which could save you hundreds of dollars a year. it's a new kind of network designed to save you money. click, call or visit a store today. tom: and we say hello. "bloomberg surveillance" from our studios in new york. we are thrilled you're with us worldwide. it's a july of great interest into a summer of great interest. and we thought we would go a little bit deeper here in what's going on in international relations. there's no one better to do that with then ian bremmer, his eurasia group where he is president and founder. and we're thrilled to bring you robert kaplan from the center for a new american security and also senior adviser to the eurasia group. is this the first time you two have been on tv together? are you doing this weekly? dr. bremmer: i think on tv the first time.

tom: thrilled to have you with us. and, of course, this in celebration of robert kaplan's "the return of marco polo's war" one of my favorite books. exceptionally important talk. thrilled with that. and also we are in celebration of dr. bremmer's book, "us versus them: the failure of globalism." these are two very different and thoughtful books, and we are excited to talk about them with the schedules of world leaders and the buttressing of the united states against our traditional allies, and also this new interesting thing called eurasia. ian, let's start with you. when you invented the eurasia group, did you know it would become an international relations concept for president xi? dr. bremmer: that wasn't the reason i called euraasia group, let's be clear, but it's the region i happened to study. but the reason i studied that part of the world is because there was such a confluence of

geopolitics there. right? at the time i was doing my phd, the soviet union was just about to collapse. but the rise of china is, of course, the second other important topic of my lifetime. and the consequences of the collapse of the soviet union and the rise of china both playing out over the eurasian land mass are the most important things happening geopolitically in the world right now. tom: define eurasia to us. it is two parts -- water and land, isn't it? mr. kaplan: eurasia is everything from portugal to vietnam on land, and that was too big a concept to mean anything except in high school geography courses. but because of the collapse of distance created by technology, geography has not disappeared, it just shrunk. so now eurasia has meaning as a concept in a way it never did before and the chinese are giving it most meaning with their belt and road initiative.

now by sea, the eurasia means the whole navigable rim land from the south china sea to the indian ocean, up through the eastern mediterranean and suez canal. so the eastern mediterranean and the adriatic are becoming part of the same world of the south china sea. tom: when you look at that group is the united states in any way ready to be part of the discussion? are we in new world over there and removed? dr. bremmer: it's pretty removed. also, we're going to have a hard time, i think, with the fact we are pretty removed. when we did the monroe doctrine, right? that was -- tom: a few years ago. he's the guy carrying the flag in the boat across the delaware. dr. bremmer: it wasn't about international law, it was a matter of policy and other

countries had to just deal with it because we were just dominant in our space. well, when the chinese are eating up eurasia -- and we're not just talking about taiwan, hong kong, not just talking about the south china sea, we're talking about eurasia, the belt and road land mass. they are going to have -- this is a matter of policy. their nine dash line, it's not a matter of international law. they are the superpower in eurasia. and it happened once before, it's happening once again and the united states is going to be largely at the margins of that process. tom: we're at the margin of the process. so let's dive into your book and speak china-centric. polo'seturn to marco world trade -- world. what i find fascinating here is an essay in defense of henry kissinger.

dr. kissinger is elderly, now still a very important voice in what we're doing. but kissinger under new china as you would see it, what has changed about this new china versus a china that kissinger knew in his heyday? mr. kaplan: the china that henry kissinger knew in his heyday was a state, a state and also a civilization. today it's become an empire and it's become an empire across eurasia and the indian ocean that mirrors all of the empires in asia. the wong dynasty, and the early ming dynasty in the development of the belt and road road part. so it's not china we face anymore like henry kissinger, it's the chinese empire that will stretch all the way to the eastern mediterranean because the chinese are helping import development projects in greece and italy. tom: i mean, it is belt and road, but it is really belt and airline, isn't it?

is it really a four-lane highway? mr. kaplan: it's different in each place, but to give you a generic sense it's a highway, link, real link, -- rail it's pipelines for both oil and natural gas. in many places it's all four of those things. and the chinese have already completed much of this across central asia to iran, so in that sense, belt and road is just the branding concept for what they've already done. well, it is a visionary concept for what they want to do all through pakistan from western china to the indian ocean. it's different in each place. tom: when you see this and when you saw the text of "the return of marco polo's world" you traveled as much, ian, as marco polo across this region. what is your observation about how china works with kazakhstan, how china works with egypt down at the other end of the suez canal? dr. bremmer: they're taking their time. they're careful. they're doing business. they're commercial in

orientation, they're strategic. tom: they are transactional. dr. bremmer: yes, but beyond that. trump is transactional, but he's not strategic. the chinese are transactional and strategic. they're incrementally building up this empire, a commercially driven empire with better diplomacy and better security capabilities in the region as a consequence. when you go to kazakhstan today, you recognize that china completely dominates the economy of that country. and yet the russians are still nominally the most important diplomatic influencer over kazakhstan. and the reason for that is the chinese do not want to upset the apple cart in what's been a very good relationship between the russians and chinese. long term that probably doesn't work, because the chinese so undermine russian security. but they're getting away with it for quite a while. and i think that's what i see, is how deliberate and how farsighted china's eurasia's

strategy really is. mr. kaplan: there's something else. tom: please. mr. kaplan: it's that china -- belt and road, even if it succeeds only 50% or 60%, and some elements of it can't be done, at least it's a plan, it's a grand strategy. it's a direction for china to measure itself, which is much more than what the united states has. the united states has nothing at this point. china has a direction of paradigm. tom: but out of the neorealism you're acclaimed for, out of samuel huntington and the rest, part of it is an inbred reticence on the part of america to participate in the old world, whether it is england or france, and in this case, kazakhstan, we don't want to be there, do we? mr. kaplan: i think that's a misunderstanding of realism. realism has kind of, you know, swerved into the isolationist camp in recent years as a result of the debacle of the iraq war. but if you look at american realism in the 20th century, you

have henry kissinger, george shultz, james baker and on and on and on, which was very internationalist-bent. so what i'm talking about is a moderate internationalist realism that does not seek to build democracies all over the world, that takes the world as it is, but is still engaged. tom: ian, do you see that with secretary of state pompeo? has there been enough of a shift from tillis into pompeo that we can begin to nudge back into a traditional expansion of american thought and mind? dr. bremmer: i don't know that pompeo is such a dramatic change from tillerson in the way that those two gentlemen actually see the world. i think they both see the world as it is. i don't think neither of them are in any way neocons. both need to believe america needs to maintain robust diplomatic and military capabilities. but, pompeo has a better relationship with trump. that is clearly very important.

pompeo is not trying to gut the state department. that's very important. but in reality, foreign policy is being driven much more right now by the president than it is by either of his two secretaries of state or three national security advisers in just a year and a half. tom: to finish here on china and to move on to dr. bremmer's book at the end of this half hour and extend back to president trump and the rest, your wonderful book is a circuitous look around the south china sea. if you wrote it today, what would be the next chapter on asia's caldron? mr. kaplan: it would be a chapter on how china is moving in micro-steps. each step is so minor that to react to it seems like an overreaction. remember, the chinese method of war is never having to fight. because if you actually have to physically fight, it means you miscalculated. that's not the western conception of war so we don't fully realize that china's been at war with us for about half a decade in the south china sea.

it's a runway here, it's an artillery battery here, it's a governance there, oil rig there and it's using their fishing and coast guards in the same ways they use their great hold warship, as one horizontal naval continuum that all has a role to play in slowly pushing the united states away from the south china sea. tom: 10 seconds, do you know how many submarines there are in the south china sea? you're probably the only one on the planet that would know that. mr. kaplan: no, i would not know it anyway. tom: hundreds? mr. kaplan: no. probably 1, 2, 3 at the most actually patrolling. the chinese have a submarine base where they have their latest, quiet diesel electric submarines. we don't have a base in the south china sea like they do. tom: maybe that will change, particularly with the new relationship with vietnam. we are here, a real special moment for bloomberg surveillance. ian bremmer and robert kaplan in celebration of their two books, but also because we are in need

of a good discussion on eurasia. bremmer and kaplan of eurasia group. we will continue next. please stay with us. ♪

tom: this special edition of "bloomberg surveillance," we are thrilled you're with us as we look through the summer of international relations, we do that with ian bremmer and robert kaplan of the eurasia group as well. we are doing with -- this with the book of the summer, for me. i have a book on the fbi with mr. mueller, there it is, and i also have got this lovely book, "the return of marco polo's world," robert kaplan, and ian bremmer demanded we show his book as well, "us versus them: failure of globalsim." who's us, who's them? china? dr. bremmer: no, "us versus them" is different in every single place. the point of us versus them is

