Hidden Forces

Get the edge with Hidden Forces where media entrepreneur and financial analyst Demetri Kofinas gives you access to the people and ideas that matter, so you can build financial security and always stay ahead of the curve.

How to Navigate the New Investment Paradigm | Lawrence McDonald 11/24/2025

How to Navigate the New Investment Paradigm | Lawrence McDonald In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lawrence McDonald, the founder of The Bear Traps Report and the author of a recently published book about the risks and investment opportunities present in today’s radically reshaped economy titled “How to Listen When Markets Speak.” In today’s conversation, Demetri and Lawrence discuss how social media and the gamification of investing have amplified behavioral biases and fueled the AI boom, as well as the growth of crypto and other “tertiary” assets. They then zoom out to examine how the macro environment has changed since the Covid 19 pandemic, and how the government’s response to both the GFC and covid crisis have sent investors scrambling for new frameworks to help them understand government’s role in the economy and how to position themselves and their client’s portfolios for a radically new world—one that you will not learn about in financial text books or most macroeconomics courses. Kofinas and McDonald also explore the “dark side of passive investing,” the extreme concentration risk present in a handful of AI-linked mega-caps, the risk to markets of more capricious government trade policies, and why Lawrence McDonald believes that one of the most underappreciated opportunity sets in AI lies not at the intersection of semiconductors and AI companies, but in the physical energy and delivery infrastructure needed to power them. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 11/17/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/39064865

Investment Implications of the AI CapEx Boom | Chase Taylor 11/17/2025

Investment Implications of the AI CapEx Boom | Chase Taylor In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chase Taylor, head of research at Bulwark Capital Management and founder of Pinecone Macro Research about investment opportunities around the buildout of the new “electric stack” and the AI CapEx Boom that relies on them. Chase and Demetri spend the first hour of this episode exploring his methodology, how he extracts signals from noise, and why a multidisciplinary approach to investing is especially important during periods of disruptive sociopolitical and technological change like the kind we are experiencing today. They then apply these ideas to two important technological trends underway in the global economy: (1) the transformation of the so-called "electric stack” or electro-industrial stack and (2) the AI CapEx Boom that relies on it. They begin with a deep-dive exploration of the dramatic cost declines happening across the entire electric stack, beginning with the addition of new sources of energy, advancements in battery technology for storage, the use of magnets and motors that turn electricity into mechanical motion, power electronics that shape it into the precise force needed by today’s technologies, and the embedded compute that orchestrates and decides how and when to put that force into action. They discuss the sources of China’s dominance in this industry, the horizontal complementarities in its manufacturing ecosystems, the advantages of vertical integration, and what America and Europe need to do in order to remain competitive in this new industrial ecosystem. The second hour is devoted to exploring the implications for investors of the current AI CapEx boom, how the USD might behave in a growth slowdown scenario post-Liberation Day, and what the Trump administration’s military and covert action threats against Maduro’s regime in Venezuela can tell us about his foreign policy and whether we are returning to a more colonial phase of domination by the American empire over the Western hemisphere. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 11/10/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38996375

Investing on the Front Lines of the AI Arms Race | Nathan Benaich 11/10/2025

Investing on the Front Lines of the AI Arms Race | Nathan Benaich In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nathan Benaich, founder and general partner of Air Street Capital and the creator of the annual State of AI Report, an open-access compendium that tracks advances across AI research, industry, policy, and geopolitics. Nathan Benaich and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation exploring some of the most important AI breakthroughs of the year. They unpack the DeepSeek moment, dig into some of the advancements made by the latest reasoning models, and discuss why there appears to be a regression in capabilities across certain domains in artificial intelligence at the same time as we are seeing marked improvements in reasoning-heavy use cases like coding and scientific research. The second hour turns to a conversation about the commercial implications and geopolitical dynamics of the AI arms race, including China’s strategy to become the leader in open-weight models and tooling. They look at what industries, sectors, and professions may be most ripe for disruption, where the investment opportunities are, whether we’re in a bubble comparable to the 1990s Internet boom, and how export controls, energy constraints, and regulatory red-tape could play an outsized role in shaping the trajectory of the current arms race. Lastly, Kofinas and Benaich examine where along the AI stack most of the value is likely to accrue—from the underlying picks and shovels, through the foundation models, to the apps that ride on top of them—and what all this means for labor markets, education, and the cadence of scientific discovery. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 10/29/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38857670

