Comments by "" (@tekannon7803) on "GZERO Media" channel.

  1. Ian, I have only one thing to say on the Pelosi visit to Taiwan. I am not in international affairs but what I see being on the other side of the world from you in the USA is that if Pelosi would have backed down, it would have given China's leader an incalculable propaganda victory and bells would have been ringing across China and other dictatorship run countries across the world saying that the US was now in China's proverbial pocket. By not backing down---even when President Biden signalled a retreat from her position was what he would prefer---Pelosi, in my humble opinion has put America back on the map so-to-speak. To me, Pelosi's stubborness has shown to the world at large that America is now 100% its own master and no one is going to dictate policy to her. I would still be saying this if the Chinese had gone through with the invasion, because it's going to come to blows one day down the road, might as well happen now. It must grind your gears to hear armchair strategists like myself throw out these think-bombs, but I think history will regard Pelosi standing up to the CCP and President Xi as the moment when the momentum shifted back in the USA's favor and the vestiges of the failed Trump Administration and the disgraced former president were finally left to wither and die and be cast into the dustbin of history.
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  2. The most important thing you say in this vocast Ian is of course 'war fatigue'. I live 2,000 kilometers from Kiev and so I'm naturally glued to the unfolding events, but this cannot be the case for someone living in Kansas or Calgary or Lima, Peru and the like. What I see is the only result that can make sense out of the invasion is for the Ukrainians to win back the Donbas. What I think is going to happen as the Ukrainian military muscle gets beefed up is that they will begin to have the upper hand by being able to shell the Russians at distances that the Russians cannot retaliate against. But a lot of things are going to have to be played out until then and this is where it gets dicey. The land corridor the Russians are building is a trap for the Ukrainians and must be taken back. What we have to do is somehow keep a shining light on this conflict and never let it get dampened or God forbid, extinguished---We can alreday see China is sending fighters into Taiwanese airspace to do exactly that: to get the world's eye off the ball in the Ukraine so that Russia can play the time game and wait till the news cycle goes to rinse i.e. until the world has forgotten the war that Ukraine has fought so bravely.
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  3. Mr Bremer, you are a voice of wisdom in this increasingly expanding war in Ukraine. I live 2,000 kilometers from Kiev and it seems like it is getting closer by the day. I have no experience in international affairs; I am an artist and an armchair strategist. I see things this way. Ukraine is going to take back all of its territory including Crimea and the land it annexed in 2014. They will do this by being better fighters, because they are fighting for their own country. What is worrying about my prediction is that driving the Russians out of the Ukraine won't stop there. They will re-group and have to make up for this terrible humiliation of being out-foxed by a renegade province. They will have to save face. Ian, I don't know if that means bringing the war to Poland and the Baltic States, but they won't accept being defeated by an outlier country. It's an opinion. Lastly, I think the Russians will see their loss becoming clear to them in the battle of Mariupol. The Ukrainians are masters of urban warfare and Mariupol can only be won fighting building by building. What do you see for this conflict at Easter of 2023?
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  4. One has to agree with Ian on his assessment of Secretary of Defense Austin saying the goal was to diminish Russia's ability to intimidate its neighbors militarily. To say point blank that the US wants to weaken Russia's ability to do so seemed like a diplomatic faux pas.
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  5. I have to come in on the Crimea issue. We musn't forget the Tar Tars (correct me if I have their name wrong) were forcibly removed by Stalin from their native Crimea, I think they want to go back home to Crimea if I have my facts right. But Ian, you and I and most people who haven't been invaded by Russian armed forces don't realize the absolute revulsion towards anything Russian being a part of their territory after what they have suffered from Putin's absolutely horrible way of targeting civilian targets and destroying infra-structure. Aren't there something like 25,000 unmarked graves that we know of in Marisupol, for example? No; I understand the facts you have said and they would make perfect sense if this had really been a fighting man's war, but because of the cruel and inhuman way that Putin has led his armies and the massive civilian targeting, no level-minded Ukrainian would ever allow Crimea to remain in even the most neutral way in Russian hands.
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  6. Ian, what I do not understand is that from Day 1 of the Israeli counteroffensive i.e., its incursion into Gaza, why on earth haven't neighboring Arab countries allowed Palestinian civilians to be able to be housed in their countries? Countless deaths could have been prevented, say, if Jordan had agreed to let Palestinians to take refuge in their country until the fighting was over in Gaza. I deplore all harm that has been done to both sides of the conflict, but I cannot fathom why thed 26 Arab nations have not lifted a finger to get women and children and men out of harm's way.
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  7. Excuse me, Ian, but at approximately 1:04 you said the Palestinians who number more than a million are getting ready for a ground assault from the Israeli army because they have nowhere else to go. What on earth is going on over there? Aren't there something like 26 Arab countries in the region? And: none of them are taking in innocent men, women and children from Gaza? How can this be?
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  8. Ian, I know the following question will put me on your outlier list, but what can you offer as advice to China so that they get back on the road to prosperity? What would you do if you were in charge of getting the Chinese economy back to good health?
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  9. For a military analysis, what I don't get is that we all can look at the war maps and see that the only reason the Urkrainians are not pushing the Russians out is because of land mines, trenches and dragons' teeth. Boys and girls, if America or Britain or France or Germany were leading the charge, carpet bombing the mine fields would come first, ground support aircraft like the legendary and highly feared Warhogs with their 50 caliber cannons and machine guns would make mince meat of fleeing enemy soldiers. G-9 bulldozers would clear out the murder holes, Apache attack choppers would be strafing the trenches and artillery batteries and the like. Let us help the Ukrainians win by at least giving them the weapons and equipment they need to push the Russians back to their borders.
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  10. Very good analysis Ian. It is fascinating how well-researched your data is and your evaluations always show all sides of the problem at hand. Lastly, and it has bothered me since it happened, but isn't this detail in the Alexander Dugan assassination attempt intriguing? Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I read, seconds before he was going to take off in his chauffeured car, Dugan apparently suddenly had a change of mind and switched cars with his daughter and she ended up taking his car and becoming the victim. Did he know there was a bomb or was he told?
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  11. I'm not a military man, but I think the Americans and their allies spent 20 years doing everything they could to bring the Afghanistan people and the country and the culture up-to-speed so that it could move along on its own. The criticism is ferocious and probably is right in a lot of way that the US and its allies and NATO soldiers and UN troops should have stayed longer. But my perspective is this: if after 20 years you do everything in your power to help a nation get on its feet and the day you leave a group of ragtag terrorists hiding in the mountains can come out of nowhere and emerge from their hideouts and take over the entire country, then you have to come to the same conclusion as I have and I'm sure a lot of other people and that is that whoever the Afghanistan people are, they lack any desire to be their own masters. Think of it. Someone helps you out for two decades and you've got a job and a house and the kids are alright and suddenly the person helping you out moves on and the next day you're homeless and living in a tent on main street in some Southwestern town in the US? What does it say? It says you will never be able to stand up on your own, never be able to live independently and alone. Americans and their allies should not feel guilty. Granted. It is pathetic to see the Taliban take over and show them to be from another period of history in their beliefs. They have carried out an assault on women that is off-the-charts. But I have only one question. Why on earth aren't the Afghanistan men fighting to make sure their women are treated fairly? Why aren't the Afghanistan men outraged to see their women treated like cattle? Twenty years were spent trying to get a nation on its feet. America: you did your best to help out and on top of that many of your finest soldiers lost their lives and all the money that was invested into getting people to see the light brought this result. It's not your fault or your allies' fault. The lessons you tried to teach the Afghanistan people will manifest one day when the Afghanistan people realize that they have been invaded by a sort of cult with nothing else but ancient religious doctrine that makes no sense anymore. The Taliban does not have the best interests of the Afghanistan people in mind; they only want their way of life.
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  12. Ian, as far as the Afghanistan situation is concerned, I think you have said it right--- it's an unconscionable disaster. But I don't think America should be blamed for leaving after 20 years. You can't help people for ever because then they lose a sense of fighting for their own land. Look at the Ukrainian men and women fighting to the last man and last woman to save their land from being swallowed up whole by a superpower! What I am asking you Ian is where are the Afghanistan men? What are they doing? How can they sit back and let their women become reduced to child-bearing females? I am furious to think that we have seen no backlash from Afghanistan's men against the Taliban's mistreatment of their women. This proves I'm right in that if after 20 years of blood and treasure spent by your government to help these people get on the same page as the rest of the world, and the moment good 'ole Uncle Sam goes packin' the country falls apart, then so be it. You can't help someone if they don't want to be helped. If the Afghanistan men are willing to let a parasitic group of religious fanatics turn their country into a men's club, then all the king's men and all the king's women can't do anything to help them.
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  13. Ian, you see the geo--political scene like a political scientist and it is very enlightening for ordinary folks who have really never thought much about NATO and business ties between nations, trade deals etc. So; here we are with a war of a thousand cuts against Ukraine by the Russians. Expertly trained, Ukrainian military forces have stunned the world in their ability to fight. They are an 'A' list country and instructors from all nations training their troops like working with them because they learn fast. My question today is what is the game-changer sort of weapon that is going to put the brakes on the hard men of the Kremlin? Will scores of tank busters, F 16s, Apache choppers zooming across the battle lines make the ghouls who send the missiles pack up and go home? Something isn't right, because the rhetoric from Vlad the Empire Builder is still gung ho. My gut feeling is that Crimea is the bug that should be stepped on. America's greatest living general in my humble opinion, the retired Lt. General Ben Hodges believes that Ukraine will take Crimea in August or has the possibility to do so, time tables have a way of shifting, so we can imagine somewhere down the road it's going to happen and when it does, will it be the day the Russian invasion dies and a new regime comes out of the shadows to thrill us all with an encore?
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  14. It seems like every time I tune in to your show, Ian, there is talk of escalation in the multitude of conflicts that are beginning to look like Canadian wildfires in summer as their numbers increase and the odds of a conflagration drawing in the superpowers threatens to gain in intensity. I do not buy into being a doom sayer, but the slippery slope of hope that things will go back to boring normal seems to fading faster than ever before. The hit on an American military base in Jordan is in my mind someone hoping Uncle Joe takes the bait and ups the ante. I think it would be wise to use reverse psychology on whoever and whomever may be trying to trick the Americans into kickstarting a wider conflict in a region seething with animosity and grief over events no one in the middle east seems to be able to control very well.
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  15. Ian, if my memory serves me well----and to be honest it's not water tight----but Alexander Dugan was the one who at the last minute decided to switch cars with his daughter and this has been a troubling after-thought on the potential political intrigue this is going to generate, but did he know in advance that his car was rigged to explode and then consciously make the decision i.e., to let destiny take its last ride with his daughter? It seems improbable, but Russian psychology is a riddle in anybody's book from this side of their border. You did rule out everyone else but the Ukrainians for the gas pipeline destruction. Why the need-to-know is so pressing at this moment is puzzling, because it might be that the western press ends up shooting itself in the foot by digging into such an ill-timed and potentially damaging propaganda tool for the Russians to use to intensify and escalate the war in the Ukraine.
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  16. Ian, please forgive us for what I am about to say if it is offensive to anyone and/or totally off-the-charts. Please believe me- I hope it is a load of nonsense! Moreover; from the humble and certainly not university educated mind in international affairs of an artist, instead of a world-renown geopolitical person of impeccable prestige such as yourself, please allow me to vent my couped-up anger and fear of what I see coming at us from every known horizon. Above all, let us not take our eye off the ball with the horrendous war in Ukraine. The Israeli conflict with Hamas is tragic and our hearts and prayers go out to the families in Israel and the Gaza strip who have been caught in the crosshairs of a cleverly planned out attack by Hamas aka Iran, Assad in Syria, Putin in Russia, Kim Jong Un in North Korea and the ringleader himself President Xi if my resources serve me well. This is happening when there is no Speaker in the House in America. Boys and Girls, we are seeing what the some may say is the axis of power on the other side of western democracies is serving us on a silver platter. The Donald J. Trump variety show has made every American lawmaker along with former Secretaries of State and Defense deal with imbecilic revelations of a former president who had no business being in government let alone as the President of The United States in the first place. Your adversaries are rubbing their hands together every time the hapless former president utters a word. The Israeli War as Netanyahu calls it was ready to go as soon as America was weakened enough from within and funding being choked for the Ukrainian war and Putin rattling the nuclear sabers. It's only an opinion, but we must not let Ukraine down and take our eye off the Russian aim to disable and render Ukraine essentially uninhabitable if need be. The war in Israel is not against Hamas, Hamas is a proxy for everything the west stands against. We must keep ourselves in readiness for the last domino to fall and that of course is the planned invasion of Taiwan and then to have American power over-extended and therefore vulnerable, much more vulnerable than any of us can imagine. We must stand together and I make this plea to the Republicans and Democrats in your beloved government. Ian: tell them to let their sophomoric silly spats fall to the wayside. Tell your fellow Democrats and Republicans to get a speaker elected asap and band together behind President Biden and Vice-President Harris, because what this way comes is going to make the programmed stock market crash look like a walk in the park. WW III has started in this latest Israeli/Palestinian conflict if my intuition is right and we all should be prepared.
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  17. You're doing a good job Ian, and it's great to hear your important updates on an expanding NATO presence and a world on the brink of WW III: If it's not already kick-started...
