What the Next 10 Years Look Like: China, Russia, Europe and AI | Sam Lichtenstein RANE

[00:00:00] Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies. Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics and intrigue. This podcast is produced and hosted by Chris Carr.

[00:00:29] Have you ever wanted to be able to look into the future and see what's ahead? Well, on today's episode, we're going to do our best to do that. Obviously, it's not an exact science. We're not fortune tellers. But we are looking at a 10 year forecast at what's ahead this decade. So to do that, I'm joined by Sam Lichtenstein. He is the director of analysis at RAINN, which stands for the Risk Assistance Network and Exchange. It's a global risk intelligence company.

[00:00:55] And they produce these 10 year forecasts. And so today, Sam is going to go through the 10 year forecast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Take care. The opinions expressed by guests on Secrets and Spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast. Sam, welcome back to the podcast. How are you?

[00:01:24] Very glad to be here once again, Chris. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Now, usually we do this around Christmas time, but today we're going to be talking about something a little bit different. We're going to be talking about a decade forecast. And in fact, we're one year into this decade forecast. So maybe a little bit behind on that one on our part there. But I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about what the decade forecast is and how it's compiled.

[00:01:49] Yeah. So RAINN, the company that we're on, the director of analysis, we're probably best known for our forecasts. Everyone, you know, does an annual forecast, but we also do three quarterly updates. But the most distinctive thing that we do is we also produce a 10 year forecast.

[00:02:06] Last update, as you suggested in 2025, looking out to 2035, you know, these are done both for kind of, you know, longer term clients that are very interested in trying to get a picture of the world far into the future. You know, we have some clients that very much want to understand, okay, what's your view on this thing happening tomorrow or next month or even next year.

[00:02:31] But, you know, we have plenty of clients and certainly just readers who are thinking about making a strategic investment in a country or thinking about how they need to be allocating resources because their budget cycles are projecting outward. You know, you can pick any reason you want, but there's a lot of utility and thinking 10 years out. Obviously, the specificity goes down because you can't predict with the level that you can say, you know, in the following month, year, what have you.

[00:02:57] But in some ways, I think actually the utility goes up because it can really ground you as long as you don't need like precise details in how we think the world will look. We actually just published our quarterly forecast for the fourth quarter yesterday. And it's funny, I was thinking beforehand, you know, when you do a quarterly forecast and certainly sometimes an annual forecast, but definitely for a quarterly, sometimes it's just not that dynamic in a certain part of the world.

[00:03:22] You know, maybe there's one country that has something interesting going on, but others are relatively subdued. So it's both a blessing and a curse in the sense that when you're focusing on just a quarter or a year, you know exactly what you need to be talking about. There's maybe an election happening. There's a conflict that's at risk of breaking out. It's very easy to some extent, but it can also be hard if there's not that much going on. You know, sometimes the election just happens. So, OK, now it's the person's first year in office.

[00:03:51] OK, we can talk about what that might look like, but it's not that interesting compared to the actual election campaign or what have you. The decade forecast is kind of the opposite because you have plenty of things to talk about. But actually making the forecast is, of course, much, much harder because there's so many different variables that could push things in a different direction.

[00:04:15] And it's also much harder to kind of separate the signal from the noise in the sense of, you know, OK, in a quarterly forecast, what changes in those three months like can be huge. And that's the only three month period you're looking at. In a decade, there can be huge ructions that actually, yeah, for a little while they tip things off the scale, but the actual trajectory doesn't really shift fundamentally.

[00:04:42] And then conversely, though, you can have some things that just completely were unforeseen and just completely undermine what you're arguing. So it's hard is the short answer. Yeah, indeed, indeed. So I was wondering if you can give us sort of a broad overview of what to look out for in the next decade. Yeah. So, you know, we do try to bring some analytic science to this. You know, it's not just us sitting around the table thinking, oh, OK, well, this seems to make sense.

[00:05:12] You know, I can promise listeners that there is a methodology just behind, you know, like there is behind all of our forecasting and the work that we do. You know, we definitely think about the longer term drivers and constraints of geopolitics, the different pillars that we look at.

[00:05:29] We think about different assumptions that we have, different forces that we think are acting on the global environment and, you know, shift those to create different alternatives and think through some of the kind of structure and the techniques that we would use. Shorthand, we try to do with them more robustly because, of course, we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty over the next decade. So I can definitely give some of the higher level overview.

[00:05:57] And then, of course, if you know there are any parts of the world or different functional domains you want to go into. But the short answer is we project what I would call probably quite a bit of turbulence in the next decade. This follows from the one that, you know, preceded it where we, you know, kind of saw the emerging or reemergence, I should probably say is a better way of describing it, a multipolarity.

[00:06:23] You know, this was kind of what we were already going into from our prior decade forecast. I think that's certainly coming about. So as we start to see that deepening over the next decade, I would say the short answer is at a global level, turbulence. We obviously have the United States both due to a declining intent and declining capability that in basically upholding this post-World War II world order.

[00:06:50] We have the rise of a variety of middle powers. We have huge changes in technology, not just AI, but of course, led by AI that are going to be moving things forward. And so when you're thinking about what's going to come about, there seems to be a great deal of uncertainty in the sense of we know what we're leaving behind, but we don't actually know where we're going just yet.

[00:07:16] And we certainly, even if we can agree on some desirable endpoint, which I don't think is the case in the next decade, but even if we could, we're not really sure how to realistically achieve that in the next decade. So there's definitely a lot of uncertainty.

