( AP )
[music]
Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. If it's January, it must be Ian Bremmer time on the Brian Lehrer Show. Ian as many of you public television watchers will know, is host of GZERO World on PBS and president of the Eurasia Group, which specializes in helping companies understand political risks to their businesses in the US and around the world.
Every January, he releases a projection of the top political risks for the year ahead. His number one risk for 2021 is Joe Biden taking office in such a polarized country, followed by the long-term effects of COVID on society, then global cooperation, giving way to global competition on fighting climate change. That's a really interesting one, I think, and little discussed, so we'll discuss it and others on the list that we'll get to.
Ian also gives us three red herrings for '21, things that people are too concerned about, and some of those might surprise you too. Hi, Ian, happy 2021 and welcome back to WNYC.
Ian Bremmer: And to you, the pandemic can't keep us down, Brian.
Brian: Absolutely not. Now we will get to the risks flowing from Biden taking office in such a divided country. Let's talk first about your risk number three, which is also I think an opportunity not just a risk. Global competition to dominate the clean energy market, who's competing for what?
Ian: Definitely is an opportunity and it's in some ways the best thing that's come out of this pandemic. Let's be clear the biggest stimulus and relief in the world came out of Europe with Merkel and Macron driving massive redistribution and overwhelmingly green and sustainable. Not just inside Europe, but also for people that want to trade with Europe, really aligning that trade with green energy or there going to be significant tariffs and taxes.
You've got Biden winning, and while that plays out in terms of the divisions that we'll talk about. The change between Biden and Trump on climate which wouldn't have happened, frankly, if it wasn't a pandemic, it's by far the most significant shift between the two leaders. The Japanese, the new prime minister Suga, very significant orientation in terms of net-zero in carbon emissions, and China too.
When we think about 2021 in terms of trying to protect the planet and keep the world at two degrees Celsius warming or 2.5. There's more of a shot of that actually happening because of the politics that come from coronavirus. It's very important to recognize that climate change doesn't suddenly mean that the differences and the geopolitical tensions and the lack of trust and the lack of leadership around the world goes away.
Indeed what's going to happen as all of the world's leaders start focusing on what comes after fossil fuels, is they're also going to start competing very heavily. That competition and how it plays out is what we write about in risk number three.
Brian: Your frame is political risks, but it sounds like you also see this as a good thing. Like if the US and China are competing for market dominance in post-fossil fuel energy sectors. If capitalism is becoming intent on selling clean energy systems to everyone, then that helps the planet outrun those industries that pollute at least in theory.
Ian: Let me give you an example. Brian, it's clearly good for the world that we have lots of people working on vaccines for coronavirus to respond. Let's be clear that if you have a global pandemic, what you want is the world working together on vaccines. You don't want the United States leaving the World Health Organization, refusing to join COVAX, and the poorer countries saying, "What's going on?"
You don't want the Americans and Chinese pointing fingers at each other, sowing disinformation and mistrust. What we're going to get, you just suggested, there's going to be the equivalent of everyone working on vaccines. Everyone will be working on sustainable energy. The Chinese have been actually trying to become global leaders in electric vehicles and infrastructure for that. Rare earth metals that are required as a consequence on the commodity side locking them up in that production, solar, wind, nuclear.
The United States is absolutely going to want to dominate those fields. That competition with China will not only drive worse relations between the two countries, but in some areas like when you think about a smart grid, and the fact that there's critical data. We'll be saying, "We're not going to let the Chinese into our grid or into other countries that are allied with us." You're going to have the same level of confrontation, lack of transparency, and fighting, which is a problem when you think about the world's two largest economies in climate.
I think when you thought about climate for the last 20, 30 years, most of those people thought, "Well, if we finally start addressing climate, the world will come together. We'll save the whales, we'll save the planet." Actually, I don't think it's going to bring the world closer together, even as we try to save it.
Brian: Interesting. Your section on the polarization between Democrats and Republicans in America, and the risks that presents, nevertheless, includes a caveat that Democrats and Republicans have a shared desire to contain China. I'm curious about that shared interest. Trump, as we know sought to vilify China at every turn and portray the previous bi-partisan push for open trade with China to have been a disaster for American jobs and even a disaster for having control over our own emergency pharmaceutical supply, as we learned last year. Has he pretty much won that argument in political terms in Washington, China is an enemy, not a trading partner?
Ian: I think he has won that argument. You'll remember Brian, that when Biden first threw his hat in the ring, he actually said, "What are you talking about China is a major threat? They can't do anything to us. They're not a significant power." This really showed you that Biden, since he was vice-president had really taken his eye off the policy ball. He was brutalized on that by his own party, in addition to the Republicans, he got up to speed pretty quickly. He doesn't say that anymore. If you were to talk about where Trump has really identified where the world is going, you'll probably point to two areas of foreign policy.
One would be the new geopolitics of the Middle East. The fact that you have peace deals and diplomacy now between Israel and a number of Arab countries, even when John Kerry said that could not happen unless there was Israeli Palestinian peace. If Obama and Biden had recognized just how much the Middle East was changing the geopolitics, they could have done that deal. They didn't, Trump picked it up.
Same thing happened on China. Obama and Biden just did not recognize the level of hostility that was growing and mistrust among some of the corporate community in the United States. Certainly on issues like Hong Kong, South China Sea with the Indian government, we now talk about the Quad, Trump picked that up. It's got broad bipartisan support and I don't see that changing in any way significantly as Biden becomes president.
Brian: Is there an emerging Biden-Harris China policy that looks different from the Obama-Biden China policy?
Ian: Sure. You'll remember when Obama made his first trip to Beijing and he had that town hall and they didn't allow media in, and it was scripted and censored. A lot of people criticized Obama for getting played by the Chinese government. Now, keep in mind, this is before Belt and Road, this is before Xi Jinping ended term limits inside China, so a lot of things have been happening inside China too. It's not like it's the same exact China we're dealing with and of course, it's gotten bigger. Plus they covered up the first four weeks of coronavirus transfers while hundreds of thousands of Chinese were traveling outside of China from Wuhan, so there's a lot going on here.
But yes, a Biden-Harris administration on China is going to be considerably more assertive on issues like technology on Hong Kong, on the Uyghurs, and human rights. They will try to engage multilaterally to get American allies on board. Frankly, Trump has been very unilateralist, but even so, Trump's 5G policy telling allies don't you dare work with Huawei or ZTE. A large number of American allies have gotten on board with that policy. That will be made easier with a Biden administration that a lot of allies will have an easier time working with [unintelligible 00:09:59].
Brian: Ian Bremmer is my guest, you know him from public television. Uou see his show GZERO World on PBS, and he's president of the Eurasia Group, and releases a list every January of political risks as he calls them for the year ahead. Listeners, we can take some questions. Who has a question for our political scientist Ian Bremmer, or maybe a prediction or a thing to watch for, that you're thinking about for 2021 as Ian is out with his annual list. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 or you can tweet @BrianLehrer.
Ian you call the number two political risk to the economy for this year long COVID. You acknowledge that, obviously, the most concerning thing about long COVID is that it's still killing so many people. But you say it could also threaten economies, and political stability. What's the political stability side of that?
Ian: Well, let's at least first talk about the good news briefly, which is that I do think that the number of people that are getting killed from Coronavirus especially in the advanced economies, the wealthy world is going to go down real real fast. In a matter of weeks in the United States we'll have 10% of the population vaccinated, and that will probably bring down mortality rates by 90%. That's why this isn't risk number one.
Just the fact that you and I, how many people that we care about that we love are truly vulnerable, are 80 years plus, or have underlying conditions. We're just concerned that if they get this, they really could die, that is just going to come off of us in relatively short order, and thank God, so that's not a 2021 risk for the majority of the year. But the economics don't magically get better. In fact, in 2020, the world largely responded pretty robustly on the economic side, including in the United States. We got the relief to people that they needed, and so did the rest of the world. In 2021, the US won't do as well on that crunch and other countries will have a harder time too.
Brian: I'll throw in my own little caveat, sort of got the relief to people that they needed in the developed world, judging from the lines for food pantries, and things like that. Sort of got the relief. Go ahead.
Ian: No, I take your point. But if you ask me, in an incredibly divided United States. The bipartisanship that came from Pelosi and Mnuchin, very quickly, getting trillions of dollars out there did really make a difference. The Japanese did that, the Europeans did that, and the emerging markets did that too. My point here is not to say that we got it perfect, we got it a lot better than we did the healthcare side, the mask-wearing side, the everything else side, the hospital side. 2021 no one that looks at stimulus thinks that, oh we're going to continue to be able to take care of those that aren't in the knowledge economy. That is going to drive massive inequality.
Inside the United States, as the markets continue to do incredibly well, and as the growth numbers, everyone says, "Oh great, we're recovering." The average American isn't recovering at all. That's going to be a problem in Europe, that's going to be an even bigger problem for the lower and middle-income countries that won't actually have the vaccines and can't get back to normal, but they also don't have the fiscal space to provide the support for their people. 2021 on the economic side, can drive a lot of political instability.
Brian: On the economy, also, we've seen the shocking disparity since the pandemic of unemployment and the Dow, both spiking. The rich are getting richer and the working class and poor are getting poorer. How do you see that changing with COVID's long tail or with the vaccinations?
Ian: Getting much worse, Brian. It's very clear that one of the things that Coronavirus has done is it has driven technology firms and anyone in the digital and knowledge economy. Those are the winners, but what about everyone else? What about the so-called essential workers that we treat as cannon fodder in this country? I hate to use that term, but it's a reality for decades and it's become so incredibly clear and visceral this year with Coronavirus. These people take it on the chin. It gets much much worse for them. At a time that the big decision-makers and the power players in the economy are worried less because it's rebounded for them global demand is back, so I think I fear that gets worse. It also drives and you know we're heading towards this, it drives a lot more inequality and the illegitimacy of institutions in the United States.
Brian: Stephanie in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Ian Bremmer. Hi, Stephanie.
Stephanie: Yes. Hi, thanks for taking my call.
Brian: Sure.
Stephanie: Respect to both, I listen all the time. I have a question both as citizen and as business owner concerning this recent massive security breach. Pretty stunning. The expanse of it, and how long it went on. I wanted to get Ian's perspective on-- I mean this now literally, I used to just say it kind of metaphorically like, oh, the buildings are beautiful. But is it time to move to Europe, in terms of personally, better privacy, Europe takes privacy seriously. As a small business owner, it just seems like our country cannot get our act together on these security issues, and what particularly got my attention was how long it went on. It just doesn't seem like we have a partner in pre-empting these problems before they happen. Thank you.
Brian: Thank you very much, Ian, internet security.
Ian: Yes, it's risk number six on our report here. It is certainly true that the Europeans take privacy much more seriously. Of course, the tough regulatory environment in Europe goes hand in hand with the fact that they have none of the big companies that matter in terms of data and artificial intelligence and new technologies. Those are all the United States and China who take privacy less seriously and are more oriented towards the private sector.
I think the outcome is going to be a compromise between what the Europeans want, and what the Americans drive. Security is clearly going to be better in terms of your personal data and what can be done with it, in Europe. Having said that, the massive hack that we're talking about, almost certainly from Russia, all through 2020, very deeply disturbing, affecting major companies like Microsoft, and major parts of the US government, like the Pentagon and our nuclear command.
You really don't want enemies of the United States to have access to that intelligence, that data to be able to engage in that level of espionage. I don't know if it makes you any happier to know that one of the reasons the Americans don't respond more aggressively is because we do the same thing to Russia, but there isn't any deterrence. We didn't use nuclear weapons against each other because there was mutually assured destruction, because we knew we'd blow up the planet if we did that.
We have this incredible offensive cyber capability, but there's very little defense, and there's very little capacity to deter our adversaries, even criminals in terms of ransomware. What we've seen with small businesses and hospitals, all over the country that's been exploding. A lot of companies are just paying it because they don't have any ability to combat.
Brian: We have a follow-up question on this. John and Greenwich, you're on WNYC. Hi, john.
John: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I'm a big fan of Mr. Bremmer, I've followed you for years. Just wanting to know exactly what you're speaking about right now. At what point where will the cyber attacks, this tit for tat between Russia and China, Russia and the United States, China and the United States, will these cyber-attacks turn into an open hot war? Is there any chance of these cyber-attacks and espionage corporate or government going down on their own without actively and openly engaging in some kind of warfare?
Ian: Yes, I guess I would say that as long as we're talking about espionage, so the China hit on the Office of Personnel Management a few years ago, this big Russia hit this last year. It's almost certainly not going to become kinetic, as they say, lead to a hot war. If you remember the NotPetya attack against Ukraine a few years ago that came from Russia. That was a reverse-engineered piece of malware that originally came from the NSA in the United States.
That was an attack that was meant to actually break things, not just espionage where you grab information, but destroy critical information and infrastructure. That probably cost 1% of Ukraine's GDP, but more worryingly, it expanded beyond Ukraine. You may remember the headlines there were companies like FedEx in Europe and Maersk, who lost billions of dollars in revenue because their companies were shut down on the back of this hack. I don't think the Russians were trying to hit those companies. I think they had no clue and or they didn't care. Now, that's dangerous.
If you get a cyber-attack along those lines or what the Americans, the Israelis do to Iranian centrifuges and it jumps, it skips because everything is connected in the internet of things. Suddenly you have broader infrastructure that's actually brought down. People die when infrastructure is brought down, when a metro suddenly shuts, when a hospital suddenly shuts. People in Ukraine that were having surgery, they died because of this cyber-attack. That’s how wars actually start.
Brian: John, thank you for your call on that. Before we leave this topic, in addition to your top political risk of 2021, you list three red herrings. Things that people might be too concerned about. The one that jumped out at me was what you call Techlash in the United States. Meaning you predict that US lawmakers will not declare war on the tech companies, but isn't there a bipartisan disgust with them right now?
Ian: Maybe what I would say, it's not that they won't declare war, it's that they're going to declare about 20 different types of war and there will be no agreement on which one to pursue. Everyone is angry at tech companies but they’re angry different things. Some people are angry that they're not doing enough on free speech. Some people are angry that they're doing too much on free speech. Some are angry that they're latent monopolies, they need competition, they don't pay enough taxes. Others are angry that they need to be stronger and more patriotic to fight against the Chinese. They shouldn't be doing business in China. They should be aligned with the Pentagon.
When you have that kind of disagreement at a time that the economy is not doing well and the tech companies are the goose that lays the golden market eggs. They are driving the American rebound. It is inconceivable to me that in 2021, the tech companies end the year weaker than they started. Now, there are antitrust cases. Those are potentially existential for some of these companies, but they will play out over many yeas. For 2021 if you're holding them in your portfolio, you probably feel pretty good.
Brian: Fitter and Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Ian Bremmer. Hi Fitter.
Fitter: Hi Ian. A big fan of your show. Mr. Bremmer huge fan. Works for EGF for a bit. My question to you is what do you see happening this year for human rights issues across the world. As an Indian, I am quite heartened by the fact that we have a Biden presidency, which may somehow put some checks and balances in place for unfettered authoritarianism that's taking hold in India. All over the world, the coronavirus has propagated issues of human rights both in this country and abroad. What do you have to say on that? Where do you see the world going with regards to human rights issues?
Ian: Modi your own Indian Prime Minister has been good on anti-corruption, but horrible on human rights. The US-India relationship is on balance better than it has been in part because the China relationship is so much worse and both leaders support that. That’s going to continue under Biden. Even though the Biden the administration will be more consistent in not only what they say, but also walking the talk on human rights where Trump obviously really didn't care about it. You’d have Pompeo making statements but the administration having virtually zero interest.
Even though that's going to change, this is a world that is much more fragmented in terms of the willingness and ability to uphold values like that. You look at what's happened to Hong Kong, the Chinese have unilaterally ended the one state two systems arrangement. The only response that's been effective is the UK giving citizenship and passports to a lot of people that want to get out but there's no more ability to be Democratic opposition. You just had the head of the major newspaper taken away in leg irons.
When you're talking about things that are considered domestic sovereign issues. The impunity that my friend David Miliband, the former British foreign secretary coins this as the age of impunity. The age of impunity comes directly on the back of what I call at GZERO World an absence of leadership. Human rights becomes unfortunately a lower common denominator.
Brian: Sarah in Melville, you're on WNYC with Ian Bremmer. Hi Sarah.
Sarah: Hi, good morning Brian. Good morning, Ian. Ian, I have a question, when you mentioned how President Obama and then vice President Biden were out of touch regarding the China and what was going on with controversies with China. I wanted to see what are your thoughts vis-à-vis President Obama and Mr. Biden’s policy vis-à-vis Iran? Because among the Iranian-American community, there has been this concern endearing Obama administration. Millions of dollars were released to the government of Islamic Republic without holding them responsible to what they were doing in suppressing the human rights and people's movements inside Iran.
There are rumors that there’s a 2500 green cards given to appease the [unintelligible 00:25:44] to get the deal. Moving forward, Iran-Americans are concerned and disappointed about what a new Biden Administration even though many of us are Democratic voters. It's petrifying for us to see moving forward how it will play out. I wanted to see what are your thoughts about that.
John: The Iranian regime is of course an abusive regime that is run by theocrats. The Iranian American community that got out, many of whom escaped the Revolution in 79 understandably are not looking to have a good relationship with that government. You think about the abuses and the way they repress dissent in the country. I'm very sympathetic to your view and I've spoken to the Iranian community at length about this issue. You mentioned the fact that under Obama and Biden that lots of money was given to Iran. That money was Iranian and money that was seized illegally by the United. It was money that was sent to the US to buy arms before the Revolution in 79.
After the Revolution, obviously, we weren't going to sell them the arms anymore, but we never gave them their money back. We gave them their money plus interest. It was a breach of international law. I understand that we're much more powerful, so we do what we want and we don't care about international law, but still, we had no right to have the money. Now let's be clear that the Biden Administration wants to go back to the JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear deal. That deal was oversold by the Obama Administration.
I don't think it was a bad deal, but it was a very limited deal. It didn't open diplomatic relations between the two countries. It didn't end in sanctions between the US and Iran. What it basically did it said for 10 years we're going to inspect and we're going to stop their ability for developing nuclear capabilities. It doesn't even stop them on ballistic missiles frankly. Jake Sullivan who was just on with my good friend Fareed Zakaria over the weekend made it very clear.
They talked about this that the Biden Administration wants to also open not just to talk about rejoining the old Iranian nuclear deal, but also addressing issues of ballistic missiles and addressing issues of Iran's support for extremist organizations around the region. The Iranians just announced a couple of days ago. They are now going to be enriching at 20% their uranium, gets them very close to weapons capacity. Because they want to press Biden to just go back to the old nuclear deal with nothing else. They’re not going to be easy to negotiate with it all. Well, I don't think there's going to be war. This is not an easy lift for Biden.
Brian: I'll throw in for listeners who don't have the benefit that I have of actually reading your list of top political risks and red herrings. That one of your three red herrings meaning one of the things that you think people are too concerned about is Iran-US confrontation. You're right, ties between the US and Iran will be neither as productive nor destructive as many fear.
Ian: Yes. You remember last year my God, when you and I talked about this last year and everyone was saying, “We just killed Soleimani in Iran. Oh my God, it's going to be war.” I'm like, “Calm down, calm down, the Iranians are not suicidal.” They didn't know that there were any red lines Trump just showed them what the red line is. They're now going to back down. That's what they did. Even though I'm not hugely optimistic here, I don't think that we are heading for war with Iran.
John: Let's end Ian with the top of your list. We save number one for last, your top "political risk" of 2021. That is that we are going to have the second president in a row who is seen as illegitimate by almost half the country, and that is certainly disturbing from a national unity and a social progress standpoint but you also see it affecting the economy. How so?
Ian: Yes, the economy and our position globally. I think the reason the Europeans just did this massive trade deal with China, after they knew that Biden had won the election, and we had heard, well, as long as Biden wins, things will get better with Europeans. It’s because the Europeans look at the United States, they see how divided we are and they don't think they can count on us as much as they could before. They're hedging war with China, my god that affects the global economy in a big way.
A very weak and divided government, a very weak and divided congress that is seen as rigged, and a very weak president, who has a hard time governing across the aisle and a hard time putting the Democrats even together. Normally, you might not worry as much about that, but in a time of crisis, both domestically and globally, when you really need the country to come together, when you really need less fake news, and less this information, when you need more stimulus. Again, we talked about that already, you said it wasn't even that good in 2020. It's going to be a lot worse than 2021 when suddenly, people are facing evictions, people are facing getting thrown out on the streets.
Homelessness in 2021 in the US, I fear is going to go up a lot, that's unacceptable for the
wealthiest country in the world. It comes because our institutions have indeed eroded. When Trump says that he won this election, he is lying, he's lying, even though a lot of senators and representatives and much of his voters are going with him. When Trump says the system is rigged against Americans, there, kind of like on China, like on the Middle East. He has stumbled upon a fundamental truth that increasingly American political institutions, do not serve the interests of the average American and that is getting much worse in this period of Coronavirus.
Brian: Listeners and Ian indulge my listeners, let me use this as an opportunity for a promo for the special that I'll be hosting tomorrow. It's a two-hour national calling special tomorrow night from 8:00 to 10:00 called, America: Are We Ready to Reconcile? It's part of our national America: Are we ready series. This time in America: Are We Ready to Reconcile, and I will admit, and I'll tell the national audience this tomorrow night. That when we planned this show, we did not anticipate what is apparently now going to happen in Congress tomorrow.
Which is that there's going to be hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of debate over accepting the Electoral College results from many states. We know that Trump isn't going to overturn it because he doesn't have the numbers in Congress. It wasn't looking like it was going to go this way because it takes senators as well as members of the house to object to sitting electors from Pennsylvania or Georgia or other states. It looked at first like senators were not going to sign on.
Tomorrow was going to be more or less the pro forma congressional role at the end of a presidential election, which is to just sit the electors, and then on to the inauguration. We were planning America: Are We Ready to Reconcile? Well, tomorrow on the same day as this national special, it's going to be blowing up in Washington with big protests. Mostly pro-Trump, and this debate in Congress that might go on until the wee hours of Thursday morning.
It's going to be a combination now of live coverage of tomorrow's drama and this bigger question, America, are we ready to reconcile? All of that by way of saying, tune in if you're interested, that's tomorrow night from 8:00 to 10:00. Tell your friends around the country because that's a national special tomorrow night. Ian, you want to tell anybody as you go if you're in season on GZERO WORLD on PBS now, anything to promote?
Ian: Oh, yes, absolutely. First of all, promoting what you're doing tomorrow night, it is a historic day. In our lifetimes, it will be the most dysfunctional our democracy has ever been. This is the worst election since 1876. If you're a citizen, and you care at all, if you're listening to Brian, you obviously do and I hope you'll tune in to that. As for me and I was delighted to hear so many fans of the show online, check your local listings here in New York. It's Saturday right after news hour at 6:30 every week, but it's all across the country every weekend. This week, we've got Jeh Johnson, the former Homeland Security Secretary and a good friend, who's talking about that Russia hack and how we respond to all of that.
Brian: Ian Bremmer host of the GZERO WORLD on PBS and President of the Eurasia Group, which publishes every January its list of the top political risks for the coming year. Thank you for sharing with us and being so interesting.
Ian: Always a pleasure, man. Be good.
Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.