Curious Worldview

Tim Marshall | 'Despite It All... We Remain Prisoners Of Geography'

• Ryan Faulkner • Episode 230

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Tim Marshall is back for a fourth time. We've now done a show for every book: Prisoners of Geography, The Power of Geography and The Future of Geography. Now the book that started a whole genre has turned 10 years, and Tim has gone back and rewritten the entire thing.

So the question writes itself: how do you update a guide to how geography explains the world when the geography itself hasn't moved? Tim's answer is that we remain prisoners of it but the case is nuanced, he is quick to deny geographic determinism.

In this episode we go region by region, the Strait of Hormuz and pipelines through Oman's mountains, China's escape from its "Malacca Dilemma," Europe's reckoning as America pivots to Asia. The surprise thread is Venezuela, which Tim argues is about Cuba, semiconductors and squeezing China out of Latin America far more than oil. From there: the global populist wave, and his sharpest reframing of the hour arguing that multi-ethnicity was never the problem; badly-done multiculturalism is.

We close on the Indo-Pacific as the new centre of the world, on Taiwan and on what it all means for little old Australia — AUKUS, Pine Gap, and Tim's blunt verdict that we matter more to American strategy than even the UK.

If this is your first geography episode, start where it began with Tim's very first appearance back in 2021 — or sit it alongside Robert Kaplan on a world in permanent crisis, Sam Roggeveen on the Echidna Strategy, and Robyn Davidson, whom I quote here on Modi's India. The 10th anniversary edition of Prisoners of Geography is out now.

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SPEAKER_02

It is my pleasure to welcome back Tim Marshall for the fourth time to this podcast. You first appeared in episode 11, which was early 2021. And you were, Tim, the first sort of big author who had given me the time of day. And honestly, it did a lot for me in creating early momentum for the show. Early 2021 podcasting landscape was different to what it is now. If you can get some big names, then you can draw some attention. So it justified the continuance of the podcast in a sense and definitely gave me authority to keep asking for bigger and bigger guests. So just wanted to take a moment to thank you for that up front.

SPEAKER_03

Good to know and happy to have helped.

SPEAKER_02

Tim is a journalist, an author, an international cricketer, and wrote a huge bestseller, which became a series first published in 2015 titled Prisoners of Geography. That was followed up by The Power of Geography and then the Future of Geography. I've been fortunate enough to interview Tim for each book, each time they came out. And it continues now, as is available, the 10th year anniversary of Prisoners of Geography, which was published this year. And why publish a 10-year update? If you think about the world and how it has changed since 2016, this is me just off the dome before I got onto this podcast thinking about one of the big things. There is multiple wars, significant wars, catastrophic US politics, which endures and erodes their culture. AI, one of the biggest technological revolutions of history, certainly of our lifetimes, the continued projection of China's greatness, new NATO allies, sanctions everywhere you look, religious wars significantly uh worsening wealth inequality and divides. COVID and list goes on, but underneath it all, the very same geography. So, how does one update a guide for how geography explains the world when the geography itself hasn't changed? Today I wanted Tim to run us through a few select regions to explain his thinking. And I wanted to start with this question to frame the rest of the interview. One of the core claims in the geography series of books is that geography determines almost everything. It affects culture, economy, communications, history. But does technology still lose to raw terrain, given today in 2026, how globalized our trade is, our finance is, our technology is, there is Starlink satellites, there is satellite data centers, there is globalized shipping routes, leaks of drones, totally decentralized communications. Yes, there's still the question of undersea cables, there is the question of where the raw materials come from, who has the energy, who has the ability to harness it, and then who can claim ownership over the final product. But I wanted to start by asking you if you'd still defend that geography is the dominant force in determining a nation's outcomes.

SPEAKER_03

Short answer is in three words, straight aforemost, but the longer answer. Um yes, it always has. By the way, I I argue that geography is one of the main determining factors. You know, I'm not a geographic determinist. It's it's one, it's it's certainly uh among the most important. And if you don't include it in when you're looking at situations, you're just missing a huge part of the picture. So Strait of Hormuz, obviously, is is a is a good example, but we all know that. But widen it out. Because of the Strait of Hormuz crisis, the Gulf states are already looking at geography. Where can we build pipelines? And a lot of them are looking because the shortest route across from the Gulf States by land would be to go through Oman. Well, the terrain of Oman is very rugged, lots of mountains, hellishly hard to get through. So, you know, that's geography. The Chinese who had read the future in so many ways 20 years ahead of us were very aware of what Hu Hu Xintao in 2003, the pr then president of China, called the China's Malacca Dilemma, the Strait of Malacca, where if it was blockaded, they're screwed. And that's one of the reasons they started building land corridors across the top of China and then doing a sharp right turn, left turn, down through Myanmar, where they've built highways and a port to bring them out into the Andaman Sea, and then further across through the Caracon Highway, sharp left turn down through Pakistan and to the port of Guadar, straight out into the Indian Ocean. So geography is always important, and you mentioned, you know, the effect of technology on it. All that does is change which bits of geography are important. I don't care where the coal is so much. I still care where the oil and gas is, but I really also care where the lithium is, which is shorthand for all the other metals. So it's simply that geography is always important. You mentioned space and satellites. I mean, there's a whole geography to that as well. So uh I stand by that we are we remain prisoners of geography. But the concept, concept, Ryan, is not that the prison, you can't do anything because you're in a prison. It's just that the prison is what you can and can't do, is within the framework of geography.

SPEAKER_02

You took us to the Strait of Hamoos, that's certainly top three, maybe the most disrupted region since 2016-2015, when you published Prisoners. Take us east to west. What informed your updated chapter?

