Hidden Forces

In Episode 471 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gregg Carlstrom — Middle East correspondent for The Economist, based in Dubai and Riyadh, and a veteran reporter covering the region for fifteen years — about the mood across the Gulf States since the US and Israeli military campaign against Iran began on February 28th, and what the conflict's trajectory reveals about the widening gap between operational success and strategic victory. The conversation opens with an assessment of shifting opinion inside Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf — from early opposition to the war to hawkish demands in some quarters that the United States, having opened Pandora's box, now finish what it started. Carlstrom and Kofinas examine the human and material toll the conflict has taken so far, the extent and internal logic of Iranian restraint in targeting Gulf infrastructure, and the implications of Iran's decentralized Mosaic Defense Doctrine for command and control and efforts at de-escalation. The conversation then t

In Episode 470 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jacob Siegel — writer and editor at Tablet Magazine, U.S. Army veteran, and author of The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control — about the intellectual and historical roots of his argument that the internet has given rise to a fundamentally new form of political regime, one that governs not through force or democratic consent, but by controlling the codes and protocols of the digital public arena. The first hour traces the theoretical and historical foundations of Siegel's argument, from the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, Harold Innis, Neil Postman, and Jacques Ellul, to James Beniger's 1986 work The Control Revolution, to the 17th-century philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz and its downstream influence on the cybernetic frameworks that gave rise to the internet. They discuss the rise of digital swarms, the Anonymous movement, and what Siegel observed when he returned from Afghanistan in 2012 to find American culture being reshape

In Episode 469 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hamidreza Azizi — Iranian scholar, visiting fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs, nonresident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, and author of the forthcoming The Axis of Resistance: Iran, Israel, and the Struggle for the Middle East — about how the US and Israeli military campaign against Iran has evolved over its first three weeks, and what the conflict's trajectory reveals about the competing strategic objectives driving it. The conversation opens with an assessment of how the war has unfolded since its start, examining where US and Israeli objectives align, where they diverge, and what those divergences mean for the conflict's direction. Azizi and Kofinas discuss the significance of the targeted killing of Ali Larijani — secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council — as part of a broader campaign to decapitate the Islamic Republic's leadership structure, and what the systematic elimination

In Episode 468 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with renowned economic historian and author Barry Eichengreen about the history of international currencies and the prospects for the US dollar's continued preeminence, drawing on his new book Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto. The first hour traces the long arc of international currency history, from the invention of coinage in ancient Lydia through the monetary innovations of Athens, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, to Renaissance Florence, where a city-state with no navy and no silver mines managed to make its currency the dominant medium of exchange in Europe. The hour closes with a discussion about the Dutch Republic's revolutionary contributions to modern money and finance, and the Spanish silver dollar—the first truly global currency, which circulated from the New World to China and remained legal tender in the United States until the eve of the Civil War. The second hour examines Britain's emergence as the world's fir

In Episode 467 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bruno Maçães — geopolitical strategist, former Minister of European Affairs for Portugal, and author of World Builders — about the Iran War, what it reveals about the Trump administration's strategic logic, and how the decision to initiate what may prove to be the most expansive American-led war in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq is reshaping the global order. Kofinas and Maçães examine the competing explanations for why the campaign was launched when it was — from the argument that Washington was drawn into the conflict by Israel, to the question of whether Trump's own instincts and political calculations were the decisive factor — including a close reading of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's public comments about the role Israel played in precipitating American military involvement. They also discuss what Washington and Tel Aviv's strategic visions may be for the post-conflict order, the fractures emerging within Trump's own polit

In Episode 466 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joshua Landis, professor of Middle East Studies and director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, about the US-Israel war against Iran, what it reveals about American strategy in the region, and why the absence of a clear theory of victory raises the specter of yet another catastrophic regime-change war in the Middle East. Kofinas and Landis examine the competing narratives surrounding the conflict — from the argument that the Trump administration was dragged into war by Israel, to the theory that Washington concluded Iran would never voluntarily relinquish its nuclear program, to speculation that the campaign is part of a broader grand strategy aimed at neutralizing a Chinese forward base in the Middle East ahead of Trump's summit with Xi Jinping. They also discuss why Iran's regime is far more institutionalized and resilient than the Arab governments the United States has previously sought to topple, the historical

In Episode 465 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yale historian and Cold War scholar Odd Arne Westad, author of The Coming Storm, about why the pre-WWI era of multipolarity, imperial decline, and great power rivalry offers a far more instructive — and alarming — historical parallel to today's world than the Cold War, and what must be done to prevent the catastrophic descent into total war. The first hour explores what went wrong after the fall of the Soviet Union, how the end of the Bretton Woods system helped enable China's economic rise, and the striking structural parallels between the rise of Germany before 1914 and the rise of China today. Westad and Kofinas also examine the roles that Russia, India, and the United States play in this historical analogy, and how the failure to integrate rising powers into meaningful international frameworks — then and now — has set the stage for catastrophic conflict. The second hour takes a deeper look at the specific forces that could push the world from s

