Amid a “stormy” risk landscape led by state-based conflict and geoeconomic pressures, this session highlights strategies to navigate political and economic instability.
At Davos 2026’s “Geopolitical Risks Outlook,” panelists argued the risk landscape is simultaneously stabilizing and destabilizing, driven by the entanglement of technology, domestic politics, and geopolitics. Jane Harman described “two Davos”: an AI-focused agenda with development upside but weaponization risk, and a political Davos dominated by one figure—President Trump—whose “24 over seven coverage” crowds out alternative visions even as “Europe [is] pushing back.” Eswar Prasad framed today’s volatility as a “doom loop,” where globalization, technology, and institutions now “bring out the worst in each other.” Trade no longer offsets geopolitics; instead, it “deepen[s] the rifts,” while the U.S. is “seen as an untrustworthy ally” and China lacks the “institutional framework to engender…trust,” leaving many countries “stuck in this very dangerous middle.” Elizabeth Thurbon countered with a “boom loop” centered on clean-energy investment: “two thirds of global energy investment…going into renewables,” led by China, which treats the transition as a “national security multiplier.” The discussion stressed alliances as force multipliers built on predictability, but warned that multilateral rules must better serve development. On Ukraine, Harman called Russian “grievance” and imperial restoration central, arguing pressure—potentially via U.S. secondary sanctions—could shift Moscow’s calculus.
Good morning. Good morning to all. I'm. I'm impressed that on this last day of Davos this year, you've all gotten up early enough to be here. And we're going to try our best to make this an interesting 45 minutes. After what has been a week that reminded me, in a little, in a way, almost of a kind of a circus where you, you you, you're you're being shown surprising things, you know, ten times a day, all the time. It doesn't end, it's very exciting. But the question is, what is our takeaway from that? So I have this wonderful panel here this morning. And we will try our best together to, come up with an interesting conclusion of what this means for global risks and for the world at large. And certainly for the Europeans among us, for the future of, of Europe. Let me just briefly introduce my panelists. I'll start with on my left with Jane Harman, long time friend of mine, longtime friend, also of my organization, the Munich Security Conference. I need to make an occasional little ad, for, for Munich here. I hope that's acceptable. So Jane has been a member of the US House of Representatives. I think you were reelected 8 or 9 times. Something like that. Very long time. Jane has been, of course, chairing and running the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington for a long time and has occupied many other important functions in her continuing, political career. So welcome to you, Jane. It's great to have you here this morning. As an American who is, not regarded as a member of the Trump administration, if I can say that Z in that way, second, I'm really pleased to have, Eswar Prasad here. Who will I'm sure not miss the opportunity to talk to all of you about his forthcoming book, doom the doom loop. He's a professor at Cornell, former senior official at the IMF. So he's by training an economist. And we're really pleased to have you, Prasad. And we wish you a huge success with your book coming out in just a few days time. And finally, last not least, Elizabeth, two born, from Australia, having come all the way from Australia, Elizabeth teaches at the University of South Wales. Am I saying this right? University in Sydney.
In Sydney.
And and and her work focuses on energy and on China etc.. So it's really a very interesting mix. Let's review this week under the heading of Geopolitical Risks. Jane, what's your takeaway? Is the world after this week a safer place or are we looking at increasing not only risks of instability but increasing instability? Tell us what, what you think after these four days that you've spent here?