[00:07:31] I think the short way of thinking about it is basically this emerging multipolar world that we're going to see in which no great power, be it the United States or China or collection of great powers like Europe, etc., is able or has the will to basically shape the global order to bring coherence to it.

[00:07:54] You're going to continue to see the post-World War II international institutions like the United Nations, the World Trade Organizations fade. You're going to see greater operational kind of emergence of institutions at a regional and sub-regional level. So you're kind of going from a global order to, shall we say, more of a regional order or kind of different contested domains.

[00:08:20] That's going to give opportunities for middle and in some cases kind of smaller powers of the world to punch above their weight to exert more influence. You're going to definitely have an increasing focus on nationalism in different parts of the world. You're going to have a lot of uncertainty about, obviously, the position of the United States as the declining power in particular. You know, I'm American.

[00:08:47] I don't want to overemphasize our importance, but I do think it's safe to say we do matter. I'm sorry to say, for better or worse. You know, even if you have a more traditional Republican president who comes into office after President Trump leaves, and even if you have a Democrat, you know, two terms of the Trump administration and certainly what we see in the second term is clearly convincing both allies and adversaries that the quote unquote kind of old United States is not returning.

[00:09:15] You may have some, you know, walkbacks under a more traditional Republican president. You would certainly see some of them from a Democratic president. But countries are no longer confident to our U.S. allies that we're interested or capable of upholding this order, and our adversaries don't see us as willing or able to do so either. And so our position is going to shift quite a bit, and how countries view the United States will also be shifting.

[00:09:42] You know, if you want to talk just about a few countries, obviously, you know, you can't, you know, escape talking about China first and foremost. You know, that's of course the key rising power. It has been, it will continue to be, but it's also going to have to confront a number of real challenges in the next decade. You know, we already see the Chinese economy entering into kind of some ructions and some discordant period.

[00:10:10] You're going to have that accompanying what's really going to be a demographic. I would, you know, I hesitate to use the word crisis, but from really a crisis where, you know, you have an aging population. You obviously have quite a skewed sex ratio still with women out, or excuse me, men outpacing women. You have, you know, basically the government struggling to figure out how it's going to deal with this population that's going to need ever more assistance.

[00:10:37] And of course you have, you know, AI looming over all of this, not just in China, of course, but in plenty of other countries. Like, what is that going to do to the jobs market and social stability? So you're really going to have a China that's going to have to focus inward quite a bit. But at the same time, you know, China is obviously going to opportunistically look to areas where it can push back on the U.S. to kind of decline in order. Of course, most importantly, and it's near abroad, and of course, in terms of Taiwan.

[00:11:07] And this is a question that we get pretty frequently, I would say, from our clients. Basically, is China going to be invading Taiwan anytime soon? If you look at it on a decade out, I think the answer is quite different than if you look in the next few years. We have a pretty firm line that at least, you know, this year and next, basically until maybe the end of the decade, an invasion is extremely unlikely.

[00:11:32] You might have plenty of other short of invasion scenarios, constant probing of, you know, red lines and territorial incursions, etc. But an actual Chinese invasion of the Taiwanese-made island, we do not see as likely. As you get into the 2030s, I would say it does increase in likelihood for a variety of reasons.

[00:11:52] And of course, if there were actually to be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, that would, of course, just have huge ramifications for the global economy, politics, the security environment. And even if we don't get that, you know, we do foresee that there's going to be a major expansion of military coercion around Taiwan.

[00:12:13] So that can include things that aren't an invasion, but say a trade quarantine or blockade that would still, if not, you know, lead to that worst case scenario, really throw a wrench into regional security environment. I'll stop there because I've been talking a lot. I don't want to bore you too much just yet. Not at all. Not at all. I mean, there's some interesting things like in Europe, we're going to have a continued erosion of sort of traditional liberal consensus.

[00:12:43] So I don't know if you could talk to us a little bit about sort of Europe and maybe what to expect in some other regions as well. Yes, sure. So, you know, I think Europe first, you know, we need to consider kind of on its own, but then also we can maybe talk about Russia in a moment and its relations with the U.S. as well.

[00:13:03] But, you know, you kind of have competing forces where, you know, Europe on the one hand, you know, it's very clear that national sovereignty is still an extremely important thing for countries. And you have these repeated instances where, you know, European Union and Europe more broadly to include the U.K. and a few other countries, you know, there can come to some consensus because individual countries' priorities are overriding that.

[00:13:28] Yet at the same time, you've had a number of shocks in recent years, whether it was COVID, whether it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine that have so clearly shaken fundamentally the European system that that drive for greater integration has overcome those kind of nationalist sentiments.

[00:13:47] And so our forecast is basically that as you see basically U.S. leadership erode, which has kind of been the traditional anchor for European security, and in some cases, economically and politically as well, that is going to basically push towards greater integration to some extent.

[00:14:07] You know, we're not necessarily anticipating, you know, some sort of erosion completely of national borders by any means, you know, individual countries are absolutely still going to exist. But the forces driving greater integration will, I think, outweigh those pushing the other way. At the same time, though, you are going to see the erosion of some of the more kind of, I would say, liberal or progressive characteristics of the European polity.

[00:14:37] You know, to some extent, we're already seeing this with, say, like the weakening of green regulations, for instance, or cutting certain parts of red tape economically. Things that, you know, are less so on that kind of liberal side of the political spectrum, as basically Europe tries to basically compete again, because now it's coming into competition. I mean, very clearly with China, of course, but also to some extent with the United States now.

[00:15:04] And so you're going to have greater European integration, but you will also have some of kind of, I think, the refocus on competition that pushes to the side some of this regulatory regime that the EU and Europe generally has become known for. And I would also just say, you know, security-wise, NATO is still going to be the core of European defense.

[00:15:26] But we do think that the EU as a bloc is going to increasingly play a larger role in security. You will have more kind of smaller sets of countries that take the lead. You know, everybody talks about a two-speed EU. You know, we basically see that also happening with, you know, security, that, you know, Europe is going to also have countries that seek to do more together and some that choose not to.

[00:15:52] And so it's going to be a bit of a complex scenario for the EU to navigate because they're dealing with a shock kind of economically from China, militarily from Russia, and to some extent, you could say politically from the United States, which also dovetails a little bit economically and military in some cases. So Europe is going to have to figure out how to navigate that. And I think the short way of saying is it is going to push for greater European cohesion more so than divergence.

[00:16:21] And what do we think is in store for Russia? Yeah, we, you know, it's funny. I'll be honest. In some of our interviews of upcoming analysts that are applying for a European analyst job, we ask a version of that question just to kind of think, make them think through, okay, how does the relationship between Europe and Russia evolve? So it's always interesting to see what people have to say.

[00:16:47] The short answer is we do foresee that there will be some sort of, I don't want to say rapprochement, that's too strong of a word, but there, and we can argue this to some extent with some European governments, Russia is not going to be a complete pariah forever. The Ukraine war at some point, even if it doesn't quote unquote fully end with a nice neat peace deal, it will wind down.

[00:17:16] We don't foresee it lasting the next decade. And at some point there are going to be pressures economically, politically, security wise for greater engagement with Russia. So the short answer is we certainly are not going to go back to say a pre-2014 Crimea situation, but we also don't see the current situation holding either. We do foresee some sort of re-engagement, probably from some countries, certainly more than others.

[00:17:45] You know, you can pick pretty easily your more hawkish versus dovish countries. But we do see that there will be some sort of re-engagement there. Russia for its part, you know, we see as largely struggling. You know, it has basically will have devoted many, many years to the war in Ukraine, but at the expense of some of its other key areas.

[00:18:08] So, you know, for instance, the Caucasus, parts of Central Asia, places where Turkey, China, the United States, even some European countries have been finding more influence. And of course, Russia is really going to, I think, struggle under this basically subservient relationship that it's found itself in vis-a-vis China. You know, it has provided Russia with a lifeline to some extent, economically, militarily and politically.

[00:18:35] But it's also going to come at a real cost because basically Russia is tying itself ever more to a China that still sees Russia very much as the junior partner in that relationship. And the two will also conflict in some of these places like Central Asia, where they're both seeking to stake out influence. Let's take a break and be right back with more.

[00:19:11] Just before we get back into the interview, if you're enjoying this episode, please consider buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com forward slash secrets and spies. Thank you. Now, you mentioned Turkey just now, and there's some interesting things going on with Turkey and the Middle East. I was wondering if you could talk to us about both of them. Yeah, Turkey is one of those middle powers that we talk about that we definitely expect to play a larger role, not just kind of within its immediate region, but globally.

[00:19:37] You know, it's a country that has done, I would say, pretty well in the Middle East recently. If you're just looking at its immediate region, it's been able to exert its influence in a way that I think a lot of other countries would be envious of. And by the way, far beyond its region, you know, and we continue that, see that to continue, whether it's in parts of like sub-Saharan Africa, like the Horn of Africa, whether it's going into places like the Caucasus.

[00:20:06] Turkey has been and will continue to make those kind of influential leaps. In the Middle East, it's interesting because we see it defined less by kind of what we usually see as the blocks of basically like Sunni versus Shia versus, in Israel's case, Jewish competition, and more by intra-Sunni competition. And so what I mean by that is you already have the emergence of kind of competing blocks.

[00:20:32] We've seen this just, you know, in the past few months with the ongoing Iran war. Basically, you have different blocks anchored around, say, Turkey, the Gulf states, Egypt. They're all presenting competing models of influence, not just in the region, but also in parts of Africa, South Asia, et cetera. And so we expect those blocks to continue to kind of deepen and go into further competition.

[00:21:01] You know, you asked me at the beginning about the forecast, and I said, well, you know, it's hard to do a 10-year forecast because there are a lot of things you don't anticipate. And obviously, we did not in here explicitly anticipate the Iran war, you know, the way it was. It is something that, you know, of course, in the aggregate, the idea of Iranian tension, shall we say, with the region and the United States is eminently clear.

[00:21:27] But the actual war is one of those things, you know, we didn't explicitly say there will be this Iran war. But I think that goes to one of those issues that I mentioned that we're, of course, you know, thinking just the past six months, the Iran war dominates everything. In the span of a decade, I'm not sure it does.

[00:21:44] And so, you know, if you're thinking specifically from Iran, you know, over the next 10 years, it seems to me that the real question is basically not one necessarily of external kind of operations, but internal in the sense of what happens to the Islamic Republic? Is it able to hold together over the next decade? You know, on the one hand, someone might say, well, you know, it's up against all of these barriers, you know, people are clearly fed up with the regime.