A Practical History of Financial Markets | Russell Napier 11/06/2025

A Practical History of Financial Markets | Russell Napier Demetri Kofinas about his “Practical History of Financial Markets” online course, which is provided in conjunction with Edinburgh Business School. Hidden Forces premium subscribers can sign up using their subscriber email + code “HF50” for a generous 50% DISCOUNT. Genius members can access the course for an even more generous discount of 75%. Sign up today at . The course runs in three formats: a ~14-hour online version; a two-and-a-half-day in-person version in London (capped at about 30 people); and a university version for mostly post-grad students. This is not just for professionals—many attendees are principals or retail savers who feel responsible for managing their and their families’ wealth. The course is “radically different” from standard finance classes. Instead of starting from pricing theory or discounted cash flow, it takes a historical approach to asset valuation across equities, bonds, cash, commodities, and property, asking the question: “what repeatable conditions caused valuations to change?” The course leans heavily on long-run U.S. and international data, examines market behavior in different monetary and inflation regimes, and includes a module on investing in periods of inflation, disinflation, and deflation. After completing this course, you should be able to: ✔️ Critically evaluate different methods of valuing stock markets and identify faults in the valuation methods. ✔️ Explain the idea of mean reversion in financial markets and identify valuation techniques that follow mean reversion using data from the last 100 years to demonstrate this. ✔️ Understand the impact inflationary or deflationary forces have on the returns to different classes of financial assets. ✔️ Understand the impact liquidity and the supply of money has on stock market returns over time. ✔️ Understand the impact of psychological biases on returns in the stock market and the role that they can play in major stock market events. ✔️ Critically evaluate the lessons from the history of the financial markets over the past 200 years or more. As Russell has often said, “when regime change occurs, the greatest risk for any investor is to get all the right answers to all the wrong questions." The ultimate goal of this course is to teach people how to find and ask the RIGHT questions. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 10/31/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38875265

What Happens When Social Trust Collapses? | Peter Atwater 11/03/2025

What Happens When Social Trust Collapses? | Peter Atwater is the tenth installment in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with Peter Atwater, a recognized expert on the impact of confidence and mood on individual and group decision-making. Peter’s work has been instrumental not only in helping his clients, students, and readers understand how people make decisions under conditions of chaos and uncertainty, but also in showing how to use those insights to gain a competitive advantage. The three begin their conversation by mapping out Peter’s Confidence Quadrant and using it to explain how individuals and crowds move between feelings of high and low certainty and control. They explore the immense contemporary pressure people feel to conform—particularly on social media and in an educational system that rewards conformity. They discuss financial nihilism, the search for community in unusual places, and why real, in-person networks, relationships, and conversations matter now more than ever. The second half of the episode turns to the political economy of confidence: the rise of leader-centric movements, the fragility of “passenger-seat” societies, the lasting impact of COVID, and the “velvet-rope” economy that has transformed everything from airline cabins to financing. They discuss wealth stratification, powerlessness, the risks of a genuine socialist revolution, the search for leadership, and practical ways individuals can regain agency—through epistemic hygiene, disciplined storytelling, and service to others. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 10/23/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38802655

Trump’s Plan to Remake the Middle East | Kamran Bokhari 10/27/2025

Trump’s Plan to Remake the Middle East | Kamran Bokhari In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with geopolitical analyst and forecaster Kamran Bokhari about Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan and the new security order taking shape in the Middle East. Kamran first appeared on Hidden Forces in the days following the October 7th attacks to discuss the wider war unfolding between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, and how Hamas’s attacks could serve as a catalyst for the remaking of the modern Middle East. In his subsequent appearances, he has provided critical context for understanding U.S., Israeli, and Iranian strategic aims and limitations, as well as the interests and constraints of other states in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. For all intents and purposes, Israel has won its war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has decimated both its conventional and unconventional forces and revealed to its proxies, affiliates, and supporters across the region—and even to its own people—that Iran is a weak and tottering power. With the initiation of Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan and the cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, we may be witnessing the emergence of a new security order in the Middle East—one that relies more on regional stakeholders, allowing the United States to reduce its direct exposure and the commitment of U.S. forces while still maintaining influence over regional politics. Kamran and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation recapping the Middle East’s transformation over the last two years. They revisit Israel’s systematic campaign against Hezbollah’s leadership, the subsequent collapse of the Assad regime, and the consequences of the U.S.’s strategic strikes on Iran’s known nuclear facilities. They also discuss the diplomatic fallout from Israel’s recent attacks in Qatar, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s subsequent apology call from the White House, and Washington’s push for an international stabilization force in Gaza led by regional partners. The second hour turns to what a new regional security architecture could look like and how U.S. strategy is shifting from direct management to burden-sharing among regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. They explore the practical implications of this emerging arrangement for Gaza—including discussions about an Arab-Muslim stabilization force, governance over the Palestinian territories, and a long reconstruction financed by Gulf and international donors—while setting realistic expectations for the creation of an independent Palestinian political entity over the next decade. They conclude by assessing which countries stand to gain the most from Iran’s retreat and the decimation of its proxies, closing with a frank discussion about America’s polarized media ecosystem and the growing anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments being expressed on both the American left and right. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 10/20/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38647655