Well, in some ways it's safer. And in some ways it's riskier. I think there were really two Davos or maybe there were more than two, but one of them focused on technology and this new world with AI. And, I think AI could make the world riskier, obviously, if it gets in the wrong hands and it's used, without guardrails, to train weapons to kill all of us, that would not be a good look for Davos. But I also think it has enormous promise. And I was something I learned here was how, it is taking off in the third world. I mean, AI may be a development tool that moves the third world ahead faster than our world, which has pretty messy politics. So the second Davos was was on politics. And I would say one person guess who dominated the whole conversation. And he has dominated the whole conversation in the United States for the whole year that he's been back in office. And what is sad about that is that he doesn't have the only view of, our political future and political risks. But he seems to get 24 over seven coverage. So everyone thinks that is the view. And what I heard here was Europe pushing back in a very, forceful and effective way. And I also heard others speaking up about a vision they had for a better political system. We can't go back that, I will say. I mean, I may be 100 years old. I'm not 100 years old. And I'm not a great great grandmother either. Wolfgang. Not that he calls me that. Long story about that, too, but but I have seen a lot. And I thought the so-called liberal world order was going to last for much longer. But it it isn't lasting. And we do have to move forward to, a different order. And I'm very interested in hearing about your book. So, at any rate, my take would be, safer in some ways, foreign policy or global issues, not just directly related to technology. If more voices are heard, that could have a better outlook, too.
Great. Thanks a lot. If I may just add a footnote to this, I think I'm the only true European in this panel. So from from a European point of view, of course I don't. I can't think of any region in the world that has been and in fact continues to be more attached to the idea of a rules based international order than we Europeans. My own country, Germany, has always been priding itself for being, you know, an export champion. But being an export champion makes you totally dependent on the, on the world working according to the rules, etc., allow the freedom of the seas and, and free of coercion, etc., etc. in other words, that kind of world that we imagined would, as you said, last forever is crumbling as we speak. So, Prasad, the doom loop tell us all about it.
In life, timing is everything, and unfortunately for the world. But perhaps fortunately for my book, this week has been a perfect encapsulation of the themes of my book. So what is the doom loop? If one thinks about the different forces in the world economy? There is economics, there is domestic politics, and there is geopolitics. And of course, these go along parallel tracks and they do intersect with each other. And those intersections can sometimes be a little painful. But right now we are at a point where I think these three elements are intertwined in a way that is really difficult to separate. But the problem is they are stuck in something of a negative feedback loop. That is, each of these elements is sort of bringing out the worst in each other. Let's take globalization, for instance. Globalization was supposed to be a positive sum game that everybody could benefit from through increased trade and financial flows. That was supposed to offset the zero sum game of geopolitics. That has changed. Globalization itself is now seen as a zero sum, if not negative sum game. So that means that the offset to the zero sum game of geopolitics is gone. So that element of balance is gone. And I should tell you actually when I started working on the book, this is not where I planned to end up. I was going to talk about how we are moving from a unipolar world to a world where economic power is more balanced, and as an economist, one thinks that competition is good for balance, efficiency, stability. But as I thought about each of the forces that would create stability, I realized that they were in fact creating instability. So globalization is one, technology is another. It could lead to shared prosperity. But what we are seeing is much more concentration of economic and financial power within and between countries, potentially making it a destabilizing force. Although I'm still something of an optimist on that front. Then there are the rules of the game, which again, could bring everyone together. And here we are seeing a real fragmentation. The existing international institutions, many of which the US played a critical role in setting up along with Europe. The US is walking away from the emerging market. Countries don't see these institutions as serving their interests. They are setting up their own institutions. So rather than having a common set of rules of the game, we are seeing fragmentation. So each of these elements globalization, the middle powers that could prove a stabilizing force but are not quite doing so. Technology, the rules of the game, all of these are generating much more instability. And this week, again, I think many of those forces came to a head. And I think certainly we are seeing certain elements of the world order that I think underpinned global prosperity really beginning to crumble.
Let me push you a little bit on on that. There is a theory out there now that we're beginning to see a kind of a, you know, dividing up the world into like three or more spheres of influence. President Putin apparently believing that, you know, Eastern Europe and his part of the Asian countries, his and he'll it's been said I don't know whether it's true. It's been said that he would be very happy with Donald Trump dominating the Western Hemisphere. And then, of course, there will be China dominating the rest of the let's assume that is where we're going. Is that going to be a stabilizing element, or is that another element of doom in your assessment?
So when I think about globalization, you know, we do see it not seizing because trade is really beneficial. So countries do want to continue trading. But the important issue is that now we have the geopolitical divides across which trade and so on used to serve as bridges. But now they are falling along geopolitical lines. So they're deepening the rifts. So if you think about a world where essentially you have different spheres of influence, that is a world that is potentially unstable because any conflagration between the two sides lacks a balancing force. But I should point out that there is an interesting conjuncture right now. If you think about Russia. Yes, it is an important power, but largely military. The two big powers are, of course, the US and China, and most of the countries are caught in the middle. And the difficult dilemma that I think the world faces is that you have one country, the US, that does not want to assume the leadership role in a constructive fashion. It is pushing many countries away and is now seen as an untrustworthy ally. China would like to claim the mantle of being the protector of the rules based order, but they do not have the institutional framework to engender the trust of the rest of the world. So China would like other countries to come into its embrace. Some countries feel that they have to maintain economic relationships with China, but they don't want to go full on into China's embrace. So much of the world is now stuck in this very dangerous middle. And that, I think, is not good for stability.
Great. That takes us straight to you, Liz. Coming from Australia, you you're looking all the time, I would imagine. And you're not the only Australian looking at your relationship with China and, and and and about what kinds of partnerships and alliances you need in order to balance the increasingly dominant role of China, certainly in that part of the world. So give us your take.
Yes. Thank you. And look, I would really agree with Jane at the outset that I think there has have really been two Davos, at least two, and, and in large part, you know, we're focused on, on the doom loop. And I love this concept. There's there's so much in it and I, I agree with that dynamic. But I think in Davos that I've spent most of my time in, we've been talking about a boom loop I think and really an economic boom. Certainly. We've seen, you know, enormous dynamism across emerging market economies driven by China, of course, but also across Latin America and across the African continent. And this kind of boom loop is being driven by some really positive dynamics, by enormous investments in green energy, which is an incredibly positive message that I think needs to come out of Davos, because, you know, we've heard a lot about going back to the fossil fuel era of the past, incredibly kind of regressive, approach, because we know about the intense political instability that is often associated with that fossil fueled order. But really the reality is that we are now seeing two thirds of global investment flowing into clean energy, two thirds of global energy investment that is going into renewables. This is being driven largely by China, by Chinese investment. And because the Chinese government understands and I've said it before here, and I think it's worth reiterating that the green energy transition is this massive national security multiplier. The Chinese government is using the energy transition, the green energy transition to boost energy security, its manufacturing, its own energy to reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports. You can manufacture your energy security. This is a vital lesson. It's using the energy transition to boost economic security, building and scaling these new green energy, high tech, export oriented industries. An enormous lesson for the emerging world. I think as well, it's using the energy transition to boost environmental security, driving down particulate pollution, driving down carbon emissions. China's peaked emissions 2024 early, six years ahead of its commitments. So this is an enormous security enhancing agenda to boost Social Security, creating thousands of new green jobs to create geostrategic security, building new positive green development alliances across the developing world, being a positive development partner, this is a huge security enhancing opportunity. China is leading it, but we have this opportunity as well. In the West, every country has this opportunity to use the energy transition as a national security multiplier. And that, I think, is a positive message to come out of Davos and and essential for our security, comprehensively conceived.
Well, maybe you weren't in the room when Donald Trump told us that the Chinese that the Chinese are building these windmills, you know, as fake, fake, fake windmills, only to get them sold to others and not use them. What's your take on that?
China has built the world's largest renewable energy system. I've been there. I think many people have been there. Those windmills are turning. They're producing a lot of renewable energy, and they will continue to do that because renewables are now the cheapest form of energy. It's the cheapest form of energy in almost every circumstance. This is security. This is national security. We heard it from the head of the IEA yesterday. You have to think about this with a security lens.
