“It’s Too Late: The Changes Are Coming.” So quipped billionaire investor Ray Dalio in an article on X (formerly Twitter), delivering a grim one-liner with his trademark deadpan calm. Dalio is deadly serious, though. Enormous trade and capital imbalances have built up over decades, creating conditions so unsustainable that major changes in the global order are now inevitable. The comfortable post-Cold War assumptions about American economic primacy are crumbling—big changes are no longer a distant threat; they’re banging on the door.
In a previous essay — “Welcome to Imperial America” — we examined how the United States has dropped the polite fictions of liberal internationalism and begun openly behaving like the empire it has long been. Cloaked ideals of spreading democracy and a “rules-based order” have given way to blunt realpolitik; Washington is consolidating its sphere of influence and unapologetically disciplining allies in a new age of great-power rivalry. I termed this the American Sphere Doctrine: a more regionally defined, security-first grand strategy.
If that first essay focused on America’s geopolitical stance — the military, diplomatic, and strategic moves that mark the empire’s “coming-out party” — this sequel turns to the geoeconomic front. If the old American imperium was financed by the dollar’s global role, the new one will be shaped by its retreat. The shift will not be graceful, gentle, or peaceful. But it is underway.
The dollar system that once propped up the American imperium — allowing the United States to export inflation, import goods, and extract tribute through debt — is coming apart. In its place, something far more contentious is taking shape: a reversion to tariffs, antitrust, state-directed capital, and industrial policy. At home, this will spark conflict with every interest group that benefitted from the old order. Abroad, it will send shockwaves through economies built on access to American markets, subsidies, and remittances. The era of seamless globalization is ending. What follows is fragmentation, realignment, and the ruthless sorting of winners and losers.
But this is not collapse. It is consolidation. Private capital will be subordinated to state priorities. Global trade will reorganize along strategic corridors. The United States will build a defensive economic bloc, extract tribute from allies in the form of investment, and contest the great infrastructure routes of the coming century. The empire isn’t vanishing; it’s changing shape.
What emerges is not a liberal hegemon but a fortified, regionally-entrenched great power: Byzantine America. Less evangelist, more strategic. Less Rome, more Constantinople.
To understand the roots of American dominance in the postwar order, we must “follow the money”. Since 1945, American power has rested not just on its unmatched military strength, but on its unique form of financial leverage. In the wake of World War II, the United States stood astride a ruined world as the unrivaled economic superpower. It was home to half of global GDP and held the vast majority of international gold reserves. With this clout, Washington shaped a new international monetary system at Bretton Woods, designed (in theory) for global stability and prosperity. But in practice, the arrangers made sure the system tilted in America’s favor. The U.S. dollar was established as the world’s de facto reserve currency, anchored to gold at $35 an ounce, while other currencies were pegged to the dollar.
This meant that, for as long as the United States maintained the convertibility of dollars into gold, the dollar would be “as good as gold” worldwide. It also conveniently meant that Washington could effectively dictate many of the rules. American negotiators at Bretton Woods quietly ensured that the then-newly formed International Monetary Fund (IMF) and related institutions would, to quote Michael Hudson, “promote U.S. exports above all,” even at allies’ expense. Britain, for instance, had to swallow policies that neutered the sterling and British industry. Such was the price of U.S. financial support in the postwar order. So while there was much lofty rhetoric about free markets and cooperation, underneath lay a hard-nosed reality: the dollar would reign supreme, and any potential challengers would be co-opted or constrained.
In the early postwar years, this system manifested as a “dollar shortage”. War-torn nations clamored for U.S. dollars (and U.S. loans) to rebuild and to buy American goods. Washington obliged through programs like the Marshall Plan, which, though nominally generous, also had the rather beneficial side-effect of entrenching dollar dominance in Europe. By the 1950s and 1960s, as Western Europe and Japan recovered, the dynamic began to shift. The United States, originally the world’s great creditor, started running trade deficits — importing more than it exported — and spending huge sums overseas to maintain its Cold War alliance network and military deployments.
This is where the American empire’s geoeconomic strategy truly revealed itself: rather than avoid deficits, the United States embraced them. Leaders and strategists in Washington discovered that printing the world’s reserve currency conferred an almost magical power: foreigners would accept and hold ever-growing piles of U.S. dollars because they had little choice. What emerged was a global “dollar standard” — essentially a free lunch for America. Policymakers realized that other countries were essentially financing American hegemony by recycling their dollar earnings back into U.S. assets. Dollars went out (to pay for U.S. imports, military bases, aid, etc.), and then came right back in as foreign central banks parked those dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds and reserves. The result was an extraordinary feedback loop: other countries’ monetary assets became America’s debts, and by the same token, those debts became the rest of the world’s problem. To quote Treasury Secretary John Connally in 1971, the dollar became “our currency, but your problem.”
In other words, Washington figured out not just how to run an empire on a credit card, but also game the system to get its credit line extended indefinitely. Other nations accumulated U.S. IOUs (Treasury bills, dollar holdings) as their reserves, which in turn financed U.S. budget and trade deficits. The United States could spend far beyond its means, while its trading partners toiled to earn the very dollars that made such extravagance possible. This arrangement allowed the United States to wage expensive conflicts and support social programs without bankrupting itself — a feat that would have been impossible for previous empires. Normally, a country that pours money into foreign wars (such as Korea, then Vietnam) and imports more than it exports would soon deplete its gold and rack up unsustainable debts.
In fact, toward the late 1960s, this exact sort of strain began to show: America’s gold hoard started dwindling as skeptical allies (notably France under Charles de Gaulle) demanded real metal in exchange for their paper dollars. So while the United States had indeed pledged to maintain gold convertibility, its “guns-and-butter” spending was eroding that promise. By 1971, U.S. gold reserves could no longer cover the flood of dollars abroad. A conventional great power might have been forced into austerity — i.e., forced to choose between paying up or watching its currency collapse.
Instead, the United States went for the jugular of the Bretton Woods system itself. In August of that year, President Richard Nixon unilaterally slammed shut the gold window, abruptly ending the dollar’s convertibility into gold and upending the postwar monetary order. The old rules were tossed out. Foreign governments that had been promised gold for their dollars were now told, in effect, to hold U.S. Treasury bonds instead.