[00:22:13] You know, just before, of course, this war broke out, we saw huge anti-government protests. You know, economically, you know, the regime is, you know, continues to be just, you know, steps away from just utter catastrophe. It's obviously has, you know, its own internal factions. So there are a lot of things, you know, kind of arrayed against it. On the other hand, the Islamic Republic has proven incredibly, you know, resilient since it was founded in 1979, despite, you know, many predictions of its demise.

[00:22:41] That, to me, almost the internal factor there is actually the key question, because what happens internally will dictate its external posture in the sense of, okay, if you have a system in which conservatives largely rule the roost, which is broadly what it seems like what we have right now, that says one thing.

[00:23:02] If you have a hardline takeover, then it's something even quite different from now, you know, say what you will about hardliners having influence, but they're still not completely running the show. You do have, you know, some conservative pragmatists that are looking to still engage, you know, just even the repeated discussions about talks indicate that hardliners haven't taken over. If they were in power, you wouldn't have talks at all. If you have a pragmatist takeover, that would be something quite different.

[00:23:30] And of course, if you had a full-blown revolution and the Islamic Republic collapses, that's just utter uncertainty of what takes its place, but it would be quite chaotic to say the least. So focus more on the internal variables, because that in the Islamic Republic system will really dictate, I think, its external trajectory. You know, there's some countries that you think geopolitically, no matter the domestic government, there are some key imperatives that are just going to stay the same forever.

[00:23:58] However, Iran is a bit different because you do have just such competing visions for its future and the system is so unique that geopolitically, you actually could see a huge shift depending on exactly the type of regime in power. Yeah. And what do we expect for like the sunny states? The Gulf states are definitely also going to be part of some of those blocks that I mentioned earlier.

[00:24:22] You know, interestingly, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have tended to find themselves recently kind of in opposing sides of some of those blocks. They, you know, for all of their similarities in many respects, actually, they're quite different in their risk tolerances abroad. The UAE has taken a far more risk tolerant approach and a more aggressive approach regionally. Saudi Arabia has done the opposite.

[00:24:49] And whereas the UAE has basically gone against anything that in its mind approaches Islamism, even ostensibly like peaceful, you know, just purely political, Saudi Arabia has been much more accommodating of that. And so you find themselves on opposing sides, even, you know, like directly via proxies in some cases, like in Sudan, where the UAE is very clearly funding the rapid support forces, the main paramilitary group, Saudi Arabia.

[00:25:16] To a lesser extent, but is backing the SAF, the main military dominated, you know, part of the civil war. So those things will continue. They're going to fundamentally have different, you know, outlooks. They'll go through periods of, you know, you know, and this is why thinking through 10 years is important. You know, they'll go through periods, of course, of relative escalation and de-escalation, tensions, non-tensions.

[00:25:40] But they fundamentally have different strategic outlooks, and that will press towards some divergences. I would also just say beyond that, that they are going to be increasingly vying amongst themselves for influence beyond the region. And so that's going to extend into new parts, I would say, of Africa for sure. It's going to extend probably deeper into South Asia.

[00:26:08] We're starting to see slow portions of this, but over a 10-year timeframe, you can assume that some of those things are going to accelerate. And I would also just say, and I think we're going to get to this later, you know, if we're thinking about a 10-year timeframe, we can't exclude environmental changes. And climate change is going to weigh on both of these countries.

[00:26:29] You know, economically, they are going to have to figure out a way to accommodate climate change and the ongoing energy transition, which I think is, you know, we'll talk about, I think, in a bit. But, you know, both of these countries have ambitious plans to try to transition away from fossil fuels and pivot more to elements of business that are here to stay. They've been successful in some things. They've been unsuccessful in others.

[00:26:56] But how they navigate that transition in the next 10 years is going to mean a lot. And what do we think is going to be happening kind of in Africa? Yeah. So, you know, and I think we might touch on this a bit later. You know, we can already say this, but it will continue to be the case in the next 10 years. The center of the global jihad has shifted from the Levant to sub-Saharan Africa.

[00:27:22] You know, just in terms of where we see raw numbers of attacks, members of Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and other affiliated groups, whether it's where we see propaganda. And where, honestly, and most scarily, we see the greatest success in these groups, it's in sub-Saharan Africa. You know, people are already familiar with Al-Shabaab and Somalia, which is probably what most people were well aware of, of sub-Saharan Africa jihadist groups until recent years.

[00:27:48] But it is now and will continue to be in the Sahel, specifically in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. But the thing to watch out for is that while these groups, and they tend to be either Islamic State or Al-Qaeda affiliated, but not always. You have a wide collection, including some like militant quareg groups, etc. These groups tend to eventually expand beyond their local aspirations.

[00:28:14] And so we foresee absolutely a continued expansion into literal West Africa, coastal states like Benin, Togo, etc. They're going to become more exposed to violence. You could see some of that being exported rather than south into the north of some of these countries.

[00:28:33] And, you know, we've already seen some evidence that these groups, particularly some of the Islamic State affiliated ones, like Islamic State's Sahel province, have been seeking to carry out attacks farther in Africa and into Europe. There's, of course, a national extension.

[00:28:50] And over a 10-year timeframe, that becomes a big concern because if you really have these groups continuing to make the territorial and resource and personnel progress that they are, at some point, they are going to no longer kind of be like insurgent groups. They will actually just be ones that are just ruling a huge swath of territory and no longer kind of like the ones pushing back against the current system. They may just be the system.