But we're not in the United States. Again, we have one dominant person in US foreign and security policy. One person who stated the other day that our defense budget is now $1.5 trillion. Did anybody get that? It's not. It's a slightly less than 1 trillion. He has added 50%, which has not been appropriated by Congress. I'd like to get to Congress, if you don't mind. The institution formerly known as Congress. But but, that money is not there. And I would if that money were to get there, it wouldn't be spent on things that would make the US more secure. That would be my argument. And, you know, you talk about spheres of influence, and I think he does too, sometimes. But that's not what's happening. Listening to you, Liz. The Chinese are moving into the vacuum all over the world. They're not just confined to whatever the, the, the Asia tranche of of of the world. And, we are leaving a huge vacuum that might, I hope not, lead to another unipolar world without the rule of law or without with command economies dominated by China. And I don't think that's a better vision. But I wanted to say something about Congress. Members of Congress were here. They're quite articulate. Wolfgang was telling me that Thom Tillis was very powerful in the Ukraine. Meeting breakfast yesterday. Thom Tillis is a Republican. And he is powerful. However, he is leaving Congress, and now his voice is much more much stronger than it was before he announced that he was leaving Congress. And if anyone is missing the fact that the article one branch of the United States government is not pulling its weight, I'm not missing it. And I'm not unhappy that I'm not there anymore, but an appropriations bill to fund our government on time has not passed Congress since 2011, which was the year I left Congress. So of course there's a direct relation, but obviously it is just so sad that we go on these so-called continuing resolutions where we fund last year's budget, which is not innovative and which doesn't fund the really good green stuff. And by the way, the windmills are still turning in the United States. I haven't.
Seen.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen DHS attack the windmills yet.
Let's turn to another question that's connected to President Trump's vision of of of how to run the world, namely the, the question. And I think it's also related to the theme of your of your forthcoming book, namely, the worth the role, of alliances and partners. I have believed for my entire professional career that it's actually extremely an extremely smart idea for countries to enter into alliances and partnerships because it multiplies your capabilities. And I continue to believe that for the United States, having allies in Europe, and having allies and friends and partners in your part of the world is actually making the United States a lot stronger than it would be on, on, on on her own. Am I correct in, in in interpreting, the Chinese approach to these issues, that China is actually not really a country that wants to have formal alliances? Or do you see any emerging trend that that there will be like a Chinese NATO in Asia? Or something like that? So and of course, Russia used to have a number of allies around the world, including Syria in the Middle East, including, by the way, also Venezuela, etc. and one by one, these former strongholds of, of Russian influence in various parts seem to have disappeared. So Russia is increasingly isolated. In my view, America still has alliances, but they are under threat. And what about China? Can I go back to you?
Yes. I mean, this is a this is a big question. And I think, you know, to think about it in broad terms initially, and what alliances are built on, alliances are really built fundamentally on trust, on the idea that we can, have a reasonable sense of how those that we've chosen to partner with in either military terms or economic terms, will behave predictably. And I think that what we're seeing in this particular era and we feel this intensely in Australia, I might say, is that, you know, this predictability, is vanishing. And so, the idea that, unpredictable actions on the part of allies is forcing a reconsideration, of, who we can depend on and when and how. And so I think that anything that we can be doing to rebuild, predictability and trust is, is really, deeply important. China is taking a really interesting approach to building out its relationships with countries across the globe. It is obviously through the Belt and Road Initiative putting economic engagement at the forefront of its alliance building activities. It is providing an enormous amount of investment. And it's not necessarily, you know, there's debates about the extent to which this is creating a debt trap or whether it's an extractivist kind of relationship. I think in, in, especially in more recent times, China is, doing all it can to build more to ensure that its, economic partnerships, particularly with emerging market economies, are transformative in a developmental sense. And I think that this holds a really vital lesson, for other countries in the West as well, that, when we have alliances, it's not just enough to say, you know, we will be there for you when the going gets tough. It's actually we will invest in your future. So that especially, you know, across the developing and emerging market economies, we will invest in your future. We will empower you, as as a partner. And I think that that's a really powerful approach to alliance building. And there's a lot to be learned from the Chinese experience there.
