Dr. Alan O'Sullivan

It's worrying.

He talks about the 1990s.

We had the unipolar world.

This is where the U.S.

emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, as I mentioned earlier.

And for most of the 1990s, the noughties, the U.S.

was the dominant power from an economic, financial, and a military perspective.

Today, it's much more evenly distributed in terms of economic power.

So the original idea of his book was that he would have, he thought of this period.

Yes, we're in a state of flux.

Yes, we've got populist politics, but trade wars, deglobalization.

But the view was that this was perhaps a transition period of instability and temporary and was only temporary in nature.

But based on his readings and his research, he identified a number of headings that have led him to the conclusion that it's much more serious than that.

And it is potentially a negative feedback loop or doom loop.

What is it?

What is the doom loop?

It's the combination of economics, domestic politics and geopolitics creating this negative feedback loop.

How?

OK, so we all know about globalization.

What was it was perceived this positive thing where countries will cooperate on trade.