Mutually Assured Madness?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
06/05/25
•42m
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We live at a moment when everything we thought we could rely on to understand our world seems to be becoming unglued. Whether it's “uncharted waters” or the “break up of global order” or “the end of the American century,” at the least we are entering a period of change and chaos unlike anything that most of us have experienced in our lifetimes.
Whatever emerges is likely to be shaped in important ways by the evolving relationship between China and the United States. Those are the only two countries with the power, the ambition, the history, and the hubris to imagine themselves as great enough powers not to rule, perhaps, but to shape the new world. The problem, of course, is that no two countries—indeed, civilizations—could be more unlike each other. In the past, that set-up has been a formula for competition, even conflict, but as Henry Kissinger pointed out, such competition never before played out in a truly globalized world like that of the 21st century. The potential for catastrophe is obvious.
Avoiding such a worst-case scenario must begin with U.S. leaders and elites gaining a clear understanding of China—and Chinese leaders and elites doing the same with the United States.
So as an approximation, in this episode of New Thinking for a New World, we explore what all this looks like from an Asian perspective. Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute For Tomorrow, a Pan-Asian think tank based in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. He is deeply knowledgeable about both Great Powers and, as you will hear, believes that the Chinese are much more clear-eyed about how the world ought to work.
He may or may not be right: what do you think?
Previous Episode
Voodoo Economics: Tariffing Our Way to Prosperity or Doom?
May 30, 2025
•54m
President Trump has launched an unprecedented trade war, a radical overhaul of regulation, and a significant reshaping of U.S. fiscal policy. His purpose? To rewire global trade patterns and supply chains, recreate American manufacturing capacity, and change the essential structure of the U.S. and world economies. Can he succeed? How would success be measured? What are the risks it will fail --- and what would failure look like? How might all of this affect your job, your savings, your kids’ future prospects?
Those are almost impossible questions to answer, but Marco Annunziata is willing to try. He is former Chief Economist at General Electric, where he was also Head of Business Innovation Strategy. Listen as he and host Alan Stoga explore the upside as well as the downside of Trumponomics.
What do you think? Do you expect to be better off a year from now — at least in economic terms — because of what President Trump is doing?
Next Episode
Can Profit Help Save the Rainforest?
July 3, 2025
•25m
Global meetings on climate change almost always turn on two factors: political will and money. Even when the will is present, the money is not---and the result for decades has been the seemingly endless, accelerating slide toward a hotter, more volatile, climate.
Each year the big international climate meetings like the 2025 COP to be held in Belém, Brazil in November produce ever larger estimates of the financing needed to move away from fossil fuels, to compensate developing countries for loss and damage, to sustain biodiversity, etc. Each year governments are more and more stretched to meet growing social, defense, and endless other needs and less and less willing to even to pretend they can find the vast sums needed to slow, stop, or reverse the climate change spiral.
That only leaves the private sector as source of finance. However, many climate activists distrust private capital or seek to create conditions that deny businesses the opportunity to earn competitive returns on their investments. But without private money OR enough public money...there simply isn't enough money.
So, whether or not it's possible for a profit making enterprise to do the right things for the environment while making a decent return on their investment is critical to the future of the planet.
For insight, we went to the front lines of climate change, the Congo River Basin, one of the two "lungs" of the planet. SODEFOR is a forestry company in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that manages a million hectares of forest. They have a well documented record of operating legally and responsibly in the rainforest. Tânia Trindade plays a key role in managing the company's commitment to its shareholders as well as to the planet; she deeply believes that SODEFOR can do both.
Listen as she describes the challenges of operating in a complex environment as SODEFOR tries to do good and to do well at the same time.
What do you think: if the public sector won't find the resources to mitigate climate change, is there a viable role for the private sector? Or should we just give up?
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