The Interregnum

Intro: I had never met Professor Andy Knight before and wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I began with a simple question: “How do you perceive the current moment?” - by which I meant the world as it stands in 2026, after three months of intense turbulence.

To my surprise he engaged the question fully and naturally as an open discussion, as you do between friends.

In other words, rather than retreating into the guarded, abstract, or non-committal language that often characterises academic commentary, he responded with openness and striking clarity. He offered a way of understanding the present global order unlike any I had encountered before. It is this unique perspective and analysis of the interregnum – also, a vision of hope - that is one of the key aspects of this interview.

Discussing the present in this way can be of great risk to intellectuals but it allows everyone, whether agreeing and/or disagreeing on many issues, to reflect on the condition of our world right now. And that is the greatest service research and intellectual dialogue can do, in my view.

1. Video

2. Time stamps / table of contents

0:00 - 04:28 - Intro. How do you perceive the current moment?

04:29 - 19:31 - Lessons from the past. The "interregnum" and "fragmegration".

19:32 - 30:00 - What about 'your' perspective on the interregnum? How do you account for the dimension of power in relation to hegemony and for the role of the United States?

30:01 - 51:24 - Discussing the Coxian notion of hegemony to explain the current interregnum: material capabilities, institutions, and ideas. Coercion and institutional strain. No single actor now can impose a new hegemonic settlement on the world. We might be moving to a post-hegemonic system, a fragmented, contested and historically open-ended world order. From reform to transformation. "Complex interdependence".

51:27 - 53:35 - What is the current strategy of the United States? What should have the United States done to make sure that a multinational, global governance led, liberal international order would continue after its hegemony ends?

53:36 - 1:00:04 - No strategy and overextension to retain dominance signals a movement towards a post-hegemonic world order (due to diffuse power). The United States as a case-study in residual hegemony.

1:00:05 - 1:03:47 - Selective multilateralism (Board of Peace, Coalitions of the willing).

1:03:47 - 1:10:37 - Economic, political and military statecraft as the strategy?

1:10:38 - 1:12:48 - Retaining hegemonic influence if not hegemonic control: 5 moves.

1:12:49 - 1:15:15 - China, hegemonic power and a post-hegemonic world order.

1:15:16 - 1:22:57 - US trying to restructure globalization to benefit itself. A shift from efficiency to resilience and security. Selective multilateralism and minilateral groupings. Fragmentation of global governance system is preferred rather than systemic coherence which is now out of reach for the US but it leads to overextension.

1:22:58 - 1:30:55 - China? A China-led diffuse world order? How to move from zero-sum games to non zero-sum games? How to move away from competition for imperial hegemony?

1:30:56 - 1:42:12 - On China again. A specific configuration of power that sustains US hegemony is breaking down and being abandoned by the United States. The liberal international order and transformation rather than reform.

1:42:14 - 1:42:31 - If transformation and not reform: do we then retain some of the multilateral institutions or clean the board and start again?

1:42:32 - 1:51:14 - Reform will not cut it anymore, a transformation of World Order is needed. Three pillars: 1. ideational order (human rights and UN system could continue but there will be contestation that must play out and result in new arrangements), 2. material level (difficult to impose hegemony as power is more diffuse), and 3. institutions (a networked multipolar order with nodes that criss-cross states rather than hierarchies based on states as nodes).

1:51:16 - 1:53:50 - We are so state-centric in our views but the state is a fictional concept. With power more diffuse we see less hierarchy and more scope for subjectivity/agency leading to coalitions of the willing in climate change or poverty reduction, mini-lateralism, fragmented governance, multilevel governance, intermestic nature of governance.

1:53:53 - 1:57:46 - An intermestic world. Global challenges do not care about borders. Top-down subsidiarity versus bottom-up subsidiarity. The UN system should be the last resort (not the first resort) for addressing problems.

1:57:47 - 2:01:26 - On democracy and the state. The notion of democracy will be upended. Local nodes and sub-national nodes making decisions is a form of democracy that is on the rise and offers more than a top-down decision-making system based on fix hierarchies established via democratic elections. The state as last resort not first resort.

2:01:27 - 2:06:36 - Future global challenges, tipping points and possible responses. Jorge Heine and "active non-alignment". We, as agents can create a new world order (new ideas, institutions and material capabilities) as we now live in a new, diverse, multipolar world (not one US-Europe centric).

2:06:57 - 2:10:12 - Biological limits on competition for imperial hegemony? Issues of timeframe and long-term thinking.

2:10:13 - 2:18:06 - China and long-term thinking. China and the US. We don't know what comes next as everything is contingent. US not necessarily falling into an authoritarian trap but still irreversible damage done to the US particularly in terms of the new thinking that immigrants are the problem.

2:18:07 - 2:26:57 - Tax system, tariffs, deindustrialization, infrastructure, populism, racism.

2:26:58 - 2:33:36 - White supremacy and the Canadian Armed Forces. Xeno-racism. Security and fear leading to populism: "the enemy happens to be the immigrant".

2:33:37 - 2:43:25 - The continent of Africa in the new world order. Pan-Africanism. Barbados. The Global South.

2:43:26 - 2:53:57 - Structural racism is embedded in our most central institutions in society.

3. Transcript

Intro. How do you perceive the current moment?

0:05 Dear Professor Andy Knight, um I'm I'm so happy that you were able to join me
0:12 today. Uh since before starting this series of interviews, I had uh I had two
0:19 names at the top of my list and you were one of them. I first came to know about your work through two university friends.
0:29 um they were passionate readers of global governance in the early 2000s.
0:34 They also took great pride in the fact that the Bahigh had become editor of such a highly respected journal. It was
0:42 of course the theme of global governance itself that drew their attention and more broadly the attention of Bahigh students of politics.
0:51 uh if I remember correctly your PhD focus focused on reform of the United Nations system and this was sometime
1:01 between the late 1980s and the mid90s 1990s.
1:06 This means you had chosen to focus on global governance even before the cold war ended or before the fall of the Soviet Union.
1:15 In academic terms that strikes me as something of a risky choice at the time, one not many would have taken.
1:23 It also means that you have been working on this topic of global governance from the moment it became it began to emerge with force in the early 1990s.
1:34 Right.
1:34 Later I learned from another colleague that your intellectual interests were highly integrative
1:43 that you were seeking to develop a form of knowledge about global politics that is genuinely global in character across continents, regions and nations.
1:54 This integrative outlook is clearly reflected in the wide range of themes you have worked on. These include
2:03 hedgeimonyy, democracy and good governance, global disorder, the UN system, conflict resolution and peace
2:10 building, global civil society, global health, governance and security,
2:15 children and armed conflict, piracy in the Horn of Africa, the vulnerabilities and resilience of small island
2:23 developing states in the car Caribbean as well as statelessness, the responsibility to protect extremist ism,
2:32 counterterrorism, female suicide terrorism, human security, human rights
2:38 and human dignity. And most recently, I think your work has focused on systemic
2:45 barriers faced by black children and youth across Canada. Correct.
2:50 That is an very impressive array of topics and themes. Um later in my own
2:57 studies I had I came across your global politics textbook with Tom Kiting which
3:05 I found to be a wonderful introduction and I have been recommending it to bahigh uh well as much as I could. I've
3:14 also encountered one of your chapters in the volume edited by Jim Wittmann where where your work appears alongside
3:21 several chapters by James Rosenau which as many would know was one of the founders of the concept of global governance.
3:30 Um and of course I'm now most attracted um to a book that was very famous and is
3:39 still foundational uh a changing united nations multilateral evolution and the quest for global governance.
3:48 Uh I think of you as one of the most serious thinkers the Bahigh community has on the question of world order and
3:56 as a pioneer in the broader field of global governance.
4:00 uh given that you were deeply that you were already deeply engaged with these questions in the early 90s and that you
4:08 have continued this work until now you are in a unique position to assess the present moment.
4:15 Uh so perhaps we could begin there.
4:19 You know what are your thoughts? How do you make sense of the current moment the moment we are in in 2026?
4:28 That's that's a good place to start because uh almost everything I've done up to this point in my career have been

Chapter 2:

Lessons from the past. The "interregnum" and "fragmegration".

4:36 focused on trying to understand uh what's going on in the current period
4:43 with a a look at what's gone on in the past. So I believe very much in the notion of academics being historians in
4:52 some ways. Um the history of how we got to where we are is very important. And many times we see a lot of things that
4:59 happened uh we think this is new. This is something that's very new. And then when you think about it and you research
5:07 what has happened in the past, you realize it has happened before. So there's a lot of repetition of what's
5:13 gone on before. And uh some people might say history kind of repeats itself, but I don't think it repeats itself in a
5:22 circle. Uh it's more like a spiral because we learn lessons. Hopefully we learn lessons. Not not all the time, but
5:29 we learn lessons most of the time from what's gone on in the past. And as a result we are able to either improve
5:38 upon uh you know our uh our f our future our present or future uh by learning
5:45 lessons from the past. Now when we don't learn lessons from the past we spiral downwards. So I think you can look at
5:53 this as a possibility of spiraling up or spiraling down. And I think we are right now at at a moment in history where
6:02 we're spiraling downwards unfortunately because we haven't really understood and learned our lessons from the past. So
6:11 basically I know you you want to talk about the interregnum because I've been talking uh most recently in my my work
6:18 about the concept of the interregnum and it comes from in large part from um one
6:26 of my professors Robert Cox who's now passed away uh but who had a kind of a
6:32 bredellian view of of of the world um this notion that you can look at the world in terms of it long duray as
6:41 opposed to current events history. So sometimes you get caught up in the current events. Right now we're caught up in the current events history of the
6:50 United States attacks on Iran, um United States attacks on Venezuela,
6:56 um the Russian attacks on Ukraine, and we get so caught up in these what they call current events, historical moments,
7:05 that we forget the panoramic view of history. you know, you have to look at history in terms of panoramic view, the ups and downs, you know, the mountains and the valleys um of human experience.
7:17 So, I try to let my students know that we are that what they're witnessing right now, which is very troublesome for them, um a time of flux and uncertainty,
7:30 a time of disequilibrium, uh a time of discontinuity.
7:34 Uh that this is really a pattern that we've seen before.
7:39 and other interregna. Now interregnums are usually that period of time between uh two world orders. So they have the
7:47 world or order order of the past 1945 world order which created the United Nations system which created the bread
7:54 and woods institutions which created a whole bunch of norms and and rules and regulations
8:02 in an attempt to try to stop World War 3 from happening. Right? because this was during the World War II period. And the
8:11 the the those lessons that we learned from that period of time, those norms,
8:17 those rules, those regulations are now under attack by the current
8:24 regime in the United States, uh primarily Donald Trump, but he's not the only one. uh but it seems as though th
8:32 those those norms and those rules that created the world order of 1945 are now being decimated. I say that the pillars
8:42 which held up world war the world order of 1945.
8:46 Those pillars are being undermined uh they're crumbling right before our eyes. we can see this and that's why my
8:54 work sort of touches on a whole bunch of stuff like you know democracy for example I talk about failing democracies
9:01 um I talk about democracies that are backsliding um I talk about the the the the wars and
9:09 the rumors of wars um the the number of um attempts
9:16 uh to try to use force rather than use peaceful mediation and me measures to stop wars from occurring and everything
9:25 seems to be happening all at the same time. So I try to put things in perspective for my students by saying this period of discontinuity really is a
9:33 reflection of the interregnum this period of dis this this period of of flux and uncertainty
9:40 uh which indicates that the world order of 1945 is coming to an end and that there is a new world order that hasn't
9:48 yet quite emerged. And if you go back to when this term was first used by
9:55 individuals like Antonio Grahamshy he he he had the modern conception of interregnum. Um I think he can be sort
10:04 of credited with that. He he said that the old order is dying and a new order cannot yet be born.
10:13 uh so in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear and and we can see those morbid systems appearing right now in this interregnum.
10:23 So this this is really a formulation uh kind of analytical way of understanding what's happening right now. So I don't know if you want me to
10:31 stop there because I said a lot already but I think this just to just to confirm um some of the key characteristics of
10:39 the interregnum include the fact that there is a crisis in legitimacy. So existing institutions existing norms
10:48 existing authorities are losing credibility as we speak. People are no longer willing to believe in the old
10:56 order. We had our prime minister of Canada uh just recently spoke at at DEOS uh talked about the fact that there was
11:05 a rupture and that that's the term he used and I kind of agreed with him to some extent. There's a rupture in the
11:12 old world order. The r the rules of the game of the old world order, the rules of trade, for example, is being ruptured
11:21 by Donald Trump's um imposition of tariffs, which goes against everything that we thought about when it comes to
11:28 to free trade. And we can no longer trust that our leaders are going to be adhering to any laws on any rules.
11:39 So the president of the United States which is the president of one of the largest countries in the world um by the way the United States was the architect
11:48 or one of the architects of the world order that was created in 1945. We know this because we know that the United States was very very actively involved
11:57 in the creation of the United Nations charter. It worked with both Britain and Russia and Soviet Union at the time to
12:04 create the uh this new institution of governance. Um it was given a veto authority to make sure that it worked
12:13 within the United Nations system rather than working from outside of the organization. So all these things really
12:20 um have were put in place largely by the United States in collaboration with Britain which was the hegemonic power
12:28 that was declining. The United States would be in the hedgemonic power that was on the ascent and it looked like the
12:35 world was was going to be a much more peaceful world and I would say it was a
12:42 precarious peace because of the presence of nuclear weapons and so once you have nuclear weapons then your peace is kind
12:50 of imposed upon you because you don't want to utilize nuclear weapons that would be destroying the world. Um but
12:57 there were also civil conflicts in many different parts of the world. There were many countries that wanted to be part of the
13:04 international policym but weren't present in 1945.
13:10 Think about this. There were only 51 states that were present when the United Nations system was created. So there would have been a hundred some old
13:19 states that uh that were not yet independent states or were not considered to be sovereign and distinct
13:26 states as yet. So when those new states came into the system obviously the United Nations system had to change had
13:33 to expand its membership. Um and by expanding its membership, it had to also embrace a whole bunch of new uh things
13:43 that needed to be done uh to help those countries develop uh to perhaps um try to solve some of
13:51 the crises uh of legitimacy for those countries and so on. So a charact a key characteristic of the interregnum is the
13:59 the crisis in the legitimacy, the norms and the authority uh that has lost their credibility.
14:07 And I might add that as well we have seen what I call institutional drift or a
14:14 breakdown in the global governance structures. So that the global governance structures that we've come to know since 1945 have become a lot less effective, a lot less coherent,
14:27 a lot less efficient.
14:30 So hence there are lots of arguments about and this probably reflects some of the stuff I've written about back in the 1990s when I talked about the need for
14:38 United Nations reform. You mentioned the book that I wrote on a changing United Nations and then I did an edited volume on adapting the United Nations to a
14:48 post-modern era and that was simply an indication that the institution
14:55 uh the institutions of governance were starting to try to adapt to changing pressures or pressures for change.
15:05 And therefore the global governance structures in some cases were were less effective than it than they normally
15:12 would have been. Uh in some cases were less coherent in many cases defin definitely not efficient enough. Uh so
15:21 so we've seen a kind of institutional drift occurring during the interregnum and the the final thing I would like to
15:28 say is that what we're witnessing right now is what is akin to normative uncertainty which means that there are
15:36 so many different competing v visions of what should replace the old world order uh because we it's definitely dying. Um
15:46 but there's no clear consensus yet uh as to the future direction of the new world order. Um this is something that is in
15:54 the making. So I try to encourage my students by saying you know while there's a lot of drift and a lot of problems with the current state of
16:01 affairs. They should be heartened by the fact that we as individual human beings,
16:06 we all have agency and we all can contribute in some way to the creation of whatever the new world order would be
16:14 like. So which means yes there will be heightened contestation. There will be heightened uh political ideological and
16:22 social struggles in this moment of uncertainty in this interregnum.
16:28 There will be competing actors attempting to shape the new world order.
16:32 Some are moving up the ladder, some are moving down the ladder. I think the United States is definitely moving down the ladder at this particular moment in
16:39 time. This loss is is it legitimacy as a as a hegemonic power. So hegemonic power
16:46 is no longer can be assigned to the United States as far as I'm concerned. Uh and then there's the rise of China,
16:53 the rise of India, the rise of um South Africa, the rise of the bricks. There
16:59 are rise of number of new uh governance systems to replace the old governance systems, but we are not quite there yet.
17:10 So to go back to Grachi, I I think his term for destabilizing phenomena which is the interregnum
17:17 um arises because of this vacuum that we find ourselves in the vacuum of of the absence of proper global governance and
17:27 that and we can see the evidence of this empirical evidence of this is the extremism that we are trying to address now. the whole populism thing that's
17:36 changing the way we look at what democracy ought to be and the institutional paralysis of the United Nations as the United States, one of the
17:45 founders of the United Nations is starting to pull out of UN agencies and UN bodies. I think over 30 40 um UN
17:53 agencies the United States has pulled out of and it's trying to starve the institution by refusing to pay up
18:00 assessed contributions reducing its contributions to say aid USAD no longer exists as a as a funding
18:10 body from the United States and then there's the whole issue of the violence and the fragmentation that the world is witnessing and I I remember um you
18:19 talked about James Rosnau, right? James Rosnau.
18:22 Um, I had him here at the University of Alberta in Canada um, before he passed away and he was talking about what they
18:31 call fragmigration. That's a term I started to use back in the 1990s I think uh, late 1990s when James Rosno had
18:40 already coined that term. But basically that there were two forces uh, colliding. one is one of fragment
18:48 fragmentation and the other was one of of integration.
18:54 So he talks about the frag migration and the uh in terms of
19:00 um something that would compete with integration.
19:05 Uh so those two things to be intersecting at the same time. So I think I will leave it there because I think I've given you a lot a lot to chew
19:14 on right now. But I but basically I'm I'm saying that this moment that we're living in right now is seems to be one
19:20 of what Graham called an interregnum. Um and that we are not we are not quite there yet when it comes to the new world order that should be created.