SPEAKER_03

Well, what what I did was rewrite the whole book. I mean, um a lot of it is is still the same. It's probably about a quarter thicker, actually, to get in all the extra stuff and to try to weave in the big themes. So, although, yeah, e each chapter has, you know, here's of major events or themes that happened within that chapter, that area. But it it's it was more to take in directions of travel globally. And I think one of the biggest things is and also I I probably underplayed one or two things and maybe overplayed one or two things originally. So I could course correct. But it's the Russia's a good one. Very in fact, it's probably the best one. Um where you're overplayed? Yeah. No, h hell no, hardly. But where Russia, I mean where Russia fits into where we are right now, and you mentioned Trump and American foreign policy, is in the following way. The American policy vis-a-vis Russia was has been to a great extent predicated on the fact that the Americans come to Europe when they see a potential threat to ward it off. The Americans don't want one major power rising on the continent because uh it could then challenge them if it dominated the whole of Europe, looks across the Atlantic. Hence, uh 1917 they came, uh 1944 they came, and then because of the Soviets they stayed. And then they stayed on partly in a reflex action, and then when they realized when the MAGA crowd that were preparing to come into power, when they realized that the Russians can't even take Kyiv at the moment, they're hardly a threat to the continent. At which case, given that the world has moved on and the center of the world is where you are, the Indo-Pacific, why do they care? So it fits into and this last ten years I think has really shown us as the Americans are accelerating to that pivot to Asia, which started under Obama. So if you've got time for an even longer answer, I can fast forward to Latin America and Venezuela.

SPEAKER_02

No, go as verbose as you like, but my question was specifically uh east to west of the Middle East since you took us to the Strait of Hamous. I do f do beg your pardon.

SPEAKER_03

Well, um it's it's Europe and the shock that Europe has had because of Ukraine. And the knock-on effect then, as I explained about the Americans thinking we're not that bothered anymore, you better sort yourselves out. The impact on our politics in Europe is massive. And and the defense budgets, which we're now having massive rows about, Germany actually is putting up a lot of money. The polls, the bolts, the closer you get to Russia, the more money is being spent. My own country is uh smoke and mirrors and is pretending to rearm, but isn't really uh or there are there are broader issues at play in your own country. It won't confront the blindingly obvious. So there's that. Turkey, I think 10, 11 years ago, was hovering between what direction to go, as in even maybe out of a NATO, and that has come back. They they've come back into uh being a proper member of NATO. Greenland, I mean I'm now going all up so far west, I'm gonna come round again. But Greenland, yeah, I never I didn't see that coming. But again, this again is to do with Russia and the Americans, and if we can come to Venezuela, what happened in Venezuela? Because I can tie it all to what we've just been talking about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_03

Thanks. It's a way of avoiding your questions. Venezuela fits perfectly into this new time. The fact that the Americans recognised the centre of the world is Indo-Pacific, that their main challenger is China, that Europe has gone down the list of priorities for them. So when they've internalized that and when they've seen they don't really care about Russia and the massive pressure that comes on the Europeans to take care of your own area. So where Venezuela fits into this is that when they invited Maduro to accompany them for a holiday in New York in when is it January the 3rd, I think it was, everyone said it's about the oil. And that's not true. It's partly about the oil, not entirely for the reasons everyone thought, which is just we get control on profit of Venezuela's oil. It's about a lot more than that. Firstly, it's about Cuba, and not a single Venezuelan oil shipment has gone to Cuba since then, which is what, five months now, and that's why Cuba might fall this year. And Cuba guards the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, and in and out of the Gulf of Mexico US ports come 40% of its imports and exports. They will never accept a hostile government being in control of Cuba. And one way of getting to Cuba was via the operation in Venezuela. It was also to kick Hezbollah and Iran out of Venezuela. But the biggest thing was probably uh bauxite. There's a big bauxite industry in Venezuela, and one of the byproducts of it and aluminium is some of the metals that go into the super semiconductors. Now, if the Chinese, Russians, and Irans are all over Venezuela, and the Americans have realized long time after China that they really need to control, not only control their supply of these metals, but to deny them to their competitors, then Venezuela's a good place to start. So what they've done with the change of regime behavior, not regime change, is to begin to try to get control of these metals and to put China on notice, we are going to try and squeeze you out, but not just of Venezuela, which is easily done now, but the whole of Latin America. Now they obviously they can't get rid of them, but they can reduce their influence in their own backyard. And lastly, on this long answer, forgive me, I mentioned at the very beginning about the Americans only coming to Europe when they see a threat to themselves. George Washington's Farewell Address told the Americans, don't involve yourself in Amer in Europe. And that's normal for the Americans. The last 50, 60 years has been abnormal. So from 1776 to 1917, they're not here. Then they're here for one year, then they go away, then they come back in 1944, then they have to stay because of this reasons we've explained. And now they don't they they say we don't need to be here, you guys have got to sort it out. Uh while they focus on what they care about. So we're actually reverting to normal. And it was those sort of big thoughts that I was trying to weave into the 10th anniversary book.

SPEAKER_02

Is it is it the most significant geopolitical shift you've lived through, maybe since the fall of Berlin Wall? The last two years?