[00:29:17] Even if they don't fully take over a country, and Mali is currently at greatest risk, you know, you don't need to have full takeover of a country, you know, see what the Islamic State did in Iraq and Syria. You know, they didn't take over the entirety of the state, but, you know, they basically collapsed it from within. And so you can have that absolutely in these countries in the next 10 years. That's the big concern. And, you know, what they do from there, these, you know, you don't stay local, you export. And so that's the concern.

[00:29:47] And just, you know, to go back to what we were just mentioning on a decade forecast, some of these other factors like climate change, you know, it's only going to wreak more havoc in some of these countries where you have, you know, declining economic opportunity, a rising demographic boom. Those things are going to collide. You know, one of the greatest concerns is when you have a lot of, and I hate to say it, but predominantly men who were either unemployed or underemployed and are thus vulnerable to recruitment.

[00:30:16] They don't have to be ideologically interested in the group, but it's a financial lifeline. It's a social lifeline, et cetera. You know, that's something that is going to only become more of a concern. Indeed. And also, if I remember correctly, there's a possibility that Europe might get involved in a military conflict to fight that sort of rise of jihadism. Yeah. So, of course, you know, France being the former, you know, colonizer of these countries has tended to be the most active.

[00:30:43] And, of course, the French had a years-long deployment to the Sahel that they have pulled back on. So, France is the most natural, I guess, country that you would expect to become involved here. But France has really been chastened by its experience in the Sahel. Politically at home, it would be an extremely tough sell to be deploying, you know, large numbers of ground troops again.

[00:31:08] So, you know, for us, our view is that you are going to have, you know, rising security risks from this. The most likely thing that would trigger a European intervention is an actual state takeover. You know, if you had a group like JNM, which is al-Qaeda affiliated or an Islamic State outfit that took over, you know, regional capital like Bamako and Mali, that's probably the most likely thing that could get a European intervention.

[00:31:38] But even then, you know, we don't expect some sort of large ground deployment. This would be still primarily as we see it. Aerial strikes, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support, equipment transfers, things of that nature. They would still want a regional bloc like the Economic Commission for West African states, ECOWAS, to basically take the lead. Some other, you know, local forces, etc.

[00:32:03] But more broadly, you know, to take it out of the security dimension, absolutely, Africa is going to become more important economically and politically for Europe for a number of reasons. One, you know, just in terms of the demographics that we're seeing, you are going to push more and more people towards Europe, as we already see. But this trend will only accelerate. And that's going to put a lot of stress.

[00:32:28] You know, we see plenty of European governments that are, you know, to some, I would say, to some extent, correctly and some extent, cynically, you know, using African migration basically as a political talking point. But it is true, you will have more people that are approaching Europe. The other way of thinking about this, though, is that Europe is, of course, graying significantly.

[00:32:53] And Europe needs a lot of new people to support its industries, to take care of older populations. Here's a ready-made group of people literally on the doorstep that are dying, in some cases, literally dying, right, to get to Europe for a better life. If Europe can figure out a way politically to integrate more African migrants into its workforce, that could solve a lot of problems.

[00:33:18] However, I say this, you know, with a big if, aside from, you know, the inevitable political hurdles, you know, there's going to be huge economic and security considerations here. You know, you can just see, of course, what happened between Spain and Morocco in its quit, you know, exclave a few months ago, where you had this mass rushing of the border. Where you can't have images like that politically, they will not work within Europe, especially over a prolonged period of time.

[00:33:46] But there is an opportunity here, right, where you have a huge need for people to power industry and support aging populations. And at the same time, you have Africans that are looking to do just that. So if you can figure that out, that is an opportunity, I would say. Let's take a break and be right back with more.

[00:34:20] If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. Go to patreon.com forward slash secrets and spies, and you'll get access to the ad-free versions of this show. Now we'll get back to the interview. Thank you for your support. So let's move to South America. Yeah. So, you know, thinking through the South African, excuse me, South American dynamic, it's interesting because you usually have what we would call like kind of waves.

[00:34:47] Where there's like a pink wave in Latin America or a red wave, you know, whatever you want to call it. We are seeing this to some extent now, right, where you have a number of governments that have shifted towards center-right or just, you know, right-wing governments moving away from the far left or center-left. You know, I'm always a bit skeptical of trying to, you know, portray them as some sort of cohesive wave.

[00:35:11] But it's interesting that you do tend to have this within the South American political dynamic, you know, for whatever reason. You know, I think in our forecast, we actually juxtapose Argentina with Brazil. You know, Argentina, we see it as, you know, over a decade-long time frame, kind of once again challenging Brazil for regional leadership.

[00:35:36] Which, you know, Brazil has largely led in recent years, obviously being a part of the BRICS coalition. You know, it's booming economy powered by commodities. All things that really, by the way, you know, give Brazil a large leg up. But, you know, there's a, you know, really infamous saying, and I hate to repeat it, but you can't, you can't not one time at it is, you know, Brazil is the country of the future and it always will be.

[00:36:01] The sense that it has this incredible resource base in terms of its literal natural resources, its population, its geography. But it just can't quite figure out how to, like, translate all into that into, like, real strategic power. So that leaves an opening for countries like Argentina that are slowly but surely starting to economically recover from what was just, you know, decades of mismanagement.

[00:36:27] The current situation is the population is going through a really tough shift because inevitably when you have a major economic correction, there's a lot of near-term pain before you get that longer-term gain, right? So that's what we're seeing right now. But over time, assuming that you can continue on that trajectory, it gives Argentina an ability to start to challenge Brazil's regional leadership. I think the thing hanging over all of this, though, is the United States.

