Multipolarity

1973.
Beyond the war, we’re hacking into the coming implications of the major energy crisis that’s brewing - as the last tankers to leave the Gulf trundle into the ports of Europe.
From Volkswagen to venture capital, we’ll be charting what life looks like with oil at 150 or 200 dollars a barrel.
Energy lockdowns. Rationing. Bond crises.
All of these are being whispered in the press right now. As much as our leaders dare.
But this is still the Ardennes Forest in spring 1940. Eerily quiet.
Soon enough, the flamethrowers will burn through the Old Continent, and then begin to ricochet back onto America itself.
Will this break up the order we once took for granted?
Are we at the end of the US consumption model of economics?
Will resource rich Canada end up speared by its bigger brother?
We’ll be taking a grand view from the sidelines, as we start to figure out how to live through the latest version of the polycrisis - after 2008, after Covid, after Ukraine - this is the next major re-shaping of the world we live in.
Of course, this is a premium Multipolarity episode - so you’ll have to be on the Patreon list if you want to listen to the full episode. That’s easily done - simply go to Patreon and sign up. It’s 8 dollars, and you can cancel any time you like….

Multipolarity Dialogues is a series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, think as an experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical.
Now, is Iran actually winning this war, or is the US slowly pounding it to bits with its air power? Will there be a land invasion? Could a land invasion even succeed? How are the oil markets gonna react? What are the likely economic consequences of this war? How will it affect the US midterms? All these are questions that are being discussed to death on the super giant gossip chambers that are the mainstream and social media.
But what is less discussed is the big picture geopolitical change that is occurring before our eyes. We at Multipolarity already suggested that this war means that Taiwan is a lost cause to the United States. Is that true though? And what would it mean for the overall US strategic posture? Most importantly, what is going to happen in the Middle East, which itself is a theatre of great importance.
Nobody in the public sphere has shown a better understanding of the academic literature on these matters than Anusar Farooqui, better known as Policy Tensor (@policytensor).
He is a prolific tweeter and essayist on geopolitics and geoeconomics and grand strategy, and for that reason his X account has just exploded with followers in the last three weeks. We had to welcome him back on to the show...

The dog that didn’t bark.
China is cooling its heels on the war in Iran. As America’s entanglement deepens, it’s not Sun Tzu they’re turning to, but the wit and wisdom of Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Meanwhile, even closer to Beijing, US weakness is showing up the true nature of the slow war in the South China Sea. If America can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, how can it maintain the Taiwan Strait?
Finally, is Bibi booboo? A new wave of rumours has him six feet under, backed by… videos of him looking basically fine. Welcome to the AI hall of mirrors. Where reality buckles under the weight of the slopoverse. The Propaganda War is now 4D, hologrammatic, and features the Kirkbot 3000.

As Iran smoulders, ships burn in Hormuz, and TACO traders search for signal in the thunderous noise, we’re celebrating the end of the world in the only way we know how - two audio essays.
Philip Pilkington on the economic consequences of the war. And Andrew Collingwood on the political mess we’re in.

The Netherlands has its youngest ever Prime Minister. Liberal technocrat Rob Jetten is also openly gay - a big win for diversity. But can the VVD survive in coalition without meaningful agricultural reforms?
Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, wheat futures are up almost nine percent since September. We’ll be asking whether transitory commodities inflation in the Stans is the big story we’ve all been missing.
Finally, the little known African country of Bapetikotsweti has signed a memorandum of understanding with Peru. It includes bilateral tariff reductions on soy beans and electric toothbrushes. What does this mean for the flatulence control and dentistry industries in these terriers of the global economy?
Only joking… just one story this week…
IRAN
That's right. We're at war. And The Lads are joined at the podcast frontline by the one and only Malcom Kyeyune. Strap in...