Chapter 3:

What about 'your' perspective on the interregnum? How do you account for the dimension of power in relation to hegemony and for the role of the United States?

19:32 You are helping me um put forward my questions very well. Um
19:40 going back to definitions uh regarding interregnum because I what I want to emphasize is that I think you have a
19:48 different view on this notion than many others and so I I'll just kind of rehearse some of the previous views that
19:57 people might know about. Um so as you mentioned the notion originates with Gshi uh who uses it to describe crisis
20:06 of hedgeimonyy when ruling classes lose consent and no alternative order has yet consolidated power.
20:14 You've clearly expressed that and taken that on. Um, other authors like Nancy Frasier have used interregnum to analyze
20:24 the breakdown of neoliberal hedgeimonyy arguing that we are in a hegemonic gap between progressive neoliberalism and an
20:32 emergent post-neoliberal order. That would have been some years ago I guess.
20:39 Then there are those like Arjun Apadoray who have employed the term to describe a world of rising nationalism and declining liberal consensus.
20:49 I would describe the present moment as marked by the demise of liberal democracy, the weakening of the international liberal order and
20:57 international law which is included and the rise of ednationalism and white supremacy.
21:04 Um Adam Tus on the other hand to invoke somebody more recent has argued we are
21:11 living in living in a gshian interregnum at the global level and that the poly crisis is the form that this disorder takes in practice.
21:21 The two's interregnum describes a condition in which the US-led liberal international order established after
21:27 1945 and intensified after 1991 marked by globalization, deep financial integration and institutions such as the
21:35 IMF, WTO and and coordinated central banking continues to structure global affairs
21:42 but has come under huge pressure. This old order is fraying yet no stable replacement for US hedgeimonyy has
21:51 emerged as rising powers especially China lack of fully articulated alternative system and g and geopolitical blocks remain
22:00 fragmented resulting not in outright collapse but in persistent unresolved instability.
22:08 Now when I think of your notion uh of intergnum I I I find it differs in terms
22:15 of what what the intergnum is between. So what are the two the two periods that
22:23 the interum is between because because at least in in in in what you have
22:30 written in the past your intergnum seems to mark a period of transition from an oversimplified
22:38 statecentric vision of world order towards a more nuanced sophisticated and incompassing notion of global governance.
22:47 Um, and this is a complex thing because uh,
22:53 this sounds very much to me like an intergenum leading to a global order or a world order based largely on global
23:00 governance institutions and a variety of global governance actors from states to NOS's to civil society to transnational
23:08 corporations to plethora of agencies from business associations and public private consorcia bone rating agencies transational ational social movements,
23:17 transnational advocacy networks and so on to epistemic communities, coalitions of NOS's,
23:24 security communities and so forth. So I I think there's two things that happen here for me and if I had time I would
23:31 quote you from one of your chapters in which you say that in the absence of world government the patchwork concoction that we call global
23:40 governance may in fact be our best hope for bringing stability equity justice and sustainability to our present new world disorder.
23:50 What I take from this is that you are not so it sounds to me like you might be arguing not only for the reform
23:59 of international governmental organizations like the United Nations but for a whole new way to look at global governance as a place where a
24:09 sort of new tissue of institutions is emerging and this doesn't look
24:16 in the simple way in which someone who has an interest in global institutions would look at this picture thinking you
24:24 know they would think about three or four major global institutions and think that we should just uh empower
24:32 those or support them or whatever. uh your view is very very different and it's a very critical view because you
24:39 are critical of these institutions. You remarked that they are biased that they advantage the wealthy nations, the
24:47 developed nations, that they undermine uh the participation of the global south and nations from the global south in
24:55 decision makings that the rules when they are implemented they are again um
25:01 distorted by the power interests of of the of the bigger nations. And so there
25:08 is clearly uh there is clearly a very critical tone about these institutions
25:15 which you which you and and entire sphere of global governance which you you seek to kind to kind of reform
25:25 and and that was in in the good old days that that critic applied when and now uh
25:32 things are a lot more uh dire than than at that point and so a question that that that I have there's two questions
25:40 here. The first question is could you describe more this patchwork concoction that is really in a sense is what
25:49 differentiates you from some of the other names I've mentioned uh what is you know what what is this
25:57 global governance scene that you were seeing at least in the past if not necessarily in the present
26:04 and and then the second question is how does this all relate to real power
26:13 uh and especially to the fact that the world order we had was not in my view I mean this is a debate was the world
26:22 order we had a sort of liberal international order and multinational
26:29 centric kind of order um or to what extent was it that and to what extent was it a US-led world order
26:37 uh where benefits it's a crew to the west in particular Europe included maybe
26:43 and so forth. So uh because as as now as now the realist perspective comes back with great uh power for everyone.
26:56 There is a tendency to suggest that all of that international liberal
27:03 international order was just u a sort of appendis or sort of feature
27:11 extra feature of the real structure of power which was a US empire which had military bases from the end of Europe to
27:19 the end of Asia controlling trade controlling serus controlling choke points u satellite lights in the air,
27:27 drones, war invasions, covered ops,
27:32 u and all sorts of ways in which to make sure you were the world hegeimon
27:40 uh in the power sense but but but then also that there was this dimension there is a sort of continuum between this power dimension and
27:49 um the so soft power dimension uh so what I'm trying so there's two questions there one is what is that global thing
27:56 that is emerging that is that is possibly taking us to something very different than just going from a world
28:05 order with one hgeimon to another world order with another hegeimon what is that and then what is how do we
28:12 look at the US now because I think and many would have said this and I think you've said it today with things like
28:21 the Venezuela episode special military operation uh in January and the talk
28:28 about Greenland and other things that we are witnessing.
28:33 I think most analysts would say that the United States has committed a sort of hegemonic suicide which means they have
28:41 reverted to a sort of old colonial imperial power that just seeks to assert
28:48 it assert itself through force by controlling supply chains using economic state craft uh moving to to a whole
28:57 series of um moves that feature within a real politic type of scenario.
29:05 Uh and and there's a lot of debate between those that think there is a five
29:12 5D uh how do you call it u five dimensions chess game taking place and
29:19 those who think there's absolute chaos and there's nothing really thoughtful about it. Um but yeah to return to the
29:28 two questions. The first question is what is that global thing that was emerging that could you know that could
29:34 replace this constant competition for imperial hedgeimonyy and or or atten
29:43 attenuated maybe and and what how do you see the US now um and and because
29:51 because I think the two are connected because the liberal order has a lot to do with the United States and the reason it is fraying it is because of the United States. Thank you.
30:00 Sorry.

Chapter 4:

Discussing the Coxian notion of hegemony to explain the current interregnum: material capabilities, institutions, and ideas. Coercion and institutional strain. No single actor now can impose a new hegemonic settlement on the world. We might be moving to a post-hegemonic system, a fragmented, contested and historically open-ended world order. From reform to transformation. "Complex interdependence".

30:01 No, this is a good that's a good way to look at this because you're right.
30:06 You're absolutely right. I mean, there was a time when I came out of uh my PhD and uh I'd written a a dissertation on
30:13 the United Nations reform and I tried my best to see how we could change the
30:21 United Nations system in a way that would make it much more relevant to the current period. And of course that was just around the time of the end of the
30:29 cold war. Now this is very important because uh what we're talking here is about structural changes not just reforms in
30:38 the sense of tweaking things and oiling the machine. You have a squeaky door and you want to make sure the door doesn't
30:47 squeak anymore. You put some oil in the in the hinges and that sort of stops the squeaking, but the door is still there.
30:53 um uh and it could actually go back to squeaking again if you don't have enough oil to to to make sure that it doesn't
31:01 squeak. Uh so what I'd like to do is to put it in the context of again my my my
31:08 mentor Robert Cox when he taught me at York University used to talk about and that is you have to first of all understand how world orders are created.
31:18 Now, world orders are created in most cases by a hegemonic power, a power, a military, a power that has military
31:26 might, economic might, um both hard power and soft power elements, but a hegemonic power. And if you understand
31:36 that, then you understand that hegeimony uh has led to the notion of a hegemonic
31:44 state. So the United States was the hegeimon replacing Britain which was the hegeimon before the United States was
31:52 hegeimon and Britain replaced the Netherlands which was a hegeimon before the UK became a hedgemon. So
32:01 and and and there there was also the Iberian system before that. So there's like 500 years of exactly between the different periods.
32:11 Now the important thing here is that all world orders have at least three major
32:18 pillars. The first is material capability which means the economic and military power that supports the world
32:25 order. The second is a series of institutions. Institutions like the international monetary fund, the world bank, the world trade organizations etc.
32:35 which um is is geared is is actually supported again by the material capabilities, right? Um but these are
32:43 the ones that help to govern the world and then ideas which is very important.
32:49 The ideas are the norms and the values and the shared understandings um that are put in place uh and actually utilized by the by the institutions.
32:59 um many of those material capabilities um actually support certain types of ideas. So there's always going to be
33:06 cont con contest contestation of ideas uh as there will be constantation of institutions
33:15 as there are again material capabilities that rise and fall. So what you see happening when a hegeimon declines when
33:24 a hegemonic order declines is that there is an attack on these three pillars material capabilities institutions and
33:33 ideas. So there's in most cases as we are seeing right now in what I call the interregno period we see the breakdown
33:41 of coherence institutions no longer reflecting the material real realities of the world. I mean, how many times
33:48 have you said that the UN Security Council is useless because there's a veto system in place that that causes
33:56 the organization not to function in the way the UN charter expected it to function. So, there are lots of conflicts across the globe that are not
34:04 being resolved because the institutions no longer reflect the material realities of the world.
34:11 um the material realities should change the institutions um when those material realities change.
34:18 So for example when you have the rise of India the rise of Pakistan two now nuclear powers why do they have why do
34:27 they not have a place within the security council for example that's either permanent or semi-permanent you know uh so the institution really has
34:36 not reflected material changes that have happened in the world the UK is no longer a big power but yet
34:44 still holds that prominent place within the security council uh Russia replaced the USSR without any sort of vote within
34:52 the UN's security council or within the United Nations uh general assembly. Um uh China replaced uh mainland China replaced Taiwan on the security council.
35:04 So there have been changes but the institution hasn't really reflected in in reality the the material realities of the of the globe in a way.
35:16 So we have ideas also that lose legitimacy faith in the liberal you talk about the liberal institution international order but that was a that
35:24 was a really a liber ideology that was foisted upon the US system by the United States the charter which was written in
35:33 large part in collaboration between the UK and and the United States and in some cases Russia um the charter really uh
35:43 has those ideals that are present uh in any sort of liberal globalization uh ideology.
35:53 But don't forget that liberal internationalism was something that benefited the hegemonic power because
36:00 the hegemonic power usually has control over the ideas that would govern the global governance institutions right
36:07 from then on. So from 1945 until I would say around 1989 1990 I will explain why
36:14 that that particular turning point uh but you have a structure of world order that's largely bipolar right the United
36:23 States and the Soviet Union clashing with each other trying to sort of gain supremacy um over each other but
36:30 certainly there was that kind of bipolar structure the world was literally divided into um spheres of influence um
36:38 spheres of influence to the United States, spheres of influence to Russia or the Soviet Union. Uh so that bipolar system lasted really until about 1989,
36:48 1990. The Soviet Union fell apart, right? In 1990,
36:53 um uh and broke up into 15 different states. Um it was no longer the Soviet Union. So that's one of the the
37:00 structural um material capabilities that meant missing after 1989. The United
37:08 States then became the sole hedgemonic power uh rather than competing with the Soviet Union for hedge money, it became
37:17 the sole hedgemonic power. So we talked a lot about the uni unilateral u United States, right? The unipolar unipolarity became a thing as opposed to bipolarity.
37:28 So the structure of the international system was much more unipolar uh because this giant of of of a country
37:36 had much more weight and much more say in everything that went on around the globe. In fact, some people talked about the United States as a global policeman.
37:45 And that was not that far-fetched because it was involved in every sort of skirmish around the globe. It had military um personnel all over the globe
37:54 and and it still does today. Um but at some point in time um what happened to the Soviet Union may happen to the
38:02 United States as well because the Soviet Union overextended itself. If you get a chance to read Paul Kennedy's book about
38:09 the rise and the fall of the great powers, you'll see what I mean. Great powers tend to overextend themselves and
38:16 usually have built in within them their own demise. Right? So Soviet Union demise. Yes. um Russia took over but
38:25 it's not nearly as as powerful as the Soviet Union was. uh the United States now is on that period of decline because
38:34 it's no longer consider consider itself to be the unipolar power right why because China has risen India Pakistan
38:43 South Africa Brazil the bricks these are rising countries so which means that the material capability pillar of the old
38:52 world order uh is changing as well and then of course the ideas um you The
38:59 United States wanted to control through soft power the rest of the world. It wasn't intended to use military might
39:08 for everything. Um it would also use its its own uh internal um what should we
39:17 call it? Uh its internal norms and the ways it looked at itself as a way to entice other people to join the United
39:25 States. Um, so that means they're not not not hitting them over the head with a big stick all the time, but sometimes
39:31 using an incentive to get them to come over to the other side. So we saw a lot of this happening when the Soviet Union
39:39 fell apart. Um, some of the countries that used to be part of that Warsaw pact, right? Some of those countries
39:48 went over to the western countries um to the western side in some ways. a number of countries that were authoritarian and
39:56 non-democratic became democratic. So we had this rise in a number of democratic states um and it turned out to be uh a
40:05 temporary rise because some of those same states now have basslid when it comes to democracy and now are considered to be illiberal democracies.
40:15 So the ideas itself uh that pillar of ideas that helps to shore up the world
40:22 order those ideas are coming under attack. So the liberal institutional
40:28 uh world order which really revolved around liberal ideas, things like democracy, human rights and all those
40:36 things. uh those things are now on the strain because even the United States they supported those ideas and actually
40:43 introduced those ideas to the United Nations. Uh even the United States now are uh is is now uh pushing back on
40:51 those on those ideas. I don't think you can consider the United States to be as democratic as a lot of people felt it
40:57 was and it tries to force its version of democracy on other states. That's a problem because not everybody wants to
41:05 be a democra democracy like the United States. In fact, I would say that if we use the United States as a model
41:13 democracy, we would be in serious problems because look and see what has happened to the United States internally right now with their democracy. They're
41:21 so divided between Republicans and Democrats. um they yeah there have a few uh people in between in the middle but
41:29 gen generally speaking they have difficulties getting things done because of that division between those two parties. Um who wants to go through that
41:38 kind of uh stress uh in a in a democracy that's imposed upon them by the United States. So I think that that's also
41:47 causing challenges. So what we have really is a breakdown in the coherence of the world order. Um the institutions
41:55 no longer reflecting the material real realities of the day. The ideas are losing legitimacy as we speak. And then
42:03 the the material capabilities are changing because countries rise and fall on the international hierarchy. So
42:11 there's a crisis as well on consent. So subordinate actors uh are no longer willing to buy into that notion of human
42:20 rights that the the United States sort of tried to show the rest of the world because the United States itself is not adhering to those principles of human
42:27 rights. Um you know we have we thought that globalization had done wonders for the world but now we are almost
42:35 rejecting the notion of globalization if you're from a a poor subordinate country uh because we've seen the results of of
42:44 globalization siphoning off the wealth from small states to the west and to the
42:52 center and you have to go back to um I think Wallerstein it talks about uh the core periphery and the semi-p periphery
42:59 countries of the globe. But the peripheral countries are the ones that were not present in 1945 when the UN system was created. They didn't have a
43:08 say in the writing of the rules of the game. They didn't have a say in deciding what kind of institutional structure the
43:15 world should have. They didn't have a say because they were too poor, too impoverished to contribute financially to the financial institutions that would
43:24 govern the globe. So uh those people were not present in 1945.
43:29 Um many of them were even um colonial under colonial rule. So since they became independent and many of them
43:38 knock on the door of the US saying we want to be members of this organization they were brought into the US system.
43:44 But they they were brought in uh with pre-existing rules in place, right? They were brought into an institution that
43:51 was already baked in in terms of the the structure of the institution and that structure privileged the United States.
43:58 The structure privileged the western countries. The structure um did not really pay attention to the challenges
44:07 of the developing world. So things like climate change um you know poverty alleviation
44:14 all these things and human rights abuses etc. All those things are still a problem for many countries in the
44:21 developing world. Um and in fact some of those things now have become problems for for the c center as well. So there
44:29 is this crisis of consent. Subordinate actors don't want to buy into this system of rules and regulations. In
44:36 fact, even Canada, which is a middle power, um, for all intents and purposes,
44:41 uh, Mark Harney said, you know, we are not going back to those old rules because those rules were created by the United States. And we kind of bought
44:50 into it because we were trying to be the middle power, trying to make sure that uh, the system runs as smoothly as possible. We bought into this notion,
44:59 but we knew from the beginning that that those rules disadvantage poor countries, disadvantage countries that were on the peripheral spectrum.
45:10 So, so it was not the best kind of rule.
45:13 So we he said we're not going back to that old system because that that old system now is ruptured and we have to
45:21 create a new system is much more inclusive much more um include inclusive of countries that were not present the first time around when the UN was
45:29 created. Um and that would take in consideration the rise of new actors. Um the fact that certain actors are
45:37 declining uh all those things. So that's that's where the crisis of consent uh comes in. Compliance becomes much more
45:46 coercive and less voluntary in this crisis moment. So the United States is using this moment to impose its will on
45:56 countries either by imposing tariffs on countries. So economic its economic might um trying to deal with things like
46:04 drug trafficking by blowing ships uh both out of the water in the Caribbean and in Asia. Um the whole compliance
46:13 becomes more a cons coercion than a voluntary matter. Um, it wants to beat
46:21 Iran, Iran into submission. The United States does. Um, it wants to join with
46:28 Israel in it what they call genocidal um, thinking u trying to get rid of the
46:35 Palestinians in Gaza etc. So you have this crisis of consent. Then the other thing that I think really matters here
46:43 when it comes to global governance structures is that there is institutional strain. We can see it every day. Existing global governance
46:51 structures continue to persist but they function very poorly because of the strain being placed upon them with this
46:59 being uh you know re not not rewarding countries or institutions with with funding budgetary funding to to make the
47:09 their activities function properly. um or stalling reform efforts um that that are put in place to try to to make
47:18 things more efficient or by fragmenting the organizational structures of the UN system uh to make it less and less effective. This is institutional strain.
47:28 And finally, I think there is a multiplicity of competing orders. No single actor now
47:35 can impose a new hegemonous settlement upon the world. So instead we have overlapping competing projects of world
47:44 order. And guess what? And I think this is where Robert C comes in very important here. Um we may actually be
47:51 moving to a world order that's non-hedgemonic. And that's the key to understanding where we are. Since the United States is no longer the
48:00 hedgeimmon, we may in fact be moving to a posh hedgemonic system that is not automatically
48:08 uh led leading to a stable multipolarity.
48:11 Uh instead it could be a fragmented and that's where my my contested notion comes in. It could be fragmented,
48:18 contested and historically open-ended kind of world order. And there's some pluses and minuses to that. The plus is that within that fragmented, contested,
48:29 historically open-ended world order that's that's emerging, there may be an opportunity for countries that were not
48:37 part of the existing order or the old order uh to make changes that would transform the order. And that's where I
48:46 get back to your point. Um I'm not calling for reform anymore. I used to do that when I was a graduate student. Now I'm calling for transformation.
48:55 And there's a difference between transforming something and reforming something. Usually reform is reserved
49:02 for keeping the status quo for as much as possible.
49:07 In other words, you try to accommodate changes, but you keep the status quo uh as much as possible in place. Transformation doesn't do that.
49:15 Transformation means that you get rid of the status quo altogether and you create something that's new. And I think the old order which was based largely on
49:24 liberal hedge money is eroding to the point where we can see it happening in front of our eyes. A new order is not
49:31 yet institutionalized but there is possibility that a new order can actually take in consideration for example
49:39 um different types of institutions. We already have some of those institutions in place like the G7, the G20, the G22,
49:48 the G78.
49:50 uh these are institutions that are already in place. The bricks for example is a new kind of institution and they're they're they're banking institutions
49:58 that are that are transnational. There's transnational institutions that are being created as we speak. Uh so the
50:06 world is going to be a much more complex interdependent world. uh to use a term
50:12 used by um Cohane and Robert NY Joseph Cohane and Robert Nye complex interdependent world and in a complex
50:20 interdependent world the governance will also have to be complex because it has to deal with networks right as opposed
50:28 to a top-down uh imposed hegemonic order imposing upon the rest of the world. So here's a
50:37 possibility that we can actually end up with a much more democratic system in the true sense of democratic uh where
50:45 poor and the privileged might marginalized states may have a say in the creation of the nest world order. So that's I think that's where I'm coming
50:54 down and this is a norm obviously a normative position I'm taking but but there's a very important one in terms of
51:00 trying to understand where we go next uh as the old order dies and then we want to try to put in place a new order that
51:08 will be very relevant to this particular moment in time but understand the traditional um how we got to this place in the first
51:18 place. In other words, the the longer the longer range view of how we got to where we are today.