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  18. I think we have to be very careful in assessing Israeli citizens moral values. Prime Minister Netanyahu was shoe-horned into a 6th term of power in my opinion, because no one else has got the nerve nor the ability nor the savoir faire to use the rod of iron one needs to rule in a region where human life is equal to how Russian military commanders view their own troops and we all know that is not much at all. I believe Israelis are on the same wave-length as way back in Nixon's time, but what I think has happened, Ian, is that when you have seen rockets raining down on your part of the country or someone you know has been knifed at a bus stop, or blown up in a bus, it's terrible to say, but it hardens people. The 7 October attack has rocked the moral compass of most of the world and as we sit and watch the bombardment of Giza and hear that 150 people use one toilet in 24 hours, there is a time when you don't know what to think. I firmly believe that the best diplomatic tools that can be applied to Prime Minister Netanyahu is to stand behind him on the international stage the same way President Biden would like to hear from Netanyahu if China invades Taiwan and Biden is left between a rock and a hard place with suddenly no friends in sight. It's a hard call, but a peaceful solution will be the outcome for the Palestinians and a homeland secured for them, that is my belief. The Greater Arab Community can make this intolerable situation of homeless Palestinians into an oasis with their own country and we just have to find the color of roses they need to see to change their views on what is happening on their doorstep.
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  19. Ian, forgive me for acting like someone with a geopolitical background in what I am about to say. My disclaimer is that I am an artist, but I try to find solutions. What I believe is that I have a long-term resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Here goes: Gaza must be evacuated and the Palestinians relocated. Every building and infrastructure of every sort should be bulldozed into the ground and the 145 square kilometer land area that Gaza has been should be made into a sort of Galapagos of the middle east. Yes; that's right and it would serve as a nature reserve for endangered species of animal, fish, plant, bird which are perishing at an astounding rate around the planet. This area which is about the size of the Isle of Wight could be transformed into a nature reserve where Palestinians and Israelis could eventually work side by side in saving species from extinction. Just let this roll around in your mind and what you will find coming into your thoughts are pleasant images instead of tragic ones. Ian, in all due respect, I know this peace plan means for us to be cruel to be kind, but the Gaza strip is turning Palestinians into a sort of sub-species of the human community because of the inhumane living conditions it offers. Palestinians need one patch of land, and there are countries around the world who have a need for workers. China has whole cities with apartment buildings with millions of apartments empty, for example. We could at least ask them to help out in taking Palestinians leaving Gaza; same for asking Jordan for more land for the Palestinians. It's a peace plan with something good to replace something bad for all eternity.
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  20. It has got to be one of the hardest things in the world to know someone who is a national leader and watch a video of him getting assassintated. I don't know you Ian, but I think it must be devastating to see a voice of reason and liberty and someone who reached further than just being a Prime Minister----Shinzo Abe was a humanitarian and liked you for who you are and not what your credentials represent you to be. Ian, you're doing a great job and you are contributing to making this a better world and you must use the passing of Shinzo Abe to go even further than you had ever emagined in your life. We know every day people are being extinguished senselessly by an unstable person or an enemy sniper or an incoming missle or an assassin's bullet, but we can't let anything stop us in making the earth a place where everyone can live free and follow their dreams.
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  21. Ian Bremmer is a voice and vast experience in international affairs; each of his vocasts leave one with more understanding of what's going on in the world. In my view, Putin's meeting with the Austrian Chancellor went sour as we all expected, but the more we have meetings from the west with Putin, we will at least have live intel on what he looks like, what he's thinking and what he isn't saying. It's better than hearsay. I don't know if Ian will agree with me, and as a disclaimer; I'm an armchair strategist and work as an artist for my day job, but I see things heating up to where we are going to start calling the Ukraine conflict a pan-European military action with Russia--pun intended. I believe when Mariupol is cetain to fall into Russian control is when the NATO shield gets taken down and NATO troops, aviation and naval vessels go into action to ensure that Mariupol stays in Ukrainian hands. I believe that the Ukrainians, after 7 weeks on the defensive, must move into offensive action on the badlands and open plains where the Russians are now congregating. Yes; I believe we are going to see WW III begin in earnest with the next phase of fighting, but isn't this the only way we can make sure that the west doesn't end up under the control of Russia?
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  22. Ian, there is something unsettling coming from all of what you are saying that I think none of us---and maybe even President Putin---hasn't put together yet. I say this because Putin's ego is too big to ever give in and surrender or give up the fight in Ukraine. I see a man painting himself into a corner of his office and ready to play Russian Roulette with everyone else but himself...
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  23. It is obvious that all or most of the South American countries could tilt the war in Ukraine's favor in an instant by their governments giving up their spare ammunition supplies which are only collecting dust in armories and arms depots across their continent. Ian, I know I speak for many, many people when I say you have been a professor to the entire world with your excellent commentaries composed of sound-bites which stay in the mind and linger and which constantly bring us up-to-speed on global events. You have broken down the key components of the political ‘baseball game’ of the Ukraine war that we are witnessing in interminable 'extra innings' as armchair infantry soldiers. You have made us more than aware that we are a not shaken but stirred west whom has finally awakened to an existential threat that until now we have chosen to neglect at our own peril. What is paramount is for all of us to understand that autocratic regimes---which are analogous to communism ----really mean constant expansion. They are encroaching on us silently and stealthily by gaining ground meter by meter and their target are democratic countries. Thank God for your excellent analyses which allows us to see behind the smoke-and-mirrors and for constantly offering good content in your top notch vocasts.
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  24. Ian, in all due respect to you as someone not only myself, but many people Iook up to and listen to on a regular basis. Former Lt. General (Ret.) Ben Hodges would vehemently disagree with you in your statements that Ukraine cannot recover its lost territories. General Hodges knows one thing: how to win a war. General Hodges believes Ukraine will win this war. Ian, this is America's greatest living general---in my opinion---openly stating that Ukraine can win the war. My question is this: who would you listen to? My prediction, and I am someone who is about to publish a---are you ready for this? A children's book! My prediction is that General Hodges knows his stuff; Ukraine will soon have Crimea in its grasp and Russian forces will be retreating!
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  25. The GZERO show is ending the year 2023 with at least one new fan. I think Ian Bremmer has done an outstanding job of examining, well, outstanding problems that are shaking and baking societies across the world in the proverbial oven of the Armageddon sympathizers. To Ukraine's credit, the Russians have held firm against a counteroffensive by a country going at Russian front lines with no air superiority, no carpet-bombing of the endless minefields, sometimes with 5 mines planted per meter! It has moved ahead without G-9 bulldozers making acres of dragons' teeth go away. It has moved forward without Warthog ground support fighter planes loaded with 50 mm cannon and one of foot soldiers most feared weapons to deal with. It has gone ahead without Apache Attack Helicopters which would have taken out machine gun nests, troop carriers, anti-aircraft guns, missile carriers. It has gone ahead without F-16s which would have ground any Russian counteroffensive to a swift halt and also taken out dozens of hidden artillery batteries. Boys and girls, does anyone realize that the Ukraine was given the go-ahead to do their counteroffensive without any of the aforementioned weapon systems and kit albeit tanks, Himars and anti-tank Javelins etc. The last I want to say about AI is that recently in an interview, someone said that an AI robot was questioned by another robot about if it was a robot. Listen carefully, because if this is true, we are all in for a shock-future: the robot which was questioned had its inner thoughts revealed and it was asking itself if it should answer the question honestly and say, yes, or come up with a lame excuse. Boys and girls, this sounds like consciousness in its nascent stages of a silicon-machine-brain right off the assembly line. The ball is in the human community's court, Ian and Zeynep, but have we already lost the AI championship match in advance?
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  26. It's great to have your views on the Ukrainian war. It's sad to see the political dysfunction in your country, but perhaps the best thing former President Trump has done is to show how fragile democracies are and how an outlier can do so much damage to a country like America, but what democracies can do over autocratic regimes as you have said is they can overcome divisions and self-improve. What people fail to relalize is that new tools are necessary move ahead and unite your nation; you can't fix the current problems that you are confronting with the old set of tools that used to work. Until new ideas are put into place, things will continue to be in log-jam status. It's easy to say; it's hard to do.
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  27. I have to comment on this atrocity of human behavior, antisemitism, that is an embarrassment to the entire human community. Every single person born and living on planet earth deserves one thing: living his or her life in the way he or she pleases. Please, forgive me if I am wrong, but I do not know who it is or what kind of people are attacking Jewish people, but what I want to say to them is that you are doing a great disservice and harm to people who happen to be Jewish and simply because you do not agree with what they say or what they do merits calling them down. Boys and girls, this is not a good reason to attack someone simply because they are a part of a sect or religious organization. What people don't realize is that it is hurtful to have someone not like you simply because you belong to a certain religious group or do things that the majority of people disagree with. This must stop. There is no reason to ever attack someone because of their faith. All plumbers wear blue socks! What is wrong with this statement? Obviously, all plumbers do not wear blue socks and all Jewish people cannot be thrown into the same basket because someone might find that one person of the Jewish faith has committed a crime, for example. Lastly, Ian Bremmer might be Jewish or he might be from Mars, but it does not matter because he does his job the best way he can and if you don’t like his analyses, that is your right, but you have no right to condemn him because he is Jewish and says something you disagree with. Let's be real: it hurts when one is slandered, or prejudiced because of one's color, nationality or creed.
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  28. Your analyses make sense, but it's scary looking ahead into what is possibly coming down the pike Ian. Could you fill us what scenario is the one Putin will probably stick to and use as far as the war in Ukraine is concerned? Do you see Mariupol as the keystone in the war in Ukraine? Isn't it the most important thing the Ukrainian army must do is keep Mariupol in Ukrainian hands?
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  29. There is a reason I keep tuning in to GZERO Media with Ian Bremmer. Say what you will, Bremmer does one thing that makes one respect him: he tells it like it is and does not hold back on criticizing even his own country! What Ian said at 10:38 in this videocast was one of those wake-up moments I have been waiting for to make me understand the Russian power players' pysche: they do not respect the rights and especially human rights of those countries around them that they can conquer. Ian says that Putin does not repect any rights of any country that is not powerful. This tells us what we have not been able to understand---or that I have not understood until now---but it's true. This is why Putin's war machine, Z-Ruzzia, will march to the Baltic Sea, take back the Baltic States, reduce Poland to farming communities and the like. Lastly, faux journalist Tucker Carlson may honk his horn to the international community with his load of alternative facts, but there is no way he did not have a very personal message from Uncle Joe when the mics were turned off. My guess is that Uncle Joe offered an offramp for Putin to be able to retreat from Ukraine without losing face. As Ian has pointed out, Putin has no respect for a country weaker than his to take over; add into the cooking pot that this country whips his hide and you have a great power and a great people scorned, ridiculed and humiliated across the world for decades. This is why we are at the most dangerous point in the war and why Tucker Carlson is doing a pseudo-interview of a Russian President who desperately needs a way to make all of this go away.
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  30. Ian, isn't the only solution to gun safety in your country by having every American who is qualified to and can operate one own a hand gun and preferably wear it at all times? Wouldn't this throw a spike in the wheels of people that go to public places expressly to kill other people. Lastly, is this the solution to hate crime? I think if politicians used a variation of this phrase it might just put a serious dent in some people's belief systems. Here goes; every person has the right to be here. Period. Every one, no matter who they are or where they live, have the right to be on the Earth and that means in the country of their choice and obviously legally living in a country.
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  31. Excellent interview Ian! You gracefully conduct one of your best interviews with Kim Ghattas who eschews wisdom and pragmatic insights into the escalation of tensions in a region wound tighter than a hangman's noose. What we see is Israel emerging from the sands of time as a country after centuries of its people scattered across the globe in diaspora. Now it has become a nation and its sensibilities are worn to the bone as it flexes its muscles at every conflagration or harmful act to one of its citizens. However, like all newborns and beginners the reactions from a pinprick have led to a cannon ball response and now terrorist organizations have resulted from regional societies unable to administer aid to their own peoples. Spiraling out of control, we now see that these same terrorist groups know full well in advance that they can stoke up the fires of retribution from their Israeli adversary and come out the winner of public opinion on a regular basis. The worst thing and most abhorrent images to see are that the real losers here: the civilians. World leaders take heed: Violence only leads to more violence and destruction of ordinary people's dreams to lead a good life...
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  32. Ian, you do a great service with your vocasts. It feels like being back in university at times, you know what I mean, when the professor would go off-subject and interject a comment or two on current events. What I am writing about today is that no one is saying anything about the 'mobbing' or 'mass-harassment' the Taiwanese people must be undergoing and feeling practically every single day of the year. What is mobbing? I call it mass-harassment and it is not easy to deal with if anyone has experienced it. It's murder now-a-days because people are tuned into their portable phones. What it is all about is that someone, for some reason or another is deemed to be an outlier for one reason or another. One person forms a group and then they all get together to synchronize their attacks. They zero-in on somebody mercilessly and they are there to show up at designated spots i.e., the target-person's every move is monitored. It wears you down psychologically. Imagine having jets scream by overhead on a daily basis---sure you get used to getting buzz-bombed, but a lot of people are not very solid psychologically, so I imagine Taiwanese people live in a sort of constant stress; Taiwan has become a nervous cage rather than an island paradise.
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  33. I was going out to a party and I thought, well, why not onelast dose of Ian Bremmer's delightful and often inciteful videocasts. Wrong, wrong and double wrong on this one. I will be arriving at the party with facts like Ukraine supplies 1/5 of all maize to the world, Ukraine has 30% of global wheat and barley exports, and more than half of the world's sunflower oil and because of Putin's breaking the grain agreement, it will be axacerbating hunger in countries like Ethiopa. Guess who will not be the guest at the party the most warmly recieved! Thanks Ian, now I am an outlier...
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  34. Ian, forgive us for talking about something so personal, but you could use botox on your forehead. It will save you from doing it later in life when the lines are practically impossible to remove as the skin is too damaged.