This is an.
Extraordinarily important moment in the reshaping of the world economic order. If you go back into recent history, around the around 1990, when the Soviet Union fell apart, the US became the dominant power by any measure economic, financial, military. And then it looked like Japan might rise as a rival to the United States. And then it sort of faded away. In the 2000, with the creation of the eurozone, it looked like Europe might rise up as the rival to the US. And it's not doing that great. Now China is rivaling the US. But there is one critical difference. If we think about the competition between the US and Japan, the US and Europe, it was economic in terms of the fundamental vision of the world. Chapter eight of the book, by the way, that is about how you structure an economic, political, legal, social system. All of these countries saw eye to eye. China has a completely different vision of the world. So I don't see a way in which we are going to get a melding of these two sets of visions. So there is a fundamental element of conflict that has arisen. And at this juncture, we are seeing the notion of liberal market oriented democracy, which was sort of the paradigm that all countries were aiming towards. And this was certainly the paradigm that seemed to be winning in the 1990s. That paradigm is now being broken apart because of the dynamics of the doom loop. So I worry that in fact, we are going to be left without a clear paradigm. And China is certainly trying to behave like the adult in the room. And, as I said, behave as a protector of the multilateral order. But it has used many of the rules of the game to its advantage, which I think is why many countries don't necessarily see it as the defender of the world order in a way that benefits everybody. So I think this is a critical time, but it is very unfortunate that the West is, in a sense, ceding and thanks to dynamics, not just in the US. So the Doom Loop is not a book about Trump. It's not a book about the US alone. We see these dynamics play out in many countries that have traditionally been liberal market oriented democracies, including countries in Western Europe, but also many others that are rising into Europe. And this, I think, is going to lead to a significant fragmentation. So the reshaping of alliances is certainly going to be an important part of this, but it's going to create some interesting and odd bedfellows who are trying to survive amid a much all this turmoil between the two superpowers.
So, Jane.
Give me a chance to just add one additional question before going back to you. In Europe, in the EU, we've come to the to the preliminary conclusion that one way for us to deal with this, you know, West falling apart with the crumbling North Atlantic Alliance, that one way for us to do this is to enter into agreements mostly economic in, in, in, in substance with major parts of the world. We we've just signed, what I understand is the largest free trade deal ever signed by anyone between the European Union and the Mercosur group of countries in Latin America. The next, next stop will be to do the same thing with countries like Indonesia, etc.. So is that is that a useful way to retain, you know, global connections or or is that or is that not a useful approach?
It is a very important survival strategy for the rest of the world, because again, the conjuncture here is really important. You have the largest economy in the world putting up tariff barriers and trying to shy away from, an open trading system. You have the second largest economy in the world, which is a major trading power now counting on the rest of the world to pull its economy along because the Chinese economy has become very unbalanced, with a huge amount of investment that is generating a lot of output. But domestic demand is not keeping up. So it would be a plausible proposition in normal times that the rest of the world says, to heck with the US, let's go by ourselves, including China. But the China part of the equation now becomes very complicated because practically every country, including your own ambassador, is now fearful of being swamped by Chinese exports.
Absolutely.
And this is true across the board. Advanced economies, low income economies, from low tech manufacturing to high tech manufacturing. So I think the survival strategy of the rest of the world that is excluding the US and China, basically trying to develop a stronger trading relationship certainly makes a lot of sense.
