In Episode 338 of Hidden Forces, speaks with Dr. Edward Luttwak about American grand strategy and the logic of war. Dr. Luttwak is an author and consultant to governments and companies around the world and is known for his work on grand strategy, military strategy and history, and international relations. Luttwak and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation discussing the logic of war and the dimensions of strategy, how the nature of a nation state’s political system influences...

In Episode 337 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jerry Colonna, the co-founder and CEO of the executive coaching and leadership development company Reboot, the host of the Reboot Podcast, and the author of the recently published book “Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong.” Demetri got to know Jerry during their first interview together after the publication of Jerry’s last book on the subject of leadership and the art of growing up, in which he explained how the lessons...

In Episode 336 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman about the containment problem and the AI dilemma that he outlines in his book, “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma." Mustafa Suleyman and Demetri discuss the rapid advancement and proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Biology, why this revolution is going to be fundamentally different from past periods of rapid...

In Episode 335 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Marshall Kosloff. Marshall is the host of The Realignment and Arsenal of Democracy podcasts and is a media fellow at Hudson Institute. Marshall and Demetri spend the first hour applying Marshall’s realignment framework to U.S. foreign policy in light of the recent developments in Israel and the potential for a destabilizing regional war with Iran. In the second hour, they discuss Artificial Intelligence (AI) and social media...

In Episode 334 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with famed historian of American Foreign policy Walter Russell Mead about the evolving war in the Middle East and why we are living through the most dangerous period in international affairs since the 1930s. Professor Mead is a Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at the Hudson Institute, the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard...

In Episode 333 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Brenes, the Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University who recently authored an article for Foreign Affairs about the U.S. defense industrial base titled “How America Broke Its War Machine.” Michael and Demetri discuss the state of the U.S. defense industrial base, American military readiness, and the effect that great-power competition and the expansion and scope of U.S. military...

In Episode 332 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with geopolitical analyst and forecaster Kamran Bokhari. Kamran is the Senior Director of the Eurasian Security & Prosperity Portfolio at the New Lines Institute for Strategy & Policy and has served at the U.S. State Department and as a Senior Consultant with the World Bank. The subjects of today’s conversation concern the escalating violence ignited by last weekend’s brutal attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas, as well as the...

In Episode 331 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Andy Constan and Mike Green after a week of turmoil in the bond market that saw a dramatic repricing of long-term government debt, raising debt servicing costs for the US government and sending yields on 10-year Treasury bonds to nearly 5%. Demetri, Andy, and Mike spend the first hour of their conversation trying to make sense of the recent sell-off, as well as what the implications of these higher long-term interest rates will be...

In Episode 330 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Henry Olsen, author of “Working Class Republican” and “The Four Faces of the Republican Party,” about where the United States and other western democratic countries find themselves politically today, the sources of populism’s broad, international appeal, and why he believes that we are living through the kind of political realignment that hasn’t happened for almost a century. Henry is also a columnist for the Washington post and...

In Episode 329 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dylan Patel, a semiconductor and A.I. analyst and the founder of boutique Semiconductor research and consulting firm SemiAnalysis, about how U.S. semiconductor export controls are failing and what the U.S. can do about it. Dylan and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation going over Huawei’s groundbreaking new Kirin 9000s chipset produced by Chinese semiconductor foundry SMIC and what it tells us about the progress that...

In Episode 328 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Brad Setser, the Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations where he specializes in global trade and capital flows, financial vulnerability analysis, and sovereign debt restructuring. Brad has also served in multiple Democrat administrations as a senior advisor to the U.S. Trade Representative, as deputy assistant secretary for international economic analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department, and as a...

In Episode 327 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Diana Choyleva in what was originally recorded as a live Q&A for members of our Genius Community. The subject of the Q&A is the latest state of US-China relations with an emphasis on some of the most recent headlines related Huawei’s latest 5G phone with its domestically produced 7nm chip, China’s naval exercises in the pacific, as well as some of ongoing headlines around the state of its economy. During the introduction,...

