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A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on the 1st of April, 2026 on Monaco Radio.
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Could China hold the key to peace in the Middle East? Should humankind returning to the moon, or at least its vicinity, seem like a bigger deal? And Japan's patience with rogue cyclists expires? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Nega Anger and Michael Binion will discuss today's big stories. And we'll hear from Rana Dasgupta about his new book, which wonders if the nation state as we know it might have been overtaken by events. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Nagar Anger, former advisor to the U.S. state Department and White House National Security Council, now visiting fellow at King's College London, and Michael Binion, leader writer for the Times. Hello to you both.
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C
Hello.
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B
Hello, Michael. First of all, you are about to take off to climb up a volcano. Hopefully, I'm sure our listeners will be thinking, not with a view to hurling yourself into it.
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C
No, I don't want to be like Empedocles and climb up Etna. This is Vesuvius. Okay. And I'm going there because I've never been. And I particularly want to see Pompeii because there's some very interesting excavations going on, well, for the past two or three years, and I've never been there. And I think Italy in early April would be lovely.
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B
You've never been to Pompeii? Michael, I am rising heroically above any jokes about how surely you covered it at the time.
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C
Well, almost. I remember seeing that cloud suddenly erupt from the mountain. Yes.
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B
No, it is. I mean, obviously it's in Italy, so it is by definition a fabulous place to visit. But it is a fabulous place to visit. I been to Pompeii, but I have not climbed Vesuvius.
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C
No, I think it'd be interesting and go to Herculaneum as well, where they found all these charred scrolls that they're trying to unlock with computer technology now.
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B
Well, we look forward to hearing more about that when you are back. Nega, you have been visiting the Sufis of Bonn.
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A
Indeed I have.
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B
Not a sentence I've ever uttered before.
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A
No. Well, you're welcome. No, I as in my role as a practitioner fellow with the Academy for Islam and Research and society at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. I am writing a talking about Sufi life in Germany. So this past weekend I was able to go visit a community of German converts and their Sufi circle and their Sufi experience. So stay tuned for that report.
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B
We shall. But just broadly, how is it going for the Sufis of Bonn?
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A
You know, quite frankly, I would say it's quite peaceful. They are able to differentiate, they're able to soul search, stay balanced. And I, you know, where we are right now in the world. It was, it was definitely very forgiving to be in that space and looking more inwards.
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B
Well, we will start with the ongoing war in Iran. Later tonight, U.S. president Donald Trump will address his nation and a bewildered world. Betting is evenly spread on whether this will be an announcement of an imminent invasion, a declaration that he has grown bored with the whole thing and other people can clean up the mess. One of his speeches, that could have been an email or a lengthy complaint about how there's no water pressure, pressure in your shower because of windmills. In the meantime, there is also speculation about whether a role exists for China in urging proceedings to some sort of conclusion. China's Foreign Minister, Wang Yi has this week hosted his Pakistani counterpart, Ishak Dar. Both called for an immediate ceasefire. Michael, if I may first attempt some cynicism here, isn't this all actually going quite well for China? The US is beclowning itself on the world stage and using up enormous military resources. And some Chinese flagged tankers are being allowed through the Strait of Hormuz by Iran anyway. So this looks a bit win win if you're sitting in Beijing, doesn't it?
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C
It certainly does, yes. I think China is in a very good position and it can show itself as a reliable, stable country, a country that is able to get what it needs without bluster or force by simply maintaining cordial, I won't say close, but cordial relations with Iran. It will also host President Trump next. Well, in May. So they're assuming there's only petrol for Air Force One, Boris, that he can get there. No. And China, I mean, has been, I think, wisely and surprisingly quiet about this whole Iran war because they're really just behind the scenes ready to step in with a helpful offer. And already there's talk that they're in coordination with Pakistan as a sort of go between trying to negotiate or at least to facilitate some kind of talks, if there are going to be any talks to end this war.
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B
I mean, the idea is nega, as Michael was suggesting, that Pakistan is kind of Pitching itself as the mediator, China as the guarantor. It's obvious to see why Pakistan would want this to stop. They share a very long border with Iran and you know, it is, it is the last thing Pakistan would want. But would the United States actually listen to either of them?
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A
You know, surprisingly, President Trump, and given a lot of the relationship that his sons have created with Pakistan have changed the dynamic, have really had Pakistan evolved from a pariah to an actual power player in this particular conflict. So I do think right now they have quite a bit of maybe sort of familial sort of leverage. And given Pakistan's relationship with the Saudis, it will play a good sort of connector in order to assuage the Saudis who have had some very strong opinions and the Chinese, who again, this is their pattern. They don't necessarily play a more coercive follow through. They position themselves so that they can economically, strategically be present. So I think Pakistan could pull this off. I think they have not played a mediator role for quite some time and so we could see this as a potential opening. I'm not saying this will be the thing that solves this particular conflict, but you could see them play a much stronger role than some of the Gulf states did.
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B
Is a problem going to be though, Michael, even if any of this does happen about who on the Iranian side of this you even speak to? Because within the last 24 hours we've heard of, heard from President Massoud Possesskian floating the idea of a conditional ceasefire. We've also heard Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi floating the idea of six months more of war at least. And yet it's not even clear if either of them are actually making any decisions.
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C
It isn't, indeed, no, that is the question because both of them are more political figures and really the strings are being pulled by the Revolutionary Guard. I mean, they're the people who are and have been for some time in control and they are much harder line. They have everything to lose from any seat. They want to make sure that their authority is properly established. I mean, if they are left in place by whatever deal comes about or the end of whatever conflict, how this is going to end, then they're doing well. But I think the other thing is that the President is a so called moderate. I mean, by Iranian standards these things are relative. They are fairly relative. But he is more of a pragmatist than some of those before and certainly more than some of those who've been killed in the fighting. So I don't think his word necessarily carries a lot of weight. But of course, nobody really knows who is making the running, who is giving the orders, who is coordinating military strategy. Obviously, the military intelligence and military officers have got to be pretty central to decision making, but it's anybody's guess.
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B
Well, as I said at the top of this item, Nego, we will be hearing from President Trump later. And just for fun, I thought we might, for a couple of minutes take turns to speculate wildly about what he's likely to say. If you had to place a bet on what we're going to hear from him, where would you be placing it?
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Look, I think he needs to address the domestic audience. Right now he's sending quite a bit of military might back into the region. There's gonna be quite a bit of troops the ground. He needs to be able to assuage not only his MAGA base and the domestic audience that this is for the benefit of the United States. He also needs to calm the markets in some way to be able to address the fact that this entire effort is to support in opening up the Hormuz Strait. I think it will be a heavily scripted, obviously, speech, but he will, per his usual, I think, go off script. I think we'll hear a little bit about the ballroom, why the judge made the decision that he made. And so I think he's going to use the opportunity because he is a, for all of his faults, he knows how to manipulate the press and use his pulpit when he needs to. And the ballroom is his legacy. So I think you'll hear a little bit about that too.
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B
Michael, which way do you think this is going to go?
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C
Well, whether he will double down on saying, I've had it with NATO, I'm going to leave. I think he may draw back from that a bit because of course, the reaction both in the American so called establishment, I mean the traditional American power brokers, is one of horror on that.
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B
And certainly also, as I understand, he can't actually do that unilaterally.
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C
Well, he can try. I mean, he can say what he likes. He thinks he can do almost anything. I mean, there's even been talk of him thinking he'll try and suspend the midterm elections. I mean, that would be completely unthinkable and unconstitutional. But with Trump, you never quite know what he might say, say he'll do, whether or not he follows through. But I agree he does need to address the domestic audience. He needs to make sure that they're on board with either him saying, we've achieved our aims and therefore we're pulling out. In other words, this is victory. However, it doesn't look like it, but he can say it is. Or to prepare America for actual more physical engagement, namely troops on the ground, which of course would be quite a big step, a very dangerous one and I think could cause tremendous domestic upsets.
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B
Well, to the ongoing war in Ukraine and an offer to put hostilities on hold for a bit. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked American mediators to relay to Ukraine's Russian antagonists the offer of an Easter long truce. This appears to be Zelenskyy's version of a pitch made to him by some of Ukraine's allies to the effect that given likely imminent energy shortages on a number of fronts, Ukraine would be doing everyone a bit of a favour if they blew up fewer Russian oil refineries. Zelenskyy further hinted that such a pause could be the be of something reiterating that quote. Ukraine is ready for any compromises except compromises involving our dignity and sovereignty. Neygar, can we see Russia biting at this?
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Look, I think this is, you know, obviously Zelensky trying to appeal to this global contagious field of the energy crisis, making it more a humanitarian sort of request and also coalition management. Russia does not care about either. So they have no incentive. They recently received a general license that allows them to continue to buy Iranian oil that's sitting. So essentially barrels sitting in the Hormuz Strait. So they were able to essentially replenish their stocks. So they. I don't see why Russia would have any incentive right now. There is no leverage for them to look for a truce. Right now the United States, the West is preoccupied with Iran. There's also Cuba dangling in the background. I think if for whatever reason there were to be a negotiation of sorts with regards to Cuba, you could see Russia biting. But as of right now, I see no reason, there's no reason for them to bite.
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B
Michael, there is an interesting calculation for President Zelenskyy to make here, isn't there? Because he can certainly understand the anxiety of his allies. I'm sure we may be weeks away from an extremely meaningful energy crisis and we've heard today addresses to their respective nations by the Prime Minister of this country and the Prime Minister of my own home country, Australia, sort of warning people that this, this could be coming down the track. In Australia the situation is, is slightly more urgent. So on the one hand, yeah, he can curry the of his allies by saying, all right, we'll stop blowing up Russian energy infrastructure. But if he also thinks, well, if we blow up a lot more Russian energy infrastructure, we've sure as hell got everyone's attention.
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C
They certainly would. And I think for this reason Russia's going to ignore it. I completely agree. It's of absolutely no interest to Russia at all. And in fact, very amusingly it's ironic that it mirrors the offer of an Easter truce that or was it a Christmas truce, one or the other, a religious truce truce given by Putin about a year ago, which was completely nonsensical. I mean it was meant to offer a cessation of fighting for four or five days. In fact, I think it lasted a few hours and there were still violations of that truce. And the Russians will take this as a sign of weakness. They will certainly see it as a sign that the Ukrainians either don't have the ability to hit out at Russian energy struck infrastructure very much more. They maybe not have the missiles or that they are in a weak position trying to carry favour with an America which is frankly turning its back on Ukraine anyway and that this is just showing that steady progress forwards, I mean very steady and rather slow by the Russians will in the end pay off.
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B
Nego. This does seem like a subject which President Trump is less likely to mention than his ballroom or windmills later tonight. Do we actually get the impression that the United States really has lost interest in this one? And by the United States obviously I mean President Trump.
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A
I think President Trump has a bit of a limited attention span in terms of which subject he's interested in. I don't think he's entirely lost interest because I do think there are many within his MAGA base that have an invested interest in Ukraine, whether it's an investment or whether, whether it's personal.
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B
On which side though?
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Both. Both quite frankly. And so I don't think he's lost full interest, but he doesn't interested right now. Right now he's very much interested in Iran, he's very much interested in Cuba. And his sort of lens right now of looking at Russia and Russian sort of engagement is based off of, I think how it relates to Iran and how it relates to Cuba.
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C
I think that's very interesting that they've allowed a Russian ship to dock in Cuba, having declared a blockade, having said we are not going to allow oil supplies to Cuba. I mean, in other words, putting more pressure with the aim of bringing down the government in Cuba. And now they realize that that might lead to some sort of confrontation with the Russians and they've Rather quietly just, you know, ignored the fact the Russians have actually docked in Cuba. They've sort of said, well, this is for humanitarian reasons. Well, of course it is because, I mean, Cuba's the on. On the brink of collapse with no energy at all. But the fact is, I quite agree that this is a reason for the Russians to say, you see, actually he's not really paying much attention to what's going on in Ukraine. He's much more concerned with other things elsewhere.