The resulting Nixon Shock was a brazen sleight of hand. Perhaps the single most consequential financial coup of the century (and some might argue all of history). By voiding the gold guarantee, Washington was implicitly defaulting on its pledge to foreign creditors. But by immediately offering U.S. Treasury debt as the alternative, it also enticed (or rather, compelled) foreign central banks to keep funding the United States. One British official at the time, anticipating the move, described the new system as “an arrangement in extremis.” Essentially, the world had to take dollars on faith.
Behind closed doors, U.S. strategists knew exactly what they were doing. They understood that if dollars became the only reserve asset in town, America could print money with impunity and never truly have to settle its debts. As one contemporary analyst put it, the Nixon administration was engaging in “one of the most ambitious games in the economic history of mankind.” It was a gambit so bold that few in Congress or academia even grasped it. The simple act of refusing to redeem dollars for gold — and thereby not hindering the outflow of dollars — meant that those dollars would accumulate in foreign central banks, “wiping out America’s foreign debt even while seeming to increase it.” This was true monetary alchemy: the United States could now borrow abroad in its own currency, pay its bills in IOUs, and insist those IOUs would never really come due.
The genius of this scheme wasn’t just that it allowed America to borrow indefinitely — it ensured that everyone else had to keep lending. And much of this, brilliantly, was done under the banners of “free markets”, “development”, and other modish terminology of the Neoclassical Growth Model. Wall Street, Washington, and a chorus of international institutions promoted the idea of a benign, rules-based order, where mutual growth would flow from liberalized trade and capital mobility fueling global economic (and, ultimately, political) convergence. Undoubtedly, many of them believed it (and still do).
But in practice, this was an imperial tribute system in all but name. Oil-exporting nations parked their profits in dollars; Asian exporters sterilized their surpluses with Treasury purchases; and the Global South was kept on the hook through IMF “rescue” programs that enforced austerity and repayment, often to Western banks. Underdevelopment became institutionalized, not through conquest, but through conditionality. The IMF and World Bank, ostensibly neutral, became instruments of enforcement: disciplining debtors, warning against capital controls, and quietly dissuading any move toward alternative reserve systems. Industrial nations like Germany and Japan, meanwhile, found their export earnings funneled back into U.S. debt rather than being used to build strategic autonomy.
American policymakers learned, and eventually took for granted, that they could run budget deficits at home and trade deficits abroad without expecting a day of reckoning. And if the United States needed more money, the Federal Reserve would simply print it; if American consumers gobbled up more imports, trading partners would accept paper in payment and often use those dollars to buy U.S. bonds, stocks, real estate, or weapons.
The ultimate upshot of the postwar order has been a world where the flows of tribute were invisible, financialized, and largely unquestioned. The resulting inverted pyramid of finance, where everyone saves in the liabilities of the imperial core, has no historical precedent. It is something no empire had ever managed to achieve: instead of bleeding itself dry, the United States siphons off other countries’ surpluses to cover its own. Instead of drawing down its strength like Rome or Britain, America outsourced tribute through its Treasury market. It is an empire not of legions, but of liabilities. All that’s needed is the free flow of capital worldwide, trust at home, and the occasional IMF intervention.
For two generations, this monetary arrangement underpinned Pax Americana. It is complex, often arcane, and understood by few outside elite circles — appropriately, perhaps, for an empire that preferred to style itself as a benign hegemon rather than an old-fashioned imperium. But cracks have emerged in the facade.
The fact is that the post-1971 system was never truly built to last; it was built to extract. And extraction eventually runs into hard limits. The dollar-based system that allowed the United States to export its deficits and import the world (in terms of capital, cheap labor, and more) is facing simultaneous revolt and decay. The world’s willingness to bankroll Washington is weakening, while America’s internal ability to convert borrowed money into productive strength has all but collapsed.
Simply put, the global order has reached an inflection point where only financial and fiscal restructuring — on a national and international scale — can prevent deeper disintegration. Foreign governments are gradually moving to create alternative currency blocs and payment systems that reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar. Their motive isn’t ideological. It’s structural. Washington’s financial dominance, once tolerated as the price of global stability, is now viewed as coercive: sanctions, SWIFT lockouts, frozen reserves, weaponized trade policy. What was once sold as benign hegemony is now more often seen as exploitative imperialism.
The most spectacular case study is Russia. When the United States and its allies responded to the 2022 Russian military action in Ukraine with sweeping financial sanctions — cutting off Russian banks from SWIFT, freezing central bank assets, halting technology exports — they believed they were applying decisive pressure. Instead, the opposite happened: Russia adapted. It rerouted energy sales to China and India, pivoted to yuan- and rupee-based trade, and expanded domestic capacity in agriculture and military production. The ruble dipped, then recovered. Inflation surged, then stabilized. And outside the West, leaders took note: if Russia could survive a full-spectrum Western financial offensive, perhaps others could too.
This marked a turning point. For decades, the implicit deal at the heart of the global economy has been that the United States could project power through its currency because everyone else needed access to it. But that equation is changing. China, already wary of its dollar exposure, is accelerating its push for yuan-denominated trade and cross-border payment alternatives. The BRICS countries, once a rhetorical grouping, are actively devising a new financial infrastructure. Central banks are quietly increasing their gold holdings and diversifying out of Treasuries.
Particularly telling is what is coming from Goldman Sachs, among the more ardent proponents of the neoliberal order. The bank has begun to sound a more cautious note. In a recent research note, its analysts observed: “Following the recent failure of US bonds to protect against equity downside and the rapid rise in US borrowing costs, investors seek protection for equity-bond portfolios. During any 12-month period when real returns were negative for both stocks and bonds, either oil or gold have delivered positive returns.” In plain terms, the traditional safe-haven appeal of the dollar and Treasuries is faltering. With inflationary pressures lingering and borrowing costs elevated, investors are rediscovering the appeal of tangible assets. This was followed a day later by the bank’s president, John Waldron, telling Politico that “While all the attention was on tariffs, I think the attention rightly is shifting — certainly in the bond market — to the US budget debate and the fiscal picture, which I would characterize as somewhat concerning. I think the big risk on the macro right now is actually not so much tariffs.” This a polite way of saying that U.S. Treasuries, which are supposed to be the safest are assets, are no longer such.