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I I I think it starts you know, we we we like convenient dates. And so we could say this starts on the Russian invasion, uh, the big invasion of Ukraine in the early twenties. Or if you prefer, you could have the inauguration of Trump last year, where because it's a nice, neat date. But of course, both of those things actually fall into the pattern of underlying currents that that push events. But yeah, I I I would say it's it's yeah, since the fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union, I think only 9-11 and the ramifications of 9-11 are up there with what is going on now. And I argue that we are in the foothills of a new era. Uh the previous era actually didn't last that long, only 30, 40 years, and that was from the fall of communism to where we are now. You know, the post-Cold War era, I think, is finished. Went into a new era, doesn't have a name, and it's new era when they're being built, the architecture, and it's always confusing and messy.

SPEAKER_02

Is it more explicable via the types of leaders that are running the various political parties around the world, and it's just their attitudes and energies sort of reflected into their policy? Or is it more the the increasingly globalized nature of finance and production?

SPEAKER_03

Well, it's all those things, and and Ryan, you you go back to what you well know is a classic debating point about how much do leaders matter. And there are people that say they don't matter at all because it's only things such as geography that determine everything. But you know, whereas I'm a bit wishy-washy because I think they all play a role. So of course the personality of Trump plays a role, as it does indeed of President Who, who has his own. I mean, I I love it when those two together together. You know, Trump's just mouthing off, waving his arms around, getting excited, and President is just sort of going.

SPEAKER_01

You're talking about She.

SPEAKER_03

She, sorry. Okay, yeah. He's got this fantastic, inscrutable, stoic face, and every now and again you just sort of looks at Trump like that. You just see these two personalities there. Sorry, to try to come to your your your your question. Uh although I do think the leaders and their personalities matter, I also do buy the argument. They are there because of the bigger underlying forces. So, for example, if it wasn't for globalization and what has happened to American uh domestic companies saying the steel industry, because of globalization gets undermined by Chinese steel flooding the market, or if it wasn't for the mass movement of people, the migration from the whole of Latin America up towards the border, if those things weren't happening, I don't think you'd get Trump. So, you know, he's both uh he's a he's he's one of the symptoms and the causes of the underlying things. So it is these big tectonic plates that move, then push events and politics, and then you see rising through the personalities which reflect the age. I don't think it's the other way around.

SPEAKER_02

And then maybe that's an easy argument to swallow as well, because there isn't just the one data point of the United States, but there is multiple data points around the world of Trump-ish like figures coming into the fore. I'm sure you're well across Australian domestic politics, but there is a party here called One Nation led by a woman called Pauline Hansen, and you know, she's uh long time back. She's your carbon copy, Farage Le Pen, Trump populist, with significantly less charm. And the point of me saying that is actually she is now the closest party contender to our liberal labor two-party system, uh, at least in my lifetime, that there's been.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and and you know, you see in Viktor Orban, who's in Hungary, who's actually just been ousted, but his replacement is actually another right-wing populist. It's just one that has said, I'm not going to be the corrupt the way this fellow is, and I'm not going to be supposed to Russia. Yeah, and you mentioned Farage. We actually have a party coming up to the right of Farage. Now, our what we call our, I mean, it depends how you define them, our extreme right-wing vote was always under 0.5%. These guys, and they call the restore, and they're to the right of reform. In the local by-election we're having next week, they're polling at 7%. Now, they wouldn't do that nationally, but they are well, well to the right of reform, and this is something new. And we see this reflected across Europe, and again, this is all because of the underlying trends of the Europeans no longer being as rich and therefore not being able to have the societies which we built and paid for on the welfare. It's the rapid influx of migrants at a pace and a scale which isn't I don't think it's been seen before in history. And and it is pushing our politics and what is regarded as extreme politics, left and right, are growing throughout the continent. And again, you know, and it's reflected it uh, as you say, with m Mrs. Hansen, uh in in in your country, and um it's global. India, Modi, you could make uh similar without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, I interviewed a woman called Robin Davidson, uh, who authored tracks back in the late 80s.

SPEAKER_02

She spent the last 20 years living in India and did not she has her own political bias, obviously, but mens, was she disastrous in her condemnation of Modi and his party, who I forget the name of it now, P something.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, he's a Hindu, he's a Hindu now.

SPEAKER_03

I didn't realize he was so Yeah, and I tell you that tiger is biting some of the minorities. Just to uh not reassure you, uh listeners and viewers, um, I'm not a sort of classic liberal. Uh I I am liberal in my worldview, my politics, social liberal, but I actually do have a lot of sympathy for various populations that are uneasy about the pace scale of mass migration. And it's not because I don't think that we don't need migrants, we absolutely do. Uh, you know, and I I welcome them, but it's the ones that we want and need. And that's not what the populations are getting. And the large numbers of them become very anxious when they see their lives changing so rapidly and everything around them changing so rapidly. And the vast majority of them wouldn't dream of being violent about this, but they do feel, and I feel this strongly, that their politicians have simply, well, for years and years insulted them and not listened to them. Now, they've woken up the last two or three years, the politicians, they've realized they can't get away with sneering vast swathes of their own populations. So they've stopped sneering. I'm not sure they're still listening. And, you know, I don't know, you've probably seen the news of what's happened in Northern Ireland in the last couple of days in Belfast, allegedly. It's a court case from a migrant who arrived legally, by the way. And it's just just gone into t awful riots with with ethnics and ethnic minorities being targeted, their houses being burnt, cars being burnt, attacked. I mean, it's it's disgraceful, it's disgusting. And I blame each individual that uh uh uh and I hope they're caught and locked up. But the politicians, and it's not just about the UK, it's the same in France and elsewhere. The politicians also bear some of this blame for years and years and years of not listening to people, and when they feel they're not being listened to or taken any notice, it escalates. So I actually also blame the top of the media, the top of the politics, and the top intellectuals.