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B
Just a final thought on this one, Michael. Is it possible that this, the United States attention being consumed elsewhere does actually benefit Zelenskyy, who is, as we have seen in recent weeks with his whistle stop tour of the Persian Gulf, a tremendous sales. If he can now go to Europe and say, look, the United States isn't going to do this, Europe is not really involved, or at least does not wish to be involved in what is going on in the Persian Gulf. Why don't we fix the thing we can fix?
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C
Well, yes, that will obviously be his strategy because he'll say to Europe, look, this is your war, just as Iran is America's war. Well, that is the Trump line. I mean, he sort of said, you know, you Europe, you sort that one out and Europe will clearly they feel obliged to do so. The problem is, do the Europeans have the money? Do they have the weapons, do they have the. I think they may have the wish, but not necessarily the political ability to actually do much about it. And certainly they don't have much influence over what goes on in Moscow. Very little, I would say. So, although he is a good salesman and he has kept up the drumbeat of appeals for proper support, there's not much response coming. And certainly in the Gulf there's not much they can do and not much they really want to do. They're far too preoccupied. So he will go around the European capitals, they will all say yes, of course, and they all know that America's virtually going to say, well, it's not our problem, we're nothing to do with it. So they'll feel pressure to do something. But what? Who knows?
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B
Well, from the squalor of earthly affairs to the high un trespassed sanctity of space, etc. That was a literary allusion. Look it up afterwards. Later Tonight, at around 11.20pm UK time, if the weather smiles kindly, Artemis 2 will blast off from the Kennedy Space center in Florida. The four astronauts aboard, Americans Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, will become the first people since December 1972, when Apollo 17 flew to the moon to leave lower Earth orbit. Artemis 2 will not be stopping at the moon. This is a lunar flyby preceding an anticipated adding of footprints to the lunar surface in 2028. Nagar, first of all, will you be staying up for this?
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I will be. I think as an American, this is, this is one of those cool things. It's a rare moment that we can show again, sort of our capabilities, our competence again. And quite frankly, I think this is America being able to show its competence to the world. As a woman, I'm super excited to see Christina Koch on that mission. I think again, it feeds back into the ability to show how women can imagine themselves and where they can imagine themselves being. So I think that's very exciting and we'll have to see. I think quite frankly this is one of those rare moments of scientific ambition and again, it's government led and from a national security frame, I think
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C
a
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long term lunar sort of presence and being around that is something that the United States needs to continue to show, given the fact that Chinese. Chinese ambition is much greater and grander. So again, I think it goes back to geopolitics. So this is exciting. We'll see what happens.
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B
Michael, I did open the show, as I so very often do when you're here, with a frankly cheap and unworthy joke. The expense of your long years in the journalist.
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C
I'm gonna try a joke myself, but
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B
I know you would remember 1969 and the first time that mankind had a crack at this. Can you compare? Because it does strike me, that excitement around this one and I'm absolutely with Negar on this, I will be staying up to watch this. I'm a massive nerd for this sort of stuff. And one of the most exciting things that's ever happened in my time at Monocle Radio is actually getting to interview Charlie Duke, one of 10 people, of course, who has actually been there and done it. But the excitement around this is not presumably remotely comparable with 1969.
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C
No, 69 was much more exciting because it was absolutely the first time ever and it was completely unknown would happen, had nobody had ever attempted it before. And what's extraordinary now as we look back on it, it was all done with computers about the same size as what you have in a mobile phone now.
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B
Vastly less computing power.
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C
Even less. Yes, even less. Well, it was extraordinarily exciting. It was live on television, as much as this can be relayed back. And very conveniently they timed it so it was prime time on the evening television,
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B
not deliberately I suspect. But does it? Because it strikes me, Nagar, as actually quite weird that not even now, but by 1972, the lunar launches, the Apollo launches were kind of struggling for ratings. Everybody had sort of zoned out of it. Are we really that easily bored as a species?