And that's very hopeful. Something about the word doom is depressing me, and I understand it's a great title. I wrote a book four years ago called Insanity Defense, which also argued that the US was the unipolar power after the Cold War, and we, through hubris, gave that away. We missed China's rise. We missed the rise of terrorism, which we haven't even talked about, which is, unfortunately, a great destabilizing force everywhere, and rogue nations and and just rogue actors can use it to their advantage. And it doesn't matter about the US and China. We're not adequately prepared. But I also made the point that we gave away a huge advantage that we had, which was not just the liberal world order, but our values and our soft power. And part of that is partners and allies. It's a force multiplier. I recently chaired something called the Commission on National Defense Strategy with four Democrats and four Republicans. And we unanimously said that the way to beat China and we started with, if there were a war against China, China might win. The way to beat China is with all elements of national power. All elements means a strong defense. Obviously we need that, but also a strong tech base that is building the future defense assets. They're not going to be vulnerable platforms. I know that this new naval ship named 47, he'll take the name off if it's not good, is to me. Not nobody asked me, but I would look at more technology, the kind that Ukraine needs desperately. I hope we'll talk about Ukraine. But at any rate, it's that plus the tech base, plus, other elements of our government plus partners and allies. And we're really good at this, and we are throwing it away. So I don't know that China is going to win. China has no friends. China has force in a command economy. And and the Belt and Road Initiative is necessary for these other countries. But I don't know how popular it is. They bring in China, Chinese workers in many places, and local workers are cut out. So I'm just saying I think this may be up for grabs. And and maybe you're not saying that it isn't. But I think, you know, let's beat the doom loop. Let's have the, the hope.
I have the title for my next book already from Elizabeth the boom.
Boom boom boom. But but can I just pick up on a point, though, Jamie? Because I think this is really vital. If we're talking about how do, the rest of us, you know, outside of, the, the US and China, you know, forge some kind of productive, coalition that is able to provide that, you know, third, avenue of, of growth and development and dynamism and balancing so that it's not a unipolar, you know, so that we are a multipolar world. Then we have to think about the frameworks under which we're going to be doing that. And we talk a lot about defending multilateralism. And I think that this is obviously crucial, but there is a real risk in that as well, because at the moment it's all very well to say I'll defend the WTO. The WTO is really important. But the reality, the reality is if you're an emerging market economy or a developing economy, the rules of the WTO are not so helpful for you when it comes to development. Actually, a lot of WTO rules and regulations make it extremely difficult to pursue a transformative economic agenda. From from the Trips agreement, the Trims agreement to government procurement, all sorts of constraints that we're putting on emerging market and developing country governments that are not allowing them to transform their economies as quickly as possible. So I agree we have to defend multilateralism, but we don't we shouldn't be naive to the fact that these institutions are perfect. The IMF as well needs, you know, it needs serious reform and serious reform. So this is and again, it's an opportunity. But I would say that if we want to rebalance against China, we have to ensure that we, that, that, that, emerging markets and developing countries have that opportunity to raise income levels, to raise consumption, to boost exports and create this multi-polar world that we obviously want to be living in.
Ladies and gentlemen, in a in just a minute or two, we have about ten minutes left. We'll open the floor. So, prepare yourself if you wish to ask a question or so. Now is the time. But I have one last question. Picking up on what Jane just said. You know, if we're talking about doom and gloom, let's assume you were sitting in front of the leaders who were here for the last several days. Let's leave out Donald Trump for for a moment. But there were many.
Others only we could.
Prime ministers and heads of state from around the world were here if they had asked you. So looking at at the looking at the doom loop, what's the way out? Is there a recipe? And if you have a recipe, share it.
