Glenn Diesen: The End of NATO & G7 and The Rise of The Core 5
Summary
Multipolar World: Extensive discussion on the shift from a US-led unipolar order to fragmented geoeconomic blocs, driving contest over resources, trade routes, and institutional control.
Critical Minerals: The guest highlights rising strategic competition for lithium, rare earths, and other inputs, noting the expanded US critical minerals list and tighter supply chain control objectives.
State Capitalism: The conversation details growing government intervention in industry (golden shares, sanctions, export controls), and direct equity stakes in producers as policy tools.
Key Companies Mentioned: Examples cited included MP Materials (MP), Trilogy Metals (TMQ), Lithium Americas (LAC), U.S. Antimony (UAMY), U.S. Steel (X), and Nippon Steel (NPSCY), illustrating defense- and resource-linked capital flows.
Venezuela Oil: The guest frames U.S. posture in the Caribbean as driven by oil and geoeconomic exclusivity, with implications for privatization, dollar flows, and exclusion of rival powers.
Ukraine Minerals: A minerals-focused framework is discussed, including first-refusal rights and vetoes over offtake, signaling broader Western efforts to control critical inputs and restrict rival access.
Arctic Shipping: The Arctic emerges as a new hotspot with the Northern Sea Route, Polar Silk Road integration, and significant resource potential, alongside accelerating Canadian defense outlays and surveillance tech buildout.
Defense Spending: Anticipated increases in A&D activity span the Caribbean and Arctic, with NATO posture shifts and Canada’s planned 5x defense spend supporting demand for surveillance, software, and security infrastructure.
Transcript
Do our global institutions like the UN, like NATO, like the G7 have any utility in today's geopolitical landscape? Do they still control outcomes? Do they still represent global economic strength and wealth? And do they have any influence whatsoever? I debate this today with my guest, the esteemed geopolitical analyst Glenn Diesson, and I learned a lot. I hope you enjoy this episode. This is the J Martin show where we dissect the greatest minds in geopolitics and finance so that we can better understand the world. Here is Glenn Diesson. Enjoy. >> This is J. Martin. >> Okay, here I am with Glenn Diesson. Glenn, it's great to have you back on the program. Thank you so much for making the time. >> It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on. >> Well, there's a handful of subjects I want to get into today and many I want to go deep into. I want to start however with uh uh an understanding of your higher level thinking of geopolitical the geopolitical chessboard today. And so um how do you process which alliances have meaningful impact today? And I think about the history of geopolitical alliances of the past, whether organizations like the G7, for example, which was supposed to be, you know, an informal grouping of the world's most advanced democracies to have those very important economic discussions. If you look at the members of the G7 today, I don't think they're the best choice to impact global events, right? Countries like Italy, France, Germany, not nearly as influential or wealthy or as productive as they used to be. Um, are we in a state of flux globally right now where there aren't really any alliances that have true substance or do you see trading blocks, regional blocks, geopolitical alliances that do have staying power that exist today? Well, I think uh you can well you should u differentiate between the geopolitical blocks or military alliances versus the as you said the geoeconomic blocks because u yeah I think there will be more and more focus on the geoeconomic blocks that is uh how um how trade is organized trade routes uh yeah the cooperation on tech industries um yeah common banking what kind of currencies you would uh I think uh because the the system we had since World War II has been organized and primarily around uh the United States use American technologies, industries, its currency, its banks. uh but as we now go towards a more multipolar system uh you know it can take many different shapes and I think that uh uh the most the most likely one seems now to be a more fragmented one because it's not going to be um uh I think a very peaceful one. I think countries like the United States will try to carve out its own geoconomic region. So this is why it's reviving for example the Monroal doctrine um in a very different kind of form of course uh that is to have some more exclusive influence. It wants the Europeans to cut off from all other centers of power and only make themselves dependent on the US. And so you have now this exclusive spheres being being shaped. And I think uh um yeah this is going to be more likely to shape some of the the restructuring of the world now that the yeah the previous open economic system is coming to an end. uh but in front in terms of international institutions I they tend to take a view very much along with political realism which is that institutions they they are peaceful they're stable and to the extent they can actually reflect the current international distribution of power that is um well look at the United Nations for example after uh the second world war the reason why you would give veto powers to the dominant five states is because this is the proper reflection of power. You want to give special privileges to the main powers because then the great powers have an interest in preserving that order, that system where they have this veto. Which is why I'm always skeptical when people say, "Well, let's just get rid of the veto power." Because all you do then is uh make sure that the great powers don't have the same interest in keeping the UN and the inter and the current system in the international law and you will instead force them to use more military power instead. So I I think that it should always reflect the international distribution of power. So that's why I I do think for example the UN needs some uh changes as well if you want to preserve it but then you would need a bigger role for countries like India because the idea that in the current international system the French should have a veto power but the Indians do not. it no longer represents the international system over time as China grows more power sorry India grows more powerful why would it yeah want to follow a system like this so I I do think that um a lot of the way we look at institutions they have to reform and adjust to reality um and uh I think this is a problematic for many of the western countries because in the past the western countries were more powerful so they have this privileged position uh But because there were also liberal democracies as opposed to many other parts of the world, we also created an ideology around it. That is well it's not because of our power, it's because of our values. When we dominate is for the benefit of the whole international system. Now of course that the west is the power is no longer there. Well, you can argue the values aren't there either. um the the the west many western countries are still going to demand a privileged status simply because they tell themselves they have superior values even though the power is gone. So um it's very hard I think for especially the Europeans to accept this new international system where they don't have the same role. So they they will start to focus more on why they deserve it as opposed to why the power distribution isn't there anymore. Now you know you ask very specifically about the G7 though because again this is the this war the main seven economies but they've already been replaced. Now you have the BRICS countries are now collectively uh stronger in um stronger than the G7. So uh so there's going to be incentives now to to change it because the G7 can't do anything. the idea that the most powerful economies would then come together, sit down and try to keep well, I guess the main pieces in place and uh harmonize the development of the international system, it it doesn't work with the G7 anymore. It's it's a useless block to a large extent. Uh even when Trump suggested uh Russia should get back into the G8, uh you know, they're not really interested. they they see their future belonging more in the BRICS geoeconomic region. So um so I I I see big big changes coming along and but you can also ask why would the United States because that's an actual powerful economies in terms of um GDP. It's still the largest economy. So why what are their interest in staying in the G7? it it can be useful as an exclusive geoeconomic block where they cut out the Russians, Chinese and others. But I do think that they they still want to find a new G7 that is a group of re relevant states uh well powerful states. So I heard some reports or seen some reports uh that the Trump administration would like to have uh new core five that is uh the United States, Japan, China, Russia and India. So to have these five powers, so no Europeans in there except for Russia, but this is the main idea to have uh to have the new great powers sit down and try to harmonize interests so they don't clash to great of an extent. I was going to ask you what your thoughts were on the core five because it struck me as as interesting and I'd have to wonder if you're the, you know, if you're you're President Modi, uh, President Putin, President Xi, you know, if if you're hearing this language like the core five and it's coming from America, coming from a president who might not be around in three years, but you're sitting in a country that hasn't had to worry about elections for a long time. How much weight you'd actually put on that? because you know this is a this is a proposal from what could be a very fleeting leadership which tends to be the case right in in modern democracies we pivot left right left right incredibly quickly um and I want to maybe dive into that but just because you mentioned the Monroe doctrine and everybody right now is talking about Venezuela and I think these two things are obviously related you you discuss sort of the resurrection of the Monroe doctrine in today's political commentary But it's different, right, than the original uh promise of the or idea of the Monroe Doctrine, which as I understand was kind of like you stay out of our backyard and we will stay out of yours. And that second part was just as important as the first part, but that second part seems to be absent from the conversation today. Uh is that accurate, Glenn? And how would you describe the origins of the Monroe Doctrine for somebody who's never heard of it before? Maybe let's start there. like I've heard people talking about this. I don't know what it is. What was the idea behind the origin and the utility and how has that changed and shifted today? >> Well, in the beginning of the 19th century, the the the Americans uh did not care much for Europe or the European uh imperialists. So, so it wasn't even common to to speak about, you know, the western nations because the the US was supposed to rid itself and not not participate in this kind of colonial uh structures and imperialism like the Europeans did. This is why it became very controversial after 1898 when the US defeated the Spanish and got all this colonial conquests from uh well all across Americas to the Philippines. So the US therefore had this anti-imperialist uh mindset. Now you can argue that they nonetheless they wanted to dominate their own region. I think that's a reasonable criticism but irrespective of that the Monroe doctrine was formulated as being anti-imperialist that is the yeah keep the imperial rivalry of the Europeans out of the Americas. So but now of course how it's re-imagined is more or less as an imperial imperial policy. I mean, if you only look at what's happening now, you have Rubio keep dreaming about strangling Cuba. There's preparations for war with Venezuela. They tell the Mexi, sorry, the Colombians are next. Uh Mexico, Trump recently said they can't rule out any strikes on Mexico either if this will stop the drugs. They claim. Uh so, so there's um you know, we had the Panama Canal as well where they wrestled out some concessions otherwise the US would take back the Panama Canal. So you have all this uh yeah new bullying which is taking place. So this is not keeping empires out. This is asserting US uh the US empire which is a different thing. Um but what you referred to is also the the idea that if if other countries should stay out of America's backyard. Uh this is again the one of the core ideas of the Monroe Doctrine. Then the the initial Monro doctrine then had some clause of reciprocity that is that the US should not then um go into the backyards of other great powers. Uh overall I think this is a good policy to have that is I when I for example see China and Russia sending military arms to Venezuela I don't think I can understand why they need defense but I I think it's very dangerous to start to play around with military force in the backyard of other countries. Uh so so um but for it to be stable it has you can have it in a form of a great power agreement that is uh yeah it will stay out of your backyard you stay away from ours and ideally do it in a framework where it's not imperialist where where we don't try to b dominate our own neighbors uh but uh here of course the US seems to or the Trump administration breaks on both of these issues because it is a very imperialist view of this new mandro doctrine and um and uh and of course it will be very unilateral that is no one should be in the western hemisphere but the US will still um yeah position itself on the borders of all the other great powers. So it will penetrate Eurasia any way it can. So it's uh yeah it doesn't really make much sense from this perspective and I think this is because it's a policy which now recognizes that there is a multipolar distribution of power. However, it's uh this there are still the aspirations for restoring uniolarity. So, I think this is how this at least how I would explain it and uh it's it's not going to get consent from any of the other great powers. So uh so no it's uh it's going to be very confr confrontational. >> You as you as you explain that and I notice some of uh John Mshimer's work behind you on the bookshelf and you talked about sort of the great power agreement concept and and um it just led me to think there's there was no avoiding this situation we find ourselves in today on the global stage. this era of very uncertain future, uncertain alliances and adversaries and potential for very large conflict. And that's because we've just outgrown some of those agreements that prevented that in the past. We've outgrown the G7. We've outgrown NATO. We've outgrown unipolarity and now have to find a way to manage multipolarity. If we're able to figure out some kind of great power agreement between the powers that really matter, that would be the path towards avoidance of some kind of a World War II scenario, right? But it's dependent on us finding that equal footing, that compromise between the great powers that matter. Um and in uh in failing to do that, you know, we probably continue to fall down the road of increased regional conflicts every year. Every year and a half, another is budding and emerging. There's, you know, many regions globally right now that are incredibly tense flash points like the Caribbean, like the South China Sea, etc., and these could go off in short order. Uh do you think that's accurate? Like is that the antidote to the next major global conflict is us finding that next generation of global power great power agreement? Is that a a fair thought? What what's your take? >> Oh yes. And that's why usually you would get this great power agreements after major wars. Um but uh yeah but but this is where we're walking now towards major wars because uh otherwise you would need some diplomatic giants in order to