Chapter 5:

What is the current strategy of the United States? What should have the United States done to make sure that a multinational, global governance led, liberal international order would continue after its hegemony ends?

51:29 That was really excellent. Um I I'm just curious if we could talk more about one
51:38 what exactly is the strategy of the United States which we take to be responsible for its loss of uh of
51:47 hedgeimonyy basically uh I mean it's not it's not just observing things that are bad I'm asking
51:56 about they must be having a strategy of some behind that they're trying to implement whether it's implemented
52:03 poorly or better than or as expected let's say I think poorly uh but I
52:11 suspect there is a strategy and I and and and it's good to talk about it because in that sense you you I think
52:19 you can get a feeling of what may come and then on the other hand connecting it
52:25 to this I'm really curious how you could end end up with a kind of
52:34 non-hgeemonic world order or post-hemonic non world posedgemonic world order out of these circumstances
52:42 and there is a third element where I'm curious about what kind of elements of the liberal international order
52:50 you think should still remain maybe uh for example for me things for
52:57 discussion are the United Nations and are the declaration of human rights and I but but I'm open to debate and and uh
53:07 and and and related to that would be an additional question of what could have the United States
53:15 done to ensure that after their hedgeimony moment has passed
53:23 this order or some kind of order which still would benefit the United States would remain in to some extent in place
53:31 even though it would be transformed or reformed. Thank you.
53:35 All right. That's that's that's a really really good question because first of all I think I'm persuaded by Robert Cian

Chapter 6:

No strategy and overextension to retain dominance signals a movement towards a post-hegemonic world order (due to diffuse power). The United States as a case-study in residual hegemony.

53:43 view that we're moving towards a post-hedgemonic entre um a post world orderer as you say and the reason why I
53:52 feel that way is exactly uh because the United States has no
53:59 grand strategy anymore. They have no coherent grand strategy to address the problem. And this happens whenever a
54:07 hegemonic power is on decline. If you go back to again Paul Kennedy's work on the rise and fall of the great powers, one of the significant things that um he
54:16 says in his arguments as to why great powers tend to fall is that they tend to overextend themselves. And the reason
54:23 why they're overextending themselves is because they're trying to grapple,
54:28 right, to hold on uh to preserve the residual hedge money that they had. They were trying to hold on to the core of
54:36 that hedgemonic position despite the fact that they're losing out. They know that they're losing out, but they try to hold on to it as much as possible. When a when a when a um a large animal dies,
54:48 it trashes around, you know, before it actually finally gives up the ghost. Um this is like the United States right
54:56 now. The US is working, I think, to retain dominance wherever it can because it still has some structural advantages.
55:05 We know this. It still has the strongest military power and we see this now playing itself out in the war against Iran.
55:14 um it does have the the power and the ability to
55:20 you know destroy buildings uh to destroy um military units etc and even maybe decapitate the leadership of Iran.
55:30 But the problem with that is that brute force is no longer applicable in a world
55:38 where a world that's much more sort of um uh multicentric if you will because
55:45 with multicentrism comes a diffusement of power. You said you want to talk about power that power becomes much more
55:52 dus um when there is when there are many many poles multiple poles in the globe
56:00 as opposed to a bipolar system where you can have two poles fighting out or unipolar system where there's one major pole so in a multipolar system which we
56:09 happen to be find ourselves in after 1989 1990 and that's where I think that's where the interregnum really begins because the end of the cold war,
56:18 the end of the Soviet Union, the the the sort of ability of the west to try to repackage itself because now NATO had to
56:26 find a reason for being because the reason that it had before was to counter Warsaw pact. So the Warsaw pact is no
56:34 longer NATO had to try to create new reasons for being and it did so in collaboration with the United States
56:42 which was leading NATO at the time. Now of course the United States is threatening NATO itself. So that's that adds another complication to the
56:49 problem. But what it does show is that uh the United States has a hedgemonic power is trying to retain its dominance
56:57 wherever it can and it still has some structural advantages like military primacy um in terms of global force
57:04 projection alliances like NATO which is now falling apart as you know many countries in NATO don't want to even support the United
57:12 States um war against Iran. Um then there's an issue of financial hedge money. The United States still has we
57:20 still have the centrality of the dollar but countries are starting to move away from that too. Countries are starting to
57:27 buy things in using the yen in uh Chinese uh currency. Um some countries are starting to move away from the
57:35 so-called petro dollar. And I think this war in Iran right now is showing the possibility that that could even get even worse for the United States. So the
57:44 United States is going to try to it's best to hold on to its financial hedge money wherever possible trying to control uh the international monetary
57:52 fund and the world bank but it's going to face the challenge of
57:58 um the Chinese government and its belt and road initiative for example which is
58:05 really pos causing an alternative to those US control IMF road bank systems
58:12 and then of Of course, the big the big uh elephant in the room is the technological leadership. Technology has always driven what financial bodies do,
58:23 what he powers do. The United States can no longer claim to be at the at the at the lead of the AI revolution, uh semiconductors, uh defense technology,
58:34 etc. because there are other countries that are challenging as well. um especially in AI um semiconductors um uh
58:44 even Iran as a small state uh relatively weaker state asymmetrically weaker state than the United States but it has
58:53 tremendous advantages in in drone technology and that's now playing itself out with its attacks on Israel uh on the
59:01 UAE countries um on targeting with the help in some cases of Russia targeting
59:09 um US military bases around the around the Middle East. So this is not a foregone conclusion that the United States is going to be able to maintain
59:18 its power is struggling to preserve that residual hedge money that we that continues to happen. Now when when
59:25 hedgemons fall when world order changes it's not as though you sort of go to the edge of the cliff and fall off the
59:32 cliff. Many times in the the transitional moment, there's still elements of hedgeimony that that that is
59:40 residual, right? There's still certain things military premisy in certain areas. There's still financial hedge money in certain areas. There's still technological leadership in some areas.
59:51 But the main logic is that this this attempt to maintain control over the commanding heights that the United
59:59 States used to have um is no longer available to the United States. So that's the first thing. The second thing is um what I call selective multilateralism.

Chapter 7:

Selective multilateralism (Board of Peace, Coalitions of the willing).

1:00:10 Sorry.
1:00:12 There's um a kind of a instrumental institutionalism that has developed
1:00:19 um by the United States selective multilateralism rather than abandoning institutions altogether. The United
1:00:28 States is now using them selectively. So it would use the United Nations system selectively until it no longer wants to
1:00:35 use it. uh it would use the security council selectively until it decides to sort of create a board of whatever it's
1:00:42 called now the the board of um the board of board of peace yeah which which was approved by the UN I
1:00:50 think yes but the is the circumstances on this was approved uh which is comes into question right but the border of peace
1:00:58 is no is not going to happen it's not going to function it's going to take many many years before anything like this can work and and and I think what
1:01:06 the US will find out to is disgruntlement is that um first of all nobody wants to join the border of
1:01:14 peace except for a number of states that are autocratic.
1:01:18 Uh if you look at the number of states that are part of that board of peace. Uh they're autocratic states. They're willing to give a whatever amount of
1:01:27 money billion dollars or whatever to this organization but there's no concept of how it's going to be run. um is it
1:01:35 going to be led by the United States president and and is will the United States president be around longer than two or three years? You know, we don't
1:01:42 know if he's going to survive physically if he's going to be able to go past that and then once he's out of office in the United States, who will take over that
1:01:51 border peace, right? So, there's lots of questions about about this new arrangement is hasn't been there was no consultation for example with NATO
1:02:00 members. So, no NATO member wants to be part of this. Um I remember when Canada was asked to be part of it said initially you know it could be and then
1:02:09 um the United States president got upset by something that the Carne government did and decided that they no longer it wanted to disinvite the the Canada and
1:02:18 we were very happy we were applauding the fact that Canada was not part of this because we don't want Canada to be involved in anything having to do with
1:02:26 sort of a I would say it's a it's a it's a project of the Trump administration.
1:02:32 uh to make money on on a situation that normally should have been dealt with by
1:02:40 a strong security council because that was the job of the security council to deal with issues of peace and war around
1:02:46 the globe. So there's a paralysis in terms of the existing institutions of multilateralism.
1:02:54 There's a paralysis in the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system uh mainly because Trump has his own
1:03:00 ideas about tariffs uh and that doesn't conform with the dispute settlement procedures in the World Trade
1:03:07 Organization. Um there's a preference for co so-called coalitions of the willing. You notice that that's happened
1:03:14 a lot these days, right? Have a coalition of the willing around a certain area. Um and that replaces in some cases what the United Nations
1:03:23 system was intended to do. So I think Robert C if you look at how Robert C has expressed this he says institutions are
1:03:30 no longer expressions of hegemonic consensus. They become tools of state craft. So none of these institutions are
1:03:38 really tools of state craft. They're not hegemonic consensus building institutions as the UN was when it was
1:03:46 first created. And I think if I can come in here, I think here there is a strategy in the sense that that is the

Chapter 8:

Economic, political and military statecraft as the strategy?