Taken together, what is really being said is that de-dollarization is no longer a fringe concept; it is a reality. In fact, U.S. Treasury Secretaries themselves now admit it’s happening, as is the president of the European Central Bank (specifically, that the “dominant role of the dollar” was “no longer certain”). It’s a slow-moving, system-level response to accumulated imbalance… and accumulated grievance.
Meanwhile, some of America’s closest allies are learning what partnership with Washington can entail: subordination. For instance, consider Europe. After 2022, European states were pressured to abandon Russian energy imports, despite their dependence, on the grounds of strategic unity. After all, continuing reliance on Russian energy was alleged to pose severe risks, including geopolitical instability, price manipulation, and the financing of Russia’s war effort. As a result, as one reporter notes, “the EU has slashed Russia’s share of its gas imports from 45 [percent] in 2021 to 19 [percent] in 2024, with a further decline to 13 [percent] projected for 2025. […] To fill the gap, Europe has turned to liquefied natural gas, or LNG, whose share in total gas imports has risen from 20 [percent] to 50 [percent]. Nearly half of that comes from the United States.”
Yet the resulting pivot, especially Germany’s abrupt cutoff from cheap Russian gas, has plunged European industry into crisis. LNG is simply more expensive and less stable than pipeline gas as it isn’t locked in through long-term contracts. LNG prices, by contrast, are linked to the global spot market, thus exposing them to financial speculation and geopolitical turbulence. The result is higher costs and increased volatility for consumers. And that includes Europeans buying more expensive LNG from the United States.
In effect, the transatlantic alliance has also become a mechanism for exporting American hydrocarbons and causing European inflation. This, combined with arms sales, led to complaints even during the conflict. To quote one senior official, “The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons.” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, complained in an interview with Politico that “Americans — our friends — take decisions which have an economic impact on us.”
Consequentially, soaring energy prices have another adverse effect: they are an acute threat to the viability of Europe’s industrial base. A growing number of firms are shifting production overseas — including, presumably, to the United States. In fact, some of Europe’s largest chemical companies are reportedly preparing to withdraw from the continent altogether. Given that industry represents 5 to 7 percent of EU manufacturing output and employs 1.2 million people, this is a dire situation for European governments, especially Germany’s.
In plainer language, there comes a point where one must ask when shared sacrifice becomes enforced dependency dressed up in the language of solidarity.
The same logic — dependency veiled as cooperation—is slowly reaching an inflection point. With the return of a Trump administration in 2025, the post-Cold War fiction of global financial neutrality has collapsed. On April 2, 2025 — “Liberation Day” — President Donald Trump imposed a sweeping 10 percent tariff on nearly all imports, and then even more on various select countries, signaling a total break with the free-trade orthodoxy that had defined U.S. policy since the 1990s. The move was both political theater and structural pivot. The message: America would no longer outsource its economy to global markets. The age of efficiency had ended; the age of endurance had begun.
This is not some boutique ideological experiment. It is a response to decades of decline. As Julius Krein noted in American Affairs, the post-1980 model of American capitalism hollowed out its own base. Capital became decoupled from production. Supply chains were shipped offshore. Profits came from asset bubbles and buybacks. The real economy — factories, foundries, logistics — was gutted in favor of margin chasing and yield. Now, facing foreign competition and domestic stagnation, the United States is forced to choose between painful economic reform and eventual recovery, or managed decline.
That choice will not be hard. Rentier capitalism — economies built on asset appreciation, not output — cannot endure indefinitely. A service-heavy economy might produce high GDP, but it doesn’t produce tanks, turbines, or strategic resilience. Only a mixed economy — one that combines private initiative with strategic direction and industrial policy — can sustain itself in a world of rival power blocs. That means reshoring, yes. But also tariffs, antitrust enforcement, targeted subsidies, and the slow, political work of reconstructing state capacity. It means accepting that laissez-faire globalization was never a sustainable path to national greatness.
And underneath it all lies a darker reality: the political economy of nearly every developed country — not just the United States — is built on a questionable social contract. Successive governments have promised pensions and healthcare to every citizen (and increasingly, in many cases, non-citizens), even as birth rates collapse, labor forces shrink, and debt balloons. There is no money for any of it. There are not enough workers to support it. Not only that, some of these existing welfare state systems depend on the aforementioned asset appreciation, which is running out of steam.
Deep down, those involved — politicians, economists, and even retirees — know this, though they are loath to admit it. The entire structure of the welfare state depends on perpetual economic growth, asset inflation, and low interest rates to keep the promises from breaking. Thus, if the U.S.-led financial system falters hard enough, the illusion could collapse with it. It’s not just American hegemony that would be in question, but the viability of the post-industrial welfare state itself. Beneath the talk of resilience and reshoring is a simpler, more terrifying proposition: if the empire’s balance sheet unravels, so might the Western world’s political stability.
This is the upheaval to which Ray Dalio alluded. The unraveling of the global financial order is not merely external. It is internal. The logic of neoliberal financialization — efficiency over resilience, liquidity over durability, profit over sovereignty — is reaching its limit. What began as a clever (if short-term) imperial workaround by Nixon and later institutionalized by Reaganomics and the Atlanticist neoliberal establishment has become an obstacle to national renewal. And like all imperial orders, this one will not be reformed gently. It will be broken, reconstituted, and contested.
As the old order cracks under its own contradictions, and the rest of the world begins to adjust accordingly — diversifying reserves, forming new blocs, reasserting control over trade and capital — the United States is in a difficult position. It is at the core of the extant system, and will be forced to reengineer it from within. The choices are no longer theoretical; they are logistical, political, and industrial. If America wants to remain a great power in a world no longer willing or capable to fund its ever-mounting deficits, then it must do what empires rarely do: get serious about production, reform, and indeed, its own survival.
