2min chapter

What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead cover image

Live from Davos

What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead

CHAPTER

Reception to Efforts and Concerns at Davos

This chapter explores the reception to the efforts of Secretary Blinken and Jake Sullivan at Davos, highlighting concerns about geopolitical developments, the fragmentation of the world, and the lack of progress on issues like climate change. It also discusses unexpected conflicts in the Middle East, reflecting a lack of stability in the geopolitical order.

00:00
Speaker 2
And final question. You mentioned that Jake Sullivan's been there as secretary Blinken as well, maybe doing a bit of damage control at Davos this week. What's the reception been like to their efforts from what you hear?
Speaker 1
Well, again, I can't speak for everyone, but the conversation at Davos this year, and so far as, as I've heard it, is gloom about geopolitical developments, a feeling that the world has stopped becoming more united, that it is fragmenting that we are seeing geopolitical competition rising. The business people here are talking about how it's getting harder for them to operate. The global environment is not, is not working in the way it is. And also the sense that some of the problems that Davos has known for caring a lot about like climate change, it's not so easy to argue that things are moving in the right direction on that. So it's very, so since the United States is of all the countries in the world, the one that plays the largest role in trying to sort of achieve geopolitical stability, prevent world, these, it's very hard when everyone thinks things are getting worse to come out there and say, hi, my administration is really doing everything right. And everything is under control. Baby, we've got it. Don't worry. Okay. That, that is just so dissonant from the experience of the people say the lived experience of the Davos. It's hard for the spokesman of American administration to be convincing at a moment like this. We're sort of waiting to see, okay, which country in the Middle East has launched rockets against which other country today? Very few people would have guessed it would be Pakistan attacking Iran. But this is not, this is not the sign of a great power solidifying the stability of the geopolitical order.
Speaker 2
All right.

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