Why is...the Gulf so geopolitically important?

00:00:06: Welcome to Voices, the EISA Podcast.

00:00:09: The space for cutting edge research in the discipline of international relations and the audible companion to EISA – the European International Studies Association.

00:00:24: This podcast sets the stage for deeper insights into award-winning papers books and thesis as much as it provides a room for critical engagement with key concepts.

00:00:43: Voices, the EISA podcast.

00:00:46: Feeds your reading lists makes cutting-edge IR research audible.

00:01:02: Please welcome our today's host Polly Palister Wilkins political geographer and associate professor at The University of Amsterdam And board member of the Eisa.

00:01:17: Why

00:01:17: is the Gulf so geopolitically important?

00:01:20: To answer this question and many more, I am joined by Lele Khalili to discuss the U.S.-Israeli War on Iran The closure of the state of Formos The threat of oil price rises And economic upheaval.

00:01:33: What does that mean for our understanding of the region International relations and political economy?

00:01:40: How can we better understand it in historical and material perspective?

00:01:46: Lele Chalili is Professor of Golf Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, at The University of Exeter in UK.

00:01:54: Her research focuses on ongoing violence with Empire and the afterlives of colonialism in contemporary politics.

00:02:03: She is author to a number books including Sinus Of War And Trade Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula, published by Verso.

00:02:14: And Extractive Capitalism – How Commodities & Chronyism Drive The Global Economy, Published By Profile Books.

00:02:24: Welcome to the Voices Podcast Lele!

00:02:26: Thank you for joining us today.

00:02:29: Thank you so much for having me on.

00:02:31: it's really exciting to be able to talk to you.

00:02:33: I can't think of a better person to have us on To Talk About This.

00:02:38: So...to kick us off I think we should probably recap the events of the last few months.

00:02:45: Uh, i imagine all of our listeners are aware Of what's been happening.

00:02:49: if they're not?

00:02:50: I am very jealous of them But They should be aware of what's being happening with the israelian us war in iran israel's invasion of lebanon iranian retaliatory strikes on gulf states The closure of the state of hummus rising oil prices, threatened shortages of oil and fertilizer.

00:03:09: And the subsequent economic ramifications.

00:03:13: now with your vast knowledge an expertise on all this can you briefly contextualize these events for us?

00:03:23: It's always a dangerous venture to ask an academic to contextualized because I can easily start with a history of the U.S being established as a colony of Britain and go forward, but I think what i'm going to do instead is...I am basically saying that really at stake here in this particular round-of-violence begins on the seventh of October.

00:03:52: two thousand twenty three The Palestinian operation barriers in Gaza enter, you know the Israel-Gaza envelope area and attack a very large number of civilians as well which I believe, even believed then was going to be transformative for the region.

00:04:23: But of course like every transformative event it takes an enormous amount of blood and guts get to a point where the transformation happens And given contingency historical contingencies is really difficult see what might be the outcome.

00:04:41: So obviously, that larger longer context of this is Israeli settler colonialism in Palestine but a shorter contexts and I think this where am going to shift.

00:04:52: after Israel genocide begins in Gaza on October eighth or actually seventh immediately What we end up seeing?

00:05:04: largely Basically, the Arab states are not doing anything.

00:05:11: In fact if anything Egypt for example goes in and supports Israel by closing the borders immediately on the other side of the border with Rafa.

00:05:18: And of course you know expressions of solidarity from the Israels allies in the region particularly countries that signed up to Abraham Accord prominent among them, the United Arab Emirates.

00:05:31: I was just reading a piece about Brett McGurk ,the national security advisor to the Biden administration who actually got his start in politics under the Bush Administration That on the sixth of October, he was actually putting some finishing touches to a deal that He was going to broker between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

00:05:50: So this is in the context of that.

00:05:52: And of course Israeli genocide begins.

00:05:54: we know that The number of dead Israel itself has acknowledged there it somewhere around seventy thousand But most studies indicate that their numbers probably exceed one hundred thousand if not more Of people actually directly killed in the hostilities.

00:06:12: This is you know, obviously a travesty and atrocity we all know about And it's genocidal.

00:06:17: but the that I'm going to shift eastward.

00:06:20: Um, and i'm gonna talk About how in november?

00:06:23: two thousand twenty three just um A month or so after the genocide begins and it Is at its highest intensity Or one of the big huge peaks of an intensity The ansor Allah movement off Yemen which is uh movements that controls based basically most of Northern Yemen and much of the hinterland.

00:06:44: And they are considering themselves, and they do have control over the levers there although in a battle with another government which is a proxy of Saudi Arabia

00:06:56: etc.,

00:06:56: that had already undergone a war where Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had attacked them, so they are very experienced in this kind of an asymmetric fighting.

00:07:08: And one of things that they do in November is that they blockade the Red Sea by boarding a ship by helicopter.

00:07:16: basically arresting it and bringing it to the port of Hedadah obviously becomes a credible threat because they were able to do this on the credible thread as cascading effect causing the insurance companies that ensure global shipping to add a very significant more risk premium, major increase in the cost of ships going through the Red Sea.

00:07:42: The premium actually insures both whole body of ship itself and cargo.

00:07:49: this amount just goes though roof.

00:07:52: Now it becomes really quite significant because Significance of this particular choke point, the significance of these particular geographic narrow space.

00:08:06: A bobble mandab which connects The Gulf Of Aden to Red Sea It becomes as Ashok Kumar has written in a piece that came out I believe in Antipode.

00:08:17: How do you pronounce that?

00:08:18: Anyway, they came out in the journal.

00:08:23: He argues it has basically weaponized their very character of global trade as a way to create a kind of counter logistical blockade.

00:08:36: The bubble mandup about twelve percent goes through And about twelve percent of the world's trade goes through the Suez Canal.

00:08:44: The difference between the Bab Al-Mandab and the Sueze canal, of course is that there's also a lot of shipping that for example goes to or leaves from the ports of Saudi Arabia Or other Red Sea ports across the water.

00:08:57: So this actually bigger context in terms of tactics used by Iran after Israelis attacked Iran.

00:09:12: Now the larger context for their attack against Iran of course is that with in the immediate aftermath, as I mentioned, kicking off Israeli genocidal actions against Gaza there was a complete and total system of global support for Israel.

00:09:37: we famously know basically every institution down in support of Israel despite the fact that all around the world, the publics or the members of those institutions actually the rank and file are argued against this complaint.

00:09:53: And one hundred percent support there.

00:09:56: so This meant that of course israel also use this particular moment to In fact increase its domain of control at, you know the end of the Assad regime for example.