If the American Sphere Doctrine presents a map of the world as Washington now sees it — no longer a boundless liberal empire, but a defined and defensible sphere — then it requires a legend that explains how it plans to hold that ground. Spheres require structure. Influence must be underwritten by material strength. And in the American case, that means something the post-Cold War order quietly forgot: the hard mechanics of production, trade, and statecraft.
In practice, this means dusting off the old playbook of economic nationalism tempered by a new less formal regionalism. A new consensus is forming that the United States must once again produce things and protect its productive capacity, even if that ruffles free-trade dogma. Key elements of this emerging geoeconomic strategy include:
Together, these tools amount to a neo-mercantilist toolkit for American renewal. The United States is effectively reinventing its political economy to once more prioritize resilience and national power over the dogma of maximal efficiency. The shift is palpable: after decades of worshipping the “invisible hand” of “free markets”, Washington must once again openly guide the hand to foster fair trade and free competition.
None of this will happen quietly, however. Entrenched interests that gorged on the post-1971 status quo are prepared to fight for their survival. In America’s fractured political system — which Francis Fukuyama has notably dubbed a “vetocracy,” or “rule by veto” — any major reform triggers ferocious opposition from those it threatens. Consider the trinity that stands to lose the most:
This vetocracy ensures constant friction. As Fukuyama observed, America’s multiple power centers give well-placed interests ample ways to block policies not to their liking. A tiny clique of hedge fund managers can thwart tax reform that everyone else agrees on. A cadre of lobbyists or even a single Senator (waving a hold or filibuster) can delay an industrial policy bill ad infinitum. So on and so forth.
The likely result is that every measure in America’s geoeconomic revival will be watered down, litigated, and fought over. No reform will be implemented cleanly. Certainly not without concessions to mollify the threatened interests: tariffs might get carved out exemptions for big importers; antitrust bills might be defanged by tech lobbyists; industrial spending could be siphoned into pork projects to buy votes. This is the reality of working within a democratic system.
And yet, paradoxically, this very tug-of-war could produce some sensible compromises in the long run. The coming economic struggle will be messy, but it is also a corrective process; one that just might rebalance American capitalism for the better. As entrenched players push back, reformers will adapt and refine their tactics. We can expect a protracted campaign of attrition across multiple administrations, with each side scoring wins and losses. Over time, however, certain changes will become entrenched:
To be clear, the transition to this new paradigm will span several presidencies. It will not be the accomplishment of a single leader or party, but a gradual realignment of American politics and political economy. There will be zigs and zags. Perhaps a centrist, establishment-type will now and then pause or mildly reverses some measures. But the overall direction is set by structural reality.
In sum, the post-Cold War “end of history” moment has ended; great-power mercantilism is writing the new rules of the game. And this is a game that, historically, the United States plays to win. Amid the uncertainty and predictable chaos, America will eventually muddle through to a more balanced economic order.
As America turns inward — erecting tariff walls and rebuilding its industrial core — the rest of the world is left to grapple with the consequences. What happens when the erstwhile champion of globalization becomes its greatest skeptic?
The likely result is a profound economic realignment, rife with disruption but also offering new opportunity. Many countries that once thrived off of access to U.S. markets, aid, and remittances now find themselves on the wrong side of a tightening gate. At the same time, capital that once flowed into Wall Street and Silicon Valley is starting to seek new havens, fueling a scramble for hard assets and regional corridors of growth. The global fallout from America’s inward shift will be harshly illuminating, exposing fragile dependencies and catalyzing fresh alliances in equal measure.
The main casualties will be countries whose economies are tethered to American consumption and benevolence. The United States’ pivot to protectionism and reindustrialization means fewer imports and less free-flowing capital for others. From Mexico to Cambodia, many economies effectively became extensions of the U.S. market during the globalization era. They now face an existential reckoning. Mexico, for instance, sends roughly 75 to 80 percent of its exports to the United States. Tiny Haiti, on its good day, sends close to 70 percent of its exports to U.S. shores.
This extreme dependence was tolerable in the age of easy U.S. market access. But as America reshuffles supply chains and slaps tariffs on foreign goods, such countries will feel the choke. Factories geared toward U.S. consumers may go idle. Workers who once stitched T-shirts for American retailers or assembled electronics for Silicon Valley could find their jobs evaporating virtually overnight. The same goes for U.S.-funded aid and remittances: whole regions have lived off American wealth, from Jordan’s subsidized stability to Central America’s remittance-fueled economies. In places like El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, where remittances (mostly from workers in the U.S.) make up over 20 percent of GDP, an American downturn or immigration clampdown (as is currently ongoing) could spell fiscal crisis.
Admittedly, there is an important distinction to be made: countries like Mexico and Canada, as neighboring states and thus part of the American sphere, will likely retain preferential access and be better placed to adapt to the new industrial landscape. In contrast, more peripheral economies like Cambodia — or even some U.S.-aligned but economically independent European states — lack that structural embeddedness and may find themselves increasingly sidelined.
Nonetheless, the blunt truth is that the majority of Pax Americana’s economic refugees, the client states that grew dependent on its markets and money, are about to learn how expensive it is to live without it. Dark irony abounds: Washington falsely preached that the developing world can achieve self-reliance via neoliberal reforms. Now, by turning inward, the United States unwittingly forces those nations to practice it or perish.
Yet even as some economies teeter, others sense opportunity in the chaos. A flood of capital will move out of the U.S.-centric financial system, chasing yields and stability where it can find them. Family offices have already started; others will follow as the bite of the Trump administration’s tariffs and other measures begins to be truly felt. In part, this is driven by risk management: wary of Washington’s new economic nationalism, foreign investors and sovereign wealth funds will seek places less subject to American whims. Petrostates and emerging powers flush with cash will redirect their investments from U.S. Treasury bonds and overvalued tech stocks into tangible projects across the developing world. The paradox of America’s inward turn is that it may enrich the very regions once dismissed as the global periphery.