recognize the direction the world is going that we're heading towards major wars and we would try to solve them now but if you listen to political leaderships around the world and then especially the Europeans it's uh there's no political maturity there there's no willingness to to discuss uh just the basic structure of international system is all like just the language of well we're the goodies they're the baddies obviously we don't need to talk about security guarantees for baddies because they're bad you know it's only for the good guys and the victim who should have this kind of rights so it's it's a it's an absurd completely absurd environment we're currently in but I I agree with that we're out growing a lot of these things and this is why there has to be some some reforms and restructurings keep in mind that uh after the cold war when we decided to yeah pursue an international system based on hedgeimonyy. Uh this was what manifested as NATO expansion that is a collective hedgeimonyy over Europe. So instead of having an inclusive panuropean security architecture where the eur Russians would also have a seat at the table, we said ah we don't need this we'll just uh expand NATO everyone should be included except for the Russians and we're you know in forms of institutions just push it out of Europe and uh a lot of the criticism which came from the top diplomats in the US but also those who supported it uh recognized that well of course the Russians would then react very negatively to this but uh assumption was well you know they're they're just weak they're they're weak and they're getting weaker so our role should be to manage their decline to so the role of Russia should be some weak if not the disintegrating power almost orbiting uh Europe it should be outside Europe but it should still uh follow the decision-m done in Europe uh this was also the argument by the way by William Perry was the US secretary of defense under Bill Clinton and uh He was also making the point that he he was criticizing NATO expansion. He said it would lead to a disaster, but he made the point that everyone in the administration realized this would alienate Russia, but it did matter because they were weak. Well, what has happened now? Uh Russia has grown stronger and stronger and uh uh this European model doesn't work anymore. We're the largest country in Europe in terms of population, territory, military, and economy is the only one without a seat at the table. doesn't make any sense. But uh uh but but we're kind of locked into this form now. We we where we just say well this is the only acceptable format for Europe and we won't discuss anything else. Well this form no longer works. Uh so we're we're now entering a war because we don't have diplomats who can solve this uh through yeah through negotiations. And um you can argue the same in East Asia. The idea that stability and peace in East Asia should be ensured only by these bilateral security deals between the US and its allies. U it's it's not going to work when China is this has grown so powerful um and security the well it outgrown the USled uh not just economic system but also the security architecture. It's not going to have US warships patrolling its coastline having all its um its main physical trade corridors managed by the US Navy which is his main rival which can cut it off. It does it doesn't make any sense. So now that this isn't working the the the Chinese of course will begin to build up their own army to because of the US threat and the US will pick up on this. they will begin to build alliances and army against the Chinese and you will be in this security competition. So if you want to escape this as you suggested we have to realize that the old system has been outgrown. The distribution of power is no longer there. Uh but again if we don't have diplomats who are capable of doing this we'll have a war and we don't have diplomats who are able to do this it seems and >> and to a degree that sort of makes sense. You want to hang on to the power you earned in the past whether or not you deserve it today. And you said this directly. There's maybe European leaders that feel like they should be included in these major conversations. They deserve it given their history, right? That doesn't make them relevant today. Sad to say. Um but that's the political maturity I think that that you referenced. And you you know you your first uh comment to my question was those new great power agreements often come after a major war. And right away I was like yes because no one's going to willingly let go of their influence. They have to be forced away from the table sometimes unfortunately and I hope not but that's what history shows us is that people don't go down without a fight. Uh and okay so >> well if I can just yeah one just a quick comment the slogan of NATO for since the 1990s whenever the Russians said well we should have a say as well where you put your missiles you know if you're going to put your missiles on our border we should have a say and we essentially said no no no Europe is NATO NATO represents Europe and you do not have a veto power over NATO so you don't get a veto power which means you don't have any say over Russia well over Europe well did this kind of institutions ions and logic made sense when the NATO countries were overwhelmingly dominant. But when the power shifts and now Russia it no longer reflects the actual distribution of power if we tell the Russians you don't have an institutional voice so you will have to go away. No. Well then now they can assert themsel militarily. So in the Europeans are holding on to power which they no longer have and the Russians are imposing themsel because of the institutional power they were denied. So again the the institutions should reflect this shift somehow. The hegeimon is gone. The Russians are a big power in Europe but as you suggested you know there's a speech by Kayakalas where she makes the point well Russia shouldn't have any security guarantees in Europe because they're the aggressor. Ukraine should have all the security guarantees because they're victim and we are fighting for freedom. So this is how they view the world and this is how they hold on to an outdated uh security arrangement and uh but again at the end of the day if you don't give an institutional voice uh that reflects the actual distribution of power then they will assert themselves in different ways and sorry I didn't want to go too long long about that but I was same with the economic architecture keep in mind that the the Chinese said for a long time the United States have to accept to reform the IMF because it no longer represents the actual distribution of power. The Americans didn't want to do this. So then the Chinese just established, for example, the Asian infrastructure investment bank back in 2015. They just control established then a parallel economic architecture because the former one is no longer reflecting reality. This is what happens. You have to reform the institutions or they die. Often they die in wars. if the organizations do not recognize the actual distribution of power. What you said there, I thought that was just bang on because power shifts and evolves and matures and countries rise and decline and if the organizations don't recognize that then inevitably you're going to revert back to the geopolitical mean which is that sort of offensive realism theory, right? where at the end of the day you you know that the power do what they want and the weak suffer what they must which is a hard thing to hear but that's the mean that we always return to during these moments of geopolitical instability. Would you agree with that? That the sort of liberalism argument that democracies don't go to war with democracies and so therefore we should all be democracies and the world will experience peace sounds lovely and can maintain status quo piece for a period of time until the chessboard shifts and evolve so much that those organizations no longer respect the actual distribution of power and then we revert back to offensive realism for a period of time until the next thing emerges. Is that accurate? >> No, I think that's very accurate. So uh >> yeah this is what we need now uh some yeah the great powers coming together and arranging uh agreeing on a new status quo and uh uh so towards this extent it actually makes sense that Americans are trying to put together this core five arrangements over the heads of the Europeans because the major shift in this new world is uh well the main rising power is China and the main power which has become irrelevant is Europe and that's Europeans. doesn't uh you know doesn't make me happy to say that but but this is the reality and given and this is for the the same reason why the Europeans are the ones who are holding on to the former order as much as possible that is keep the institutions of the '90s and then hope that uh this will you know this is the reality uh which which will continue there's an an amazing exchange with the the president of Finland uh uh who talking to some I forgot which one but some of counterparts in Asia and he was making the point, oh why uni why multiparity is full of conflict? It's not a good thing and uh essentially just just trust the political west to dominate because we have the best values. I mean it's it's insane. It's really crazy. And uh and of course but but they they're allowed to talk like this in Europe because anyone who counters them well they're Putinist or an apologist for Xi or you know something along those lines. I mean they're they're they they behave and speak like children very dangerous children but nonetheless this is this is this doesn't make any sense at all but they have withdrawn into this comfortable uh yeah fantasy world I would say >> yeah it's like endemic and I don't know if you can ever get away from that it's just a natural evolution of any organization and you can think about a business the same way there's a certain set of theories and principles that will govern you very effectively as a small budding aggressive startup and as the corporation grows, if successful, demands change. But generally speaking, as that occurs, you have people who are there from day one who don't want to change the status quo. They want to hold on to how things were and often respond to those new disruptive, necessary, innovative ideas with a condescending tone that, oh, we've always done it this way and it'll be just fine. And that's like it's a tipping point in a company's journey usually that determines whether or not they keep moving forward or they don't. Uh, and every entrepreneur is familiar with that. I I want to um circle the Caribbean a little bit with you here and get your perspective and how you interpret these moves because we're watching the greatest assembly of US military power in about 30 years. And the narrative is that we need to uh intervene in this narco state. uh and secondly that this is a country governed by an oppressive dictator and the people need um need release and freedom. So unpacking either of those two assumptions, number one, the narco state. Okay. Well, fentanyl precursors come from China, manufactured in Myanmar, enter the United States through Mexico. If you're really serious about attacking a narco state, you wouldn't start with Venezuela. Cocaine, the same thing. Think Colombia. Think Ecuador. Think Mexico. Venezuela is not where you would start if that was the true mission in terms of oppressing the people. Just step back and look at the rest of the world. Spend 5 minutes reading about what's happening in South Sudan right now and then tell me that uh humanity is the reason we're we're looking at Venezuela. It doesn't stack up whatsoever. So, what else could be at play? The obvious answer is the deepest oil reserves on the planet. So that's why that's always been why and it's why today however Maduro has as I understand come to the table and said we're willing to do any deal you want to do the door is open for us business all of our resources whatever deals you want to do let's do them and this has been met with deaf ears from the west and from the American president I sat down with a geopolitical analyst George Freriedman who's the founder of geopolitical futures in Stratfor back in the day what he pointed to was he's like what people don't understand or haven't noticed is that this assembly of US military in the Caribbean began in August. In March, there was a new defense pact signed between Cuba and Russia. And in June, Russian subs and ships arrived in Cuban waters 90 miles off the coast of the US. And this is a resurgence. And this defense pact includes um the ability for a resurgence of cold war era uh bases on Cuba, missile launchpads, military infrastructure, anything that both Cuban and the Russian governments agree to can now occur again in Cuba. And that's given Cuba's sort of like the the corkcrew in between the global marketplace and America's economic hub being the Gulf of Mexico, America, you know, oil refinery, the mouth of the Mississippi River. It's the most important economic gem in in in the country for the US is the Gulf of America, Gulf of Mexico, and Cuba stands between it and the global marketplace. So that's why this military strength has showed up four months after that defense pact was signed. I I don't know what to make of any of it, Gwen. I've got some assumptions and I can speculate all day long. How are you interpreting what's occurring in the Caribbean right now? What do you What's substance? What's noise? What's signal? all this narco terrorism. I mean, they're just putting naughty words together there. I think it it doesn't really make that much sense. I I do miss the days of the weapons of mass destructions and the war on terror at least, you know, but they built up over time some cohesive arguments uh that they sold to the public over a long period of time through the media. Uh but no, this naroterism thing, it it lacks a lot of the logic behind it. But also you have Trump of course giving uh been giving speeches for uh some of them very open where he talks about how how close they were in this first administration to collapse uh Venezuela and get their hands on older oil. So, you know, he's they already spoken quite open about this, but uh uh so yeah, Venezuela has a lot of natural resources, oil, of course, they have the largest uh reserve. So, it's it's um it's very attractive to have it disclosed to the United States. This by the way what Machado as well the Nobel Peace Prize winner keeps saying in this different interviews as well that if uh if Maduro falls and presumingly she takes power then u then all of this resource can be privatized and end up with to the United States and it's not going to be far away in the Middle East. It's going to be right in his back backyard. So I think that uh yeah this makes perfect sense but it's also more I think uh uh in a stronger interest right now because the world is becoming more multipolar. Uh the US can't dominate every corner of the world. So uh it makes sense then that the United States should at least dominate its own backyard especially as uh countries like Russia and China will begin to assert themsel in other places. uh so again carve out an exclusive geoeconomic region for the United States. So I think it's important for the US that these resources not only do they go to the United States the US will be the main security provider in the region that it should not have any military infrastructure coming or any missiles any weapons coming from the Chinese or or the the Russians. Uh they the Venezuelans should not just sell this to the Americans. They should pay in dollars. They should use the American banks. uh and um no overall uh they have to conform with the US uh international economic architecture and of course geopolitically fall in line as well. So um no so I assume that this falls within what we talked about the new Monro doctrine. >> Okay. Yeah. >> It feels almost like blasphemy by the way to call it a Mandro doctrine because I don't think Monroe would have approved but there you go >> right. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. Okay. And um and I guess that makes sense. You're comment about privatization, right? When I think about it's it's probably about the oil, but then I look at the fact that Maduro's already come to the table and said we can do the oil deal. Whatever the deal is you want to do, we'll do it, right? And not just oil, the rest of our resources. We're open for business. If I get to stay in power, that was the caveat. You leave me alone and we can do the deals. But maybe that's not enough if you're looking to privatize those industries, which makes way more sense, right? who's really uh pushing the influence behind the scenes and um and you know what can can Hallebertton do the deal it really wants to do until they control the leadership right and I don't know if the answer is as clear-cut as maybe I thought it was what what's your take on and do you have one uh Glenn on the new defense pack between Cuba and Russia is it meaningful is it is it something very different from the past or is this just um you know, Russian uh officials have come out and said this is um reciprocal action for the long range missiles the US has provided Ukraine, right? You put competency in our backyard, we'll put competency in yours, right? And this is just tit fortat reciprocosity. Uh do you have a take on that? What do you think? Well, it it could be. I know that the Russians would mind some leverage then against the United States because over the past four years uh well, you can go back to 2014, the United States has been waging a proxy war on Russia and then the past four years it's claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Russians. So, of course, uh they would like to have some uh some military position where they can then threaten the US uh in the same way. Now, um I'm I'm not sure yeah to to what extent or what the strategy of the Russians are, but you would assume that they would look for a way to to balance off the United States. Of course, we played this game before during the Cold War, and it can go very wrong very quickly. So um again I I don't think the Russians could be po could put themselves in a situation similar to what the US have done where the United States now launches uh attackums into Russian cities killing Russians uh soldiers. I mean, imagine if the situation was reversed that uh from Venezuela or Cuba, you would have Russian contractors launching Russian missiles um following Russian satellites uh targeting uh American cities with targets picked by Russian war planners and they would simply call this ah it's just the Cubans defending themselves. It would never work. The the Russ the Americans would probably find a way of retaliating directly against Russia. Of course, this is how what the United States been doing towards Russia. So, it's uh uh so so they're probably looking for a way to to step up the pressure on the United States. Uh but beyond that, I'm I'm not really sure. Uh regarding Venezuela though, I think um you know, it's not as if they just want an ability to trade. Uh you you can go to you want ownership of the country almost. I mean, you can compare to late 2013. Uh this was when the Europeans were putting pressure on and and the Americans were putting pressure on Ukraine to to to to take this deal which the EU presented. At that time the Ukrainians with the Russians presented a counter proposal which was a Ukraine Russia EU trilateral deal. So Ukraine wouldn't have to choose. It can be a bridge. You can prosper by trading with both. And uh the EU rejected this deal immediately. And uh instead what you got after the coup in February of uh 2022 was that the intelligence services of Ukraine were taken over uh almost on the first day by the United States and the British uh which has been yeah very openly reported on in the New York Times and Washington Post. You saw that the new finance finance minister of Ukraine was became which came in was an American citizen. uh you you you saw uh key areas of the polit the political establishment being installed by the United States and all new appointments had to be approved by the United States and you saw all of its economic deals being uh disconnected from Russia and reoriented towards the west. So it's not just you know let's deal work trade together and make deal. This is a great power play. So you want to um you can not just strengthen yourself but weaken your opponents. So you also have to cut off Venezuela from V from the Chinese from the Russians. So what the Americans want is not what Maduro is necessarily offering. I wonder as you're explaining that I began thinking I wonder if there's a similar goal here. Uh, and I'd love to know your thoughts on the Ukraine minerals deal. Uh, 18 months ago, I think this was signed. And, you know, at a super high level, it creates a a jointly owned fund between the Ukrainians and the Americans that is contributed to uh, dollar fordoll, but the benefit to the Americans is that military value contributes to their side of the fund. And so if the United States provides $50 million worth of weapons, Ukraine is obligated to provide $50 million worth of cash into this fund that then gets priority on every new natural resource project inside the country of Ukraine. Um and their 50 million would come from existing natural resource cash flows within the country. Um and a couple of the little like you know uh key points of this deal is that first you get first rights refusal on every new deal in the country which is every investor's dream but secondly they can actually apply veto power to who the output of that natural resource deal is sold to. So if it's a critical metals deal and the US wants that supply they can opt to buy it. If they don't they can then govern who does get to buy it and most importantly who doesn't get to buy it. And so it's pseudo control over 100% of the minerals uh to be developed uh in the Ukraine. And I could see a similar structure being very appealing to the American administration in Venezuela. Um when I saw that deal signed, my first thought was this sort of incentivizes the United States to provide more weapons because every time they do, they're met on par dollar value in this new fund. My second thought was yes, but war doesn't really allow for productive extraction of natural resources. And so peace is more probable because in peace you can actually build and extract and and build the infrastructure required to extract that wealth from the ground. But maybe you got to fund it first and that's why weapons got to come for a year, two years, three years to build up the account balance and then you can deploy in a time of peace down the road. Um any any take on that Glenn? thoughts on the Ukraine minerals deal and the sim a similar structure maybe being in the back or the front of the minds in Venezuela today? >> I assume they would like a similar deal with Venezuela. Uh but this is uh this is making Ukraine a colony though. This is much like uh like in the past. Of course, uh there some some minor differences, but this is also the was the great danger of Ukraine to be used as a as a proxy in a well in in a war between NATO and Russia because uh it will get hurt on both sides. That is on one hand the the country it's being used to fight against Russia will then take what it wants from Ukraine and of course the one the Ukrainians have made itself economically and militarily dependent on can also strip it of what it needs. So you know the and this creates a big problem because once the Americans now are going after its resources it creates a competition for who gets to control Ukraine's resources because now the chance of Ukraine controlling that itself being a stable neutral buffer with control over its own resources that ship has sailed. So that this is already gone. So uh so for the Russians now they have a big incentive to to to conquer a lot of the territories which a lot of the res resources are on. And if you look at where most of the gas, oil, lithium, all of these things are the good agriculture as well. Uh it's in the historical territories of Russia. That's from Karov all the way to well the four regions which Russia sees now uh plus Crimea but also Karov it's Nepro, Nikolai and Odessa. So these are the historical Russian territories. This is also the entire coastline and of course where the most interesting res resources are. So it's not just that Russia gets it in its own hands, but it's also that it keeps the United States and the Europeans away as well. So once you strip it of some territory, it reduces its market value for the West. So uh so now there's a huge incentive to just strip Ukraine of mo most of its territory, at least in the historical Russian territory. And uh but you also see it taking shape in other ways that is the the seizure of Russian money. That is the the American peace deal. If you saw the the peace plan, it's looks like a business deal. They would like to to be able to, for example, the Europeans would like to seize all this money, which is why now the EU has permanently seized. I say permanently because they now need the authorization of all EU member states to release the money. No, yeah. The no renewals of these sanctions through votes. So they they're they're now looking at way of stealing this money permanently from the Russians. So so everyone is looking now towards the end of this war how they can make some money and um yeah Ukraine will get the short end of this stick as everyone is stripping Ukraine now of its resources. >> That's it's such an interesting way to view this conflict and I I think it's it's bang on now. Now now is the time when everybody has arrived at the table to see what they can get out of this deal right as as things begin to wind down. the sense of urgency to claim what you might have access to increases. It's so important to pay attention to what's in the ground in those borderlands. You you mentioned the grain. I think 25% of the world's grain comes from the Ukraine and Russia. 20 a quarter of the world's grain from that region. It's significant in addition to many other resources. Please go ahead. >> But no, well at one point you had a German economic minister as well. I think that was him at least who came out and said, "Oh, we can't afford to let Donbuzz fall to the Russians." This is where all the lithiums are. If we're going to if we're going to be able to develop a green Europe, uh the Ukraine has to be connected to to the EU, not not Russia. I mean, all of this is just obviously they don't want them to sell it to the Chinese either then. So, all of this is it's a colonial project. It's not just that they they want access, they don't want the other centers of power to have access either. So this is what happens when the you know open international economic system breaks down. Everyone will seek um seek exclusive control and um you know it's not that unlike the late 19th century that is when um especially after 1880 when uh the industrial powers begin to compete more they all ideas of a liberal system begins to break down and you carve up the world between you. I think it's uh yeah to a large extent what we're seeing now as well. >> Yeah. And it's it's you know you look at the expansion of the critical minerals list in the United States. These are the the minerals that US deems critical to their national security and it's been increasing in number every year. I mean in 2018 there was 35 minerals on that list. 2018 today there's 60. It's nearly doubled. more and more of the resources that exist in the crust of the earth are deemed critical to the United States national security. All that does is provide a bit of an explanation about why we're going to step outside the historic boundaries and rules and expectations and operate differently. And maybe that's the Ukraine minerals deal. Maybe that's a similar deal in Venezuela. Maybe that's all the state capitalism initiatives we've seen domestically. The United States government now becoming an active equity investor in mining companies all over the country. Uh the department def department of defense put over 400 million into MP materials the only US rare earth miner and refiner. They're now the biggest shareholder of MP materials. Uh 35 million into Trilogy Metal Metals owning 10% of that critical metal project up in Alaska. lithium America, US antimony, like it goes on and on and on. Uh notwithstanding like the US uh steel deal with Nippon Steel, right? That merger was blocked between Nifon Steel and US Steel and then it was approved under the condition that the US government would retain uh the golden share in US Steel, which gives them a lot of veto power about how that American uh based operation conducts itself, who they sell steel to, when they shut down, at what cost they produce, all of this stuff. And this trend of of you just got to call it state capitalism, that's what it is, is very distasteful to people in the west. But it's crept in and I think a part of a trajectory that's not going anywhere. Um and explains a lot, right? I think this explains a lot whether it's um capital being directly allocated to US companies. This is kind of the China model, this, you know, private public partnership and we're going to not just provide tax incentives and subsidies. we're going to directly own key industries and companies to make sure that we're moving at the pace that we want them to. But in addition, it it I think explains a lot about the conquest in Ukraine, the conquest in Venezuela, is that there's a new sense of urgency to retain secure supply of these critical metals that we used to be able to buy from anybody during the last 40 years. If you have the cash or the credit era of globalization, buy whatever you want from whoever had it. That era is definitely over. And so everyone's gonna act differently now, especially the powerful countries. And it provides a lot of clarity. I don't know if you find this, Glenn, but I I find a lot of clarity when I view these complex issues through the lens of simple supply and demand. It's like really that's often what it comes down to. Who's got what, who wants what, and that'll tell you a lot about what's happening beneath the surface. >> No, I agree. And I think one of the key reasons why again you mentioned all this United States all the government going to take ownership in tech companies and all this is this is almost science fiction 20 years ago but but this is what they're doing but there's a reason by behind this because uh the United States can't compete with China to the same extent it did in the past and uh and it's worth I often like going back to the to the American system because the way the United States spoke book when Britain was the dominant economy towards the end of the 18th century, beginning of the 19th century, many of the Americans were talking about, you know, free trade empire because once you had free trade, this would facilitate the British Empire because if the British had the dominant technologies and industries, uh, in a free trade system, you would have then the British would be able to saturate markets around the world and prevent the industrialization of others. Again, this was a key objective because if you then uh have a British uh industries which have which are high-tech and low cost and they compete with the American ones which were low quality and high cost then of course the the British will take over all markets. So the Americans said we don't want free trade, we want fair trade. uh which means we have to also industrialize as a condition for political sovereignty. Otherwise, yeah, we might have won our independence but we will become economically dependent on on the on the British. Well, once the American became