Hidden Forces
Get the edge with Hidden Forces where media entrepreneur and financial analyst Demetri Kofinas gives you access to the people and ideas that matter, so you can build financial security and always stay ahead of the curve.
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How to Win a Trade War | Chad Bown
<p >In Episode 491 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with trade economist Chad Bown—a former chief economist at the U.S. State Department, host of the popular Trade Talks podcast, and co-author of the recently published How to Win a Trade War—about what international policymakers, companies, and individuals need to understand about America's ongoing trade war, what victory would look like for the various parties involved in the conflict, and most importantly, how to win.</p> <p >The first hour lays the intellectual groundwork for understanding the modern trading system, examining the unique role played by the dollar and...
SpaceX, Europe's China Problem, and the Populist Backlash | Patrick Boyle
<p >In Episode 490 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Patrick Boyle—founder of the quantitative hedge fund Palomar Capital Management, professor of finance at King's College London and Queen Mary University of London, and host of Patrick Boyle on Finance—about the SpaceX IPO and what it reveals about the integrity of America's financial markets, the cult of personality filling the vacuum left by the nation's collapsing institutions, the commercial and fiscal challenges facing Europe's largest economies, and the housing crisis and generational wealth divide driving the appeal of left-wing populism across the developed world.</p> <p >The first hour...
How America Built A Durable Dollar Empire | Mary Bridges
<p >In Episode 489 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with historian Mary Bridges, a senior fellow at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator and author of Dollars and Dominion, about the origins of America's financial empire, the rise of the dollar from a second-rate currency to the most decentralized form of international money in world history, and what could accelerate or inhibit its continued domination.</p> <p >The first hour traces the origins of America's financial empire following the end of the Spanish-American War, when the dollar wasn't in the same league as the British pound and any American trader moving goods...
The Strong Do What They Can and Suffer What They Must | Jonathan Kirshner
<p >In Episode 488 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with political scientist Jonathan Kirshner about the origins of the Peloponnesian War, the enduring misreading of Thucydides, and what the arc of the Athenian empire on the eve of the Sicilian expedition reveals about the trajectory of American power in the twenty-first century.</p> <p >The first half traces the war's origins alongside Kirshner's central argument: that one of Thucydides' most frequently quoted passages has been enlisted to justify a worldview directly at odds with the lesson he meant to impart—that great powers are undone less by their rivals than by...
Iran's New Grand Strategy | Vali Nasr
<p >In Episode 487 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vali Nasr — professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, non-resident senior advisor in the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and author of Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History — about the argument that the Islamic Republic's conduct is driven far less by religious ideology than by national insecurity and historical grievance, how that reframing bears on US and Western policy and the nuclear negotiations, the forces that forged the Islamic Republic into what it is today, and the range of like...
Schrödinger's Strait and the New Energy Order | Daniel Yergin
<p >In Episode 486 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and leading authority on energy and geopolitics Daniel Yergin about the surprising resiliency of the global economy in the face of major supply disruptions and the consequences of the US war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz for global energy markets, energy security, electrification (including alternative energy generation and storage), and the balance of power in the Gulf.</p> <p >The conversation begins with a simple question: Why have energy market disruptions from both the Iran conflict and the Ukraine War proved far...
After the Fall: Reckoning with the End of History | Ian Shapiro
<p >In Episode 485 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yale political scientist Ian Shapiro—author of After the Fall—about how the widespread optimism of the post–Cold War era gave way so rapidly to the fractured, combative politics of today, why American unilateralism hollowed out the very international institutions the US claimed to champion, and what it will take for mainstream democratic parties to recover their legitimacy in the populist era.</p> <p >The first hour traces the critical decisions of the 1990s and early 2000s that Ian believes set this unraveling in motion: the choice to enlarge NATO e...
AI Governance and the National Security State | Dean W. Ball
<p >In Episode 484 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with AI policy researcher, writer, and incoming Head of Strategic Futures at OpenAI, Dean Ball, about the intellectual foundations of machine intelligence, the governance frameworks best suited to frontier AI, and what's at stake for society, the nation state, and the individual if we get this transition wrong.</p> <p >The first hour builds the philosophical scaffolding for the conversation to come — what intelligence actually is, how large language models learn, what they understand, and the broader historical thesis animating Dean's worldview: that we are not witnessing the birth of something en...
Ending the Iran War: a New Balance of Power in the Middle East | Hamidreza Azizi
<p >In Episode 483 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hamidreza Azizi — expert on Iranian foreign policy and international security, and author of The Axis of Resistance: Iran, Israel, and the Struggle for the Middle East — about the evolution of the US-Israeli war against Iran since the early weeks of Operation Epic Fury, the contours of the emerging peace process, and the broader transformation of the Middle Eastern order in its wake.</p> <p >The first hour picks up from Azizi's previous appearance and traces how the war has developed: the transformation of Iran's leadership following the assassination of Ali Kham...
Why History Can't Prepare Us for What's Coming | Alap Shah
<p >In Episode 482 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with hedge fund manager Alap Shah, co-author of "The Global Intelligence Crisis," a three-part essay series examining the economic, political, and social consequences of the dawn of artificial intelligence. Alap argues that AI is a categorically different technology from those that came before it, with profound implications for employment, the consumer economy, and democratic politics.</p> <p >The conversation explores why Alap believes the white-collar escape valve that absorbed displaced workers in past waves of automation is closing, the synthetic short on the US consumer economy embedded in today's AI trade...
