Multipolarity Podcast

The Big Divorce has finally hit. Like a country rock record written by the WWE, the Trump Musk split has been its own kind of kino. But beyond two hotheaded men who secretly still love each other very much, could it be that this marks the schism between tech and MAGA?

Meanwhile… that escalated quickly. As LA smouldered over the weekend, Trump punched the nuclear button, demanding to send in squadrons of marines. Whether they storm the beaches of the I-110 is perhaps secondary to the constitutional question: who holds the keys to law and order in a divided America?

Finally, right now China is squeezing its rare earth metals. Always wear gloves if you do that at home, but if you do it at a geopolitical level, just get ready for some serious blowback.

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This week, we’re going as big picture as imaginable. Philip Pilkington has a thesis about liberalism itself:

1. That it is bad.

2. That it is ending. 

That’s the nub of his new book, released this week.

He argues that the modern world order is based on a doctrinaire and unrealistic form of liberalism and has given rise to hollowed-out financialised economies and disintegrating societies that can barely even reproduce their population or meet their energy needs. 

Only by abandoning our liberal delusions and adopting hard-headed post-liberalism can the West survive.

In this special edition, Andrew Collingwood interviewed him in front of an online audience on a live Twitter Spaces. 

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

China is planning a new version of its Made In China 2025 industrial strategy. Just as America is punching holes in its own science funding budget, we'll be reporting from the output gap. 

Meanwhile, the new US ambassador to Ankara has declared that he's against carving up Syria in a modern Sykes-Picot, the treaty that drew up the Middle East modern borders. Is this an important anti-colonial action or just a license for Erdogan to gobble up his own Ottoman empire?

Finally, Harvard continues to come under shelling by the US government. Not content with disbarring international students, Trump said on Monday that he is considering taking $3 billion of previously awarded grant money and giving it to trade schools. Is this a case of frightening them to with an inch of their lives or is Trump genuinely guillotining the credentialed aristocracy that runs the United States? 

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Two audio essays, half a world apart. 

Nixon went to China first. Now, Philip Pilkington is there; to see what fifty years of openness to the West has done for the place. Turns out, quite a bit. He’ll be sharing his impressions: North Korea-style police state, or Singapore-style authoritarian wonderland?  

While Philip is playing tourist, our very own Andrew Collingwood is crossing the Rio Grande and the 49th parallel, taking the temperature on America’s deteriorating relations with both Canada and Mexico. After all, collectively, they have it surrounded. 

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

More ordnance in the Middle East. Rumours are that Trump is agreeing to a two state solution; Israel is out in the cold; Netanyahu is not having his calls returned, and a trillion dollar deal is incoming with the Saudis. We’ve had shuttle diplomacy… but this is Challenger Space Shuttle diplomacy?

Meanwhile, Pakistan has apparently shot down as many as three Indian Rafale fighter jets in recent clashes over Kashmir. The culprit? A chinese-made BVR system. To some, this unexpected win apparently means that in the future, BVR-equipped jets will shoot each other down from tens or even hundreds of miles away. But past a certain point… why do we even need the jets? 

Finally, the eye-watering hundred percent tariffs on China are about to be peeled back down to a manageable thirty percent. A victory for someone. But in the longer term, isn’t this Liberation Day turning into De-dollarisation Year?

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity