Podcast
Multipolarity
Hosted by Multipolarity · EN
Charting The Rise Of A Multipolar World Order
Philip Pilkington is an unorthodox macroeconomist.
Andrew Collingwood is an equally skeptical journalist.
Lately, both have realised that - post-Ukraine, post-Afghanistan withdrawal - the old, unipolar, US-led world order is in its death throes.
In its wake, something new is being born. But what shape will that take? That will depend on a combustible combination of economics and geopolitics; trade and military muscle.
Each week, our duo take three off-radar news stories and explain how each is shaping our multipolar reality.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Merz Sadist Bends, Bond Villain, Slick Dealing
1w ago00:11:15Tap to summarizeRemember Olaf Scholz? Just about? Remember when he sunk to the lowest opinion poll rating in German political history? Well the good news for anonymous hopeless former Chancellors is that the next beige technocrat in charge of Germany has just beaten his record. Plunging to 89% dissatisfied – with only 11% satisfied. Even with Macron as the most unpopular President ever, Starmer the least popular Prime Minister, Merz is more unpopular still. Our lead question this week is very simple: what the flaming fuck is going on in Germany? Meanwhile, more news just in on Europe’s cordless bungee ride: UK bond yields have spiked again. To 5.3% - the highest rate since 1998. They can’t go any higher – right? In the four years since the Truss contagion blew up the markets by hitting 5% and toppled the government, it’s a good thing the UK Treasury used that period to stop running massive deficits… right? Finally, the global oil market is beginning to resemble Argentina under Kirschner. You’ve got your official prices; and then your real prices. As reality continues to diverge from the markets, we’re asking: who is this mysterious Whale of Hormuz who keeps on fiddling with the international price mechanism? Of course, this being a pay week, you’ll need to sign up on Patreon or Substack if you want to hear that bit - only the real heads get to dine on the whole hog. That’s easily done - simply go to Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/multipolarity) or Substack (https://multipolaritypod.substack.com/) and sign up. It’s 8 or 12 dollars respectively, and you can cancel any time you like….
Transcribe →Multipolarity Dialogues: George Yeo On How Singapore Navigates Between China and America
2w ago00:42:11Tap to summarizeAfter weeks of Iran drumbeats - time for something a bit different. George Yeo is the former Foreign Minister of SingaporeEducated at University of Cambridge and later at Harvard Business School, he's a former Brigadier-General in the nation's Air Force, and one of its most distinctive strategic thinkers - a man whose career tracks the rise of modern Asia itself.Yeo served in government for over two decades, holding key portfolios including Trade and Industry.As Singapore’s Foreign Minister from 2004 to 2011, he played a central role in shaping the country’s global posture.Since leaving frontline politics, Yeo has become a widely followed voice on geopolitics, civilisational identity, and the shifting balance of power in Asia.We wanted to ask him about the view from Singapore.Singaporean diplomats are renowned for their coolheaded, realist approach. They are highly skilled - and they have to be.A unique fragment of the complex geometry of South East Asia, Singapore has to balance its warm relations with the West, its unmatched status as a trading hub, and the rise of the Goliath on its doorstep - China.
Transcribe →Nothing Beats a Jet2 Holiday, It's A Kind Of Magyar, New York Slop Exchange
3w ago00:42:29Tap to summarizeThe hot question this summer: Can you bring your own jerry can of diesel onto an EasyJet?As all the major airlines begin to cancel flights, bump surcharges, and post losses, the looming fuel crisis is finally hitting landfall - in the skies.Meanwhile, Hungary’s Prime Minister elect, Péter Magyar, has decided he wants to unilaterally remove the country’s President and the head of the Constitutional Court. Another win for Democracy and the Rule of Law.As his administration takes flesh, Magyar has declared that he will arrest Benjamin Netanyahu – last seen touring Budapest in May – the next time he enters the country. The International Criminal Court wants a word with BiBi, and the new regime is keen to be seen as a responsible global citizen.But what Magyar doesn’t seem to know is that this is an EU stalking horse for pulling him back into line, by linking it with another man with a price on his head – Vladimir Putin.Finally, the bot singularity is coming for the markets. Turns out it’s not just journalists and email jobbers who are quietly outsourcing their work to LLMs. Market traders are increasingly slopping out on the S&P. For now, this is about capturing delta. But what happens when everyone on the internet is a dog?
Transcribe →New Kid On The Blockade, Tisza Trailer
4w ago00:52:45Tap to summarizeTrump blockades a blockade. The world holds its breath: will the Iranians blockade the blockade of the blockade? Are we destined for battleship Tetris piling up in the Gulf? Or is this just one more instance of the real war being the PR one? Then, with his Fidesz party reduced to a rump, what happens when the lynchpin of anti-Brussels energy falls out? The EU threw everything at Orbán, and it has paid off handsomely. Ursula von der Leyen clearly had her speech about moving to qualified majority voting written before the polls closed. Beyond a cost of living election in a landlocked medium-sized country, this is a story about the future of the EU. Apres Viktor, le deluge… IMPORTANT A Note on SubstackYou might already know that we have a Substack, and we’re growing it. (multipolaritypod.substack.com)We’ve run into a small issue, in that lately, a few people have been signing up on Substack, with the intent of getting the premium episodes of the podcast - which have so far been exclusive to Patreon. So we’ve decided to take the premium podcast to Substack, and bundle it with a new range of articles we’re in the process of producing.The deal is this - The Substack will be $12 a month - that will get you the podcast and then various paywalled articles on top. We’re not paywalling the Substack yet - all the pieces you can presently read are free of charge - but we have plans to start gating the odd piece. And as we said, we will gate the premium podcast on Substack. Of course, if you’re an existing subscriber, you can do whatever you like - Patreon, or Substack. The one gives you the pod only. The other will give you both. Obviously, your price won’t change unless you change platforms. So there’s no need to do anything.