Crucially, a lot of this money will chase cheap energy and untapped markets. In an era of rising production costs, countries blessed with inexpensive energy (or subsidized fuel) become magnets for industry. Likewise, regions with young populations and growing consumer bases — from Southeast Asia to Africa — could see surges of investment as global capital seeks the next growth story now that the U.S.-China engine is sputtering. Factories might sprout in Africa to serve African consumers, funded by Chinese, Arab, or even American investors who see the writing on the wall: go where the demand will be, not where it used to be.
Consequently, with the U.S. market less of a sure thing, many nations will turn to their neighbors. Intra-regional trade will cease to be a development slogan; it’ll become an urgent imperative. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, countries are keen to build new networks of ports, railways, highways, and pipelines to connect with each other, hoping to stimulate local demand and insulate themselves from distant shocks. Hard assets will be king again; expect global investors to pour money into ports, roads, energy grids, and mineral mines — the concrete foundations of real economies.
Trump himself, and most certainly people in his orbit, demonstrate awareness of this. In his speech in May at Riyadh, Trump noted that “the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives — developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way. It’s really incredible what you’ve done.”
The message is clear: the U.S. policy, at least under this administration, is to encourage foreign states to pursue their own development.
In a world suddenly less flat, geography regains power: whoever controls the key chokepoints and corridors of trade stands to gain. The Trump administration’s fixation on the Panama Canal and Greenland (and thus access to the Arctic) highlights this trend. Thus, we can expect a modern scramble for what one might call strategic infrastructure. Private equity barons and state planners alike will hunt for stakes in rail lines, rare earth mines, lithium fields, and deep-water ports. The calculation is simple: in an uncertain era, where powers more openly compete for influence and are willing to spend to that end, a port or power plant is a safer bet than a speculative software unicorn.
International institutions have picked up on this trend, heralding regional connectivity as the new engine of growth. The United Nations and World Bank, perhaps sensing that they are increasingly decentered, are hedging to maintain their relevance by increasingly extolling the development of “corridors of prosperity” — integrated networks of transport, energy, and trade spanning multiple countries. No longer will connectivity be viewed in isolated terms (a road here, a port there); instead, it will become about weaving comprehensive economic tapestries that bind regions together. This push is as much bottom-up as top-down. In Africa, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is gradually knitting fifty-plus nations into a single market, driving investments in transnational highways from Lagos to Mombasa. In South America, Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance muse of greater integration to reduce their vulnerability to both U.S. and Chinese demand swings. Even the Middle East, historically fragmented, is seeing new partnerships as the Persian Gulf states invest in pipelines, telecom links, and railways to connect to each other (and beyond). The overarching theme is one of regional fortification: build internally so that one’s fortunes aren’t at the mercy of an America-first trade regime or a made-in-Beijing supply chain.
Among these connectivity endeavors — ranging from the the Lobito Corridor in Southern Africa, or the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in Asia — two in particular are capturing the world’s imagination (and capital): the Middle Corridor across Central Asia, and the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), dubbed by some the “New Golden Road”.
The Middle Corridor, also known as the Trans-Caspian route, connects China to Europe via Central Asia and the Caucasus, bypassing Russia. Long a “secondary” Silk Road, it has gained strategic importance since the Russo-Ukrainian war, along with the resulting sanctions, made the Northern Corridor both risky and politically sensitive. Meanwhile, IMEC, unveiled at the 2023 G20 summit, aims to link India to Europe via the Arabian Peninsula. It updates ancient trade routes with new infrastructure — rail lines, ports, data cables, and pipelines — while offering a U.S.-supported alternative to China’s Belt and Road. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Italy, and India view it as a chance to elevate their global standing.
These corridors are more than just infrastructure projects; they are the backbone of an emerging multipolar economy. Their emergence reflects a illustrate a broader truth: the age of hyper-globalization is giving way to an age of blocs and corridors. Capital is no longer neutral; it is increasingly marshaled by governments — whether through China’s Belt and Road, the EU’s Global Gateway, or the G7’s $600 billion infrastructure initiative. In each of these cases, public policy, not the invisible hand, is directing where money goes. Profit is no longer enough; alignment with national or bloc interests is the price of doing business.
This is what truly marks the definitive end of the neoliberal era. Capital is being told, in effect, “fall in line or fall behind.” For some, this is a grim turn of history; a relapse into mercantilism and great-power dirigisme. For others, it’s a necessary correction, a reining in of reckless globalization in favor of resilient development. Either way, the precedent is clear: from now on, private investors will dance to the tune of state power, not the other way around. Wall Street may not like it, but Washington strategists and their foreign counterparts in other capitals couldn’t care less. They are busy preparing for a prolonged era of geoeconomic competition — one where nations deploy money, resources, and supply chains as weapons just as surely as they do aircraft carriers and missiles. And nowhere is this shift more evident than in the United States itself, which is rapidly reinventing its grand strategy for the post-globalized world.
The United States is not simply retreating behind high walls and letting the world sort itself out. Rather, it is crafting a new geoeconomic playbook to revitalize its power under changed conditions. The policy of liberal free trade is being dropped; in its place, a realpolitik strategy of economic statecraft is emerging. This strategy can be understood in three parts, each a pillar of the economic dimension of the American Sphere Doctrine for sustaining empire: imperial taxation, bloc-building, and contesting resource-rich theaters. In effect, Washington is reassembling an empire of supply and demand through new means — a bit more indirect and strategic than the old brute-force globalization, but empire nonetheless. Let’s break down these three pillars.
In earlier eras, empires compelled their provinces or allies to pay tribute — grain, gold, soldiers — to the imperial core. As previously stated, the United States has achieved this through its control of the dollar, arms sales, and so on. The new and updated updated version of this, however, will be to invite allied foreign capital to invest in the United States as a form of tribute that strengthens the imperial center.