00:10:13: The toppling gave Israel the impetus to move into areas beyond the Golan Heights, so it's occupying the Golon Heights plus.

00:10:26: And then in a summer of two thousand and twenty five under the pretext of disabling Iran's uranium enrichment program they Israel and the US attacked a number sites particularly sites of reactors nuclear reactors And of course, Trump... This was over the course of twelve days.

00:10:50: They attacked a bunch of sites Over the course those twelve days and then at the end of that twelve days, Trump basically said they had obliterated Iran's nuclear capacity and declared victory.

00:11:08: but in aftermath so after the ceasefire with Israel Palestinians, of course the genocide was continued on simmer.

00:11:18: And I think this was the moment in which Israel thought that the way that it was going to be able to arrive at its maximalist goal of dominating the region Was to ensure the degradation and de-development Of all other countries around that they could potentially pose a challenge to it?

00:11:35: So that process of development meant that Israel bombed hell out of Syria Continued bombing Lebanon.

00:11:42: hundreds ceasefire, actually probably thousands of cease-fire violations by Israel and then this bombing in Iran.

00:11:50: And twenty-twenty six popular mobilization in Iran, which we now understand from both New York Times reporting and actually at the time people like Pompeo going and saying Mossad is walking alongside protesters.

00:12:09: In Iran there was an attempt to actually mobilize Both minority communities but also protestors against the government of Iran And I think this was so.

00:12:19: on one hand There's this idea that Iran has been weakened.

00:12:24: there could be, you know... one of the head of Mossad, Barnia.

00:12:28: Barnia I believe told Israel that the Iranian regime was going to topple and-and of course uh...the U.S.. The Trump administration has fired any group.

00:12:40: ...that could have potentially advised them on.

00:12:44: you know ..the various scenarios emerging out of that including thinning the ranks in the military That could've warned the Trump Administration about the possible fallouts of what would happen if they attacked.

00:12:58: They bought what Israel was selling, as well their own intelligence agencies and so at the end February this year about six weeks ago a bombing campaign began against Iran by Israel within a couple of days.

00:13:16: This is, of course an Israeli method.

00:13:18: they have basically mainstreamed move the Overton window on the assassination of heads-of state radically.

00:13:27: I mean, Israel has always assassinated people as even before the establishment of Israel that you should have used.

00:13:35: assassination figures is a major tactic of mobilization and it's a major tactical coming to power.

00:13:42: Assassination has been in their Israeli states basic repertoire attacks against usually again civilian heads.

00:13:55: Basically, they tried to decapitate Palestinian movements within the PLO and nobody said anything to them.

00:14:05: Just recently read something in the LRB about how The Club of Bern which is an intelligence sharing group In countries like NATO or Israel as a member Basically, all of the Intel heads actually were probably completely and totally complicit.

00:14:23: All other European intelligence agencies were complicit in helping or giving intelligence to Israel that it used for its assassinations lands on European soil.

00:14:36: And so they also thought, okay we're going to be decapitated Hezbollah We killed Sinwar as well as Ismail Haniyeh the sort of military and civilian head of Hamas were gonna do the same To Iran!

00:14:55: I think that degree of hubris In all three of these cases has come to bite Israel in ways that I think not even I anticipated.

00:15:07: We find out from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and sort-of chaos at this moment, that Hezbollah had returned.

00:15:18: rather than a larger form of Maoist mobilization which you have big force, sort of a big uniformed force.

00:15:28: And then the guerrilla forces.

00:15:29: they have kind of fallen back to the guerilla forms or operation.

00:15:33: so this is counterinsurgency one-on-one.

00:15:35: it's just a form of guerrillas operation that you see in places where people but like what are the gorilla population is besieged and so doesn't want others who find them?

00:15:44: So we're seeing as well operate.

00:15:47: there has been numerous reports since then that indicate, in fact the extent to which Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon has managed to hit back at Israel.

00:15:58: Has come as a surprise for Israel.

00:16:01: where Israel had also an initial maxim of this position was it is going completely destroy Hamas in Gaza.

00:16:09: we have discovered today Hamas retains quite a lot its capabilities.

00:16:16: there's no full destruction.

00:16:18: the very fact that there are, you know, emergence of forms of civilian recuperation and reconstruction probably happens in the context of a larger sort of political order.

00:16:29: That is emerging against subcutaneously, subterranean leader.

00:16:34: In the case of Iran I find The fact they thought They could assassinate Khomeinii And get good results Absolutely mind boggling in part because, aside from the question of intelligence and not knowing to which Iran is institutionally capable of regenerating particular positions that have been decapitated or that have been beheaded, it's come as a complete shock to me.

00:17:14: They didn't realize so much of what they were hearing from both diaspora and Israeli intelligence about the possibility a sort of revolt in Iran, but also in Iran's peripheries.

00:17:32: The the sort of minorities that have been subjected to various kinds of violence by the central state in Iran- violence and subjugation.

00:17:40: they were expecting some kind of a revolt!

00:17:43: And of course anybody who has studied Iranian history even to the level of one-on-one, we'll be able to tell you at least in the last century Iranians might beat each other's throats.

00:17:58: but the moment that a foreign power attacks as actually do most countries in the world.

00:18:04: A foreign power attack and attacks in ways that ends up killing civilians particularly like their first great kill is primary school with a hundred and eighty little girls, uh...little boys.

00:18:22: And so people are going to rally behind the flag.

00:18:27: So that's the first thing.

00:18:28: The second is I think there particular minority communities That have rightful complaints and grievances against the central state in Iran also have a long memory of having been betrayed by the United States.

00:18:51: And I think that there was also some constraint placed on these communities, by the neighboring countries out from which they had a base of operation.

00:19:05: so... From what i understand for example The Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq constrained Iranian armed groups, Kurdish armed groups from basically fomenting revolt in Iran.

00:19:18: There may have been some pressure and this is kind of real politic the brass tach of RealPolitik.

00:19:25: I don't think it was that the KRG necessarily worried about this but they put their own interests perhaps ahead of the Kurdish minority in Iran.

00:19:35: But i also think there's again the Kurds in Iraq having a very long history of being betrayed by Kissinger, most famously in the nineteen seventies.

00:19:44: So there is this kind of... There's this incredible process happening in this moment which is layer upon layer of history.

00:19:54: My husband hates me using the word palimpsest but this IS a palimbsest of history.

00:20:00: Essentially we're looking through these layers of history at other instances Which are analogous not exactly the same But analogous.

00:20:09: and so And to anybody again who has studied this, the most rudimentary knowledge or the most Rudimentary criticism of ideological attacks or ideological interventions.