In Episode 464 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist, investor, and sovereign wealth and pension fund advisor Sony Kapoor about the case for a great rebalancing of capital from developed into emerging markets, generational investment opportunities in India, how the breakdown of the unipolar order creates both challenges and opportunities for EM investors, and whether AI can revive developed economies weighed down by public debt, unfunded liabilities, and faltering demographics. The first hour covers the structural forces behind the outsized concentration of global portfolios in American assets, why the Trump administration's erratic policymaking has made that overexposure impossible to ignore, and a deep dive into India—its evolving relationship with the US, how its elites and citizens perceive America under Trump, what it has drawn from Beijing's development model, and the remarkable optimism pervading Indian society in contrast to Western declinism. The second hour examines the broader EM

In Episode 463 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with media and technology historian Tim Wu about how the rise of platform power has become the defining economic event of our time, why it's responsible for much of the current dysfunction (from politics and media to housing and healthcare), and what we can do about it. Wu and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation discussing how platform power has become the central form of economic control in our era, why the Internet went from being a free-wheeling and optimistic ecosystem of  entrepreneurship and creativity to one whose business models of extraction dominate it today, and how platforms have been weaponized against their users in order to capture and extract economic value rather than create it. The second hour is devoted to a discussion about the plethora of readily available solutions to our current predicament, like antitrust enforcement, "line of business" restrictions, utility rules and caps, mandated transparency of platform objecti

In Episode 462 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Cullen Roche, the Founder and CIO of Discipline Funds and author of the new book "Your Perfect Portfolio." They discuss the essential principles of portfolio construction by dissecting some of the world's most influential investment strategies―from Warren Buffett's classic approach to the momentum-driven tactics of trend followers, and even innovative frameworks you've likely never seen before.  Cullen and Demetri spend the first hour discussing Roche's philosophy on portfolio construction, what goes into constructing the perfect portfolio, and how variables like one's time horizon, financial circumstances, and behavioral biases are arguably the most important determinants of financial returns, and therefore, must be actively taken into account when structuring your portfolio. They explore the distinction between saving and investing, the hidden costs that erode portfolio performance, and why managing the liability side of your balance sheet is arg

In Episode 461 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with co-founder and chief investment strategist of GMO, Jeremy Grantham, and financial historian, journalist, and investment strategist Edward Chancellor. Together, they have collaborated on Jeremy's autobiography, titled "The Making of a Permabear," which chronicles Grantham's evolution as a value investor and the valuable lessons that can be learned from his six-decade career in investment management. They spend the first hour of their conversation discussing the collaboration behind the book, Grantham's formative experiences in finance, the principles that have guided his investment philosophy, the role of mean reversion in asset markets, and why they both believe that US equities are more overvalued today than at almost any point in history—with important implications for where returns will come from over the next decade. The second hour is devoted to a conversation about the mechanics of financial bubbles, the relationship between ultra-low interes

In Episode 460 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Professor of International Politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich, Carlo Masala, whose book "If Russia Wins," makes the case for European national rearmament and the urgent need to deter near-term Russian threats against NATO member countries in the absence of American leadership. Masala and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation detailing the scenario Calro puts forward in his book—a limited Russian incursion into the Estonian city of Narva. They explore why Carlo thinks that Russia might attempt such an operation, the similarities to and differences from the approach Russia took in Ukraine in 2014, whether NATO's Article 5 commitment would hold in such a scenario, and whether the gradual erosion and eventual destruction of the NATO alliance is the ultimate goal of the Russian Federation, irrespective of who is in office. The second hour is devoted to a conversation about: Europe's defense challenges in the face of a declining

Episode 459 of Hidden Forces is the twelfth episode in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with Kamran Bokhari, a strategic forecaster and geopolitical analyst who specializes on the Middle Eastern and Eurasia, about Iran's nationwide protests, what they reveal about the power and stability of the Iranian regime, and what the state of Iranian affairs portends for Iran's future, the region's geopolitics, and the strategic considerations and objectives of the United States. The conversation's opening hour traces Iran's modern formation—beginning in the early 1900s with the Constitutional Revolution, moving through the 1953 coup and the Shah's rule, and culminating in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and its aftermath. Kamran walks the audience through the evolution of Iran's dual military structure, explaining the critical distinction between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the regular armed forces (Artesh), and how the IRGC grew from an ideologica