After decades of letting manufacturing flee and infrastructure rot, Washington now seeks external funding and expertise to rebuild its own house. But unlike a struggling developing nation begging for aid, Washington can set terms: it will only allow in capital from those who are politically aligned and willing to serve America’s strategic goals. The bargain offered is straightforward: help us rebuild our industrial base, and we will grant you privileged access to our vast market and protection under our security umbrella. Consider the case of Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. Steel. A Japanese company attempting to buy a storied American steelmaker would have been unthinkable in earlier eras of national pride. Indeed, the Biden administration blocked the sale, ostensibly on national security grounds. But now, U.S. leaders see the potential quid pro quo. Japan is a close ally deeply concerned about China; if Japanese capital can save American steel jobs and capacity, why not let it in, under the right conditions? Especially since these hard assets (factories, foundries, and so forth) cannot be off-shored or removed once built. As one executive argued, this partnership would “strengthen American economic and national security.” And as of the time of writing, the Trump administration agreed. To quote the headline of a recent article: “U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel just struck a deal that guarantees an American CEO, an American-majority board, and a ‘golden share’ for Trump’s government”.
Consider what this really means: Japan Inc. will pay to modernize U.S. Steel, and in return the United States will ensure Japanese steel makers aren’t crushed by protectionism. It’s a form of tributary investment — America leveraging its market power to get allies to pony up resources for American renewal. We see similar patterns with Taiwan’s TSMC building semiconductor fabs in Arizona at the behest of Washington, South Korea’s Samsung exploring setting up battery and chip plants on U.S. soil, and European multinationals eyeing projects in America’s industrial heartland to take advantage of new subsidies. All of this foreign investment is being courted and curated by the U.S. government in a way that serves national ends. One could cynically call it “imperial taxation”: instead of demanding gold from vassals, the empire demands factories and financing.
The irony is rich. For years, U.S. rhetoric extolled foreign direct investment (FDI) as a boon for development abroad. Now it’s using FDI as a tool to fortify the metropole. President Trump (returned to power) has even leaned on allies directly: reports suggest that in calls with Japan’s prime minister, Trump tied the approval of the Nippon–U.S. Steel deal to broader trade concessions.
This is imperialism by invitation: foreign capital is welcomed, but only on Washington’s terms and under Washington’s watchful eye (through mechanisms like CFIUS reviews, which ensure political alignment). Gone are the days when Gulf petrodollars or Chinese cash could freely buy up U.S. assets. Now, only “friend capital” need apply — and it had better bring not just money, but loyalty. It is a coldly pragmatic strategy, one that shifts the burden of American renewal partly onto allied balance sheets. And for those allies, the cost of saying no (loss of U.S. market access or protection) makes the calculus simple.
Turning inward alone won’t preserve American dominance; the United States also needs to reorder global trade into a friendly circle that excludes its adversaries. The second pillar of the strategy is thus to assemble an economic bloc of nations bound by aligned tariffs, coordinated supply chains, and preferential trade arrangements — all under U.S. leadership. In essence, Washington aims to create a gated community of like-minded economies, inside of which goods, capital, and technology can flow freely (or freer), while China and other rivals are kept out in the cold. This marks a dramatic shift from the old “global free trade” ideal to a more limited vision: free trade within the empire, protection without.
How is this bloc-building manifesting? The weaponization of trade policy provides a hint. Expect to see more moves like common external tariffs against dumping by unfriendly economies, digital trade rules that favor Western standards, and export controls that deny cutting-edge technology to rival spheres. Washington will encourage partners to harmonize their tariffs and sanctions with Washington’s, so that Beijing cannot simply route goods through a third country to evade restrictions. Consequentially, supply chains will be carved up and allocated among friends. To sweeten the deal, the United States will dangle its huge consumer market as the ultimate prize: play by our rules, and you can sell to 330 million Americans; defect, and lose that access.
Make no mistake, this is economic warfare by other means. The bloc’s goal is explicitly to freeze out China (and other hostile powers) from critical networks. The carving out of production zones is meant to deny adversaries the leverage they once had (e.g., China’s dominance over rare earths or battery production). Over time, a product made in “Country X” will either come with a stamp of alliance and be welcome everywhere in the U.S.-led world, or it won’t. In which, case it faces tariffs, scrutiny, even bans. Globalization is being edited and censored, with the United States as chief editor.
We already witness this in technology: Chinese telecom gear (Huawei) has been purged from Western networks by government decree; Chinese apps are under scrutiny; advanced chips cannot be sold to China by anyone in the U.S. camp. This will likely extend to other domains: perhaps a future where cars made with too many Chinese parts are slapped with a “security tariff”, or financial flows are screened for ties to rival states. Washington’s endgame is a resilient internal market among allies that is so large and rich that being excluded from it is a crushing blow. Eventually, we can expect this to affect the digital realm too, leading to the Splinternet — the fragmentation of the global, open internet into multiple smaller, isolated networks controlled by governments under different ideological, political, and economic principles. In other words, economic blocism will be accompanied by digital blocism.
The final piece of America’s geoeconomic strategy acknowledges a hard truth: even if the United States shores up its domestic base and builds an allied bloc, the rest of the world won’t simply stop mattering. There are vast swathes of the globe — from Central and Southeast Asia to Africa to South America — that are not clearly bound up in a bloc, yet remain rich in the resources and growth potential that great powers covet. These regions are where great power geoeconomic competition for the twenty-first-century will be most visible.
Though at present primarily inward-focused, Washington is nonetheless preparing to go out and compete in these key arenas. It’s a strategy of selective engagement: Washington won’t try to police every remote corner, but it will identify certain corridors and countries that it views as strategically vital to the new world order — and it will pour energy and capital into vying for influence there. The goal need not be total control; merely preventing that critical supply lines, new markets, and pivotal infrastructure do not fall entirely under Chinese (or Russian, or Iranian, or such) influence.
At the top of the list are the very corridors previously discussed. Take the Middle Corridor through Central Asia: traditionally outside Washington’s sphere, it’s now a region of rising strategic interest. With Europe’s trade routes to China increasingly routed through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, the United States has a vested interest in who builds and controls the infrastructure. Expect Western development banks — alongside Japanese and Korean partners — to finance railways, logistics hubs, and trade facilitation, both to counter Chinese dominance and to cultivate ties with key transit states like Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.
Then there’s IMEC. Washington is incentivized to back it both diplomatically and financially because a trade route linking India to Europe via U.S.-aligned countries weakens China’s grip on Eurasian commerce. Washington will likely play mediator among corridor partners and push for American firms to win infrastructure contracts under the broader Partnership for Global Infrastructure framework.