00:20:23: Military interventions against... Or at the ideology of military intervention would tell you that was going not go as planned.

00:20:32: And so it didn't.

00:20:35: The reason that I brought up in this very long preamble, the context of Ansar al-Lah in Yemen locating the Red Sea is because the Iranians decided to do the same with the Strait of Hormuz which basically was a one two dance number One.

00:20:52: you'd do a couple credible threats.

00:20:54: You bomb a couple used drones or missiles and attack a couple ships.

00:21:01: Number Two Step insurance companies immediately raise the price of insurance.

00:21:05: In fact, in the first week or so Trump was saying that they were... The US Treasury is going to insurerships and we didn't hear much about it again after this happened.

00:21:17: So now we have a standoff where Iran plus the insurance company has basically generated this blockage.

00:21:28: Or let's start with a blockage which then translates into Iranians, also the Iranian military and navy using their kind of inexpensive drones often sort-of homemade forms both weaponry but also homemade weaponry that have parts for example from China.

00:21:52: And potential intelligence.

00:21:55: you know high resolution satellite imagery intelligence potentially from Russia, but also I would imagine human intelligence.

00:22:06: From people in a lot of the Gulf that are unhappy about the autocratic rules there and they have transformed their blockage of hormones into a longer larger blockade where every time one of the Iranian infrastructures, oil, desalination plants, electricity plants have been attacked.

00:22:31: They've basically done an exact hit for TAT across the way.

00:22:36: and so when Iranian gas was hit Iran attacks Ras al-Afen in Qatar which is one of the world's biggest liquid natural gas producing sites.

00:22:50: When Israelis bombed a desalinated plant Iran attacked the desalination plants in Bahrain and Kuwait, And so on.

00:22:59: In addition... We don't know this because all of the countries in the region have arrested anybody who has reported on it.

00:23:10: So we discovered recently that a fairly prominent American-Palestinian journalist Ahmet Shahabeddin which was just discovered yesterday had been imprisoned for the last six weeks.

00:23:22: There's also all sorts of troubling issues around this.

00:23:27: Shahab ad-Din's father was a Palestinian who had been naturalized in Kuwait, and his father was one of the people that Kuwait in their recent spate of incredibly authoritarian measures against its citizenry had denaturalised as Father And therefore Shahab Ad-Dinn didn't have to kind even basic protections that he could have had.

00:23:46: We know, for example of dozens something like seventy five British people in the UAE who had been arrested or deported or thrown out at a country because they had tried photographed or filmed or posted Iranian attacks against Emirati infrastructures.

00:24:06: That means if white people are getting thrown at God knows what's happening to the migrant communities from the global south, we're taking these pictures.

00:24:15: And of course in all this and I'm gonna you were going ask me lots of other questions on an eye want also mention that there is a lot of this offcourse innocence or being killed aside The hundred and eighty kids killed in the very first few days of their attacks.

00:24:33: Thousands of Iranians have been killed, thousands of Lebanese have been.

00:24:39: There are of course, seafarers that are stuck on ships in the Gulf.

00:24:45: Of course civilians killed across the Gulf and in most instances those civilians or migrant workers.

00:24:51: so there is... The fallout of this I should say because it's important not just a matter of geopolitics but also every person dead as a rip from humanity of course have been those that Israelis or the US has killed, but nevertheless there is quite a devastating assault on basic human principles throughout this whole debacle.

00:25:23: Now following from that we're recording after one week for two weeks ceasefire So obviously this will come out later.

00:25:34: This is coming out in May, but right now we're recording this one week into a two-week ceasefire and so it's difficult to know what the end game looks like.

00:25:44: I mean We can certainly say that international law is definitely In The Toilet Now But It Certainly Seems As If The Importance Of Traditional Geopolitics to International Relations War And Trade Has Been Made brutally visible and brutally visible in very real ways, right?

00:26:02: And also of course it's very important to mention that this has a real human impact on everyday people.

00:26:09: But why is the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula more broadly so important to our Ways Of Life ?

00:26:17: I mean when i say Our Ways OF LIFE ,I mean its very visible .

00:26:22: This is everyone's way of life !

00:26:23: This isn't a Eurocentric position.

00:26:28: And how did this centrality come about?

00:26:32: So one of the things There's a saying about the US that war is the way U.S.

00:26:38: citizens learn geography.

00:26:41: I think actually what has been really interesting in this particular war, it seems like there was a war where all of us have learned a lot about political economy.

00:26:52: we may not know.

00:26:53: So there are strategic reasons why the Arabian Peninsula is important.

00:26:57: as its already clear It sits two of the worlds top three most important global choke points.

00:27:06: Malacca Strait is the number one where something like thirty percent of the global trade goes through the Strait of Malacco, which is next to Singapore.

00:27:14: and then it's the Hormuz where twenty per cent of the world oil flows on used to flow.

00:27:24: And then there's Bob Armanda where twelve percent as I mentioned, twelve to fifteen percent of the global trade went through Bob Armada.

00:27:30: Each one had different kinds of cargo that went though them.

00:27:37: in the case of Malacca Strait because it is a significant area right next to Singapore and on the route to the megaports East Asia It was huge amount both primary cargos think of iron ore, or coal actually.

00:27:57: Oil but also manufactured goods so the stuff that you put on a container and ship somewhere else.

00:28:03: And Bob-Elmandab is important because it's the primary route between Europe and Asia, so the Europe-Asia route is quite obviously one of the most significant global trade routes other than the transatlantic route which is like the most important one.

00:28:23: And then there are of course as I mentioned twenty percent of the world's petroleum products oil, petrochemicals natural gas goes through hormones.

00:28:35: But what we also learned in the last six weeks is that it's not just the petroleum products and petrocams again you know there're kinds of chemicals like for example are used to produce plastics or other things but also byproducts of petroleum production number one, and other kinds of products that you need a huge amount of energy to produce.

00:29:03: And so the Gulf has become one of those places where these things are produced.

00:29:07: So what are those things?

00:29:09: The byproducts include urea which is urea and ammonia, which are constituent elements of fertilizers.

00:29:19: Which obviously we need them for agriculture on a very large scale.

00:29:25: number one The second thing that is really quite significant, which is a byproduct.

00:29:31: Which we discovered because I had never actually thought about this.

00:29:36: but the West Point and the US Military Academy put out a blog point based on a report they have produced That Middle East as one of the world's largest producers of sulphur And the U S Is One Of The Largest Consumers Of The Sulfur Produced In The Middle East?

00:29:56: Canada, but number two is the Gulf.

00:29:58: And Sulfur which was used as a byproduct of heavy sour crude produces sulfur.

00:30:05: so when they actually refine the product you produce lots of sulfur and sulfur to great Satan Of course.

00:30:13: sorry somebody else made that joke I just had to repeat it.

00:30:17: So the Sulfure has been used in sulfuric acid Which is used in smelting copper and smelting copper is necessary for anything that has to do with electrics.

00:30:29: So you have a byproduct of oil here being important to the production of batteries, but also semiconductors etc.

00:30:36: The other thing that is a bi-productive petroleum or hydrocarbon production Is helium which if you produce natural gas You produce helium.

00:30:45: Helium is used in semiconductor But very importantly it's also used in MRIs.

00:30:50: so helium gas It absolutely necessary for MRIs.

00:30:55: If you recall when Israelis were destroying a lot of the MRI facilities in Gaza, there would be big cylinders.

00:31:05: In those MRI facilities with big cylinders were helium and the Gulf produces apparently twenty to thirty percent of the world's helium.

00:31:15: again it is byproducts of hydrocarbon production.

00:31:17: so these are all the by-product.

00:31:20: And suddenly this vast amount of these by products which many of us didn't even know that we're so central for global trade or not coming out of the golf.

00:31:31: Then there is, of course the stuff that needed a lot energy for their production and aluminium is number one.

00:31:38: Aluminium smelting is extremely high-energy.

00:31:42: so if you ever go to an area where it has refineries what you'll find.

00:31:48: usually there's an aluminium smelthing place.

00:31:52: There are also cements which is another one with very high energy production facilities and the Gulf as well, which it uses for its own construction but also exports a huge amount of cement actually.

00:32:06: So between cement and aluminium, also incredibly crucial to all sorts of things you end up having this massive drop in the export of these things.

00:32:15: The price now of aluminium has gone up etc.

00:32:18: so This has been Incredibly important to this.

00:32:22: but the other element of this which is really incredibly Significant that has emerged out of this Which Is fascinating?

00:32:29: It's the extent To which the basic elements of global trade have been repurposed.

00:32:40: So you will have bills of lading that are made electronic, a huge amount of information attached to a ship through its automatic identification system which is all electronic, and this stuff of course has been used by the US as a means of sanctioning.

00:32:58: This information's available.

00:32:59: obviously to us access it.

00:33:01: but interestingly both in the case of Ansar Allah in Yemen And the case with Iran you find that they actually have also repurposed this information so their use.

00:33:12: So In the case for Ansara Allah one conditions that Ansari Allah placed on ships crossing Bab al-Mandab was that there AIS automatic identification systems, declare that they had no relation to Israel.

00:33:26: And ships did that and it was of course the longer term effect.

00:33:30: after Bab al-Mandab blockade with its trade through this Suez Canal fell by forty to fifty percent.

00:33:37: particularly container trade felt about sixty percent.

00:33:41: so that's a huge huge.

00:33:43: actually Suez has not yet recovered from that fall.

00:33:47: The numbers for stuff that goes through WabbleManda even now is still about half of what it was before November, twenty-twenty three.

00:33:59: And so This is also used by Ron, where they use information that they could glean from all of this electronic stuff about where a ship is lifting its products from.

00:34:13: Where it's going to etc.

00:34:15: as a means of controlling passage through the Gulf again using the one two of credible threats plus this incredible increase in insurance premiums.

00:34:30: And so what... Of course, we are in this moment.

00:34:34: I don't know when this is going to be aired but at this moment what we're also seeing Is that the Trump administration has said oh you're gonna blockade.

00:34:44: well i'm gonna blockate too.

00:34:46: and so We heard that there were thirty eight ships across the hormones.

00:34:51: Yesterday trump actually boasted about it But then we hear today That they have blockaded.

00:35:01: It's fascinating.

00:35:04: I genuinely, at the best of times...I don't like predicting what is going to happen but i have absolutely no idea what's going to happened!

00:35:14: I can't imagine that China or India are going to sit aside and allow this to happen.

00:35:22: China obviously receives a huge amount of its energy from the Gulf.

00:35:28: And they have had a bunch of their ships, not all but a bunch or their ships that has been allowed through to go to various ports there carrying energy and other goods In case India.

00:35:41: The Indian government which is maintained despite this very close relationship with both Israel and United Arab Emirates.

00:35:49: it actually invested in Chabahar port in Iran and had maintained the cordial relationship with Iran but negotiated a bilateral deal to allow for some ships to leave through Hormuz which it needed not only to run its power plants, but also very importantly.

00:36:08: It's like fertilizer manufacturing plants have actually shut down catastrophic.

00:36:18: The number one effect of all this is inflationary, everywhere that uses oil from the Middle East will be primarily affected and second-order effects are going to ripple through even countries like United States not necessarily dependent on the oil from the Middle East.

00:36:40: The US receives a vast majority of its oil from Canada, some from Venezuela and Mexico.

00:36:47: it does receive particular grades um uh of oil from in middle east.

00:36:52: some of its refineries require that particularly those particular medium sour I believe.

00:36:57: but basically the U.S is not at front of this effect, the worst effects are being felt in Eastern Southeast Asia and South Asia.

00:37:10: Secondarily other countries for example that depend on some of these particularly in the case of Urea for agriculture.

00:37:20: And then of course the Europeans, we are already hearing about jet fuel running out.

00:37:27: The price of our energy is going to go up and everything's gonna go up.

00:37:30: so that primary effect if this inflationary.

00:37:33: A secondary affect what will be felt in a medium term which given agricultural catastrophe happened here come autumn, or come harvest time we're going to see major repercussions of this effect, of the process on there.

00:37:56: I heard somewhere...I don't know the veracity if it is but i know in the US for example that has already been some concern about MRIs being scheduled or rescheduled into the future because ...because of the shortage of helium.

00:38:10: so we are all going to feel their effectiveness!

00:38:13: Of course the important thing on the most vulnerable everywhere.

00:38:24: So, the poorest in our global north communities and the poorest countries in the Global South because of course everything is going to be that much more expensive.

00:38:36: oil it's going to available but I think yesterday some not paper price into the future, but actual spot-price for oil was something like a hundred and forty eight dollars per barrel which is highest it's ever been.

00:38:54: And the effects of this are also on the international system.

00:38:57: forget international law what we're seeing now as the emergence of these bilateral forms of negotiations an overlapping bilateral negotiation.

00:39:07: so suddenly given the fact that the UAE feels Pakistan has distanced it, they used to have a very close mutual defense pact.

00:39:18: Now UAE is entering or strengthening its mutual defence pact with India.

00:39:23: India is friends both with the UA and Iran but also Israel.

00:39:28: so there's basically technical IR term for this all clustered fuck.

00:39:34: I wish we could go back when time was just ever-given You know, baking disorders.

00:39:39: And we all laughed at that.

00:39:41: but this is like a trillion... This was the effect of a trillion ever givens anyway.

00:39:48: Now Lalee in your work you've been careful to centre both the materiality of trade logistics and oil extraction-you are yourself actually trained chemical engineer.

00:40:00: if people did not know about it.

00:40:02: For my sense?

00:40:03: You understand some science.

00:40:07: And of course, you've been very careful to centre the agency of people that are not always considered as central drivers for international political economy.

00:40:18: So seafarers, dock workers and migrant labourers... Why is it so important for us both consider stuff that makes up our global economy?

00:40:34: And how does the Gulf region bring this importance to the fore?

00:40:38: So I think there's stuff, obviously.

00:40:40: We've just talked about all of these.

00:40:43: stuff that we didn't even think about are day-to-day operation in our lives being able get an MRI by a loaf bread further down the line fly on holidays and airplanes.

00:40:57: All have come to the floor very clearly.

00:41:00: But I think that it also in some ways, when did my little two step of saying well first Iranians attack and then insurance companies raise the prices.

00:41:12: There's Occludes the fact that the reason that The insurance companies raise the premiums is also because a captain Is going to say Captain on our ship.

00:41:25: It's going to Say I'm not gonna take my ship through the Hormuz trade Because it can either get attacked or it Can you know that we're insurance premium?

00:41:33: He was just not worth it.

00:41:34: and so there are Also humans that make these specific decisions about this kind of processes And it is these people that are also being affected.

00:41:44: I suspect one of the medium or longer term effects on all this will be the inflationary effect, cascading through our lives.

00:41:54: in a sense we're going to see more unhappy people burning shit down.

00:42:01: I think that's really important to note.

00:42:03: And we don't even know what those are going to be, but i also see in all of this... We've mentioned the word asymmetry and whenever you hear about asymmetry it immediately says basically you're going to have less powerful forces.

00:42:19: fighting against more powerful forces is a quasi-state body, and it managed actually to extract political victories against not only Israel but also broader global trade.

00:42:36: We have Iran which we've been told since for the last six weeks that if you add up all of the times that Iran's missiles are being destroyed probably fifteen hundred percent of Iran's missile has been destroyed.

00:42:52: But they have managed to produce whatever they wanted, in part because it has been disconnected from the global financial channels and everything else.

00:43:03: They basically have developed asymmetric modes of knowledge production, asymmetric mode of weapons production and symmetric modes of trade.

00:43:13: But very significantly... And I think this is also important in other instances that the single most unpopular war ever waged by the United States from day one?

00:43:29: you know, and there's a kind of pattern to the imperial wars.

00:43:33: The U.S wages were in at least the first week or month —the first year—in the first couple years.

00:43:38: it happened with Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan.

00:43:44: but this was unpopular from day one!

00:43:48: And it is unpopular everywhere all over the world except for Israel.

00:43:53: And I think that this in itself is, in part because of all the human action... ...that happened prior to it.

00:44:01: It's about all the Palestinians who resisted and died.

00:44:05: Because they were derided and beaten up on every campus.

00:44:13: Suspended and arrested by immigration detention by ICE.

00:44:20: This is because there was a general strike in Italy.

00:44:23: Yesterday, Giorgio Maloney suspended the defense pact between... which is to the shame of actually all of the lefty governments in Europe.

00:44:35: that Giorgia Maloney basically is sort of descendant of Mussolini's fascism ...is the first one that suspends a pact between Italy and Israel.

00:44:46: All of these forms of asymmetric mobilization have humans at the heart of them.

00:44:51: And Maloney wouldn't've done this had there not been, These constant general strikes in Italy The Port workers resistance they're.

00:45:02: The war in Iran would have been a lot more popular if there hadn't be the sort of hypocrisy and violence on US politics.

00:45:16: in defense of its settler colony, Israel hadn't been made clear by all the students that put themselves.

00:45:22: In The United Kingdom had it not been for Palestine action engaging and activities at putting their bodies on the line?

00:45:30: And they continued resistance against completely vicious an autocratic ban on prescription off a Palestine Action which is resulted in loads and loads and load of grannies and elderly, people who are differently able being arrested solely for carrying a placard that says I support Palestine action.

00:45:54: Had it not been all of this continuing everywhere we wouldn't see the war unpopular.

00:46:03: will the outcome be?

00:46:04: It is very difficult to say, again I wouldn't want to predict this because i do still think that some of the sort of geopolitical assumptions stand.

00:46:13: I suspect that aside from the unpopularity in the United States which you know in the run-up November Trump is depending on Americans and US citizens short memory for that.

00:46:31: I also think that there is still geopolitics going to come into it.

00:46:35: China's probably not gonna be very happy about the US blockading, the Iranian Blockade.

00:46:41: and so what's gonna happen?

00:46:44: i don't know.

00:46:44: but There are SO many factors And the asymmetric is as important As the old school geopolitical powers looking each other eye-to-eye.

00:47:02: Yeah, so we don't know whether the proposed.

00:47:06: there's a lot of things.

00:47:07: We don't now We do not know.

00:47:09: where did they propose?

00:47:10: Iranian tolls right for the straight-up almost will become a permanent feature as Using.

00:47:16: we've now talked about those are proposed blockade of the blockade.

00:47:19: But what is clear?

00:47:21: Is that the importance of the golf to global economy cannot be denied at this point.

00:47:26: But with recent events, could we see changes to the geopolitics of the region?

00:47:32: For example I'm thinking about for example like Jabal Ali as a leading port in global shipping.

00:47:38: The role of Dubai more broadly is a Global Logistics Hub.

00:47:43: they take that very seriously.

00:47:45: given my interests i wonder if the UN agencies who've decided are reassessing that decision, ridiculous decision if you ask me.

00:47:58: but maybe they will reassess it at this point.

00:48:01: Will we see demands for new transport infrastructure and pipelines?

00:48:06: Are we going to see another canal

00:48:08: through...

00:48:10: We had some wonderful suggestions by people on social media.

00:48:13: I know i'm gonna have

00:48:15: Yeah.

00:48:16: New canals going somewhere through Oman, so where we see new transport infrastructure?

00:48:21: Where do you see pipelines that bypass the straits?

00:48:25: So yeah, pipelines to Omani ports but also to the Mediterranean of course for Europe at least mean the ability for vitopetrochemicals and other goods too not only by bypassed the strata from Moose and the Suez Canal, but also of course Baba Mandabahs.