SPEAKER_02

But uh a an observation I have over that is that on your small island and the great land of America, there island in the world. Just because it's smaller than yours, Ryan. Look, I don't want to compare islands. But if you look at uh the proximity and rather, better way to explain it, just this the supply of immigrant labor, right, has exceeded the demand culturally, but met the demand economically. This is on your island and this is in America. But interestingly enough, is like the same policy talking points in Australia get the same play, despite the fact that we have a completely unrecognizable immigration system compared to the UK and compared to the US.

SPEAKER_03

And so, I mean, we're getting away from the prisoners of geography argument here, but it's just like well, if if semographics, it's human geography and and and the routes taken and all the rest of it, but do carry on, sorry.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I just the when I try to make sense of how actually does this individual person in the media or in politics get just so much attention and and manage so successfully to win the hearts and minds of various individuals. I I think what who does the economy serve the people, or do the people serve the economy? And the problem of seeing your same job that you had for the longest period of time, now you're not competing with the the 20 million inhabitants of London. You're competing with the 400 million inhabitants of Europe because your job is in front of a computer, and now there's these EOR companies that can just aqua hire people in different markets. I'm employed by that at the moment. And so you struggle more to find some type of meaning in the thing you spend half your life doing. You don't get paid anymore, and you start to grow very, very resentful about maybe yourself, but maybe you can't admit it. And it's projected over into the public about this is the this is not the place that was recognizable to me growing up, nor have I heard all these fables of. There's so much sentimental value in a lot of underneath a lot of populism. And it's not something that we're going to necessarily be able to solve, but I just feel like it's a it's never really a well-articulated explanation for why these things are happening. And it becomes so simplistic.

SPEAKER_03

You talk about human nature, uh, at its almost primal, this has always been true. We've always valued community and culture. And again, people feel that their communities and their cultures uh are not r not respected. Um, and and so they they get resentful. Uh this country, my own, has actually done a reasonably good job of trying to build a multi-ethnic country. And I don't think the issue is multi-ethnicity. I think people can get on quite well. Multiculturalism is a real challenge because then what you've got then are different communities with not that much sometimes in common with each other, and then there are there are tensions, and we promoted vigorously multiculturalism, and what it's resulted in is is entire areas of one culture and entire areas of another culture because as I said, multi-ethnicity is not the problem, it's multiculturalism, and and we've we've been trying so hard to try to make it work, and I'm not convinced we've done as as well as w we could do in the integration stakes. You have to build a cohesive society that has enough glues that sticks everybody together. But if you promote in the wrong way multiculturalism, you actually put walls up between the different bits of glue that can stick us together. And that's something we're gonna have to work on really hard because it's here to stay, you know, and it can be successful, but I don't think it has been.

SPEAKER_02

That's a really nice reframing of it, actually, because I'm a couple years younger than you, but growing up, we were always told about one of the best parts of Australia is its multiculturalism. And I just sort of I mean look, I I know that's the thing. I know what they're trying to say. The thing is, I don't I know that, but does everyone have the same why? I don't because maybe it's just understanding the literal definition of multiculturalism. What they were really saying is Australians of a bunch of different colours and stripes. That's that's the implication of multiculturalism, at least as I understand sort of growing up, you know. Like we have a multi-uh cultural cricket team because we have and a bunch of English people and a bunch of Indian people and Bangladeshi people, but everyone's very Australian, believe me. You know, and that's multi-ethnicism, not multiculturalism. It's quite interesting, yeah. It's a great reframing. I've never uh heard it said that way before.

SPEAKER_03

Christopher Hitchens had this again, we're it's my fault we're getting off the geography subject, but you know, it's such a sensitive subject, and it has to be talked about in a really delicate manner. But uh but I think one way of hopefully trying to persuade people that would be uncomfortable with this is that if you do start by framing it, that multi-ethnicity is not the problem, you know, just go back throughout history, time immemorial, cultures have clashed and people have struggled to not be suspicious of the other. It's quite deeply ingrained in us, and we and I think that to accentuate uh the others and try to create these uh almost ghettos of culture Well no, you're not they're not trying to create the ghettos, they are creating them by assuming that the the that the cultures will just meld when often they won't. You have if you want a cohesive society at ease with itself, you have to build not homogeneity, but real respect and openness and tolerance and accountability. You have to mix it together, you have to blend it, but we haven't blended enough. We've put silos in. Sorry, um, I'll talk about geography now if you want. Longest rift.

SPEAKER_02

No, this I I think when people saw Tim Marshall in the episode, this is exactly what they wanted to hear about. So I'm happy that we're giving them what they wanted. Anyway, carry on. I mean, I'm not gonna move away from the subject just yet because something which is a it's a hobby horse of mine, obviously I make zero dent in the uh national international argument around this, but it's just how utterly devastating social media has on our culture. Now, if you look at Meta and if you look at YouTube, the arm of alphabet, um these are among the top five companies globally, and the product that they serve is a free line of code. The revenue they generate is advertising, it's all it is. I just think it's it's it's the most disgusting thing ever. And it is without it, I think actually a lot of this distribution of so many narratives that someone who doesn't have the time or care to really think about it deeply will swallow whole. Yeah. This example stays with me so much. In Sweden, uh, they uh their population increased by a million over a 20-year period, and a tiny percentage of that was population growth.

SPEAKER_03

Uh one in four people in Sweden were not born in Sweden. Yeah, yeah. And there was this I can rant about that for a forever.