Beyond these corridors, the United States will also prioritize resource-rich and demographically significant regions. Africa, for one, has become a theater of competition not seen since the Cold War. China made inroads there with mines, roads, and loans. As the geoeconomic competition heads up, expect the United States and Europe to responding with targeted investments and private-sector-driven approaches. Likewise, Southeast Asia is a prime arena: Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and others are being courted as alternative markets and as allies in keeping the South China Sea lanes open. Washington is exploiting supporting these nations through frameworks like the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), offering investment in their infrastructure and digital economy in exchange for alignment on things like supply chain security and standards.
In sum, America will shift from the ideologically driven, democracy-spreading offense of the 2000s to a cold-blooded geoeconomic off-shore balancing game. It must identify critical nodes in the global economic web and move to either secure them or deny them to rivals. This could mean financing a port in Africa so it doesn’t fall into China’s orbit, or pushing an energy deal in Central Asia to undercut Russian influence, or bolstering digital infrastructure in Southeast Asia to keep Huawei out and Cisco in. The methods range from big-ticket development financing to old-fashioned wheeling and dealing (and yes, sometimes regime patronage or covert meddling, if one is realistic). Washington will increasingly tie trade access and investment to political alignment. Countries in the Global South will face a choice: play ball with the American-led bloc, and you’ll get infrastructure dollars and market access; drift too close to rival blocs, and you may find yourself cut out.
The transformation is well underway. With the United States’ open transition to empire, the country now wears its imperial character on its sleeve, unashamedly exercising power in pursuit of narrow national interests. Yet this empire is not the monolithic, omnipresent, Roman-like leviathan of the past. It is scaling down given overextension as the world shifts into a more fragmented and regionally-focused system. It is, in a sense, a Byzantine America.
Just as the Eastern Roman Empire adapted to its declining resources by consolidating power in key regional centers, the modern United States is reconfiguring its economic and political strategies to focus on its core sphere of influence. In this emergent order, America’s role is less about enforcing a universal order and more about consolidating its power in the Western hemisphere — while capitalizing on a network of preferential relationships with allied regions, where economic, political, and security interests converge.
The reorientation toward a mixed economy, protectionism, and state-led industrial revitalization will not only reshape domestic life but sends ripples through the postwar global system. As long-standing economic relationships disintegrate and new infrastructural and trading corridors arise, the world will witness a profound realignment of power. Nations that once depended on the U.S.-centered global order will either adapt to a more regionalized, self-sufficient model or risk economic isolation. The ensuing chaos will underscore the truth that the previous era of effortless globalization is over, replaced by a contest among resilient, regionally focused blocs.
Within the United States, the metamorphosis into a Byzantine state entails a painful but necessary internal reckoning. Political and economic elites, long insulated by the free-market myth, will find their influence curtailed by an array of reform measures — from aggressive antitrust actions to tariffs that punish dependency. This internal recalibration, messy as it may be, is aimed at transforming an economy once mired in speculative financialization into one (re-)centered on tangible production and resilient infrastructure. Rather than a single unyielding empire, America’s future will be defined by a dynamic balance of competing interests, where robust state intervention and decentralized power create a sustainable, if less glamorous, model.
In the end, the United States is trading the grand illusions of a universal liberal order for the hard-edged realism of a Byzantine polity. This isn’t the death of American empire but its reinvention — a recalibrated, regionally embedded force that, while less uniformly majestic than Rome, remains a formidable power in the evolving global landscape. By embracing this brutal honesty about its own nature, America is positioning itself not for global dominion through moral pretense, but for long-term survival via adaptability, calculated restraint, and redefined alliances. Welcome, indeed, to Byzantine America.
The Western powers have failed to effectively manage the increasing threat of proliferation in the Middle East. While the international community is concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia has moved forward with developing its own nuclear program, and independent studies show that Israel has longed possessed dozens of nuclear warheads. The former is a member of the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), while the latter has refused to sign the international agreement.
On Middle East policy, the Biden campaign had staunchly criticized the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal and it has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier since assuming office in January 2021. However, serious obstacles remain for responsible actors in expanding non-proliferation efforts toward a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
This panel will discuss how Western powers and multilateral institutions, such as the IAEA, can play a more effective role in managing non-proliferation efforts in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Peggy Mason: Canada’s former Ambassador to the UN for Disarmament
– Mark Fitzpatrick: Associate Fellow & Former Executive Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
– Ali Vaez: Iran Project Director, International Crisis Group
– Negar Mortazavi: Journalist and Political Analyst, Host of Iran Podcast
– David Albright: Founder and President of the Institute for Science and International Security
Closing (5:45 PM – 6:00 PM ET)
What is the current economic landscape in the Middle East? While global foreign direct investment is expected to fall drastically in the post-COVID era, the World Bank reported a 5% contraction in the economic output of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries in 2020 due to the pandemic. While oil prices are expected to rebound with normalization in demand, political instability, regional and geopolitical tensions, domestic corruption, and a volatile regulatory and legal environment all threaten economic recovery in the Middle East. What is the prospect for economic growth and development in the region post-pandemic, and how could MENA nations promote sustainable growth and regional trade moving forward?
At the same time, Middle Eastern diaspora communities have become financially successful and can help promote trade between North America and the region. In this respect, the diaspora can become vital intermediaries for advancing U.S. and Canada’s business interests abroad. Promoting business diplomacy can both benefit the MENA region and be an effective and positive way to advance engagement and achieve foreign policy goals of the North Atlantic.
This panel will investigate the trade and investment opportunities in the Middle East, discuss how facilitating economic engagement with the region can benefit Canadian and American national interests, and explore relevant policy prescriptions.