00:48:41: You have already shown us is incredibly important.

00:48:44: it gives Ansala or otherwise known as The Houthis for people to use their more common should we say media name?

00:48:54: Ansala artists other wise know As the Houthi's in Yemen strategic power.

00:48:59: do you think We will see changes?

00:49:03: I think there will be changes.

00:49:04: It's inevitable.

00:49:05: and after every war you do see shifts in the operation of former businesses, so Kuwait was a major financial center until Iraqi... invasion there in nineteen ninety and the subsequent war, it ceded a lot of that financial control power to Iran.

00:49:26: Before that Beirut had been sort-of the center for construction finance

00:49:30: etc.,

00:49:32: when the civil War and then of course successive Israeli attacks against Beirute happened... A lot of this shifted into the Gulf.

00:49:39: so wars do cause these kinds of shifts.

00:49:42: Let me go through I think three different four different areas where i think there will be changes, Everybody has made clear is how incredibly pissed off the Gulf countries are about.

00:50:03: The fact that the U S has provided absolutely no support to them, even as those Gulf countries have provided the basis from which they're US forces have attacked Iran, which has opened up to tit for tat responses.

00:50:16: but also two criticism from their own populations and I think probably why Ahmad Shahabidneen is, for example in prison.

00:50:24: It's because he photographed this stuff.

00:50:27: so I think there is going to be a change In the architecture of the region.

00:50:31: The fact that we are already seeing United Arab Emirates For example yesterday having high level visit To India Is probably indicating the way certain alliances Are being tightened and strengthened.

00:50:46: The fact That for example UAE was absent And strictly not involved divided to the peace talks in Pakistan last week, I think is also an indication of how their role as UAE's going change.

00:50:58: The divide between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has become much wider that they had already opened up when coalition fighting against And so I love the Houthis in Yemen had fallen apart, basically.

00:51:14: In two thousand eighteen nineteen and So i think that there is we're going to see a change?

00:51:20: I don't know how what That changes going To be an How fast it's Going to come but Certainly these are repressive regimes, who depend on external protection for their survival.

00:51:35: And the external protection has been by the United States is being shown to be dodgy so unreliable and I think that's the first thing.

00:51:46: security thing let's get out of it way.

00:51:47: The second you mentioned was Jabal Ali as a port.

00:51:51: I suspect that this is going to affect Javel Ali's position as a port.

00:51:55: But on the other hand, it has also got one of the biggest aluminium smelting places On the other hands It already had an incredible and extensive infrastructure That can be recuperated.

00:52:10: We don't know but i think The Port was damaged so extensively.

00:52:14: So its question whether it will gain the stature forehand to become number anywhere between nine, to eleven in the global ports or whether it's going to recede a little bit as other ports are gonna be more important.

00:52:30: So for example the port of Salala and Oman which is on Indian Ocean so its not subject all this.

00:52:40: So that's, it is hard to see actually what the effects are going on Jabal Ali in part because we don't know how much damage there has been.

00:52:53: The Financial Times put out an article I think last Friday kind of listing all facilities damaged and they had done this based on reports received obviously access.

00:53:08: you know, ordinary schlubs like me don't get.

00:53:12: As well as satellite imagery and things like that which again I...you know..I don't yet but from those reports it wasn't clear there had been a huge amount of damage.

00:53:23: But i-again A lot of this kind of politics is based on the perception right?

00:53:26: Because as I said The Perception Of Threat mattered alot.

00:53:30: today Iranians All they have to do was hit two or three ships And basically They stopped all the ships going through and so in this case also, the perception of the safety of Jamala is gonna be quite top for grabs.

00:53:41: You asked about the question of humanitarian organizations.

00:53:44: I suspect that will change, because in some ways aside from a lot for example United Nations has been degraded institution.

00:53:56: there is going to be shift possibly to Oman as possible.

00:54:01: locale.

00:54:03: Egypt weirdly came out better than expected.

00:54:07: they have tried to engage, they haven't gone in full force on the side of Israel as some would have expected.

00:54:14: I think that there... They had major concerns about the fact many provisions of Camp David Accord In terms of control over the border between Gaza and Egypt Have been basically run roughshod by Israel in its genocide against Palestinians.

00:54:37: Rafa is no longer really a functioning border.

00:54:39: It's completely in control of, you know that basically Israel has its forces close up against the border.

00:54:47: It's one of the provisions of Camp David Accord that it wasn't supposed to have, there was supposed to be a kind of a buffer zone between them.

00:54:53: That is no longer true and so There's obviously quite A lot that Is going to change in those senses.

00:55:00: We don't know what's gonna happen whether The humanitarian organizations are Going to shift Oman on Egypt or they're Gonna stay there but perhaps at a less reduced United more Or maybe go to Saudi Arabia because because of the way that Saudi has functioned in these ways and because Saudi is trying to build up its infrastructures through rival, the United Arab Emirates.

00:55:22: That's unclear to me but perhaps who knows?

00:55:25: The fourth area which I think so we've gone through security.

00:55:30: We're going through ports with gone through humanitarian organizations before.

00:55:35: there are two pipelines currently an operation one from Abu Dhabi oil fields to Fujairah Hormuz Strait, and there is a east-west pipeline in Saudi Arabia that goes from near Javail up by oilfield one of the world's biggest oil fields all the way to port of Yambu on the Red Sea.

00:55:57: The idea for construction came about when Iran-Iraq war started.

00:56:04: somebody in the region has a long memory.

00:56:08: The thing about it is that this pipeline has an nominal capacity of seven million barrels per day.

00:56:17: But we, you know the amount of oil that was going through Hormuz was twenty million and a nominal capacity doesn't translate into either actual capacity or The possibility.

00:56:28: like the port of Yambu has to get a lot bigger And there has to be a lot more infrastructure There for it.

00:56:33: To be able to sort of function in That way now if few years back the Saudis were talking about a pipeline to Doqm, which is new port in Oman on the Indian Ocean.

00:56:52: And of course there were also indications that part of the reason that the Saudis and the Emiratis Abu Dhabi in particular where actually attacking Yemen in their war in two thousand fifteen was because our access in Yemen, so on the Indian Ocean part of Yemen and both pipelines and ports.

00:57:15: I do wonder whether this is going to be a potential change there?

00:57:24: There's a fifth thing that Dubai has served as a financial center, and it's not only for itself but also is the financial center.

00:57:37: For example, there are a lot of African countries in the Middle East where they have their financial infrastructure setting up accounts on payments.

00:57:51: In fact Iran functioned through lots of channels that were routed to Dubai.