dominant, then they embraced the same policies. They say, well, of course, free trade is good because now they will all use American industries, American tech, uh the incentives to use their currency, banks, uh yeah, transportation corridors under control of the US Navy. So um but but what happens it's also a question what happens when the the concentration of economic power in the United States begins to dwindle. Many people have discussed this especially in academia since the late '7s 1980s and one would then assume that what happened what would happen is what's happening now. the US wouldn't want to wouldn't feel so comfortable anymore about with free trade because let's say now China has uh has the you know the most mature industries that is it has the highquality lowcost ones if you have a completely open market field well the whole world would begin to embrace uh Chinese technologies Chinese products so this is not ideal so what happens then to the former hedgemon it would begin to suspend its for former ideology about the glorious and mutual benefit of free trade and would begin to embrace a much more of a a neocc mercantalist form sorry economic policy in which it seeks to carve out the exclusive economic zones uh and uh yeah engage well in what you see now piracy you know cutting off access to banks stealing sovereign funds of other countries I mean this kind of behavior so to a large extent this this has been predicted already that this would happen. So um no but it's um yeah no it's it I I it just if if people diagnose it properly at least one can start to look for how to stabilize this because it's not going anywhere pretty I think over the next uh few years because the idea that the the Russians Chinese and other centers of power is just going to stand idly by while the while uh yeah this more forceful capitalism state capitalism uh takes place I think it's delusional And it's also been fueled in the 1990s in the uniolar moment. You know, we could do anything we want. We can sanction other countries. They can't sanction us. We can do corion. We can hijack ships. We can do all these things. They can't do the same back to us. Well, uh I I think a lot of this is going to change. Look at how the how surprised Europeans were after the the Dutch seized the next from the Chinese and then the Chinese suddenly put some sanctions on the the the Dutch. It's which threatened the car industry in Europe. They're they're outraged. How how dare they? This is, you know, when we do economic sanctions, it's it's out of virtue. You know, it's about defensive requirements is for democracy, all of this nonsense. But China's not allowed to do it. So the whole Yeah, there's a hard there's no one accepting that the world has moved on, that the distribution of power is completely different. One region that we haven't talked about yet is very close to where you are. So, we've covered the Caribbean and you know, we didn't talk about the South China Sea today, but I I want to cover the Arctic and get your thoughts on what people should maybe be paying attention to in the Arctic. And I think about, you know, Canada's north is one of the most minerally endowed locations in the world between the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, none of it. massive amounts of resource wealth and you know many companies that that I work with are exploring and producing minerals up in that region. It's Canada's got the largest coastline in the world. It's largely undefended. In most of the history, it hasn't mattered because the Arctic's been too frozen to really uh facilitate much threat. But that's changing, right? We've got the Northwest Passage where trade has occurred. But now there's the northern sea route which is closer to Russia that is melting and ships are able to get through an increasing number every year. Um there was a lot of initial sort of commentary around this when President Trump was first elected his second term. He talked about annexing Greenland, annexing Canada. And my thought was it's all about the North. It's all about the north because you know Canada has not built much defense competency um you know around uh such a such a wealthy region but Prime Minister Mark Carney has now promised a 5x increase in defense spending. A lot of that cash will be allocated to the northern coast. And I've seen a lot of companies already begin to emerge, defense tech companies that are either building proprietary surveillance and software systems for the north or just planning on white labeling American tech and bringing it to the northern coastline to tap into that new government budget. Um, are you watching the Arctic, Glenn? What are you paying attention to? What matters at this point? What's changed today versus, you know, five or 10 years ago that is significant? Oh, well, I interpreted Trump uh Trump's early months in the same way. That is uh he wants to annex Greenland. He wants to well annex Canada. Uh he kept obsessing about how many ice breakers the Russians have to operate the northern seaw route while uh America doesn't have this capabilities or any of its allies. Uh well, a lot of things have changed and it preceded Trump. Again, Trump is, I think, a symptom uh with some very unique characteristics. But nonetheless, uh as you suggested in the past, um the Arctic was largely exempted from geopolitics, at least the most vicious part of it because it was a frozen desert. Not that many serrum competing interests. uh um you know again in in the Arctic Council as well it's been kind of unique because you have Russia and all these other western countries but they were still able to cooperate and work. So if you if I when I go visit uh well in this country for example Arctic University up in the north they have you know good relations with Russia they always have this good human to human contacts again all all the stuff they're working on can have a very strong positive sum uh purpose but what's happened over the past few years as you said said the the much of the Arctic is becoming more accessible which means uh both extraction of natural resources but also as transportation. Now, this northern sea route that is the the roof of SCA of Eurasia, if you will, it's um it offers a much faster and cheaper uh connection route between Europe and East Asia. So, and also it's it's one of the few, if not the only maritime route which is not under the control of the United States, >> but it's um but again, if you're going to sail through there, you need you will have to go through some of the Russian waterways and also no other countries have the ability to to to well to navigate along this line. So, the the Russians will will be able to have the infrastructure, they will have the search and rescue, they will have everything. So, so this is u yeah geography essentially hands over this important region to to the the Russians and uh in the past the Russians wanted to develop the Arctic with the western powers but this all ended in 2014 when the NATO countries toppled the government in Ukraine and essentially began converting it into a front line from day one. So, so now they're working with China and uh I think the first white paper for China in 2018 uh it referred to the Arctic as the polar silk road. So they already conceptually integrated it into this new silk road. Uh the Russians are also seeking cooperation with India and other countries as well up in the Arctic. they already connect the connection between the Chennai port of India and Vladivasto in Russia is already being integrated into this new Arctic roots. So it will be quite important and as you said just like the Canadian Arctic, the Russian Arctic is incredibly wealthy in resources. So um so now the main partner for Russia and the Arctic will not be the West, it will be China. uh and uh China yeah in some creative geographical lingo refer to themselves as a near Arctic state and uh which is fair enough and uh but they're being invited by Russia which is the largest Arctic state. So it you know irrespective of how they frame it they they can be there as well. So, uh, so no, I think the Arctic is going to be is going from one of the places where there was no rivalry to one of the possibly greatest hot spots we have. And, uh, you also see the Americans preparing Europe for this. That is, uh, for the past centuries, uh, if you wanted to contain Russia, you had to cut off its main three seas on its western borders, which was the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Arctic. Uh, NATO has been doing this for the past 30 years now. there hasn't been well it's not a big secret that the efforts to pull Ukraine into the NATO orbit was to a large extent to cut off Russia from the Black Sea. Uh you have now with NATO expansion taking over Finland and not taking over uh absorbing Finland and Sweden. Uh we see now that the former NATO secretary general said that yeah the Baltic Sea is now a NATO lake. We can even put a blockade on St. Petersburg if we have to. the poles, the Baltic states also refer to the Baltic Sea as a NATO lake. Uh so and then of course in the Arctic where the Scandinavian countries are now hosting more and more American troops. They especially with Finland and Sweden and NATO and the Norway which didn't used to accept foreign troops on its soil. Well, this is all over. So the Arctic can also become well we're making ourselves into front line in the Arctic. So, so it's uh no a lot of things are happening there and uh it wouldn't surprise me if that would be one of the bigger hot spots in the years to come. I want to put a pin in that because it was maybe uh one year ago that I was I was we were in Indonesia, my family and I had our mutual friend Pascal Lo on the show and we were running through the various sort of flash points around the world. We spent a lot of time talking about the South China Sea, a lot of time talking about the straight of Hormuz, um the Sahal region across Africa where we saw this like just series of coups uh for three or four years straight. And then we touched on the Caribbean and you know our our where we left it was there's nothing happening there, but it seems like something might, right? There's a lot of tension building up. This is about one year ago and obviously we've seen how that's developed and I feel like the Arctic is a place people should keep a close eye on for all the reasons you just discussed for how much value is up for grabs up there and therefore needs to be defended or secured and in addition how little people understand the region because it's been offline for my entire life. This is this has been a part of the world that's been not navigable and now it is increasingly and there's new interest moving in seemingly monthly. Notwithstanding, people don't understand it so much because it's just hard to picture. I mean, you go to Google Maps, scroll up to the top, the map just stops. You can't really get a bird's eye view of what the top of the world looks like on the most common mapping platform that everybody uses. And so, of course, there's a bit of misunderstanding about how the navigation functions up there. go to Google Earth, flip it, have a look at the top. But that's what we're talking about is now navigating over the top of the world, and that's what shortens trade routes, makes trade a lot more affordable and accessible for Russia via the northern seaw route. Um, but there's a lot of reasons that has been off the radar, and suddenly it's not and um a place to watch for sure. But it's interesting to also put in a in the historical context if you want to see the rise of the west for the pastor or dominance or leadership for the past 500 years a lot of it began when um the ancient silk road broke down and from the beginning of the the 16 well let's say well from the 1500s uh beginning of the 16th century sorry the the western uh all the European maritime powers began to reconnect connect the world and this kind of became a source for dominance. Uh but uh what was interesting is they also tried to connect uh the world through the Arctic and this is why if you look at um where in in the north where the Europe Europe meets Russia the the Baron Sea this is named after William Barren who uh in the late 16th century so yeah what is it 430 years ago uh they yeah he um he tried to search for a northern passage from Europe to Asia and uh and they they essentially got uh stranded. I think it was on Nova Assembly somewhere around uh that area and they all died. So it didn't uh it didn't work. They didn't they didn't get there. But that's why we call it now the Baron Sea. The sea between Yeah. which is now split a bit between the Norwegians and the Russians. And this is uh Yeah. This is why it's it kind of fits into the it was a missing piece I guess from from that era of the era of exploration when the Europeans uh began to control the world and uh so again this was supposed to be developed with the Europeans and this is one of the consequence of the Ukraine war that is that relationship is now broken up. Russia shifted from this greater Europe ambition since Gordos come European home and now pursuing greater Eurasia. because now the Arctic will be developed by countries in the east and uh so it it's it's very symbolic I think of uh of how world history is uh is changing. Um but yeah anyways uh just a quick detour there. >> Yeah. Well, it's it's an interesting part of history, right? And that sort of age of expiration at the beginning of the 16th century that you mentioned was sort of a consequence of of trade restrictions, right? It was the Ottoman Empire putting massive tariffs on Europeans access to the spice islands in Southeast Asia and uh as a result of being cut off from the most important industrial inputs. I mean spices today we think of like what could the value of cinnamon really be? But back then it was actually incredibly valuable. Black pepper, mace, cumin, uh incredibly valuable on a perate basis and not just used to spice foods but for medicines and perfumes and a bunch of use cases. And that is what spawned the maritime age was that the Europeans had to find another route to get to that natural resource and they did. And um I I didn't I'm not as familiar with their pursuits in the Arctic during that time. I want to look into that. That's really interesting. Um Glenn, I I always appreciate chatting with you. It's incredibly enlightening and thank you so much for making the time to come back on the program. Uh, I'm going to I'm going to be watching the Arctic very closely and you know I have my annual conference in Vancouver in January. We've got the former minister of defense from Canada coming to sit down for an hour and just unpack what he's watching up there and why because a lot's changed since he was in power uh in the Canadian government and he's got some very strong thoughts on that. We've got a whole showcase of companies that have resources up in the Arctic through the Yukon. none of it. Uh, Northwest Territories, some of the premers from these territories coming to join us at the conference to unpack this region a little bit and understand it better because it's resources, its wealth, uh, its government policy, all shifting very quickly to impact how that region is going to look over the next 10 years. I'm glad we got to that today. Um, I encourage everybody to check out uh, your YouTube channel, Glenn, and you you're publishing like almost daily now, if not are you publishing daily on your channel? Uh yeah, about one one show every day. So uh >> yeah, >> that's a huge lift. Congrats. Congrats on the growth of the platform. I love your content. And anybody who's interested in this kind of stuff, like check out Glenn's channel, tune in. Um amazing content and amazing caliber of guests that you bring onto your show. Um and often people that are off my radar, I find them through you. So I I appreciate that. Um thanks again, Glenn. It's been a pleasure. Oh, >> thank you.