SPEAKER_02

There was this story there, uh, which was just so devastating to the Muslim community, if you can you know, throw an umbrella over the entire Muslim community. There are many different ones, but yeah. But basically, there was a fake, complete fake news story about how in a childcare center the Muslim kids were being taken away and re-educated into a white school, and then the parents never got to see them again. And it just it it lit fire through the Islamic world. Everyone heard about it. So much resentment towards Sweden, and therefore all these other people who are living in this society trying to figure out what's going on are being served at as well. And it's confirmation. See, they don't like us, they don't want us here. Well, fuck them. You know, we're not even gonna try to speak Swedish or have anything to do with them. We'll live here, they'll live over there, and it's it just has devastating consequences the whole way down. Driving point there is just how despicable I think meta is getting it.

SPEAKER_03

And it's come at the same time as all uh as all these other issues, and and yet it completely amplifies them. You know, we we have similar examples that have happened over here. I I've been arguing for more than ten years now that we need to that we need more regulation. And I'm not a big government kind of person, but if we regulate our newspapers and you cannot put on your front page, tomorrow at nine o'clock, ethnic group X must be killed. Which of course you can't. One of the ways that a Rwanda massacre happens, the radio stations broadcast at this time go and attack your neighbour. Of course we have laws against that. You can call it censorship if you want, or you can call it common sense. Uh Ditto on our airwaves, um, radio and TV. And yet we allowed this new form of communication to be fairly unregulated, especially uh on issues like that. And I just think we have to start regulating it. We we are beginning, the government is looking at trying to ban under eighteens or under 16s from being able to access nude images. I mean, well, you've seen in Australia, everyone's going to get round it, but we are thinking about it. But we should have been thinking about it ten years ago. Social media has absolutely amplified the extremes, allows them, because you get lots of clicks and that's what they care about. Yeah, that and I think a lot of people were fooled in the early days of things like Facebook, that um, because Zuckerberg's a great example. He oh, he's got a t-shirt on. He's not one of these nasty, rapacious capitalists. He's got a t-shirt on, he's quite cool. No, he's a nasty, he's a rapacious capitalist. Come on. So we we're years behind, and we need to regulate, and we need to, if you want to call it censor censorship. And I'm guilty of it, you know, confirmation bias. It you really have to try to read stuff which disagrees with you. When you just get that warm glow when you read stuff that you already agree with. Um, the last bit of the rant. We've got to start teaching children at an early age how to read media, how to read social media, where everything fits together, where stuff is coming from. Encourage people to think, well, who's writing that? What's behind it, to understand the algorithm, to understand how the brain works and how when you're getting I mean, doom scrolling, you know, it's dopamine for it, it's it it it feeds you. It's like it's it's sugar. One of the reasons we love gorging on crisps and sweets and ice cream is because 50,000 years ago, if you came across a tree that were full of fruit and you haven't eaten for two days, you just ate the bloody lot. You know, and we have it's only 50,000 years ago, it's still there, and that's where we are with um with social media.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. No, it's a hobby also mine that I could beat to death, but I would rather not with the final 20 minutes. So you mentioned much earlier on, you referenced towards my part of the world and said that the Indo-Pacific is the new center of the world. How can it not be America with the AI in San Francisco and Trump still holding the biggest weapons in the world?

SPEAKER_03

Well, they're in the Indo, I would admittedly it's you know, it's over there. But yeah, you know, the Pacific Coast, the Tech Bros, California, Seattle, all the rest of it.

SPEAKER_02

There's quite a broad bow there.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, but that that's the centre of the map. And I would put it all but it's the center of the world because um because of Chinese power, although they are still behind the Americans and they may stay there. Um but the you know the I don't know if you've seen it, you can draw a circle or or a square, and if you start it just to the left of India, go across the top, put in China, come down, past Indonesia, and then join it up again to India. More people live in that square of the map than in the rest of the map. That's one of the reasons why it's the center of the world. Economic purchasing power, but when you look at places like Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, India, etc. Manufacturing, without question, centre of the world. Shipping lanes, military activity, diplomatic activity. So that's the center of the world. Now, yes, the Americans are still the most powerful nation, both in tech, diplomacy and military, yes. But I just I think that's why America is trying to maintain as much dominance as it can over that square. Because if they lose it, and if they lose, for example, Taiwan, then they start to lose that half of the Pacific and they they're back to where they were, which is um Hawaii.

SPEAKER_02

Are you assuming too much game theory and strategy from the Americans? Because my my my my read of it is is quite literally this individual has exerted more unchecked power than anyone in his country has since in modern history, and it is reaping devastating consequences. And I don't think he has a big picture in mind.

SPEAKER_03

No, I think he has a big picture. I just don't know how deep and well thought through it is, and I think there are people around him probably have a bit more thought and a bit deeper.

SPEAKER_02

Pig Hebseth is his is his chief, is the head of the Palmer War. He he is a clown of an individual. I d I don't see the evidence for strategy.

SPEAKER_03

When it comes to Hegseth, I mean I I suspect he could probably clear a village using Marine Corps tactics at captain level. Yeah. But I'm not sure he's a I'm not sure he's Kissinger or um whoever wrote the Art of War or Klauswitz.

SPEAKER_02

Sun Sun Zoo.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Okay. Let me come back a bit. I do see a strategy, yes. I see a strategy which started with Obama of the pivot to Asia Pacific. I see it continuing, slight break with with Biden, probably the last Atlanticist president, and I see it continuing with Trump. Worst ever? Yeah, possibly, but lots of the things that he does have been done before. Trump, uh to Truman. Truman tried to buy Greenland. Nobody thought it was crazy. Truman offered Denmark um a hundred million in gold in late fifties. Nobody laughed.