1:03:54 strategy. The strategy is to move to state craft in economics to replace economic policy with economic states
1:04:03 craft uh and to replace to to activate uh trade, monetary, fiscal policy in
1:04:12 light of national security and foreign policy goals.
1:04:16 um with the aim I think with the aim of remaining a hegeimon and primarily
1:04:23 curtailing or stopping China. Uh so that's that's very important I think.
1:04:30 Yeah. So so my my I I think when I look at what they've done just to kind of try to connect it quickly in my head. So they had a huge problem which was they
1:04:37 have a massive deficit right they had a massive deficit they have a weak industrial base. Um they
1:04:47 uh saw China had expanded everywhere through the belt and roads initiative where they be they built pipelines and
1:04:56 uh of oil and gas and train tracks and ports and infrastructure and all sorts
1:05:02 of things. uh and they're taking over Euro Asia which is a key geopolitical concept in
1:05:11 in terms of uh sort of thinking that whoever controls Eurasia controls the world the world island uh because it has
1:05:20 the largest population the largest amount of resources. So uh when you look at that you can kind of
1:05:28 see that first of all the they they are in debt because of the wars they've done
1:05:34 before spending trillions. um they economically they do not have the same power they used to have which means they
1:05:41 can't really fund all these police global police system which which they kind of have in place and and so there
1:05:50 are different uh actions taking place that do make sense for me uh from one angle. So for example, you try to lower
1:05:59 the deficit in a bunch of different ways. One is uh you try to lower the dollar
1:06:07 which was going well for for a long time. You impose uh you use economic trade states craft in terms of trade
1:06:15 restrictions which they've done and the aim of the trade restrictions a lot of the aim was to construct a unitary block
1:06:24 in their hemisphere which would have a same external tariff for China. Right?
1:06:30 So it's it's about China to a large extent. Not only not not only about the US but also about China. It's also about restarting the own industry because that
1:06:39 industry is the key to being autonomous in terms of supply chains but it's also key to the war effort if if such an
1:06:48 effort has to happen. So there are those moves and part of that move then is how
1:06:55 to get supply chains to control supply chains and choke points and how to control areas around the world where you
1:07:04 control sea routes and if you can at the same time get more oil that would keep the prices down
1:07:12 which would be actually going higher because of the tariffs. So to keep the prices down, you would need to have a lot of oil, cheap oil, the cheapest oil possible, keep the price of oil down.
1:07:23 So, and on top of that, you would try to push Europe to pay for NATO so that you
1:07:32 can move those money and that money and those assets to the Pacific where you could strengthen
1:07:40 uh not necessarily with the idea that you would go to war with China because that could be catastrophic for the planet, but that you contain them.
1:07:49 And and there's other things that you that I think you can look at, but I think Scott Bassan, for example, much of
1:07:57 the time he follows a playbook of this kind and maybe Marco Rubio to some extent, not only but also kind of
1:08:06 follows something similar. And when people say Trump is playing 5D chess, I think that's ridiculous. But that
1:08:14 doesn't mean there isn't some kind of high-risk high stakes re realist kind of
1:08:22 scenario that they think that they are doing and that they think with the might of AI which would emerge on top of all
1:08:30 of this you could extend the hedgeimony for much longer. So I think this is what
1:08:37 I see and also what I see is the demise of values and the move and the hegemonic suicide
1:08:45 which comes with this which normally signals problems.
1:08:51 And what I see is the military intervention in Iran which is really destroying a lot of this strategy
1:08:59 because the dollar is super high, price of oil is super high.
1:09:05 China doesn't suffer as much as people think from being disconnected from the oil from Iran. And so, uh,
1:09:15 it does look many times that this high-risk, very high-risk strategy was always likely to backfire because
1:09:22 it's very unorthodox and high risk. But but also at the level of implementation there seem to be other considerations
1:09:29 coming into the picture whether it relates to family and friends and insider trading or deals or
1:09:40 things like Iran where I think the US has stepped in for whatever reasons and
1:09:47 now it can get out and and is likely to become a very important episode for for for everyone.
1:09:55 The problem I have with all these scenarios is that the whole world depends on the economy of the United States. So, so you know like if if if
1:10:05 that deficit explodes because the treasuries explode because of all the consequences of what's coming down the line, you have a global recession, you
1:10:14 have a global financial crisis. If they decide that they want Greenland, then you have another problem coming. So the
1:10:23 whole strategy is very bad for your allies and it's
1:10:30 is is it's very it leads towards conflict u inevitably. Sorry.

Chapter 9:

Retaining hegemonic influence if not hegemonic control: 5 moves.

1:10:38 No no I think you're absolutely right.
1:10:40 Um, one of the things I would say is that because the US no longer can really
1:10:47 shape world order the way it used to when it was a hegemonic power. Um, what it can the only thing it can try to do
1:10:55 right now in terms of strategy is to try to shape uh the trajectory of the transition,
1:11:01 whatever this transition is. And it can do so by trying to delay in some cases or fragment any alternative type of
1:11:10 order that might be in play. Uh it can also try to retain dominance in certain uh domains, technology, finance,
1:11:19 military etc. In short, I think not it wouldn't have hedgemonic control the way it used to have but hedge money
1:11:27 influence under certain constraints. So if you look at this is a realistic way of looking at this. Um there are at least five different inter interlocking
1:11:35 strategic moves that the US is trying to do. I can see from behind the scene um is first of all trying to deny
1:11:43 uh the rise of a new hedgeimon in particular China right um it doesn't want to have a china centric hegemonic
1:11:51 power there so it would try to deny as much as possible the rise of China in many different areas now so this could
1:12:00 this starts with the military balancing in Indo-acific for example um uh maybe doing some technological restrictions on
1:12:08 things like sem semiconductors and AI and EOS the e AI ecosystem etc. And then the the the most important part because
1:12:17 US is still very much economic power too is economic derisking um and supply chains diversification so
1:12:24 that it can obstruct any movement that China might have uh and prevent China from converting its economic power which
1:12:33 it does have a lot of and probably will surpass the United States fairly soon.
1:12:37 Um but it was try to to the US US would try to prevent China from converting its economic power into a coherent
1:12:45 uh institutional ideational alternative order. Now you see what happen what's happening right now. China is actually

Chapter 10:

China, hegemonic power and a post-hegemonic world order.

1:12:52 replacing the United States whenever it does something negative to the global order. China is actually more supportive
1:13:01 now of the global order than the United States is 1945 global order that is. So
1:13:08 it's already starting to show that it's capable in some cases of creating an alternative position to the US hedge
1:13:16 money. The big thing though and when I talked to many of my Chinese colleagues here at the university in the China center but also in China um China
1:13:26 doesn't want to become a hedgemonic power. In fact, it made it quite clear to me um especially when Xiinping came to Trinidad when I was there uh in 2014.
1:13:36 Um one of the things that it was quite clear he didn't want to do was to become a global hegemonic power. He didn't want
1:13:43 China to become a global hegemonic power simply because with hegemony comes responsibility
1:13:50 and China is not yet out of the woods when it comes to taking all of its people out of poverty. has done a very good job uh there. Uh but it still has a
1:13:59 way to go. Um it has a lot of different things around the globe through the the
1:14:07 the Delta Road initiative and so on. It has to manage and take care of. It doesn't need to have on top of all those
1:14:14 things this strain of becoming a hegemonic power for the globe. So it's quite okay for China to remain a
1:14:23 hegemonic power for the region, but it doesn't really want to become a global hegemonic power. And this sort of leads me back to Robert Cost's notion of a
1:14:31 possible post-hemonic global order because the the the the automatic person that you would think about when it comes
1:14:39 to the rise of the material power would be China uh to replace the United States. But in fact, it doesn't really
1:14:46 want to go in that direction. um it wants to remain a stable big power in the region, perhaps even take control of
1:14:56 Taiwan eventually and so on, but it doesn't want to necessarily replace the United States with hedge money. In fact,
1:15:02 it sees hedge money as a bad word. And some Chinese scholars tell me that hedge money is not even in their dictionary,
1:15:10 right? They don't have the term hedge money in their dictionary. It's it's it's viewed as a very bad thing. So the

Chapter 11:

US trying to restructure globalization to benefit itself. A shift from efficiency to resilience and security. Selective multilateralism and minilateral groupings. Fragmentation of global governance system is preferred rather than systemic coherence which is now out of reach for the US but it leads to overextension.

1:15:18 United States has no other choice but to rewire globalization because you know there's a lot of there's a lot going on
1:15:25 right now with what's called deglobalization happening around the world and the United States should be one of the architects of globalization.
1:15:33 So it's now trying to restructure globalization in a way uh that would benefit itself rather than abandon the
1:15:40 globalization altogether which is what the deglobal deglobalization advocates want to see. Um it's now trying to
1:15:48 restructure globalization and it's doing so with industrial policies um the chips uh the green tech subsidies etc. is also
1:15:58 doing so by shoring up friends um and trusted supply chains. He's also doing
1:16:04 so by strategic use of sanctions uh tariffs and other financial instruments.
1:16:11 And I think this reflects a shift from efficiency to resilience plus security.
1:16:18 So you have this notion of moving towards a resiliency which is a way of saying that we want to maintain whatever
1:16:25 power we have left. Um and also we want to shore up our strategic military strategic power. Uh because we're still
1:16:34 in the lead in that area. The third point I think I want to make is that China I mean the United States is really
1:16:41 into what is called selective multilateralism. So it hasn't really abandoned multilateralism altogether but it now
1:16:51 tries to create coalitions rather than universality of multilateralism.
1:16:57 So rather than relying on primary or universal institutions like the United Nations system um it has a preference for what is called miniateral groupings.
1:17:08 I think u there's a guy that's I did a paper with this guy um at the G20 conference and he talked about uh this
1:17:17 sort of miniateral groupings uh you know a UK US the quad
1:17:25 uh and various issue based kind of coalitions that have been cropping up.
1:17:30 This seems to be in keeping with what I talked about in the paper that you mentioned about this concatenated um set
1:17:38 of um uh institutions um rather than you know a particular
1:17:46 type of multilateralism. You have these different types of multilateralisms in plural. So the implication here is
1:17:54 that fragmentation of the global governance system by the United States is preferred rather than any sort of systemic coherence because it doesn't
1:18:03 it's not able to have that systemic coherence. It cannot even get Canada on board many things that it wants to do.
1:18:10 It you know it cannot it's it's using the big stick rather than um collaboration
1:18:18 uh consensus building and so on. and that that doesn't play very well with Canadians, it doesn't play very well with Norwegians, it doesn't play very
1:18:26 well with Austrians, it doesn't play very well with members of NATO. So this idea that you can somehow have selective
1:18:33 multilateralism may be the only route that the United States have to hold on to some parts of it hedgeimony. But it will soon find out
1:18:42 as the Soviet Union found out that by overextending itself uh it really plants the seeds of its own
1:18:51 destruction as a hedgemonic power. So the United States is not retreating necessarily from alliances, right? It's
1:18:58 trying to recalibrate the alliances. Um it gives NATO a hard time for not contributing more money into NATO, for
1:19:06 example. But the but NATO now is starting to think maybe we can operate without the United States. And that's
1:19:14 kind of scary to think that um the NATO countries may want to sort of form their own sort of
1:19:21 security arrangement that doesn't quite include the United States. Um well because of Greenland that was one of the key moments that triggered that.
1:19:30 Yeah.
1:19:31 You know it was is full hearty to want to trigger that just because of Greenland. But you know, most NATO countries had said enough is enough. We
1:19:39 don't want to deal with the United States if they if they continually threaten to take over Green Bland. And you know, this 51st state thing with Canada, um I can tell you as a Canadian,
1:19:50 I don't buy US products anymore. I don't travel to the United States anymore. I mean, this is and this is just a personal beef I have with the United
1:19:59 States right now, but there are a lot of people in that category who have given up going to the United States. Um, you
1:20:05 know, their the the tourism is taking a real hits right now in in Vegas, in Miami. The kids that used to go down to
1:20:14 Miami for for holidays and stuff like this, they're no longer doing that. I mean, this is become a real challenge for us and our closest ally.
1:20:25 Um I think it was Lloyd Asworthy who says once that um living next to United States and uh interacting with the
1:20:33 United States is like um making love to porcupine. I mean it's is it's that
1:20:39 difficult you know. Uh so it's I think what we see what we're witnessing now is the US tried its best to consolidate
1:20:48 alliances but doesn't have the the skill set at least not this administration to
1:20:55 to be diplomatic about it but also it doesn't have the level of ideas that you mentioned. So because they've undermined the the level of
1:21:04 ideas and then the level of institutions in the process but especially the level of ideas has been undermined and I mean
1:21:13 I you know I have to speak for Europe and and say our leaders and also most a lot of the Europeans are very and that
1:21:22 you know we have always been in a sense pro-American even if you acknowledge the empire and
1:21:30 hedgeimonyy We have grown up with that. It was part of everything. It was the nor kind of
1:21:36 the normal ideal order and it's very hard even now for European leaders to
1:21:42 contemplate having to move away. So it's it's really only forced through all the
1:21:51 circumstances that Europe is going to make that move. But it's it's been pushed hard and and but yeah, we're just
1:21:59 saying like it's important to acknowledge that that this idea being an imperial subject is
1:22:07 actually normal here. This is I if I have to think about how I see myself and
1:22:13 all of that. I will have to really face that question of where you know where do I stand and and will people here be
1:22:22 happy once the American hedgeimony has fully dissipated? I don't think so. So,
1:22:29 you know, because the attachment is is real.
1:22:33 Here's the thing, though. Um, think about other hegeimons in the past and think about how people simply moved away
1:22:41 from those hedgeimons fairly quickly once they started to fall.
1:22:44 Um, and I think you're going to find the same thing happening here. Britain and the S canal not so long ago,
1:22:50 which has some parallels potentially, not necessarily.
1:22:56 That that is one of them. But uh I want to push back a bit on China because of some of the literature I was looking at

Chapter 12:

China? A China-led diffuse world order? How to move from zero-sum games to non zero-sum games? How to move away from competition for imperial hegemony?

1:23:03 which is pro possibly biased but the I was looking at Alfred McCoy who is a
1:23:10 historian and he is very much of the opinion that China is emerging instead of the United States and the United
1:23:18 States has run its course in terms of a world hegeimon but he has issues with how China will
1:23:25 engage that side of the hegemonic world order that has that we call today the liberal international order and and and
1:23:35 so similar for the declaration of human rights. So he thinks that China is not able yet to really
1:23:44 accept or take on this discourse of human rights and and also that they are not likely to fully respect the
1:23:53 principle of state sovereignty. um as much as well I can't compare with the United States but because that is a
1:24:03 problem there from the beginning but you know like so that's one thing that he says the other thing that he says is their type of culture he thinks pushes them towards a sort of
1:24:12 hyper nationalist hedgeimonyy where they will privilege national sovereignty over universal principles and they will focus
1:24:19 on bilateral economic exchanges within individual nations or regional blocks while continuing to remain unaccustomed
1:24:27 to and dismissive of the legalistic negotiations of international organizations.
1:24:33 So it kind of saying that in a sense what he's kind of suggesting in several ways is that they might not have that
1:24:42 appeal and also that interest of participating in what we would call the liberal international order which as we
1:24:49 all know but we haven't really talked about it enough implies trade and free and like free trade and so-called free
1:24:58 trade because it is free but then it comes with all sorts of um asymmetries.
1:25:02 is in the process like who has the the currency global currency reserve and who makes the rules and all
1:25:10 of that. So what what I'm trying to throw here is a more pessimistic vision which I'm not trying to promote at all
1:25:19 but I'm just trying to say this is also in play for some people that you might have a transition from a US-led world
1:25:27 order to a more diffuse China world order because China doesn't seem to have all the attributes that the United
1:25:35 States used to have in terms of asserting itself in a similar way uh at
1:25:41 least not for now and and that's also a reason for which somebody could question to some extent what you said before in
1:25:48 terms of you know saying well China is for them it's not the right moment to maybe to assert this kind of position so it's you it also would trigger the
1:25:57 United States as much as possible if they were to say that we are trying to become a global hegeimon or like that
1:26:05 that could be a declaration of war in in some ways So somebody could have that angle. But anyways, what I wanted to say is Alfred
1:26:14 McCquay for example at some point speaks about how you might have this China world order but this is more diffuse and it might
1:26:23 imply maybe would imply something like returning to some US returning to its to some version of hemispheric hedgeimonyy
1:26:31 which with Vance isolationism is very possible in the current context.
1:26:37 and effectively accepting the creation of spheres of influences spheres of influence such as those of US, China and Russia and and here you some have
1:26:46 thought about the return to concert of powers or something of that nature and then for McCoy that's not really what he
1:26:55 sees what he probably suspects is that this Chinese global hedgeimonyy would lead to a looser world order than its
1:27:02 American predecessor because for the first time in 500 years the world could face an imperial transition without a clear successor as
1:27:10 global hegeimon leading to a more diffused world order in which each hedgeimony would dominate its immediate
1:27:18 region. And so he thinks, and I I'm going to quote this, uh, he thinks, you know, Brazilia would basically dominate
1:27:26 over South America, Washington, North America, Beijing, Easter and Southeast Asia, Moscow, Eastern Europe, New Delhi,
1:27:34 South Asia, Tehran, Central Asia,
1:27:37 Pritoria, Southern Africa, Ankar and Cairo, the Middle East. I mean, it's just an imaginative exercise. This is
1:27:43 not like a serious theory, but at times it does look like that as the fabric
1:27:50 kind of breaks down. And it could be that you have different phases that succeed each other and that there's no
1:27:57 way to predict exactly what would happening whether it will be a bipolar or multipolar system, a concert of
1:28:04 power, spheres of influence, a more anarchctic international system or some blended combination of of all of all these things.
1:28:13 Uh but what is certain is that I think in history this periods where
1:28:20 um the period of internum is a period of zero sum competition for
1:28:28 imperial hedgeimmony which remains undecided. That is dangerous for for for everyone.
1:28:37 Uh because these are the periods where where the greatest conflicts occur
1:28:43 really or the greatest crisis as no one can assert uh either their hegemony or any kind of
1:28:52 hegemonic system or posgemonic system over the other. And
1:28:59 and it seems to me like the our entire global history I don't know this but I it feels to me that that might be the
1:29:06 case has been this endless zero sum competition
1:29:13 constant just constant and constant king counts conquers conquers conquers loses somebody else conquers that guy who
1:29:22 conquered somebody else conquers him and it's just this is history uh and and and it looks very much like that And of
1:29:29 course people today who see what is happening they basically revert to that realist position that this has always
1:29:37 been the case from toida's onward we know that this is how the world works and there is nothing else and all of
1:29:43 that and I I am interested in seeing the world as it is but I'm also interesting in seeing
1:29:51 how you know how exactly you might think that a post-hegemonic world or even a hegemonic world order that is balanced.
1:29:59 I don't know how that could look. How how you know how how not necessarily how would you see
1:30:07 that emerging but where should ordinary people
1:30:13 put their focus? Uh so you know from do we need a global social movement of
1:30:21 some kind? Do you know should people in the academia really think about a certain direction? What is the as you
1:30:30 said there's normative unclarity at the moment or something of that kind. What is the normative level that could coalesce
1:30:39 some of these things and and it seems to me that you are working on that normative level and you have been all this time. Um but you are adjusting it
1:30:48 to the circumstances we of of of where we are. Yeah. Yeah. Does it make sense?
1:30:55 Yeah, it does does make sense. And um but if you if you think about this moment that we're living in right now uh