Glenn Diesen: The End of NATO & G7 and The Rise of The Core 5
Summary
Transcript
Do our global institutions like the UN, like NATO, like the G7 have any utility in today's geopolitical landscape? Do they still control outcomes? Do they still represent global economic strength and wealth? And do they have any influence whatsoever? I debate this today with my guest, the esteemed geopolitical analyst Glenn Diesson, and I learned a lot. I hope you enjoy this episode. This is the J Martin show where we dissect the greatest minds in geopolitics and finance so that we can better understand the world. Here is Glenn Diesson. Enjoy. >> This is J. Martin. >> Okay, here I am with Glenn Diesson. Glenn, it's great to have you back on the program. Thank you so much for making the time. >> It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on. >> Well, there's a handful of subjects I want to get into today and many I want to go deep into. I want to start however with uh uh an understanding of your higher level thinking of geopolitical the geopolitical chessboard today. And so um how do you process which alliances have meaningful impact today? And I think about the history of geopolitical alliances of the past, whether organizations like the G7, for example, which was supposed to be, you know, an informal grouping of the world's most advanced democracies to have those very important economic discussions. If you look at the members of the G7 today, I don't think they're the best choice to impact global events, right? Countries like Italy, France, Germany, not nearly as influential or wealthy or as productive as they used to be. Um, are we in a state of flux globally right now where there aren't really any alliances that have true substance or do you see trading blocks, regional blocks, geopolitical alliances that do have staying power that exist today? Well, I think uh you can well you should u differentiate between the geopolitical blocks or military alliances versus the as you said the geoeconomic blocks because u yeah I think there will be more and more focus on the geoeconomic blocks that is uh how um how trade is organized trade routes uh yeah the cooperation on tech industries um yeah common banking what kind of currencies you would uh I think uh because the the system we had since World War II has been organized and primarily around uh the United States use American technologies, industries, its currency, its banks. uh but as we now go towards a more multipolar system uh you know it can take many different shapes and I think that uh uh the most the most likely one seems now to be a more fragmented one because it's not going to be um uh I think a very peaceful one. I think countries like the United States will try to carve out its own geoconomic region. So this is why it's reviving for example the Monroal doctrine um in a very different kind of form of course uh that is to have some more exclusive influence. It wants the Europeans to cut off from all other centers of power and only make themselves dependent on the US. And so you have now this exclusive spheres being being shaped. And I think uh um yeah this is going to be more likely to shape some of the the restructuring of the world now that the yeah the previous open economic system is coming to an end. uh but in front in terms of international institutions I they tend to take a view very much along with political realism which is that institutions they they are peaceful they're stable and to the extent they can actually reflect the current international distribution of power that is um well look at the United Nations for example after uh the second world war the reason why you would give veto powers to the dominant five states is because this is the proper reflection of power. You want to give special privileges to the main powers because then the great powers have an interest in preserving that order, that system where they have this veto. Which is why I'm always skeptical when people say, "Well, let's just get rid of the veto power." Because all you do then is uh make sure that the great powers don't have the same interest in keeping the UN and the inter and the current system in the international law and you will instead force them to use more military power instead. So I I think that it should always reflect the international distribution of power. So that's why I I do think for example the UN needs some uh changes as well if you want to preserve it but then you would need a bigger role for countries like India because the idea that in the current international system the French should have a veto power but the Indians do not. it no longer represents the international system over time as China grows more power sorry India grows more powerful why would it yeah want to follow a system like this so I I do think that um a lot of the way we look at institutions they have to reform and adjust to reality um and uh I think this is a problematic for many of the western countries because in the past the western countries were more powerful so they have this privileged position uh But because there were also liberal democracies as opposed to many other parts of the world, we also created an ideology around it. That is well it's not because of our power, it's because of our values. When we dominate is for the benefit of the whole international system. Now of course that the west is the power is no longer there. Well, you can argue the values aren't there either. um the the the west many western countries are still going to demand a privileged status simply because they tell themselves they have superior values even though the power is gone. So um it's very hard I think for especially the Europeans to accept this new international system where they don't have the same role. So they they will start to focus more on why they deserve it as opposed to why the power distribution isn't there anymore. Now you know you ask very specifically about the G7 though because again this is the this war the main seven economies but they've already been replaced. Now you have the BRICS countries are now collectively uh stronger in um stronger than the G7. So uh so there's going to be incentives now to to change it because the G7 can't do anything. the idea that the most powerful economies would then come together, sit down and try to keep well, I guess the main pieces in place and uh harmonize the development of the international system, it it doesn't work with the G7 anymore. It's it's a useless block to a large extent. Uh even when Trump suggested uh Russia should get back into the G8, uh you know, they're not really interested. they they see their future belonging more in the BRICS geoeconomic region. So um so I I I see big big changes coming along and but you can also ask why would the United States because that's an actual powerful economies in terms of um GDP. It's still the largest economy. So why what are their interest in staying in the G7? it it can be useful as an exclusive geoeconomic block where they cut out the Russians, Chinese and others. But I do think that they they still want to find a new G7 that is a group of re relevant states uh well powerful states. So I heard some reports or seen some reports uh that the Trump administration would like to have uh new core five that is uh the United States, Japan, China, Russia and India. So to have these five powers, so no Europeans in there except for Russia, but this is the main idea to have uh to have the new great powers sit down and try to harmonize interests so they don't clash to great of an extent. I was going to ask you what your thoughts were on the core five because it struck me as as interesting and I'd have to wonder if you're the, you know, if you're you're President Modi, uh, President Putin, President Xi, you know, if if you're hearing this language like the core five and it's coming from America, coming from a president who might not be around in three years, but you're sitting in a country that hasn't had to worry about elections for a long time. How much weight you'd actually put on that? because you know this is a this is a proposal from what could be a very fleeting leadership which tends to be the case right in in modern democracies we pivot left right left right incredibly quickly um and I want to maybe dive into that but just because you mentioned the Monroe doctrine and everybody right now is talking about Venezuela and I think these two things are obviously related you you discuss sort of the resurrection of the Monroe doctrine in today's political commentary But it's different, right, than the original uh promise of the or idea of the Monroe Doctrine, which as I understand was kind of like you stay out of our backyard and we will stay out of yours. And that second part was just as important as the first part, but that second part seems to be absent from the conversation today. Uh is that accurate, Glenn? And how would you describe the origins of the Monroe Doctrine for somebody who's never heard of it before? Maybe let's start there. like I've heard people talking about this. I don't know what it is. What was the idea behind the origin and the utility and how has that changed and shifted today? >> Well, in the beginning of the 19th century, the the the Americans uh did not care much for Europe or the European uh imperialists. So, so it wasn't even common to to speak about, you know, the western nations because the the US was supposed to rid itself and not not participate in this kind of colonial uh structures and imperialism like the Europeans did. This is why it became very controversial after 1898 when the US defeated the Spanish and got all this colonial conquests from uh well all across Americas to the Philippines. So the US therefore had this anti-imperialist uh mindset. Now you can argue that they nonetheless they wanted to dominate their own region. I think that's a reasonable criticism but irrespective of that the Monroe doctrine was formulated as being anti-imperialist that is the yeah keep the imperial rivalry of the Europeans out of the Americas. So but now of course how it's re-imagined is more or less as an imperial imperial policy. I mean, if you only look at what's happening now, you have Rubio keep dreaming about strangling Cuba. There's preparations for war with Venezuela. They tell the Mexi, sorry, the Colombians are next. Uh Mexico, Trump recently said they can't rule out any strikes on Mexico either if this will stop the drugs. They claim. Uh so, so there's um you know, we had the Panama Canal as well where they wrestled out some concessions otherwise the US would take back the Panama Canal. So you have all this uh yeah new bullying which is taking place. So this is not keeping empires out. This is asserting US uh the US empire which is a different thing. Um but what you referred to is also the the idea that if if other countries should stay out of America's backyard. Uh this is again the one of the core ideas of the Monroe Doctrine. Then the the initial Monro doctrine then had some clause of reciprocity that is that the US should not then um go into the backyards of other great powers. Uh overall I think this is a good policy to have that is I when I for example see China and Russia sending military arms to Venezuela I don't think I can understand why they need defense but I I think it's very dangerous to start to play around with military force in the backyard of other countries. Uh so so um but for it to be stable it has you can have it in a form of a great power agreement that is uh yeah it will stay out of your backyard you stay away from ours and ideally do it in a framework where it's not imperialist where where we don't try to b dominate our own neighbors uh but uh here of course the US seems to or the Trump administration breaks on both of these issues because it is a very imperialist view of this new mandro doctrine and um and uh and of course it will be very unilateral that is no one should be in the western hemisphere but the US will still um yeah position itself on the borders of all the other great powers. So it will penetrate Eurasia any way it can. So it's uh yeah it doesn't really make much sense from this perspective and I think this is because it's a policy which now recognizes that there is a multipolar distribution of power. However, it's uh this there are still the aspirations for restoring uniolarity. So, I think this is how this at least how I would explain it and uh it's it's not going to get consent from any of the other great powers. So uh so no it's uh it's going to be very confr confrontational. >> You as you as you explain that and I notice some of uh John Mshimer's work behind you on the bookshelf and you talked about sort of the great power agreement concept and and um it just led me to think there's there was no avoiding this situation we find ourselves in today on the global stage. this era of very uncertain future, uncertain alliances and adversaries and potential for very large conflict. And that's because we've just outgrown some of those agreements that prevented that in the past. We've outgrown the G7. We've outgrown NATO. We've outgrown unipolarity and now have to find a way to manage multipolarity. If we're able to figure out some kind of great power agreement between the powers that really matter, that would be the path towards avoidance of some kind of a World War II scenario, right? But it's dependent on us finding that equal footing, that compromise between the great powers that matter. Um and in uh in failing to do that, you know, we probably continue to fall down the road of increased regional conflicts every year. Every year and a half, another is budding and emerging. There's, you know, many regions globally right now that are incredibly tense flash points like the Caribbean, like the South China Sea, etc., and these could go off in short order. Uh do you think that's accurate? Like is that the antidote to the next major global conflict is us finding that next generation of global power great power agreement? Is that a a fair thought? What what's your take? >> Oh yes. And that's why usually you would get this great power agreements after major wars. Um but uh yeah but but this is where we're walking now towards major wars because uh otherwise you would need some diplomatic giants in order to recognize the direction the world is going that we're heading towards major wars and we would try to solve them now but if you listen to political leaderships around the world and then especially the Europeans it's uh there's no political maturity there there's no willingness to to discuss uh just the basic structure of international system is all like just the language of well we're the goodies they're the baddies obviously we don't need to talk about security guarantees for baddies because they're bad you know it's only for the good guys and the victim who should have this kind of rights so it's it's a it's an absurd completely absurd environment we're currently in but I I agree with that we're out growing a lot of these things and this is why there has to be some some reforms and restructurings keep in mind that uh after the cold war when we decided to yeah pursue an international system based on hedgeimonyy. Uh this was what manifested as NATO expansion that is a collective hedgeimonyy over Europe. So instead of having an inclusive panuropean security architecture where the eur Russians would also have a seat at the table, we said ah we don't need this we'll just uh expand NATO everyone should be included except for the