The “Boomer Blues” and a Return to Faith | Roger Mitchell 10/26/2025

The “Boomer Blues” and a Return to Faith | Roger Mitchell is the ninth installment in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with Roger Mitchell, an entrepreneur and writer whose essay “,” published in Grant Williams’s 2025 compendium, explores faith, meaning, and the search for moral grounding in a contemporary West that feels increasingly unmoored and in epistemic freefall. The conversation begins with a diagnosis of the cultural and spiritual malaise that seems to have taken hold of Western societies: the fraying of the social contract, the “boomer blues,” as Roger Mitchell calls them, and why life inside “the machine” leaves us lonely, angry, afraid, and in dire need of real human contact. The second half of the episode turns to a discussion about the dangers of politicizing religion and weaponizing faith in response to growing social and existential angst in Western societies. Demetri, Grant, and Roger explore Europe’s identity crisis, the destabilizing effects of uncontrolled immigration, the cultural consequences of collapsing birth rates, the economic and social tragedy facing younger generations, and the broader epistemic collapse that has made consensus-building nearly impossible and replaced reasoned debate with a totalizing ambition for political domination. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 10/10/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38581960

China’s Quest to Engineer the Future | Dan Wang 10/13/2025

China’s Quest to Engineer the Future | Dan Wang In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dan Wang, author of Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, about his pioneering new framework that compares the U.S. and China not along ideological lines or modes of governance, but by state capacity and the propensity to build. According to Dan Wang, China is an “engineering state,” focused on building big projects and diffusing technologies across its economy, while America is a “lawyerly society” that has become proficient at protecting what it has and obstructing progress in areas that are vital for its long-term prosperity. Kofinas and Wang compare each nation’s leadership—staffed by engineers and mega-project managers in China and litigators and regulators in America—against each other and against each country's own history, and examine when and why the United States, in particular, went from being a country that excelled in constructing things to one more concerned with obstruction and safeguarding a comfortable way of life for the wealthiest and older segments of society. The second hour is devoted to a discussion about the failures and unintended consequences of China’s engineering state, most notably the devastating human impact of its one-child and zero-COVID policies. They also explore the similarities between the American and Chinese people, the prospects for conflict between the two superpowers, and what policies the United States can implement to get back to building again—like reforming immigration, advancing clean energy development, permitting the buildout of more housing, and increasing funding for basic scientific research and development. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 10/06/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38497985

The End of Neoliberalism and the Coming Storm | Viktor Shvets 10/08/2025

The End of Neoliberalism and the Coming Storm | Viktor Shvets In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with former investment banker turned global strategist Viktor Shvets, whose books The Great Rupture and The Twilight Before the Storm provide an audaciously comprehensive and compelling framework for understanding the forces shaping our world. These include technology and finance, amplified by climate change, demographics, and a series of socioeconomic and geopolitical shocks that have created the once-in-a-century superstorm now enveloping Western democracies. Viktor and Demetri spend the first hour of this episode exploring Shvets’ central critique of neoliberalism and why he believes that much of the current crisis stems from this failed ideology. They compare today’s sociopolitical and economic dynamics to those that overtook the world in the 1930s, focusing on technology-driven social disruption, a decline in the marginal utility of labor, runaway asset prices, repeated financial shocks, pandemics, climate stress, migration, and a deep loss of faith in institutions, in our collective identity, and in our shared capacity to solve problems. The second hour turns to questions of policy design, institutional reform, and portfolio strategy. Viktor and Demetri debate the pros and cons of redistributive solutions such as universal basic income and more heavy-handed fixes to America’s broken healthcare system and antiquated educational model. They also stress-test alternative modes of sociopolitical organization such as despotic feudalism, techno-communism, or models that attempt to better balance the more extreme outcomes that a highly technologized society like ours would produce. The two end the episode with a conversation about digital currencies and the disruptive potential that decentralized finance will have on money and banking. Kofinas also asks Shvets what assets he believes will outperform if governments are able to institute the types of reforms that he believes are necessary, and similarly, what assets investors will want to own if we trend toward some of the darker scenarios that he envisions. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 09/29/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38438340