[00:36:55] You know, under the Trump administration, certainly, we've reprioritized the Western Hemisphere. But I don't think this is something that is going to, you know, die when the Trump administration leaves office. I think this is one of those things that, you know, if you're thinking about how the U.S. kind of retrenches a bit, staying focused on Western Hemisphere makes natural geographic sense for, you know, myriad reasons.

[00:37:17] And so how the U.S. becomes more interventionist in the region again, I think, will be a significant force acting over the next decade. And, crucially, not just how it interacts, but how it competes with China. Because, of course, you know, part of the reason the United States is so concerned about Western Hemisphere is because of Chinese influence. And so competition is definitely going to be a story to pay attention to. Yeah, indeed. Well, thank you very much for all that.

[00:37:47] So let's move into some of the factors that are shaping the next 10 years. So we've kind of already touched upon this, but it may be extra you want to say, and if there isn't, we can move on. But we've got the U.S.-backed global world order and then multipolarity. What can you tell us about those things? Yeah, I don't want to belabor this. We touched on this a bit.

[00:38:07] But, you know, that's really the overhanging driver of everything, right, is as you have an erosion and, you know, will only accelerate in the next decade of the kind of post-World War II order that has brought literal order. To, you know, the international system. That's going to result in just myriad amount of changes, right? Gives space for things we already spoke about, like middle powers to emerge. It's going to create more mini blocks like we spoke about.

[00:38:36] You'll see a resurgence of nationalism. You're going to see, you know, from a business perspective, supply chains that become more, that need to shift. You're going to see an emphasis on things that are not necessarily, quote-unquote, efficient, but, you know, duplicative to, like, back things up because you're expecting more uncertainty.

[00:38:55] And uncertainty itself is going to become more certain in the sense that if you don't have kind of, you know, a dominant power, let alone a system that can guide things through, you're inevitably going to have to accept and kind of price in more chaos. And, you know, that's too strong of a word. Certainly more flashpoints that emerge.

[00:39:17] And so, you know, whether it's on a political angle, certainly economical angle, and also for security because it's going to mean that it's harder to get global consensus to deal with security issues. I mean, you know, we're already starting to see this, right, where, you know, you don't have a country that's willing or able, let alone a coalition of countries willing or able, to bring order to so many of the hotspots that we see. That's going to result in more conflict, particularly within countries, I would say.

[00:39:45] There will, of course, still be, you know, state-to-state conflict, but I think the even bigger concern is within countries, you're not going to have external pressures that are willing and capable of bringing peace. In fact, you're actually going to have more of an incentive for countries to meddle in them because they're not checked by a power like the United States that says, knock us off.

[00:40:06] Yeah. So do you think there may be a possibility of a bit more kind of small regional conflicts, maybe not necessarily in the next 10 years, but sort of further down the line with that trend? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the short answer is, you know, when you don't have a country or set of countries that can set rules from the road and crucially enforce them, you know, you're going to have, quote unquote, misbehavior.

[00:40:29] You're going to have a greater risk tolerance by countries. You're going to have greater adventurism. Basically, the constraints that previously restrained some of these desires are going to evaporate. And that is going to make it more attractive or certainly more possible for countries to do exactly those type of things. And once, you know, a conflict breaks out, it's also going to just be harder to solve in the first place. So it's not only that you'll have more conflicts that emerge, but it will be harder to wind them down once they do.

[00:40:58] You know, just to take a very small example of what you're talking about, you know, in the past year and a half, we've seen Thailand and Cambodia, you know, flare multiple times along their shared border. This is a conflict. It's extremely limited, you know, to the border areas. But it's, you know, it's striking to me that we still haven't been able to actually reach some sort of deal here. Right. You know, we're in a period where thankfully the thing is contained.

[00:41:24] You know, we haven't had a flare up, significant flare up in coming up in almost a year now, but it's still out there. And, you know, it's an example of that. Right. We're like it doesn't have to be massive conflict like Russia, Ukraine. You have these small things that just weigh on the regional security environment. You know, another regional example of being the civil war in Myanmar, you know, the United States has been wholly unable and probably uninterested to some extent of expending the political capital to end the war there.

[00:41:51] By contrast, you have a country like China that is very actively backing the junta for, you know, its own economic, political and security reasons. You know, you'll have more conflicts like that.

[00:42:01] Right. So the next big topic, which is probably the multibillion dollar topic, is AI, where we see things kind of going with that, because obviously there's a lot of concern at the moment about sort of mass joblessness and then what effect that might have on the sort of, should we say, the domestic security of countries and governments? Yeah. So I would say there are a lot of stories to be told from AI.

[00:42:29] There are security stories or economic stories, political stories, technological stories. I guess I'll focus on two. The first one, which you referenced, we already spoke out a bit, is just what it's going to mean for job markets. So, you know, the first is if you're looking, you know, over the next year, we still don't see AI having, you know, just this mass job displacement. But if you look over a decade, yes, AI is going to basically ripple through, you know, effectively every industry across the globe.

[00:42:58] And you're going to see AI leaving marks positive or negatively on the global economy and individual job markets. And that's because of kind of two things that make the AI revolution different. And, you know, I'm always skeptical when someone says, okay, this is a wholly different thing. But I do think that compared to prior technological evolutions and revolutions, there are two distinctive features about AI.

