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Book Recommendations
I am coming to the end of my undergraduate degree which means that I can start being a normal consumer of books again. I was hoping either of you would have some book recommendations for me on: geopolitics, demography, inflation, and the history of America, Israel, Palestine, Britain, and Ancient Rome. Thanks for the great podcasts, much love from Canada.
Separating Analysis From Ideology
I just finished Sold Out by James Rickards, who you had on the podcast a few months back. I was really impressed with his analysis of supply chains, inflation, and the economics of national debt. But I also noticed that he felt the need to espouse his own conservative beliefs on a variety of topics throughout the book, on issues like climate change and Covid-politics. This got me thinking, do you think it is possible for an analyst to provide empirical analysis? How does a person's individual ideology, whether it be liberal, conservative, or progressive, influence their ability to provide clear analytical judgement? Is it possible to provide empirical, non-partisan analysis, or are we all ultimately thralls to our pre-existing ideology and all of our analysis and thinking is downstream of that?
Bookshop
You should consider finding a way to make your Bookshop available to international listeners. As it is right now, you can only purchase books on the bookshop if you live in the US. Finding a way to include international listeners could broaden your customer base, although, I am not sure how much of the Realignment audience is international. Anyways, it's something to think about, I'm not sure if it introduces more logistical minutiae.
Two theater warfare
I understand you and Saagar have competing values when it comes to foreign policy. I tend to fall on Saagar’s side of the debate. Mainly because I don’t think the US can effectively fight on multiple fronts. The only successful effort was WW2 but we had full mobilization of a massive industrial base. Russia and China are clearly Allies at this point but China is the far more dangerous threat. If 100 billion of weapons to Ukraine is already straining defense industrial capacity won’t the US have to pick Europe or Asia at some point? Additionally why not make that decision now and make adjustments over time rather than being forced to choose in the future due to an existential crisis? Lastly it doesn’t seem like Europe cares that much about China so can the US even count on them to return the favor in our time of need?
Book Recommendation / Guest Suggestions
I'm currently reading Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok. It provides a highly detailed account of the 1980 leadup to the collapse of the USSR, with a month by month play by play of the events from 1988 to 1991. It's also fairly recent (2021), and the author works for the London School of Economics. Worth a read, and he would be an excellent guest on the podcast.