we should be together and we're not. we're not together globally and we're not together in our countries. and that division feels greater today than at any point in my lifetime. tom: you nailed two years ago the transatlantic focus, i will be blunt, no one was looking at it. no one imagined the transatlantic relationship would blow up like it has. dr. bremmer: it's unfortunate. some people believe that when macron was elected in france that was perhaps the tipping point back towards normalcy and strength of these countries and support globalization. of course, it's been anything but. merkel, much weaker, the italian governments with its -- by far the most anti-establishment election result since world war ii. the united states only feeling more caught up and divided on itself. canada now, second most important, most powerful figure. doug ford, who defeated soundly the liberal party to become ontario premier. this is happening across the entirety of the west.

tom: the "us versus them," the -- theme, robert kaplan, centers around this huge migration flows. i was privileged to have a wonderful conversation with dr. kissinger about this, who took it back, of course, to his europe as a child as he came over here. your thoughts on the us versus them tension of migration and refugees? mr. kaplan: i think globalization has divided, has split apart the united states rather than drawn the whole u.s. into the global system. there's that part of the united states where people are, you know, they are on low-carb diets, they look healthy, they exercise, they have high-paying jobs, they go to fine dining and they've been sucked into the global world and it's been great to them. but then, if you drive across the country slowly as i did three years ago, outside of university towns, some state capitals, and the coasts, all you see is just shelled out

towns of 20,000, 30,000 people where all the stores are boarded up or half the stores are boarded up and life has not gotten better for these people. to such an extent that they didn't care if trump was an unappealing personal character. they just used him as kind of a bomb to blow up the establishment. tom: this is beautiful then because you're thinking about technology now and overlay of modern technology. how do the elites and how do washington take the american us versus them back together into a better america, given the modern technology? dr. bremmer: in the near term, they don't. in fact, many of the things we've been talking about with you have been going on for decades. the failed wars, particularly in iraq. we knew this was going to have a backlash, the people left behind in the west from globalization, the immigration, changing the face of the country. but the technology issue has

really only created a problem for liberal democracies like the u.s. in the last five years, in two ways. first, because the way we now get information is driven by the world's biggest advertising companies, for whom we are the product. so as a consequence, they need to divide us so they can make more money, so we can sort of keep longer eyeballs on their sites. and that is ripping apart the civic nationalism in the united states while allowing the chinese government, for example, to have a more top down model. at the same time, it's in the last five years that we have really started to see the gig economy driven by automation, driven by ai, start displacing the exact same people that were already getting left behind by this process. tom: i thought it was fully employed america. dr. bremmer: it is a fully employed america. tom: i don't buy it for a minute. mr. kaplan: underemployed america. it's a low-end service economy with people who hate their jobs

working only 20 or 30 hours a week and that's what the statistics often hide. tom: i mean, to finish up here in this section, this is a huge issue in the elites on "bloomberg surveillance" are saying it is a fully employed america. 100% of my audience says they are nuts. that's all there is to it. dr. bremmer: look, if people felt good, we wouldn't have had trump and sanders doing what they are. people are actually having, some have two jobs, some have three jobs. but if you look at a person who is driving for amazon flex ups driverto the that they replaced, who is making $35 an hour. now they're making $14. they used to have the infrastructure and benefits. now they don't. their quality of life for the last 40, 50 years of the average american has deteriorated at full employment levels, has deteriorated. completely unacceptable.

tom: and then that article in "the atlantic" recently, the woman did amazon flex, that was jaw dropping about the impact of the gig economy. dr. bremmer: yeah, but you see it at the universities too where everyone had tenure and now it's all adjuncts, right? i mean, this is happening across the entire sphere. mr. kaplan: something else, the digital world i would argue is more friendly to authoritarian systems than to democratic ones, because of the whole nature of, you know, of changing reality, of propaganda. tom: perfect. you just described our next section. robert kaplan with us, with ian bremmer as well on this special edition of "bloomberg surveillance." coming up, here's what i want to do, with these two great minds with us we will take their , international relations, their political economics and pull it into what we see within the digital world. and we see it no more -- we live this on surveillance every morning monday through friday -- when will the president tweet?

