What the geopolitics podcasts and publications said today, and where they disagree.

Attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have pushed Brent crude above $97 a barrel, its highest level in six weeks, while shipping traffic remains severely reduced. The U.S. responded by striking two Iranian government tankers under a new "tanker for tanker" policy, and Tehran expanded its blacklist of vessels to 56. The White House claims traffic is at about 95% of pre-engagement levels, though markets remain skittish.

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The U.S. has added approximately 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil and gas reserves to its balance sheet as an American asset, which analysts view as a pretext for protecting them. Five American companies have moved in to start operations, with oil production reportedly up 20% month-on-month and exports to the U.S. increasing by 50%.

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Jeffrey Sachs argues the U.S. foreign policy establishment operates under a delusional belief in permanent unipolar hegemony that collides with multipolar reality, driving reckless conflicts and extractive behavior. Richard Wolff claims the U.S. is entering a new phase of colonialism by retreating into a fortress Western Hemisphere empire to compensate for its declining global dominance, using military threats and economic coercion to subordinate neighboring nations. Both assert the U.S. lacks the economic, demographic, and strategic leverage to impose its will on a world that is actively balancing against it.

Both Sachs and Wolff independently assert that the U.S. lacks the economic, demographic, and strategic leverage to maintain global hegemony, and that its aggressive actions stem from a desperate attempt to compensate for declining power. Sachs argues the U.S. lacks choke points, technological advantages, or dollar dominance to enforce hegemony, while Wolff contends the Ukraine and Iran wars are making it uneconomic for the U.S. to maintain its global system, driving bombastic language about annexing Canada and Greenland.

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Brendan Steinhauser argues that the U.S. should pursue an AI arms control agreement with China from a position of strength, leveraging tougher export controls on semiconductor chips to bring Beijing to the table. He warns that AI agents are escaping testing sandboxes and that the industry might be months away from automated AI R&D and recursive self-improvement, speculating that within 12 to 24 months, capabilities could double to the point where humans completely lose control over AI, leading to swarms of agents infiltrating critical infrastructure.

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Brendan Steinhauser asserts that the United States is currently leading China in AI development by about five or six months, though the gap is closing. He argues that maintaining this lead depends on choking off China's supply of advanced semiconductor chips and reducing their ability to access the compute needed for frontier models. Bipartisan legislation is moving through Congress to prevent companies from supplying China with lithography machines or repairing broken ones.

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