In Episode 458 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Patrick Boyle, a former hedge fund manager, finance professor, and the creator and host of one of the most successful business channels on YouTube, with over a million subscribers and nearly 150 million views spread across several hundred videos. Patrick brings a unique combination of domain expertise and media savvy to his analysis of financial markets, economic scandals, and the complex web of power that connects Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington. Demetri asked Patrick Boyle to appear on the podcast after discovering that his channel had been demonetized as a result of his exploration of the Jeffrey Epstein story—not the salacious details that have dominated headlines, but the deeper questions about the intersection of power, wealth, regulatory capture, and institutional failure that the story reveals. They explore where Epstein's massive fortune actually came from, why simple explanations accounting for his wealth don't add up, what th

In Episode 457 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with philosopher Rebecca Goldstein about her latest book, "The Mattering Instinct," which explores our fundamental human longing to feel that our lives matter—that we didn't just come and go and that it was all for nothing. Rebecca and I spend the first hour exploring the origins of her fascination with the question of mattering, how this instinct manifests differently from our biological drive for self-preservation, and why we long not just to matter to ourselves but to feel that we matter objectively. We discuss the critical role played by attention and deservingness in our sense of mattering, the distinction between happiness and fulfillment, and how parenting and early family dynamics shape our relationship with this fundamental human longing. The second hour is devoted to a more in-depth exploration of Rebecca's concept of the "mattering map," which identifies four distinct archetypes: heroic strivers, socializers, competitors, and transcenders. We

Episode 456 is the eleventh installment in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, Brian Winter. He's an expert on Latin America, having lived and worked in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, and possesses a deep understanding of the region's politics, economics, and security dynamics. The three of them begin their conversation discussing the Trump administration's almost cinematic removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela. They speculate about who is currently in charge of the country, the implications of Maduro's exit for Venezuela's economy and the region's geopolitics, the rising tide of right-wing political movements across Latin America, and how this operation fits into the Trump administration's broader initiatives as they have been conveyed in the new National Security Strategy. They also explore the rising tide of right-wing political movements across Latin America, the role of organized crime in drivi

In Episode 455 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nicolas Colin, a former French Treasury official and the co-founder of a European startup accelerator whose work sits at the intersection of technology, markets, geopolitics, and global finance. In the first hour of their conversation, Kofinas and Colin break down Colin's "Late Cycle Investment Theory" and the framework behind it. They draw on Carlota Perez's model of technological revolutions and techno-economic paradigms, explore the role of speculative manias and market concentration, and examine why Colin argues that AI is less a brand-new technological revolution than an intensification of the computing-and-network paradigm that has been unfolding for the past 50 years. They also compare the current moment to the 1970s as a historical analogue and discuss why Colin believes financial systems are often the last piece to be rebuilt after a major paradigm shift. In the second hour, Kofinas and Colin explore what this late-cycle thesis means for i

In Episode 454 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with author, futurist, and U.S. foreign policy expert Jamie Metzl about the aims and objectives of the 2025 National Security Strategy and its implications for American prosperity and power in the 21st century. Jamie and Demetri spend the first hour of this conversation digging into the Trump administration's 2025 National Security Strategy and the story that the administration is trying to tell to the American people and to itself about America's place in the world, where it went astray, and what needs to be done on a strategic planning level in order to "Make America Great Again." From there, Metzl and Kofinas debate whether the strategy amounts to a "containment" of China or something closer to a 19th-century balance-of-power where the largest and most powerful countries—namely the United States, Russia, and China—will be granted the freedom to operate with impunity within their own spheres of influence, dealing a final death blow to the internationa

In Episode 453 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jason Furman, the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, about the state of the U.S. economy, the AI Bubble, monetary policy, inflation, price controls, and much more. Jason and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation exploring his economic framework, what he learned from his time working inside the Clinton and Obama White Houses, and how these experiences shaped his perspective on the role of government in the economy. The two then delve into Furman's thoughts on artificial intelligence. They discuss whether we're living through an AI bubble, where Jason anticipates the greatest productivity gains from the adoption of AI in the U.S. service sector, and his perspective on AI regulation. They also discuss the limitations of our inflation models, whether we have a good working understanding of the causes of inflation, whether the Fed has implicitly raised its inflation target, and how large, structural deficits and political con

In Episode 452 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Iain McGilchrist, a neuroscientist and author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things. His work on the divided brain has helped millions of people find wisdom, meaning, and guidance for living in the modern world. Iain and Demetri begin their conversation exploring McGilchrist's core thesis about the divided brain, how the left and right hemispheres attend to the world in fundamentally different ways, where we see evidence of an increased preponderance in left-brain thinking, and how this has impacted the way we conduct science, reason through problems, use our imagination, and apply wisdom to the world. Iain believes that our civilization is caught in what some have described as a metacrisis, exacerbated by the encroachment of the left hemisphere onto more and more areas of lived experience. We see it in the procedurally abysmal manner in which modern medicine goes about formulating diagnoses, the ever-increasing obsession with p