Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado

Dmitri Alperovitch comes to the White House to interview Dr. Ben Buchanan, the White House Special Advisor on AI, about:

- The risks and benefits of AI

- What the US government is trying to achieve with the President's Executive Order on AI

- Why Terminator AIs are not coming to kill us but evil people using AI just might

- What the requirements to report to US government about the development of cutting-edge foundational models is all about

- How the US can maintain its lead in this technology

- White House's thinking on open source AI models

- US government's international AI strategy

- The plan for how to use AI inside US government

- The purpose and mission of the new AI Safety Review Board

- And why US government is concerned about China's use of AI

- And much more

Ben Buchanan's last book on AI (The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI): https://www.amazon.com/New-Fire-War-Peace-Democracy/dp/0262046547

His previous book on cybersecurity (The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics): https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-State-Attacks-Normal-Geopolitics/dp/0674987551

Dmitri's upcoming book "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF1TKHY2

Dmitri Alperovitch and guest co-host Patrick Gray interview Alicia García-Herrero, a Spanish-born economist based in the indo-Pacific and who specializes on China.

They discussed why China has exhausted its growth potential and is now facing structured deceleration, which will be a major global deflationary trend.

Other topics covered: why the real-estate bubble will likely not cause a dire crisis, why stimulus spending will not solve China's fundamental problems, why China has not yet experienced the full impact of its demographics collapse, why their economic productivity is not improving and the impact of their economy on the future of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

Preorder link for Dmitri's upcoming book "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF1TKHY2

Dmitri Alperovitch interviews Gilbert Herrera, Director of Research at the National Security Agency (NSA) and a member of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee.

They discussed the current state of quantum computing, why its current applications outside of breaking certain types of public key cryptography are highly limited, why we may not see a useful quantum computer for many years and why AI will deliver faster and more revolutionary progress to our daily lives than quantum computers. They also dived into the present challenges of the AI technology and why we need to develop a theoretical basis for addressing errors and hallucinations in AI models.

If you are interested in understanding quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum communication and the real-world applications of these technologies, this is the episode you do not want to miss!

Preorder link for Dmitri's upcoming book "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF1TKHY2

ATACMS episode:

- What variants of the missile exist

- What unique advantages they offer over already provided Storm Shadows / SCALP-EGs from UK and France

- How many missiles may exist in the US inventory and why some can be provided to Ukraine without jeopardizing US military readiness

- Why the German Taurus missile is also a much needed munition for Ukraine

- The state of production of the next-generation Precision Strike Missile and its advantages over ATACMS

- How ATACMS usage in Ukraine might enhance deterrence in the Indo-Pacific

Dmitri Alperovitch sits down with Colby Badhwar, a Canadian security analyst, who has written an extensive X thread on ATACMS, to discuss these topics

Preorder link for Dmitri's upcoming book "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF1TKHY2

Colby's ATACMS thread: https://x.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1703757651623162271

Dmitri Alperovitch talks with Patrick Gray, host of Risky Business podcast, about why the Starlink-Elon saga is much more complicated than it might seem at first glance. Blaming Elon for his Crimea action is probably unfair, but he does deserve both praise and criticism for his contributions to Ukrainian battlefield successes and challenges. And so does the Department of Defense for taking too long to come up with an appropriate solution, which they thankfully ultimately did

Preorder link for Dmitri's upcoming book "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF1TKHY2

Dmitri Alperovitch sits down with Bryan Vorndran, Assistant Director of FBI's Cyber Division, to discuss why FISA Section 702 is by far the most valuable intelligence program in the US government's arsenal and is responsible for the majority of the most valuable intelligence the country collects.

In this episode, Vorndran provides some examples of 702 successes including disrupting attempted assassination plots of American officials by a foreign country and identifying the perpetrator of the Colonial Pipeline hack and recovering the paid ransom. Vorndran also highlights compliance issues that the FBI has faced with the program and what it is doing to address them going forward.

Dmitri Alperovitch talks to Russian military analyst Rob Lee and Wagner Group expert Jack Margolin about the implications of reports of Prigozhin's fiery death in a plane crash in Russia.

Where does Wagner go from here?

What happens to Russian ambitions in Africa?

Does this event help restore Surovikin, Russia's most competent commander of this war, back to command one day?

And what impact this might have on the future of the war

Music: Richard Wagner's Funeral March

In this joint Geopolitics Decanted and Risky Business feature interview, Dmitri Alperovitch and Patrick Gray talk to Illia Vitiuk, the Head of the Department of Cyber and Information Security of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) about the cyber dimension to Russia's invasion.

From turning off Ukraine's power grid with a cyber attack in 2015, to the Viasat satellite communications hack in 2022, Russia's intelligence services are world renowned for executing creative destructive cyber campaigns.

Despite this, after a year and a half of Russia waging war on Ukraine its power grid is up, its telcos are functioning and its banks are still processing transactions.

How has Ukraine been able to withstand Russia's onslaught in the cyber domain? Illia Vitiuk joins us to reveal insights into how Russian intelligence services are operating in Ukraine, and how the SBU is countering them.