It is not an easy recipe, but I don't want to leave the impression that it's all doom in my book. At the end of the book, I do leave the reader with some hope, but it's going to be very difficult because of the dynamics of the doom loop. So what do you need to get out of it? You know, first of all, you need citizens who are really engaged, you know, not just as citizens of our of our countries with a narrow interest, but really of our communities and of the broader world. But we also need leaders, community leaders, business leaders, national leaders who are willing not to play to the politics of fear. But like Jane, you know, used to be a very important voice of reason in Congress. We need people like that who can actually appeal to our better selves. But then there is a third element, which I think is really crucial, which is institutions, both national and international. You know, Elizabeth spoke about and Jane alluded to to the weaknesses of the existing institutions. They are not working very well either for the advanced economies, for the emerging market economies. So we can try to rejigger them. But this could be seen as an opportunity when these institutions are falling apart to really rebuild them or build them from scratch in a way that we know all the flaws and we can get those flaws out. The problem is that right now, the very task of building or rebuilding those institutions falls into the hands of those who are basically shredding them. So I worry that it's going to take a lot of work. So it's not that we are stuck in the doom loop as a matter of destiny, but it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of engagement to get out of there.
All right.
Let's open it up. Who is who is prepared to ask the first question? Yes, please. Could you be kind enough to if you could identify yourselves and, and also, indicate whether you ask all of the panelists or whether your question is directed to just one.
Thank you. My name is Nonkululeko Mbizi. I am from South Africa, chair of the board of a bank. And the question is to you, Professor Prasad, if we think back to the global economic crisis, the financial crisis of 2008, 2007, what we saw is a direct impact was a backlash really against capitalism and the growth of capital in the influence and power. Looking at the three circles that you drew that are intersecting today in your doom loop, and we're looking at the domestic politics. To what degree do you think that the way AI is being positioned and introduced could actually introduce a techlash by social, in the social dynamic of a country because of the fear about job losses?
Chapter seven of the book. I do talk about technology. And, you know, in response to Jane, I already pointed out that I'm concerned if you take technologies like digital currencies, AI, social media, these could generate enormous benefits in terms of increasing prosperity, bringing us together. But what we are seeing is the darker side of technology beginning to dominate that. In fact, what we are seeing is much more concentration of economic and financial power. And the debate about AI continues to rage in terms of whether it's going to be a net positive or not for employment. But, you know, the one set of countries that we haven't talked about that much, which are going to be most affected are the lower income, smaller economies that are just sort of maturing into the world economy right now, as Elizabeth correctly pointed out, you know, globalization's receding means that these countries are going to be left out of the traditional path of growing through manufacturing led, export led growth. In addition, now you have AI, and I've spoken to many entrepreneurs, including from Africa, who tell me that, yes, there is enormous dynamism in these economies, but whether that is going to translate into employment growth is far less clear. So now you have economies that have the benefits of natural resources, that have the benefits of young and growing populations, but these could end up becoming a toxic mix because these countries are finding the path to development shut off, and the technology that they absorb generates probably good output, but not necessarily good employment growth. And this is a problem even in the advanced economies. But in the low income countries, it's going to be a real problem. And these are not problems that are going to be contained in these countries. They are going to spill over into the rest of the world.
A question here from you. And then.
My name is Federico Fubini. I'm a journalist with Corriere della sera. Italy is a question for Jane Harman and is about Vladimir Putin. To what extent do you think he contributed to to the unraveling of the world order as we knew it, and especially, to what extent do you think the way this war is going to be settled one day or another will define the new world order?
So you wanted to talk about Ukraine.
Here you go.
Talk about and notice your scarf, your pocket scarf.
Ukrainian flags.
