it's that familiarity from being in the room um where you realize, well, if they can do it, maybe I can. Um and also if uh you know a sort of semi-sad realization that maybe the best way to make a difference is to is to run for office. Not not that I um want to do that, but I can understand it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

Prediction 10. The UN has mass layoffs, likelihood 50%. So this is what you wrote about it, driven by US withdrawals from various bodies and a shortfall in funding from several other hesitant donors. The UN will now rush to consolidate and streamline its work.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:49

Yeah, I mean that's um that's already happening. Um the you know, it's the the UN's entire secretariat is about three and a half billion US, which is smaller than the New York Police Department. Um and we've had um, you know, unsurprisingly, um Trump 2.0 has sort of hit pause on the US um making all of its own contributions as I think still traditionally the largest single financial contributor to the UN. Um and so that's I mean I mean, you know, you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars suddenly no longer hitting the UN accounts that translates into people's jobs that are no longer um financed. Um and so yeah, you're gonna s we're you know, we're gonna see some pretty radical changes, I think, within the US system. Um and I I mean I think that's what Trump wants. I mean, um I don't so often with Trump his diagnosis is is reasonable. It's maybe his his approach that is the the bit where you can disagree or be appalled or whatever. Um but yeah, he's not wrong. I started my career in the UN. It's a you know it was a vast, um, slow and kind of dispiriting bureaucracy. I I kind of was so naive. I thought it was going to be this like, you know, the best of all the world's nations. And at times I felt like it was kind of the opposite. Marble statues. Yeah, so um so he's not wrong. It's just that the the brutality and the kind of the suddenness is what uh maybe shocks people. Um, you know, I um I there are some good people at the UN, really good people, um, like Tom Fletcher, really highly regarded British ambassador.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:24

I I wrote a post about that. His appearance on leading the Roy Short and Alistair Campbell podcast last year, I thought was the most impressive hour and a half talk I've I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:35

Yeah, so he he's a um very impressive guy. Um to my delight, he follows me on on social media. So that's a like a kind of a a hero moment. But that's an example. I mean, these are good, smart, brilliant people. Um, he's a high-profile example, but I know many others. I'm confident they will um through great pain and difficulty and disruption, they will find creative solutions. I think part of it involves shifting a lot of these jobs rather than uh deleting them, so shifting them to like lower cost uh jurisdictions where you can maybe find people to do those roles on a lower cost. But um, you know, it it's it's gonna be a wild ride.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:13

It in this sort of fracturing world order, Trump's instinct for bilateral um negotiations rather than any sort of group, Carney yesterday saying um it's just Canada on its own as a middle power, we're gonna do what we can for ourselves. And does does the does the UN still perform a function? Again, it's a sim cynical question, but in the face of all the layoffs, in the face of the changing attitudes towards relationships between countries, do they still serve a purpose?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it was one of the earliest UN Secretary Generals who famously quipped that the UN was never meant to get to get us to heaven, it was just meant to save us from hell. Um and the reality is if the UN didn't exist, we'd need to invent it. I mean, we need physically, we need a place, we need a place to gather as a community of nations and argue and um point our fingers and you know, um, because it it it you know, in ways that we can't possibly appreciate, that has helped us to avoid um many, many lost lives and um you know helped us coordinate better responses to pandemics and environmental challenges. I mean, it's just got a pretty amazing track record of success in amongst all its weaknesses and and so they they get an unfairly bad rap, you'd say. Uh I just think I I don't know if it's fair or not, but I just think the reality is mixed. Um we we need a UN. If it wasn't there, we'd we'd need to reinvent it. Um and and the the real the realism um has been at the heart of the UN since that early quote about it's not about getting us to heaven but keeping us from hell. And I think to the extent that it's kept us from hell, it's succeeded. I mean, you know, where you you pick the world's toughest challenges. Um the UN's been at the center. That's changing, like AI, for example. Um the UN has been increasingly sidelined as the forum to kind of coordinate the world's approach to um to AI. It's been more driven by a plurilateral process, um, which so like I don't know, 30 countries or something, which first started at Bletchley Park in the UK, um, and then there was a follow-up summit in Korea and then in Paris. So it's this sort of plurilateral process that's bringing China and the US and the biggest players together. You know, it's it's it's not inclusive to do it that way, but I it the reality is it's um it's way more effective. And the pace at which AI is developing, I just think you you need to find a sweet spot between um pace um and and bringing the key players together. Um and unfortunately that means the vast majority of the world's countries are not included in these conversations, but I I just think it's the least worst option. Um but yeah, the UN's getting sidelined there, but in other areas it's it's still really critical.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:56

Prediction 12, uh super interesting one, and one which I'd like you to provide some evidence for. China chip output overtakes the US, 50% likelihood.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:07

