The US vs. Itself — and Other Top Global Risks in 2024 | Ian Bremmer | TED
In the TED talk, “The US vs. Itself — and Other Top Global Risks in 2024,” Ian Bremmer, President of Eurasia Group and GZero Media, discusses the top risks for the year ahead. Bremmer begins by highlighting the internal political crisis within the United States, which he describes as the country’s biggest vulnerability in 2024. He emphasizes the deep division and polarization within the country, with the potential for a lack of a free and fair election in November.
Bremmer points out that the US is facing geopolitical instability, including ongoing wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He emphasizes the vulnerability of the US political system, particularly in light of the misinformation and impact of social media on elections. According to him, the most pressing concern for US intelligence leaders is the vulnerability of the 2024 election, due to misinformation and political division.
Bremmer also discusses the potential consequences of a Trump re-election, highlighting concerns of legal jeopardy for political adversaries. He underscores the inability of both Biden and Trump to address the deep divisions within the country, despite their legislative successes. The talk conveys a sense of urgency and concern regarding the future of democracy in the US and the potential impact of the 2024 election on both domestic and global stability.
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Hello everyone happy 2024 wherever you are it is January the eth and I don’t know about you but here at Ted we are looking forward to the year ahead with a sense of nervous anticipation as we all know there is a lot going on from war on multiple fronts to upcoming elections
That some say will determine no less than the future of democracy this is big this is concerning it’s often slightly confounding so given all that we want to move forward with eyes wide open and who better to help us understand exactly what to pay attention to this year than
President of Eurasia group and gzero media Ian brema Ian hi Ellen good to be with you so Ian you’ve just published your annual list of top risks for 2024 and I want to Dive Right In the very first one that you describe is called the United States versus itself so tell
Us Helen the United States today has an incredibly strong economy and Military its political system is in crisis the US is the only Advanced industrial democracy that cannot ensure a free and fair transition of power that is seen as legitimate by a majority of its population that is what we are looking
At in 2024 um and it’s happening against a context of a geopolitical environment that is very deeply unstable with a major war between Russia and Ukraine which is nowhere close to ending with a major war between Israel and and Hamas which is nowhere close to ending um and
And so both allies of the United States are deeply concerned about this and adversaries are looking to take advantage now for 2024 uh we won’t have a new president if there is a new president that’s next year so why is it so risky now well it’s
So risky now uh because the country is so divided and because Trump is likely to get the nomination overwhelmingly likely when he does um his policy pronouncements will drive the GOP and they are not right now as of today uh so in other words overnight uh he will gain
The Loyalty regain the Loyalty of the overwhelming majority of Republican leaders uh in in state legislatures in the house in the Senate uh and of Republican leaning and right leading uh media uh Outlets uh and of course the ability to raise money and deploy that money for the election that means that
His policy orientations as he expresses them whether it’s cutting off zinski and the ukrainians or showing the Iranians what what and that’s why they wouldn’t have gone to War uh against Israel and the us if he had been president unlike Biden or in terms of the Border uh vises
The Mexicans any of other other issues uh those are suddenly going to be drivers of one half of the US political system uh so it is a it’s a a deeply concerning political environment and and one that the United States is not in a position to respond to effectively so
Ian you’ve written that there is an unlikely but plausible possibility that the US won’t actually even be able to hold a free and fair election on November the 5th we’re going to talk more about the impact of artificial intelligence in a little bit but the reality is that we have seen the impact
Of misinformation on elections before but in the ensuing time things have gotten much faster much quicker so what should we be watching for then and how do you think that is going to play out in November in the US well the United States as the most powerful country in
The world and as a political democracy which is in crisis the most vulnerable part of the United States is its political system and is specifically its 2024 election that is the Achilles heel for the United States when I speak with the intelligence leaders in the United
States they say that is what they are most concerned about it’s the vulnerability of the US election it’s not the Russians attacking the Americans militarily it’s not a big fight with the Chinese it’s not Iran it’s the vulnerability of the US elections and that vulnerability is a comparatively
Complex and soft target from a Homeland Security perspective um especially because Americans don’t live in the same information environment you know we talk about climate change around the world and everyone agrees that there’s 1.2 degrees of warming everyone agrees there 442 parts per million of carbon in the
Atmosphere when you talk about the US political system everyone does not agree um that Trump tried illegally to overturn an election I mean that that sh in a normal democracy in a well functioning democracy that would obviously be the top issue uh of debate um in the election is the fact that
You’re thinking about reelecting someone that is you know not interested in a democratic election uh that is not what is happening presently in the United States not at all and that is not Trump’s fault Trump is a symtom a very serious symptom of the fact that us institutions have been delegitimized
Over decades and it’s getting worse and he’s a very happy beneficiary of that reality so yes I do worry that um American political institutions and specifically the Electoral proced procedures are vulnerable to that especially because the stakes are so much higher this time around the stakes are higher for Biden and his team
Because they believe um that um they may face um an end to an effective multi- party uh transfer of power over time if Trump wins a lot of them individually believe that they would face legal Jeopardy from a politicized Department of Justice or FBI or IRS um if Trump is
In power they absolutely say that privately and of course Trump believes uh to himself much more dangerous than the end of democracy Trump believes uh that he would face Jail uh if uh he and maybe even members of his family um if uh he were to lose uh the election so
The stakes are very high indeed in the United States they’re very high indeed outside the United States I mean I think the reality that you’re describing is that whoever wins whoever the whoever the nominees are Biden Trump whoever wins things aren’t necessarily going to get better right yeah I guess I’m trying
To say that neither Biden nor Trump have the capacity and the willingness to try to fix this I I don’t believe that Trump is interested never mind having the capacity I I believe that he benefits he believes he benefits from referring to his adversaries politically as enemies
As enemies of the people and as painting them as an existential threat to the Republic of the United States um you know with they’re Marxist they’re Communists they’re you know it’s it’s a new McCarthyism if you will um and uh that uh that that Biden uh certainly has
The willingness to try to fix uh this yawning divide in the United States but four years of being president president hasn’t fixed it right I mean there was a belief among many Biden supporters that if you elected this guy that the United States was going to be able to become
More normal and Biden has had a lot of legislative successes uh his infrastructure uh package that was bipartisan that Trump was unable to pass the inflation reduction act misnamed but nonetheless significant amounts of money for uh investment into red and blue state jobs more red State than blue
State jobs jobs um other policies as well and yet the divisions in the United States the dysfunction of the US political system the perceived illegitimacy of major US political institutions and the media has only increased under 4 years of Biden so you have this very unusual environment where
The most powerful leaders in the country are not able to fix the problem and it’s not like there’s any diplomacy that’s happening between them I mean the interesting thing about our view of the top risks of 2024 is that you have these three major conflicts three major Wars
That are essentially happening in the world you’ve got you know Russia Ukraine which has been now entering its third year you’ve got Israel Hamas which is in its third month and then you’ve got the US versus itself which is kicking off right now and in all three of those
Cases there’s no plausible environment in the coming year where diplomacy is going to reduce those tensions is going to end or even contain that conflict and in all three of those Wars the leaders do not share the same information space they don’t even agree on the same basic set of facts and that
That is a an unprecedentedly dangerous geopolitical environment in your and my lifetimes hell so let’s talk about these International conflicts so you mentioned three of them one the United States versus itself let’s turn to um the Middle East let’s talk about what’s going on with Israel Hamas do you feel
Like this is going to spal into a broader conflict I do I do um I I’m not confident exactly what the Avenue of that escalation is like to be but I’m very confident there are so many avenues that that escalation can occur and it’s not within the capacity of the United
States or other major countries around the world or in the region to contain it um and let’s talk about a few uh one of course is Hezbollah and the northern uh border between Israel and Lebanon and that fighting as we speak is escalating the missiles from Hezbollah into Israel
The Israeli assassination of Hamas political leader in Beirut the willingness of the Israeli Defense Forces to go against Hezbollah targets that is escalating and it’s not just prime minister nanahu though he’s very relevant because if the war is over he’s going to be out of power and he could
Very well face jail but it’s also the entire Israeli War cabinet that believes that they cannot end this war and allow actors in the region that believe that Israel has no right to exist they can’t allow them to maintain power the way they did in the status quo anti before
October 7th and that’s not just destroy in Hamas however that is defined to be uh but also um a the Hezbollah operating right on the border in contravention of the UN Security Council resolution uh so they intend to back Hezbollah off of that to degrade their capacity to attack
Israel to a degree there’s also a willingness of the Israelis to see that happen with the houthis in Yemen with Iraqi and Syrian uh radical Shia proxies of the Iranian government the United States is now increasingly actively fighting all of those actors um in Yemen um in Iraq and in Syria and increasingly
Looks like it might be willing to Target houthis in their yemeni bases themselves and that’s even before we talk about the radicalization of millions of Palestinians and their fellow Arab and Muslim supporters all over the world on the back of the suffering that they are experiencing principally but not only in
Gaza Gaza is not livable right now for Two Plus million Palestinians but they have nowhere to go those pressures are going to grow the Israeli government will be calling for their removal uh into other territories like the Sinai which will be seen to be ethnic cleansing by almost everyone else
Including the Biden Administration in the United States um that radicalization will lead to Lone Wolf violence and terrorist attacks will lead to coordinated terrorist attacks not just in the region but also in Europe also in the United States so when you add all of
That up what you see is that it is much easier to understand how this conflict will escalate substantially over 2020 24 then threading a needle to see how you might be able to contain it largely to Israel versus Hamas in this tiny strip of land that two plus million
Palestinians are trying to live on in Gaza that that is where we are right now in the Middle East and this is deeply concerning for the United States because the US in their support of this Israeli War is more isolated on the global stage than the Russians were even when they
Invaded Ukraine two years ago and this also is a serious problem not just for us projection of power around the world especially with the global South but also domestically among Biden’s Democratic supporters a majority of whom are more inclined to support the Palestinian cause than the Israeli cause
Um and so this is uh as the conflict escalates a proximate danger to Biden’s reelection efforts which he is keenly aware of but has very little he can do about it right the interconnections and the kind of the tangled web becomes ever more Tangled as Absolut actors get
Involved this is a really like a stupid a deliberately stupid question but do you feel like any hopes for a two-state solution are vapor they’re not Vapor but they ain’t close uh I mean I don’t I don’t see in the foreseeable future um security uh if I can use that term uh
Will be provided by Israel and not by anybody else uh and you know what that means in the context of Gaza is hard to Define it’s mostly about security for the Israelis it’s not about security for the Palestinians but long term you can’t have a two-state solution unless you
Have effective governance that is seen as legitimate by pales Ians living in Gaza and the West Bank and the ability to defend themselves the Israelis have made it very clear they have a right to defend themselves and and that has failed in part because the Israeli government was asleep at the switch
Before October 7th Israeli intelligence Defense Forces and most importantly their prime minister and government who had other priorities and also because they are surrounded by a number of organizations that do not recognize their right to exist in the territory of Israel so absolutely the Israelis have a
Right to ensure the security of their people but the Palestinians have that right too the difference is that the Israelis not only have the right they also imprint they have the capacity they’ve got Iron Dome provided in large part by the United States financed as well they’ve got an incredible
Asymmetrical military Advantage not over not only over the Palestinians but over everyone in the region um they only need to apply it effectively where and and and apply it effectively without killing tens of thousands of civilians right while the the Palestinians have the right to self-defense as is continually enshrined
In votes at the general assembly by the vast majority of countries from all over the world including American Allies um they just don’t have the ability and and you can’t talk about a two-state solution until you can get the Palestinians the ability to govern themselves and defend themselves and we
Are very very very far away from that this and since we’re just talking about 2024 today there there is no two-state solution in the cards for 2024 as we think about a longer term environment there will be no peace in the region uh until you find a plausible solution that is sustainable where
Palestinians feel like they can raise their children with security and Economic Opportunity that that’s we would all all want only that for our kids and they presently do not have that they don’t have anything remotely close to that all right so one of the other risks
That you um determine in the report is one of partitioned Ukraine which is not a phrase that ukrainians are going to be excited about but it’s one that you actually think is going to become a reality in 2024 so tell us what’s going on here yeah I want to be clear that
Writing about partitioned Ukraine is not a personal preference it is not something I think we should want it is not something that the ukrainians will recognize it is not something Ukrainian friends and allies will recognize but Helen you and I know that there are many things in the world that we want that
Are not so and it turns out that we live with them for a very long time I mean the North Koreans we do not accept that they have nuclear weapons they don’t really care if we accept it they have nuclear weapons that denuclearization is not happening right so that’s a reality uh
Ukraine is presently partitioned and and their ability as much as the Americans in principle would like them to be able to take their land back and they have every right to be able to do so the invasions in 2014 and then in 2022 right were illegal the ukrainians
Did nothing um to to um uh you know force them um and and yet they can’t take their land back uh the American ability and willingness to continue to lead in providing Military Support that would allow the ukrainians to get the 18% of their land that is presently
Occupied by the Russians and has been for a year now that just does not exist in 2024 and in fact the bigger danger is that the trajectory of this war is at a turning point and that not only will the ukrainians not be able to get their land
Back but that they might not have the people to continue to fight to keep the land they presently have um and that their ability to get ongoing support especially from the Americans when this is becoming a political divide in the US far away Israel Palestine higher priority us elections higher priority
Trump if he’s elected at least 5050 I’d put it a little higher than that frankly though I don’t have a lot of confidence around it would end support to Zen no question this is going to make the ukrainians feel incredibly vulnerable um and increasingly desperate that that is what we’re looking at in
2024 and of course that not only threatens Ukraine’s territorial Integrity ongoing and zalinski as a leader but it also threatens the Integrity of the transatlantic Alliance which had been getting stronger over the last couple of years post Russian invasion and threatens the Integrity of NATO as an ongoing Alliance the most
Important military Alliance um on on the uh planet today so that there’s a there’s a lot going on here um and and presently the outcomes don’t look great so you have an interesting phrase in the report that that stated Ukraine is at risk of losing Russia has no way to win
So what does that stalemate actually look like in Practical terms so Ukraine’s at risk of losing Ukraine doesn’t have to lose there are still outcomes where the ukrainians can win even though they will be de facto partitioned now that may not sound easy uh and it’s not but let me
Let me throw you out a scenario where the Americans are able to provide another 20 30 billion dollars this year the Europeans continue to provide significant economic support harder with the hungarians opposing harder with the Germans and their emergency budget situation but it can happen and some of
That could be taking some of the frozen assets legally problematic of Russia and applying them to Ukrainian reconstruction on top of that you fast trck um EU integration and reform in Ukraine and you FastTrack NATO membership which cannot happen tomorrow but it could happen within you know say
You get all the countries together the NATO allies and say within two three years you’re going to provide them NATO membership um it will not include territory that the Russian are occupying because you’re not going to go to war directly with the Russians but it will mean that these countries will defend
Ukraine in the remaining territory that is a narrow path but if it happens you will have 80% of Ukrainian territory that has a far better trajectory for their people than Ukraine ever could have imag imagined had the Russians not invaded none of that none of that will
Make good the eight million people who have been displaced the tens of thousands that have had war crimes committed against them the children had that have been inducted and forced into Russia and on and on and on and on and on I am not minimizing the crimes that have been
Committed that they will remember for Generations in Ukraine but I’m saying that Ukraine still has a path to win given what their country looked like and was facing before 2022 or before 2014 but irrespective of whether Ukraine can accomplish that or will lose the Russians will not win
And and what I mean by that is Russia absolutely will uh be able to maintain control of a strip of Ukrainian territory bombed out right um and and not productive and years if not decades um to turn that land around economically uh but Russia will now be
Facing the rest of Ukraine with a visceral hatred for all things Russia for gener Generations I mean think about you know sort of the the Turkish Genocide against the Armenians and for how long that drove this historic enmity that’s what we’re talking about this is like you know Hutu Tootsie stuff right
In Rwanda and Bundi that’s what you’re talking about and you have an expanded NATO including Finland far more territory for the Russians to have to defend which ostensibly was the reason that the Russians went to war against Ukraine is because they didn’t want to be encroaching where they’re encroaching
A lot more now hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets that they will not have access to trade of Russia with the Europeans with the United States no more right I mean the Germans much more quickly moving to a post carbon energy transition with no more Russian gas
Because they cut the Russians off at enormous cost to Germany but greater cost longterm to the Russians not to mention the million plus Russian civilian ions who have fled young men capable smart that got out of Dodge to anywhere to the Emirates to Georgia to anywhere that would accept them so they
Wouldn’t have to fight and those are people that you could have used productively in the Russian economy so I mean in this environment where Russia’s only true friends providing military support for them are belus North Korea Iran right I mean this is with friend like those right I mean
This is there’s no way I mean I understand that if you’re if you’re a a tanky as they call it if you’re supported by the Kremlin and you’re posting dutifully on Twitter x that you will oppose everything I just said because it’s your job but I mean for
Those of us that take a blue sky approach which is that we look at it and we kind of understand the science it’s impossible to say the Russians are winning here uh and and that is that’s a great cost to to the rest of the world
To the rest of the world this was the the worst misjudgment in my view of any major leader on the global stage since the Wall came down was Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 uh and Not only was it a horrible decision it was a horrible decision that was facilitated
By the Americans and the Europeans who after the 2014 Invasion much smaller didn’t do anything in fact they kept doing business with Russia as usual they hosted the World Cup president said okay we’ll still go over I mean there were lots of signs that Putin got that said
These guys don’t care so we’re going to get away with this and unfortunately they were really really wrong all right let’s change subject a little bit we mentioned artificial intelligence earlier and obviously 2023 was the year in which generative AI went mainstream so it’s exciting and it’s mindblowing and it’s also led to
Something of a Schism between some people who are super excited about its creative potential and then others who can’t believe that we’re barreling towards existential end of humanity with such nonchalance so you just have to see the management drama at open AI that happened at the end of 2023 to
Understand some of the stakes here but this isn’t just about Silicon Valley and I think it’s important that we all recognize that this is actually going to affect all of us so what do you think we should be focused on when it comes to Ai
And what are we going to see in 2024 well I am both of those things uh I’m an enormous Enthusiast about AI I think it’s a transformative technology for everyone that has access to it and we’re just seeing the beginnings of that uh one of the reasons I’m most excited
About AI uh is because it is transformative not just in displacing um existing powerful people and institutions so climate change people get very excited about the transition but to do that transition you’ve got to end oil and so fossil fuel players and those that are attached to them infrastructure transport and the
Rest have a lot to lose AI like even if you’re a coal miner you can and will use AI to be much more effective at mining coal you know AI you’re like a traditional airline company you can use AI to reduce you know energy intensivity in the contrails you’re going to do that
Tomorrow right so it’s astonishing how much uplift we will get from productivity and efficiency in every sector from all sorts of Corporations and from Individual workers by using these tools by deploying these tools I’m I’m very excited about how much we will get out of AI to unlock
Human potential broader and faster but I don’t spend much time talking about that usually because you’ve got a lot of people and companies that are worth trillions of dollars collectively that are spending all of their time and effort doing that as fast as humanly possible and they have to because if
They don’t they’ve got very smart and well bankr people breathing down their neck that are would be very happy to displace them right that’s the principal AI displacement we’re going to see in the next 24 months will be of AI players that get taken out by other AI players
Because it’s it’s so Cutthroat and fast um but but there aren’t people that are spending their time thinking about what are uh the challenges for the common good uh what are the negative externality ities that come from AI I mean so you think about the last industrialization and and Americans in
Particular my country we are so great at private at the private Market when it comes to profits we’re capitalists when it comes to the markets because when we do well and money is to be made we make sure that we deploy that and the shareholders get it and we’re focused
But when there are losses we are the world’s best socialists it’s it’s not us it’s like somebody else every everyone’s got to pay for it we’re not responsible preferably the kids so maybe not now but maybe later and and we’ve seen that with climate change very happy to make all
The money from industrialization but I mean the cost of emitting more carbon not it not our problem well that’s a long Global slow process over Generations AI is a very fast transformative process over like 5 to 10 years and the negative externalities are going to happen ENT simultaneously with all of the positive
Uh productivity and efficiency gains and and we need a governance environment where uh those are accounted for and paid for and and in the near term I am not talking about the robots taking over existential risk of artificial general intelligence I’m talking about AI being used by Bad actors or indifferent actors
With with challenging business models in ways that will undermine stable Society um I’m talking about in particular disinformation and how it can be deployed to undermine democracy and I’m also talking uh about the disruptive nature of proliferated AI tools in the hands of large numbers of governments and institutions and
Individuals that are Bad actors or tinkerers that want to destroy things or thinking about it um I mean whether they’re using AI for malware or they’re using AI to build viruses or lethal autonomous weapons and I think that that is really becoming a risk only for the first time in the coming
Year in in elections like the US election especially as the next generation of AI comes out and this is moving three times faster than Moore’s Law so every six months you’re getting a doubling capacity uh which is you know not an environment that traditional governments are able to respond to it’s
Too fast it’s too powerful and you’re also getting those tools in the hands of hundreds of millions of people in very very short order so that that the there is governance it is coming fast it is urgent but in 2024 the speed of the technology is much much faster than the
Speed of the governance and and that Gap will create crisis I mean we’ve seen you know from the whole of the open AI kafuffle that happened at the end of the year you really see these tensions kind of playing out in real time and there are people within large corporations who are
Trying to do the right thing internally but then of course competition is actually driving them to move faster and faster so that they don’t get left behind given the fact that as you say there are these kind of Bad actors outside of these organizations who are
Also trying to do their thing with the open source technologies that are being released etc etc what actual governance is possible in that environment uh there are there’s a lot of of governance that is possible in that environment but it’s not clear how quickly we can get there so I mean the
EU has their AI act um which uh is is quite it’s quite comprehensive uh in the way it thinks about regulation and transparency of foundational models and testing of those models of AI um and in making sure it’s not just being done internally um and uh in in watermarking
And trying to make sure that people are aware of what kind uh of images they’re seeing and what’s been and and and audio and what’s being driven by Ai and what is not um and and also the deployment of AI models and what kind of data uh they
Have access to all of those things and the US uh has an executive order which is not as powerful as legislation which is not coming anytime soon given the divided nature of the US government but still you know represents a step change in how how you think about regulating these
Technologies but but these processes are happening much more slowly than the tech is rolling out so I think what governance will get you is uh it will identify the actors that are critical both inside governments and in the private sector it will have them talking about the issues that really matter um
And better set up so that when a crisis occurs and it will that they will be able to identify and respond to it collectively and much more quickly than they would absent that governance structure so in this regard AI is a little bit more like the financial
Sector where we all know that we need a functioning financial sector and that’s true whether we’re capitalist like in the US uh or we’re uh State capitalist like in China you got a free uh you know sort of convertible currency or you’ve got a closed Market doesn’t matter we
All know we need a financial Market but we also o know that in a in a Global Financial Market that individual actors can cause systemic crisis and so we need um a a stability board uh that when there is a crisis everyone identifies it and responds immediately so that we
Don’t have a global meltdown that we don’t face the depression that that’s what governance is going to need to be able to do on the a i front and the thing is about AI we’re not just talking about oh someone’s making a run on the mar market and this company’s going to
Go bankrupt the risks that potentially come from AI uh and misuse of AI um are in many many different types of Technologies and applications so you’re you’re going to have to uh you’re going to have to essentially build the ship as you’re steering it uh because the the
The dangers are going to change very quickly no problem we’ll do that just fine okay so there is another part to the tech challenge of 2024 that is actually around the building of tech and that’s about the mineral and the in the um materials that actually go into
Building Tech um so you your hunch within this report is that governments are going to turn protectionist they’re going to disrupt the flow of minerals that are needed to build all of this technology so what should we be paying attention to here and how much of a risk
Do you think that this is for the future well one is it’s related um to the high-tech front which is that the biggest fight between the US and China which thankfully has a more stable and more managed relationship in 2024 than they did coming into
2023 one of the big areas of tension is on the high-tech side and the Chinese are trying to develop AI the Americans are trying to develop AI but the US with their allies are now uh taking uh semiconductor capabilities and trying to ensure that they are being built in
Trusted countries and they’re putting export controls on on semiconductors cloud computing related infrastructure um and so the Chinese don’t have access to the most valuable stuff now China uh doesn’t build its own high-tech semiconductors and they are you know by most counts about 10 years behind and
They don’t have a really good way to counter that aside from investing as much as they can inside their own country to rebuild it so some of what they’re trying to do is see if there’s a way to engage with the Americans that might loosen some of those export
Controls and that’s one of the reasons the principal reason actually why China expressed the willingness to join a new track point one 1.5 dialogue with the Americans on artificial intelligence but um the Chinese response has been well you guys are dominant in semiconductors but we’re dominant in critical minerals uh in the
Exploitation and in the supply chain and also in the devel velopment of a lot of the new postc carbon energy um generation and infrastructure solar cells wind batteries that kind of thing electric automobiles and so the Chinese are basically saying we’re going to look at um at some of those critical minerals
That we dominate and we’re going to put licensing regimes on those and if you if you stick with the problems you give us on semis uh we’re going to start putting export controls there now the difference is the Americans will still be able to buy all of that stuff it will just be
More expensive so the Chinese can’t cut off the Americans the way the Americans and the South Koreans and the Dutch can cut off the Chinese but they can make it really painful and ultimately all of this is about relative power all of this is about relative gains it’s not about
Like you know destroying the Americans aren’t going to destroy China and vice versa um but but it does mean that as the world barrels towards an effort to transition from primarily fossil fuel developed energy to primarily post-carbon developed energy over the period of one generation that it will be
Far less efficient because of this big fight between the United States in China and at the same time we are seeing a number of governments around the world put industrial policies in place to provide subsidies for their own workforces uh governments that have access to a lot of these critical
Minerals that are saying we can use this to get up the supply chain so we want to make sure that you’re investing that new technology in our country and not just exploiting us for ra resources all of which is creating significant politically induced costs in that big
Sector of the global environment at a time that you want those costs to be as low as possible so you can move away from fossil fuels right I mean the more expensive the critical minerals are the the bigger the barriers the harder it’s going to be to go from coal and oil and
Gas to all of this new sustainable stuff that’s that is in 2024 that’s becoming a significant fight everything everywhere all at once everything is interconnected is I think a theme of this conversation so flag for everybody that there are 10 risks that you are flagging this year we have not
Had time to go through them all so I would highly recommend that you go and read the full report I’m going to spoiler alert just flag something that you wrote right at the end of the report in that I think is really beautiful and worth holding close as we go into 2024
That it is critical we don’t just talk about these Global issues to help make business and policy decisions but also to connect to those closest to us if we can’t make a difference with those we know and love we are lost Ian you are a poet it turns
Out I don’t know if I’d go that far but I I I I’d like to believe I care about my fellow people um and this is a tough year look I mean I I I I went uh I just came back from the South Pole of all
Places uh it’s a place that I’ve always wanted to visit um you know try my by by virtue of my job I travel all around the world and this is this massive continent at the bottom of the planet that I’ve never been to and it just looks like
This big thing of ice but uh this also felt like a year that being off the grid and connected to the planet but not like in the headlines in the news every moment it was very useful just in terms of clearing my head a bit but also as a
Political scientist being in a place that for 60 some years now we’ve managed to govern if I can use that term loosely in a way that protects it for future generations and for the planet and there used to be all of these competing territorial claims by all these
Different countries and now we actually have a treaty that says we’re not going to have any resource exploitation we’re not going to use this for military bases we’re just going to use it for Science and we’re just going to keep it for the planet we’re melting it I know because
Of global challenges but the reality is it still kind of is the way that we wanted it to be was the first Arms Control agreement that was ever signed between the Americans and the Soviets back in 1959 and the treaty holds true until 2048 and when I when I talked
About it when I just came back I had some people that were saying oh well you know 2048 the Chinese are going to be like looking on how they can exploit it and the Russians it’s not going to last it’s like you know if we’ve got something that works and is going to
Work until 20148 in today’s environment like that’s that’s a win right I mean we don’t know where we’re going to be in three months right now and it turns out that we as human beings are capable sometimes when we put our minds to it of
Being stewards um and we need to do more of that the thing that worries me the most about 20 2024 is we have a lot of very big very real fights happening right now and no one’s acting like a leader no one’s acting like a steward
People are all focused on a very narrow view of what’s at stake for them and the people that like them and that’s not Humanity right it’s very ephemeral and and when we all leave this planet after this very short spell that we have here um we all go back to the same place
We’re all the same atoms uh and we need to take a little bit of time to connect with the people around us to remember that that was at the end that’s what I took away most from my little trip down to the bottom of the planet and I’d like
To try to hold that with me uh as we uh as we get through 2024 may we all borrow that may we all have that um that sensibility in mind as we go through this year and thank you so much for your time thank you all
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Video “The US vs. Itself — and Other Top Global Risks in 2024 | Ian Bremmer | TED” was uploaded on 01/09/2024 to Youtube Channel TED