Panelists:
– Hon. Sergio Marchi: Canada’s Former Minister of International Trade
– Scott Jolliffe: Chairperson, Canada Arab Business Council
– Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: Founder and Publisher of Bourse & Bazaar
– Nizar Ghanem: Director of Research and Co-founder at Triangle
– Nicki Siamaki: Researcher at Control Risks
The Middle East continues to grapple with violence and instability, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Fueled by government incompetence and foreign interventions, terrorist insurgencies have imposed severe humanitarian and economic costs on the region. Meanwhile, regional actors have engaged in an unprecedented pursuit of arms accumulation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have imported billions of both Western and Russian-made weapons and funded militant groups across the region, intending to contain their regional adversaries, particularly Iran. Tehran has also provided sophisticated weaponry to various militia groups across the region to strengthen its geopolitical position against Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel.
On the other hand, with international terrorist networks and intense regional rivalry in the Middle East, it is impractical to discuss peace and security without addressing terrorism and the arms race in the region. This panel will primarily discuss the implications of the ongoing arms race in the region and the role of Western powers and multilateral organizations in facilitating trust-building security arrangements among regional stakeholders to limit the proliferation of arms across the Middle East.
Panelists:
Luciano Zaccara: Assistant Professor, Qatar University
Dania Thafer: Executive Director, Gulf International Forum
Kayhan Barzegar: Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Science and Research Branch of Azad University
Barbara Slavin: Director of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council
Sanam Shantyaei: Senior Journalist at France24 & host of Middle East Matters
The emerging regional order in West Asia will have wide-ranging implications for global security. The Biden administration has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier, an initiative staunchly opposed by Israel, while also taking a harder line on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen. Meanwhile, key regional actors, including Qatar, Iraq, and Oman, have engaged in backchannel efforts to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia to the negotiating table. From a broader geopolitical perspective, with the need to secure its energy imports, China is also expected to increase its footprint in the region and influence the mentioned challenges.
In this evolving landscape, Western powers will be compelled to redefine their strategic priorities and adjust their policies with the new realities in the region. In this panel, we will discuss how the West, including the United States and its allies, can utilize multilateral diplomacy with its adversaries to prevent military escalation in the region. Most importantly, the panel will discuss if a multilateral security dialogue in the Persian Gulf region, proposed by some regional actors, can help reduce tensions among regional foes and produce sustainable peace and development for the region.
Panelists:
– Abdullah Baabood: Academic Researcher and Former Director of the Centre for Gulf Studies, Qatar University
– Trita Parsi: Executive Vice-President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
– Ebtesam Al-Ketbi: President, Emirates Policy Centre
– Jon Allen: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Israel
– Elizabeth Hagedorn: Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor
Military interventions, political and economic instabilities, and civil unrest in the Middle East have led to a global refugee crisis with an increasing wave of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe and Canada. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has, in myriad ways, exacerbated and contributed to the ongoing security threats and destabilization of the region.
While these challenges pose serious risks to Canadian security, Ottawa will also have the opportunity to limit such risks and prevent a spillover effect vis-à-vis effective humanitarian initiatives in the region. In this panel, we will primarily investigate Canada’s Middle East Strategy’s degree of success in providing humanitarian aid to the region. Secondly, the panel will discuss what programs and initiatives Canada can introduce to further build on the renewed strategy. and more specifically, how Canada can utilize its policy instruments to more effectively deal with the increasing influx of refugees from the Middle East.
Panelists:
Erica Di Ruggiero: Director of Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto
Reyhana Patel: Head of Communications & Government Relations, Islamic Relief Canada
Amir Barmaki: Former Head of UN OCHA in Iran
Catherine Gribbin: Senior Legal Advisor for International and Humanitarian Law, Canadian Red Cross
In 2016, Canada launched an ambitious five-year “Middle East Engagement Strategy” (2016-2021), committing to investing CA$3.5 billion over five years to help establish the necessary conditions for security and stability, alleviate human suffering and enable stabilization programs in the region. In the latest development, during the meeting of the Global Coalition against ISIS, Minister of Foreign Affairs Marc Garneau announced more than $43.6 million in Peace and Stabilization Operations Program funding for 11 projects in Syria and Iraq.
With Canada’s Middle East Engagement Strategy expiring this year, it is time to examine and evaluate this massive investment in the Middle East region in the past five years. More importantly, the panel will discuss a principled and strategic roadmap for the future of Canada’s short-term and long-term engagement in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Ferry de Kerckhove: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Egypt
– Dennis Horak: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
– Chris Kilford: Former Canadian Defence Attaché in Turkey, member of the national board of the Canadian International Council (CIC)
– David Dewitt: University Professor Emeritus, York University
While the United States continues to pull back from certain regional conflicts, reflected by the Biden administration’s decision to halt American backing for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and the expected withdrawal from Afghanistan, US troops continue to be stationed across the region. Meanwhile, Russia and China have significantly maintained and even expanded their regional activities. On one hand, the Kremlin has maintained its military presence in Syria, and on the other hand, China has signed an unprecedented 25-year strategic agreement with Iran.
As the global power structure continues to shift, it is essential to analyze the future of the US regional presence under the Biden administration, explore the emerging global rivalry with Russia and China, and at last, investigate the implications of such competition for peace and security in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Dmitri Trenin: Director of Carnegie Moscow Center
– Joost R. Hiltermann: Director of MENA Programme, International Crisis Group
– Roxane Farmanfarmaian: Affiliated Lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa, University of Cambridge
– Andrew A. Michta: Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at Marshall Center
– Kelley Vlahos: Senior Advisor, Quincy Institute
The security architecture of the Middle East has undergone rapid transformations in an exceptionally short period. Notable developments include the United States gradual withdrawal from the region, rapprochement between Israel and some GCC states through the Abraham Accords and the rise of Chinese and Russian regional engagement.
With these new trends in the Middle East, it is timely to investigate the security implications of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. In this respect, we will discuss the Biden team’s new approach vis-à-vis Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The panel will also discuss the role of other major powers, including China and Russia in shaping this new security environment in the region, and how the Biden administration will respond to these powers’ increasing regional presence.
Panelists:
– Sanam Vakil: Deputy Director of MENA Programme at Chatham House
– Denise Natali: Acting Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies & Director of the Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University
– Hassan Ahmadian: Professor of the Middle East and North Africa Studies, University of Tehran
– Abdulaziz Sagar: Chairman, Gulf Research Center
– Andrew Parasiliti: President, Al-Monitor
