2025 has already shaken the world. What’s next?

This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The geopolitical shocks of 2025 have the potential to reverberate for decades to come. Trump’s America first agenda and the new US national security strategy risk European unity, security and the rise of far right politics; Trump's trade wars have served to increase the pressure on states looking to balance relations with the US, China and also a rising India, and Israel’s assaults in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon have changed the balance of power in the Middle East. In the final episode of the year, Gavin Esler talks to Mark Leonard, co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, to examine how the geopolitical balance has shifted in 2025. • Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this. Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:09.6	The famous American short story of Rip Van Winkle is about a man who falls asleep for a long time,
1:16.1	and when he wakes up, the world has changed beyond belief.
1:19.7	Anyone who fell asleep on January the 1st, 2025 and is waking up this month,
1:24.6	may share Rip Van Winkle's shock from the Trump administration suggesting
1:29.2	publicly that the European Union, and in fact much of Europe, is a failure, to the rise
1:35.0	of China and India and their relations with Russia, the ceasefire without a real peace in Gaza,
1:40.5	the American bombing of Iran and Yemen, the continuing Ukraine war, and the Trump administration
1:45.7	offering a massive display of force in the Caribbean.
1:49.2	2025 seems to have marked some kind of turning point without any real clarity what we're
1:54.7	turning towards. We're going to try to get some answers from a world-renowned expert on
	...

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