Yeah, that um that one uh you know, where we keep things um brief and tight and punchy, um, which sometimes comes at the cost of nuance. Um the you know the reality is um the US is not making many chips. Um it's more via you know big players like Nvidia and AMD that it's it's still the world leader in designing these incredible futuristic chips, um, you know, and then they get made in Taiwan with you know um the Dutch ultra-lithography machine. So it's this kind of strange Western-dominated tripod that results in complete dominance of the most advanced chips. But I think what that um what that prediction was more getting at is that um in an interesting way, in a surprising way, China's not not too worried about the leading ed the leading edge of chips um um because it's actually um charging ahead at the trailing edge, both in manufacturing. Um, it's got its own kind of still pretty behind but rapidly growing chips industry that can produce chips that are good enough for the vast majority of um what you need to be able to um roll out AI and um you know and other advanced computing solutions right across the economy. Um and that's one of the interesting things we're seeing. Um Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, had an interesting op-ed in the New York Times a few months ago to this to this end, pointing out an interesting difference between Silicon Valley uh tech bros or whatever and their counterparts in China. And whereas Silicon Valley is all about coming like uh breaking the next barrier and coming out with the next massive um breakthrough, um, the the the the equivalent counterparts in China are a lot more focused on okay, here's the tech where it is now, open source, um, how do we um you know um mainly right now? Yeah, how do we roll it out across the economy right now? And they're doing a way better job at that um than they're probably anywhere else in the world. At least that was according to uh Schmidt's op it, um, which you know I largely agree with. To close that thought, um, yeah, um uh China will be pumping out uh uh an ever larger um volume of trailing airships. Um but that's not necessarily the you know um the same as um you know coming up with anything even close to what's happening at TSMC and um NVIDIA and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:27

Okay, um I'm gonna triage some of these predictions because I realized I made a lot. But we're getting into the we're getting into the more fun, speculative end of the spectrum here. Prediction 23. Um at a likelihood of 25%, the Arctic's Cold War heats up.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:46

Yeah. Um we we there's been some big stuff already happened on that front. I mean, Greenland is wild and and understandably and rightly um draws a lot of attention, um, although sadly it's probably um drawn attention away from immediate priorities like Putin's ongoing attacks on Ukraine. Um but in the last year uh um China made history for sending a uh um a cargo ship up through um the Arctic Passage over to Europe. Um and it was sort of this you know big, pretty significant moment that they made a big deal of, um, and rightly so through through their state media. Um Korea is in the process of doing it as well. Um so yeah, the reality is that the geography up there is changing, but also our maritime, you know, tech and and and shipping keeps improving every year as well. Um and so those kind of two lines on a graph have now overlapped to a point where it is now viable, technically viable, um, for half the year to run shipping through the Arctic. Um, but even still um it's it's unclear whether that Chinese ship actually was going behind an icebreaker, even in the mid even in the sort of, I think August is the best time to go when the um icebergs are at their smallest. Um like it's you know, it's it there's a a a fair degree of um you know puffery and and pageantry in in all this. Um but the reality is it is changing, it is happening. Um, and as everyone rushes to um establish their place through that very delicate and narrow um ecosystem, I think you know, it does raise the risk of some kind of um you know clash or collision, uh miscalculation.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:29

Uh I remember from Tim Marshall's book, The Power of Geography, um, he wrote that Russia had essentially already won whatever the Arctic territory dispute was because they had significantly more icebreakers in their fleet. And then if you look at a map from the North Pole's perspective, Russia has like half of that territory. Um then in addition to that, isn't it just way more expensive to try and ship things through an icebreaker than it would be to just. Use the lanes we already have.

unknown 1:28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:02

So it's a bit of a hub about nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:04

Yeah. So you rightly pointed out that that a lot of that is Russian EEZ, like exclusive economic zone. So I mean it's going to be them controlling a lot of that space. And it's like, you know, even when you account for the fact that it gets to Europe in like a quarter of the time, they're charging more than more than four times as much. So, but I mean, that was the first, you know, that was the first voyage, um, or the the first few. So I do think um realistically it'll um it'll ramp up, even if it's only to the benefit of, you know, Russia's partners or you know, uh dominant partners in China's case. But also in terms of costs, I mean, there are some goods that would be cheaper to ship through the Arctic because you don't have to worry so much about um keeping them the the goods extremely cool. And that's everything from fresh produce, but also like really niche advanced chips, um, which often need to be kept cool until they reach their end destination. So yeah, I do think that's a practical application longer term, even if right now it's mostly just propaganda.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:15

JD, thank you so much for that. Uh we sort of truncated the predictions. I think there were 25 in total. I'm gonna put a link in the podcast description for people to read it for themselves, and then also subscribe to the Fantastic Newsletter. Thank you. Uh, but two questions here. We're both Australians, we're both here on the east coast of Australia. Not one prediction had any whiff of Australia in it. So I just wanted to ask: like, do we even have a role on the global stage?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:43