we'll look at some of the digital symptoms out there of too much information, too quick information and maybe not the information we need. please stay with us, with ian bremmer, robert kaplan of eurasia group. this is "bloomberg surveillance." ♪

tom: this special edition of "bloomberg surveillance." we are thrilled you're with us, so we will finish up with robert kaplan and ian bremmer. let me show you dr. bremmer's book, if i can, "us vs. them." he has been prolific over the years. this is an important, thoughtful book and not only says a lot about our international relations and globalism, but says a lot about the path dr. bremmer took to acclaim. robert kaplan as well with my book of the summer, "the return of marco polo's world." this is a selection of essays. i highly recommend this to you for the next airplane jaunt. not only will it make you smarter about the caldron that is asia, it will make you smarter about our discourse, america's discourse and the new

-- the old discourse with the new eurasia. robert kaplan, you were mentioning earlier the digital stream is almost too much information. samuel huntington at harvard didn't have to worry about presidential tweets, did he? mr. kaplan: no, and when he published "the clash of civilizations," the internet wasn't fully there yet. so there were no tweets, blogs, anything. all of the reactions, while negative in many cases, could be coherent. in the print and typewriter age, you had coherent narratives. people were taught, there were facts. the digital age is about competing narratives where anything can be challenged and that's where truth gets lost. and in an authoritarian system, imagine a world where the chinese government, for instance, can monitor the searches of all of their citizens in sequence through big data, et cetera, and authoritarian control goes from being benign and enlightened to

being creepy. tom: are we becoming more authoritarian? not only the trump ascendancy, but what we have seen in the first 500 days or whatever of president trump, but are we more authoritarian? dr. bremmer: i don't think we are, but i think the world is. and that was going to happen to a degree no matter what simply because of the rise of china, but it's empowered significantly by these technological tools. i first noticed it in syria, the war in syria, when assad with a few hundred russians helping him out suddenly had the ability to look into the social media accounts, the smartphones of all of these syrians and within a matter of months, anyone who was a member of the opposition who was promoting this was under threat, was jailed or worse. and you put that control in the hands of china and suddenly you really take away civil liberties and instead you give people economic opportunity for behaving in the way they like.

in the united states, the government doesn't do that. so the government becomes much more dysfunctional, congress cannot do as much. the president becomes the leader of my people, which is one segment of the u.s. as opposed to their people, which is the difference -- i never heard an american president speak that way before. that's empowered by technology. but it doesn't really facilitate authortanism in america. tom: as we stagger through this, robert kaplan, one final thought if we could. the president is on a trip and somebody slips him a copy of "the return of marco polo's world," what do you want president trump to get out of your selection of essays? mr. kaplan: what i want him to get is that countries like china and russia have plans, they have strategies, they think long term, they think geographically. and that is part of the secret of their strength. if we don't have a coherent strategy, if we're just impulsive, transactional meeting by meeting, moment by moment, we will get eaten alive by them.

tom: as a final thought, where do we go from here? into the midterms out of the , midterms, into the election? what would you presume to see in our debate on foreign policy? dr. bremmer: i think that trump understands that going after the allies, that america first, has been a big win for him and his base at home. tom: and for his base? dr. bremmer: absolutely. and none of us like it. the entire foreign policy establishment hates it, but they're not the ones that are actually voting in the election. so i actually expect that american foreign policy, at least briefly after the midterm elections, is going to become much less interesting. it's actually going to become much more sane, because we're not going to get the benefits from the trade tariffs that trump has been. tom: this has been a treat. ian bremmer, thank you very much. robert kaplan, thank you very much as well.

that is for us in our special edition of "bloomberg surveillance." you can see us in our digital products as well. we thank ian bremmer and robert kaplan from eurasia group. i'm tom keene. ♪

♪ scarlet: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week around the world. brexit plans move forward despite chaos in theresa may's cabinet. >> she is facing a life or death moment within the conservative party. >> the question now is what does europe think? scarlet: trade tensions ratchet up as u.s. and china tussle over tariffs. >> they described the latest move as a shocking. they say it is totally unacceptable. scarlet: earnings season rolls in with some of the big banks reporting results. >> jpmorgan came out with strong results, nothing missed. scarlet: opec issues its output outlook for 2019. canada's central bank announces a rate hike. fox and comcast keep stepping up the bidding for sky.