[00:43:24] The first is prior tech revolutions, say, you know, through mechanization, they affected primarily what we call, you know, blue collar workers. AI is going to affect primarily white collar workers, you know, the office job, people that work in offices, certainly my industry, right? Geopolitical analysis, AI is going to shake up our industry. It's undeniable. And so that is different.

[00:43:47] And the second is, whereas you had prior technological revolutions that really disproportionately impacted a certain number of industries, AI use cases are going to be across the globe and across every sector. You know, of course, some are going to be comparatively more exposed than others. But it's hard to think of an industry that is not going to be affected in some way.

[00:44:10] We still believe, and I think actually evidence thus far shows that you will actually have more jobs overall that are created by AI, that are, quote unquote, destroyed by AI. This is kind of the system that we've, you know, this is the outcome that we've seen thus far. But that doesn't mean that there's not going to be an incredibly difficult transition period. It's not going to mean by any means that you're not going to have whole communities that are left behind by some of this.

[00:44:40] And it's certainly not going to mean that you're not going to have massive pushback from people upset about this. And so it's kind of, you know, when you think about like the collective pie may be still growing, but that doesn't mean that individual slices aren't going to be in for like a real hit here. So that's, you know, kind of the jobs aspect. The second thing that I would talk about in this forecast is what geopolitical competition between the US and China means.

[00:45:09] And of course, you know, this is the other big story, you know, almost every day that you read about. You know, I don't want to get too far into the weeds here, but, you know, we could do many podcasts on just this topic. But, you know, effectively, AI is going to be what we would consider to be a two-man race between the United States and China.

[00:45:29] China is absolutely going to catch up as it already is in just kind of the raw advances in AI and basically the sophistication of the frontier models. You know, what we see as a key question, though, is basically if China is going to be able to leverage AI abroad in a way that it's not compromised by kind of its own domestic imperatives.

[00:45:56] Because we've seen time and again with China that, you know, there is a large concern from the government that in China's system has the ability to basically like regulate out, you know, a technology or a type of economic activity it doesn't like.

[00:46:12] And so if you have a government that is prioritizing kind of domestic security, does it allow AI to transform society in the way, certainly, you know, through exports abroad that it might otherwise have or not so concerned? And so I think that's a big question mark. But there's so many angles to this topic. You know, I don't want to spend too much time because we would be here forever. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Well, thank you for that.

[00:46:40] So the other big one, I mean, there are many big ones here, but the other big one from my point of view is climate change, which I still feel is not being talked enough about in national security circles. I mean, it is changing. There is more discussion going on, but it's been a big blind spot for many years. Yeah, I mean, the short answer is it will accelerate. You know, there is nothing that we see in the next 10 years as fundamentally changing the trajectory of global warming.

[00:47:08] You know, we've already seen us blowing past, you know, kind of the points at which scientists have, you know, repeatedly said that would basically be some sort of a tipping point. And so what we see basically is moving from attempts at mitigation to adaptation, you know, trying basically to move from a system where you're trying to stop the problem to, okay, we failed. How do we now deal with it?

[00:47:34] And that's a pretty meaningful shift in terms of, you know, how we prioritize funding, how we prioritize business activity, et cetera. But that is a shift that we see taking place over the next 10 years. You know, there will be, you know, I hate to say positives, but some countries will benefit just based on their geographic positioning. If it becomes comparatively less cold or maybe you can get a little more rain, you know, there are some proverbial winners here.

[00:48:02] But, you know, they still come with trade-offs. You know, for instance, like the most obvious one that we talk about, of course, is like the warming Arctic, right? The more the Arctic warms, the more resources become available, the more trade can flow through there. You know, in theory it's positives, but the Arctic is still warming, you know, which from a climate change perspective is not ideal to say the least. So, you know, you have these real trade-offs. And, you know, I would even say there it's not as though in the next 10 years you're going to have this massive buildup in Arctic infrastructure.

[00:48:32] You are still going to face really challenging environmental conditions, not least kind of, you know, large swings seasonally between like just absolutely bitter cold to like just relative warmth. You know, that's hard from an infrastructure perspective. So it's not as though you're going to get this like massive redevelopment in the next 10 years. It's still going to be slow and steady kind of along the Arctic lanes.

[00:48:55] You know, but when you think about what it matters from like international security, politics and economics, you know, the short answer is it's a negative across the board. From a security perspective, you know, we have not really seen despite what I would consider to be kind of like some hyperbolic rhetoric, like true, you know, like climate change wars. Climate change is still going to be a stressor. It's going to be an amplifier.

[00:49:22] So, you know, whether it's water stress, whether it's food production, whether it's something else, you know, climate change is absolutely going to amplify all the existing drivers for conflict. And so all those things are going to get worse and they would be going to become more likely. So, you know, I think parts of the world are going to struggle to grow food or going to be without water for longer periods. You know, particularly parts of the global south that are already, of course, the most vulnerable.

[00:49:51] Sadly, they will become even more vulnerable. But, you know, I do think even in, you know, the, you know, the global north and richer countries like in the west, you know, you're still going to have a really tough problem because you're going to have governments that in particular Europe, particularly in Europe, are going to not only have to do all of these outlays for all the new security spending. Right. You know, think about how much money European countries are now saying we're going to be spending on defense now, pair that with an aging population.