Chapter 13:

On China again. A specific configuration of power that sustains US hegemony is breaking down and being abandoned by the United States. The liberal international order and transformation rather than reform.

1:31:02 through using a Cian lens because I I I refer back to C because I think he was probably the most articulate person um
1:31:10 after you know some some of the other philosophers but he's one of the most articulate persons in this uh in this period um before he passed away but he
1:31:19 he did try to see uh try to project what we are moving towards and we first of of all looking at it through his lens.
1:31:30 I think that we are not simply witnessing a shift in power from the United States to China.
1:31:37 As I said before, I think China is really not willing to undertake that shift. Um, in other words, is not
1:31:45 willing to um to take the burden of global hedge money. Is not ready for that. And from everything I can tell
1:31:52 from talking to people from uh within the Chinese circle, you know, the the the people that are close to Xiinping
1:32:01 and and others like him, uh they're saying that China is not interested in taking on that that challenge right now.
1:32:07 Um but what we're actually seeing, I think, is uh the breakdown of a historically specific configuration of
1:32:15 power. You have to say, you know, just because that something was created in 1945 doesn't mean it's going to persist forever. So there was a particular
1:32:24 historically specific configuration of power,
1:32:28 institutions and ideas that sustained US hedgemony in 1945. It
1:32:36 was very specific to the US winning the war uh with his allies and so on. But the United States right now is no longer
1:32:44 capable of um fully stabilizing the system that is in itself created. In fact, it's it's it's actually reversing
1:32:53 a lot about that system is retreating away from that system. And in some cases, China is trying to fill the void
1:33:02 in some cases when the US retreats. So for example, if the US retreated from Africa and China moved into Africa, you know, um we we've seen in the Caribbean,
1:33:13 I was there present for three years as the director of the student of international relations. Shiin Ping's first visit out of China was to Porto
1:33:23 Spain. The first ever visit as a as a leader of China was to Porter Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. And a lot of people asked, well, why why did he choose that?
1:33:34 um that Trinidad and Tobago was sort of a regional hub for all the other members of Kerrycom at the time and Caribbean
1:33:41 community and and you know there's still members within the car car community that support Taiwan over mainland and
1:33:50 China right um and I think she ping did a very good job of mix selling the idea
1:33:57 of the belt and road initiative coming into the Caribbean region and Latin American region so they're willing do those kind of things, but they're not
1:34:04 willing to go to the next step, which is to take on the kind of hedgeimony that the United States was very much um um
1:34:14 controlled by this notion of using the big stick, using the hammer, you know.
1:34:20 Um that's something that I don't think the Chinese really want to do. Um but,
1:34:25 you know, I could be wrong. Maybe maybe this is just a moment and then it'll change its position later on. But I think instead of pursuing a strategy of
1:34:33 trying to shape the interregnum period and preserve advantages in certain domains.
1:34:40 But that but there I would argue one of the main advantages is for the current rules to continue because that ensures
1:34:47 their economic growth which will surpass the United States. safe. Yeah, I think that's true. That's true.
1:34:56 And I don't think it has any problem with that. Um, you know, because it will it wants to it wants to show and
1:35:03 demonstrate actually that it could compete with the United States and uh,
1:35:07 you know, on on a one-on-one, but I don't think it wants to necessarily uh be responsible for completely
1:35:15 rewriting the rules of the game in the way that the United States was in 1945.
1:35:20 But so it would be a much more diffused kind of relationship, right? A much more diffused kind of order.
1:35:27 I also agree with you, but I think that they really don't want to go over another state's sovereignty, especially if it's an ally.
1:35:37 So, a lot of people here have asked, you know, in Europe, there was that moment where Trump looked like was pushing us
1:35:46 about um Greenland and everybody was in a state of shock. And at that moment a lot of analysts thought that if China
1:35:54 would come and help with for example the war in Russia like make sure that
1:36:02 they could influence in some way Russia to look at stopping the conflict maybe uh something of that nature or or like
1:36:11 come in on the side of the liberal international order in a way that would have pro possibly uh defended European countries at that moment.
1:36:21 they they would have that would have potentially really tipped the balance for some European countries, more European countries towards China. But I
1:36:31 I think one reason they haven't even considered that is because that would mean violating the sovereignty of Russia
1:36:38 at some level that they don't find acceptable. So I think that there is something of that kind and but but that's because that's their worldview.
1:36:45 The worldview is that so national sovereignty is key in in that system.
1:36:52 And so the pro the problem that I have is not so much what are their intentions which remains to be seen but if their framework is based on national
1:37:01 sovereignty what what Alfred McCoy calls hyper nationalist he hedgeimonyy
1:37:08 how would that you know how can that generate the post hegemonic world order because the postgemonic
1:37:15 world order implies a move from hyper nationalism a move away I think you have to seed sovereignty, national sovereignty.
1:37:26 Yeah. And I think this is where the challenge comes in. Um, you know, the Europeans
1:37:32 are just as much to blame as the United States is uh for what's going on right
1:37:39 now. Um, and I say this as a person who grew up in Barbados in the Caribbean and watch how the British took advantage of Please tell us.
1:37:50 Huh? Please tell us. We don't hear it much. So, it's good. Yeah. Really, I'm honest. It's important to know this, right?
1:37:58 Because uh you know, we are very critical of of Britain. Um for because for one thing, they've never really
1:38:05 acknowledged the fact that they have they grew as an e economic power on the back of poor black people who worked for
1:38:14 nothing as slaves, right? and they're not willing to um recompense those slaves. They were willing to give money
1:38:24 and recompense the slave owners for loss of their property,
1:38:29 you know, uh when when it was insane as well the the amount Yeah. You know, so I I I think we have
1:38:37 to be very clearheaded about liberal internationalism and liberal world order because the liberal world order didn't
1:38:44 necessarily benefit 80% of the populations of the globe. Um you know it's a liberal world
1:38:52 order that benefited in large part the United States. uh think about the the you know the the the bread and whis
1:38:59 institutions how they have benefited the United States more so than they've benefited the countries that they're supposed to be serving um small
1:39:07 developing countries u so you know the large number of countries that were not even present in 1945 when the UN was
1:39:15 created they have no real um love for the liberal international order um
1:39:23 because they were never part of And in fact they benefited they didn't benefit from it. Um unless you want to say well now they become independent states they become democratic states.
1:39:33 But even in that democracy there's still something called um a subordination right of those countries
1:39:43 to the big powers in the west. There's still a western kind of western centric
1:39:50 kind of power. Some some some countries have done really well at using that subordinate status to make the United
1:39:57 Nations more inclusive, but it's still far away from what we would have wanted in 1970s.
1:40:04 Precisely. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm glad you pointed that out because remember in the 1970s they were pushing for a new
1:40:11 global economic order too, the new international economic order and IEO and it never happened because guess what?
1:40:19 people at the center um if to use a Wallerinian notion of center periphery semi-p periphery the countries at the
1:40:28 center didn't want to have it because it meant that they would lose their privilege over some of the sub subordinate countries so um we the the
1:40:37 third world countries failed there uh to gain to have a a a new world order new world international order and guess what
1:40:46 the Chinese are the only ones in that category that decided to support the new international economic order. They in
1:40:54 fact consider themselves to be China considered themselves to be the leader of the G78. Remember that G78 in 1970s
1:41:03 uh that the Chinese still think that they are the leader of the G78 despite the fact that it's done very well for itself economically and so on. It still has a this notion of partnerships,
1:41:13 right? partnerships with developing countries as opposed to dominant subdominant relationships. The problem with the Europeans and the problem for
1:41:20 the United States is that they are still holding on to this liberal order that creates a sense of structural dominance
1:41:29 uh over subordinate countries and and and therefore developing countries is you know large percentage of the
1:41:37 population of the world are in the developing world. uh they don't really buy into this notion of of a liberal um
1:41:44 order. So I think we have to be careful not to be too vetted to the notion that we're losing the world economic order
1:41:52 that we're losing we we are in Europe but it's very hard to switch that that that that view that's what I mean when I say that you
1:42:00 know we are very much American in in that's the reality though this would be felt as a huge loss it would like
1:42:07 same loss for privilege of and if I ask like questions questions

Chapter 14:

If transformation and not reform: do we then retain some of the multilateral institutions or clean the board and start again?

1:42:14 like what multinational institutions would should we retain then or are we
1:42:23 looking at just clean the board and start again type of thing. Um what is happening there?

Chapter 15:

Reform will not cut it anymore, a transformation of World Order is needed. Three pillars: 1. ideational order (human rights and UN system could continue but there will be contestation that must play out and result in new arrangements), 2. material level (difficult to impose hegemony as power is more diffuse), and 3. institutions (a networked multipolar order with nodes that criss-cross states rather than hierarchies based on states as nodes).

1:42:32 Right? So I my my my view is um reform
1:42:40 and incremental changes will not cut it anymore. Uh and that's and that's from someone who spent a lot
1:42:48 of time studying reform of the United Nations. Uh that's not going to cut it anymore because the world wants to have I think the majority of people in the
1:42:56 world wants to see a transformation of world order. now u to the point where um I think we're ready for that transformation in a way that we weren't
1:43:04 before. Now the ones that are resistant to that transformation happen to be Europeans and the United States. Um the
1:43:13 less resistant ones happen to be outside of that that that particular um ambit.
1:43:20 So I but I I do think that this notion of transformation now has to be studied more carefully. If you're going to transform something means that you're
1:43:28 going to change what exists um and embrace something that's completely different.
1:43:35 And I go back to those three pillars that Robert Cost talks about because in every single world order
1:43:42 um there are these three pillars. Um so the ideational element has to be transformed. So we can't look at the
1:43:51 ideas that that sort of supported the order of 1945 and say well those ideas are going to persist. Of course they will continue. Some of those ideas will
1:43:59 continue. Things like human rights will continue. You know maybe a multilateral system that involves the United Nations system could continue but there'll be alternatives to these to these um ideas.
1:44:10 there be there'd be contestation uh that will continue for a while uh before you sort of get a consensus over
1:44:18 what the new ideational pillar should be. Um we're moving up and down the ladder in terms of multilateral
1:44:26 um sorry in terms of material capabilities. There are countries today that would never have even made it to
1:44:34 the security council uh in 1945 because they didn't have the kind of material power that they have today. Uh we now
1:44:43 have India and Pakistan with nuclear weapons, Israel with nuclear weapons, North Korea with nuclear weapons,
1:44:49 probably Iran and may have nuclear weapons someday. I mean we now have a change in material capabilities and that
1:44:57 has to be reflected in whatever new system of governance prevails pervades.
1:45:02 Um so that's something that we have to think about think through carefully. Um countries that held on to their notion
1:45:11 that um the world was realist in the sense of being able to dominate uh other countries and so on. They're finding it
1:45:19 difficult to do so. Um, the United States is having difficulty in winning the war against Iran. Um, and that has to do with the fact that within Iran,
1:45:31 uh, as an asymmetric power, they're causing all sorts of problems for the United States and Israel.
1:45:36 But, but it also has to do with globalization. The fact that globalization is real. Yes.
1:45:41 Because they they can choke that that nerve of of the global global globalized system because it exists. That's right.
1:45:50 That's right. And because we depend so heavy heavily on it, right? Uh to get oil and and gas and so on and not only
1:45:57 that fertilizer and other things, uh it's straight up.
1:46:01 So you might be saying that in fact the idea of classical idea of hegeimony and empire is beginning to fail because we
1:46:11 might live in a world in which no one can assert that and that concept itself becomes redundant. And that's the point I was trying to make when I say that in
1:46:19 a multipolar world as opposed to a bipolar and a unipolar world. In a multipolar world, power is diffused.
1:46:28 Um you because you know you have to think of it more in terms of networking networks right nodes
1:46:36 um spikes and and and so on. Uh that's a completely different kind of way of looking at the world than a dominance subdominant world, right? It's not going to be that straightforward any longer.
1:46:46 But I want I want to push back on that because I agree with you obviously but I'm also aware that networks come if
1:46:55 if I think of somebody like Manuel Castles um initially his view was the view you mentioned later on he wrote a book about
1:47:04 media power in the media or something like that and in that book he starts acknowledging some limitations of in
1:47:11 terms of power dimension and he's basically saying in my understanding that um yeah a network decentralizes or it's
1:47:20 diffused but it depends on the protocol of the network and if if the protocol is
1:47:27 written in a particular way even though the network is decentralized it's actually centralized in the way it operates
1:47:35 because the those who control the protocol control the network and and so
1:47:42 I think it's it's it's an open question of of how new forms of power would and
1:47:49 hedgeimonyy would assert themselves. It might be that what we see is moving from something that was hedgemonic to
1:47:57 something non-hedgeimmon is actually moving from a level of of power in a hedgeimonyy to a much more subtle level
1:48:03 of power in a where where you you just conduct things through protocol and and data. Um
1:48:12 cuz because that's how modern institutions work. That's how universities work. You have a protocol and you just send it down and everybody
1:48:20 works with that. Some subverted, some it's decentralized to some extent. But then the data the the the the the
1:48:29 data collected in in dashboards that monitors the results of the protocol and creates governance from
1:48:37 above. that is really hard to escape. So it's it's in a sense it's a very with the add added technology it's a very
1:48:46 pervasive and problematic social system at the moment if you look at smaller institutions. Yeah.
1:48:53 Well that's I I like I like the way you put it but I want to I also want to say that we have to rethink too umworked
1:49:02 multiportal worlds right. Um there needs to be some sort of conceptual clarity on this. I I think a networked multipolar
1:49:10 world is not just about multiple great powers, right? As we had in the 19th century, you know, that's a mult that's
1:49:17 a multipolarity that we had in the in the 19th century. What I'm talking about here too is a challenge even to the state system itself. a chance to state
1:49:26 themselves because the multipolar world of the 19th century um character was characterized by
1:49:33 distributed power across nodes not just states right I think that's where we're moving um this distributed power across
1:49:42 nodes as opposed to just simply states so for example in issue specific alignments for example u there are nodes
1:49:50 that are responsible um not fixed blocks of states for example. So even within a state, they
1:49:57 could be a node that connects with another node in another state. So the the states are not the primary actors
1:50:05 here anymore. Um there's a kind of a dense interdependence across domains like for finance for example, there are several different actors in finance
1:50:13 area, technology, security, information etc. So I think that's where I think power then becomes a fuse. It's power
1:50:22 flows through those networks and not through hierarchies in the way that we looked at it back in the 19th century
1:50:29 and even the 20th century. So I think the key features of this so-called networked uh multipolar order um apart
1:50:38 from the multiple poles uh is the unequal nature of the capabilities.
1:50:44 Um so major states like the United States and China, India, even the European Union uh will probably be able
1:50:52 to amass a certain amount of power but no single actor can impose any systemic coherence on this new system that's
1:50:59 going to be created. So I think that's where we have a slightly different interpretation, right, of of what this has.
1:51:07 I think I agree with that and I think it's a great insight and I love the texture in your analysis. Um

Chapter 16:

We are so state-centric in our views but the state is a fictional concept. With power more diffuse we see less hierarchy and more scope for subjectivity/agency leading to coalitions of the willing in climate change or poverty reduction, mini-lateralism, fragmented governance, multilevel governance, intermestic nature of governance.