00:57:57: I suspect that will continue to survive.

00:58:03: How, at what strength is a good question?

00:58:08: Again this was another one of those things where Mohammed bin Salman wanted to be able sort-of be a rival for the United Arab Emirates and it hedge funds and banks, whatever to move their regional headquarters to Riyadh.

00:58:26: I wonder if that is going to be something that's gonna happen or not?

00:58:31: So there are changes in all of these areas.

00:58:34: what those changes will be as yet unclear for me.

00:58:39: Thank you.

00:58:40: We've talked about the importance of the Gulf now to regional and global geopolitics and invisibilized actors, both material and corporeal that make that global economy.

00:58:55: But your work is also focused on the perhaps more traditional actors of international relations so militaries security and intelligence agencies corporations and capitalists all those people we love to

00:59:09: knock off.

00:59:10: How should be thinking about these actors in current context?

00:59:16: So that's a very interesting question.

00:59:18: One of the things, at the very start when we were talking about how incredibly badly planned and badly informed this entire war was I mentioned the fact that i was shocked by um...the lack of any kind of pushback from US military against Trump's adventures .I would have expected there to be somebody who remembered those wars games in which some general played Iran and they ended up winning actually because.

00:59:52: So I've been very surprised by the absence of any kind of internal pushback.

00:59:57: What i have also been surprised, pleasantly so has been that apparently a conscientious objector center providing advice to US enlisted men and women who want to find away not-to-go fight in this immoral war.

01:00:16: This conscientious subjector centre which used to receive something like twenty calls per year has only in the month of March received something like eighty to a hundred calls.

01:00:27: So there's quite um, firemen inside the US military in part because of this but also partially because of ICE.

01:00:37: Um Because at one point The U?

01:00:39: S Military enlistment and enlisting In the?

01:00:41: u s military was seen by immigrant families as a route to citizenship And the depredations Of Trump's Gestapo ice has basically put paid To that and so I think there is quite A lot of discomfort about That!

01:00:56: in the hill, this sort of online magazine that follows congressional developments.

01:01:07: And it was a little bit dismissive but I found it really interesting!

01:01:10: It said that the Selective Service Administration had now gone automatic which means before when as person or guy is still being recruited they're supposed to they're supposed to sign up for the Selective Service, basically putting their name down.

01:01:32: And now it's being automated.

01:01:34: as soon as they turn eighteen there put them which means that infrastructure of conscription is being put into place.

01:01:40: Basically obviously They would have to actually pass some kind Of a law I suspect For them to.

01:01:46: Actually then you know call people Up but There are the infrastructures Being Put in there and so.

01:01:53: So That's To me really interesting.

01:01:55: The second thing that's really interesting on, on that level is also the fact that United Arab Emirates depends extensively in its military and officers soldiers from elsewhere.

01:02:10: Also on mercenary corporations Pakistan being actually one of the most significant ones.

01:02:15: And we're seeing a shift there as well obviously because it has fallout between UAE and Pakistan.

01:02:23: So there are going to be in those military shifts.

01:02:26: There is another factor and all of this, which I also find fascinating Is that?

01:02:30: Of course as loads of really amazing scholars have been telling us This kind of a push towards algorithmic warfare pushed towards AI and warfare has you know accelerated crazily their indications That maybe the targeting off the school and me not they killed A hundred eighty kids was.

01:02:49: Well at least they're trying to say that it was AI having gone rogue, or the information not having been very good.

01:02:56: The targeting information is not being very good but we know that increasingly AI has been used since Obama for example in his drone attacks.

01:03:08: so I think this also facing another headwind and other headwinds are going to crash at some point.

01:03:18: It's the state of Maine just passed a law banning all data centers in the State of Maine.

01:03:26: There is going to be with electricity prices, apparently there was another piece about news that came out this morning and said In some states in the United States people's electricity payments are now larger than their mortgage And This Is In Part Because All Of This Is Going To Data Centers.

01:03:43: But Also The Price Of Oil Has Gone Up.

01:03:48: And of course, there is the circular investment processes for AI that replicate what happened with Enron right before it crashed in early two thousands.

01:04:02: So I think all this will come to a horrific crash which also affects its extent.

01:04:13: I think this algorithmic warfare, or the promises of algorithmic warfare is going to affect the militaries.

01:04:25: In all of these there's also what has become clear how autarkic production really cheap drones and drone swarms which you know, counterinsurgency heads had been warning about has come to pass.

01:04:47: There are companies in the United States that have been selling huge kind of deals to the Pentagon on the basis of fighting these drone swarms among them and drill And it seems like they weren't particularly successful.

01:05:06: so So that's also a factor.

01:05:09: And finally, there is the kind of larger scale thing about militaries here which is... A lot of technologies are at the forefront of this new technological modalities or warfare.

01:05:27: China is actually gaining major ground on the US and all of this.

01:05:33: And so, uh...China doesn't have nowhere near the expenditures you know?

01:05:40: The United States expenditure in absolute terms on its military as much as the next ten countries put together.

01:05:50: it's up to a trillion possibly up to one-and-a-half by two thousand twenty seven per year, which is an insane amount of money.

01:06:00: So they don't have the same kind of.

01:06:02: you know neither China nor Russia.

01:06:05: nobody else's investing as much as The United States says in its military.

01:06:11: but if this kind form of technological warfare is going to come to fore, you're not gonna need.

01:06:19: I mean China has been able to build a faster cheaper less energy consuming AI precisely because the only chips that it had access to were outdated chips rather than cutting edge ones.

01:06:32: and so i think We're also saying the fact that Iran, precisely because it was cut off from their global financial and trade networks has developed its own autarkic forms of economic production.

01:06:47: I mean there are limits to constraints but nevertheless had develop some of this.

01:06:51: so i do wonder about what all of this is going to take.

01:06:55: I suspect there's gonna be a lot more money, as long the market allows it and invested in these kinds of asymmetric counterinsurgency counters or whatever technologies, but there's going to be also a lot of contemplation about how the basic operation of the global economy can be turned on its head as we saw in both Bob Almonda between twenty three and two thousand twenty five.

01:07:29: And now so again anybody's guess is as good, my guess it was better than anyone else.

01:07:35: But we certainly do see... I think what were going to say a lot more coercion and thinking about military and lots of people claiming that kind of expertise coming through the fore looking at new ways for wage war.

01:07:54: Great!

01:07:54: We're gonna replace tech bros with new military bros.

01:07:58: How exciting

01:08:00: To order tech military bros.

01:08:02: Yeah, but I mean i do find it fascinating that you know we were being told the other future is everything AI The futures data centers.