Why America Needs a New China Strategy | Kurt Campbell & Rush Doshi 09/29/2025

Why America Needs a New China Strategy | Kurt Campbell & Rush Doshi In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi. Kurt is the chairman and co-founder of The Asia Group and served as the United States Deputy Secretary of State in the Joe Biden administration and as the Indo-Pacific Coordinator from 2021 to 2024. Rush also served under the previous administration in his capacity as the Deputy Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs on the National Security Council and is the author of the extremely influential book, “The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.” Kofinas, Doshi, and Campbell spend the first hour of their conversation discussing the nature of China's rise and the challenges it poses to American power, both in terms of its economic, technological, and military development and the scale at which it operates. They also explore the limitations of a ‘go-it-alone’ approach to great power competition in this new century and the importance of achieving what Kurt and Rush call "allied scale"—the notion that America’s decisive advantage comes from its network of alliances. This first hour also includes a series of historical deep dives ranging from the Cold War and the Anglo-German rivalry to America's own period of rapid industrial development beginning in the late 19th century, how American industrial capacity proved decisive in shaping the balance of power in the 20th, and the lessons that can be learned when applying this history to the Chinese economy today. The second hour is devoted to a conversation about what "allied scale" would look like in practice, the steps that would need to be taken in order to get us there, and the obstacles the United States and its historical allies face in implementing this approach. Demetri also asks Kurt and Rush whether the United States may be exaggerating the threat that China poses at the expense of more important domestic priorities, and the consequences to the stamina of America’s alliances and the durability of international peace and security if it is. The three conclude the second hour with an important conversation about Taiwan, including military contingencies, the diplomacy of deterrence, the public support (or lack thereof) for any type of security commitments to Taipei, and whether the United States is even in a position to win a war in the Pacific. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 09/23/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38368470

Who Profits in a Post-American World? | Adam Posen 09/25/2025

Who Profits in a Post-American World? | Adam Posen In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, about the profound transformations underway in the global economy driven by America’s transition away from being the world’s primary insurance provider for international security to its exploiter-in-chief. In a recently published Foreign Affairs essay titled “The New Economic Geography: Who Profits in a Post-American World?” Adam compares America’s role in the post-World War II era to that of an insurance provider, underwriting global security by protecting international shipping lanes, providing deep and liquid capital markets, and enforcing international laws and standards that have formed the bedrock of the last 80 years of economic growth and prosperity. Kofinas and Posen spend the first hour of this episode digging into Adam’s insurance framework and why he believes the United States was the largest beneficiary of the system it created. They discuss some of the recent policy changes out of Washington and why they are transforming America’s sphere of influence into something that looks more like a system of exploitation than a market for affordable insurance. Adam Posen draws implications for the continued role of US Treasuries as a global safe asset and whether a reduction of foreign capital flows into dollars will ultimately prove stimulative for the resurrection of industrial ecosystems that the administration has identified as vital to American national security and the long-term prosperity of the United States. The two also consider the degree to which the increased premiums that Washington is now charging its allies can be justified by rising risks in the international security environment and by the unpopularity among the MAGA base for foreign U.S. involvement. The second hour of their conversation turns to questions of execution—specifically, what is required for the successful implementation of a U.S. industrial policy. This includes a discussion about apprenticeships, skilled immigration, government-supported R&D, federal funding for university science and technology programs, and more integration and collaboration with allied economies. Posen and Kofinas also discuss why the use of tariffs, subsidies, and export controls—including the CHIPS and Science Act—implemented during both Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s administrations have underdelivered. They also examine why the current administration’s trade policies have been oddly more accommodative toward China than toward America’s closest allies and why this will ultimately prove to be a losing strategy in the long-term. Lastly, Demetri asks Adam for his view on what the recent battles between the Fed and the White House mean for the future of Fed independence and if Washington is laying the groundwork for a long-term rise in inflation expectations as it seeks to monetize its debt and deficits through an increasingly compliant and captured central bank. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 09/16/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38270595

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity | Paul Kingsnorth 09/22/2025

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity | Paul Kingsnorth In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Paul Kingsnorth, a novelist, essayist, and former environmental activist who first came on many people’s radars during the Covid-19 pandemic with the publication of his viral three-part series “The Vaccine Moment.” His current work explores the intersection of technology, culture, and the divine. In his latest book, Against the Machine, Kingsnorth examines how our increasingly mechanized way of seeing and relating to the world—and to ourselves—has contributed to the death of Western culture, and what it would take to reclaim our humanity and save our souls. Paul Kingsnorth and Kofinas spend the first hour of the episode tracing his journey from direct-action environmentalism through Buddhism and paganism to his eventual baptism into Orthodox Christianity and how that quest informs his critique of The Machine. They discuss AI as a false God and conduit through which humanity may be ushering in the anti-Christ and how Kingsnorth’s Machine framework relates to Jacques Ellul’s concept of technique and Iain McGilchrist model of the divided brain. They also explore why this historical moment feels “apocalyptic”—as if something is being unveiled—or perhaps more accurately as if something is being born through the wires and towers of the web and through the electric pulses and touchscreens of our connected devices. The second hour turns to a conversation about how we should each respond in this consequential time, how we draw practical lines around technology, how to rebuild our communities, how to guard ourselves against charlatans and false prophets, and why love and nostalgia can guide us home. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 09/16/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38244040

