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The Geopolitical Landscape: Key Challenges for the New Administration

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The Geopolitical Landscape: Key Challenges for the New Administration

February 5, 2025

Wednesday 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. ET

A host of foreign policy and national security challenges await the new Trump administration, including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, tensions with China, the future of NATO, cybersecurity threats and the growing global influence of disinformation. How will the new administration respond to these challenges and what do these global dynamics mean for U.S. businesses? Michael Mazarr, senior political scientist at RAND, joined us to discuss today’s geopolitical risks, global hot spots, pressing foreign policy issues and takeaways for the business community.

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Summary

What did we learn? Here are the top takeaways from The Geopolitical Landscape: Key Challenges for the New Administration:

Three major regions currently pose challenges for the United States, explained Mazarr. The new administration will have to deal with the war in Ukraine, violence across the Middle East and China’s increasing aggression in the Indo-Pacific region. In Ukraine, it’s in the best interest of the United States to make sure Russia’s aggression doesn’t pay, he said, adding: “The war cannot end in a way that seems like a clear and unconditional Russian victory because that would set a very bad precedent.” In the Middle East, “it’s very unclear how this immediate situation in Gaza is resolved,” he said, adding that ending the current conflict and beginning reconstruction “is a critical short-term priority.” And as for China, “what we’re trying to do is draw a line to keep China from simply militarily pushing our friends and allies out of the way and just grabbing what it wants,” he said.

The U.S. will need to grapple with China’s rising ambition, Mazarr said. China has its sights set on not only specific geopolitical goals but trade, technology and political influence, such as its expanding role in Latin America, with trade, investments and increasing cultural and political ties, he said. “I’ve thought for a long time that Latin America ought to be more front and center on U.S. foreign policy and foreign economic agendas because they’re critical trade partners close to the United States, with many shared interests and emerging democracies,” he said, adding: “There’s a lot of reasons to be giving greater attention to this region, and in doing so we help address that Chinese challenge.” China’s ties with other countries “are not necessarily a threat to U.S. vital interests,” he said. “It only becomes a concern when we want cooperation from those countries and China is trying to push in the other direction.”                                             

Increasing competition for digital sovereignty will play a major role in geopolitics, Mazarr explained. “This encompasses cybersecurity and information security, disinformation across borders, the growing area of AI competition and the increasingly digital interdependence of modern economies,” he said. “The question of how nations protect themselves is a critical long-term issue.” The next two to three years will see “incredible breakthroughs in AI capabilities” and offer a critical window of opportunity to make strides on safeguards. The Chinese AI model DeepSeek is making waves, and some experts believe one country will get to a critical threshold first, gaining military and other advantages, while others believe it will happen more gradually, he said. “That gets back to the theme of digital sovereignty, having AI systems where you don’t as a nation depend on others for your system,” he said. For example, if American schools became dependent on DeepSeek, “China could just turn the key and shut it down.”

The rise of middle powers is also changing the geopolitical landscape, Mazarr noted. “The United States and China still sit at the top of world politics, but there’s a whole set of important middle or ‘swing’ states seeking an increasing voice in world politics,” he said. “And working with them and finding ways to manage alignment with those countries is an absolutely critical diplomatic challenge.” These middle states include well-established countries, such as Germany and Japan, as well as rising countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam, he said. “The United States is increasingly going to be confronting a world where countries have options other than the United States,” he said.

Geopolitical trends are building on societal trends like the rise of disinformation, Mazarr said. “It’s not just the spread of disinformation,” he said. “It’s the corruption and collapse of a reliable information environment.” This has been caused in part by the fragmentation of information sources, a major change from the era when there were three major networks, a few big newspapers and a handful of respected mediators who spoke with authority. “It could be too limiting, but it was stabilizing,” he said. Now we have thousands of independent sources of information, he pointed out. “There’s a crisis of how people gather and process information,” he said, adding that domestic misinformation is currently a bigger threat than misinformation from foreign powers. “It’s mostly a homegrown problem,” he said.

The United States must revamp its military bureaucracy to keep a leading edge, Mazarr said. “It is very clear that the United States retains, by far, the most sophisticated, capable and competent military in the world,” he said. However, the new administration must focus on reducing the bureaucracy that can hamper progress, he explained. For example, red tape within the procurement process and other areas prevents the building of a significant number of new Navy ships each year, he said. “This is all true at a time when we’re on the cusp of a significant evolution in the nature of defense technology with unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and quantum computing,” he said. “So we need to be innovative, adaptive and open to new ways of doing business.”

Businesses can insulate from global uncertainty by preparing for volatility, Mazarr advised. “For firms of different sizes, this can mean very different things,” he said. In general, companies can start by identifying the specific avenues of volatility for their businesses, such as inflation rates, general economic factors or Chinese supply chains, he said. Then find ways to mitigate those risks. “Companies theoretically are doing this all the time, but from my study of risk management processes, that sort of obsession with the risk of volatility isn’t always there,” he said. Second, companies should have a digital sovereignty strategy, he said. This includes cybersecurity as well as employment of AI with an eye toward safeguards. He advised considering who you rely on for the AI models and what specific threats your company could face from hackers, business competitors and other countries.

Despite challenges, there are reasons for optimism, Mazarr explained. “One, as much as we’re worried about these regional conflicts, the idea of major war between the great powers, which was the centerpiece of world politics for thousands of years, is really not on the front burner,” he said. That’s because nuclear weapons and economic interdependencies act as deterrents and limit conscious aggression by big powers, he said. Second, there’s a critical mass of world nations in Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, including Japan and Singapore, that want peace, stable trade relations and control of dangerous technologies, he said, adding: “There’s an enormous majority of the world community that wants stability and good relations.”                                                                            

Speaker

Michael Mazarr headshot
Michael Mazarr
Senior Political Scientist, RAND

Host

Joan Woodward headshot
Joan Woodward
President, Travelers Institute; Executive Vice President, Public Policy, Travelers


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