Podcast
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer
Hosted by GZERO Media · EN
The United States will no longer play global policeman, and no one else wants the job. This is not a G-7 or a G-20 world. Welcome to the GZERO, a world made volatile by an intensifying international battle for power and influence. Every week on this podcast, Ian Bremmer will interview the world leaders and the thought leaders shaping our GZERO World.
53episodes
Episodes
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Winners and losers of the Iran war, with Kori Schake
3w ago00:21:23Summary readyOperation Epic Fury may be over, but the Iran war is far from resolved. On this week's episode, American Enterprise Institute Kori Schake joins Ian Bremmer to discuss the conflict's global ripple effects. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to commercial shipping, the US finds itself in what Schake calls a Mexican standoff, unable to force Iran's hand without dramatic escalation, and unwilling to accept the humiliation of ceding control of one of the world's most critical waterways. Meanwhile, Washington's two biggest rivals are gaining ground. Russia is cashing in on higher oil prices at a moment when the Kremlin was under mounting financial pressure over Ukraine. In Beijing, the Trump-Xi summit took place with the White House in a weakened position. The US needs China's help pressuring Iran, and Xi knows it. As Schake puts it: "It's an important measure of just how much President Trump has lost in starting the war in Iran and pursuing it in the way he has, that he's having to go appeal to China, America's most powerful potential adversary, for assistance in delivering us from a problem of our own creation." The costs for US allies are adding up too. Partner countries are absorbing economic pain they had no hand in creating, with energy prices squeezing European economies. Schake also raises a harder structural question: with Patriot systems redirected from Europe to the Gulf and munitions stocks stretched thin, the war has laid bare the limits of the American defense industrial base, and what it means for the credibility of US commitments around the world. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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How AI is transforming warfare and the US military with Katrina Manson
4w ago00:36:59Summary readyIan Bremmer's guest this week is author and Bloomberg defense tech reporter Katrina Manson, who spent years reporting on Project Maven for her new book on the Pentagon's AI push. The program launched in 2017 with a narrow mandate: use machine learning to process drone footage. It has since expanded into something far more ambitious. Autonomous weapons, drone swarming technology, and AI-assisted targeting are now central to how the Pentagon talks about modern warfare. The tech rollout is fast, but not reliable. Algorithms fail when the battlefield changes. The targeting process is accelerating to the point where operators are clicking through AI recommendations with little ability to question them. Manson says the military knows about AI's vulnerability "to sycophancy, to escalation, to bias and hallucination," and has not yet found adequate solutions. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Cuba's Trump standoff and economic crisis with Michael Bustamante
Apr 2500:24:50Summary readyHistorian Michael Bustamante joins Ian Bremmer to discuss Cuba's economic freefall, Trump's end game, and the hopes of Cuban Americans. This week, Ian Bremmer sits down with University of Miami historian and Cuba expert Michael Bustamante to make sense of the US-Cuba standoff. Cuba is in its worst crisis in 30 years, with basic necessities like fuel, water and food in short supply. Between one and two million Cubans have left in the past five years, the largest exodus in the island's history. And the opposition is too weak, too scattered, and too decimated by exile and imprisonment to be a real political alternative. Trump says 2026 is the year of liberation. But Bustamante argues the hard realities don't match his expectations, and a military invasion is unlikely. A purely economic deal, closer to Obama's 2015 opening, might suit Trump's deal-making instincts, and Cuba's government has signaled it could live with that too. But it would be a betrayal of everything Cuban Americans in South Florida have been promised. And for Marco Rubio, it would be a defining political problem. Together, Bustamante and Bremmer discuss the realistic outcomes -- will Trump get what he wants, and can the 80 years old communist regime survive this crisis? Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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North Korea's nuclear gamble pays off, with the WSJ's Jonathan Cheng
Apr 1800:28:13Summary readyNorth Korea has nuclear weapons, a succession plan hiding in plain sight, and a personality cult that has outlasted Stalin's and Mao's combined. Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau chief Jonathan Cheng argues the world keeps misreading Pyongyang because it insists on reducing it to an authoritarian state. North Korea is also a religious society, built on a divine rule centered on a "god-king", Cheng argues. Kim Jong Un, third generation leader of the Kim dynasty was able to consolidate his power while developping the nuclear arsenal his father had succesfully created. Now, with the Iran war reshaping global order, Kim's long bet on nuclear weapons looks like the smartest foreign policy call of the century. North Korea, long treated as a pariah nuclear nation on the international stage, seems to be taken seriously by top China has quietly dropped "denuclearization" from its own documents. Trump calls Kim Jong Un a friend. And Kim is already preparing a successor, his daughter, reportedly 12 years old, in plain sight. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Assessing the Iran War's "structural damage" with Harvard economist Gita Gopinath
Apr 1100:32:29Summary readyRising energy prices, higher inflation, and growing economic uncertainty — a Harvard economist says the fallout from the Iran war is already being felt. On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Harvard economist and former IMF Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath to unpack how the conflict is rippling through the global economy. As oil and gas prices surge, inflation is climbing, adding new costs for households and businesses and putting pressure on growth worldwide. Gopinath explains that while the immediate hit to global growth may seem modest, the bigger concern is longer-term “structural damage”—the slow-moving economic shifts caused by trade fragmentation, strained alliances, and geopolitical conflict. They also discuss why the US may be more insulated than other economies, how China is positioning itself for a more fragmented world, and whether the recent boom in AI investment can offset some of the economic drag. As inflation rises and global economic ties continue to shift, what comes next may matter even more than the immediate shock. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Viktor Orbán's last stand, and the future of Europe's far right with Ivan Krastev