How the Internet Went From Counterculture to Technofeudalism | Douglas Rushkoff 09/15/2025

How the Internet Went From Counterculture to Technofeudalism | Douglas Rushkoff In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Douglas Rushkoff, a pioneering media theorist, best-selling author, and leading voice on how digital technologies shape societies, economies, and cultures. Rushkoff and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation tracing the arc of Douglas’ career, from his upbringing in a communal 1960s neighborhood in Queens and early work in theater to his role as a cultural and media critic chronicling the rise of the early internet. They explore how the internet’s rave-like collaborative ethos and anarchic counterculture gradually gave way in the 1990s and early 2000s to a highly centralized, commercialized, and impersonal platform for economic and political consolidation and control. The second hour turns to a conversation about consequences and remedies for our increasingly disembodied and highly intermediated world—with its blurring of public and private spaces, its hyperreality and epistemic dislocation, and its noticeable drift toward techno-feudalism and digital pacification. We examine ways to rebuild sovereignty over our communities and how to reclaim our attention, reaffirm our relationships, and reassert our power as citizens over our governments and the large-scale commercial and technological forces shaping our lives. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 09/08/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38155740

How Stablecoins Will Transform Banking | Charles Calomiris 09/08/2025

How Stablecoins Will Transform Banking | Charles Calomiris In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Charles Calomiris, former Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, about his forthcoming paper “How Stablecoins Will Transform Banking,” which is based on a presentation he delivered at the Hoover Institution’s annual monetary policy conference this past May. Demetri and Charles spend the first hour of their conversation laying out what stablecoins are and why Calomiris believes they are poised to transform our standard units of account through a revolution in real-time payments and a wholesale reinvention of the banking system, monetary policy, and the role of the dollar internationally. They discuss the significance of the recently signed “Genius Act,” explore the importance of bank charter modernization, and consider the broad public benefits of separating loans from deposits—ranging from faster, programmable settlement and greater competition in financial services to a reduction of systemic risk in areas where bank lending has become increasingly overconcentrated. The second hour is devoted to exploring some of the most important short- and long-term implications of stablecoin adoption, including: (1) Antitrust concerns over natural monopolies and network effects in stablecoin payment rails. (2) Near-term boost to demand for U.S. government debt, including the potential issuance of tokenized bills for gross real-time settlement. (3) Longer-term prospect of moving away from the dollar as the primary unit of account toward consumer bundles tied to assets, goods, and services that better reflect people’s spending patterns—along with the implications for monetary policy, seigniorage, capital flows, and the preservation of purchasing power in these new currencies. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 09/02/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/38073760

Thematic Investing in an Age of Global Entropy | Marvin Barth 09/02/2025

Thematic Investing in an Age of Global Entropy | Marvin Barth In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Marvin Barth, founder of Thematic Markets and former Chief Economist for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury, who previously served at the Federal Reserve and the Bank for International Settlements and has led global macro and FX strategy on both the sell side and the buy side. Marvin Barth and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation unpacking his concepts of “localization,” “being is believing,” and “global entropy,” and how these thematic frameworks can help us understand changes in growth, inflation expectations, interest rates, the underperformance of emerging markets, the limits of monetary policy, and the weakening of American soft and hard power. The second hour begins with a conversation about the three pillars of Western primacy—mythology, economic dominance, and military superiority—and why Marvin believes that each of these has already peaked. They discuss how rivals to America’s Post-World War II Liberal Order have used asymmetric warfare to thwart the West’s dominance and are now in position to offer something radically different—a new sociopolitical and economic model that can rival Western capitalism and democracy. The two also explore scenarios ranging from a rapid dissolution of the global system to the managed emergence of a new bipolar order with two sets of economic and political ideologies, supply networks, and technological standards. This includes a broad discussion about portfolio construction, the role of the dollar, and how the broad international adoption of stablecoins could prove to be one of the most consequential stories of the coming decades. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 08/26/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37980625

The Great Rebalancing: Why Debt, Demographics, and Politics Will Crush Forward Returns | Sony Kapoor 08/25/2025