Russians and we're you know in forms of institutions just push it out of Europe and uh a lot of the criticism which came from the top diplomats in the US but also those who supported it uh recognized that well of course the Russians would then react very negatively to this but uh assumption was well you know they're they're just weak they're they're weak and they're getting weaker so our role should be to manage their decline to so the role of Russia should be some weak if not the disintegrating power almost orbiting uh Europe it should be outside Europe but it should still uh follow the decision-m done in Europe uh this was also the argument by the way by William Perry was the US secretary of defense under Bill Clinton and uh He was also making the point that he he was criticizing NATO expansion. He said it would lead to a disaster, but he made the point that everyone in the administration realized this would alienate Russia, but it did matter because they were weak. Well, what has happened now? Uh Russia has grown stronger and stronger and uh uh this European model doesn't work anymore. We're the largest country in Europe in terms of population, territory, military, and economy is the only one without a seat at the table. doesn't make any sense. But uh uh but but we're kind of locked into this form now. We we where we just say well this is the only acceptable format for Europe and we won't discuss anything else. Well this form no longer works. Uh so we're we're now entering a war because we don't have diplomats who can solve this uh through yeah through negotiations. And um you can argue the same in East Asia. The idea that stability and peace in East Asia should be ensured only by these bilateral security deals between the US and its allies. U it's it's not going to work when China is this has grown so powerful um and security the well it outgrown the USled uh not just economic system but also the security architecture. It's not going to have US warships patrolling its coastline having all its um its main physical trade corridors managed by the US Navy which is his main rival which can cut it off. It does it doesn't make any sense. So now that this isn't working the the the Chinese of course will begin to build up their own army to because of the US threat and the US will pick up on this. they will begin to build alliances and army against the Chinese and you will be in this security competition. So if you want to escape this as you suggested we have to realize that the old system has been outgrown. The distribution of power is no longer there. Uh but again if we don't have diplomats who are capable of doing this we'll have a war and we don't have diplomats who are able to do this it seems and >> and to a degree that sort of makes sense. You want to hang on to the power you earned in the past whether or not you deserve it today. And you said this directly. There's maybe European leaders that feel like they should be included in these major conversations. They deserve it given their history, right? That doesn't make them relevant today. Sad to say. Um but that's the political maturity I think that that you referenced. And you you know you your first uh comment to my question was those new great power agreements often come after a major war. And right away I was like yes because no one's going to willingly let go of their influence. They have to be forced away from the table sometimes unfortunately and I hope not but that's what history shows us is that people don't go down without a fight. Uh and okay so >> well if I can just yeah one just a quick comment the slogan of NATO for since the 1990s whenever the Russians said well we should have a say as well where you put your missiles you know if you're going to put your missiles on our border we should have a say and we essentially said no no no Europe is NATO NATO represents Europe and you do not have a veto power over NATO so you don't get a veto power which means you don't have any say over Russia well over Europe well did this kind of institutions ions and logic made sense when the NATO countries were overwhelmingly dominant. But when the power shifts and now Russia it no longer reflects the actual distribution of power if we tell the Russians you don't have an institutional voice so you will have to go away. No. Well then now they can assert themsel militarily. So in the Europeans are holding on to power which they no longer have and the Russians are imposing themsel because of the institutional power they were denied. So again the the institutions should reflect this shift somehow. The hegeimon is gone. The Russians are a big power in Europe but as you suggested you know there's a speech by Kayakalas where she makes the point well Russia shouldn't have any security guarantees in Europe because they're the aggressor. Ukraine should have all the security guarantees because they're victim and we are fighting for freedom. So this is how they view the world and this is how they hold on to an outdated uh security arrangement and uh but again at the end of the day if you don't give an institutional voice uh that reflects the actual distribution of power then they will assert themselves in different ways and sorry I didn't want to go too long long about that but I was same with the economic architecture keep in mind that the the Chinese said for a long time the United States have to accept to reform the IMF because it no longer represents the actual distribution of power. The Americans didn't want to do this. So then the Chinese just established, for example, the Asian infrastructure investment bank back in 2015. They just control established then a parallel economic architecture because the former one is no longer reflecting reality. This is what happens. You have to reform the institutions or they die. Often they die in wars. if the organizations do not recognize the actual distribution of power. What you said there, I thought that was just bang on because power shifts and evolves and matures and countries rise and decline and if the organizations don't recognize that then inevitably you're going to revert back to the geopolitical mean which is that sort of offensive realism theory, right? where at the end of the day you you know that the power do what they want and the weak suffer what they must which is a hard thing to hear but that's the mean that we always return to during these moments of geopolitical instability. Would you agree with that? That the sort of liberalism argument that democracies don't go to war with democracies and so therefore we should all be democracies and the world will experience peace sounds lovely and can maintain status quo piece for a period of time until the chessboard shifts and evolve so much that those organizations no longer respect the actual distribution of power and then we revert back to offensive realism for a period of time until the next thing emerges. Is that accurate? >> No, I think that's very accurate. So uh >> yeah this is what we need now uh some yeah the great powers coming together and arranging uh agreeing on a new status quo and uh uh so towards this extent it actually makes sense that Americans are trying to put together this core five arrangements over the heads of the Europeans because the major shift in this new world is uh well the main rising power is China and the main power which has become irrelevant is Europe and that's Europeans. doesn't uh you know doesn't make me happy to say that but but this is the reality and given and this is for the the same reason why the Europeans are the ones who are holding on to the former order as much as possible that is keep the institutions of the '90s and then hope that uh this will you know this is the reality uh which which will continue there's an an amazing exchange with the the president of Finland uh uh who talking to some I forgot which one but some of counterparts in Asia and he was making the point, oh why uni why multiparity is full of conflict? It's not a good thing and uh essentially just just trust the political west to dominate because we have the best values. I mean it's it's insane. It's really crazy. And uh and of course but but they they're allowed to talk like this in Europe because anyone who counters them well they're Putinist or an apologist for Xi or you know something along those lines. I mean they're they're they they behave and speak like children very dangerous children but nonetheless this is this is this doesn't make any sense at all but they have withdrawn into this comfortable uh yeah fantasy world I would say >> yeah it's like endemic and I don't know if you can ever get away from that it's just a natural evolution of any organization and you can think about a business the same way there's a certain set of theories and principles that will govern you very effectively as a small budding aggressive startup and as the corporation grows, if successful, demands change. But generally speaking, as that occurs, you have people who are there from day one who don't want to change the status quo. They want to hold on to how things were and often respond to those new disruptive, necessary, innovative ideas with a condescending tone that, oh, we've always done it this way and it'll be just fine. And that's like it's a tipping point in a company's journey usually that determines whether or not they keep moving forward or they don't. Uh, and every entrepreneur is familiar with that. I I want to um circle the Caribbean a little bit with you here and get your perspective and how you interpret these moves because we're watching the greatest assembly of US military power in about 30 years. And the narrative is that we need to uh intervene in this narco state. uh and secondly that this is a country governed by an oppressive dictator and the people need um need release and freedom. So unpacking either of those two assumptions, number one, the narco state. Okay. Well, fentanyl precursors come from China, manufactured in Myanmar, enter the United States through Mexico. If you're really serious about attacking a narco state, you wouldn't start with Venezuela. Cocaine, the same thing. Think Colombia. Think Ecuador. Think Mexico. Venezuela is not where you would start if that was the true mission in terms of oppressing the people. Just step back and look at the rest of the world. Spend 5 minutes reading about what's happening in South Sudan right now and then tell me that uh humanity is the reason we're we're looking at Venezuela. It doesn't stack up whatsoever. So, what else could be at play? The obvious answer is the deepest oil reserves on the planet. So that's why that's always been why and it's why today however Maduro has as I understand come to the table and said we're willing to do any deal you want to do the door is open for us business all of our resources whatever deals you want to do let's do them and this has been met with deaf ears from the west and from the American president I sat down with a geopolitical analyst George Freriedman who's the founder of geopolitical futures in Stratfor back in the day what he pointed to was he's like what people don't understand or haven't noticed is that this assembly of US military in the Caribbean began in August. In March, there was a new defense pact signed between Cuba and Russia. And in June, Russian subs and ships arrived in Cuban waters 90 miles off the coast of the US. And this is a resurgence. And this defense pact includes um the ability for a resurgence of cold war era uh bases on Cuba, missile launchpads, military infrastructure, anything that both Cuban and the Russian governments agree to can now occur again in Cuba. And that's given Cuba's sort of like the the corkcrew in between the global marketplace and America's economic hub being the Gulf of Mexico, America, you know, oil refinery, the mouth of the Mississippi River. It's the most important economic gem in in in the country for the US is the Gulf of America, Gulf of Mexico, and Cuba stands between it and the global marketplace. So that's why this military strength has showed up four months after that defense pact was signed. I I don't know what to make of any of it, Gwen. I've got some assumptions and I can speculate all day long. How are you interpreting what's occurring in the Caribbean right now? What do you What's substance? What's noise? What's signal? all this narco terrorism. I mean, they're just putting naughty words together there. I think it it doesn't really make that much sense. I I do miss the days of the weapons of mass destructions and the war on terror at least, you know, but they built up over time some cohesive arguments uh that they sold to the public over a long period of time through the media. Uh but no, this naroterism thing, it it lacks a lot of the logic behind it. But also you have Trump of course giving uh been giving speeches for uh some of them very open where he talks about how how close they were in this first administration to collapse uh Venezuela and get their hands on older oil. So, you know, he's they already spoken quite open about this, but uh uh so yeah, Venezuela has a lot of natural resources, oil, of course, they have the largest uh reserve. So, it's it's um it's very attractive to have it disclosed to the United States. This by the way what Machado as well the Nobel Peace Prize winner keeps saying in this different interviews as well that if uh if Maduro falls and presumingly she takes power then u then all of this resource can be privatized and end up with to the United States and it's not going to be far away in the Middle East. It's going to be right in his back backyard. So I think that uh yeah this makes perfect sense but it's also more I think uh uh in a stronger interest right now because the world is becoming more multipolar. Uh the US can't dominate every corner of the world. So uh it makes sense then that the United States should at least dominate its own backyard especially as uh countries like Russia and China will begin to assert themsel in other places. uh so again carve out an exclusive geoeconomic region for the United States. So I think it's important for the US that these resources not only do they go to the United States the US will be the main security provider in the region that it should not have any military infrastructure coming or any missiles any weapons coming from the Chinese or or the the Russians. Uh they the Venezuelans should not just sell this to the Americans. They should pay in dollars. They should use the American banks. uh and um no overall uh they have to conform with the US uh international economic architecture and of course geopolitically fall in line as well. So um no so I assume that this falls within what we talked about the new Monro doctrine. >> Okay. Yeah. >> It feels almost like blasphemy by the way to call it a Mandro doctrine because I don't think Monroe would have approved but there you go >> right. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. Okay. And um and I guess that makes sense. You're comment about privatization, right? When I think about it's it's probably about the oil, but then I look at the fact that Maduro's already come to the table and said we can do the oil deal. Whatever the deal is you want to do, we'll do it, right? And not just oil, the rest of our resources. We're open for business. If I get to stay in power, that was the caveat. You leave me alone and we can do the deals. But maybe that's not enough if you're looking to privatize those industries, which makes way more sense, right? who's really uh pushing the influence behind the scenes and um and you know what can can Hallebertton do the deal it really wants to do until they control the leadership right and I don't know if the answer is as clear-cut as maybe I thought it was what what's your take on and do you have one uh Glenn on the new defense pack between Cuba and Russia is it meaningful is it is it something very different from the past or is this just um you know, Russian uh officials have come out and said this is um reciprocal action for the long range missiles the US has provided Ukraine, right? You put competency in our backyard, we'll put competency in yours, right? And this is just tit fortat reciprocosity. Uh do you have a take on that? What do you think? Well, it it could be. I know that the Russians would mind some leverage then against the United States because over the past four years uh well, you can go back to 2014, the United States has been waging a proxy war on Russia and then the past four years it's claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Russians. So, of course, uh they would like to have some uh some military position where they can then threaten the US uh in the same way. Now, um I'm I'm not sure yeah to to what extent or what the strategy of the Russians are, but you would assume that they would look for a way to to balance off the United States. Of course, we played this game before during the Cold War, and it can go very wrong very quickly. So um again I I don't think the Russians could be po could put themselves in a situation similar to what the US have done where the United States now launches uh attackums into Russian cities killing Russians uh soldiers. I mean, imagine if the situation was reversed that uh from Venezuela or Cuba, you would have Russian contractors launching Russian missiles um following Russian satellites uh targeting uh American cities with targets picked by Russian war planners and they would simply call this ah it's just the Cubans defending themselves. It would never work. The the Russ the Americans would probably find a way of retaliating directly against Russia. Of course, this is how what the United States been doing towards Russia. So, it's uh uh so so they're probably looking for a way to to step up the pressure on the United States. Uh but beyond that, I'm I'm not really sure. Uh regarding Venezuela though, I think um you know, it's not as if they just want an ability to trade. Uh you you can go to you want ownership of the country almost. I mean, you can compare to late 2013. Uh this was when the Europeans were putting pressure on and and the Americans were putting pressure on Ukraine to to to to take this deal which the EU presented. At that time the Ukrainians with the Russians presented a counter proposal which was a Ukraine Russia EU trilateral deal. So Ukraine wouldn't have to choose. It can be a bridge. You can prosper by trading with both. And uh the EU rejected this deal immediately. And uh instead what you got after the coup in February of uh 2022 was that the intelligence services of Ukraine were taken over uh almost on the first day by the United States and the British uh which has been yeah very openly reported on in the New York Times and Washington Post. You saw that the new finance finance minister of Ukraine was became which came in was an American citizen. uh you you you saw uh key areas of the polit the political establishment being installed by the United States and all new appointments had to be approved by the United States and you saw all of its economic deals being uh disconnected from Russia and reoriented towards the west. So it's not just you know let's deal work trade together and make deal. This is a great power play. So you want to um you can not just strengthen yourself but weaken your opponents. So you also have to cut off Venezuela from V from the Chinese from the Russians. So what the Americans want is not what Maduro is necessarily offering. I wonder as you're explaining that I began thinking I wonder if there's a similar goal here. Uh, and I'd love to know your thoughts on the Ukraine minerals deal. Uh, 18 months ago, I think this was signed. And, you know, at a super high level, it creates a a jointly owned fund between the Ukrainians and the Americans that is contributed to uh, dollar fordoll, but the benefit to the Americans is that military value contributes to their side of the fund. And so if the United States provides $50 million worth of weapons, Ukraine is obligated to provide $50 million worth of cash into this fund that then gets priority on every new natural resource project inside the country of Ukraine. Um and their 50 million would come from existing natural resource cash flows within the country. Um and a couple of the little like you know uh key points of this deal is that first you get first rights refusal on every new deal in the country which is every investor's dream but secondly they can actually apply veto power to who the output of that natural resource deal is sold to. So if it's a critical metals deal and the US wants that supply they can opt to buy it. If they don't they can then govern who does get to buy it and most importantly who doesn't get to buy it. And so it's pseudo control over 100% of the minerals uh to be developed uh in the Ukraine. And I could see a similar structure being very appealing to the American administration in Venezuela. Um when I saw that deal signed, my first thought was this sort of incentivizes the United States to provide more weapons because every time they do, they're met on par dollar value in this new fund. My second thought was yes, but war doesn't really allow for productive extraction of natural resources. And so peace is more probable because in peace you can actually build and extract and and build the infrastructure required to extract that wealth from the ground. But maybe you got to fund it first and that's why weapons got to come for a year, two years, three years to build up the account balance and then you can deploy in a time of peace down the road. Um any any take on that Glenn? thoughts on the Ukraine minerals deal and the sim a similar structure maybe being in the back or the front of the minds in Venezuela today? >> I assume they would like a similar deal with Venezuela. Uh but this is uh this is making Ukraine a colony though. This is much like uh like in the past. Of course, uh there some some minor differences, but this is also the was the great danger of Ukraine to be used as a as a proxy in a well in in a war between NATO and Russia because uh it will get hurt on both sides. That is on one hand the the country it's being used to fight against Russia will then take what it wants from Ukraine and of course the one the Ukrainians have made itself economically and militarily dependent on can also strip it of what it needs. So you know the and this creates a big problem because once the Americans now are going after its resources it creates a competition for who gets to control Ukraine's resources because now the chance of Ukraine controlling that itself being a stable neutral buffer with control over its own resources that ship has sailed. So that this is already gone. So uh so for the Russians now they have a big incentive to to to conquer a lot of the territories which a lot of the res resources are on. And if you look at where most of the gas, oil, lithium, all of these things are the good agriculture as well. Uh it's in the historical territories of Russia. That's from Karov all the way to well the four regions which Russia sees now uh plus Crimea but also Karov it's Nepro, Nikolai and Odessa. So these are the historical Russian territories. This is also the entire coastline and of course where the most interesting res resources are. So it's not just that Russia gets it in its own hands, but it's also that it keeps the United States and the Europeans away as well. So once you strip it of some territory, it reduces its market value for the West. So uh so now there's a huge incentive to just strip Ukraine of mo most of its territory, at least in the historical Russian territory. And uh but you also see it taking shape in other ways that is the the seizure of Russian money. That is the the American peace deal. If you saw the the peace plan, it's looks like a business deal. They would like to to be able to, for example, the Europeans would like to seize all this money, which is why now the EU has permanently seized. I say permanently because they now need the authorization of all EU member states to release the money. No, yeah. The no renewals of these sanctions through votes. So they they're they're now looking at way of stealing this money permanently from the Russians. So so everyone is looking now towards the end of this war how they can make some money and um yeah Ukraine will get the short end of this stick as everyone is stripping Ukraine now of its resources. >> That's it's such an interesting way to view this conflict and I I think it's it's bang on now. Now now is the time when everybody has arrived at the table to see what they can get out of this deal right as as things begin to wind down. the sense of urgency to claim what you might have access to increases. It's so important to pay attention to what's in the ground in those borderlands. You you mentioned the grain. I think 25% of the world's grain comes from the Ukraine and Russia. 20 a quarter of the world's grain from that region. It's significant in addition to many other resources. Please go ahead. >> But no, well at one point you had a German economic minister as well. I think that was him at least who came out and said, "Oh, we can't afford to let Donbuzz fall to the Russians." This is where all the lithiums are. If we're going to if we're going to be able to develop a green Europe, uh the Ukraine has to be connected to to the EU, not not Russia. I mean, all of this is just obviously they don't want them to sell it to the Chinese either then. So, all of this is it's a colonial project. It's not just that they they want access, they don't want the other centers of power to have access either. So this is what happens when the you know open international economic system breaks down. Everyone will seek um seek exclusive control and um you know it's not that unlike the late 19th century that is when um especially after 1880 when uh the industrial powers begin to compete more they all ideas of a liberal system begins to break down and you carve up the world between you. I think it's uh yeah to a large extent what we're seeing now as well. >> Yeah. And it's it's you know you look at the expansion of the critical minerals list in the United States. These are the the minerals that US deems critical to their national security and it's been increasing in number every year. I mean in 2018 there was 35 minerals on that list. 2018 today there's 60. It's nearly doubled. more and more of the resources that exist in the crust of the earth are deemed critical to the United States national security. All that does is provide a bit of an explanation about why we're going to step outside the historic boundaries and rules and expectations and operate differently. And maybe that's the Ukraine minerals deal. Maybe that's a similar deal in Venezuela. Maybe that's all the state capitalism initiatives we've seen domestically. The United States government now becoming an active equity investor in mining companies all over the country. Uh the department def department of defense put over 400 million into MP materials the only US rare earth miner and refiner. They're now the biggest shareholder of MP materials. Uh 35 million into Trilogy Metal Metals owning 10% of that critical metal project up in Alaska. lithium America, US antimony, like it goes on and on and on. Uh notwithstanding like the US uh steel deal with Nippon Steel, right? That merger was blocked between Nifon Steel and US Steel and then it was approved under the condition that the US government would retain uh the golden share in US Steel, which gives them a lot of veto power about how that American uh based operation conducts itself, who they sell steel to, when they shut down, at what cost they produce, all of this stuff. And this trend of of you just got to call it state capitalism, that's what it is, is very distasteful to people in the west. But it's crept in and I think a part of a trajectory that's not going anywhere. Um and explains a lot, right? I think this explains a lot whether it's um capital being directly allocated to US companies. This is kind of the China model, this, you know, private public partnership and we're going to not just provide tax incentives and subsidies. we're going to directly own key industries and companies to make sure that we're moving at the pace that we want them to. But in addition, it it I think explains a lot about the conquest in Ukraine, the conquest in Venezuela, is that there's a new sense of urgency to retain secure supply of these critical metals that we used to be able to buy from anybody during the last 40 years. If you have the cash or the credit era of globalization, buy whatever you want from whoever had it. That era is definitely over. And so everyone's gonna act differently now, especially the powerful countries. And it provides a lot of clarity. I don't know if you find this, Glenn, but I I find a lot of clarity when I view these complex issues through the lens of simple supply and demand. It's like really that's often what it comes down to. Who's got what, who wants what, and that'll tell you a lot about what's happening beneath the surface. >> No, I agree. And I think one of the key reasons why again you mentioned all this United States all the government going to take ownership in tech companies and all this is this is almost science fiction 20 years ago but but this is what they're doing but there's a reason by behind this because uh the United States can't compete with China to the same extent it did in the past and uh and it's worth I often like going back to the to the American system because the way the United States spoke book when Britain was the dominant economy towards the end of the 18th century, beginning of the 19th century, many of the Americans were talking about, you know, free trade empire because once you had free trade, this would facilitate the British Empire because if the British had the dominant technologies and industries, uh, in a free trade system, you would have then the British would be able to saturate markets around the world and prevent the industrialization of others. Again, this was a key objective because if you then uh have a British uh industries which have which are high-tech and low cost and they compete with the American ones which were low quality and high cost then of course the the British will take over all markets. So the Americans said we don't want free trade, we want fair trade. uh which means we have to also industrialize as a condition for political sovereignty. Otherwise, yeah, we might have won our independence but we will become economically dependent on on the on the British. Well, once the American became dominant, then they embraced the same policies. They say, well, of course, free trade is good because now they will all use American industries, American tech, uh the incentives to use their currency, banks, uh yeah, transportation corridors under control of the US Navy. So um but but what happens it's also a question what happens when the the concentration of economic power in the United States begins to dwindle. Many