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A
We are indeed we are. But I think the question is like, how are you going to be viewing it? They're not going to be viewing it on. I don't think many people be watching it on television, they'll be watching it on their mobile phones. You know, it's in the uk, if you're being lazy, you can watch it on your phone while laying in bed. So it's evolved. But I think there's a cool element. You may not watch it from the beginning to the end, but you'll watch those final moments that it's about to take off. I think there's always an excitement around that.
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B
It is interesting reading the biographies of the four astronauts, Michael, they have all spoken of. It seems to have started in childhood and obviously none of them, I don't think, remember the Apollo program as it happened, but all became fascinated with it in childhood and it sort of stuck with them. A fascination I share. We've been lucky here at monaca. We've got to interview loads of astronauts and they're always just self evidently fascinating people. But do we, do we under undervalue it still as an accomplishment, as a thing by which subsequent generations can be inspired?
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C
I think we do because it's still quite risky. I mean there have been a number of mishaps and I remember particularly the dreadful time when the shuttle blew up and Christa McCauley, the teacher who was aboard was killed. I mean one of the first women into space and that was a dreadful tragedy. And then Apollo 13 where it almost went very wrong. And by the skin of their teeth and great ingenuity on behalf of ground control, they managed to get them back when. When the whole thing had looked as though it was going to go wrong. So it's quite risky still and therefore it is quite an achievement. It demands tremendous precision. Every single bit of the operation has to work. If one tiny thing goes wrong, I think it was these so called O rings that went wrong in the cold weather in one of the launches that caused one of the terrible disasters. But yes, it is a great achievement. One wonders, you know, what's it for? Well, it's there because it's there. It's like climbing Mount Everest and the idea that it could be then a staging post to go onto Mars? Well, the mind boggles. I mean, take two years to get to Mars and whether that will ever happen, we don't know, but at least people are thinking about it.
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B
I was appalled, Negar, by a polling today by YouGov that put to the British people that even guaranteeing safe return. So we're moving for this hypothetical, the risk of which Michael quite correctly spoke, 49% of British people would not go. Breaking that down further, 23% said they weren't interested, 8% said there was no point, 6% said there's nothing to do.
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C
Do. Would you go to the moon, you mean? Yeah. Actually go yourself? Oh, well, yes. Would you?
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A
Absolutely. 100%, yeah. I think, you know, I think especially right now with commercial technology the way it is, and you see Katy Perry up in space and you're able to imagine yourself as the civilian who can go up to space. Why not?
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C
Well, you can go on one of Elon Musk's trips.
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A
There you go.
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B
If you have the wherewithal. But we are talking, talking about the moon and Michael, would you put yourself among this 49 of people who would, to borrow the very old joke, apparently complain that there's no atmosphere?
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C
I would, yes.
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B
So you'd put yourself among the people who wouldn't get on?
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C
I wouldn't go, no. I wouldn't even go. I'd rather go out Mount Vesuvius. I mean it's, it's, it's very hazardous.
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B
Your safe return is guaranteed.
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C
Well, maybe, yes, but I mean, I mean it's quite stressful. I mean the G force as you take off is just fantastic. You've got to be fit as fit. And you know how many times I go to the gym, I think I might not qualify anyway.
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A
But to be up in space and being able to look back and seeing Earth.
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C
Yes. I mean you can see it on television.
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B
Spoken like the intrepid reporter would know you to be Michael to Japan, which is about to attempt the interesting experiment of actually applying rules to a group of people, usually notably volunteers resentful of any such imposition, that is Cyclists. Starting today, Japanese cyclists who use their phone or wear earphones while riding, ignore traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, or perpetrate any of similar infractions, can expect to be fined and ticketed. There will now be a brief pause while London based listeners sigh wistfully at the thought of any such crackdown upon this city's plague of velocipede born sociopaths. Necessary disclaimer to forestall torrents of angry emails. I'VE never driven a car car, but nor have I ever been mown down by one on the footpath. Michael, would you be in favour of an absolutely merciless crackdown on the behavior of cyclists? Absolutely correct answer.