The Great Rebalancing: Why Debt, Demographics, and Politics Will Crush Forward Returns | Sony Kapoor In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist, policy adviser, and investor about why developed world demographics, debt, and political sclerosis will crush forward returns for investors who fail to rebalance their portfolios for the new investment paradigm. Kapoor and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation unpacking the thesis explored by Sony in two of his papers: “Winter Is Coming” and “The Case for a Great Rebalancing” in which he argues that global capital has been increasingly misallocated due to factors such as the growth of passive indexation, maladaptive benchmarking, and an excessive focus on short-term performance at the expense of long-term returns. They explore how demographic tailwinds in advanced economies have flipped into headwinds; whether AI driven productivity gains can realistically offset the drag of declining birth rates; why accommodative post GFC monetary and fiscal policies undermined political stability in developed countries; and what recent stresses—including dollar weakness, Treasury market liquidity scares, and an increased reliance on short-term debt financing—suggest about looming financial repression, fiscal dominance, and a rotation out of U.S. capital markets. The second hour is devoted to a conversation about investor incentives, market structure, investment opportunities in emerging markets, and how to construct a more diversified portfolio suitable for the world that is coming into being. Demetri and Sony discuss why political and currency risks may now be lower for a diversified emerging markets basket than for a similarly diversified portfolio of developed market assets. They discuss what a reweighting toward emerging markets could look like; why India stands out given its digital public rails and domestic-demand engine; how places like Indonesia, Brazil, and Nigeria fit into a rebalancing; and how to think about geopolitics, US policy risk, and portfolio construction in this new paradigm. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 08/18/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37882080

America Under Occupation: Truth, Power, & Imperial Decline | Jonathan Kirshner 08/21/2025

America Under Occupation: Truth, Power, & Imperial Decline | Jonathan Kirshner is the eighth episode in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with leading realist scholar Jonathan Kirshner about how eroding cultural norms, weakened political guardrails, deepening polarization, and the collapse of shared narratives and belief structures are leading to a break-down in the American-led order, paving the way for a new moneyed elite to seize power in Washington. Their discussion begins with a deep dive into the realist tradition: its origins, how it differs from other ideological schools, its various interpretations, and why classical realists grant primacy to uncertainty and the inherently unpredictable nature of world events. They explore what it means for states to define and pursue their national interests at a time when the American-led world order is fragmenting and deep domestic polarization is weakening the institutional checks and balances that once constrained presidential power. Jonathan also educates the audience on the parallels between the United States today and France in the 1930s—politically fractured, inwardly focused, and increasingly unable to act with purpose on the world stage—and why Kirshner believes the situation may now be closer to France in the 1940s, marked by a willingness to collaborate with the occupying forces of a new plutocracy. Grant, Demetri, and Jonathan also grapple with how the politics of scapegoating, the collapse of shared narratives, and the deliberate erosion of truth claims are undermining the foundations of participatory democracy. Jonathan explains how this epistemic breakdown accelerates America’s imperial collapse, undermining its political influence abroad, weakening its alliances, and threatening the long-term stability of the dollar-based global financial system. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 08/07/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37740955

God Mode: The Technological Battle for Global Domination | Bruno Maçães 08/11/2025

God Mode: The Technological Battle for Global Domination | Bruno Maçães In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bruno Maçães, a geopolitical strategist and the former Minister of European Affairs for Portugal, whose latest book titled "World Builders" explores the intersection of technology and geopolitics. In the first hour, Bruno puts forward a radical new theory of geopolitics and technology that no longer views the world as a neutral battlefield between great powers to control territory and resources, but rather as a contest in world building that will afford the most powerful states back-doors into all aspects of our lives that they can use to alter the state of the world at any time or place of their choosing. In the second hour, Kofinas and Maçães explore why the United States has ceased building the global order it once championed, paving the way for China to construct a new world according to its own technological standards and ideological blueprints. We discuss what this means for the nature of the international order, individual freedom, the form that governance is likely to take in an increasingly virtualized world, and what is in store for all of us if things remain on their current trajectory and the United States recedes from its world building project, or perhaps, even worse, decides to destroy it entirely. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 08/04/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37695640

Failed State: Inside Britain’s Governance Crisis | Sam Freedman 08/07/2025

Failed State: Inside Britain’s Governance Crisis | Sam Freedman In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Sam Freedman, a former senior policy advisor in the UK's Department for Education, political analyst, and the author of "Failed State," a timely exploration of the deep-rooted dysfunction within British governance and how to fix it. In their conversation, Sam Freedman examines the origins and nature of the current crisis, focusing on issues such as extreme centralization, the dominance of executive power, and the corrosive impact of modern media dynamics on politics and policymaking. He also takes listeners through several critical turning points in recent British political history, explaining how the solutions to past crises have, paradoxically, laid the groundwork for today's dysfunction. The episode ends with an exploration of Sam’s proposed radical institutional reforms, why incremental solutions are insufficient, and how these issues compare to those facing the United States and other western democracies. The two discuss decentralization, the strengthening of parliamentary scrutiny, civil service reform, and the complex interplay between governance, media influence, and public trust in political institutions. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 07/31/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37642280