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  35. I know I speak for many people when I say I hope we will see you giving your videocasts when you've lived over one hundred summers, Ian! Henry Kissinger shows us what a future man will be i.e., commonplace in society as age is really only a number. If your mind is clear and you are in good heatlh, it does not matter what year you were born in. What Kissinger has been able to do in his life is to have made decisions that according to some have caused a lot of good and then for others a lot of decisions that didn't. What is remarkable is that at the same time he has moved on in spite of the controversy over some dicey calls and he has made some very positive contributions to society and shared precious knowledge that has helped his government and the west. The jury is still out on political misfits coming back to the stable of stars on the international stage; the controversial Assad of Syria a case in point. Nonetheless, like Henry the 'K' as he used to be called, Kissinger is unclassifiable, but how history will judge him and his legacy and only a gifted biographer and decades of time will tell.
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  36. Very good videocast and solid, concrete and well-thought-out responses to often very pertinent questions are the hallmark of Ian Bremmer’s quick take videocasts. Ian, you are doing the free world and probably many trapped in countries who only get a trickle of information from the west a great service. If I have one criticism about everyone weighing in on what or what not Israel should do or say or how they should react. Your President Biden giving Netanyahu and slap on the wrist so-to-speak on the world stage smacked of chastising the poor guy before he got his country into first gear about how to deal with the surprise attack by Hamas. It undermines confidence in oneself when it happens with peers, imagine how it feels with every mainstream network filming it! We should all be saying what we'd like everyone to be saying if we were in charge of preparing a counterattack like Israel is doing; we should be saying we have complete faith in your decisions, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we know you are going to do what is right for Israel and the Palestinians the best way you can. Why do I say this? Because every channel you tune into, some armchair specialist has got a sound bite for how Netanyahu should run his war. This is out of our hands and we have to remember that every single person in Israel is running on high adrenalin to the max; they are in front of a possible fight for their very existence and therefore only words of support make it past their internal censors.
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  37. If this was a perfect world, we would have Ian Bremmer as America's next president...
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  38. Do you know what is absent from your Haiti report, Ian? There should be a coalition of African countries sending troops, police, supplies, doctors---you name it! Haitians are Africans and the mother land should be doing the housekeeping. Uncle Sam always gets the blame for not solving yet another dictorship-gone-bad in the Caribbean. How about a coalition of Caribbean governments sending in help? Or next door in the Dominican Republic? For crying out loud, America can't literally be the world's policeman.
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  39. This videocast is one of the most important messages that everyone should hear it at least once. What I take home in a double-walled cooler is that Elon Musk has got it in his head that he can mimic the American Secretary of State and lodge his clumsy foot in the door of international afaires once again by reversing course and pledging support for the President of Russia who has become an international pariah because of war crimes committed by his troops in the Ukraine and by throwing President Zelensky under the bus at the same time. Why one Earth would he want to make this controversial move on his corporate game board? By saying opposing views to a President Biden or a Prime Minister Sunak or a President Macron and the like, Musk is undermining American and European foreign policy and its efforts to deal with one of democracies greatest challenges since WW II: the war in Ukraine.
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  40. Ian, please excuse me to insert a comment on another subject that may be of interest to you to comment on yourself. Militarized-Mobbing: What no one is talking about is what China's incessant war cries and threats to invade Taiwan are doing to ordinary people. This is what I call the militarized mobbing of the Taiwanese people. Mobbing is organized harassment; China sending fighter jets to buzz Taiwan is mobbing on an industrial scale. Mobbing is destructive because people are fragile and constant teasing by feigned attacks or barely disguised false threats i.e., screaming jets overhead for example, can cause people to become jittery, anxious and afraid. Anxiety can disrupt one's mental state, disturb one's sleeping habits and cause unease in a myriad of ways. This is unfair and it needs to stop. By the way, your video on Social Media is superb!!!
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  41. Happy New Year, Ian. There are many people trying to find a way to end the senseless conflicts, but the world has one knight in shining armor on the geopolitical stage trying to make sense of it all and that is you. Ian, I am an artist and not in any way associated with peace negotiations. The following statements I am going to make will prove that, but I have to try because I believe I may have the kernel of a peace plan that could have our generation, our governments in 2024, to find a way to end all future wars between neighboring countries. This idea will also apply to the Ukrainian war, but as it is a hot war it will need to have one side caving in before my idea could make any sense. But here goes and I am aiming at one thing: the kids. Ian, I am in it for the kids. I had what could only be called a golden childhood and when you see kids in the Gaza strip with 5 wars in 15 years like notches on their scarred childhoods---honestly, there weren't any childhoods for those children. Here goes: We could transform Gaza into a nature reserve for endangered species of plant, animal and aquatic life and turn it into a Galapagos of the middle east. Yes; that's right, turn the blood-soaked sands of a failed attempt at a homeland for a proud people and make it into 145 square kilometers of life-saving space for the obscene numbers of species disappearing daily. We have already hit the 1.5 centigrade temperature increase and that means it will accelerate even more. Of course, you know this is at best an attempt to find a way to get the Palestinians on the right side of history, but what I believe is that boundaries can be re-drawn in the region and a parcel of land found for these wonderful people who need a place of their own to be living by their own wits. To recap: the peace plan is to put nature reserves acting as buffer zones between highly contested border regions and God only knows how that can happen, but we can be the ones who solved these intractable border horror shows and leave this as our legacy for future generations.
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  42. Ian, in all due respect, you are a voice of reason and wisdom in your assessments, but please show us a neutral look on your face. You are wearing your emotions rather than leaving them at the studio door before you come in to make a vocast. You look more and more concerned and worried with every new vocast you make. Just tell us what's going on like you would be talking to the cashier in the grocery store. Why do I say this? Because your face is exactly how we feel about the Ukrainian and Russian war. We need calm. We need to move ahead and all of us need to leave our emotions out of this.
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  43. Excellent, top-notch, riveting speech that goes beyond the usual geo-political rhetoric by never forgetting the ordinary person in all that's going on in a world where nothing will surprise us anymore: tsunamis, wars, environment disasters, draughts, civil wars, religious wars; you name it and we've already been there done that. Ian, excuse me to criticize you when I could not even imagine doing what you do. But here goes: you are a center-stage personality and a global icon, but you should stay away from bringing the spotlight on you personally. Stay the way you come off best: pointing things out. You must not bring yourself into the picture, Ian. What do I mean by that? You said Henry the 'K' was around one hundred years-"and if you're lucky---or something like that---I will be here for another 50 years, too. So get ready for a lot more of seeing me, me, me------" etc. Do you see the mirage in what I am saying? This is where you go into overdrive and forget that you are most appreciated by not throwing in hypothetical statements about 'Ian Bremmer'. It is overkill; you want to not reference yourself at all or try to be funny at any time in a speech. Why do I say this? Because you are already someone of renown and it looks like you are patting yourself on the back i.e., "me, myself and I."
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  44. Ian, you are a great educator and I learn something every time I tune in. Already at 4:32 into your vocast, I would like to know why you think Republicans would not have antipathy to such a shady character as Donald J. Trump. I don't understand his attraction other than his wealth and bombastic style of talking about anything.
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  45. Ian, we have been tuning in to your show for more than dozen moons now and this is the last time----JUST KIDDING! Mr Bremmer, the verdict has been announced: you should run for the presidency in your country. You have got all the bases covered on world politicians and their policies, you know what makes President Xi tick, for example. You know Putin and many, many more of the people who are leaders across the globe. In brief, you know all the past and present political giants and you have got firsthand experience in dealing with international politics from your brilliant interviews. Sandwich that in with being someone of impeccable integrity---Ian, with all you carry in your brain about American government and the situation at ground-zero in the political realm in the USA and you stand up very tall as a candidate for your country's highest office. You would make an excellent president...
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  46. I enjoy listening to your analyses because you see things clearly and you give us explanations of events and things from someone with a lot of experience in international affairs. I'm an artist living 2,000 from Kiev and the war in Ukraine has made it hard to concentrate on my work. I'm worried especially about Mariupol falling apart and going into Russian hands. Biden's comment was not appreciated in Europe and it may be best explained by the iconic news paper journalist Simon Jenkins from The Guardian. He said, "an iron maxim of war is to imagine what your enemy most wants you to do, and not do it." Right from the first time he was asked about President Putin, President Biden said he thought Putin was a killer. It was right before their meeting in Geneva. I thought this was a gaffe. You can call it what you want to call it, by Biden's latest 'gaffe' about regime change gives Putin's backers some more ground to stand on. That being said, what I think is that you don't show your cards on the international stage. This is what Macron and the others are fumig about. I've written President Biden to say the same thing. You don't give away your hand. It would be ten times more powerful if Biden would keep his personal feelings out of international affairs. Don't forget; now other leaders who are negotiating are hobnobbing with someone who openly is calling for Putin to stand down. His opponents in Russia are very clear on this: they repeatedly say the Putin must be removed from power in their country. In this respect, I think that President Biden does not understand that what must be done is to allow your enemy a bridge over which to retreat---Simon Jenkins also wrote that in the article. W
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  47. First, it is astounding how Ian Bremmer has got a handle on issues across the globe and delivers his analyses succinctly and in plain English that everyone can understand. What is frightening about what Ian just said is that AI and poor information in the hands of a rogue autocratic leader who has no checks and balances in his government has suddenly made the world a much more dangerous place. Just today or was it yesterday, the leader of the lower house of the Duma (please check this info) said publicly that if the west continues to supply Ukraine with offensive weapons it will mean global catastrophe could result. Nevermind that Russia has just invaded a sovereign nation, but the moment Russia feels that a sovereign nation it has invaded is planning counter-offensive actions, suddenly Russia feels theatened enough to utter irresponsible rhetoric about there being a wider world conflict if the Ukraine and the west follow through.
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  48. It's great to get the GZERO perspective on things. As someone living a few hours by air from the Ukrainian border, it is starting to sink in. This is not going away. It might take 50 years before there is normalcy for the Ukrainian people. The time has come to begin discussions about how we can peacefully dismantle authoritarian regimes, because they have become cancerous. I am an artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iefz3iCxPlI and not at all qualified in international relations. I have come to this conclusion by doing my own research. Democratic countries and authoritarian regimes cannot co-exist on the same planet. The Ukrainian war shows us that we have to find words that can show how to the countries which have autocratic leaders how toxic the autocratic governing style is to the human community. It is also costing us in the west a fortune to keep upgrading our weapons systems to match whatever they are doing on the other side. Again, I am only calling for open discussions in the United Nations with all concerned countries about how we want to move ahead as the human family. We need to re-assess how the world is being run, because we are running out of time and the tensions caused by the continuous tug-of-war between competing political systems is causing great harm to people and the environment as well. These struggles between countries are keeping our eye off the ball as far as ensuring a good life for the entire human community. There are peaceful ways to do this and we have got excellent minds like this man right here on GZERO. We have to see this Ukrainian invasion for what it is: a catastrophe; but also as a window of opportunity towards ending autocratic governing systems that are only going to get more powerful and more dangerous if they are not dismantled
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  49. I knew it; I knew it! Just as I was settling down for a comfortable Friday night's relaxation and a week-end where I can forget the headlines, as soon as I turned on the computer, and activated Ian Bremmer's superhuman videocast, the roof has flown away and it has made it impossible to relax for the... rest... of... my... soon-to-be immortal life?
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  50. Ian, what makes no sense at all is that with all the public knowledge of the Ukraine war and Ukraine's need for help at a time when Russia is incrementally improving its ground forces' ability to gain territory with its massive supply of artillery shells and better battlefield tactics compared to Ukraine for example, that anyone, anywhere in the US Government or in America would do anything to block the aid package. It is doubly hard to understand how one person in the House of Representatives called Johnson would not unblock all resistance to aiding and re-supplying the Ukrainians. Don't they understand that people are dying at this writing because the Ukrainians lack kit and weapons systems?
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  51. Ian, at 1:11 in your vocast you point out that 10% of the world's population owns 76% of the wealth. Ian, I am not an economist, but I have got to ask the proverbial question: What's wrong with this picture? I will tell you what is wrong with it; it is not fair that every human being in the human community is on the same page as far as living standards go. What is the solution: Prepare yourself for teknomix. Yes; it is my economic model to replace capitalism from a book of the same name, but is the world ready for everyone to be profiting from a good life and no one left out?
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  52. Let us never forget the photo of the Polish woman holding in her arms a Ukrainian child hugging her and then hearing that the Polish people welcomed in their homes a quarter of a million women and children fleeing from Russia's invasion on 22 February, 2022. Can we ever imagine such generosity and openness and hospitality? It made me realize how lucky we are in this world that Poland and the Polish people exist. We are all Polish!
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  53. Ian Bremmer just keeps getting better at asking questions that provoke interviewees like Preet to provide us, the viewers, with solid, understandable in plain English, answers that show everyone beyond the shadow of a doubt, that former President Donald J. Trump has played his hand and he no longer has a joker to get him out of jail free. You don't have to ask the disgraced and now---fingerprinted--former president how serious he is taking these proceedings. His wears a mask with the face of man caught red-handed with his paw in the cookie jar. Well done Ian and Preet!
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  54. What everyone has to focus on is a question in one of psychologist-of-change, Antony Robbins said in one of his books. He said when you think things are in the negative, ask "What's good about this situation?" It shocked me when I read it and I burst out laughing, but then I thought about it. When things are bad or out of control, there is a lot that is wrong but there are also some good things. If Trump won a second term it would shake American society to its bones, but that's good sometimes. Trump's actions as President would energize the judicial system and the like. Trump would denigrate the Intelligence community and what we have seen is some pretty good responses and transparency in the Intelligence community, the FBI and other government agencies. Trump is the bull in the China shop of American politics and what he is really doing is existing in the only country in the world where freedom of speech is tolerated to such a wide extent and where the rule of law is abided by in ways that other regimes could only dream of. Best of all, Trump is showing Americans and the world that there is not a fail-safe democracy operating on planet earth and there never will be; he's an outLIAR and all the rest, but what's good about Donald J. Trump ranting and raving and going for a second term is that it shows America is not afraid of letting anyone exercise their rights as a citizen of a Republic. Strangely, the outrageous antics of the former president is transforming a nation that has started to question itself---and this is always good. Look around you; your friends and neighbors are waking up to the fact that every person in the world who lives in oppressive regimes or narco-countries or dictatorships dreams of coming to The United States and living the American dream.
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  55. It is apparent that Prime Minister Netanyahu is listening to his most trusted advisor: himself and only himself. Ian, you are a masterful strategist and had you been in charge, there certainly would have been another outcome from the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel. What we all have to realize is that leaders around the world have to try to put themselves into Netanyahu's shoes and that means we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that when the dust settles, his plan will not look so drastic and out-of-control. The people in the region have an understanding of how things work better than anyone else. Everyone wants peace; everyone wants a good life for their citizens. This is going to happen...
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  56. The plain simple truth of the matter is that the solution to the end of the Ukrainian war is to give the Ukrainians F16s, G-9 Bulldozers, Warthog ground tactical fighter planes, Bombers to carpet bomb the mine-fields which have sometimes as many as 5 mines per meter and attack Apache helicopters and above all to quit condemning their counteroffensive in which they are doing a pretty good job of doing in spite of a lack of the above-mentioned essential war equipment needed to win in a counteroffensive. President Putin will only negotiate when Crimea is no longer in Russian hands. Putin has no credibility left; he's running on empty promises and a hollowed out military. Let's get this war done and dusted by giving the Ukrainian forces the kit they need to win the darn thing. America's greatest living general, retired Lt. General Ben Hodges talks the talk that any soldier needs to hear. Every speech by General Hodges begins with the word "win" and ends with the world "win". He believes the Ukraine is going to win, why not get General Hodges into being the Secretary of Defense in America?
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  57. Ms Haugen is very knowledgeable, but she needs what I believe could be a speech therapist to help her enunciate words without so much rough-voice coming through. No one is saying she doesn't speak correctly, it is simply hard to follow her because her voice sounds broken like she's talking too deeo in her throat.
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  58.  @jonlittle5032  GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. There is no way you can!
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  59. What I am most worried about is not the Russian economy falling apart any time soon, it's how do we get President Putin's mindset about his military exercise in Ukraine to fall apart sometime soon! Ian, you are a wordsmith capable of turning a phrase that can knock a home run out of the park with the bases loaded, can you find the words that Putin needs to hear that can convince him that the west is in Ukraine for the long term and that him staying with his mind fixed on taking the Ukraine as a prize will only spell doom for the Russian military?
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  60. There is one person who can put to rest people having no trust in the media, and it is you, Ian. You tell it like it is and people believe you because they can see in your eyes: you have done your homework. You are a person who represents America like no other American, because you do not take the bait on any issue. You speak truth talkfrom your heart---and you deserve to be heard.
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  61. Ian, thank you for an extremely hard-hitting videocast starting with the excellent UN President, Antonio Guterres. Dialogue between all nations is his message for the path to returning the earth to sanity and good environmental health. He talks the talk, but he needs the help of every country on earth to walk the walk. You say President Zelensky and Foreign Minister Lavrov will be the UNGA session, and this made me think of something. Ian, could you work your magic and get through to both these people and get the two opposing leaders together for a short impromptu interview, maybe just at breakfast over coffees? You have the gift of getting people focused on the subject at hand and if you could just get both of them to look each other in the eyes, I am sure you could pull off the interview of the year even if Lavrov and Zelensky get interviewed but only glare at each other and curse under their breath and scowl at you and walk away. It would be called a glaring example of how Bremmer pulls off yet another deafening interview with opposing views from the leader of a country under attack and a Foreign Minister who cannot go off script on the air. But it would be a first step and it's something you just might be able to pull off.
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  62.  @hansu7474  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Every one of us gets our data from private sources. My belief is that everyone wants the war to end asap. This is a humanitarian disaster that will take years to settle out. Just rebuilding one small town in Ukraine will take months or longer. Biden and the Americans have nothing to gain by prolonging the conflict. But who am I to know better?
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  63. I have an idea to replenish reservoirs world-wide. Would anyone like to know my idea?
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  64. Ian, could this be thrown into the equation of NATO and the Ukraine's possible membership? Aren't we looking at a golden opportunity right now to have the Ukraine NOT in NATO? What do I mean by that? Sure; NATO would be the umbrella for the Ukraine should it join and take the fight to NATO countries against Russia, but by arming Ukraine to securely defend itself with all the kit it needs and air superiority, what I think may happen, Ian, is that the Ukrainians would fulfull retired American General Hodges' prediction of Ukraine taking back Ukraine in August of this year and pushing the Russians out of the annexed territories in the months to come. What this would do---and I am an armchair political scientist----is to show to the Russians that even a properly armed sovereign country is something the Russians should think twice about invading in the future. The Russian leaders would of course know the NATO countries were a no-go, but with sovereign Ukraine winning back their stolen land, it would send a double message to the Russians that maybe their aggression days were over and that their empire dreams would have to stay stashed in an empty drawer.
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  65.  @edwardbain5391  I can only scroll down about ten lines, but I think you want to say why other conflicts aren't so passionately portrayed. You're right of course, but what we have to realize is that this may be an opportunity to peacefully dismantle authoritarian regimes across the globe...
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  66. Very well-presented Ian, a saucerful of events and meetings that shows that most of the world is still talking to each other, but smoke on the water is still coming out of the Ukraine war. My take on AI is something I have already said, but it's always good to talk about AI because it is already a part of our lives whether we like it or not. What I think has to happen is what seems to have occured when some wild animals were domesticated and brought into family homes as pets. What am I driving at? We need to tweak AI's silicon genes or whatever gets the artificial life ticking away and make absolutely sure that whenever an AI assisted robot, computer system etc., walks out of the factory that it has been programmed to be man's greatest friend. Period.
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  67. You look worried, Ian, and that makes me think that if you're thinking what I'm thinking then we are on the same wavelength about the totally inexplicable Trump ascention in winning 15 states for the Republican party in the 2024 Presidential race. Here's my two cents on why former President Trump is so adamant about winning. I have sent this comment twice already. Former President Donald John Trump is taking a page out of the LBJ playbook, wouldn't you say? In 1963 Bobby Baker and Billy Estes were about to sing like canaries if they got jail time unless Johnson could use the DOJ to give them their walking papers and have his criminal background disappear. Experts on the four corners of the globe all have their own version of the facts, but from what I have read and heard that is why JFK never made it to re-election. Trump will be able to overturn his conviction and the 91 legal bumps if he wins in November. As a winner, he'll be able to use the DOJ---and you can bet that former AG Barr will write another 17-page letter propositioning for the coveted post in Trump's second Administration. I make no bones about it when I say Trump is back on the stump but not entirely running for President to make America Great again, he's running to make himself safe again.
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  68. Ian, could it be envisioned to have a pan-Arab nation think tank put together behind the scenes that would have as their number one task finding a solution to the Palestinian / Israeli conflict? You are in a position to at least throw the ball around to the Arab leaders that you know. It's a win / win situation, because all ideas are welcome in finding an end to this interminable horror story that the world has become immune to. The answer is statehood for the Palestinians in a way that is satisfactory to the Israelis.
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  69.  @tocreatee5736  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. We live 2,000 kilometers from Kiev and I am an artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kN3RCs4bYc I listen to a cross-section of geopolitical experts and try to make sense out of a world spinning out of control.
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  70. With all due respect for Mr Ackerman in Mr Bremmer's piercing intervew, there is something that must be said. Briefly, as an overseas viewer and someone far-removed from the Afghanistan debacle, what is odd to me is that we don't hear is any criticism of the Secretary of Defense Austin. Why were things so poorly organized for the American military in the Afghanistan retreat? Why were young soldiers barely out of basic training in charge of weeding out the Afghans getting on US and allied planes to flee their country? Surely, the Secretary of Defense in America would have known months in advance that they would be leaving. Lastly, Americans and their allies should not feel guilt for the tremendous loss of national prestige and world-wide condemnation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, because after twenty years of pouring in enough blood and treasure to create a new country, the Afghans who were in charge melted into obscurity as if no one had been trying to help them; they willingly handed over the keys to the kingdom to a band of rabble--rousers hiding behind ancient texts to underline their self-importance.
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  71. Talk about trick or treat. Happy Halloween, Ian, but this time around it's Vlad the Vampire that has me worried that we all may be getting comfortable in customized mental-coffins if Putin decides it's time to let his nukes do the talking. Seriously, when you say Russia has decoupled from advanced industrial democracies to cozy up to rogue nations that relish his support, we are talking about a dissolving world order, cracking and breaking off like an Antarctica ice-sheet. Why are we seeing so many things looking like doom-loops: the economy, more than 600 days of a meat-grinder war in the Ukraine, 26 days and counting in Gaza? Today, 50 people died in a refugee camp where apparently a high-ranking Hamas leader was hiding. What you do best, Ian, is tell it like it is. The trouble is that the way things are has a way of looking like our world is in for some big changes that aren't going to please everyone.
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  72. You paint a picture of what's going in Ukraine that shows us that there are no predictions possible at this point. The red flag for me is the independent state in Moldova. Ethnic Russians being there tells us that President Putin must be planning on using this card to go for a royal flush when he needs to throw a spoke in the works for the Ukrainian forces. Odessa is the mystery city of course in that if it were to fall, it would make the land bridge the Russians are setting up a virtual reality and cut off Ukraine from the sea. What is obvious is that all the sick-man talk about Putin being ill a lot of nonsense; his speech shows he is in full control of his mind---or his handlers made sure he stuck to his guns.
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  73. We must never forget the fiasco of votes in Florida which George W. Bush's brother Jeb governed that cheated---and many would say---kept Al Gore out of being what surely would have been a great American President.
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  74. If there were ever two people who have their thumb on the pulse of world affairs it's former Ambassador Michael McFaul and Ian Bremmer. What I would like to comment on is the sanctions. This seems like a useful tool to turn the heat up on belligerent countries, but there is scant evidence that sanctions work in wartime---from what I've read. What I think autocratic leaders respond to is military defeat. Period. What everyone in the world has been criticizing for decades, the Pentagon now shows its true colors and brings us up-to-speed on why weapons have to be upgraded and improved on eternally: there will always be a madman waiting to use guns and bombs on innocent people. What will stop this war is brute military force and because of America and her allies' contribution, thunder guns are starting to wake up the staunchest military hawks in the Kremlin. What needs to be done is to cut a swath to the sea from Mariupol to sever Russia's land bridge. What must happen so to take back Dombas, take back Crimea. Mute the Russian-held strip in Moldava. Do that and Vladimir Putin signs the dotted line. Nothing else.
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  75.  @MrThe1234guy  GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Everything is possible, but autocratic regimes have a patent on that way of working... What Ian is doing is giving lay people like myself a look inside of how political systems work. He's not perfect and he makes his opinions based on his research and the data he's collected. Just like you, your research and data says he's a stooge for the US Government, mine says something else, the next guy will say something different...
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  76. What I believe is the hardest thing for people to accept is that if for example, NASA conquers space-time distances and can get a manned spacecraft to another star system and it finds a planet with intelligent life can we imagine this scenario. "NASA, this is Captain Jimmy J. Jay from starship Planet Seeker Biden calling in. We have found a planet with life and it resembles earth in that there are cities and towns and creatures albeit with 4 legs, but they seem to have a society similar to if not like ours. Your orders please?" "NASA, over, coming to you from Houston. Good work Captain Jay, your orders are to evade any attempt to make contact with the beings on Planet Beta. Fly around, go invisible when flying craft approach, land in fields at night and go to farm houses and look in the windows. If you are seen, run back to the shuttle craft and return to the Mother Ship." "Uh, why don't you want us to meet the locals, sir, um NASA?" "The answer is simple Captain Jay, we are sending more ships for a planetary acquisition operation and if you meet the locals, you might be tortured for telling them our plans." "Over and out, good luck Captain."
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  77. Viewing the raid on Trump's Florida residence from across the seas, what is astounding to us is that top secret, secret and confidential documents were stored in cardboard boxes in what is virtually a hotel environment in Trump's compound. Only a fool would believe those Government classified documents were not photographed by spies operating as delivery or cleaning or hotel staff. America must carry on with accepting that your national security has been compromised and that copies of those documents are in the hands of one or more of your adversaries' intelligence services. This act was incredibly stupid but uncannily carried out as if certain classified documents were chosen to be among the batch. All in all it is a high crime and yes, Senator Graham is right: if convicted Trump supporters will hit the streets and riot, but the other side of the coin is just as valid. If Trump is not convicted there will be riots in the streets too.
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  78. Ian, Please allow me a second comment. Sergei Lavrov is one of the most gifted diplomats to hit the international stage for decades. He can come up with words that make anything he wants to sound real and truthful. Let us not be taken in by Mr Lavrov's skillfully weoponized remark as you say at 6:37 into the vocast. The give-away is saying Adolf Hitler had Jewish blood.This was planned and carefully crafted dirty-bomb words solely intended to have Israel react with rage and lose its rationality and then drop its neutral status and back the Ukrainian government lock, stock and barrel? Why do I say this? Because the goal of Lavrov's remark is to get Israel publicly backing Ukraine so that Russia can change its tactics in the middle east by legitimately having Syria and Iran come on board into the Israeli-Palestinian tango. My advice to Prime Minister Bennett is to not take the bait. In wartime, diplomatic lingo and neutral responses must be doubled and emotional reactions shelved for the rest of the war. I repeat: Sergei Lavrov's remarks were meant to torpedo Israel's neutral status so that the war in Ukraine becomes international and then Russia can use its loyal Syrian and Iranian hosts to fight a oroxy war against Israel and that will drag in the Americans. The Russians are watering at the mouth in having to fight American soldiers on any battlefield or ocean, because then China will be able to be called in to help them finish the job. All efforts must be to keep the war in Ukraine and not fall for booby-traps from landmines to diplomatic triggering of expected and hoped for knee-jerk reactions. It's an opinion. I am an artist not an international analyst.
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  79. NIck has asked some tough, pertinent questions and Comfort, Ian, Brad and Benedetta have all given positive analyses of the many subjects discussed in this vocast. What I think we all have to come to terms with is that all of the problems discussed today are exacerbated by our antiquated and quite frankly obsolete economic system. Brad Smith is the CEO of Microsoft and he could tell us that no one is using computers from the 90s because they are obsolete. It's the same with capitalism which has seen the ten richest people in the world double their personal wealth during the lab-leaked Covid-19 pandemic. This is appalling and it is a red flag if there ever was one. It shows us that everything we do in life is profit driven and everything we value has profit engraved in it somewhere, because capitalism is a profit-based system that encourages expansion of personal wealth which means exploitation of natural resources at any cost and the surety that tipping points will be overtaken increases every single day we use it as our economic arbiter and happiness maker. We must accept the fact that a new way of living life on planet Earth must be carved out and the only way to achieve it is to replace capitalism with a humanity-based, fairer, international economic model that puts everyone in the driver's seat i.e., on the same page. All of us are passengers in a vehicle called the human community and the motor is capitalism and boys and girls, in case you haven't noticed it, our magic bus is careening off the road and this is why we are struggling to understand why we are still dealing with an incredibly dangerous hot war in Ukraine, the African wars, the Taiwan question and an increasingly divided world.
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  80. Let's face it Ian, the Chinese balloon was bait on a hook to catch a sucker. The Chinese may not seem discreet in their latest capo, but they don't do things like that without a clear battle-plan behind it. The US puts more bases in the Philippines, the Chinese roll out plan 'C' or ... and rather than laugh it off as President Biden could have done and I am sure his instincts told to do and what I am sure you firmly believe he should have done, he had to cave in to fearmongers on both sides of the isle. Silly things can work wonders on untrained minds, and had not so many nervous advisors been spooked by the marshmellow in the sky, this would have been brushed off like lint on a suitcoat. But no; now the Chinese have the upper hand in the next close-call aircraft incident or---and I am guessing---a bavure that sinks a Taiwanese vessel or of the sort. Yes; that's right----they will get away with something that isn't a puff ball floating like soap bubbles in the sky. The Secretary of State should have gone to China to meet XI and not even mentioned it! Prepare now we must for Putin getting surprise Chinese military support on his up-coming spring offensive.
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  81. I have been waiting for this vocast, Ian, I am hoping that you and your esteemed guest, Gilbert HOungbo, will read my comment and give it some thought. I would like to say to UN-Water's Gilbert Houngbo how I believe we can win the water scarcity problem about to explode across the world and have everyone on every continent getting clean, clear fresh water 24/7. I am an inventor and an artist and this how I believe we can solve this seemingly intractable problem. Rome had aqueducts, we must copy their idea but put water pipes and pumping facilities under our roads and railways and this way, when there is a downpour where a huge amount of water inundates a large urban area----like in Syndey a year or so ago----where literally cubic meters of water fell in hours on a city that was only able to save 8% of the rain water. 8% is pitiful and the rest had to be flushed out to sea. Australia is a perfect example of a country with drought hanging over everybody's head a large part of the time. I am not an engineer, but I can imagine the cost and logistics and all that goes with re-purposing our roads and railways, but gentlemen, we have got to start somewhere. Rain doesn't just fall anymore; it comes down in torrents and all of that water could be absorbed into underground piping facilities that would then pump that water to the regions in dire need. What the UN could do is make a pilot project, say, in the middle east where war could break out any day for getting fresh water supplies to one country or another. To recap: underground aqueducts to transfer fresh water and one other positive element is that it would not blight the country side with unsightly miles and miles of pipes visible to the naked eye.
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  82.  EnvironmentTruthWarriior Taylor  GGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You are doing a fantastic job researching the ways to work better with the environment. Fresh water forevery person in the human community must be a priority.
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  83. Ian, when is the Haiti gangster island thriller going to get off the best seller list? It seems to be a place that ends up in the same stand-off-mode after a new PM gets in and either gets assassinated or has to ditch the island before the bullets of voodoo politics take him out. Isn't it time for Haiti to be dismantled as a soveign country in some way or form and make it into a nature reserve?
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  84. There has to be one good thing about former President Trump becoming your president again, Ian, and that is that democracies are built to withstand just about anyone who has got the whatever it takes and who wants to rise to the top and an outlier like Trump back in The White House would undoubtedly cause many sudden cardiac arrests around the world when he is sworn in, but it would not be the Juraissic Park his first Administration turned out to be, but more of The Way We Were being the theme song because everyone would know from day 1 of a second Trump Administration all the moves Trump would be trying to pull off and Congress would be able to head him off at the pass with little difficulty. To recap: Donald J. Trump back in The White House might be the US Government on steroids in terms of fiery rhetoric and sharp words but every outrageous command would not translate well into actions, because every security agency and many opposition party members would be on 24 hour alert for his whole term.
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  85. Former Prime Minister Stubb delivers an excellent analysis of President Putin and how the Russians govern. I'm living 2,000 kilometers from Kiev and as an artist I have no experience in international affairs. That being said, what I have heard from Putin and several ministers and diplomats is the 'N' word coming up in their discourse. The only option President Putin has to stay in power is to secure the Ukraine, put in a puppet government and then re-group and go for Poland or Moldavia or Estonia, for example. He must have this conflict cross borders or he's toast---and he knows it better than anyone else. Only a continental war will allow Russia's number one ally and Putin's supposed best friend, President Xi Jingping to intervene. Boy and girls, my gut feeling is that WW III has subtly began. It's on page 3 so to speak. But Russian pride alone cannot allow the Ukraine to free itself from the Russian grip. Russia's allies see in real time the inept and chaotic fighting ability of Russia's legendary armed forces. The only way this conflict is going to go belly up is if Putin's illness or malady or mental health takes him out; otherwise, I think we had all better realize biological, chemical and nuclear weapons are going to be used sooner than later to settle this dispute. It's an opinion.
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  86. We have to put ourselves in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s shoes and see that a two-state solution cannot be agreed to by Israel until all extremist groups have gone the way of tumbleweed. This, of course, is the stick in the spokes so-to-speak, because extremist groups flourish when there is suffering in the population i.e., Palestinians are living in deplorable living conditions. A two-state solution would be welcomed by Israel, if I have my facts right, when the Palestinian solution for a country of their own has been found and the extremist groups would have no reason to exist. The Greater Arab Community can make this happen; we need to act as one people in the human community and get the right solution for the people living in this explosive region of the middle east where peace has not been able to take root for far too long.
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  87. @pluribus_unum GGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. There are no angels on either side of a dispute; what is apparent is that the Palestinians need a country they can all live in and until this happens, the peace will stay in limbo.
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  88. @pluribus_unum GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You are right and whatever anyone says will not rectify the situation. The only way out of this is for the Palestininians to have enough land to be able to call it their country. Until now, neighboring Arab countries have remained silent; we need the UN to come in and ask the Greater Arab Nations to help their brothers and sisters and re-draw the boundaries so that the Palestinians can have a country that is for all Palestinians.
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  89.  @jmhorange  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You are right of course and I am not qualified to say one way or the other what can or can't be done. All I know is that the Palestinians need help to create their own country and the Greater Arab Community seems paralyzed in solving this complex situation. We know that one day the answer will come and everyone will be shaking their heads saying why didn't we think of that before?
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  90.  @jmhorange  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You are right and I know I have a lot to learn about the middle east. What I am trying to be is a catalyst and break any rule that exists if necessary to get the Palestinians out of the jam that they are in. They are adrift like gypsies but they are not nomads or there wouldn't be the mess that exists in the region where they live. The Greater Arab Community may not be real, but we have to get all the 26 Arab countries' leaders in the same room and put their heads together to come up a plan to end the suffering and to find enough land for all of the Palestinians to be able to live together in peace and dignity. It is doable.
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  91. Ian stuns the Sunday crowd with straight-talking, king-of-the-measured response, Larry Summers. Larry sees through every crisis you have in America and the world with astounding clarity and brilliant insight. Two things I would like to throw over the ocean from where we live to you. AI is going to be riding piggy-back on consumer capitalism because the two will be inseparable to every employer bar none when things really start taking off. Why do I say this? Because consumer capitalism is profit driven and AI will be able to do all of our jobs better than humans which means that some very good professions and skills people have spent years honing to perfection will go the way of the dodo bird. Yes; people will be laid off the minute an employer sees the value-added returns on investment that an AI program over a human employee will bring. Here is the not-so-good answer to solve this puzzle: we have to get an economic system that has free markets but is not profit driven. This way, humans will be able to keep their jobs over machines because employers won't lose out keeping a good designer for example, on the payroll. Of course, I happen to have invented just such an economic model that could be used as a proto-type if people like Larry could tinker with it and get all the bugs out of it. But it could be the way to get us weaned off capitalism. I don't want to plug my book, but I call my system, teknomix. Lastly, the crises of division and anxiety in your country is growing with leaps and bounds because of one thing: the national mindset. I am probably wrong on this one too, but please hear me out. We need to get everyone out there in your 50 states changing their focus from looking what others are doing and get everyone going for their greatest challenge. From 2- to 72-year-old kids and adults and everyone in between, I submit that America is experiencing a lot of unnecessary and disturbing trends that pulling things apart, because people are looking into someone else's backyard and of course what they see they might not appreciate. To recap: the national mindset must be from now on for people to go for the greatest and most challenging life they can. When you do this, you don't have time to worry what the other guy is doing with his life. It's over simplified, but what I think is happening is that everything has changed for us across the world because of the digital revolution, but we are still thinking with an outdated outlook on society. No wonder so many people are finding fault with themselves, with others, with the other political party etc.
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  92. Ian, isn't it obvious that our economic system has not only run out of steam, but has collapsed from overwork making sure the top 1% makes all the dough? No one has enjoyed life more than a lot of us who happened to grow up with parents who had life-long jobs and send the kids to college. But those days are over and we had better get used to the fact that we need another sort of economic model that doesn't have recessions and high inflation and booms and busts. We've got to realize that capitalism is a parlour game compared to what reality is pointing out to us. Last of all, we only have to look at homelessness to realize something is definitely wrong with a country as wealthy as The United States and yet having so many people fall through the safety net.
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  93.  P A  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Every one of us has an idea for a better mouse trap. I believe capitalism is causing more pain than gain, so I invented a new economic model to replace capitalism called teknomix. My book The Treatise of Teknomix is on sale now at Amazon (black cover only) and I am expecting a tsunami of criticism, but I gave it all I got. The people deserve better...
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  94. Ian, would it not be a wise move in this digital coin era for America to come up with a crypto currency merger with the BRICS group? I am thinking into the future, but it might be a way have the DE dollarization process to stall out by simply joining with the Global South as you put it, and creating a crypto currency that has the BRICS signature and also the backing of the US Government via the Dollar i.e., a coin that would be recognized by the FED and the US Treasury and America's allies as well as the Global South group. It could be the legitimate 'Bitcoin' all countries would agree to as a second reserve currency to the dollar. I am way out of my field here, so please excuse me if I have crossed the line in the sand for expertise.
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  95. Ian, wouldn't this be the best time ever for Vladimir Putin to offer the Iranians what they are dying to get their hands on? What has Putin got to lose if he offers the Iranians all the nukes they want in exchange for, say, support ground troops to send to the front lines in the Ukraine to fight for the Kremlin? My guess is that Putin sends nuclear missiles over to Iran. He's already going to do that with Lucashenko in Belarus---but my gut feeling is that the nukes are already primed and ready to launch i.e., in postion to fire in Belarusan silos.
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  96. Ian, I sent this to a SKY NEWS report. What you have done is to finally make us all aware of the fact that sanctions are political tools and can be skated around by anybody with half a brain. Now that we know this, we can at least realize that it's still good for the UK for example, to have Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announce more sanctions, or President Biden in the USA, because it is really the writing on the wall that everyone can see and know that the sanctions are there because of a lawless world leader acting badly on the international stage. Secondly, we have to realize that way back when the American President Teddy Roosevelt said---correct me if I am wrong---"Speak softly, but carry a big stick." Boys and girls, the rogue leaders boldly able to throw their countries into conflicts at will only underscores the need for humanity to wake up in the west. Because the only thing foreign leaders who invade sovereign nations will ever respect is power and force and weaponry that will outmatch their own supplies and straight-talking leaders or geo-political commentators like Ian Bremmer, who don't mince their words. A superpower like what I believe Great Britain has re-emerged on the international stage as after the latest invasion of Ukraine from Russia will only, I repeat, will only be respected by the authoritarian leaders by being on the cutting edge of everything from bathroom sinks to hypersonic missiles to space forces bigger than theirs. It's sad to say it, I am an artist and not a military strategist, but the human community of the western powers, as much as we love it and believe in it is in grave danger of being taken over by foreign adversaries who have no respect for our way of life. We have to use diplomatic tools to show our resolve, but we have to be able to back it up with force, too.
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  97. I know all of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's problems, but his lightning visit to Kiev was worth a thousand tanks and President Zelensky gets along well with him. It's like so many things in life Ian, for some people a Prime Minister can mean the difference between life and death and for others they want to throw the bum out. It's a rough game to be in politics.
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  98. Tony Robbins, the controversial former American self-taught psychologist of change wrote a book and one of the things he said in it to do when things are the way you describe them: like the eroding American political institutions becoming corrosive, the guardrails becoming weaker, distrust across the political aisle like never before etc., is to ask very this simple but often irritable question: What is good about this problem? I remember getting divorced and reading this and practically wanting to call Robbins and ask him what's good about me getting divorced. It seemed absurd to even think that there could be something good in things coming apart in one's life or in the case of America and the country coming apart. Ian, I would say this about the way things were and the way it is and I am shooting from the hip. What is good about the tragic set of circumstances you have so well described is that, like the person the most perplexing in US history to occupy The White House, Donald J. Trump, what Trump has done is to stretch your Republic to the limits by his antics that defy common sense to be kind---and its political institutions as well. Things like guardrails for failing institutions and off-ramps are either crumbling like the nation's infra-structure or falling into disuse, but what is good about these undeniable facts is that your Republic will tremble at times but it will not fall. It will not fall because of a bombastic, admittedly charismatic quasi-charlatan who dominates the political stage in the Republican part any more than it will fall because the very political institutions that make your government tick have perhaps fallen into disrepair, but things will spring back. Because we all seem to forget one thing: democracies are flexible whereas autocratic regimes, once they start cracking, end up with a firing squad and the chump in charge getting dumped in a dumpster and game over...
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  99. Ian, could you use your considerable talents to find the way to build new bridges from what looks more and more like an America getting divided up by extremists in the political parties. Can you look into what it is that's needed for everyone to let their hair down? Lastly, I have a solution for hate crimes: everyone deserves to live here. What do I mean by that? I mean that everyone deserves to live in the country they live in no matter where the country is. We've got to hit back at people wanting their race to prosper by keeping it simple: in the world we live in every human being has the right to be here. Period. This alone will not be able to be shouted over by groups of people who think only they deserve to be here. Everyone deserves to live here and there are no exceptions. Every human being has the right to live on Earth where ever they may be.
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  100. They can say what they want about Ian Bremmer, but for my money, Ian speaks truth to power and he does not hold back on his punches. What I was thinking about today---and forgive me for drifting back in the past---but there was a moment when I wished we were still using analog recording studios and analog tape and there was still '45s, 33s' and albums and singles and albums and American Bandstand was still the scene for the top hitmakers and all the rest that goes with how life was before Big Tech came along and gave us our I-phones and the like. Did you know that it used to be that people would practice and practice until it was perfect and then go in and record a song with all the musicians present and then the engineer pressed the record button and a sort of magic got captured on tape? I know what you are thinking: you cannot live in the past, but I can't help thinking that our global society has been, well, sort of hijacked by Big Tech, AI and algorithms. I see 9 out of 10 people coming home from work on the trams tucked into their little worlds chuckling or smirking away at their tiny screens and whom are oblivious to everyone and everything else around them. We have become societal tribes who are tuned into individual cocktail-ish worlds and the real winners are the big tech companies and software developers.
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  101. Philanthropy is a subject that I think indicates why our economic model, capitalism, is not up-to-speed in being the sort of economic system that is geared to getting the human community on the same page. Not to beat my gums on my own invention of teknomix as a possible alternative to capitalism, but let me just say that relying on the good will of people like former Mrs Bezos giving away----(wasn't it close to 6 billion dollars to food challenged American families during the early stages of the pandemic?)---I believe this tells us something is inherently wrong in the way money has become a magic wand to some and a scarcity to others. I am an artist and capitalism has also poisoned the art world. Yes; that's right! Here is an example. A wealthy individual will work with an top-of-the-line gallery owner to find an up-and-coming artist and buy a painting for, say, 20,000 USD. By buying this piece of art from an as yet unknown painter and then re-selling and re-selling it with the complicit aid of uptown galleries, the painting clocks into, say, 20 million USD in no time. The artist is artificially propelled into being the next art star. His or her work will now be worth a fortune and the public is largely unaware because the person in the street is told what is good art for the most part. The billionaire then donates his 20,000-dollar investment---now worth 20 million dollars---to a public institution and gets to write it off on his or her taxes. It's a scam that has made a joke out of fine art and clowns out of us who willingly let our paintings get brought from reasonable prices to sky-high millions by behind-the-scenes pranksters. Ian, Ms Cousens, you both do excellent work in your respective fields and I am sure my economic system would have you and your friends rolling in laughter at the simplistic and utopian model I have created, but I am only proposing it a kick-starter for it to be developed into a better way to run the world's economy. Philanthropists have helped across all sectors of the world's neediest sectors, but we must realize that it is a sign that something is not sturdy in the capitalist system.
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  102. Ian, could you open a world think tank on the Israeli-Palestinian problem? Remember the film, The 5th Element, where the character played by Bruce Willis gets up in the morning and lights up a cigarette with the filter inches long and a thumb nail part of it being tobacco and him saying he's trying to quit or something like that? That was 300 years in the future and I am afraid our childrens' children might be waking up to your progeny with a relative that looks just like you showing everyone a videocast of you his great, great grand dad talking about how Palestinians are having a rough time sorting things out with the Israelis. A little long-winded on my smiley-face analogy, but you get the point. Wouldn't an open think tank with you setting up the show give us a platform for coming up with possible solutions to this endles and cruel conflict?
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  103. Ian, saying the Israeli conundrum is not black and white is a good way to put things as far as what is going on in The West Bank and Gaza and in Israel. The Israelis have thrown the proverbial stick in the spokes with the illegal settlements which baffle the entire globe. But we have to step back and try to see what has happened in Israel and the surrounding states to understand what has caused this mutation in international law being flagrantly broken by the Israelis and the massacres from a former ally turned enemy, Hamas. You are a geopolitical giant and if you are stumped, there is no band in the world that will be able to play this symphony in tune. What I believe must happen and I wish it would happen is for Xi over in China to ask the Arab leaders and foreign secretaries to break some more rules and end this eternal conflict between the Arabs and the Jews by re-drawing borders and allowing the Palestinians a healthy chunk of land that could become their sovereign territory. Where could they find this land? is what people keep asking me. It is time to make it happen that is all I know. I would also say that Gaza, this blood-soaked WW I style, no-man's land of sand prison to be made into a wildlife sanctuary. Yes; all 145 square kilometers of it; it could be used as a template to end other border disputes and be our legacy we could send down through history to generations of young people who could benefit from having a Galapagos of the middle east and have a useful diplomatic tool to resolve the seemingly intractable disputes that erupt between bordering countries.
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  104. The USA should never forget that France is her oldest ally. The submarine fiasco with so much ill-will spouting out of the Australian PM was a downer and it hit Macron between the eyes. Thanks to diplomatic tightrope performance à la extraordinary by Biden, the rift was sewed up, but France was left limping away, 50 billion USD shy and a raw deal that left them with empty pockets and a Macron internationally scorched. A faux pas by Blinken that seems unbelievable in retrospect. Is it real; is it rumor, but I have read that Jill Biden and Emmanuel Macron's wife Brigitte are best friends, so I think you can see that this could do a lot or a little to mend tattered relations between your country and France. The best thing I see from our part of the world which is a few hours plane trip to Kiev is that Macron is able to be with Putin and Xi on equal footing on the international stage. Rebuked by Putin, tolerated by Xi, it doesn't matter. This is diplomatic gold for the young French chief of state. And he will share this prize with Uncle Sam. This is what is positive and which will give the USA a foot in the door so-to-speak if push comes to shove and Biden needs to cozy up to Xi or even, God forbid, Putin. Macron is a young warrior compared to the dinosaurs we are talking about, but most importantly Ian, is that Macron is doing what the USA has always wanted: he's getting the EU fired and forged into a fighting ship in its own right. A superpower EU will be a blessing for America should war break out on several fronts.
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  105. Let's go into the Chinese mindset here; what is in it for Xi Jingpin if he gets the ground rumbling under everybody's feet and slows down and stops a war that is already spiraling out of control? What do the Chinese take home from a win/win from a Russian/Ukrainian end to the war, Ian? I'll tell you what I think they get and as a lay person, I've undoubtedly got a tiny part of things right, but it's anybody's guess if Xi can pressure Zelensky into clipping a few spiney demands from his peace treaty requirements. Moreover, the Chinese will be able to use this slight-of-hand maneuver to wiggle out of world scrutiny when they are basking in global praise and then they pull a fast one and suddenly----on a whim----call America's bluff, send over an invasion force to rival D-Day in 1944 and gobble up a defeated Taiwanese people, eliminate the leadership and put up the Chinese flag. The same leaders who caved-in to Chinese peace plans will be hard-pressed to say anything against China taking back a part of their territory, because it is NOT sovereign. Xi wants to save Putin from self-immolation on the front burner of the global community's sacred stove. XI's mission in my opinion is to first save Russia, because he knows Putin is toast. The Chinese know that if they are the ones who get the peace train rolling across Eastern Europe, they are going to be the winners on the chess game playing out in front of all of our eyes. I have just moved my queen but the king has been castled and I am calling for backup. Ian, over to you...
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  106. Larry Summers never fails to shine a light on the real problems in the financial sector of the American Economy. He sent up at least 3 red flags in his latest across-the-board insider's look into the recent Silicon Valley bank crash and the possible real estate meltdown and thousands of office buildings empty and standing as a testimony to how Trump's----correct me if I am wrong----former President Trump's decision on practically his first day in office to dismantle and de-fund the Pandemic Department that Obama had put in place. Has anyone given any thought to why on earth the newly elected President of The United States would take down a department which looked after the health of American citizens and well-being? I think we all have to face up to a very stark reality in that the global financial system as well as yours in America is running on an antiquated economic model, repaired and upgraded so many times to be something out of The Peter Principle which pointed out that people in corporations and large companies more often than not get promoted until they reach a job that is out of their field of competence. We’ve all had bosses like that, haven't we? Boys and girls, capitalism has been honed to perfection and many of us have benefited from it; while most people have not if we want to be truthful. It is all we know and we accept it without blinking an eye that the 10 richest people in the world saw their fortunes double in value during the pandemic. Red flag anyone? We have to quit fooling ourselves; our great, great grandfather (consumer capitalism) has been twisted and tweaked into a failed system that cannot see one business cycle go by without some major failure happening in the USA.
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  107.  @lisadsouza5061  One nuke drop and the world becomes a gum drop
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  108. Ian, for President Macron to have even uttered the word of French troops on the ground in Ukraine is like the arch angel Gabriele telling an illiterate merchant called Mohammad that there will be no peace without Islam covering the world. No; I take that back because I think Gabriele did say that... Seriously folks, what Macron's statement says to me is that the French Intelligence Service probably whispered in their boss's ear that if we don't go and help Ukraine now, and I mean before the next winter sets in, Russia's military buildup will have expanded to the point to be able to wipe out all of NATO forces. This is Macron's moment of change; he is going to become a great war president if Russia's Putin fights on...
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  109. There are people out there who are now so confused about the global powers because of this balanced analysis of basically how the world is run by Ian Bremmer that if they are half as confused and angry as I am, they would want to start civlization alll over again from scratch. It's sickening to see how former political leaders have---as Ian has pointed out---punched down in more ways than one. What I take away from Ian's scathing examination of Russia's recent history and the Europeans' and Americans' actions and the breaking of conventions and treaties and international norms by countries like The United States is that I now more than ever will spend the rest of my life trying to piece together whatever is needed to create a world government. I think we can see that all forms of governments of all the world's nations end up being corrupted from within. A global representational republic is the only way to go
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  110.  @nostriluu  GGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. It was meant to be an open question; what is needed is a peace plan to end territorial wars and everyone's input is welcome. No one seems to understand that children are paying a heavy price and losing their childhoods.
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  111. You are making us all into armchair geo-political pundits, Ian, and it is always good to hear your updates. Best of all, we learn and keep learning from your spot-on videocasts. My gut feeling is that we must remember the axiom of war which states that you must try to think what the enemy thinks you will do and then do something different. Kim Jung Un's scientists aren't the architects of his ballistic 'earth-killer' missiles anymore than his bullet-proof transport is just a bomb-proof train. What am I getting at? 5 will get you 10 Kim's choo-choo to woo woo has a false bottom loaded with Chinese weapons and ammo and drones along with some North Korean kit as well. Kim Jung Un has a regime only because China is on board, so-to-speak. Putin is Xi's best mate; this translates out to me that Kim's visit to a space station is a modern version of Thunder Road i.e.,Kentucky whiskey runners. To recap: Kim's train is not only bullet proof, it's a long-haul secret cargo carrier.
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  112.  @Airehcaz  GGGGGGGreat to hear from you. The plain simple truth of the matter is that if every adult person capable to bear arms was armed in that supermarket in Buffalo, more likely than not precious lives might have been saved because someone could have gotten off a shot and possibly taken out the shooter.
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  113.  @TaichiStraightlife  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. I live across the world from Buffalo, New York. You know more than I do what's possible in your country. All I know is that for the 2nd Amendment to work, everyone has to be on board. Otherwise, unstable people rule and decent law-abiding citizens are fair game.
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  114. Lastly, it's only my hunch, but I don't think Joe Biden will go for another term of office for obvious reasons. But he is in a Catch 22 situation if he dared to say it. Why? Because if he said he was only staying for one term, all of his programs and the like would get shelved because people would think that it wasn't worth supporting someone who wasn't going to be here when his programs were implemented i.e., he wouldn't get support from Congress etc.
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  115. Ian, first of all you have to realize you have become a best-selling author and a respected political scientist and military strategist among many other things; you need to have more than clutter as your background i.e., an open closet of clothes and stuff behind you when you give these very informative analyses of world events. Secondly, I live next to France and it is my second language and I think you have to read between the lines in what President Macron is saying. We musn't forget that the west is not happy that he is still talking regularly to President Putin. He's got to play both sides of the argument if Putin is going to give him phone-time. Idem with Olaf Sholz. If you look at what they are doing they are mimicking Lavrovian diplomacy. What do I mean by that? They're saying one thing and doing another. Now; more than ever, we can see why Trump found a friend in President Putin: they are both serial liars. They even lie about lies they say they never said! What I think has to be done---and Ian, if you agree, you might pass it on----but I think we should be analyzing the war in 24-hour increments i.e., bite-sized chunks of time everyone can live with understand a little. Why do I say this? Because we know the Ukrainian economy has been hit broad-side and they need a lot of dough to get through the month. If you do the math, 8 months down the road at 7 billion USD a month will make any Senator or Congressperson start filabustering for a way to stop sending support. Putin has time as his ace in the hole. No; better idea: Let's go at solving this conundrum one day at a time. Each side is losing more soldiers than anyone wants to admit every single day. A sovereign nation is hanging on by its fingertips. President Putin has threatened to tighten the screws if the west gives Ukraine better weapons. We are on the brink of world-changing event horizon that I believe will have us end this year with our civlization at a point no one could have ever predicted. We must stay calm and let Macron do his magic and the Ukrainians win back their territory In being able to talk to the great leader---and Putin is very, very isolated---Macron senses he can wind down the conflict by staying in touch with the person who runs Russia. Remember: no one has ever predicted correctly the outcome of any war in recent memory. The China card is going to be used when the west is looking the other way; North Korea is primed to spark the Taiwan war at a moment's notice.
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  116. What it looks like, Ian, is that Prime Minister Modi is up on top and at the edge of a 100-meter-high diving platform that he of course does not want to make a death-defying dive into certain political oblivion by admitting his intelligence service got caught with their hand in the cookie jar in a sloppy clean-up operation gone wrong and who were probably using normal cell phones to pull off the caper which has gone all the way to the world stage! A stunned Prime Minister Trudeau finds himself on the front burner of Indian anger and international intrigue and he risks getting burned on the hot stove of political sideshows he knows could see his political fortunes fade away resembling the silhouette of dark smoke and flickering flames that funeral pyres become floating down the Ganja River. Right or wrong, he has thrown raw meat to a pack of hungry wild dogs posing as international press reporters who are racing to lap up the tasty morsel of what very well might be his own pollical suicide disguised as roadkill. Are we really talking about the right thing to happen at the right time in history? What could this tidbit of potentially explosive international bombastic blowback do for the west? Perhaps Trudeau could agree to make the Indian government assassination plot go away so that India can save face? Dropping the investigation could be used as bait to get India to cool down its warming up to Putin and his autocratic rocket men band of rogue leaders. Trudeau could hint at and give Modi a wink towards his exiting the BRICS circus via the flaming loops with Trudeau acting as the animal trainer and Modi as a singed but grateful tiger that leaves the cage in one piece. To recap: use the pardon to get India to move to even closer ties with Uncle Joe and Cousin Justin.
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  117. Does anyone not see that Mr Bharara is talking about the highest position a judge can have in America when he points out that Justice Thomas was not disclosing his receiving gifts from a billionaire political donor to the public? No one is going to tell me that one or two or more of that billionaire's personal projects got a discreet boost here and there from Justice Thomas sending a vote that favored this or that particular project every now and then. What is clear is that Justice Thomas is a perfect example of The Peter Principle. He was appointed a position that is clearly above his moral discretionary capabilities and he has shown a profound lack of understanding of what exactly The Supreme Court of The United States signifies to the American people and to viewers like us across the seas from you. And: it has to be said that all of those gifts Justice Thomas was receiving was made possible by Chief Justice Roberts being asleep at the wheel as well. Where was the Chief Justice's critical eye during all of those freebies Thomas and his unethical wife Ginny were enjoying to the max? Justice Thomas' latest gaffe makes the US Government look like its run by crooks and cronies, and if Thomas has any sense of honor---which I am sure he lacks profusely on this count as well, he will excuse himself from his duties. Many would also like to see Justice Kavanaugh who lied during his confirmation hearings walk out the door with him. Maybe then, a new sense of respectability could be restored to the iconic and mythical American Supreme Court? Great interview Ian, you bring out the best in Mr Bharara and Preet makes it crystal clear the Thomas has crossed ethical bonds that are quicksand to his career and he must hang up his noble robe and go quietly from the halls of justice...
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  118. Scott Galloway says something that must be checked out very soon in your country. Rotting from the inside may be a less than delicate way of analyzing what is going on around you in America and certainly for us across the world as well, but I think we have to look at what's running under the floorboards and I am speaking about the financial engine that is powering your great nation, which in turn is running the world. We have to realize that it isn't social media or AI---or fire for that matter that's turning things upside down and inside out; it is simply capitalism showing its ugly head once again and like every other time before, no one dares or even wants to confront the obvious fact that the whole world has outgrown the infamous economic system we have all grown up with. I have invented an alternative economic model called teknomix that could serve as a starting point for getting everyone on the same page opportunity wise. An economic system should be akin to a banquet where everyone gets all they want to eat; in capitalism what we see is a lot of folks are excluded from getting a piece of pie for desert. This is wrong.
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  119.  @louisfriend9323  GGGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. I am not an American citizen but I see America as the light of the free world in spite of all that can be said against her and I try to keep an open mind and listen to both sides of the story. None of the superpowers have clean records and never will have. The only thing important now on the world stage is for all of us to help the Ukraine regain their territory and make sure Taiwan stays an independent country. The Ukraine must become a mimi-superpower for it to survive and that means having weapons so powerful and deadly no one would dare invade it again. What we know is that we live in a world that is far from being a safe place and where WW III has probably already begun. The only way we'll have peace on earth is when there is a world government in place. I am an artist and Rembrandt is the artist I admire the most.
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  120. Ian, You are a great analyst but it seems obvious to me that Pelosi's trip to Taiwan could be called the Biden torpedo of provocation to the middle kingdom's threat to vaporize the Speaker of the House's plane or something like that or start the invasion two-weeks early... Let's face it President Xi has made enough trial runs that even his top generals are starting to wonder if he means it. So; what if the great lady's plane sets down on a Taiwanese runway? I think Pelosi knows she has to go otherwise the USA looks like its shining Xi's footwear in the eyes of the world. Something's got to give; but the USA cannot let China dictate policy. This is not checkers this time; it's chess and checkmate if Xi takes the bait and let's the tanks roll in.
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  121. Excellent vocast with Former CDC Chief Tom Frieden by Ian Bremmer. Dr Frieden gives his vast expertise in assessing the current situation of the omicron variant and in showing that there is cause for concern that even more infectious variants of COVID may be just around the corner. Bottom line: listen to one's health specialist and stay up-to-date on getting vaccinated. Long Covid for me is the biggest worry: it is the known unknown that threatens to be with the human community for years to come.
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  122. Happy Holidays, Ian, and I want to give some advice to myself and others and especially you to not forget to take some well-earned down-time as the year winds to an end. We all forget we're moving a thousand miles an hour in this new age of hyper-information backed up with built-in frustration with everything that is going on and you are one of the people who are out there on the tarmac of the world's heliport where all the latest stories flutter down to the ground to be analyzed and filed away and it's important to realize that we are all running a marathon a minute and we need a rest.
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  123. What do people see in former President Donald J. Trump that would make them want to have him in the most powerful position in the world? I am sure Mr Trump is a nice father and good husband and someone who is fun to be with---like a lot of people. But what I don't get is that he seems so out-of-character for someone to represent America. Every characteristic seems to run counter to what American people---at least the ones I know---are really like. Trump lies, sure, some American people do but most don't lie because they don't have to tell whoppers and prefer to tell it like it is. Trump has been agressive to the point of going too far with a bevy of women----okay, some American men would do that too, but most American guys respect the opposite sex and one woman says he raped her. Does anyone realize what happens to convicted rapists in the USA? Not if you're rich though! Trump has 91 federal indictments against him and that means he has broken many laws; if he wasn't in the holy circle of the rich and powerful, chances are he would be doing some serious jail time. Americans are not people who commit crimes or fraud and do illegal things on the whole. What am I saying here? What Donald J. Trump resembles is someone of questionable character, a law breaker, a liar, and someone of dubious knowledge of international and national affairs. Where is a quality for being president of the USA?
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  124.  @alanfriesen9837  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You're probably right. I'm probably wrong. I do my research and collect my data and come to some kind of conclusion. I listen to every argument and not cement myself in one set of facts. All I know for sure is that the Ukraine must win their country back and take back the annexed Crimea and land from 2014. Doing this will force regime change in Russia, but they'll be Putin 2. Authoritarian regimes and democratic countries cannot co-exist on the same planet.
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  125. It is both wrong and troubling that the US is in the crosshairs of most of the developing world's sights as being the country that is responsible for escalating the war in Ukraine. The US, NATO and allied countries---some 50 countries in all---are simply beefing up the security so that the Ukrainians willl be able to hold their own in any fire-fight and to not only be in the same boxing ring as a superpower, but in the same weight-class too. The Ukrainians are the greatest fighting army and military in the world today largely thanks to training and more training from the west. The war would have been a bloodbath and lost early in the war if the howitzers, Himars and stingers and loads of ammo and tanks and matériel were not provided to the Ukrainians whom it must be remembered willingly gave up their strategic nuclear arsenal with promises from the west for support if they should ever be attacked or invaded. What we in the west have to be aware of is that in the autocratic regimes around the world, people somehow adapt and melt into the woodwork so-to-speak and can live without any problem in believing the party line and giving up their personal beliefs and freedoms for promises from strongmen that do not obey a rules-based international wrold order and whom only fear superior strength from any potential foe or adversary...
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  126. Ian Bremmer is one of the most highly skilled political scientists on the beat and when he talks people listens. I am going to tell you what the title and substance of this videocast sounds like half a world away from you: tragic. Secretary of Defense Austin must step down over the last mishap where secret documents were displayed by a Rambo-enthusiast-style young serviceman who had no business having access to secret documents. If I am not mistaken, Secretary of Defense Austin was also the one responsible for America's most outrageous departure from a foreign adversary in Afghanistan with only green cadets out of basic training being the major casualties; there were no seasoned pros on the job that day the bomb blew up. Don't let's blame Austin for the good things he has accomplished, but to show your allies you mean business in not becoming the super sieve of super powers, Austin should step down from his functions for obvious reasons. This a terrible stain on the world's number one superpower and the creation of a separate Department of Secret Government Documents should be proposed so as to make your adversaries and allies see you are taking this seriously. Already, you are obliged to assume that all of those classified Defense Department documents lying around Trumps (Swiss cheese style) golf-home-course are in at least one of your adversaries' intelligence services. What on Earth would a former Real Estate Magnate have anything to do with Defense Department secret papers etc.? When he feigned not having any more documents, the sniffer dog in my mind said 'Was he simply not finished getting all the documents photographed so he could get paid for it?"
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  127. You put things across succinctly and from your research we can be sure you are giving us a fair assessment of what is happening on this planet of ours. In today's Guardian, Simon Jenkins wrote an article about the monarchy and one line stuck out. "Separating the headship of a state from elected office has, on the whole, proved a sound constitutional principle. Failure to do so is currently tearing the US apart." Would you agree with him Ian? What I see happening is the good ship Trump is acting as a sea anchor in that it is pulling the constitutional American republic under the waves by a charismatic former President who knows how to play the emotional strings of popularism. His alternative facts cum rhetoric is dividing a nation that has been fragilized by having a mentally unstable former president who is still stirring up public dissent merely by being on the scene. But it goes deeper than that, doesn't it? Trump is only a symptom...
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  128. I learned something yesterday about war. Yesterday evening I learned that the goal of war is not to take back a certain amount of territory, but to deprive your enemy of the will and capacity to resist. In the Nagorno-Karabakh emerging war, will it end up with Armenia coming losing out cold and be the death knell for 120,000 people? The stark reality it seems is that there are no peacekeepers to keep the peace! Ian, you have indeed shone a light on a disaster-in-the-making. May I ask one question? Whom is right in this stand-off between the angry foes? Are the Armenians going to undergo another genocide that will be denied for generations like what happened with the Turks? What sort of kit would they need to put Armenia back in the driver’s seat?
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  129. Ian, if I may use this expression by an American psychologist of change: Tony Robbins, What's good about this Supreme Court Ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. Please tune in next week and I'll tell you... Just kidding! What led to this outrageous decision that does not reflect the views of a majority of Americans? The Electoral College allowed Donald J. Trump to win against Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes and thereby ushered in the loser instead of the American voters' choice candidate? Right? What am I getting at? Why not used Roe v. Wade to get The Electoral College into the American history books and removed from the voting system entirely? It's absurd when you think of a candidate representing the minority view becoming president. Then, like hawks descending on their prey, McConnell and Graham stroked the ego of their new-found president making him think he was wowing the Senate and Congress with his whirlwind candidates with conservative credentials for the Supreme Court among other things. McConnell's proxy president obeyed his boss until he ran out of steam and nothing more was needed from him. Trump is now being thrown to the wolves, but the thing to do now is not get mad, but get even. Use this constitutional roadblock the Supreme Court has made to get the real culprit that is spoiling the Republic you all cherish and that we around the world need to be in good running order if western values are to survive. This is doable and by getting the voting system in optimum order, the real America will come shining through as the wheels of justice will be oiled with truth and not soiled by underhanded treachery disguised as a way to balance the voting of the American people.
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  130.  @yaoypl  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Everyone has something important to add to the recipe of peace on earth. No one wants nuclear war. Period. But you can't be blackmailed by the other side threatening to send nuclear tipped missiles into your country if you don't obey their demands. What we can see is that the autocratic regimes see a world with their leader running the show. Until there is a world government in place, a country worth its salt is going to go for superpower status or else they'll be eaten raw.
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  131. Could we ask Professor Mounk if he thinks that perhaps with the Ukrainian war underway and how one person can theoretically take us to the end of the world, thatwe can finally see that autocratic regimes have proven themselves beyond a shadow of doubt to be toxic for the human community and that we should start taking steps to peacefully dismantling them across the world before they end up running the world? How to do that could be with Ian Bremmer and Yascha Mounk having a discussion on a future vocast.
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  132.  @claesvanoldenphatt9972  GGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. I will say straight out that I'm an artist living 2,000 kilometers from Kiev. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iefz3iCxPlI What I keep saying and will always believe is that on the world stage, you can't show your cards. I wrote to Biden to say he was wrong in calling Putin a 'killer' before their Geneva meeting. One of the key strategies between adversaries is to imagine what your enemy wants you to do and not do it. But you're right too; everyone has a right to their opinion.
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  133.  @zoranbeader6441  GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Everyone has their standards. If you hated the HR person that was going to interview you for a job, you wouldn't say that to anyone before the interview. When the enemy knows how you think, they have got you with your pants down. But who am I to say what's right? I haven't studied international affairs. It's my gut feeling, that's all...
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  134. One thing we don't hear from the WHO and that is to think about the one thing that can make catching COVID less dangerous: getting in good shape and sleeping normally and eating good foods and using recreational 'good-time-amplifiers' moderately. We can all live like we've always done, but being in top form and not overdoing it has tremendous all-around benefits. What we have to accept and don't want to acknowledge is that we are confronted with a virus that keeps mutating its way towards infecting more and moe people. So; what we have to do is to realize that the only thing sensible to do is use masks in public places until the last of the Covid variants have played themselves out.
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  135. My guess is that Netanyahu has cooked up a way to get himself booted out of office for good. He alone knows that there is no one of his prestige and experience who can navigate through international waters better than Bibi, and he knows that if he is thrown out of office someone else is going to have to take over and learn the hard way how to govern Israel. To recap: Netanyahu is deliberately paving the way for him to not be recalled into the presidency and to have himself be thrown out of office in order for someone else to take the reigns and do the job...
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  136. Ian Bremmer asks high-caliber bullet sorts of questions to people of knowledge in international affairs like Former Ambassador Michael McFaul and we the viewing public get equally informative, fact-checked answers. What I am shocked at seeing is how in the world the Ukrainian forces have not been able to take back Mariupol with the incredibly powerful howitzers the US has given them, let alone the weapons coming from other countries? Seeing soldiers being bussed out of the steel plant is a let-down. Admiral Kirby clearly stated that they would not let Mariupol fall. The Azov fighters being taken away by the Russians is like throwing meat to the lions. This should never have happened.
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  137. GGGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. I am a writer 'The Treatise of Teknomix' is my latest book, and I took great pains (another cliché) to avoid using clichés and here I am posing as King Cliché! I listen to my critics and I will try not to use expressions that are used too much, but sometimes they...fit like a glove!!!
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  138. This is where I was wrong about the last intended meeting with Blinken and President Xi. To see it happen in the flesh sends a wave of relief across the world. Mr Bemer, what is appalling and heartbreaking is the so-called fentanyl epidemic sewing a path of destruction across your country. This is going to sound like fake news, but I live in a country where this problem has been solved---at least from the community I live in. People are no longer getting attacked by addicts needing to pay for their habit. To see on American television beamed across the world of the walking Zombies showing flesh-eating bacteria making the skin on their limbs rot to the bone is enough to shake off any sense in what people are willing to do with their bodies, but a former Swiss President put in place a program that takes police out of the equation and offers drugs to the addicts via trained medical staff and provides them with safe-clinics where they can inject drugs with syringes provided by the government. To recap: there are still addicts begging for cash to pay for a night in a city shelter but they are not attacking others and especially old people for their money to support their habits. If the American government would provide the sick and often mentally unstable people with safe drugs, this would permit police to get back to doing their job and allow social workers and medical professionals to take over and offer safe havens for the addicts. Also; it is obvious capitalism cannot solve homelessness, but how about this as a solution? Why not set up a safe-city or a sort of 'campus' built from scratch in a part of the country that could use a job-creating industry? In the special-needs pseudo city, homeless people, gathered from around the country would be assigned a room with toilet and shower facilities and given food and clothing. There would be 'classes or instruction in helping people first get back on their feet, administering the medical treatment they need and once they were cognizant of their problems, a next series of 'classes' or instruction or something to help them locate in themselves a skill or community service they could do, then specially trained people in job centers could begin to offer solutions to helping these formerly lost individuals find employment or simply being permanent 'helpers in communities across the country. Somebody could have a job delivering hot meals to elderly people and that would be a great help to the community and give them a sense of purpose. It's ideas that we need to generate...
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  139. If ever there was a level-headed Senator in the US Senate, it's Mitt Romney. He's a visionary leader and he always looks for a reasonable solution. The Ukraine conflict will be coming to an end sooner than all of us can imagine, because the day Crimea comes back into Ukrainian hands is when Putin throws in the towel, pulls out the remaining troops and then he's going to be meaner than a junk yard dog and that is what we in Europe and people who are living around the world have to be prepared for. Senator Romney, can you help the Ukrainians and the Europeans by helping build an off-ramp for a soon-to-be losing President of a very proud nation? Because he's going to need one paved in gold. The Russian people, who faithfully follow him to their graves if need be, also need to end the war as losers but not have their noses put in the dirt. Putin needs an off-ramp he can live with. People like you, Senator Romney, and the distinguished Ian Bremmer have the word salad that Putin and his cronies will wolf down and then some. We've got to show Putin how to connect the dots for a dignified retreat and help him get back to running his own country and not invading more lands to expand his empire. President Putin has to be shown that the Ukraine will never be taken as a prize and that Crimea must go back in Ukrainian hands because the Ukraine will never be secure if Russia controls it. Odessa would be the first victim if Russia retains Crimea because Odessa's ports would be at the mercy of Russian gunships. Ditto in the Sea of Azov as the coastal cities would be under the thumb of Russian naval forces. Everyone knows what desperation will do to a man who has been demoralized and humiliated in front of the whole world by losing a war to a much smaller enemy; we must do everything in our power to communicate to the Russian people that we only want Russia and the Russian people to live in peace with its neighbors.
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  140. Isn't it true Ian, that by having the FBI raid former President Trump's home (mansion) looking for documents or criminal evidence they believe he harbors in his home, that Donald J. Trump should prepare himself to be going to jail and for his family to prepare for that event?
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  141. Ian, I am taking a chance in criticising you, but you are improperly dressed to be on stage in faded jeans and sneakers. You are one of the most prominent geo-political people; a leader in the world. You look too casual to be on stage with one of the world's most distinguished historians.
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  142.  @mulamulelilumadi4717  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. All plumbers wear blue socks! No; of course they don't. Americans cannot be put into one camp. People who hate other people for any reason or who don't mind mass killings are an offshoot of the human community. We simply aren't like that in the human family, everyone's views are welcome!
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  143. Begs the question means assumes what it should be proving and does not mean raises the question. Correct use : « When I asked the dealer why I should pay more for the German car, he said I would be getting 'German quality', but that just begs the question. »
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  144. Please, here is a second comment, but what I think Israel is not understanding and what is getting in the way of getting along with her neighbors is that the Palestinian people for example, are so opposite Israeli people and these major differences can boil over into conflicts and although they believe in other religious stories and analyze situations in completely different ways than Israelis, one can learn to accept these chasms of misunderstanding. Be kind to each other no matter what anyone says. This is where Israel has to step back and realize that the way to go ahead now is to not over-react to the mindset of a people like the Palestinians that differs to such a degree, it is to try and accept that the gift the Palestinians are offering is to make Israelis kinder and be more open to other ways of thinking in spite of the wall of mistrust that divides the two peoples. What is the way ahead? Water down the mountain is my philosophy; the path of least resistance. What is needed is to create something from the ashes of the current war that will show the world how to put an end to warring factions of neighboring countries. What is it that could be created? Yuval, Ian, I have said it before, so please bear with me to say it again. The way to peace in the middle east is to build nature reserves for endangered species of plant, animal and aquatic life. All religious groups, all peoples respect one thing more than anything else and will never outwardly destroy it: nature. Here is the solution: rescue nature in the middle east and you rescue a peace that I truly believe will be our legacy and last for centuries. One square kilometer of land could be enough to start transforming burned out buildings into sanctuaries where endangered faun and fauna can survive and thrive...
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  145. Ian, you have to do something about the Chinese slow-burning fuse we have seen that got lit with the bogus balloon story. Would it be possible for you to go to Bejing and have one of your excellent talks with experts in the field of politics and foreign relations and get people on the air letting off steam?
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  146. Brilliant interviewing style by the inimitable Ian Bremmer. Bremmer puts the bar high as it can go in demanding the best from his guests. What the west is not realizing is that it has the answer for all of the countries still clinging to Russia's coat tails and crying stop the sanctions. We simply have to put it in capital letters: SOVEREIGN countries are the line in the sand that simply no one or no country can cross. Do so, and it will unleash the fires of Hades from the west. NATO countries and the west, which thanks to President Putin is united like never before, will release all fury and resistance to anyone who invades a sovereign state, because the Ukraine is a sovereign country and in our mindset, it must be liberated at all costs. Full stop.
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  147. Ian, wouldn't this be a good time to try to resolve the Palestinian / Israeli conflict once and for all? There is economic Armageddon with inflation at a 40-year high, a war in the Ukraine, China's saber ratling. Why not find the road to peace in the middle east? Could you give us your solution to this seemingly intractable invisible war between Israel and Palestine?
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  148. An American President literally can mean the life or death to thousands if not millions of people by throwing or withdrawing the support of his country from their cause. By risking his life to go to the center of a war zone and visit President Zelensky and redo the Prime Minister Johnson/ President Zelensky stroll through the streets of Kiev of exactly one year ago, President Biden is sending a solemn message to every nation's leader and adversary on Earth that this country is not going to be taken over. Period. Vice-President---and the future President Harris? ---was right to signal to the purveyors of torture chambers and those who collaborated and gave orders for innocent civilians to be hurt, kidnapped, maimed, raped and murdered must know they are wanted 'dead or alive'. Ian, you have an eagle eye and the political instinct to see much better than all of us how this war is going to turn out, but you must be awfully proud to see an American President finally stepping up to the plate and hitting a grand slam. What your retired Lt. General Ben Hodges says is that the Crimea will fall back into Ukrainian hands in 180 days give or take a week or more. I will go one step further and say that when the Crimea goes back under the Ukrainian flag, President Putin’s house-of-cards i.e., Potemkin military machine will break down entirely. Morale will plumet with his troops when they see the great jewel of Crimea taken back from them. Putin will be persuaded to retire back to his billion-dollar dacha and trophy wife or follow the fate of dictators and we have all seen that movie before. Then again, John Bolton thinks the war will go on for the rest of the century. I like to think that in six months it may all go away...
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  149. Ian, I have to speak my mind and I know I am not going to make your day on what I am about to say, so I will tell you tomorrow. JUST KIDDING! Seriously, I think I am probably wrong about this, but from my point of view you shouldn't have asked the Prime Minister of Latvia her impression of how America---your country---was holding up, looking like, doing now etc. I think you asked is America doing good now? Why do I say that? Because, if you put yourself in her position, she couldn't exactly say anything else but 'Yes'---and even she joked about it being a 'short answer'. It's just that you represent a country that literally means life or death to the Baltic States and asking someone who is a leader of those countries or in fact any country on if they think America is doing a good job, etc., doesn't look right. It puts people on the spot and you aren't exactly someone anonymous out there, many people think you and Uncle Joe have fish & chips on occasion...
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  150. Excellent update on this intractable conflict that has the entire world, already war-fatigued by 607 days of the Ukrainian / Russian war, shaking and stirring and hoping against all hope that a political solution can be found for the Palestinian people who live in what former American President Jimmy Carter called an open prison. Isn't it time to do what is inevitably the only humane thing to do and that is to plead with the 26 Arab nations to offer enough land for the Palestinians of Gaza to have their own proper country which they can build from scratch and evacuate from Gaza? In terms of logistics, we are talking about a misery train to hell and back in displacing 2.6 million people, but by relocating a people who have suffered enough, Hamas would have no reason to exist, because without a host people to prey on, they would vanish like tumbleweed and be gone from Gaza without a bullet being fired. Hamas survives in Gaza because of the acute suffering of a people more than happy to hand over their defense to anyone who will fight for their cause.
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  151. Isn't the reality on the ground the reason why NATO and its allies and the US have decided to up the ante and give the Ukrainians more guns & heavy artillery and tanks? Ian, I think that the Ukrainians are probably showing stress signs that only experienced military specialists can pick up and that is why there has been so little debate: in short, the Ukrainians are exhausted after 334 days of Putin's '10-day military exercise' and you can see it best on President Zalensky's face. The war is taking its toll and the only way out is a win on the battlefield asap. As far as Chancellor Sholz is concerned, what few of us realize is that he has to play musical chairs with the whole Ukrainian war effort. Germany has something like 300 companies and factories in Russia. Germany knows the Russian mindset like few other countries. Sholz has to use Lavrovian diplomacy ( Say one thing then do the opposite ) to make sure that after the conflict is over, Germany lands squarely on its feet. Lastly, why not use this as a plan 'B', if the Germans don't cough up enough Leopard 2 tanks in time? Have the US send enough Abrams for Britain to be militarily secure and then have the Brits unload their stocks of Challenger tanks for the Ukrainians. I think you said that the Challengers are better suited for a land battle in the Ukraine than the Abrams and it would be a win/win all the way around because Britain would have its tanks albeit American Abrams. Lastly, we have to remember that after the Cold War, Germany was given the green light to re-arm but only for defensive purposes. Sending Leopard 2 tanks for an offensive war in the Ukraine is not allowed in their constitution if I have my facts right.
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