people have discussed this especially in academia since the late '7s 1980s and one would then assume that what happened what would happen is what's happening now. the US wouldn't want to wouldn't feel so comfortable anymore about with free trade because let's say now China has uh has the you know the most mature industries that is it has the highquality lowcost ones if you have a completely open market field well the whole world would begin to embrace uh Chinese technologies Chinese products so this is not ideal so what happens then to the former hedgemon it would begin to suspend its for former ideology about the glorious and mutual benefit of free trade and would begin to embrace a much more of a a neocc mercantalist form sorry economic policy in which it seeks to carve out the exclusive economic zones uh and uh yeah engage well in what you see now piracy you know cutting off access to banks stealing sovereign funds of other countries I mean this kind of behavior so to a large extent this this has been predicted already that this would happen. So um no but it's um yeah no it's it I I it just if if people diagnose it properly at least one can start to look for how to stabilize this because it's not going anywhere pretty I think over the next uh few years because the idea that the the Russians Chinese and other centers of power is just going to stand idly by while the while uh yeah this more forceful capitalism state capitalism uh takes place I think it's delusional And it's also been fueled in the 1990s in the uniolar moment. You know, we could do anything we want. We can sanction other countries. They can't sanction us. We can do corion. We can hijack ships. We can do all these things. They can't do the same back to us. Well, uh I I think a lot of this is going to change. Look at how the how surprised Europeans were after the the Dutch seized the next from the Chinese and then the Chinese suddenly put some sanctions on the the the Dutch. It's which threatened the car industry in Europe. They're they're outraged. How how dare they? This is, you know, when we do economic sanctions, it's it's out of virtue. You know, it's about defensive requirements is for democracy, all of this nonsense. But China's not allowed to do it. So the whole Yeah, there's a hard there's no one accepting that the world has moved on, that the distribution of power is completely different. One region that we haven't talked about yet is very close to where you are. So, we've covered the Caribbean and you know, we didn't talk about the South China Sea today, but I I want to cover the Arctic and get your thoughts on what people should maybe be paying attention to in the Arctic. And I think about, you know, Canada's north is one of the most minerally endowed locations in the world between the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, none of it. massive amounts of resource wealth and you know many companies that that I work with are exploring and producing minerals up in that region. It's Canada's got the largest coastline in the world. It's largely undefended. In most of the history, it hasn't mattered because the Arctic's been too frozen to really uh facilitate much threat. But that's changing, right? We've got the Northwest Passage where trade has occurred. But now there's the northern sea route which is closer to Russia that is melting and ships are able to get through an increasing number every year. Um there was a lot of initial sort of commentary around this when President Trump was first elected his second term. He talked about annexing Greenland, annexing Canada. And my thought was it's all about the North. It's all about the north because you know Canada has not built much defense competency um you know around uh such a such a wealthy region but Prime Minister Mark Carney has now promised a 5x increase in defense spending. A lot of that cash will be allocated to the northern coast. And I've seen a lot of companies already begin to emerge, defense tech companies that are either building proprietary surveillance and software systems for the north or just planning on white labeling American tech and bringing it to the northern coastline to tap into that new government budget. Um, are you watching the Arctic, Glenn? What are you paying attention to? What matters at this point? What's changed today versus, you know, five or 10 years ago that is significant? Oh, well, I interpreted Trump uh Trump's early months in the same way. That is uh he wants to annex Greenland. He wants to well annex Canada. Uh he kept obsessing about how many ice breakers the Russians have to operate the northern seaw route while uh America doesn't have this capabilities or any of its allies. Uh well, a lot of things have changed and it preceded Trump. Again, Trump is, I think, a symptom uh with some very unique characteristics. But nonetheless, uh as you suggested in the past, um the Arctic was largely exempted from geopolitics, at least the most vicious part of it because it was a frozen desert. Not that many serrum competing interests. uh um you know again in in the Arctic Council as well it's been kind of unique because you have Russia and all these other western countries but they were still able to cooperate and work. So if you if I when I go visit uh well in this country for example Arctic University up in the north they have you know good relations with Russia they always have this good human to human contacts again all all the stuff they're working on can have a very strong positive sum uh purpose but what's happened over the past few years as you said said the the much of the Arctic is becoming more accessible which means uh both extraction of natural resources but also as transportation. Now, this northern sea route that is the the roof of SCA of Eurasia, if you will, it's um it offers a much faster and cheaper uh connection route between Europe and East Asia. So, and also it's it's one of the few, if not the only maritime route which is not under the control of the United States, >> but it's um but again, if you're going to sail through there, you need you will have to go through some of the Russian waterways and also no other countries have the ability to to to well to navigate along this line. So, the the Russians will will be able to have the infrastructure, they will have the search and rescue, they will have everything. So, so this is u yeah geography essentially hands over this important region to to the the Russians and uh in the past the Russians wanted to develop the Arctic with the western powers but this all ended in 2014 when the NATO countries toppled the government in Ukraine and essentially began converting it into a front line from day one. So, so now they're working with China and uh I think the first white paper for China in 2018 uh it referred to the Arctic as the polar silk road. So they already conceptually integrated it into this new silk road. Uh the Russians are also seeking cooperation with India and other countries as well up in the Arctic. they already connect the connection between the Chennai port of India and Vladivasto in Russia is already being integrated into this new Arctic roots. So it will be quite important and as you said just like the Canadian Arctic, the Russian Arctic is incredibly wealthy in resources. So um so now the main partner for Russia and the Arctic will not be the West, it will be China. uh and uh China yeah in some creative geographical lingo refer to themselves as a near Arctic state and uh which is fair enough and uh but they're being invited by Russia which is the largest Arctic state. So it you know irrespective of how they frame it they they can be there as well. So, uh, so no, I think the Arctic is going to be is going from one of the places where there was no rivalry to one of the possibly greatest hot spots we have. And, uh, you also see the Americans preparing Europe for this. That is, uh, for the past centuries, uh, if you wanted to contain Russia, you had to cut off its main three seas on its western borders, which was the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Arctic. Uh, NATO has been doing this for the past 30 years now. there hasn't been well it's not a big secret that the efforts to pull Ukraine into the NATO orbit was to a large extent to cut off Russia from the Black Sea. Uh you have now with NATO expansion taking over Finland and not taking over uh absorbing Finland and Sweden. Uh we see now that the former NATO secretary general said that yeah the Baltic Sea is now a NATO lake. We can even put a blockade on St. Petersburg if we have to. the poles, the Baltic states also refer to the Baltic Sea as a NATO lake. Uh so and then of course in the Arctic where the Scandinavian countries are now hosting more and more American troops. They especially with Finland and Sweden and NATO and the Norway which didn't used to accept foreign troops on its soil. Well, this is all over. So the Arctic can also become well we're making ourselves into front line in the Arctic. So, so it's uh no a lot of things are happening there and uh it wouldn't surprise me if that would be one of the bigger hot spots in the years to come. I want to put a pin in that because it was maybe uh one year ago that I was I was we were in Indonesia, my family and I had our mutual friend Pascal Lo on the show and we were running through the various sort of flash points around the world. We spent a lot of time talking about the South China Sea, a lot of time talking about the straight of Hormuz, um the Sahal region across Africa where we saw this like just series of coups uh for three or four years straight. And then we touched on the Caribbean and you know our our where we left it was there's nothing happening there, but it seems like something might, right? There's a lot of tension building up. This is about one year ago and obviously we've seen how that's developed and I feel like the Arctic is a place people should keep a close eye on for all the reasons you just discussed for how much value is up for grabs up there and therefore needs to be defended or secured and in addition how little people understand the region because it's been offline for my entire life. This is this has been a part of the world that's been not navigable and now it is increasingly and there's new interest moving in seemingly monthly. Notwithstanding, people don't understand it so much because it's just hard to picture. I mean, you go to Google Maps, scroll up to the top, the map just stops. You can't really get a bird's eye view of what the top of the world looks like on the most common mapping platform that everybody uses. And so, of course, there's a bit of misunderstanding about how the navigation functions up there. go to Google Earth, flip it, have a look at the top. But that's what we're talking about is now navigating over the top of the world, and that's what shortens trade routes, makes trade a lot more affordable and accessible for Russia via the northern seaw route. Um, but there's a lot of reasons that has been off the radar, and suddenly it's not and um a place to watch for sure. But it's interesting to also put in a in the historical context if you want to see the rise of the west for the pastor or dominance or leadership for the past 500 years a lot of it began when um the ancient silk road broke down and from the beginning of the the 16 well let's say well from the 1500s uh beginning of the 16th century sorry the the western uh all the European maritime powers began to reconnect connect the world and this kind of became a source for dominance. Uh but uh what was interesting is they also tried to connect uh the world through the Arctic and this is why if you look at um where in in the north where the Europe Europe meets Russia the the Baron Sea this is named after William Barren who uh in the late 16th century so yeah what is it 430 years ago uh they yeah he um he tried to search for a northern passage from Europe to Asia and uh and they they essentially got uh stranded. I think it was on Nova Assembly somewhere around uh that area and they all died. So it didn't uh it didn't work. They didn't they didn't get there. But that's why we call it now the Baron Sea. The sea between Yeah. which is now split a bit between the Norwegians and the Russians. And this is uh Yeah. This is why it's it kind of fits into the it was a missing piece I guess from from that era of the era of exploration when the Europeans uh began to control the world and uh so again this was supposed to be developed with the Europeans and this is one of the consequence of the Ukraine war that is that relationship is now broken up. Russia shifted from this greater Europe ambition since Gordos come European home and now pursuing greater Eurasia. because now the Arctic will be developed by countries in the east and uh so it it's it's very symbolic I think of uh of how world history is uh is changing. Um but yeah anyways uh just a quick detour there. >> Yeah. Well, it's it's an interesting part of history, right? And that sort of age of expiration at the beginning of the 16th century that you mentioned was sort of a consequence of of trade restrictions, right? It was the Ottoman Empire putting massive tariffs on Europeans access to the spice islands in Southeast Asia and uh as a result of being cut off from the most important industrial inputs. I mean spices today we think of like what could the value of cinnamon really be? But back then it was actually incredibly valuable. Black pepper, mace, cumin, uh incredibly valuable on a perate basis and not just used to spice foods but for medicines and perfumes and a bunch of use cases. And that is what spawned the maritime age was that the Europeans had to find another route to get to that natural resource and they did. And um I I didn't I'm not as familiar with their pursuits in the Arctic during that time. I want to look into that. That's really interesting. Um Glenn, I I always appreciate chatting with you. It's incredibly enlightening and thank you so much for making the time to come back on the program. Uh, I'm going to I'm going to be watching the Arctic very closely and you know I have my annual conference in Vancouver in January. We've got the former minister of defense from Canada coming to sit down for an hour and just unpack what he's watching up there and why because a lot's changed since he was in power uh in the Canadian government and he's got some very strong thoughts on that. We've got a whole showcase of companies that have resources up in the Arctic through the Yukon. none of it. Uh, Northwest Territories, some of the premers from these territories coming to join us at the conference to unpack this region a little bit and understand it better because it's resources, its wealth, uh, its government policy, all shifting very quickly to impact how that region is going to look over the next 10 years. I'm glad we got to that today. Um, I encourage everybody to check out uh, your YouTube channel, Glenn, and you you're publishing like almost daily now, if not are you publishing daily on your channel? Uh yeah, about one one show every day. So uh >> yeah, >> that's a huge lift. Congrats. Congrats on the growth of the platform. I love your content. And anybody who's interested in this kind of stuff, like check out Glenn's channel, tune in. Um amazing content and amazing caliber of guests that you bring onto your show. Um and often people that are off my radar, I find them through you. So I I appreciate that. Um thanks again, Glenn. It's been a pleasure. Oh, >> thank you.