SPEAKER_02

Totally different world. With all the precedents since Truman, it's even more absurd.

SPEAKER_03

But the rationale is the same as it was in the late 50s, and nobody laughed at Truman. So, yeah, the manner in which he goes about it is totally disgusting. Another one. The uh kidnapping, if you want to call it that, or arrest of Maduro in Venezuela. Noriega, Panama. 25,000 American troops went in, surrounded the palace, blasted music at him night and day, and eventually nicked him. Is that really so different? I don't think so. A lot of this is is the manner in which he goes about it. The tariffs yeah, I mean that's not since the th is and the probably worse than the tariffs only in the things. Thought-out strategy. Yes, but I d you know, again, not at the sort of Nixon Kissinger or or or or Reagan level. Yes, he's instinctive, yes, he flails out, yes, he lies through his teeth, yes, he makes stuff up every day. Do you know he's he's announced that they're close to a ceasefire 37 times? No.

SPEAKER_02

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03

So I look I share your uh uh to put it politely, distaste and distrust of the man and many of the people around him. But I do think that there is an overall strategy. And if we bring it back to the Asia Pacific, yes, he's transactional. And there is a danger that if he's so transactional that he does buy spheres of influence, which would mean basically, I don't care about Europe, Russia can have it. I don't care about that part of the Pacific, China can have it, including Taiwan. But I do think there are enough people, and I think that the institutions of the United States will outlast him. You'll see power drain away from him after midterms in November. Republicans will grow a pair, basically. But he's at his most dangerous then because he's got two years, and foreign policy, this is the only thing you'll be able to influence, not domestic policy. Sorry, but but to come back to it, this is the geography bit. American power projection, as we mentioned earlier, in that square, and all the way back to Guam and then Hawaii and then the West Coast of America is based on American power and American allies. So they are a treaty ally of Japan, treaty ally of the Philippines, I think they're a treaty ally of South Korea, and they have troops in two of them and basing rights in the Philippines. They're just negotiating overflight rights for Indonesia, which is all to do with in case they ever need to try and box in China. And they're obviously very good friends with Taiwan. In the event that they make it crystal clear we don't give a stuff about Taiwan. We've we've built our own super semiconductor factories. It's pretty obvious that China will accelerate its plans to control Taiwan one way or another. At that point, the Philippines realizes there is no point in being an ally of the United States. No point whatsoever. South Korea agrees. Japan's the only one that would hold out until the bitter end. So the point I'm making is that if if you have that transactional spheres of influence approach, and you give up Taiwan, you basically give up that entire area. Yeah. No, I see. Your power has then shifted back to either Guam and or Hawaii. And China is the one that controls the busiest sea lanes of the world. And so either somebody explains that to him and he ignores it like he's clearly ignored a vice straightforward or moves, but I don't think this can be done within two years. Or people explain to him, well, Mr. President, actually. And anyway, I think um, you know, he's got two and a half years left. So a lot does ride on who the next president is. Because if it's a traditional Republican, they will buy that argument, as will a traditional Democrat.

SPEAKER_02

What happens in that world to little old Australia? We're out of place there. Who?

SPEAKER_03

You guys, you know, we talk about the special relationship between America and Britain. Yeah. Um there kind of is, especially again at an institutional level. Our intelligence services are just as locked tight as they ever were. Umces are trying to, well, what's left of ours are trying to be. And the State Department and our Foreign Office. And you have a very similar relationship, but I actually think that, you know, America's relationship with Australia is every bit as special as the the UK one, and I think Japan's is as well, which is why you guys and Japan are increasingly coming together militarily, diplomatically, as is the Philippines. So Australia's place in this, I mean, you are, you know, that listing base they have in the middle of Australia, they can't replace that. They need you. AUKUS, the submarine deal, is part of a bigger strategy to try to contain China. They need you for that. Some of the space stuff, again, that you help them with, they need you for that. And they need you for the quad, a quadratal agreement with Japan, Australia, and India, which again is based at trying to box in and hold Chinese influence. They need you for some of the underwater cave, but basically, they need you. It's why I think NATO might might probably survive. They they need the bases that they have to project American power. So I think Australia is actually more integral to American strategic thinking than the UK is.

SPEAKER_02

Where can we extract more from that relationship then? Why are we coming off second best here? I mean, uh the context to me asking that question is I interviewed a fellow called Sam Roger Veen, if you've come across him. He used to be used to be an analyst for ASIO, essentially. It wasn't ASIO, it was a subdepartment of ASIO. And he's written a book called The Echidna Strategy, which is an argument for Australian foreign policy that we should essentially go independent, such that if you attack an echidna, you get super hurt. But an echidna itself is not dangerous at all. So this idea that Australia can be self-sufficient doesn't mean we don't trade with people, but militarily self-sufficient. We don't have to rely on America.

SPEAKER_03

Well, unless you're gonna get nuclear weapons, you haven't got no chance. Okay. Have you seen your shoreline? Have you seen how big your coastline is? Have you got a navy big enough to patrol it all?