It's a very fair question. Um, and I, you know, I do think that Australia is, like most of the world's countries, a price taker. We are um a lot of the time admiring the problem, analyzing the problem, um, but with very few options to actually um shape or or solve the problem. Um I don't want to be too negative, um, but um, but that is the reality. Like if any if you or any of your listeners have ever watched the Netflix show um The Diplomat Um by the way, the writer's room, they all read um international injury because they're writers, not diplomats. And so they want to they want to um you know breathe and read. That's a flex. Well, yeah, we we're very honored by that fact, but it is true. But um, you know, it's it's it's authentic, um, but really just for US diplomats because it's it's it's really only US diplomats, if ever, that they would be able to roll in and get um you know that kind of access at that short notice in a city like London and be able to um you know move assets and put pressure on on countries at you know uh that at that kind of scale. Um so you know uh you know, we we do matter. I think the the way we matter is more as um our international good citizenship. Like we're just there with good ideas, we we keep to our word, um, we we defuse things, we we put we put people together. Um we definitely matter the Pacific Islands. I mean, we're you know the single largest um you know economic and um and and aid partner there and and cultural partner as well, um however you want to measure that. You know, we do matter clearly. Um but um one of the reasons why we don't write too much about Australia is because uh on any given day, um, if I had to give a you know a world leader a five-minute briefing, which is what we try to do every day, um, what are the chances that that world leader is going to really have to know about um a change in government in Australia? Um is it gonna radically change our trajectory? It it hasn't. Our our foreign policy has mostly been pretty bipartisan over the years. Um and so you know, I'm a proud Australian, I love Australia. Um, but you know, our audience are mostly in the US. Um, and I think you know, for a busy American executive in Wall Street or DC or Silicon Valley, um we did a, you know, we did a whole thing about when Australia introduced the social media uh, you know, limits for under-16s, um, because that was something where executives across all three of those cities stood up and watched. Um, but otherwise it tends not to be um the center of their attention.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:17

Do you think there's room for us as a impartial, non-threatening third party that we could be uh some sort of moral leaders or or great mediators, the way I sort of see Norwegian politicians being well represented throughout history like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:35

Well, yeah, and we have a history of that. I mean, Gareth Evans played a key role in um uh the sort of post-war transition in Cambodia. Um John Howard and others um play a key role in trying to stabilize the situation in in Solomon Islands, um, same as East Timor. I mean, these are these were like big international ruptures, and and Australian leaders, whether you like them or not or agree with them or not, they were there. I think playing um the best role they felt they could play. Um so yeah, there's definitely I think another role that we can play, similar to what we've just done with the under-16 social media stuff, is um being pretty brave and strategic in pushing back on on corporate overreach um um or or regulatory um debates, um coming up with a good solution. So I one another example we had was the plain packaging tobacco rules that we introduced um in Australia, which resulted in a a lawsuit um that the some of the tobacco companies ran via um I think it was via the treaty we have with Hong Kong, maybe. Anyway, that ended up going to uh you know a full lawsuit in Geneva, and it was one that we won convincingly. Um but that's an example of where we you know when there's a real issue that we think our people's health is at stake or the well-being of our kids, um, we come up with thoughtful, reasonable, respectful processes um that get ventilated through the democratic process and c come out as laws. And if people want to challenge those laws abroad, they can, and then we go to court and we win. Um so yeah, we you know, I don't want you to think we we have no agency. Of course we do, of course we do, but in terms of why we're not devoting a prediction for 2026 to Australia, um, yeah, that's yeah, that's partly why.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:20

No, but that's something to be proud of for sure. Because we are the first to enact that under 16 ban on social media.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:26

As a yeah, at the national level, yeah. There have been other bits and pieces around, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:31

And maybe with some sort of AI safety and regulation we could also leave from the front on that. But then there's always going to be the friction against our own economy and our own ambitions to have a more diverse and charismatic international economy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:48

I mean, I wish we could pair the the regulatory bravery and strengths with with you know even more um entrepreneurial bravery and technological bravery and and and see more um young Australians having you know having the excitement and courage to leave the safe career until maybe they hit 30 and just really swing for the fences with some bold, exciting idea and launch the next Canada or Atlassian or um or whatever it is. I you know, um I think that's that's an exciting thing I'd like to see happen more.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:16

Wrap it up with this one, JD. I liked at the end of the poll, you gave options for what type of a year do you think we'll have? And I clicked the response, and more than 80% was the most dramatic. So that was get ready for some unprecedented.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:32

Yeah, I mean, we've been saying this uh for the whole life of intrigue, um, that history shows that as we pull back from this um unipolar moment, which history will think was quite brief, um sort of end of the Cold War through to now, a few years ago, whatever, um, as we pull back from that to, you know, call it multipolar or uh polyamorous, I've heard um someone, Mike Fromund, a former US trade representative, used that term. I think it's pretty funny. Um history suggests that as you kind of go to that sort of more multipolar um system, you get more volatility and more conflict. Um I'm I'm hopeful longer term that um history will prove that wrong because of changes behind borders. Um, I think we've learnt that when you have autocrats in power, they're the ones causing the instability um across borders. Um and I think as we normalize regimes in Pyongyang and Tehran and Moscow and whatever, um, I think that's gonna take a lot of the volatility out of a multi uh multipolar system. But um for now, 2026 and the next few years, I think, yeah, strap in. I think it is going to be unprecedented. I can't tell you how or when, uh, I but I can tell you why, and it's because we're going multipolar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:44

Well, once again, mate, thank you for being so generous with your time. I love the newsletter. Cheers again. Thanks for having me. Let's uh do that other episode Sunday soon, that'd be fun. 100%.