In Episode 326 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Alex Velez-Green, the fmr. National Security Advisor to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, who helped staff the senator on the Armed Services Committee and advised him on matters related to strengthening deterrence against China, including U.S. conventional and nuclear force structure and posture. Alex and Demetri discuss the perilous situation in which the U.S. now finds itself in the Pacific, how it got here, and what is required to...

This is the first in a special series of episodes dedicated to exploring Demetri’s frameworks and ideas about the most consequential forces shaping our lives and the world around us.  You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with...

In Episode 325 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Nicoletos, the founder and CEO of DeFi Advisors, an independent investment advisory firm specializing in macro and digital assets. Michael and Demetri spend the first twenty minutes discussing Michael’s biography, including his time living and working in the United States. What that experience taught him about the country’s capacity for change and why its embrace of failure is critical to America’s continual economic,...

In Episode 324 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Mauro Guillen, a Professor of Multinational Management and Vice Dean of the Executive MBA Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mauro combines his training as a sociologist and his experience as a business economist to identify and quantify the most promising opportunities at the intersection of demographic, economic, and technological developments. His book “2030” was an instant bestseller and he joins...

In Episode 323 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the former Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Director of the Center for Politics, Economics, and History at the University of Texas at Austin, Charles Calomiris about his recently published paper “Fiscal Dominance and the Return of Zero-Interest Bank Reserve Requirements.” In the paper, Dr. Calomiris considers the possibility that the United States government will enact new and more onerous...

In Episode 322 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with someone he has gotten to know mainly by following his anonymous account on Twitter where he goes by the name Shrubbery Capital or Le Shrub, for short. Le Shrub consistently provides some of the most entertaining and clever market commentary you will find anywhere and Demetri could not resist the opportunity to have him on the podcast, especially given the fact that this conversation was conducted in person. The two spend most of...

In Episode 321 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with bestselling author, renowned historian, economist, and theorist of generational change, Neil Howe. Twenty-five years ago, Neil and his late co-author William Strauss put forward a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back over the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly 80 to 100 years, with each composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always...

In Episode 320 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Peter Atwater, a recognized expert on the impact of confidence on individual and group decision-making, which he examines in his book, “The Confidence Map: Charting a Path From Chaos to Clarity.” In today’s conversation, you are going to learn about the hidden role that confidence plays in the choices we make, and why events that are often described as being unprecedented are more often than not entirely predictable if we know...

In Episode 319 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Carol Roth, the author of “You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back.” The argument that Carol makes in the book is that we are on the precipice of a new financial world order, one that will fundamentally change the fortunes of hundreds of millions if not billions of people across the western world. How this new financial world order is being brought about and the role being played by...

In Episode 318 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with political and financial historians Edward Chancellor, Russell Napier, and Helen Thompson. All three have appeared individually on the podcast before and joined Demetri ahead of his latest Genius community dinner in London to discuss the changing nature of the international economic and political order. Many of the material changes we are experiencing today are driven by the reversal of multi-decade trends in demographics,...

In Episode 317 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with General Mick Ryan. Mick Ryan is an author, strategist, and retired major general who has commanded at multiple levels in the Australian Army and served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Timor. After decades of brinkmanship and confrontation, the United States and China finally go to war when China invades the island of Taiwan. This is the premise that General Mick Ryan explores in his latest book “White Sun War: The Campaign for...

In Episode 316 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Andy Constan about this week’s FOMC meeting and what the Federal Reserve rate decision could signal about the direction of interest rates, inflation, and economic growth. Will it be heralded as the long anticipate Fed pivot or seen as yet another head fake on our way toward “higher for longer,” serving as a drag on equity valuations and a headwind to economic growth? Because Andy’s analysis is largely quantitative and flows based,...

In Episode 315 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas is joined by Nicholas Danforth and Amberin Zaman to discuss the significance of the recent elections in Turkey for Turkish politics, the country’s complex relationship with its neighbors and allies in Europe and the United States, and for the Turkish economy, which has been teetering on the edge of a balance of payments crisis with no easy solution in sight. While much ink has been spilled by Western press outlets covering the recent...