Investing in a World of Permanent Stimulus | Vincent Deluard 08/04/2025

Investing in a World of Permanent Stimulus | Vincent Deluard In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vincent Deluard, Director of Global Macro Strategy at StoneX Group, where he advises large institutional investors on asset allocation, economic forecasting, and quantitative modeling informed by historical patterns and structural economic analysis. Vincent Deluard and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation exploring Deluard’s macroeconomic framework and the key structural forces that he believes are shaping the emergence of a new macro regime of fiscal dominance, including shifting demographics, politically driven inflation, geopolitical fragmentation, and the decline of institutional trust. The two discuss his provocative thesis that recessions have been "canceled," examining the structural and technological forces that Vincent believes are reducing economic cyclicality and reshaping the role of monetary and fiscal policy. In the second hour, Vincent Deluard delves much deeper into his specific investment theses, including his call for an Asia "reverse currency crisis," his long-term outlook for the U.S. dollar, and an Asian-driven oil demand shock that could rile markets and challenge the ability of monetary authorities to balance their mandates of maintaining price stability while also supporting economic growth and maximum employment. Vincent also shares his suggestions on how to construct a "fiscal dominance" portfolio, including which asset classes he believes will outperform under the new macroeconomic conditions that they discuss in their conversation and how investors can best manage risk and reward in this new paradigm. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 07/29/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37623840

The Final Phase of the Debt Supercycle | Edward Chancellor 07/31/2025

Stablecoins are Fueling a New Era of Dollar Dominance | Vance Spencer & Michael Anderson 07/28/2025

Stablecoins are Fueling a New Era of Dollar Dominance | Vance Spencer & Michael Anderson In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson. Mike and Vance are the founders of Framework Ventures, one of the largest venture capital firms in crypto and one of the earliest and biggest investors in Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Kofinas, Spencer, and Anderson spend the first hour surveying the current state of crypto—how the space has evolved since Michael and Vance were last on the podcast and how institutional participation in Bitcoin and Ethereum has expanded through ETFs and corporate treasury strategies. They also unpack the latest legislative developments, including the Genius and Clarity Acts, and their implications for stablecoin adoption and the broader digital asset ecosystem. In the second hour they zoom out to examine the far-reaching implications of dollar-backed stablecoin adoption outside the United States. The three of them explore how diverging regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions are shaping the future of decentralized finance and consider the rise of digital asset treasury companies as a powerful new force in the crypto economy. They also examine the practical intersections between blockchain technologies and artificial intelligence, including how AI might leverage decentralized finance applications and cryptocurrencies for the purposes of capital formation and data monetization. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 07/24/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37545885

Why Japan’s Elections Could Blow Up Global Bond Markets | Weston Nakamura 07/24/2025

Capital Flight, Trade Policy, and the Fate of the Dollar | Joseph Wang 07/21/2025

Investing in the Chaos: Macro Signals in a Bot-Filled World | Le Shrub 07/14/2025

Investing in the Chaos: Macro Signals in a Bot-Filled World | Le Shrub In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Le Shrub, the author of the who in his previous life was part of a famous team known for putting on “The Big Short” during the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. This recording is the result of a phone call Demetri made to Le Shrub to catch up on markets and life after returning from a recent trip to Italy where he spent time with some guests of the podcast discussing the effect that rapid technological changes are having on the evolution of human societies, culture, politics, and the economy. Le Shrub and Kofinas spend the first hour exploring some of these themes and the collective sense in Western countries that our governing systems, societal norms, and democratic institutions are unraveling at a quickening pace, hurdling us toward some inexorable economic and political reset. They shift their focus in the second hour toward the markets as Le Shrub educates listeners on his investment process and how it has fared in this increasingly chaotic information landscape where signal is often drowned by a cacophony of bad information spread by malicious actors, uninformed clout chasers, and bots. This includes a discussion about how Le Shrub has sought to monetize the second order effects of the most recent Trump tariffs on copper and the Brazilian economy. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 07/10/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37383620

Trump Doctrine: A New Era of Gunboat Diplomacy | Stephen Walt 07/03/2025

Trump Doctrine: A New Era of Gunboat Diplomacy | Stephen Walt In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, about American grand strategy, the Trump Doctrine of Coercive Primacy, and the implications of Washington’s new Gunboat Diplomacy in the Middle East. Stephen is a prominent member of the realist school in international relations. He’s been a long-time critic of American adventurism and an advocate for a more restrained approach to U.S. foreign policy. In the first hour, Stephen provides his assessment of recent events in the Middle East, how U.S. policy in the region improves or worsens America’s global position, and what we can say with certainty about the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy. In the second hour, he and Demetri discuss: (1) America’s policy in the Middle East (2) Iranian intentions and the potential for regime change (3) Solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (4) American grand strategy (5) The long-awaited U.S. pivot to Asia that has failed to fully materialize Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 06/25/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37164275

Tehran to Taipei: the Risks of Strategic Overreach | Dmitri Alperovitch 06/30/2025

Tehran to Taipei: the Risks of Strategic Overreach | Dmitri Alperovitch In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with geopolitical and intelligence analyst Dmitri Alperovitch about the new security dynamics and economic opportunities that arise from America’s and Israel’s attacks on Iran, the risks of strategic overreach, and whether U.S. actions do more to compel or deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. In the first hour, Alperovitch scrutinizes Israel’s decision to initiate a series of targeted strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, including their decision to assassinate key nuclear scientists and senior members of the IRGC. We discuss America’s choice to participate in this campaign, Iran’s response, potential additional repercussions from these attacks, political conditions within the Islamic Republic, and whether this latest round of violence might precipitate the collapse of the Iranian government or incite a coup against its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. In the second hour, Alperovitch is asked whether he believes Trump's decision to involve the American military directly in Israel’s war with Iran was in America’s national interests or if it results in strategic overreach that will further undermine American security and the credibility of American global leadership. He and Kofinas discuss how this move is perceived by other regional players like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, how it alters the security dynamics in the Middle East, and how it affects Dmitri’s assessment of the risks Washington faces in its broader Cold War with the People's Republic of China. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 06/23/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37127675

Israel-Iran War: Economic and Strategic Consequences | Kamran Bokhari 06/24/2025

Israel-Iran War: Economic and Strategic Consequences | Kamran Bokhari In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kamran Bokhari, Senior Director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy & Policy, who has served in the U.S. State Department and as a Senior Consultant with the World Bank. Bokhari first appeared on the podcast shortly after the October 7th attacks to discuss the violence ignited by Hamas, the nature and scope of Iranian involvement, and how various regional actors exploited the growing disorder to their advantage, as the Biden administration struggled to stabilize a region on the brink of another major war. In subsequent appearances, Bokhari has provided the Hidden Forces audience with critical context for understanding U.S.-Israeli and Iranian strategic aims and limitations, the interests and constraints of other regional states (including Saudi Arabia and Turkey), how the events in the Middle East are perceived in Beijing and Moscow, and how the situation may evolve from here. The broader conflict with Iran, which has consistently framed these discussions, has now directly involved the United States following its recent deployment of fourteen 30,000-pound bombs targeting three Iranian nuclear sites: the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, the nuclear facility in Natanz, and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. What happens next—and whether the White House's actions will ultimately prove beneficial to America's long-term strategic objectives—forms the central focus of this two-hour conversation. In the first hour, Bokhari and Kofinas update listeners on recent developments, assessing the initial successes and failures of U.S. and Israeli strategic planners, the Iranian response, immediate risks to the United States and its allies, and how this war is likely to reshape the economic and security order of the Middle East over the next five years. In the second hour, Demetri and Kamran widen their aperture to examine how the conflict will affect the economic and military imperatives of the United States and China, along with their respective alliances and trading networks. They also discuss the potential economic repercussions and secondary impacts resulting from America's attack on Iran. The episode concludes with an examination of best- and worst-case scenarios, ranging from a new investment supercycle in the Middle East to the deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons and heightened risks of international terrorism in the United States and Europe. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 06/23/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37107400

The Party Comes First: Power & Politics in Xi's China | Joseph Torigian 06/23/2025

The Party Comes First: Power & Politics in Xi's China | Joseph Torigian In of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joseph Torigian, an expert on the politics of authoritarian regimes and the Chinese Communist Party, with a particular focus on elite power struggles, civil-military relations, and grand strategy. Torigian is also the author of a widely discussed new book titled “The Party’s Interests Come First,” a political biography and historical analysis of Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping, the leader of China and the head of the Chinese Communist Party. In the first hour, Torigian and Kofinas trace the evolution, internal contradictions, and complex dynamics of political power and succession within the Chinese Communist Party, revealing the critical role that personal networks, ideological discipline, factional struggle, and narrative have played in shaping Chinese political history and culture. They explore several critical periods in Chinese communist party history, including Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, the period of reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping, and the post-Tiananmen period following the 1989 crackdown. In the second hour, Kofinas and Torigian focus on China's current leader, Xi Jinping, examining the political lessons he has drawn from the struggles endured by his father while exploring how those experiences have shaped his party loyalties and reinforced his commitment to restoring China’s greatness and securing its position on the global stage. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting . If you’d like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at . If you enjoyed today’s episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on , , , , , , or via our Writing us a review on & Joining our mailing list at Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at . Join the conversation on , , and at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at Episode Recorded on 06/17/2025 /episode/index/show/hiddenforces/id/37047980

Trump vs. Musk: One Big Beautiful Blowup | Lawrence Fossi 06/16/2025

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