SPEAKER_02

But what business does China have coming down south? They've got to go through Indonesia first. They're not the best mates.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Second Island chain. I think you should be good mates with Indonesia. But they're they do their best to try and not to take sides, but um they are slowly coming over to the Americans very, very slowly. No, I don't think I mean look, I'm not a military expert, and you the chap you mentioned probably is, but uh I don't see how you can protect your continent and its coastlines and your sea lanes unless you're further out there uh and you need your friends and your allies, which is exactly why you've got I don't know if it's basing rights you have in Japan. I think you you've certainly got docking rights uh in Japan, and you're increasingly talking to the Filipinos um about cooperation. Um that's your future. Alliances that make you stronger, and and hopefully, because I am an Atlanticist, although this is the Pacific, you carry on being friends with America. But yeah, how to extract more? I I don't know enough about your your politics. You've got a lot of the precious metals that the Americans want, and you could certainly step up things like refining and selling to them at decent rates and all the rest of it. Look, your your allies, for better or worse, um 1941 wasn't us you called, was it? Because we wouldn't have come as America.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, Jared Diamond wrote a book called Upheaval, and it was 11 different chapters studying countries' sort of fork in the road moments when they almost defined their own identity. It was amazing. He and did a chapter in Australia exactly at that moment.

SPEAKER_03

I'm glad you mentioned that, right? Because we're trying to avoid one at the moment because of the massive pressure that the Trump has put on us. Before it wasn't too difficult. We tried to, under Boris Johnson, Conservative five years ago, Prime Minister. Can you believe this? We were going to inter. Integrate Huawei's into our 5G system. We've already let the Chinese get into our nuclear power stations. I was at a a home office training center up north last year, and I was looking at security cameras in the rooms. And they were made in China. And this is a secure area.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You know, I mean I'm not saying they reversed engineered it and there's some bloke in Shanghai looking at, but maybe, because I'm pretty sure they've done that with other cranes. You know that 90% of cranes in American ports are built in China. Oh my God. Do you want to tell them everything that's coming in and out? Sorry, I've I've digressed, but the point being, um yeah, Huawei was was and they breathed fire on Johnson, and he said, Well, actually, uh, tell you what, we won't put Huawei into our 5G system, which of course is part of our intelligence system and five eyes and all the rest of it. So that was that was easy. But now, because of this rupture that Trump has caused, we uh have to reopen our debate about Europe or America because it's become increasingly difficult to straddle the two. Um, I still think we will do what we traditionally do and lean towards the Americans. But that debate is gone. I'm not sure you have a choice because you don't have a Europe next to you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. How is Europe not the obvious option for the United Kingdom? Is this just my naivety from not being a Brit, not living over there?

SPEAKER_03

No, a lot of people agree with you. Again, yeah, you look at a map. And I've got a map I sometimes use which shows the UK's side onto Europe, as opposed to it's a it's an unusual map. It's accurate. Greatest trading block in the world. 600 million consumers, but we're trying. Well, militarily they're not up to much.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I don't think we are anymore either, but yeah, why?

SPEAKER_03

Culture, language, island nation facing across the Atlantic to our American cousins, the ties that bind American power, American bases, which theoretically help to keep us safe or get us into danger, depending which way you look at it. But the other th this debate is on. And what will happen if the NATO alliance remains is we're not going back to how it used to be. The Americans will now always insist that they step back and we step up, but they're still in the alliance, is that we do rearm and we do have a capable European fighting force within NATO. Because if we have one without NATO, out with NATO, NATO the Americans will walk. So we have to build a credible European defence force within NATO, which meshes with them. Because if we don't, they'll they'll they'll go. But sorry, that really hasn't answered your question. It's just that that's the debate that's going on now. Leave them and and just go all in with the Europeans on defense and on trade, although not back in the EU yet, and I don't think for a generation. Or no, we carry on, we try to, which was done for 400 years. The EU was unusual for us. You know, we had 30 years inside this European bloc, whereas we spent 400 trying to divide and rule and then sticking with the Americans for the last century. It's a huge debate, and it's uh sorry, you just reminded me because it's one of those forks in the road um choices.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But just in such a you talk about the history, and it could also just be my naivety about the history that I've lived through. But I I do measure whatever the current relations are between the United Kingdom and Europe fundamentally different to what they were back then because you used to hold the big stick. You had all the technology, you had all the financing, and you had really good education, and frankly, everyone else is caught up to you now. And so you just cannot you cannot think in the same terms as you may have historically.

SPEAKER_03

Ah you're using far too much logic there. You think far too sensible. Emotion matters. You know, the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell ourselves still not everybody hears them or believes them, but it's Bodica, Bodicea, standing up against those funny Europeans, Romans came over. Um uh bloke who said you could put someone's eye out with that when the the Norman invasion, 1066 and all that, from across that water, the Spanish Armada, Napoleon, Hitler, a bit of water. It's weird over there. They do things differently. Honestly, I think these stories we tell each other, how we stood alone with Australia and the Commonwealth in America in 1941, 39, they they still influence uh how we think. Then there's the more practical things. Honestly, you want to get a decision made in the EU. Well, I think we should draw up an agenda and circulate it for a couple of months. We'll find out who's actually going to attend and then we'll uh September, yeah, okay. We'll have the preliminary meeting in September, yeah. And about four years later, you might get a decision. You might get a decision. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um shame, shame on that bureaucratic system. But isn't that changing as well? They've been stand as being forced.

SPEAKER_03

There's that as well. There's uh how meshed we are with the Americans, uh financially, intelligence-wise, uh, and militarily would would be difficult to re-engineer. Um, there's just a whole bunch of reasons why it would be such a big decision and why we uh every now and again have to debate it, and we're debating it now. So, yeah, I mean I know it seems obvious to you, but that there is that emotional aspect to it. There is that inherent suspicion of the extremes of the continent. You know, they went for fascism and communism in the last century, and we didn't want anything to do with it. Um they are actually much further ahead with um fascism than we are, and we're looking, although some people appear to be doing their best to catch up. So there's all those suspicions, and they they die hard.