[00:50:19] So that's going to require more social spending and now pair that on top with, okay, all the climate stresses we're going to have to deal with because of the infrastructure we're going to need to build the operations, you know, from business perspective, we're going to have to do. And so that's going to put a lot of pressure on government's finances, certainly in, you know, the developing world, but even in rich countries that is going to be problematic. And there are going to be inevitable trade-offs that are not going to make people happy. Let's take a break and be right back with more.

[00:51:04] Now, we've got about 10 minutes left. Are there any particular factors that are important to you that you'd like to talk about? I don't think we can not talk about cyberspace just in the context of, you know, every day you have, you know, some, either a cyber attack or an AI model that's doing something it shouldn't be or what have you. You know, it's interesting.

[00:51:28] I think even when we wrote this about a year and a half ago, I think if we were to write it now, we would probably take even more of kind of a bullish line on cyber, I would suspect. But I do think broadly, I would agree with still with what we have here, which is, you know, if we think about cyber as an offensive weapon, I don't think just as we write here that we're going to have like a quote unquote full cyber war, so to speak.

[00:51:56] Our forecast is largely that cyber will be kind of an amplifier. It will become the new norm. But wars are still going to be fundamentally kinetic. I don't think we're in a position where we're talking about some sort of kind of like sci-fi fantasy world where you have basically conflicts fought wholly in cyberspace. Offensive capabilities will diffuse. You're going to have more countries that can do these things.

[00:52:25] You're going to have non-state actors that can do aggressive things. But we still see cyberspace basically as like a force multiplier for hard power. You know, even in Ukraine, for instance, you know, you have a country, Ukraine, that's going up against, you know, arguably second to maybe China and, you know, the United States, Russia, the most capable cyber power. And Russia's done a lot of awful things in cyberspace to Ukraine. But no one thinks of Ukraine as a cyber war. You know, it's very much a kinetic war.

[00:52:53] And so I think that will still largely hold true into the next decade. But absolutely, you will still see more aggressive cyber attacks from both state and non-state actors that are going to make security challenging for businesses, for people. And there's going to be a rising risk of just, you know, a huge variety of like accidents and miscalculations, you know, things that you don't expect to happen. So I think we need to prepare for that.

[00:53:20] You're also going to have, of course, you know, cyber abetted by AI in particular, just generating a huge new set of tools for surveillance. And that are really going to, of course, be concentrated, I would say, in authoritarian states, but by no means limited there, even in plenty of liberal democracies. You see plenty of governments trying to figure out how can we leverage these tools for greater national security purposes, which inevitably involves some intrusion into privacy.

[00:53:50] And so I think that's another key thing to monitor, you know, regardless of how AI turbocharges all those things. These things are going to happen regardless.

[00:54:00] And the final component here is, you know, I think something that gets undercovered, but is quite important from a geopolitical perspective is basically the way in which we are starting to see very clearly, and this is only going to accelerate, countries becoming even more focused on basically data sovereignty and keeping data within their own borders,

[00:54:24] keeping networks, keeping networks, keeping networks, not wanting to have things that are open to other governments, certainly not ones that they're less trustful of. And so you're going to have more of that bifurcation where you have slow and steady erosion of kind of the quote unquote open internet, open data flows towards more, not, I don't want to say fully closed domains.

[00:54:51] You'll have a few, but you know, it'll just be more that you have this more kind of balkanization, for lack of a better term, in which you have governments that increasingly prioritize data networks, everything cyber related, housed within their own sovereign space. And so that kind of is going to mirror what you're going to see at a geopolitical level at the top, kind of the breakdown at a very technical level in this increasing multipolarity and erosion of kind of the global openness. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Sam.

[00:55:21] Where can listeners find out more about you and RAIN? Yeah, I appreciate it. So RAIN stands for Risk Assistance Network and Exchange. We as a company do a lot of things, but I'm a bit biased as I help to lead our analytic team. I like to think that our geopolitical analysis is the bread and butter of what we do, but you can visit us at RAIN Network, R-A-N-E Network dot com. You know, we have a lot of individual subscribers just as individuals.

[00:55:46] Of course, you know, a lot of our work is to support organizations across the board, whether it's, you know, Fortune 100 companies to family foundations to small NGOs, you know, and we do in addition to geopolitical forecasting, which is, of course, what, you know, we've been talking about today, you know, every day we're publishing a flurry of content on our different platforms covering different global security, political, economic, a whole energy, a whole variety of topics.

[00:56:12] I'm sure as soon as I sign off from you, Chris, I'm going to see about 20 emails that I have asking me to review something. But, you know, this is something I think every organization has discovered since the pandemic and certainly since the Russian invasion in Ukraine, that geopolitics and security need to go back into the boardroom, so to speak, and that you need some sort of forecasting to try to stay ahead of things, even if you can't prevent them to at least prepare for them.

[00:56:40] Yeah, yeah, indeed. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Sam. It's been really great. And, you know, thank you for imparting all that you, all the knowledge you have about all of this has been a, you know, quite a heavy one for you today, this episode. Yeah, I think we covered certainly every, we even got in the Arctic. We didn't get in the Antarctic, so I guess we were missing one part of the world. Oh, well, maybe I have to do that for, well, definitely have to do the New Year's one again, also annual chat about your annual reports that we're good to have you back on. Well, thanks very much for having me today.

[00:57:10] Well, everybody, that's it for today's episode. Thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. Go to patreon.com forward slash secrets and spies. You'll get access to the ad free versions of this show. Thank you for your support. Thank you for listening. Take care.

[00:57:54] Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies.