Episode 253
#253 - Lose the War, Win the Peace
Jacob welcomes the always insightful and provocative Jacek Bartosiak of Strategy&Future onto the show to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war and the evolution of the multipolar geopolitical system. Jacek makes his case that a systemic, global war has already begun – and warns the U.S. what will happen if it indulges in hubris and pushes too hard on President Trump’s “America First” rhetoric.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Intro
(02:01) - Ukraine Updates - Will Russia negotiate?
(11:09) - Will Russia negotiate?
(19:00) - The Geopolitical Landscape: Turkey and Germany's Role
(28:06) - The U.S. and China's influence in Eurasia
(33:36) - The future of Transatlantic relations
(39:35) - The future of Europe's role in global politics
(44:51) - Peace > War
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Referenced in the Show:
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
CI Site: cognitive.investments
Subscribe to the Newsletter: bit.ly/weekly-sitrep
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
Cognitive Investments is an investment advisory firm, founded in 2019 that provides clients with a nuanced array of financial planning, investment advisory and wealth management services. We aim to grow both our clients’ material wealth (i.e. their existing financial assets) and their human wealth (i.e. their ability to make good strategic decisions for their business, family, and career).
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This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcript
Hello, listeners.
Speaker A:Welcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.
Speaker A:I am rejoined by Jacek Bartoszak on the podcast.
Speaker A:He is the founder of Strategy and Future, one of the most insightful geopolitical analysts in Poland.
Speaker A:And for my money, that is out there in the world.
Speaker A:And also I hope Jacek won't find if I won't mind if I claim him as a friend as well.
Speaker A:I think that looks better on me than anyone else.
Speaker A:So thank you, Jacek, for coming on.
Speaker A:Our schedules were really mismatched and I actually.
Speaker A:I blew it.
Speaker A:I actually forgot to show up for our first recording here, and Yatsik still consented to get on the show with me and record.
Speaker A:So thank you, Jacek, for that.
Speaker A:Listeners, if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast, you can email me@jacobspokeadvisory IO or jacobognitive investments or jacobacobshabiro.com or you can find me on Twitter.
Speaker A:Anything else?
Speaker A:Also, Jacek is working on an interesting thing called Play of Battle.
Speaker A:It's a video game that's tied to things around geopolitics.
Speaker A:If that's something that interests you, Google it.
Speaker A:It's interesting what they're doing, just from a sort of intellectual perspective.
Speaker A:And if you want to hear more about that, too, we can also talk about that, too.
Speaker A:Enough from me.
Speaker A:Onto the conversation with Jacek.
Speaker A:Cheers and see you out there.
Speaker A:All right, listeners, I want you to know the dedication of both of the guests who are gonna be on this podcast.
Speaker A:First of all, so we're recording on a Sunday.
Speaker A:Jacek is literally in a mall.
Speaker A:His children are watching him do this from across from him.
Speaker A:My children are running around upstairs.
Speaker A:I can hear them, their mother trying to get them down for a nap.
Speaker A:So we care about you that much that we're getting together to record.
Speaker A:Jacek, it's really nice to see you.
Speaker A:The beard is looking great, by the way.
Speaker A:Every time I see you, the beard looks more and more regal, and I feel more and more insecure about myself.
Speaker B:Thanks.
Speaker B:Thanks for the compliments.
Speaker B:Thanks for, you know, having me on your show.
Speaker B:My beard is controversial in my family, so, you know, depending on which daughter I'm asking, they have, you know, various opinions, so it changes.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think one of the worst moments of my wife's life was when I tried a mustache for about a week.
Speaker A:I think that was all.
Speaker A:All she was about willing to have for.
Speaker A:But anyway, people are not here to listen to us talk about our facial hair.
Speaker A:Jacek, where should we start?
Speaker A:Do you want to Start with.
Speaker A:I guess we should start with the Russia, Ukraine war.
Speaker A:And about your perspective of where it's at.
Speaker A:It seems to me that the war is not going particularly well for Ukraine.
Speaker A:It's also not going particularly well for Russia.
Speaker A:It seems like both sides are having economic problems, both sides are having manpower problems.
Speaker A:The Russians are not able to break through Ukrainian defenses at the front line, but the Russians are also not able to take back land in Kursk, and Ukrainian operations continue there.
Speaker A:And Western capacity, it's been slow for weapons and things like that to get to the Ukrainians, but slowly but surely they're building up stockpiles and sort of making their way there.
Speaker A:The last time you were on the podcast, I think you were relatively pessimistic about the situation from Ukraine's point of view.
Speaker A:Where are you right now, sort of emotionally and analytically regarding the nuts and bolts of the conflict?
Speaker B:Yeah, okay.
Speaker B:In terms of military affairs, you know, the war witnessed a major breakthrough in and how in the conduct of war, which should be lesson for everybody, including the United States force, you know, But I think we will not dive deep into it unless you say otherwise.
Speaker B:And this brought us to the kind of a stalemate of the death of the maneuver for the time being.
Speaker B:You know, it has happened many times throughout the history.
Speaker B:But because war is not the kinetic exchange only war is a political struggle.
Speaker B:And war is the using the modern language is the forced exchange of information.
Speaker B:Who's winning politically, so to speak, okay?
Speaker B:Because the parties didn't agree at the beginning who has an upper hand, and they had to come to this exchange of information, genetic information, by automatic means.
Speaker B:And what I'm saying is, strategically, Russia has shaped the confrontation in a way that it is winning, okay?
Speaker B:Even if it's not winning on the battlefield per se, because it seize lands, it shaped the confrontation in domains where Russia has an upper hand in.
Speaker B:In manpower and in production capability and in money and result, political result, and how it kind of commits forces to the front, okay?
Speaker B:Also, Russia shaped the economic environment in a way that despite problems, it has not suffered as much as the west, though, due to sanctions.
Speaker B:And this is the very important lesson for all of us.
Speaker B:So this number one, the second thing is that it may change in the long run.
Speaker B:The current situation in the battlefield is that Ukrainians are not interested in the truce now.
Speaker B:At the same time, they are not interested in attrition the forces now because they have shortages of manpower and politically, because the people don't want to serve anymore.
Speaker B:And also intellectually, they don't want to commit younger soldiers below 25 because they are running out of people.
Speaker B:They don't want to lose the future and their rights.
Speaker B:And basically for the American audience now Eastern Europeans and tro.
Speaker B:Eastern Europeans react with anger at the words of national advisor from what's his name, Wolf.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That they should be committing more younger troops to front to stabilize if they want to have democracy.
Speaker B:I would recommend the Americans to really be more shy about this saying that maybe the Americans should commit more younger generation to the battlefield in Europe if they want to keep their primacy and agency in Europe.
Speaker B:And this is the mood in Europe.
Speaker B:So that people in the US should know that.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:It's, it's not one way street if you want to have privacy.
Speaker B:And this is exactly what Trump heard from the I have the leader.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In her podcast what the Germans are telling the American you can have the empire and also don't have the cost in the empire.
Speaker B:You can't, you can't have a cake and eat a cake.
Speaker B:Okay, so we will talk about later.
Speaker B:But the Ukrainians are not interested in truce now.
Speaker B:But they are not also interested in committing forces at the same time they are waging war on someone else's money but on their own blood.
Speaker B:The Russians are running the conducting the war on their own blood and with their own money.
Speaker B:So the Ukrainians are believing that later this year and next year the the Russians will really suffer economically more and they will more prone to have this ceasefire because the Ukrainians don't believe in permanent ceasefire.
Speaker B:If in Kiev there is a government that really want one would want to have the independent Ukraine, then the interests lead to inevitable conflict with Russia.
Speaker B:Even if there is no Donbas and Crimea within this new Ukraine.
Speaker B:I think the most important point part will be this kind of truce or ceasefire if negotiated, we can discuss what conditions of those would be and who will win the elections that will be coming in Ukraine.
Speaker B:I think there is a great chance that for the first time ever the winning people will be the people who really devoted their fate to the fate of Ukraine and its militaries.
Speaker B:Military intelligence.
Speaker B:Military itself.
Speaker B:New industry.
Speaker B:Military industry that rule around UAV drones, cruise missiles that are legion now in the Ukraine industry.
Speaker B:And this will be new political elite and new money in Ukraine that will win.
Speaker B:Especially that 1 million soldiers, a few hundred thousand crippled soldiers injured, wounded and crippled.
Speaker B:And their families will vote and they know who was with them in the field.
Speaker B:And this is critically important.
Speaker B:Even if they lose the war militarily and losing Donbas in crania it's critically important for them to win and create the conditions for the victory of peace.
Speaker B:You know, it happens, you may lose war, but like West Germany won the peace, sort of in Japan, you know, even China lost the war to Vietnam.
Speaker B:But Central Ping had this good excuse to get rid of conservative elements and, you know, towards the reforms.
Speaker B:You can sometimes lose the war, but win the peace.
Speaker B:If there are some political conditions fulfilled.
Speaker B:And all those new people, I think, will want to deregulate the Ukraine economy with this kind of a shiny new hell in Europe because they have good reasons to believe that this is the case.
Speaker B:They will have the modern military, they.
Speaker B:In terms of resources like titanium, uranium, the lithium they have in the west.
Speaker B:They have the.
Speaker B:I think, according to my knowledge, they have the largest deposits of those minerals that you need for modern economies, even if the Donbas and Crimea are off.
Speaker B:And I think this will be the political plan in frame.
Speaker B:And those people will also reach out to Poland to create the intermarium, because they need Poland for security balance, since any kind of reform towards that direction will be met with resistance from Russia and the war may be reopened, reignited.
Speaker B:If there is no proper conventional balance of forces that keeps Russia in check.
Speaker B:So Poland will be needed.
Speaker B:So that's the plan.
Speaker B:That's what might happen.
Speaker B:But of course, it will be very difficult to bring Russians to the negotiating table now if United States are not going to grant concessions to Russia, major concessions, because Russians are thinking they are winning a war.
Speaker B:And it's not only about Ukraine, it's about the security architecture in Europe and the political status of my, for example, beautiful country.
Speaker B:As always, a major war in the intermarium, you know, decides the fate of the intermarian nations.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So that's my rough assessment.
Speaker B:You may go into detail.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, we'll be lucky if we get through all of the implications there.
Speaker A:But I think you've already hit on the key thing, which is if Russia is winning in the current context, there's no reason for them to come to a negotiating table.
Speaker A:Especially if the plan is for Ukraine to win the peace, as you put it so eloquently, because if Western Ukraine is just going to become, okay, so maybe they won't officially be in NATO, but if they become the Israel of the European Union, sort of outside all the technical organizations, but armed to the teeth and given all of the technology and all of the support and, you know, Russia can't push any further, that's a net loss for Russia.
Speaker A:So you have to think that Russia's key goal is going to be break the Ukrainian front lines.
Speaker A:And on the opposite side, no matter what's happening politically in Ukraine, Ukraine has to hold the front lines.
Speaker A:They can't, they can't break.
Speaker A:And they have fewer men and fewer, you know, less equipment than Russia does.
Speaker A:So what, what brings Russia to the table?
Speaker A:I can't imagine it's gonna be President Trump threatening tariffs and other economic damage.
Speaker A:As one Russian analyst out on this podcast to me a year ago, we're Russian, we can out suffer all of you.
Speaker A:You think we need the French wine and the baguettes and all the fancy stuff, like we're fine.
Speaker A:Obviously that was a propaganda line, but still, like the Russians are pretty good at suffering.
Speaker A:So how do you sort of think about that balance?
Speaker B:First of all, I think that the sanctions backfire.
Speaker B:U.S.
Speaker B:sanctions backfired.
Speaker B:I know it's not very popular opinion across United States to realize that the United States is not calling the shots anymore in the world in terms of the economic development.
Speaker B:And this is the first time since, you know, record memory and maybe the first time in 500 years of the west dominating the economy, Atlantic zone of economy and the capitalism.
Speaker B:I think the sanctions actually didn't make Russia suffer that much.
Speaker B:Plus it created vulnerabilities for the United States.
Speaker B:So plus it's, they're leaky.
Speaker B:I mean they don't work as much.
Speaker B:So what I think is at first Trump will be upset.
Speaker B:He will try to escalate vertically by providing the Ukraine with more weapons and munitions.
Speaker B:Then he will press Ukrainians to commit more younger fresh troops to the front line, which will be reluctantly, the Ukrainians will be cheating because they don't want to do it.
Speaker B:And so there will be frustration in the US Administration that there is no American agency in Eurasia.
Speaker B:So then there will be an idea to impose.
Speaker B:So far the tariffs were so called treasure sanctions as opposed to admiralty sanctions.
Speaker B:So sanctions on flows.
Speaker B:I mean how do you operate on the world markets trading exchange systems and the neuralty sanctions is blockade or quarantine blockade of physical movement in the Baltic and in Duke.
Speaker B:Probably that's why Trump suggested this Greenland deal, to make Russians think that, you know what, maybe we'll come back to this, you know, concept of blockading the GUK and our NATO friends will blockade the Baltic shipment for good.
Speaker B:And this way we can also surround the tining of enclave and cut it off from the Baltic states and from the Baltic.
Speaker B:And I think it's in the cards this year.
Speaker B:Okay, let me remind you that he's negotiating with Danes about his Greenland.
Speaker B:And it's Denmark that is controlling the Baltic Strait also, which is a critical choke point for the Russian leaky black, you know, smuggling us.
Speaker B:So I think that there will be a horizontal escalation and the Russians will feel.
Speaker B:It's called major escalation, Major escalation.
Speaker B:So they will try to, you know, they will.
Speaker B:They, I think they will.
Speaker B:They might initiate the pedophilia campaign of hybrid warfare against Baltic states in Poland.
Speaker B:Because, you know, Jacob, my opinion is that and I it's.
Speaker B:I wrote a book which will be released next month about it.
Speaker B:It's called the Eyes Wide Open Poland Strategy for the World War.
Speaker B: in a world war since February: Speaker B:It's a systemic war more or less in every century since Christopher Columbus set sail for, you know, the new World.
Speaker B:And since the ineption of capitalism, there is a systemic war because the imbalances of interest resulting from the imbalances of productivity end up in, you know, this, all this concept of Wallerstein and you know, but another guys like Napoleonic wars, wasted war, first and second world wars were Islamic wars.
Speaker B:Seven years war was semic war and even 30 years war was semic war about this the shape of edifice of capitalism.
Speaker B:So we are in the next one.
Speaker B: e sanctions on China in March: Speaker B:So United States decided to abolish it.
Speaker B:So right now we are in the, you know, free ride and the system is not made.
Speaker B:So there's a chaotic system.
Speaker B:Luckily we have all nuclear weapons.
Speaker B:So it creates a cushion that people, decision makers need to control the escalation ladder and the moves within this escalation ladder.
Speaker B:They can't resort to the nuclear exchange to impose politically on others.
Speaker B:So they need to and the American, the American policy towards war in Ukraine was an epitome of this trying to control the escalation horizontally and vertically.
Speaker B:And also, you know, not to my troops.
Speaker B:And still it was about hood sets the rules of, of security architecture and exchange, you know, in the world.
Speaker B:So this is exactly.
Speaker B:So we are in the war.
Speaker B:We are in the war.
Speaker B:And it's just the opening salvo of this war and war in Ukraine is just the opening salvo.
Speaker B:Also I think that the decisions that Trump is making now or is promising to make are, you know, I mean, consequences of being in war of what, what the edifice of the world capitalism should be like.
Speaker B:With all consequences.
Speaker B:There are some front lines, like somewhere in the east here and there, but basically there is a major reshuffle of productivity forces, innovation forces, markets, correlation of agencies, and so on and so forth.
Speaker B:So that's my opinion.
Speaker A:Yeah, Pippa Malmgren is the first one I saw sort of develop the World War three thesis.
Speaker A:And maybe I would quibble with you on a semantic basis, which is just.
Speaker A:I agree with you that that's trajectory that we're headed.
Speaker A:It seems to me, and like you said, you said we're in the early stages.
Speaker A:So are the early stages of a world war actually a world war?
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker A: I sort of view us as like the: Speaker A:Before we get to your beautiful country, and I want to get to your beautiful country.
Speaker A:It seems to me that the two countries that are the.
Speaker A:The two swing players here more than any, and maybe I should throw China in here, but it seems to me Germany, with its elections in March is a big sort of point of inflection.
Speaker A:And then Turkey is just sitting there in the Mediterranean.
Speaker A:They're taking advantage of Assad falling, they're pushing the Russians on different levels, but also engaging with the Russians.
Speaker A:If the intermarium is going to fly, probably Turkey needs to be there.
Speaker A:And Turkey, I think, could go a long way towards helping stabilize the Ukrainian front if they really wanted to.
Speaker A:So talk to me about your views of both Germany and Turkey.
Speaker A:Am I looking to the wrong place for inflection or do you think that there's some meat there?
Speaker B:And let's start with Turkey, which is easier.
Speaker B:The Turkish leaders properly predicted the demise of the American leadership.
Speaker B:American premises.
Speaker B:I'm not saying that the recipes they proposed were good for Turkey, but I think they acted and believed that there was no other way because the chaos is coming.
Speaker B:So they prepare themselves.
Speaker B:They prepare the maneuver, maneuverability.
Speaker B:They prepare the armed forces, even in industry, to be independent from the Americans.
Speaker B:And now they, you know, they yield fruits on that.
Speaker B:And also they do it for security reasons.
Speaker B:There is a vacuum of power following the Mesopotamian wars where United States was involved.
Speaker B:And, you know, in order to be secure, you need to create buffer zones and so on.
Speaker B:So they're trying to survive.
Speaker B:They're trying to survive.
Speaker B:They also are in the middle between Eurasia, Eurasian Landmass and Europe.
Speaker B:I think they are of the opinion that China's rise is inevitable, that the U.S.
Speaker B:i heard it from the Turkish ambassador in Warsaw many years ago.
Speaker B:Yassik, your beautiful country.
Speaker B:We had so many words with you.
Speaker B:You know, that's what he said.
Speaker B:Because we, you know, for your American audience, we.
Speaker B:We had the empire, Polish polyhem Commonwealth, and there's Turkish empire.
Speaker B:And we were fighting over Ukraine, basically, and it's like sea basin, so for many, many like two or three centuries.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But we both lost because Russia took, you know, defeated both of us.
Speaker B:But he said to me, what's going on with you guys?
Speaker B:You used to have an empire.
Speaker B:Don't you see that the American power is ebbing away from Eurasia?
Speaker B:And he used those exact words in English.
Speaker B:We spoke in English.
Speaker B:US Power is ebbing away from Eurasia.
Speaker B:The chaos is coming.
Speaker B:Don't you see it?
Speaker B:Aren't you getting ready?
Speaker B:It was even like five, six years ago he said that for me and more.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:So what I'm saying is that Poland didn't get ready as much as Turkey did.
Speaker B:You know, in its own realm, it's no, you know, field of choice.
Speaker B:And what I'm.
Speaker B:What I think is also that Trump willingly or unwillingly by his decisions with respect to Israel and the war that is right now happening, you know, in Israel and around is, okay, maybe it will be very controversial, but, you know, for the last 20 years, the Americans were trying to contain.
Speaker B:Contain Israel in a way that, you know, don't attack Iran without a real kind of, you know, involvement.
Speaker B:And Americans were paying the political currency for that, you know, because Israeli Israel managed to be quite independent, you know, to behave as it wished.
Speaker B:And Trump, by fully supporting now Israel and even committing more than Israel officially wants, I think has a great chance.
Speaker B:And it will be very.
Speaker B:What I'm saying will be very pervert in a way, you know, because Israel always tended its own interest and not American interest in the Middle east, starting from the Cold War.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Even, you know, military didn't cooperate that much.
Speaker B:There was no contingency planning combined, you know, and.
Speaker B:And now, because American power is ebbing away from Middle East, Americans don't have the power and don't want to commit that much to the secondary or even tertiary theater.
Speaker B:By emboldening Israeli to do what it wants militarily, it may pass the burden of escalation and running the show to Israelis, which is a burden.
Speaker B:You can't say, you know, what US is behind us and we don't care.
Speaker B:Now, Israeli may be trying to clear its own balance on behalf of Americans.
Speaker B:So I wouldn't Be that happy if I were Israelis, you know, Trump's allowing everything because it comes with price.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I don't know my English is good enough to convey what I'm saying.
Speaker A:I would say that Trump is writing checks that the Israelis will have to cash and that they don't necessarily want to be the ones to do it or have the capability to do it.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:Although it seems like, you know, freedom of maneuver, but life is more complicated, kind of.
Speaker B:This is my.
Speaker B:That this may end up like that and Israel will be running US politics.
Speaker B:I mean, it will be for the benefit of United States policy in the Middle east because Americans will be digging the petrol, the, the oil and the gas.
Speaker B:It will not need malice at all.
Speaker B:And it will be interested in prices that America dictates.
Speaker B:And America could instrumentalize Israel to create either peace or war in the process without US presence.
Speaker B:So the roles may reverse.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because the structure of relationship is changing due to many other aspects like, you know, the new economic policy.
Speaker B:Because United States doesn't want to run the policy of primacy anymore and maintain the proper behavior of other countries.
Speaker B:It may resort to offshore balancing from distance.
Speaker B:And it's good enough for this new economic policy in a post Bretton woods system where everything will be reshuffled.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it won't work because Turkey is there.
Speaker A:Like this is.
Speaker A:This is Turkey's game to call.
Speaker A:Like the US and Israel are dreaming if they think together they're going to call the shots if the US is not completely committed.
Speaker B:I know, I know, I know.
Speaker B:I don't feel like utmost expert in the Middle East.
Speaker B:I just shared my opinion on that.
Speaker B:But I hope I maintain my modesty in saying that I don't.
Speaker B:I'm not top notch expert on Middle East.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Speaking of Germany.
Speaker B:This is fun.
Speaker B:This is fun.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:I love asking Polish friends about Germany.
Speaker A:It's one of my favorite pastimes.
Speaker B:This is fun on one hand.
Speaker B:I mean, it's a complicated matter.
Speaker B:I always tell my.
Speaker B:Structurally, structurally the.
Speaker B:The German economy would choose the continental cooperation with China if it were free to decide and if the.
Speaker B:If the German business were free to decide.
Speaker B:Politicians are not always like that.
Speaker B:The new Chancellor Mertz is a pro Atlantis.
Speaker B:But you will have pressure on business.
Speaker B:Energy prices are rising.
Speaker B:The coupling from China would kill Germany.
Speaker B:You know, the new American trade policy may kill the German social contract.
Speaker B:They are in chaos.
Speaker B:They don't know what to do.
Speaker B:But if Trump exaggerates with sanctions against Europe If Trump exaggerates sanctions with trade Europe, the Western Europeans will make a big trade deal with China, mark my words.
Speaker B:Because there will no other way out.
Speaker B:And we will have peace in Eurasia, and the US Will be gone from Eurasia and it will have its own Galapagos system in America, because America's autonomy is smaller than Eurasia, many times smaller.
Speaker B:Americans don't realize that controlling the financial system is not everything.
Speaker B:And this is exactly the systemic war between the financial system, you know, power and the productivity.
Speaker B:Power.
Speaker B:And, you know, speaking of Marx and so on, you know, and the German economy structurally tends to be with China.
Speaker B:And Trump cannot overdo it.
Speaker B:Overdo sanctions.
Speaker B:That's my advice to Donald Trump.
Speaker B:Because Europeans will move to autonomy, and autonomy means keeping the globalization open with China and Europe and having a big trade deal.
Speaker B:And Chinese will give us concessions to survive 10 or 20 years because it will be in their interest.
Speaker B:Americans cannot overdo it.
Speaker A:Will those concessions include telling Russia to stop the war or else?
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Because the Chinese control Russia, so they will be interested in peace.
Speaker B:We will have peace like that without the United States.
Speaker B:And I'm telling you that the French and Germans are thinking about it along those lines.
Speaker A:Okay, and what about your beautiful country?
Speaker A:What are they thinking about?
Speaker B:Yeah, but we have not.
Speaker B:We have.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:And what can we say?
Speaker B:What can we say?
Speaker B:My.
Speaker B:Of course, my strategy in future.
Speaker B:We had this policy of creating the military that is capable of.
Speaker B:How do you say it in English?
Speaker B:Uncontrollable escalation without the US or European, you know, agency in it, so that we have the military who can terminate and.
Speaker B:And start the wars.
Speaker B:And then to the Mario.
Speaker B:So then we need to be reckoned with.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In the process.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But our beautiful politicians are sons of the geopolitical pause of American leadership.
Speaker B:So they act within the norms, as opposed to Turks, within the norms of appropriateness.
Speaker B:So for, you know, three, 30 years, you couldn't talk about that.
Speaker B:So when I started talking about like five years ago, I was a revolutionary.
Speaker B:Now it's more or less mainstream already that we need to have deep strike on our own targeting capability to annihilate Kaliningrad enclave.
Speaker B:And you know, but still, it's our politicians anathema for our politicians.
Speaker B:But, you know, otherwise we'll need to follow.
Speaker B:We are in Europe.
Speaker B:We are in Europe, in the European macroeconomic system.
Speaker B:We will need to adhere to it no matter what.
Speaker B:This is what's going to happen.
Speaker B:So the Americans shouldn't believe that we will follow Them, if they go to offshore balancing, and they will destabilize the systems.
Speaker A:Well, let me just underscore that.
Speaker A:So, I mean, if France and Germany decide to take this hypothetical deal that you're talking about, you don't think there's a space for Poland to be a leader in Eastern Europe, to push back against that and to leverage maybe relationships with the uk, The United States?
Speaker A:States?
Speaker B:No, no chance.
Speaker B:Because our trade, trade policy is dictated by Brussels.
Speaker B:They send money, they collect it.
Speaker B:I mean, they control our corporate system.
Speaker B:AO is a, is a monster.
Speaker B:You know, they, they control, they control things.
Speaker B:They control things.
Speaker B:I mean, I, I, I don't, I don't want, of course politicians will be telling the American.
Speaker B:That's why I'm saying Americans cannot overdo the sanctions.
Speaker B:They don't, they shouldn't believe that we are a Trojan horse that will follow the Americans especially that the Americans do not propose incentives for the Allies these days.
Speaker B:The new era of American greatness is not proposing incentives for the Allies.
Speaker B:This is exactly the opposite from the times of the Cold War, Jacob.
Speaker B:And even on top of that, the American economy is much weaker relatively to the rest of the world as it was during the Cold War.
Speaker B:And structurally, American economy is not innovative enough relative to the rest of the world.
Speaker B:Americans may not have understanding of this.
Speaker A:Yeah, they probably don't.
Speaker A:I mean, yeah, I mean, we are still a center of research and innovation.
Speaker A:We don't make things anymore.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And it's about production.
Speaker B:It's a, it's a mutiny of production folks against US financial power and structural power.
Speaker B:Basically.
Speaker B:This is exactly what's happening in the world.
Speaker B:And I'm not talking about us because we want the US to maintain primacy.
Speaker B:But this is exactly what Germans are saying they produce.
Speaker B:What a heck.
Speaker B:Who controls the profits from the production?
Speaker B:The system says it's the US for example.
Speaker B:And Trump is lambasting the Germans.
Speaker B:You know why, guys?
Speaker B:You abused us.
Speaker B:They say, is he crazy?
Speaker B:The American primacy abused us because who control the exchange rates?
Speaker B:Who controls the production of US Dollars?
Speaker B:Who controls the yields in the system?
Speaker B:It's the U.S.
Speaker B:so basically you ripped us, guys.
Speaker B:That's what Europeans playing in Western Europe.
Speaker A:Yeah, I can hear in your voice.
Speaker A:No, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker B:No, I just wanted to say that I'm also, you know, upping the game a little bit for Europe, probably American mostly audience to understand.
Speaker B:Don't overdo.
Speaker B:If you want to keep this transatlantic community, don't overdo with the sanctions because basically, guys, you were beneficiaries of the system.
Speaker B:It's not that you were abused like Trump claims.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:It was your empire.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And you benefited from that.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I can hear in your voice what you think is going to happen, but let's say that, that the Americans listen to you and they say, we heard Yatsik on the Jacob Shapiro podcast.
Speaker A:We are not going to overdo the sanctions.
Speaker A:How does that change the scenario that you've just painted?
Speaker B:Because if it's overdone, the Europeans will follow United States will follow the United States.
Speaker B:Especially if the United States is not confrontationally against China and is putting a lot of money in innovation to create a new economy, as you know, as Mask is claiming and Thiel is claiming, and this is interesting.
Speaker B:So less war, less confrontation, less trade war, and more innovation, since you are such a beacon of democracy and such an innovative country.
Speaker B:So prove it and we will follow.
Speaker B:And more incentives for us.
Speaker B:We feel culturally the same family, but we need to have money for survival and nice sunshine on our Mediterranean.
Speaker B:We will not change our lifestyle, that we have a beautiful life in Europe.
Speaker B:So we will do everything to keep our life.
Speaker B:And Chinese will propose better proposition than you guys if you, you know, I mean, and without Europe, US is us is not the United States, as some claim.
Speaker B:And, and you know, I mean, I know Europe is weak.
Speaker B:I know, but it's not weak.
Speaker B:All in all, Jacob, Europe has been the centerpiece of everything in the world.
Speaker B:It has huge potential.
Speaker A:Let's say, though, that the US does that.
Speaker A:Let's say, okay, less war, more peace, more innovation.
Speaker A:Musk is going to stop insulting you guys and actually start working with you guys.
Speaker A:We're going to start pouring money and ideas and technology and things like that.
Speaker A:Does China go along with that?
Speaker A:And is there an isolation of Russia in this context?
Speaker A:Or does it become a new iron curtain between the US and Europe on one side and Russia and China and this Eurasian thing on the other, and India sort of of sitting there twiddling its thumbs trying to decide what's going to happen.
Speaker B:Maybe, but.
Speaker B:But I think with Europe on the US Side, we will win.
Speaker B:We will win.
Speaker B:We will win in time and within the American power of capital accumulation, innovation, we will win.
Speaker B:Maybe we win in space because of new economies and the multiplying effect, but we will win.
Speaker B:Without Europe, you will not win.
Speaker B:As simple as.
Speaker B:And the Chinese will pay huge price to make sure that Euro Europe is not disappointing from them.
Speaker B:And the Germans and French will be playing this card against United States.
Speaker B:And United States leaders shouldn't be in hubris thinking that without incentives, Europe will follow in line because of security issues.
Speaker B:The western Europeans don't give about securities because they are not threatened by Russia.
Speaker B:And Russia proposed them a good deal.
Speaker B:Ukrainians ruined it defending here and Poles don't want it.
Speaker B:But western Europeans, they don't feel threatened by Russia.
Speaker B:They don't.
Speaker B:That's why they, you know, they.
Speaker B:They will not rise, raise up to 5%.
Speaker B:They don't need to do it.
Speaker B:It's not Cold War.
Speaker B:And they don't want to go to war with China.
Speaker B:They want to have trade world China.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is there any independent role for the British in the context of the system as you're describing, or are they just ancillary to the United States at this point?
Speaker B:That's cool.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Look what happened to Great Britain after Brexit.
Speaker B:They are not existent.
Speaker B:They are completely gone from the map.
Speaker B:They have no agency.
Speaker B:They have no military altogether.
Speaker B:I mean, for the land war in Europe, I mean, what future do they have without the continent?
Speaker A:I know about some of these.
Speaker B:I'm disappointing you because suddenly Jeffrey sounds like you know, a guy from Europe.
Speaker B:But this is exactly the times that are ahead of us.
Speaker A:You were more glum the last time you came on the podcast.
Speaker A:Number two, I haven't even told you yet.
Speaker A:Like I think I mentioned to this to you last time off the air, but I discovered via.
Speaker A:I was cleaning up my dad's house.
Speaker A:I found some papers that made me eligible for Polish citizenship.
Speaker A:So I have filed my paperwork to be your countrymen.
Speaker A:I'm just waiting for your Foreign Ministry the 18 months.
Speaker A:It's ridiculous.
Speaker A:Can we expedite the process here a little bit?
Speaker A:So no, I'm happy to hear the European and you stand up for it.
Speaker A:And I've been calling from an investment perspective that Europe was going to outperform for quite some time precisely because I thought that all the squabbling and all the bureaucracy and all the things that have always held it back, like, I get why it held it back because there was no real threat.
Speaker A:But now the choices are oblivion or rise.
Speaker A:And I think that Europe is going to choose to rise.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:But you tell me if I'm wrong.
Speaker B:Yeah, I have no idea.
Speaker B:The Brussels bureaucracy is the worst thing.
Speaker B:And all those people living in the.
Speaker B:We used to have those empires.
Speaker B:There was always money, you know, they got used to it.
Speaker B:So this is a problem of bureaucracy in Brussels.
Speaker B:But the Europeans in the past have behaved like that, you know, often.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:We are such a nice, peaceful People.
Speaker B:But, you know, when things come ripe, Europe makes decisions and sometimes cruel decisions.
Speaker B:So I believe that if it were only about Macron, he would already have made this decision to make a big deal with China.
Speaker A:Oh, yes.
Speaker A:The greatest tragic flaw of Macron is that he had all the ideas and none of the political ability to actually get it done.
Speaker A:But from a strategic perspective, he's the one.
Speaker A:He's the only one thinking long term right now.
Speaker A:He could use some company.
Speaker B:This is the tragedy of Europe.
Speaker B:Of course, Americans are playing this fiddle well.
Speaker B:But again, if Trump overdoes with sanctions, Europeans will be in a survival mode and they will push for Eurasia.
Speaker A:Are there any countries around the periphery that you think about particularly?
Speaker A:We already discussed Turkey a little bit, but there's India.
Speaker A:There are countries like Japan.
Speaker A:North Korea has troops on the ground in Ukraine.
Speaker A:We could talk about.
Speaker A:We could talk about that.
Speaker A:Brazil is there.
Speaker A:Are any of these sort of peripheral countries important to the narrative that you're crafting here?
Speaker A:Or do you think that they're really on the outside looking in at this point and that they will align based on how the Olympians treat each other?
Speaker B:India is benefiting greatly from systemic war, buying with their own currency from Russia that is on sale off, and they don't have access to US Dollars to produce their own things.
Speaker B:And they also smuggle this oil to Europe.
Speaker B:They refineries.
Speaker B:The global south is benefiting greatly from the war.
Speaker B:They want to change.
Speaker B:They don't want the west to be on the top anymore, and they benefit greatly from war.
Speaker B:So I think the time when the capitalism was only the Western concept and other things were perfect colonies producing.
Speaker B:The items that we choose them to produce are gone.
Speaker B:The Chinese are providing the capital goods to them, building their, you know, capabilities.
Speaker B:This will be a long, systemic war this time around.
Speaker B:We may lose.
Speaker B:We may really lose.
Speaker B:We may lose.
Speaker A:What does that look like?
Speaker A:Does that look like Chinese hegemony?
Speaker A:Does that look like.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:A new system of balance of power, like following the Vienna concept, where US Will be a great power in North America with their de Lago system of economy and cars, which will be not the most modern.
Speaker B:They will be a big country and also sitting on a negotiating table.
Speaker B:And there will be, you know, China and Russia and maybe some Europeans or Europe, and they will negotiate the new world trade system, which will be devoid of US dollar hegemony for sure.
Speaker B:There will be some probably bag, you know, some kind of reference.
Speaker B:The United States can print whatever it wants.
Speaker B:And, you know, and this will be a year Negotiation process.
Speaker B:And there will be a new system, you know, new system with no weaponization of US dollar and you know, the.
Speaker B:Maybe there will be no major big confrontation and landing in Normandy and stuff.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, but there will be a new system and.
Speaker B:And the United States will be just one of the pillars of the system if.
Speaker B:If United States decides to really kill Europe.
Speaker A:Poland also had an election last year and I think you've already answered this, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask.
Speaker A:I take it you see no real change in Polish strategy or Polish foreign policy as a result of the change in Poland's government, or is there more there than meets the eye?
Speaker B:Probably prime minister will be.
Speaker B:Both will be running the dual track.
Speaker B:Being close to us and being close to European consolidation should be the last one occur.
Speaker B:Start occurring.
Speaker B:But he's more into the European consolidation, although he understands that we have the security guarantees, you know, to be on the safe side.
Speaker B:But he.
Speaker B:If I.
Speaker B:If.
Speaker B:How you say in English, if times come comes to push, no shove or.
