Derek Thompson

Who else do you think could be a winner here, an ironic winner of this war in the Middle East?

So it could potentially strengthen some of the Central South American fossil fuel producers.

I want to make sure that we touch on Russia as well, because in the 1970s oil crisis, Russia's petro-economy really took off.

And there's some geopolitical analysts who say that it was a little bit of a Pyrrhic victory because Russia's petro-economy took off in the 1970s.

But then when the price of gas fell in the 1980s, that weakening of the Soviet petro-economy contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

They sort of went all in on this commodity that then depreciated and that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Let's hold on Russia a bit because, you know, people following the news closely probably know that Russia has now been allowed to sell commodities to India, which previously was verboten as we were trying to squeeze the Russian economy to allow the Ukraine's army to win against Putin.

But where are we right now with Russia?

Well, let's talk about those consequences right now.

What do you think are the most important ways in which the rise of drone warfare, which is clearly a major feature of this war, is going to change not just global fossil fuel markets, but the global economy and geopolitics in the future?

Are you suggesting that drones should therefore have a kind of deterrence effect?

the way that atomic weapons clearly do?

Clearly that deterrence effect wasn't enough to stop the U.S.

from bombing Tehran.

But you're saying perhaps in the future, looking at the Ukraine-Russia war, looking at the Iran war, major powers in the next few years

notwithstanding some major development, superintelligence, that again changes the landscape of war, future major powers might say, this military campaign is not going to be as easy as it would be without drones because drones allow for this flattening of leveling of the battlefield such that a smaller or weaker country can nonetheless do enormous damage in a way that messes up the calculus of beginning a war.

I want to round things out here.

In the open, I talked about how the 1970s energy crises had these enormous tendrils, these tentacles that wrapped around the world that you can attach the 1970s oil crisis to the rise and fall of the Soviet petro economy that led to the downfall of the Soviet empire.

You can associate it with the economy of Japan, which switched from

energy-expensive heavy machinery to less expensive robotics.