SPEAKER_02

To round it off with England back on top again, we're about to enter into the World Cup. Say England were to bring it home, nothing would fire up the nationalist belly further, and you can just put the finger up to EU and then say, we just won the World Cup to America, we're gonna deal on our own terms now. Yeah. And that could be the deciding. Like that Caracau. Yeah, the deciding pork in the room. All right, Tim. Look, I agree with you right.

SPEAKER_03

Karaka is a former Dutch island, it's a population of 150,000 and they're in the World Cup. We might get to the semi-finals. Um I I loathe this particular World Cup because of the ticket prices more than anything. But will I be watching?

SPEAKER_01

Of course. Australia's first game is on Sunday. Good luck, mate. Who are you playing? Turkey. Yeah, it's gonna be tough. You gotta run.

SPEAKER_02

I wanna leave you with can you go over by one minute or it's a hard example? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Okay, so I just want to finish up with this anecdote. I traveled to Taiwan late last year. I have a few old friends that I met up with and stayed with over there, and they're all Taiwanese. And it was very eye-opening. I left with the conclusion that Taiwan is largely indifferent to invasion, whether it's because psychologically it's such a huge thing to wrap your head around that you would rather just ignore it and hope it never happens, or they feel so Chinese already that were China to envelop them, it's really not the end of the world. They describe TSMC as the mountain that protects us. And I I just don't know if that can be true. I narrated the ASML book written by Mark Hiank, you know, and this is this is the book, this is the company that makes the machines that the chips are then printed on. I don't know. You can kind of get semiconductor pilled eventually and realize that TSMC is Arrakis, it's this incredible place. But were any type of invasion to happen, all those machines are turned off. So this this mountain that protects them just becomes this porous blanket. It's it's a total facade. And they feel Chinese, they speak Chinese, they have the same written Chinese language.

SPEAKER_03

That's another story. I I'm I'm fascinated to hear you say that because I have not been to Taiwan. I've been to China, I've not been to Taiwan. And I read a lot that they have imbued a sense of their own nationhood and democracy. And so I read that's not experience, that they many of them would fight, that they d obviously don't want it to happen and would oppose it. But of course, that's my reading, and that's your experience.

SPEAKER_02

You see, I read all those things too, and I expected this feeling of resistance almost, like, but what I walked away with was they complain about their own government all the time, and in a short 30-year democracy, they're so willing to exactly point out where all the failures are occurring, and they look over to their neighbors 150 kilometers over the water and say, My economic opportunities are over there, they're not even here, and they're not having kids, and it the infrastructure is kind of decaying.

SPEAKER_03

Tim, you've reminded me My only pushback, Ryan, is are they middle-class intellectuals? Because if they are, don't trust them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, this is this is the great thing. The main woman I stayed with is she's called Priscilla. She's about 60 years old. I met her in Mexico a few years ago when I was studying there. She is the best, okay? She her father was one of the Chiang Kai-shek nationalists who had to flee to the island and lived about 10 years in utter resentment of Taiwan because he couldn't return to his homeland. He was a very lower-class citizen, and he bought Priscilla's mum, who was an even lower-class rural third daughter of a family. They made a family. Priscilla herself, through her own talent and ethic, becomes a school teacher. She's in the middle class. She marries someone who's a little bit higher class. Her daughter is probably in the upper middle, maybe even higher class. You know, she's an engineer and she works for TSMC, and she's 27, and she's saying, My future is in China. And in this short three generations, you've sort of that the Taiwan democratic experience has happened. But I my my feeling was all roads point to China and it's going to be this soft enveloping. There's going to be no military action. Oh, yeah. America's going to lose interest.

SPEAKER_03

I think it's a slow strangulation and takeover. It's not kinetic. You know, genuinely, Ryan, like I said, you know, I read all that stuff, but I absolutely have to factor in when somebody tells me about experience, because that's um at least equally valuable.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. One final one, another data point you might find interesting. One of the people I met with, he works for a geothermal startup there, right? So Taiwan has a lot of naturally occurring geothermal energy. North of Taipei is a place called the geothermal valley. Stunningly beautiful and has very shallow hot rock. Therefore, according to him at least, this democratic system should make room for us to create green electricity from these uh shallow geothermic rock, which is right next to Taipei, the biggest city. Problem being, the geothermal valley is run by the Taiwanese mafia. And there is a bunch of hotels there, which allegedly, I can only say what he told me, not up to standard. It's a very earthquake-ridden area. Chinese tourists will die there every single year because rooms will just collapse. And the democratic government has not been able to rid Taiwan of this obvious corruption and move it towards a better solution. And therefore, he is as well. Resentment of what is our government doing for us? And there is almost this very subtle, it's not uh overt, but admiration for the hard line, hard leader discipline, authority which China offers.

SPEAKER_03

Security will beat democracy. Your security needs will come first. Uh in most by the way, um, wasn't Lucy set there, I think, the film Lucy? Really? I haven't seen Lucy. Hansen. Basically, I think it's set the beginning of it in Taiwan with the Taiwanese mafia. Um, because I hadn't realized there was one until I watched Lucy. It's it's it's Morgan Freeman and uh Scarlet Johansson, and it's a good popcorn nonsense sci-fi. Give it a whirl.

SPEAKER_02

Tim, fourth time is the charm. Thank you so much for your time, mate.

SPEAKER_03

I'm sorry, we sort of, you know, off. Well, I went off on one a few times, but uh, it's fun. Thank you very much for um bearing with me.

SPEAKER_02

Your books are awesome. If anyone's listening to this, the updated 10th year anniversary is available. Cheers, Ryan. See ya, mate.