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C
As I was coming here tonight, thinking about this very issue, walking along the street, there were several cyclists going straight across the red lights and cars having to brake suddenly. And I thought, what idiots. And of course, if the car hit the cycle, the car would have been to blame. Correct. And there's no way of monitoring them, no way of checking them, no way of actually then fining them or doing anything about it, unless you have a policeman who can immediately organise them to be stopped and arrested, which I do
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B
understand is not easy.
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C
No, not at all. And so they get away with it just like that. I mean, that's only one of many things, but that's certainly one that I would crack down on.
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A
How do you feel about aggressive bell ringing?
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C
Bell ringing?
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A
Yes.
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C
What do you mean? Churches in the.
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A
No, no, the bicyclists.
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C
Oh, bicyclists.
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B
I am particularly charmed by the ones who ring their bells at you while they're screaming towards you against a red light, while you're trying to cross the
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C
street and on the pen.
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A
I would be high. Exactly. I would be highly supportive of that kind of ticketing, this micro behavior. Ticketing.
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B
See, well, this is good, because this means the furious emails will presumably be split three ways if people want to get in touch with me. In fact, I can give you the panelists so you can. You can spread the rage around. I mean, are there any further, seeing as how we have all outed ourselves as absolute martinets on this one? Michael, are there any further rules you would enforce? Would you make it legal to hunt scooter riders for sport?
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C
Scooter riders? They don't worry me quite as much. They're a bit of a nuisance. But actually there are tougher bylaws on that.
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B
Which are not enforced.
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C
Well, no, they're not enforced, but then there are not that. Not so many scooters around. I mean, there are other things I would enforce and I think the government has the same idea, but I would certainly enforce enormous fines and. Or prison sentences. Fly tipping.
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B
Fly tipping, yeah, rubbish.
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C
All over the country. I would try to enforce it on littering, but it's rather difficult. You know, somebody drops a cigarette out of the car, you can't really chase after the car and stop them. But general fly tipping and then all sorts of other antisocial behavior, you know, that I Mean, okay, feats on feet, on seats. Does that matter?
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B
Yes. No, the, these, these are all correct. And again, I always feel obliged to insert the necessary disclaimer before people start firing up their laptops. I am, as this organization is genuinely massively in favor of cycling. I'm hugely pro cycling. I believe there should be much more of it. I just think you should also stop when the lights are red. Nega, are there any other, like, while we're doing this pettifogging things for which you would like to impose swift and vicious punishments?
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A
You know what I will say as a Californian, I appreciate the fact that it's very clean in California, no littering, lots of fines. So they definitely. London has another city to emulate in San Francisco and Los Angeles and other places. But I would say going back to the noise factor, the sort of, not only the scooters, but some of those, you know, the cars with the. What is it called, where it presents the noise?
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C
The turbocharger.
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A
Yes, the turbocharger, exactly. That roar off. Yes. Because there are areas in London where there's no speed limit, there's no speed bumps, and you hear them just buzz right through that one strip. And that limit is not enforced. Yeah, not enforced. And they take full advantage of it. So that I would be fully in supportive of minimizing.
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B
I believe we're all in agreement. Everybody should just sit still and keep quiet. Negar Anger and Michael Binion, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, the nation state has been the organizing principle of global affairs at least as long as most people listening to this can remember. But lines on a map are not chiseled in stone. Countries rise and fall. Borders move or are erased. And that's all before we contemplate the impact of what is unprecedented. Private corporations with more money and power than some countries. Social media platforms with more users than any country has citizens. A reasonable question then. Is the nation state still fit for purpose? It is asked by a new book after the Making and Unmaking of a World Order by Rana Dasgupta. I spoke to Rana at Midori House earlier and began by asking whether the nation state has in fact outlived its usefulness.