Yes. There we go. Just one comment on. On the last answer I, I was listening to Jensen Wang talk Invidia CEO, about how, underdeveloped nations can skip over a whole bunch of technology and get to this new, what he called platform stack. And if they do it right, make AI transformative for their society. So I'm not as pessimistic as you are. Of course, it takes good leadership. But there was a a wonderful African entrepreneur, and one of the things I went to who was talking about how to do that, on this question, one of the things we missed in the 90s through hubris after we won the Cold War was the rise of Russian grievance. And that is encapsulated in this man, Vladimir Putin. And by the way, some of you might have been at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. I was there when he appeared, really kind of a menacing, Wolfgang may know him. Some of you may know him, but I don't. But my one exposure to him was quite chilling and laid out what he was planning to do and what he is planning to do or doing is restoring the Russian Empire. And Donald Trump admires that. I mean, I find it astonishing, but he admires strong men. I guess they're all men, aren't they? And especially Putin and XI. And I think unfortunately, the focus we had this whole week, we haven't mentioned it yet on Greenland, which was referred to by our president as Iceland a few times in his speech. Greenland, Mr. president, distracted, has distracted Europe from its urgent task, which is pushing back against Russian aggression in Ukraine. I also think the United States should do that. And many in the United States want to do that. I think 60% of the U.S. public supports Ukraine, but there are only so many brain cells. And focusing on on solving this obsession about Greenland has absorbed too many of them. So what will happen? What is the outcome? I think it's unclear. I think the strongest weapon the Ukrainians have is their heart. They're never going to stop fighting. They're just not. And they'll use all the tools they have, which are not enough. And Europe hasn't been as helpful as it could. And the US has been, unfortunately, fairly AWOL. And it's a tragedy. But I'm saying this is a fight for, Democratic values, not just, the the liberal world order, but Putin will move quickly if he makes a deal with Ukraine that doesn't have huge security buffers against more expansion by him.
If I may just add a footnote to to that, we had among the leaders, here at the Davos meeting this week, the president of Finland, Alex, stop, a long time friend also of Munich Security conference. And and I want to just repeat because I totally agree with what what he said about Putin and Russia and Ukraine. The Russian propaganda machine tries to tell the world that the special military operation has been, continues to be and will, at the end of the day, be successful. The truth of the matter is, it's the exact opposite, that this war has now been going on. Starting started exactly four years ago in February. It has cost many, many hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties. In the month of December alone, the assessment by our intelligence community, etc., is 30,000 approximately Russian soldiers killed. I mean, Russia lost a few thousand soldiers over a long period of time in Afghanistan. And this is like 30,000 in 1 month. Adding up to, what what happened over these four years? In addition, of course, Russia's single handedly produced an effect which is totally detrimental to Russian interests, the way they define their interests. They added their efforts, added two new countries to NATO. Putin wanted to weaken and destroy NATO. We now have Finland and Sweden. I mean, Sweden has been a neutral country essentially for the last 300 years. They changed their mind because they became so fearful of Russian intentions. In other words, almost everything that has happened over these last four years works against Russia. And, and and I would just hope that at this juncture in time, the United States, which is now the only country that engages in direct discussions with the Russians and the Ukrainians, I would just simply hope that the United States would, would, present to the Russians some kind of ultimatum. You know, President Trump has said, I don't know how many hundreds of times I want this war to end. I think he should say to the Russians, I want this war to end before the Easter recess, and it's not ended. You're not going to love what's going to. Happened next. I think there needs to be more pressure. Otherwise this will go on and on and on and cause yet another round of major casualties. So we're at a really important moment in time.
One piece to that. And that is there has been a bill pending in the United States Congress for years now, authored by Lindsey Graham, which would impose broad secondary sanctions on any countries that trade with Russia. That bill, most economists believe, and I'm not an economist, would be catastrophic for the Russian economy and would force Putin to change his some of his tune. And it is Trump who refuses to let that bill be called up, because the leadership of both houses is Republican and listens to him. But if that could pass, the US could exercise the leverage you're talking about.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've run out of time. I'm told by by the organizers that I'm sure we could we could have continued this for another hour. We hope that your book will be a huge success. I'm sure it will be. Thank. Let's let's have a round of applause for our three panelists. And if I may say, on behalf of the of of the organizers, have a safe trip home and do come back next year and listen to what happens at the Munich Security Conference in three weeks time, because we're going to be continuing these discussions, in particular about the security related aspects there, with Marco Rubio and with many heads of state from around Europe and beyond. Thank you so much.
Thank you, thank you.