Transcribe →Multipolarity Dialogues: Malcom Kyeyune on The Annihilation Gamble
Apr 900:46:36Tap to summarizeAnnihilation - no more.On Tuesday, the world was saved at five minutes to midnight. For the next two weeks, at least… But while the power plants are safe for now, the tragi-comic spectacle conflict in Iran has poked bigger holes in the global defence-industrial system. No one knows this better than Malcom Kyeyune, the Mad Mullah of Malmö, who is back on the pod to take a victory lap, after predicting much of what was to come in the first week of the war. This comes fresh on the back of his new essay in UnHerd - https://unherd.com/2026/04/the-twilight-of-americas-sky-knights/ - where he compares the US dilemma with the strategy of the Hussites in the earliest Reformation wars.
Transcribe →Premium Multipolarity: Iran On The Home Front - Europe Under Economic Siege
Apr 200:11:09Tap to summarize1973. Beyond the war, we’re hacking into the coming implications of the major energy crisis that’s brewing - as the last tankers to leave the Gulf trundle into the ports of Europe. From Volkswagen to venture capital, we’ll be charting what life looks like with oil at 150 or 200 dollars a barrel. Energy lockdowns. Rationing. Bond crises. All of these are being whispered in the press right now. As much as our leaders dare. But this is still the Ardennes Forest in spring 1940. Eerily quiet. Soon enough, the flamethrowers will burn through the Old Continent, and then begin to ricochet back onto America itself. Will this break up the order we once took for granted? Are we at the end of the US consumption model of economics? Will resource rich Canada end up speared by its bigger brother? We’ll be taking a grand view from the sidelines, as we start to figure out how to live through the latest version of the polycrisis - after 2008, after Covid, after Ukraine - this is the next major re-shaping of the world we live in. Of course, this is a premium Multipolarity episode - so you’ll have to be on the Patreon list if you want to listen to the full episode. That’s easily done - simply go to Patreon and sign up. It’s 8 dollars, and you can cancel any time you like….
Transcribe →Multipolarity Dialogues: The Middle East Is Being Re-Made, But Not In The Way America Thinks with Policy Tensor
Mar 2601:05:45Tap to summarizeMultipolarity Dialogues is a series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, think as an experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical.Now, is Iran actually winning this war, or is the US slowly pounding it to bits with its air power? Will there be a land invasion? Could a land invasion even succeed? How are the oil markets gonna react? What are the likely economic consequences of this war? How will it affect the US midterms? All these are questions that are being discussed to death on the super giant gossip chambers that are the mainstream and social media.But what is less discussed is the big picture geopolitical change that is occurring before our eyes. We at Multipolarity already suggested that this war means that Taiwan is a lost cause to the United States. Is that true though? And what would it mean for the overall US strategic posture? Most importantly, what is going to happen in the Middle East, which itself is a theatre of great importance.Nobody in the public sphere has shown a better understanding of the academic literature on these matters than Anusar Farooqui, better known as Policy Tensor (@policytensor). He is a prolific tweeter and essayist on geopolitics and geoeconomics and grand strategy, and for that reason his X account has just exploded with followers in the last three weeks. We had to welcome him back on to the show...
Transcribe →The Art of War, Closing The Gap, Six Finger Discount
Mar 1900:55:23Tap to summarizeThe dog that didn’t bark. China is cooling its heels on the war in Iran. As America’s entanglement deepens, it’s not Sun Tzu they’re turning to, but the wit and wisdom of Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Meanwhile, even closer to Beijing, US weakness is showing up the true nature of the slow war in the South China Sea. If America can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, how can it maintain the Taiwan Strait? Finally, is Bibi booboo? A new wave of rumours has him six feet under, backed by… videos of him looking basically fine. Welcome to the AI hall of mirrors. Where reality buckles under the weight of the slopoverse. The Propaganda War is now 4D, hologrammatic, and features the Kirkbot 3000.
Transcribe →Special Edition: Dire Straits
Mar 1200:59:41Tap to summarizeAs Iran smoulders, ships burn in Hormuz, and TACO traders search for signal in the thunderous noise, we’re celebrating the end of the world in the only way we know how - two audio essays. Philip Pilkington on the economic consequences of the war. And Andrew Collingwood on the political mess we’re in.
Transcribe →Welcome To Gulf War 3 With Malcom Kyeyune
Mar 501:34:38Tap to summarizeThe Netherlands has its youngest ever Prime Minister. Liberal technocrat Rob Jetten is also openly gay - a big win for diversity. But can the VVD survive in coalition without meaningful agricultural reforms? Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, wheat futures are up almost nine percent since September. We’ll be asking whether transitory commodities inflation in the Stans is the big story we’ve all been missing. Finally, the little known African country of Bapetikotsweti has signed a memorandum of understanding with Peru. It includes bilateral tariff reductions on soy beans and electric toothbrushes. What does this mean for the flatulence control and dentistry industries in these terriers of the global economy? Only joking… just one story this week… IRANThat's right. We're at war. And The Lads are joined at the podcast frontline by the one and only Malcom Kyeyune. Strap in...
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