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D
I wouldn't say they've outlived their usefulness, as we can see in the news today. Today, nation states are monopolizing the headlines. They are still the driving engines of world affairs. But I think that period of time you talk about is the period of time when first of all, all the European empires pretty much ended. And so we had a large number of new nation states and a large number of people who found themselves for the first time citizens of nation states. And, and my contention would be that the second half of the 20th century might be called the golden age of the nation state, when many people saw their lives dramatically improved by nation states, by the development they offered, by the economic growth, and by, of course, the expansion of political rights. And that in the present moment we're seeing, let's say, the withdrawal of some of those benefits and the divergence of the interests of the states and the interests of people. So they're not outliving their usefulness as economic engines, as military engines, but many people are starting to see nation states doing less and less for them.
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B
What in your view is the reason for that shift though, are the nation states themselves failing to deliver those improvements and those stabilities that you refer to? Or have we got to a point where perhaps pluralities of people now expect too much?
- [32:44]
D
Well, there's a bit of that. There's certainly, I think in the west, particularly the very, very high expectations of what states should do. And those expectations are very expensive to deliver. And economic growth is not what it was in the West. And so there is a simple economic aspect that Western states just can't afford to do what they did in the past. But I think it's also, I mean, in the book I talk about this on a multi century sort of basis and I think it's. So there are lots of different aspects to it, but I think we can immediately pinpoint one, and that's industry. That industry in the west was hugely important to employing the entire population and starting to see the entire population as, as significant, as crucial in fact, to national interests. When all the Western states had very big industries, they had enormous political interests in delivering rights and welfare to their populations because they needed them. And what we're seeing in the west today is that states need their populations much less. The age of AI, the age of. Already we went through a long period of moving jobs outside, strategic jobs outside the west. But now in the age of AI, we're seeing an assault on intellectual work, on middle class work. And so the interests of states and their populations are not so clearly aligned anymore. So that's very, very important. I think it's important that we understand that the lines of democracy and everything are not strict, that states and their populations move in and out of sync in these ways. And we may be, I mean, some of the things that we've seen in the US over the last few weeks and months where the government, the state, has been dramatically cruel to its population. We're seeing almost as if Americans are being taught now to lower their expectations as to what the state thinks of them and how much it cherishes their interests.
- [34:58]
B
You do talk a bit about the fact that there are these now huge tech companies to which you allude, some of which have greater GDPs than some countries, social media platforms which have more people on them than any country. You do also mention that this is not the first time in human history there have been commercial enterprises more powerful than states. The East India Company being probably only the most obvious example. But is this something different? Is there something irreconcilable between the power of these tech giants and the power of nation states?
- [35:32]
D
Well, I think I spend a lot of time looking at Britain in the 18th century because I think it offers a lot of lessons for where Western states are heading today, and especially where the United States is heading today, because 18th century Britain was a very, very successful and dynamic state whose economic growth was closely wedded, as you say, to the East India Company and to a number of similar large trading monopolies whose principal revenues were drawn from outside Britain. And in that moment, the British population was not very significant either in producing that wealth and that growth or in benefiting from it. So you had a situation in which democracy was pretty much impossible. A small elite drove the economy and benefited from the economy economy. It was MPs who were, 25% of MPs were shareholders in the East India Company. And there was a huge, let's say, convergence of the interests of these massive corporations and the state. And there was no democracy, and there was a lot of slavery. And Britain was in many ways a very terrifying kind of national machine. And then we had industrialization and then all the interests check. Today in the United States, we have a structure that's rather similar to Britain in the 18th century, where the national interest, the growth of the economy, America's attempt to remain technologically competitive with China is hugely wedded to the fate of Silicon Valley. So Silicon Valley starts to get more and more control over Washington, over the state apparatus, and what is left out of of that is the rights and freedoms of individual people to the extent that with things like Twitter, you have a sort of visible dissolving of a lot of the information systems on which democracy depended in the past. And you have a state that seems to be interested really in the question of how you discipline and warehouse populations as much as how you continue delivering them. Rights and freedoms.
- [37:53]
B
But for all that, for all those fracturings and retrenchments of the nation state, it is difficult to avoid noticing that nationalism continues to, well, prosper to a degree, certainly in the west, that it hasn't done for decades. Did you come down on thinking that maybe there's something hardwired into us? We need to feel like we buy. Belong to some sort of apparatus by which we can define ourselves? Because still, I think if you. Yeah, if you meet somebody for the first time, the second thing they'll tell you after their name is where they're from.
- [38:27]
D
That's right, yeah. These things are hardwired to a great extent. They're not going anywhere very soon. So it's a couple of things. So I think it's important to understand that that hardware wiring itself is quite recent. There was no, let's say, Gambian national identity or Bangladeshi national identity until quite recently. These things had to be created, even French. I spend quite a lot of time in the book talking about how French national identity was created. And it was a very deliberate project, a project that started from a very low bar in the sense that at the time of the French Revolution revolution, something like 50% of the supposedly French population spoke French. And there weren't many feelings of complicity between, let's say, aristocrats at Versailles and fishermen in Brittany and farmers in Provence. They didn't consider themselves to be part of anything, so that had to be created. But, yes, at this point of great crisis and anxiety in affairs both local and global, one response is for people to cling all the harder to their national identities. And clearly we see in many, many countries of the world, politicians who are facing many, many problems. Nationalism is one very popular strategy for gaining popularity and convincing people that. That though their objective circumstances may not be improving, there is some pride in just belonging. I mean, Putin is the classic example of that, because Putin has ridden for years not on delivering anything very tangible to Russians, but simply in convincing them that they are part of a glorious and triumphant project of Russia that's restoring its empire and all that sort of thing. They should draw some pride from, from that. And it's quite remarkable. It's something about the nation state, one of the more mysterious aspects of the nation state, that leaders seem to be able to ride quite a long way on those kinds of symbolic bonuses that they can deliver, even when people are having actually quite an objectively hard time.
- [40:45]
B
Well, that, I guess, brings us to your conclusion, or at least the line by Antonio Graup, you Quote at the head of your conclusion, which is that one about the old dying, the new cannot be born. And in the interregnum appear a great variety of morbid symptoms. When we think about morbid symptoms, is that what you see in what I guess we can refer to as the great scheme of things, is the convulsions gripping the world at the moment? Are they. Are they symptoms of what you're writing about?
- [41:15]
D
I think they definitely are. And, I mean, this book came out of some of those morbid symptoms. I mean, I started thinking about it back when Brexit had just happened and Trump had been elected for the first time. And there were a lot of conversations going on within these, let's call them, leading states, the states that actually had invented the nation state in the first place, which were unprecedented and shocking to many citizens. How can our leaders talk like this? How can they cheat us like this or lie to us? Us like this? And Brexit and Trump were two very rich sources of lies and all that sort of thing. I started feeling that a lot of what was going on was a kind of hysteria, the hysteria created by the failure of a lot of the national systems that we've been part of. But I think for me, the big thing that's happening today, the big transition that we're all part of, part of, is the end of American hegemony in the way that it existed from 1945 until sometime in the early 21st century, when America's position as the supplier of the global currency, the supplier of the global legal system, the military guarantor of the capitalist system, all those things were not really in question in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. Now they are in question. And America is, in a way, being demoted simply to the status of one regional imperial power among many, and is therefore having to resort to the same kinds of strategies that countries like Russia and China, but also countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have been resorting to for a long time. And that makes America more desperate, more overtly imperialistic. And we find ourselves in the kind of situation that we haven't seen much in the last 200 years. We did see this kind of situation between about 1900 and 1945, when there was a big competition arising from the failure of British imperial power. And we saw it in the 18th century, where Britain and France were just fighting each other all over the globe for control of the Western capitalist system. But. But in most people's lifetime, I mean, people who are thinking back to any time after 1945. Things have been relatively settled in that respect, but not today. And so, yes, there's morbid symptoms everywhere we look.
- [43:43]
B
That was Rana Dasgupta speaking to me earlier. Rana's new book, after the Making and Unmaking of a World Order, is available now. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Nagar Anger and Michael Binion. Today's show was produced by Tom Webb and researched by Annelise Maynard. Our sound engineer was Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening,
- [44:20]
C
Sam.