1:51:16 well, you know, it's it's one of those things that we have a difficulty getting away from because we we're so centric in
1:51:24 terms of our views, right? Um when when then I was a student and I heard some professors talk to me about the fact the state was a figment of our imagination.
1:51:33 I I I couldn't I can grapple with it because you know coming from a country like Barbados we wanted to become a state. we want to become independent
1:51:41 state like every every other state. Uh it was hard to sort of wrap our heads around the fact that maybe the state was a fiction as opposed to reality and that
1:51:50 really what really we need to do was to look at the people within the state and try to see how we can make sure that
1:51:56 their lives are better um served uh by the actions of this this this this
1:52:03 artificial thing we call the state. So to move away from that is very very difficult. So the thing about European countries for example not as countries
1:52:11 but as nodes or have nodes within those countries connecting with other nodes is a very very difficult concept uh to to
1:52:20 wrap your head around. So, but I think that power now is being exercised through multinational corporations,
1:52:27 through financial systems,
1:52:29 uh through AI platforms, digital platforms,
1:52:34 um perhaps through transnational advocacy networks that we have. Some of them are already in play in place and
1:52:41 we're going to have to depend more on those for the new ideas that will now become the pillars of this new world
1:52:48 order. um the fact that the the the power is so diffuse means that the material capability element is going to
1:52:55 be different and then the institutions that we that we use um will vary depending on the subject. So you're
1:53:03 going to have a lot of coalitions of the willing around certain areas like climate change, coalition of the willing among certain areas like poverty
1:53:11 reduction or something. But th those things we have to remember that those things can actually grow, expand or shrink
1:53:21 depending on the success or the failure uh of acting in those areas. So I know it's much more complex my view now is
1:53:30 much more complex than it was before. Um the whole notion of milateralism is coming into play right now in my mind
1:53:38 and also the notion of uh fragment fragmented governance where you have what I call multi-level governance. I
1:53:46 talk a lot about the um the intermestic nature of governance. Now

Chapter 17:

An intermestic world. Global challenges do not care about borders. Top-down subsidiarity versus bottom-up subsidiarity. The UN system should be the last resort (not the first resort) for addressing problems.

1:53:55 the idea of intermestic world is something that I've been spending quite a bit of time trying to explain to my students. Right. uh that that you know
1:54:03 there used to be this sort of notion of the container concept right the state there's like a container what goes on in within the state you
1:54:11 don't care about really it's you know one container hidden against another container I call the billar ball theory of international relations um that's no
1:54:19 longer relevant because we know that things that happen within the state has implications for things outside the
1:54:26 state and vice versa so there's no hard and fast boundary I mean we can build as many walls as we want as Trump wanted to
1:54:34 do. It's not going to stop the penetration of the boundaries of the state by other forces. We have
1:54:42 technological issues there. AI is another example. Um you know there there's pandemics
1:54:51 you know don't pay attention to the borders of states. um you know the environmental issues that we are facing right now don't pay attention to borders
1:55:00 of states so I think we have to think of the world in a different way and think about the intermestic nature of global
1:55:08 governance if you have a situation where there is that kind of fluidity between the international and domestic and vice
1:55:15 versa you better try to find a different way to govern in under the circumstances because the old way of governing the notion that you can create some sort of
1:55:24 UN system at the top and then all these other things will sort of flow from from it. That's no longer the case. Um
1:55:30 there's some things in which some some areas where the UN just cannot be the the first go-to um governance issue.
1:55:39 So it is like like the state in some instances needs other agents.
1:55:45 That's right. Exactly. So here's the thing. I think one of the principles that will support this new form of
1:55:51 governance which then it does emerge uh is going to be subsidiarity and as a European you probably know subsidiarity
1:55:59 very well. So there are two different types of subsidiarity as I argue in my my papers right uh one is a top down version um and the other is a bottom up
1:56:07 version. I much prefer the bottom up version of subsidiarity because you start from the lowest level. I saw this
1:56:14 in uh when it was in Zurich a lot. You know they wanted to build a a bicycle path through the mountains there in
1:56:21 Zurich. And guess what it got it got timeied because people lived in that area felt it was going to bring too much
1:56:28 damage. um garbage and that sort of stuff and it's going to disrupt the the nice peaceful people in Zurich. So they
1:56:37 had to go to different level to to get to get approval. So the the the idea that you can sort of control your
1:56:46 destiny at the local local lowest level possible is I think part of the subsidiary uh principle and then if
1:56:55 there's no competence at that level then you move up to a different level. So this idea of multi-level governance has
1:57:02 to be uh done in with the principle of subsidiarity in mind and it has to be at bottom up kind of principle as opposed
1:57:09 to top down. This would actually be very good for the United Nations system because instead of dumping all of the problems of the globe on the UN system
1:57:18 as a first resort, the UN could become the last resort. So you try to deal with problems in their local sectors, local
1:57:26 areas first. Sometimes it's beneath the states. So there's subnational problems that need to be addressed. Um and then
1:57:33 there's then if there's no competency there, legal competency, material competency, lack of funding, whatever,
1:57:40 uh you move it up to and that gives space to civil civil society organizations.

Chapter 18:

On democracy and the state. The notion of democracy will be upended. Local nodes and sub-national nodes making decisions is a form of democracy that is on the rise and offers more than a top-down decision-making system based on fix hierarchies established via democratic elections. The state as last resort not first resort.

1:57:47 And this is where I I didn't get a chance to talk about this yet, but civil society is very important here because the whole notion of democracy is going
1:57:54 to change. We're not going to have this kind of notion of democracy that's based only on elections. Um I talked about
1:58:01 this in my recent presentation in Soul in Korea where I talk about the backsliding principle of democracy.
1:58:08 Right? A lot of states are backsliding from democracy. Doesn't mean that they're not democratic. It means that they have a different view of democracy that's based mostly on local nodes,
1:58:19 subnational nodes making decisions about what affect them at that level. And that's as democratic to me as having a
1:58:26 parliament somewhere outside of the the local areas that made decision up in these local areas without even consulting with them. Um how do you have
1:58:35 the UN and the IMF and the World Bank deciding on what economic measures should be taken in a developing country
1:58:42 without having a local person uh with a lived experience in that region helping to make that decision. Right? So I I
1:58:50 think the whole notion of democracy is going to be appendage uh because it's a it's a kind of a artificial notion of democracy that's based on principles of
1:58:59 a time when populations were so small that you can have a guy standing on a soap boss and and getting people to
1:59:06 agree with them. Now we can't do that anymore. uh but we can do it some somewhat with um with the new technologies but it's going to be
1:59:15 interceded by so many other factors like who controls the media who controls the uh you know who's who spends money on the media who who's going to be in
1:59:23 charge of the media that can change the message that comes across from the media. So we have to get away from that that old way of looking at the world and
1:59:31 try to try to imagine a different kind of world in which civil society becomes more important in which the state becomes less important as a as an entity
1:59:39 because the state yes it has some um some responsibilities that could actually be maintained as a state level
1:59:47 at the state level but it shouldn't it shouldn't be the last it shouldn't be the first resort it should be the last resort um as in the same way that the UN
1:59:54 should be the last resort as So I think this is a new way of thinking about the world and in some ways it just
2:00:03 has more in common with a bahigh view of community
2:00:10 than or sort of secular view of community. You see, because in the high communities you have these these nodes
2:00:19 too, right, that creating almost like organically and and they they make decisions for themselves and so on and and it goes up
2:00:26 to the uh to the national level or goes up to the to to to to Hifer. I mean,
2:00:32 it's it's it's a different kind of thing. And yes, you have um certain things being um dictated to by Hifer
2:00:41 that could be passed on to the rest of the globe because it has a universal element to it attached to it. Right? So
2:00:48 we have to have maybe both concepts of subsidiarity in play. Um, but pay more attention to the to that bottom up one
2:00:56 because that's the one that's least formed, least developed, and the hardest to really put in place. I think at this
2:01:04 moment I think this is what's so special about your perspective that uh you
2:01:13 change the unit of analysis in a way but you also highlight processes that we don't value we don't see
2:01:22 a lot of value and we don't describe importance to at the same time and I think that changes so one of my next questions was going to

Chapter 19:

Future global challenges, tipping points and possible responses. Jorge Heine and "active non-alignment". We, as agents can create a new world order (new ideas, institutions and material capabilities) as we now live in a new, diverse, multipolar world (not one US-Europe centric).

2:01:29 be about um the global challenges that come in60 to 2000
2:01:38 or earlier depending because there's lots of them that are interconnected and there's lots of tipping points. I think
2:01:45 one some of the biggest ones are climate change, urbanization and food and water.
2:01:52 Um and they're and migration they're all linked. And um based on this kind of change of unit of analysis and processes
2:02:01 you look at I can kind of imagine a world in which as things hit different
2:02:10 intermestic networks appear in response and then from there on something else
2:02:18 coagulates. Uh I I I can't really see the steps, but I can at least imagine
2:02:25 that if things happen, bad things happen, and the United Nation has not done anything or the G7 or the G 20 or
2:02:33 whichever G, um that maybe still things are progressing because the local community and the network that is maybe
2:02:40 even transcending the state with the local community has actually prepared a plan in place and that may be spreading
2:02:48 across cross in other to other areas and and and it's moving from the bottom upwards through subsidiarity as you mentioned.
2:02:57 Yeah. And that that that gives some some hope,
2:03:01 right? And I I think this is important to recognize and understand that we're moved away from the classic multipolar
2:03:09 world, right? and thisworked one in which power is so diffused
2:03:15 that alliances themselves are fluid. So you know as you mentioned you know when you have a problem that crops up maybe
2:03:24 you have a a c a certain set of um uh actors around that particular node
2:03:30 dealing with the problem. But if it the problem is transitioned into something else, you might have a different
2:03:37 selection of actors dealing with that change that problem. So no actor really can stabilize the system in the way that
2:03:45 we had you know 1945 having a big power you know haj power sort of stabilize the system. um that's not going to happen
2:03:53 anymore because this in this interregnum period right now is already demonstrating that actors uh form alliances and those alliances are very
2:04:02 fluid. There's a guy that you should read sometime when you get a chance is uh Or Hane. He's a Chilean. He was a
2:04:09 Chilean ambassador to China who's a good friend of mine. We um and we talked a lot about this kind of this kind of topic. And one of the things that he's
2:04:18 been put putting forward recently is the notion of active non-alignment.
2:04:24 You remember the 1970s ' 80s um I guess there were talks about alignment non-alignment right? the non-aligned
2:04:32 states are the ones that usually sat on the fence and didn't want to take either side of USS or or or USSR and so they were non-aligned.
2:04:42 uh he's talking about a different concept of non-alignment is a active non-alignment which means that states that feel that they're on periphery of
2:04:50 the international system can deliberately develop a strategic policy of not being
2:04:56 aligned to any state uh or any power and and and actually or shift their alliances
2:05:04 uh when is necessary to one part or the other. So for example, countries in the Caribbean that practice non-alignment in
2:05:11 this active way uh may at times feel is okay to align with China on certain
2:05:18 issues, infrastructural projects that the United States have no interest in helping. um but they may want to form an
2:05:25 alliance with the United States on other issues. Uh you know so this is this aon alignment is a new concept again that I think sort of uh is relevant to the
2:05:34 period in which we live which is interregnum because everything is so fluid um so the interregnum itself has
2:05:41 inherent instability in it and that can be used as a negative but it can also be used as a positive. If you're looking at
2:05:49 the future where we want to be, you can think of it, you can think of the possibility that we as agents can actually create the new system.
2:06:01 We can create the idea for the new system. We can create institutional pillars to the new system and we can be part of through acting
2:06:10 nonalignment. They can be we can join or we can pull away from uh nodes um but strengthen other nodes by be a part of
2:06:19 those nodes you know and that can create a different kind of um material capability if you will
2:06:26 for system so it's quite different than what we were used to with the UN system being uh doineered by or by the United
2:06:36 States and and European countries. Um now we have a system where those
2:06:43 countries will feel as though they're losing out because they're losing their privilege um being on top being part of
2:06:50 the core group of states uh because now we live in a diverse multipolar world.

Chapter 20:

Biological limits on competition for imperial hegemony? Issues of timeframe and long-term thinking.

2:06:57 It it is extremely interesting and I think a really enlightening analysis and it makes you wonder how will consensus
2:07:05 be reached. Uh the only thing I want to throw in is and I've already mentioned some of the challenges that I think will
2:07:12 be coming in the near future this century for sure I
2:07:18 would say u based on at least based on the studies from institutions like the United Nations and
2:07:26 so forth um that changes things because we don't have this continuous time frame
2:07:36 to engage in zero sum games anymore.
2:07:42 And and while you can kind of deal with a hegeimon, a bad hegeimon, a hegeimon
2:07:50 falling apart or whatever disorder u in politics,
2:07:56 it's really impossible to revert certain biological limits once they have materialized fully. And so I think that
2:08:05 itself pushes it's a kind of pressure we never had and which we have ignored quite successfully but which cannot be much longer ignored.
2:08:16 And I think when I think of places like the Middle East and even China and a lot of the islands
2:08:26 unfortunately uh you know you you one country might conquer part of the Middle East but
2:08:33 nobody will be able to live there in 60 years from now. Um China might become the global hegeimon but they will be the
2:08:41 first one of the first few countries with India to have what's called a wet bulb temperature.
2:08:46 which is deadly within 24 hours. But your body cannot sweat because of certain temperature and pressure
2:08:54 humidity condition that is triggered by by climate change and which which is likely to occur and which almost has
2:09:00 occurred once in Iran. I think it was very close 50 something. You need a particular particular configuration of
2:09:08 data. But that that that kind of tells me that China will have to move on that
2:09:16 ahead of other bigger state that that maybe like in the west might think that they can just
2:09:25 create a huge fortress for themselves and secure enough supply chains and continue that way and send the World
2:09:32 Bank to send loans to the countries that face these problems.
2:09:38 U so yeah so so I I wonder how that is going to change the picture because it
2:09:46 brings a we've never had that dynamic and while at the moment is maybe still
2:09:53 an imaginary thing. Um I feel that it forces us to really think in long term
2:09:59 in the future or at least medium term which is a habit maybe we haven't had so far. It definitely doesn't look like the
2:10:07 United States is thinking more than two days in the future at the moment. Yeah.
2:10:12 But here's the thing. Uh China has had the ability to think 50 years at a time.

Chapter 21:

China and long-term thinking. China and the US. We don't know what comes next as everything is contingent. US not necessarily falling into an authoritarian trap but still irreversible damage done to the US particularly in terms of the new thinking that immigrants are the problem.

2:10:18 You know, sometimes they many of their policies are are not even for the next 10 15 years because they're thinking 50
2:10:24 years at a time. And I think one of the the advantages of having of living with that kind and this is where it puts some
2:10:32 real interesting pressures on countries that um want to pursue a democracy similar to the United
2:10:39 States or a lack of democracy similar to China because they see China being able
2:10:46 to to plan ahead for 50 years whereas the United States just can't plan even next couple hours. I mean it's it's just
2:10:54 crazy. they have the inability to plan at all in the United States. Now, uh that changes the real the the way you
2:11:02 look at things. Um China has much better understanding of the climate change issue. Ask see what's happening right
2:11:10 now in China. They're already making alternatives to oil and gas. uh not that they want to completely dismiss the
2:11:17 possibility of oil and gas, but that you know they're using al several different alternatives to to to short the energy
2:11:25 package if you will is a country that doesn't have a lot of natural resources itself. So it has to depend on resources coming from somewhere else. Uh hence the
2:11:34 belt and road initiative is one way to accomplish this. um dealing with countries as partners as opposed to
2:11:41 dealing with them as subser subservients is another way of dealing with this. Um I know that yes there are human rights
2:11:49 issues in China. Uh in northern part of China there are human rights issues and there may be a sense of authoritarianism
2:11:57 and and you know a different a lack of democracy in the western style of democracy sense but it does have a
2:12:07 unique capability of governance that a lot of people tend to admire right now.
2:12:12 Uh or look at Singapore in the way that Singapore governs. you know again long-term uh it's not limited to any
2:12:20 political party you know being in power I mean it's it's much more long-term it's much more inclusive of the
2:12:27 populations and um and so on you don't see a lot of attempts made to go to war
2:12:34 China China doesn't waste its money on going to war just think about the amount of money that the United States spent on the war in Iran in Iran uh billions of
2:12:44 dollars a I mean, it's just crazy what they're doing.
2:12:47 It was It was around two trillions per war if I remember correctly. And when you put the trillions together is pretty
2:12:54 much what China saved during this that whole time.
2:12:58 Exactly. Yeah. So who who I mean which which governing system do we want to adhere to and when you put it that kind
2:13:05 of uh you know either or I mean obviously I think the Chinese is going to win out when it comes to their
2:13:12 approach to to to democracy. Now however um I think you're right um not everybody
2:13:20 likes the Chinese model. Not everyone is is drawn to Chinese I am not drawn yet. there is a lot more
2:13:28 that I need to see having come from a communist culture and I think there I feel at home in their in the culture
2:13:35 because the communist element is very much the same.
2:13:38 Uh so as much as I feel at home and as much as I admire certain developments they have done like on green energy and
2:13:47 tech and the way they have managed to plan. It's not enough that you are planning long term. You also have to plan well and implement well and there
2:13:56 is a lot of loss. There is a lot of corruption but in the end it moves forward which you couldn't say about other
2:14:04 communist countries from the past that died planning basically. So, so yeah
2:14:11 that that that there is a fine balance between planning and a sort of democracy
2:14:19 not democracy in the western sense but the still a sort of democracy the moment that link breaks the planning is just a mirage like
2:14:28 everybody reports the wrong things and nobody knows what's going on over time and you don't control the system so
2:14:36 so there is I assume something some kind if democracy is in play. Uh not the one that we kind of mean, but but there has
2:14:45 to be something that keeps keeps everything really enough to continue functioning and kind of
2:14:52 deliver. Uh that's not to say China doesn't have huge challenges with the economy as well and and all sorts of
2:14:59 things. And I think also the US is going to hit them hard when they can uh if they can. There is a question of if they
2:15:07 can't, but if if they can, they they would. And then there's also the AI revolution, which
2:15:16 we never know if it's going to deliver as much as it promises, but if it delivers some of that, and if it if if somebody has uh first mover advantage,
2:15:26 which is what they're competing about,
2:15:29 you don't know what that can do to the rules of the game. And you never know. I always think reality is contingent. So,
2:15:35 I don't really know what will happen to the United States. I mean, I don't at this point in time, it's hard to be that hopeful. uh by but by not being hopeful.
2:15:47 I mean, you know, if if the United States embraces some kind of isolationism and goes only in that
2:15:55 hemisphere with North America and South America and asserts itself there and still remains the main economic power, but not the first economic power.
2:16:06 Will that really be the worst of worlds for American people? you know, like it's bad, but and and and for the people in
2:16:14 charge, it's unac completely unacceptable. I think the idea that you're not in charge means somebody else can impose themselves on you. And that
2:16:23 is I think that must be a trend of thought in Western civilization.
2:16:34 Yeah. You know, I think you're right that I mean, we everything's contingent,
2:16:37 right, on on on what happens. Like for example, we don't know whether or not um Trump will be president uh in two years in in in that in a real sense. I mean,
2:16:48 in other words, he could be a lame duck president, but uh for the rest of his term because the Democrats could take over the House and the Senate.
2:16:55 Uh there's no corruption involved um and rigging of the ballots um you know, let's say the Democrats going to win both both houses.
2:17:04 Um and then that makes him a lame that president. We've had those situations in the past, right, where they have lived up prisons and and somehow the Americans
2:17:12 have been resilient enough to make the kind of transition that's necessary. So I I don't rule out the possibility that the United States will not necessarily
2:17:21 fall into this authoritarian kind of trap. Um but I would say that some of
2:17:28 the damage that's being done right now to the United States cannot be undone easily.
2:17:34 And that's the one things I fear. Um uh and a lot of it has to do with the way in which the society itself has changed.
2:17:45 I never thought that Americans would be this and fear this this sort of resistant to
2:17:53 uh immigrants coming in because they always prided themselves on on embracing immigrants because immigrants help to make the country thrive. And now we have
2:18:02 this this this new set of thinking that immigrants are the problems, right? So but if that continues,

Chapter 22:

Tax system, tariffs, deindustrialization, infrastructure, populism, racism.

2:18:09 can can I just throw some comment here because this was something I was thinking of saying earlier which I think
2:18:17 it's important and you obviously know about it but I'm just going to say it for the purpose of having the discussion.
2:18:24 I think there one of the reasons we have populism in the west in the manner that
2:18:31 we do have it is because of the previous re previous governments
2:18:38 in this case democratic governments um in the US um which have created a sort
2:18:46 of economy ruled state where
2:18:54 you can't tax the rich more. Although you need to tax them more because your debt is growing, your deficit is
2:19:02 expanding and also you have more needs because the population is aging. So you need to invest more in welfare and and
2:19:09 all this. You you don't want to tax more the rich because
2:19:16 they literally owe own your treasuries. Right?
2:19:21 And so they can just vote negatively on the treasuries which could make the government fall. So you don't have
2:19:30 enough space to tax the rich. You can't tax the poor more in the middle classes because they have been stagnant in terms
2:19:37 of salaries or the salaries have been declining for for decades.
2:19:42 And so you end up playing this game where you promise you will but you don't. uh and which in a sense has
2:19:50 forced the United States to do what Trump is doing because what Trump is doing is really a sort of if I am very you know I mean I say there's a strategy
2:19:58 but the strategy is in a sense pillaging resources from the outside so that you
2:20:04 can pay for things without taxing uh so you you it's it's not very different in a sense from colonization
2:20:13 when you got resources from the outside then for example in England And both the Tories and the wigs were in in favor of
2:20:21 that because they wanted to use the money for different purposes. You know,
2:20:24 for one side it was welfare state, for the other side was something else in investing in businesses or whatever. But so in in a way
2:20:33 you don't want to raise the taxes for anyone because you are caught as a state as a as a political force. But you have
2:20:40 to promise that you will deliver investment without charging and raising taxes on anyone.
2:20:48 I'm not saying that's exactly happening.
2:20:49 I'm sure the the taxes are raised on the poor poorest. Yeah, I was going to say that. In fact,
2:20:56 you know that that is not really happening right now because you know the the hope was that organization the Trump
2:21:03 administration they have a very actually they have a very infantile notion of tariffs that doesn't really reflect
2:21:10 serious economic thinking. Um then the idea that you can somehow tar off a country uh in the hope that you can
2:21:19 bring in large amounts of revenues into your your coffers hasn't worked. Uh we know it hasn't
2:21:26 worked because the country because the people have benefited from whatever monies that came out of those tariffs and also you're dealing with a person an
2:21:35 individual that imposes a 50% tariff on one country today and then reduces it to 10% the next day. I mean there's no sort
2:21:43 of balance and there's no sort of mental u balance in terms of what he does. Um
2:21:51 he you know he goes overboard on one side and then pulls back and becomes what what they call the taco president.
2:21:57 It's but he's just somebody that coerces you in in and once he's got you there he coerces you again and again and again as
2:22:04 the need arises and and and sometimes they use the tariffs to extract something else out of you. Exactly. But you see, people are catching on to this.
2:22:13 That's the scary part for him now.
2:22:15 People are catching on to this. I noticed it in the way that Canada responds to him now with Tus. People are catching on to what he's doing and it
2:22:24 doesn't work anymore because they they know exactly what he's trying to do. um you know so so you know we we don't care
2:22:32 what level of tariff it places on can Canadian products anymore because at the end of the day there's a agreement between Canada Mexico and the United
2:22:41 States that has to be formalized through the regular system of formalization of rules about about uh trade and and
2:22:50 that's still ongoing that's still going on regardless of what Trump has done so um I I don't think we are as as worried about this as as as was thought. Plus,
2:23:00 his own people um in the mega world,
2:23:03 MAGA world um are having difficulties because they're seeing increases in their foods uh in in their in the
2:23:12 grocery uh shopping. Um they're seeing in the price of sorry price of products in grocery shops. Uh they're they're
2:23:20 seeing uh increases in gas. they're seeing, you know, a whole bunch of things that don't look as though these tariffs are really helping them.
2:23:30 So, so I think that's going to backfire on him as well as well. So, I I I think when we Yeah, when we look at this, we have to
2:23:38 think of it in terms of I agree with you. I mean, there's always the economic uncertainty of the period um the
2:23:45 de-industrialization, the precarity of work. that that's what I want to go back to because that was my argument and I just finish very quickly. So my what I
2:23:54 was trying to say is there hasn't been investment in infrastructure for 30 years in in the western countries and that has to do a lot with the I think in
2:24:02 my view not only but the taxation system and also the way the multinationals uh multinational corporations work and
2:24:10 the finance sector works and and hedge funds and so forth. So it's I think it's that that has pushed things over the
2:24:17 edge and if I am trying to live in and have housing and I don't have housing and the media says that this is because
2:24:25 of immigration then eventually if I don't have an analysis of the whole system of what's happening which is hard to derive and
2:24:33 definitely very hard to obtain from media u or social media then the idea that this is caused by immigrants
2:24:42 primarily uh seems to make sense. I mean, if there'll be less people, there'll be more housing. Rather than wondering, why
2:24:50 haven't we built more housing in 30 years? Or why aren't we redeveloping whatever housing we might have? Or why
2:24:58 aren't we making some of the private land public in the case of England and build housing? Because one of the
2:25:05 reasons we can't build houses here is because the much of the land is not publicly owned by the it's not owned by
2:25:11 the state. So there's there's this dimension where the elites have brought this onto themselves really uh this
2:25:20 populism and and so when we are talking about changing the system
2:25:28 uh I can understand a little bit where the MAGA voter is coming from and I also understand those who wonder if a
2:25:35 democratic return would actually just return to the way things were or would be able to address
2:25:44 this issue which is foundational to in my view to to why populism appeared in
2:25:50 this way. Uh so because it has to do with with whatever the nexus of power is in
2:25:58 the United States when that party takes over and how something that at times looks at as a plutoaucracy
2:26:06 um operates. Uh and and while I feel positive about the
2:26:13 options ahead as well and I I I love your perspective, I think I think when when people are reacting so in ways that
2:26:22 are unjustified uh regarding immigration, there is something real at the bottom of it which has been caused by their society.
2:26:34 it's not totally manufactured from, you know, from from social media. There's a lot of that. Uh, and there's a lot of
2:26:42 previous prejudices that this plays into. Uh, which is another issue. Yeah.
2:26:49 Yeah. And I'm glad you raised that because I've been doing a lot of work recently on uh, white supremacy in the Canadian Armed Forces. And I just came
2:26:57 back from a conference in Calgary where I was speaking to 350 military guys in uniform. And I'm sure that most of them

Chapter 23:

White supremacy and the Canadian Armed Forces. Xeno-racism. Security and fear leading to populism: "the enemy happens to be the immigrant".

2:27:05 didn't like what I had to say, but I I think it was important to say it and that is that there's an element of xenor racism that's present that's structurally present within Canada,
2:27:16 United States, many European countries as well. And so uh and I think there is
2:27:21 a reason for that because as you say um you know people are watching to see the
2:27:29 immigration and demographic changes that are happening in their own countries. Um there the there's debates about multiculturalism now that weren't there
2:27:37 a couple years back. There's a pre erosion of national identity for example. There's a sense of well we have
2:27:44 to take things back right. this populism kind of thing mobilizes societies to construct a moral boundary to uh keep
2:27:52 people out that shouldn't be here. And so it's the people versus the outsider,
2:27:57 the immigrants, the minority groups and the cosmopolitan elites. Um so this is where I think the work that I've been
2:28:04 doing recently on xeno racism really comes to play. uh because it demonstrates that in this interregnum
2:28:13 period that we're living in uh those kinds of cultural and identity anxieties
2:28:20 gets exacerbated. Um in there is um uh these destabilization or uh when there
2:28:29 is fickleness in the in the economy or whatever. uh those things get exacerbated uh during this period which
2:28:37 makes it even more important to actually think beyond the interregnum because the interregnum is that that all those things are happening we have to think
2:28:45 about what happens after uh the interregnum what kind of order we put in place and and this is where the network
2:28:53 kind of order that we're talking about the multi-level kind of governance the intermestic nature of the governance all
2:29:01 those kind of things are very important and of subsidiarity, right? Give people power at the bottom so they can make decisions for themselves. Um, I think
2:29:09 that that can have uh is is not the answer for everything, but it actually will help to um get rid of some of the
2:29:17 the the ambiguity that comes with uh you know the rise of populism
2:29:24 um over things like national uh national dem democratic processes, right? Um so
2:29:33 security and fear these are two big things in politics right we have we have to look at um uh migration surges and
2:29:41 and we we we have to look at uh the war that's going on in Ukraine uh the war in Iran the economic shocks that are
2:29:49 happening because of shutting down of the street of horus all these things are part and parcel of the security fears um
2:29:57 in politics but they're also the the populism elements, right? The things that lead to populism. Um, uh, you know, we are
2:30:06 giving people a sense of who the enemy is as political leaders, right? We're saying the enemy happens to be the
2:30:14 immigrant. The guy next door who is a different color than you are, uh, speaks a different language, uh, doesn't hasn't
2:30:22 sort of integrated within the society as much as they should have. Um, those kind of things. And but I think those things
2:30:29 are very simplistic solutions to the problem. And that's why I think we have to be very careful not to embrace
2:30:36 populism as the answer because populism really is a simplistic notion to deal with the problem is much more complex.
2:30:45 um the world is much more complex interdependent to use uh Robert Cohane Joseph NY's term and that means that
2:30:54 it's not just interdependent right there's a complexity to the interdependence that make it almost difficult or impossible to govern using
2:31:03 the same old traditional forms of governance. So we have to think more creatively. you have to be a little bit more open to accepting a different
2:31:13 ideology, if you will, if if you want to use that term. Um, they have to be a little bit more um discerning when it
2:31:21 comes to the approach that we use. I like I like the fact that you mentioned about the the longer term view, right?
2:31:27 The 50 years of planning that the Chinese do um compared to say United States, one one day at a time, one hour
2:31:35 at a time. Um you know so there there is that notion that we need to really think differently about governance think
2:31:43 differently about the ideas that underpin the governance institutions and also be be very observant of where
2:31:51 countries are in that hierarchy of of states. uh because that hierarchy may not necessarily be available to us
2:31:59 anymore. If if you move to a network system where there are nodes and there are different sort of levels of multi-governance and so on a multi-level
2:32:07 governance uh the the hierarchy may not matter as much anymore as it did before and therefore we have to think about a
2:32:15 different form of governance and uh I don't know if I can be I don't know if it was clear enough in terms of explaining my position but I you can
2:32:25 tell that it's not it's not a black and white position right it's very much contingent upon how how we move forward
2:32:32 as a as a society. Um, you know, I like the fact that you're raising issues like, you know, climate change and what
2:32:39 that can do to force us to think differently about governance. Um, um,
2:32:45 and we can say the same thing about pandemics. We went through this pandemic. Um, that really changed the way in which we thought about governance as well. And then there's a whole technology revolution that's happening.
2:32:55 And it happens, you know, we've had technology repres re revolutions before um you know, before before the the
2:33:02 typewriter, you know, you know, we had the cable uh you know, we you know, we had a whole bunch of different kind of
2:33:10 technological transformations that have made things hopefully better for society. Um so we shouldn't um ignore
2:33:18 the technical tech technological changes that that are on the way and I and realize you have that maybe the governance mechanisms that we use today
2:33:27 may change because of those technological changes in the future. So I think that's where I would end it for myself in terms of where we go from here.
2:33:36 I I I think this is beautiful and I just have a comment and one final question and I think that's it if you have time.

Chapter 24:

The continent of Africa in the new world order. Pan-Africanism. Barbados. The Global South.

2:33:42 So I think there were some in Europe who thought
2:33:49 that what was clearly very kind of racist discourse
2:33:55 and politics form of politics uh was maybe
2:34:01 um just used to gain political uh status basically. And it was only
2:34:10 when fans and others came over and they gave the speeches and Trump himself gave the speeches about civilization.
2:34:20 And it doesn't take long to realize that that civilization they keep mentioning that we should defend is a white supremacy type of civilization.
2:34:29 And only that yeah that's most Europeans start to think wait if that is a pillar of
2:34:37 foreign policy then you actually can say that there is white supremacy. It's not just as debatable as it might have been before from a European perspective. So,
2:34:48 so that's one thing I wanted to mention and I want to link that with the 400 years of
2:34:55 world order led world orders led by European nations which have all pretty
2:35:02 much been founded on this principle and in that context to ask to ask what are your thoughts about the continent of
2:35:10 Africa and the African Union and the way they are positioned right now between
2:35:17 what what might be two blogs uh yes and China at least for a while if you if there's anything you want to share uh
2:35:26 maybe for encouragement for people who are from that region of the world that might be listening well that's a very good question and it
2:35:35 sort of relates to a lot of stuff I've been doing just recently on pan-Africanism pan-Africanism is a a concept as good as
2:35:45 any sort of European concept. Uh we always think in terms of the Europeans have been the European philosophers and their contributions to knowledge and and
2:35:54 so on. Our universities happen to be very eurosentric in that sense, right? So, we're trying to change,
2:36:02 not necessarily throw the baby in the bath of water altogether because that's not that's not good either, but we want
2:36:08 to be able to um embrace other ideologies, other epistemologies, other ontologies, other methodologies, right,
2:36:17 that may not be from Europe. And in fact, Europe may actually be dependent upon a lot of things that came out of Africa that we don't give enough credit
2:36:26 to. So there's that that that African way of thinking um the pan-Africanist approach now which is really global in a
2:36:34 lot of ways because Africans have found that all over the place um thanks to slavery you know the Europeans are responsible
2:36:42 for that too uh but in large part I think what we have now is a continent
2:36:49 that's just on the verge of of emerging um you know there's so many so much
2:36:56 evidence about on this right now. I spent a little time um um with the Commonwealth looking at the Nigerian
2:37:04 election, last presidential elections and spent some time in um uh in in Nigeria and watching and sort of
2:37:11 observing what was happening there. I can tell you uh that country is about to boom because of the large number of
2:37:20 young people that are in the country right now. the the p the presence of young people. This is going to be a problem for Europeans. This is going to
2:37:28 be a problem for Canada. This is going to be a problem for some other countries where the the population is aging so rapidly and not being replenished by
2:37:36 young people. So, and and then you don't want have to have immigrants either. So,
2:37:39 you sort of get rid of immigrants. You get rid of uh you know, you know,
2:37:44 everybody's on um uh sort of limited uh um children per per family, that sort of
2:37:52 stuff. But the thing is, you know, the Africans are are are booming when it comes to young people. Um, they're
2:38:01 smart. They're much smarter than most people want to give them credit for, but they're very smart. I know several of them that gone on to Rose scholarships
2:38:10 and then have to debate with their family members about whether or not they're going to take the rose scholarship because they're very smart,
2:38:15 but at the same time, Rose has a certain a certain uh character that they don't really want to subscribe to, but they
2:38:23 take it anyway and then they use it against Rose. I mean, you know, they're very smart people. So I I think what
2:38:30 we're looking at is uh a continent um which has a lot of potential for
2:38:37 conflict. Yes. A lot of potential for animosity and ideological differences and so on. Most of it created by the
2:38:44 Europeans by the way. Um so if they can overcome that um I can see this this
2:38:51 this whole big continent of Africa thriving. Furthermore, what's happening now is a very big emphasis on south
2:38:59 south um trade, south south relationships. So for example, the Bridgetown initiative, which is in my
2:39:07 country where I was born, Barbados, um Mia Montley, the prime minister of Barbados, is probably one of the most popular prime ministers that we've ever
2:39:14 seen. Um she's won three elections in a row by winning every single seat each time. Nobody's ever done that. three
2:39:23 elections in a row, winning every single seat each time. There's no opposition.
2:39:28 So, she has to create her own opposition. That's how that's how that's how that's how it is. But she governs well. So, that's why people are keep
2:39:35 electing her to office. She's now um being thought of as a possible secretary general to the United Nations, right?
2:39:43 Because people are thinking that she has this ability to capture the imagination of people especially in the third world in the developing world. She has created
2:39:52 these links to Ghana and to Kenya and to South Africa um and to um um where else
2:40:01 um Namibia different places because she has this ability to say we are all in this together uh you know and let's try
2:40:10 to see if we can overcome things by working together and don't be so dependent upon the north because we haven't done very well with that
2:40:17 dependency anyway um don't be so dependent from the United States because you know the United States is a kind of
2:40:24 a a bad weather kind of country when it comes to the Caribbean there. Sometimes they're they're in it because they want to deal with Venezuela or Cuba, but on
2:40:33 other issues they don't care that much about Caribbean countries. So I mean she is she's pivoting towards China because
2:40:41 China is given a better deals when it comes to infrastructure and and you know
2:40:48 no um conditions on loans uh in the way that IMF and the World Bank might do. So I think that she is demonstrating that
2:40:57 there's a kind of leadership among the the the minority groups of the world which is the vast majority of the world now. Um but but but there are people
2:41:07 like her that have this ability to think uh ahead and to to plan ahead. Um and if African leaders can actually produce
2:41:15 more leaders like that, I can see them doing very very well in the future. So you know this American century that we
2:41:24 are now coming out of is no longer going to be an American century in that century. you know it's going to be in the east or in Africa combination of
2:41:33 Africa and China that's a powerful combination right there and then India and Pakistan you know they are also growing they're also moving ahead as
2:41:42 well and then places like Brazil um the Latin American countries have to be taking seriously in consideration uh in
2:41:49 terms of how they want to see the next world order look like uh so so they have to take them into consideration as well
2:41:56 so I have a lot of hope uh because I think the it's not just about color or
2:42:03 skin color. It's about it's about people who have been marginalized and being resilience resilient enough to
2:42:10 overcome that marginalization and still do relatively well given given the fact that they through this 400 years of
2:42:17 being subdominant to Britain and to the European countries. Um now they're sort of getting out of their shell and they're sort of growing. So I I would
2:42:27 want to make sure that we pay attention to those those those places um and not just focus on the the north south trade
2:42:34 or um or trying to sort of piggy back on on middle powers to do well. They can also do well on their own. And that's
2:42:43 why this active non-alignment thing I'm really really hoping that you read that one because that book because I I'm struggling now to go through it. I want
2:42:52 I think there's something there that will appeal to the countries of the south, global south. Yeah,
2:43:00 thank you. I think that's all the questions I had available
2:43:07 I exhaust you with my long answers but no I I absolutely um enjoyed this session and I have been waiting for it
2:43:16 for about 20 years. So I 20 years.
2:43:20 Yeah. 20 years. It's been around 2001 or two that I heard about you and I was hoping to this is very interesting. um at a

Chapter 25:

Structural racism is embedded in our most central institutions in society.

2:43:28 conference in uh Calgary. Um you know it was you just have just imagine being thrown into the Den Alliance, right?
2:43:36 Because business what it was, right? Me the only civilian on the on the on the podium and then they have all these military
2:43:44 guys dressing their uniforms because they always dress in their uniforms and uh it was really a conference about land power. So the the military the army
2:43:53 right of the Canadian armed forces and here am I talking about to them about their problem the xeno racism and
2:44:01 white supremacy in the military. So it's not one of the things that you will you would want to mention in a in a room
2:44:08 like that but I had the the tarity to do it. I I did it because I think it's very important to to grapple with that issue.
2:44:15 If they don't deal with it it's going to fester and it's going to become such a big problem for candidate. Right. I I've been pushing that, but I I got two guys
2:44:24 came up to me. One guy came up to me and says, uh, at the end, he says, "Thank you very much for that presentation."
2:44:29 Says, "You know, some of my some of my seniors may not like it, but I certainly like it because I've seen with my own eyes,
2:44:37 individuals who have been marginalized because of their race. Um, indigenous people who've been marginalized because
2:44:44 of their their their practices. um women who have been mistreated and sexually assaulted and stuff like this all in the
2:44:52 military and this is the military that's supposed to be trusted to serve Canadians and and yet still they're not having the values that Canadians claim
2:45:00 to espouse you know we a unit that was completely you know disintegrated because in
2:45:07 Somalia then they had the so-called Somalia affair where the Canadian person killed a Somali youth um on a
2:45:14 peacekeeping mission so you know we've had that kind of black eye within the military as well and it was all racist
2:45:22 or you know racist kind of killing. Um so he said look all these things are happening and I know I've seen it myself
2:45:31 and I've been around people who are comfortable enough with me to tell me things like I joined the military to learn how to kill brown and black people. I mean this is big open right?
2:45:41 And then he says to me, you may not remember me, but 25 years ago, I sat in your globe security class at the
2:45:49 University of Alberta. So I taught him 25 years ago, I completely forgot uh who he was, you know, but he he remembered.
2:45:57 He was in my classes and um and then another guy came to me afterwards and said, "30 years ago, you taught me at Bishop's University in Quebec."
2:46:08 And then he told me about my kids. and he said, "Well, that makes sense because my kids are now 30." So, I mean,
2:46:14 obviously that was been that's been a long time, but I I did teach there and I couldn't even remember who he was because it was like, you know, how do
2:46:21 you remember like 30 years ago kids that came out in and out of your class? Um,
2:46:27 but but he also had very positive things to say. I know there's a generation of people who have actually witnessed the
2:46:34 xeno racism and the um the white supremacy thing that that permeates
2:46:41 within the military. And I I knew there was going to be push back. So one of the things I did in before I gave my speech,
2:46:47 I asked everybody to look up, turn around, look around you in this room and tell me what you see.
2:46:55 over 90% easily over 90% white males.
2:47:01 So military hasn't changed from in terms of this composition of people in the military in Canada even up to this point. There's still 90%
2:47:10 white males very few indigenous peoples. Uh there's only one other indigenous person at a conference with me and he was he was on the podium with me on the same panel.
2:47:22 So,
2:47:24 you know, it it spoke for itself. I didn't have to say very much more than that. And then in my my speech, then of course, you know, I hit them pretty hard
2:47:32 um in terms of their inability to to change. And and I said it's not just um individual cases of racism anymore. It's
2:47:40 structurally embedded racism. That's why it's not easy to change and somebody has to say it. And then the leadership has
2:47:48 to be responsible for helping to undo that. So it was uh that's where I am right now in terms of the kind of research I'm doing now. It's less it's
2:47:56 less about global governance now and more about uh some what I consider to be inter domestic issues, right? Because this is a global problem as well as a
2:48:05 domestic problem. Um and and and people are being radicalized and into extremists uh while they're in the
2:48:12 military. And that's a very dangerous combination because they learn how to kill. That's their job, right? To learn how to kill. And if you do decide that
2:48:22 you want to kill people who are not like you, that's where the black and brown people comes in, right? The indigenous people, the women,
2:48:30 uh, LGBTQ people, uh, you know, the list goes on and on. Anybody's marginalized would be in that category. So I spent a
2:48:37 lot of time now on marginalization and how do we how do we sort of form um camaraderie among the the
2:48:46 marginalized in order to be able to overcome that stigma of marginalization. So I hope that helps.
2:48:53 Thank you for saying that. That just shows something else that the entire interview has shown which is that um
2:49:01 it takes a lot of courage in this day for researchers to tackle these topics u and and speak about them publicly. It's
2:49:11 it's very hard at the moment I think to tackle a lot of issues and there's not there's a lot of researchers that
2:49:18 understand a lot of these issues but not many that are willing to speak about it and I also have to thank you because
2:49:28 I have seen you present before and you are able to speak in very abstract terms and you've kind of took the language
2:49:35 down to my level and everyone's level so we can all understand what you're telling telling us you know
2:49:42 others might not know this but you know like you have put some effort in in bringing the conversation to our level. Yeah,
2:49:52 you know this because when I read when you read my stuff you can tell it's sometimes a little bit esoteric and abstract theoretical and that sort of stuff. But
2:50:01 I think I als I always like to think of being an academic as being more than just simply a person that talks to people in the classroom.
2:50:10 You can do you do a very good job of doing that in the classroom, right? And talking about the theories of international relations and that sort of stuff. But when when the rubber hits the
2:50:20 road is when the academics are able to translate what they're saying academically to the public. So public intellectualism I think is very
2:50:28 important for me and I try my best to to do that. So I get calls you know some it backfires on me a little bit because
2:50:37 then I get lots of calls for for interviews and stuff because I can break it down to a level that everybody can understand. At least I hope so. And um
2:50:45 and then I get called up to to give these interviews. So it's a it's a good thing. Um, but it puts a lot of burden
2:50:52 that you say and a lot of strain on people, especially if you're a person of color in working in ostensibly white
2:50:59 university where the structure of racism is present in the university as well. So all these institutions like the
2:51:07 military, the police force, the intellect intelligence agencies, uh the universities, the colleges, I mean
2:51:14 they're all literally have embedded structures of racism and they don't want to admit to it because especially in Canada because they're very good about
2:51:21 sweeping things under under the rug. Um but somebody's got to say something about it. And I ended up having to be one of those people that found myself in
2:51:30 a position uh with tenure and being able not to be fired for what I say to be able to say things uh that other people
2:51:38 would not say. So I I I see that as a very important responsibility and I you know I don't I don't mind being the target. I because I I think I can hold
2:51:47 my own on on the platforms of anybody uh who thought through these problems because sometimes they haven't thought through it insufficiently.
2:51:55 Um and and I just say exactly what I think you know and the the worst part about this for me is for other people is
2:52:04 that uh if you're a young person not yet tenerish you can be cowed into not saying anything and it's very easy um
2:52:12 why would you put yourself on a on a on a limb um you know um when you are not the problem why would you saddle
2:52:21 yourself with the this trying to sort of correct the problem that you did not create, right? Cuz I hear a lot of them talk to me this way. And I keep telling
2:52:29 them, you know, sometimes spaces are opened and you just have to fill the space because if you don't fill it,
2:52:35 somebody else will fill it that will not be as tolerant as you are that will not have the the empathy that you have. So
2:52:44 you better fill the space. And that's that's been my my whole u you know attribute all along um in academia. So
2:52:52 and then again I you know I I I can feel the sense and the presence of a baj kind of uh uh support for kind of some of the
2:53:00 things I say. I don't always necessarily quote by readings but I can tell you it's generated from having a knowledge
2:53:09 at least of high faith and and and I think that there is a a hope you know that if you get any hope in the future
2:53:16 it's based on that that religious um belief right so there's hope there's
2:53:24 hope and I like to keep people hopeful despite the fact that what I have to say many times quite negative But um but I
2:53:32 have to give them that that extra hope that things are going to ch change for the better.
2:53:38 I think you are doing it very well and through serious con concepts. Yeah,
2:53:43 it's not just an attitude. It's it's really a research perspective, a rich research perspective.
2:53:51 Um thank thank you so much. Um I think we can end here.