Multipolarity

Multipolarity Dialogues is a series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers, and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now. The Middle East is as violent and fractious as ever. Now the questions that arise from that violence appear more important than ever. Israel seems to want to end the chaos...

This week, the Lads are taking the sword to Trump’s big deal with China.  The South Korean talks were heralded by both sides as a breakthrough.  They reached agreements on US soybean exports, the supply of rare earth minerals, and the materials used in production of the drug fentanyl. They managed to resolve the Nexperia crisis by means of a simple volte face.  But in an era where t...

This week: Halloween Fright Night on Multipolarity.  We’re taking various geopolitical doomsday scenarios, and running through how they would play out, in full ghoulish detail.  From Britain disintegrating, to America crashing the global economy, to Forever War on the Eastern Front.  And stay tuned for an extra special guest… The Headless Norseman himself, Malcom Kyeyune. Remember y...

This week: two audio essays. Peace is coming to Budapest… whether you believe it or not. So says Philip Pilkington, our man on the ground.  The show may be paused, but that doesn’t change the fundamentals: Trump and Putin need a meeting; they need a venue; the Russian President can’t be arrested on sight. And Hungary’s nous in positioning itself as a true neutral makes it the ideal venue. He...

About a month ago, the foreign affairs and geopoltical media was abuzz with talk about the Victory Day military parade in Beijing. What had shocked was that, unlike the standard communist bloc military parades, with their thousands of Soviet-style tanks and armoured personnel carriers and well trained goose-steppers, this one showcased weaponry that could have come from a science fiction film: mob...

If you’re an enterprising nine year old looking to top up your pocket money, get yourself a bar of bullion. Gold is up to $4000 an ounce for the first time ever – while the dollar is down ten per cent on the year. The biggest drop since, well, since the gold window closed in 1971. Dedollarisation will always mean something-else-isation — this week’s rally seems to be the latest shake out.  Be...

Welcome to Multipolarity Dialogues –  a series of interview that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now. On this episode: Anusar Farooqui. Like the public intellectual equivalent of a DC comics superhero, Anusar lives a double life. By day he’s a man who wrote hi...

Modern Monetary Theory. Magical Money Tree.  Whichever name you know it by, everywhere, these days, the intellectual salons hum with people trying to say that they’ve invented that most terrifying of things: a new paradigm. That they have the economic equivalent of Einsteinian Relativity.  These people profess that debt is no issue. That a country that prints its own currency can’t go br...

This week, it's the sensual adventure in Geopolitical ASMR you've all been waiting for. Our two men talking to themselves on their mobile phones in separate locations. With Philip Pilkington presently locked in a hotel room in China, it seems Andrew is penning him Sleepless in Seattle- style voice notes from Northumberland. Dynamic. Digital. Dangerous. Disestablishmentarian. How much of this you c...

Multipolarity Dialogues is a new series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We’ll be talking to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers, experts, about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now.  This week: Carlos Roa is the Director of Research at the Washington DC Danube Institute. He was formerly the executive editor of National Interest magazine....

Recently, Philip Pilkington and David Lloyd Dusenbury published a couple of papers and an article on the long story of China's intellectual history with the West. A story that extends beyond Marco Polo, and has far more breadth and interchange in pre-modern times than most would suspect. Lloyd Dusenbury is an Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida, author of three well-rega...

Friend of the Pod Malcom Kyeyune is back, and he’s got that late empire feeling. After the Chinese Military staged an extraordinary parade in Beijing, Washington is worried. The top dog question has resurfaced.  In the same week, Elbridge Colby released a new strategic document effectively telling Washington it needs to be far more selective in military affairs.  After they spent a quart...

Narendra Modi. In Shanghai. In the back of a car. With Vladimir Putin. Positively glowing.   The tweets the Indians sent out at the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation were the equivalent of a taken for granted girlfriend openly flirting with the jocks at the big keg party. The key question: is this obvious piece of signalling going to be stronger than the thick skulls of the lugs in Wash...

As they say in the Economist: "Serbia is at a crossroads..." Anti-corruption protests after the collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad have not gone away, now many months after the event. The country's leader, President Vučić, is under pressure as never before, after 13 years in power. He has offered 'televised dialogues': his opponents have declined. The standoff continues. Meanwhile, in the ti...

With EU leaders summoned to the White House to take dictation, it seems as though the Ukraine War is entering its final phase. Can the Europeans take their medicine? Or will they stay doolally on the happy pills?  India has made it easier for Russian banks to operate. Turns out, Trump’s capricious decision to threaten them with swingeing sanctions has had second order consequences. These days...

The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity is now open. Only problem? It goes through a geopolitical electromagnet pulling all the badboys of the region into its tractor beam. The US has taken out a 99 year lease on a corridor that connects Armenia and Azerbaijan. It’s a breakthrough peace deal, certainly. But is it a silk road through a minefield? Meanwhile, in Alaska, Vlad is about t...

Lawds malarkey guv’nor, Blighty’s popped its clogs.  Americans have been hoovering up ‘UK doom’ content ever since Elon Musk decided to push the grooming gangs scandal on X at the start of the year.  On the inside, everyone understands the Notting Hill days are long gone. Only some have clocked that the Children of Men era is upon us. Now, with the banning of a viral ad for a crypto exch...

Get on the bus. Or get on the Trump train.  At this week’s Chinese trade talks, Europe has found itself piggy in the middle in the great global realignment.  After Team Ursula were shunted off an airport bus by their Chinese hosts, – and given no official welcome, it’s clear which side is now entering their Hundred Years of Humiliation.   We’ll be clipping the tickets of both d...

Steve Hsu is a physicist, a tech founder, the hub of a network of cutting edge thinkers, and the host of the excellent Manifold Podcast.  After a record-breaking first appearance, this week, he returns to Multipolarity for his second turn.  This time, we want to ask him about the big picture on China’s tech frontiers. Six months on from the Deep Seek shock, it’s clear that China is makin...

Philip Pilkington is away in Belgrade on a foreign assignment, which means we’re serving up a Sleepless In Seattle-style double header, on tariffs.  First off: what is the end game for trade and the dollar? With Liberation Day now a distant memory and the passing of The Big Beautiful Bill, Philip has crunched the numbers, and figured out that all is not what it seems.  Meanwhile, Andrew,...

In a viral video clip, tantric sex expert Javier Milei once said that he only makes love once every three months. Let’s see if he goes to the IMF any more regularly. In the wake of an enormous bailout, we’ll be busting some myths on the grand schemes of Captain Ancap.  Meanwhile, in Britain, the finance minister is crying in Parliament, and the Prime Minister is too socially awkward to comfor...

Nothing Ever Happens. Or does it? A week on from a one act play of a war, we pick through the charred remains of the Fordow Nuclear Site. We’re looking for clues. A smouldering nothingburger here; or a flambéd Middle Eastern order there?   Meanwhile, Daddy got his five percent — NATO members have signed up to splash the cash on the next generation of weaponry. But is this wise defensive...

Was it real? As we record this on the morning of the 23 June, we are a little over 24 hours removed from Operation Midnight Hammer, in which USAF assets, including B2 Spirit stealth heavy bombers, attacked the Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.  US President Donald Trump says that Iran's nuclear programme has been destroyed for good. Open Source satellite pictures of t...

Malcom Kyeyune is one of the oldest friends of Multipolarity. In his first 2025 appearance, he catches up with Andrew about the state of the world. Trump’s ‘military parade’. The breakup of the MAGA coalition. Violence on America’s streets. The advent of hypersonic missiles above the skies of Tel Aviv. This is a wide-ranging, theory-of-everything overview of the geopolitical moment. You can get sp...

The Big Divorce has finally hit. Like a country rock record written by the WWE, the Trump Musk split has been its own kind of kino. But beyond two hotheaded men who secretly still love each other very much, could it be that this marks the schism between tech and MAGA? Meanwhile… that escalated quickly. As LA smouldered over the weekend, Trump punched the nuclear button, demanding to send in squadr...