01:08:11: yet of course they require electricity.

01:08:13: They also require multiple forms Of electronics which as you've told us earlier Is going to be massively hit.

01:08:20: This can be turned on its head by the threat of a few mines somewhere in the sea.

01:08:26: And you

01:08:27: know, well interestingly one other things that apparently has come out clearly?

01:08:32: One of the facilities that Iran has been hitting all through the Gulf have been data centers.

01:08:38: so I mean they know how to win the propaganda war amongst and group of people

01:08:44: for sure.

01:08:45: The Lego videos

01:08:48: which are made by AI but I have to say, can generate very little sympathy for a data center.

01:08:58: The people that work there is different but the center itself?

01:09:01: Not so much right now.

01:09:03: anyone who has engaged with your work will know how empirically rich it is.

01:09:08: i think you've given us a little bit of an insight into that already.

01:09:11: It makes use Of course multiple sources of information and knowledge from archives to ethnography.

01:09:20: How do you start researching the things that interest you and then how do you turn that start into actual doing research?

01:09:33: Because I am now interested in political economy, Bloomberg and financial times.

01:09:42: No, but also I think one of the ways to start always for anybody who's interested is look at literary works.

01:09:50: Read the news every day read this stuff that it not necessarily have interest in you and i. you will find great materials.

01:10:00: I also, maybe it's a function of getting older and what i'm researching right now but finding that there is huge amount we are going through today that have echoes or indeed even aftermaths after lives.

01:10:23: And I have an obsessive interest in the period between The End of the Second World War and the nineteen eighties, because i do think that the world we live In is the world that emerges.

01:10:40: incredible periods.

01:10:42: So, and it was an incredible period because where there was a modicum of social democracy they were all this incredible political ferment.

01:10:50: in both the global north and the global south.

01:10:52: There are anti-colonial struggle throughout the Global South.

01:10:55: In The Global North you had all civil rights movements And This Was Probably One Period In Human History Where If not achieving equality, we were still a long way away from poverty in terms of poverty and inequality.

01:11:13: Nevertheless there was so much fermenting struggle around that And I think the sort of ruination at this moment through whole series of processes co-optation of anti-colonial leaderships The militarization of world American empire becoming you know, the behemoth that it is or further becoming The Behemoth That It Is.

01:11:38: It was always like that from a second world actually even long before then.

01:11:43: but I think that...I also go back to that moment and try to read newspapers From that Moment.

01:11:50: Try To Read Magazines From That Moment.

01:11:53: Try to Read Novels And Essays Written During That Period To Give Me A Sense Of What's Going On Today Because without understanding where these things have come from, there is no real possibility of understanding where we're heading to.

01:12:11: I don't have any methodological commitments wherever the question takes me.

01:12:16: I use whatever methods that comes into it.

01:12:20: I think increasingly I'm hesitant about interviewing or at least revealing on cloaking the methods of the oppressed.

01:12:32: I'm sure that there's a lot of room for that, in part because you have to develop strategies.

01:12:35: But also...I am much more interested into the mechanisms of oppression while trying always keep at the forefront my mind any force of repression is going face resistance some sort and so i think basically keeping those tenets in mind is really important.

01:12:57: And then there's also this thing where I'm really interested in the macro political, but also the texture of the micro historical.

01:13:04: so who are you know?

01:13:06: You have massive infrastructures.

01:13:08: Who Are The People Who Populated?

01:13:09: You Have Massive Militaries!

01:13:11: Who AreThePeopleWhoFightTheWarsAndDieInThem and So um.

01:13:15: i think that keeping again Those two things together for me has always been a political and an ethical commitment, which obviously affects the way that you do research.

01:13:26: Now finally we have focused on the geopolitics of the Gulf in this centrality of oil extraction for the global economy.

01:13:36: And as critical is these political and economic geographies are.

01:13:40: Are there other spaces, places people and commodities that you see as important for international relations?

01:13:49: And are the scholars to think about research.

01:13:57: I'm a magpie.

01:14:00: anything in the world could be interesting.

01:14:04: everything is connected In some ways, I think we need all sorts of people to study them.

01:14:15: So my current obsessions that don't have to do with oil... This is going to sound crazy!

01:14:26: Occult.

01:14:29: I don't know why, but i'm really interested in how people seek an explanation for the world that goes beyond every day and look for the supernatural as a way of understanding things operate.

01:14:45: And actually, I know it sounds kind of crazy but there is a brilliant young scholar Ahmed Mazmi who's writing about how during the imperial wars between the Portuguese and the Safavid in the sixteenth-seventeenth century they both called upon the occult to fight on their side.

01:15:05: So hey!

01:15:05: There IS room for the Jinn in international relations.

01:15:10: But obviously, I think that there is so much people could think about.

01:15:16: International solidarity movements are fascinating.

01:15:20: Work on data centres and technology as it travels across the world was fascinating.

01:15:28: Polar bears were interesting.

01:15:30: Wales has always been something I have been obsessed with.

01:15:34: Mushrooms or ferns are incredible!

01:15:41: I think the Arctic and Antarctica are amazing.

01:15:44: Ice, deep ocean is fascinating!

01:15:47: There's nothing in this world that with a degree of... humility, an ethical commitment to treating with respect and dignity that is outside the domain of understanding.

01:15:58: And at the same time I also don't think we need to go understand everything again.

01:16:02: maybe this goes back into the whole interest in extraordinary if not the occult.

01:16:08: but we do have to understand it because there's so little about human body for example.

01:16:18: We don't know the first thing about cognition, yeah we do know a little bit about cognition and obviously there are people who're doing amazing work on it...we know so little public health sort of precepts as they travel across the world.

01:16:36: We know so little about traditional forms, being and healing in a way that they are incorporated sometimes in some cases commodified.

01:16:47: So I think there is nothing outside the domain to study it.

01:16:50: And again we keep our humility an ethical commitment To people who study their dignity In mind.

01:16:59: I think that's a fantastic place to end the episode.

01:17:02: Thank you so much Lele, thank you for being open and giving us so much to think about!

01:17:10: We will hopefully be having future episodes on AI algorithmic targeting in its impact when we're fighting, so

01:17:17: stay tuned for it!

01:17:19: And another episode also of The Role Of China and Global Economy... Well, if not to look forward too.

01:17:28: That's probably the wrong term but to put in your diaries.

01:17:32: so thank you Lalli.

01:17:33: Wonderful!

01:17:33: Thank you so much and for having me on I'm very grateful.

01:18:02: Feeds your reading lists makes cutting-edge IR research audible.