Speaker A:Push push, push comes to shove, comes to sh.
Speaker B:And he will choose Europe.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:What have I not asked you, Jacek?
Speaker A:Is there anything else we need to cover?
Speaker A:We covered a wide swath of things.
Speaker B:No, I think it's maybe shocking that shit shocking enough for some.
Speaker B:Some of the audience though.
Speaker B:What I just wanted to say is I believe that Elvis Colby will be running the US military strategy and he will shy away from confrontation in Western Pacific.
Speaker B:I hope he will shy away from deployment of nuclear capabilities in Taiwan.
Speaker B:I think he will go to the offshore balancing in Europe.
Speaker B:And I hope that my Polish leadership will understand the consequences and will build our own indigenous military independent from the US interactions so that we can survive in this new era.
Speaker A:It's funny you mentioned him.
Speaker A:I've been trying to get him on the podcast to no avail.
Speaker A:But I had someone on the podcast who was his professor or knew him particularly well at one point in time, and it sounds like Colby's actually pretty malleable.
Speaker A:He's had very defined sort of seasons of I think this or I think this or I think that in my life.
Speaker A:So I think he'll be pragmatic.
Speaker A:But to your point, I think, and I said this on the podcast last week, that Secretary of State Rubio's first little, you know, his first thing is like his call with Wang Yi on the Chinese side and endorsing the one China policy, his decisions to visit countries in the Western hemisphere first.
Speaker A:Like you are seeing some interesting first Moves here, not from the White House.
Speaker A:The White House is doing its own thing.
Speaker A:But the parallel structure that is actually running US foreign policy is actually maybe proceeding along the lines that you're hoping.
Speaker B:I would really like to avoid war that would involve China, which is a manufacturing hub of the world.
Speaker B:Can you imagine the Ukraine frontline if the Chinese decide to push their material with the warmth?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And that's actually a good place to end because we spoke, we began the podcast by talking about, you know, young people on the Ukrainian front lines defining the future of Ukraine and in some ways the future of Europe.
Speaker A:And for any person who, you know, for any feeling, thinking person who is trying to feel, at the same time, if you care about your children.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:You do not want a war between the west and China, like for all of our children's sake, that would be the worst.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And I believe, I believe in United States savvy decisions and believing that the access to cheap capital that is always a good feature quality of the United States and innovation drive will out compete China in the long run without risking a war between major powers that would simply cripple Eurasia and also United States and Poland in the process, because we are in this damn crash zone.
Speaker B:So this is exactly what I would like to.
Speaker B:To achieve.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, it sounds a bit trifle.
Speaker B:I mean, peace, peace and peace.
Speaker B:Bartoszak is talking about peace.
Speaker B:But we really need to navigate this chaotic moment of transitioning into this new system without kinetic war.
Speaker B:And with the hope that the Americans really could pull off this innovation revolution.
Speaker B:I really believe in it.
Speaker B:The space economy and stuff.
Speaker B:And even for the time being, they would need to give up on some agency in Eurasia for the sake of innovation, kind of.
Speaker B:I believe that there is a chance for that sort of.
Speaker A:Well, and to your point, I look forward to reading your book.
Speaker A:And we'll make sure that all the listeners get a link to it so they can read as well.
Speaker A:But there's something to be said for the fact that maybe there is always a war once a century that is systemic, precisely because the generation that fought the war and remembered how terrible it was eventually passes on.
Speaker A:And the new generation just inherited the fruits of all of that conflict and said, that's not so bad.
Speaker A:We gotta fight for the things that we have.
Speaker A:And that amnesia is a very difficult place to be right now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And ironically, I think one of the people who know I'll get some flack for this.
Speaker A:I think Xi Jinping is one of the realists in the system.
Speaker A:I think he grew up in a time of real hardship and he's actively trying to steer China away from that hardship.
Speaker A:I worry very much about what happens after him, but I think he's sort of the last of the Chinese guard that remembers how bad things were and how far China has come and doesn't want to risk it all, you know, on just some sort of.
Speaker B:And that makes a difference between him and Hitler, who was really, I mean, he was a gambler.
Speaker B:Swimming is not.
Speaker B:Plus China has such a great strategic depth in production and the resolve of the people that they can give.
Speaker B:Give concessions for free to stabilize the system.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:So even sometimes they can suffer from the US Sanctions without resorting to war or to, you know, equal steps to, to impress others that they're still in favor of the openness of.
Speaker B:Openness of the system, which is very good quality to try to keep this damn thing without escalation.
Speaker B:So maybe, I don't know.
Speaker B:This is a very complicated thing.
Speaker B:Probably the historical records are not very optimistic about this.
Speaker A:No, but they're not hopeless either.
Speaker A:And I mean, to your point, China has more in common with the United States than it does with almost any other country in the world right now.
Speaker A:There's no other country that understands where China is and also what China's resilience is going to be in a conflict than the United States, which is ironic.
Speaker A:All of the allies that the United States.
Speaker A:Yet the United States did not recruit these allies.
Speaker A:The United States conquered them.
Speaker A:I think we forget the United States conquered Germany and conquered Japan and remade them in their own image.
Speaker A:Like it's not, it's not a sort of a natural one to one basis.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Well, Yotzek, you're at the mall.
Speaker A:I'll let you get back to your kids and we'll put this out.
Speaker B:Always great to talk to you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
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