Apr 400:21:48Summary readyIan Bremmer sits down with Ivan Krastev, Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and political scientist, to discuss Hungary's consequential upcoming election and what it means for the far right globally. For sixteen years, Viktor Orbán has dominated Hungarian politics, rewriting rules, consolidating power, and positioning himself as Europe's leading nationalist and Donald Trump's closest ally on the continent. But with parliamentary elections approaching on April 12th, his aura of invincibility is finally cracking. Opposition candidate Péter Magyar, a conservative former Orbán insider, is polling ahead by double digits, and the Trump administration is scrambling to help keep its favorite European in office. Krastev explains what most Americans get wrong about Orbán: that his real economic patron isn't Trump but China. Chinese investment in Hungary now exceeds Chinese investment in Germany and France combined, and Beijing's interest is straightforward: Orbán's willingness to veto any EU anti-China policy. Krastev also breaks down Orbán's ideological roots, arguing he is far closer to Putin than to Trump, anchored in 19th-century Hungarian nationalism and the grief of a nation that lost everything after World War I. Together, Krastev and Bremmer look ahead to what an Orbán loss would mean for Europe's far-right parties, for EU policy on Ukraine, and for Trump's own political brand. "For President Trump and for President Putin," Krastev says, "Orbán losing is going to be their personal loss." And if Trump's oldest, best-known European ally falls, being backed by Washington may soon be worth far less than it once was. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Rahm Emanuel on Trump's Iran war “of choice” and midterm implications
Mar 2700:50:51Summary readyIan Bremmer and Rahm Emanuel discuss the deepening conflict in the Middle East, US foreign policy under Trump, and the upcoming midterms. Rahm Emanuel argues that this is a war of choice, one President Trump made himself, not one driven by external pressures like Israel’s influence. While the Prime Minister of Israel has long pushed for military action, Emanuel stresses that the responsibility for war ultimately lies with the US president, not foreign actors. He also highlights how America’s fractured political system has complicated decision-making, making it harder for the US to act with a unified voice on the world stage. Emanuel argues that Trump’s actions have eroded relationships with critical allies, particularly in Europe and the Gulf. “The price of belittling your allies is now coming home to roost,” Emanuel warns, pointing to the growing isolation the US faces at a time when global cooperation is needed most. He also discusses the broader implications of US military deployments in the region and the rising threat of Iran's growing influence. Emanuel also addresses the internal division within the US, explaining how China is carefully watching America’s internal dysfunction. “Nothing China does scares me,” he says. “It’s what we don’t do here at home that scares me.”" Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Unpacking Iran’s competing endgames with Brookings Institution’s Thomas Wright
Mar 1400:35:35Summary readyIan Bremmer sits down with Thomas Wright, Brookings Institution fellow and former Senior Director at the US National Security Council, to unpack the deepening war in Iran and the divergent strategies shaping it. What are the possible outcomes for the widening conflict in Iran? What began as a dramatic opening strike has evolved into a far more complex war, with Washington, Jerusalem, and Tehran all pursuing different aims. Wright argues this isn’t simply about degrading military capability; it’s about competing endgames that may pull the region in unpredictable directions. As Wright explains, the United States is hoping for a pragmatic partner inside Iran, while Israel pushes for full regime change. “Trump couldn’t care less if Larijani runs Iran. The Israelis do… They’re going to go full bore for regime change,” he says. At the same time, efforts to fragment the country risk creating “a much bigger problem… a Syria civil war on steroids.” The conversation also examines how other global players are responding. Europe has been muted, trying to accommodate the US, while China and Russia tread carefully, balancing economic and strategic interests without directly confronting Washington. Wright also discusses domestic implications, including the Pentagon’s evolving relationship with Silicon Valley and how frontier technologies like AI are intersecting with national security concerns. Looking ahead, Wright outlines both best-and worst-case scenarios — from the emergence of a more legitimate leadership to the specter of fragmentation that could intensify regional instability. With no clear exit ramp in sight, this conversation explores what might come next and why the endgame of this war remains so uncertain. Host: Ian Bremmer Guest: Thomas Wright Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Tariffs: what comes next with Paul Krugman and Scott Lincicome
Mar 700:22:21Summary readyWhile Washington has become more hostile to globalization, Americans continue to buy foreign goods in record numbers. Lincicome notes that economic nationalism is “about an inch deep,” with support collapsing when Americans face higher prices for domestic products. The conversation also explores the impact of tariffs on businesses and consumers. Lincicome explains that if certain tariffs are ruled illegal, companies could seek refunds totaling up to $175 billion, potentially through litigation rather than administrative action. Krugman emphasizes that while policy debates grab headlines, public perception and midterm politics may ultimately matter more than the details of trade law or corporate strategy. From the immediate fallout of legal challenges to the broader question of how the U.S. navigates trade and globalization, Bremmer, Lincicome, and Krugman explore the delicate balance between politics, policy, and the economy—and what it could mean for American consumers, businesses, and the upcoming midterms. Host: Ian Bremmer Guests: Paul Krugman, Scott Lincicome Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Iran at war with Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour
Feb 2800:16:40Summary readyIan Bremmer sits down with Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace to examine Iran’s precarious position on the global stage and the forces shaping the country. At the heart of the discussion is the regime’s internal fragility. Sadjadpour explains that many inside Iran, including elements of the Revolutionary Guards, are “waiting for Ayatollah Khamenei to die.” The conversation also explores Iran’s isolation in the international arena. While 90% of its oil goes to China at deep discounts, Sadjadpour points out that Chinese and Russian interests in Iran diverge sharply. Despite the pressures at home and abroad, Sadjadpour argues that many ordinary Iranians recognize that reconciliation with the United States is essential if the country is ever to realize its enormous potential. From leadership uncertainty to global isolation, Bremmer and Sadjadpour explore the delicate balance Iran faces today—and the choices that will determine its path forward. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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