Episode 312: The Disorderly Society: Global Governance in an Age of Fragmented Power with Dr Bobo Lo

This episode with Dr Bobo Lo explores the breakdown of the post-Cold War rules-based international order and what is emerging in its place. We examine why today’s global system is better understood as a condition of disorder rather than a coherent new order, shaped by diffuse power, weakening institutions, and growing mistrust of Western norms, and how the erosion of democratic practice within Western societies has undermined their global credibility, and how Russia and China have exploited, rather than created, these weaknesses. We also unpack the limits of concepts such as multipolarity, the strategic differences between Moscow and Beijing, and why global challenges like climate change, pandemics, inequality, and technological disruption cannot be addressed without revitalised forms of international cooperation.

Dr Lo is one of the most respected analysts of global order and great power politics and is widely known for his analysis of global governance, strategic competition, and the structural forces driving international instability. A former deputy head of mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow, he previously led the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and is now a Non-Resident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is the author of several influential books, including Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics (2008) and his latest book The Disorderly Society: Rethinking Global Governance in an Age of Anarchy (2026), which covers the topics discussed in this episode extensively.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

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Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Dominic is the go-to business advisor for leaders navigating risk, crisis, and strategy; trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage. Dominic equips today’s business leaders with the insight and confidence to lead through disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.

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Transcript:

Bobo Lo: [00:00:00] It’s hardly surprising that other countries don’t take us as seriously when we preach democracy, separation of powers, and the rule of law to them, when we are so poor at preserving these in our own societies.

[00:00:23] This episode of the International Risk Podcast is brought to you by Conducttr. They’re an ISO 27001-certified crisis simulation platform that lets you rehearse real crises in a safe virtual environment. It has realistic emails, social media, internal chats, company systems, and many other features. Conducttr really helps crisis teams practise how they actually work under pressure, not how they wish they worked. Go to Conducttr.com to learn more about their software.

Dominic: [00:00:55] Hi, I’m Dominic Bowen, and welcome to The International Risk Podcast, where we explore the risks shaping our world and the forces driving global change.

Dominic: [00:01:00] Today we’re looking at the present and future of global governance at a time of profound change. The liberal, rules-based order is potentially fraying. Authoritarian regimes are increasing their global influence, and the world is grappling with a level of disorder that many analysts argue we haven’t seen since World War II.

Dominic: [00:01:15] Power is much more diffuse today than in recent history. Alliances are more fluid, and institutions that anchored international stability over the last seven or eight decades are struggling to keep pace with the current international system.

Dominic: [00:01:34] Behind these headlines are deeper questions we need to explore. What does global order even mean now that long-standing norms are being contested? In a more multipolar world, how do we describe the system we’re living in, and how do we understand the politics and decisions shaping it?

Dominic: [00:02:00] We’re joined today by one of the most respected thinkers on global order in international politics, Dr Bobo Lo. Dr Lo is an independent international relations analyst and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. He previously led the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and served as Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow.

Dominic: [00:02:25] Dr Lo, welcome to the International Risk Podcast.

Bobo Lo: [00:02:29] It’s a great pleasure to be here with you.

Dominic: [00:02:31] There’s a lot I’d like to explore with you today. To start, you’ve argued, along with many other analysts, that the world is more disordered today than at any time since 1945.

Dominic: [00:02:41] That can sound like a hyperbolic statement. When we look back at the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Iraq I and Iraq II, there have been many periods of instability. You’ve suggested we’re not moving into a coherent new system, but something far less structured.

Dominic: [00:02:57] Can you explain your thesis on what this new world order actually looks like?

Bobo Lo: [00:03:01] Dominic, I think what we have today is not so much a new world order, but rather a world disorder.

Bobo Lo: [00:03:07] What do I mean by that? The rules-based international order associated with the United States after the end of the Cold War has unravelled. No alternative has yet emerged in its place, and there is no obvious likelihood that a new order will emerge.

Bobo Lo: [00:03:23] Whether it’s a China-centred world order, a Donald Trump-centred world order, a multipolar order, or some other variant, they simply don’t exist.

Bobo Lo: [00:03:30] Although there have been periods of major conflict in the past, what really defines today’s world disorder is its global reach, diversity, and fluidity.

Bobo Lo: [00:03:50] Yes, there have always been conflicts, but not quite this level of uncertainty, anarchy, and fluidity.

Dominic: [00:04:07] You’re the author of several influential books, including The Axis of Convenience, which examines Moscow, Beijing, and new geopolitics, and more recently The Disorderly Society: Rethinking Global Governance in an Age of Anarchy.

Dominic: [00:04:21] During your research and interviews, what key messages and common themes emerged?

Bobo Lo: [00:04:29] The main theme is that trying to resurrect the so-called rules-based international order — the US-led, Western-dominated order of the post–Cold War period — is no longer realistic.

Bobo Lo: [00:04:40] The 1990s were a unique moment in terms of US power, vision, and willingness to act. That combination no longer exists.

Bobo Lo: [00:05:00] The United States remains the leading power by some distance, but it is no longer able to impose its influence in the way it did twenty-five or thirty years ago.

Bobo Lo: [00:05:13] That is the critical difference today.

Bobo Lo: [00:05:18] We need to rethink global order because we can’t simply put Humpty Dumpty back together again. That time has passed.

Bobo Lo: [00:05:30] We need to rebuild and revitalise global order in ways that reflect contemporary realities.

Bobo Lo: [00:05:45] Those realities include a world where power is much more diffuse, where state behaviour is more anarchic, and where order must be more diverse, flexible, and inclusive.

Bobo Lo: [00:06:00] One of the biggest problems with the rules-based international order, as designed by the West, is that it is widely seen by the rest of the world as something built by the West for the West.

Bobo Lo: [00:06:03] That era has ended, and we need to move on.

Dominic: [00:06:06] Before we move on, I’d like to ask why this order broke down. Can we trace it back to the Bush administration, Iraq, Afghanistan, and breaches of international law, or did it begin elsewhere?

Bobo Lo: [00:06:27] We need to accept one reality: this order was always going to be challenged at some point.

Bobo Lo: [00:06:30] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States experienced unprecedented dominance. The Soviet Union collapsed, and China was still relatively weak.

Bobo Lo: [00:06:49] As soon as China and Russia began to recover their strategic and economic strength, they were always going to challenge a US-centred order.

Bobo Lo: [00:07:00] Changing power balances meant pressure on that order was inevitable.

Bobo Lo: [00:07:15] What’s striking is how quickly that order unravelled over subsequent decades.

Bobo Lo: [00:07:30] I associate this with what I call six stages of suicidal statecraft.

Bobo Lo: [00:07:38] The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was one stage, but it wasn’t the only one.

Bobo Lo: [00:07:45] Consider the 2008 global financial crisis. The weak Western response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Donald Trump’s first presidency, when he effectively rejected the rules-based order.

Bobo Lo: [00:08:00] Consider the Western response to COVID-19, often seen in the non-West as “every country for itself.”

Bobo Lo: [00:08:04] And finally, the unravelling of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Bobo Lo: [00:08:20] Taken together, these represent a progressive dismantling, discrediting, and delegitimisation of the so-called rules-based international order.

Dominic: [00:08:20] Those are powerful case studies. Many listeners will recognise examples such as the West’s weak response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the COVID-19 response, and the 2008 financial crisis as moments where Western leadership fell short.

Dominic: [00:08:47] I wonder where that puts us today. We’re clearly living in an environment marked by persistent volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. What does this new multipolar world look like? We’re seeing the rise of the BRICS and BRICS Plus. We’re seeing countries like India acting as partners of convenience, both outwardly and inwardly. What should we be taking from this?

Bobo Lo: [00:09:07] Unless we find a way to revitalise global order, we have no chance of successfully addressing the many threats and challenges we face today.

Bobo Lo: [00:09:17] Whether it’s accelerating climate change, the threat of more frequent and more serious pandemics, technological transformation, the information revolution, or geopolitical confrontation, we are facing a perfect storm of threats and challenges.

Bobo Lo: [00:09:30] Unless we can find some way to revitalise global order and give ourselves a framework, we have zero chance of addressing these threats and challenges successfully.

Bobo Lo: [00:09:46] We need a global order. But what would it look like?

Bobo Lo: [00:09:53] I think we need to move away from formulas like “multipolar order” or “multipolar world”.

Bobo Lo: [00:10:00] Are we really living in a multipolar world? To my mind, multipolarity implies several independent poles or centres of global power that are roughly equivalent.

Bobo Lo: [00:10:21] That would suggest the United States is balanced by China, Russia, India, Brazil, and so on. I don’t believe the world is structured that way.

Bobo Lo: [00:10:30] The United States is clearly the single most powerful pole, far outweighing the influence of others.

Bobo Lo: [00:10:45] If we talk about multipolarity, we also have to ask who or what actually qualifies as a pole.

Bobo Lo: [00:10:52] The Chinese believe there are two poles: the United States and China.

Bobo Lo: [00:11:00] The Russians think it’s tripolar, with the United States, China, and Russia — except the Chinese don’t really see Russia as a pole. Their attitude towards Russia, particularly in private, is almost entirely dismissive.

Bobo Lo: [00:11:07] And then there’s India. When Putin talks about multipolar order, he imagines the United States, China, and maybe Russia as a geopolitical balancer.

Bobo Lo: [00:11:20] When Narendra Modi talks about multipolarity, he believes India is very much a global power.

Bobo Lo: [00:11:30] When Lula da Silva talks about multipolar order, he imagines Brazil as one of the poles.

Bobo Lo: [00:11:31] One of the problems with multipolarity is that it’s such an elusive concept. It doesn’t really exist in practice.

Bobo Lo: [00:11:55] And if we talk about a multipolar order, “order” implies that the major players are coming together to manage the world and address global problems.

Bobo Lo: [00:12:00] We are seeing no evidence of that happening at all.

Bobo Lo: [00:12:07] So I’m sceptical of the use of terms like multipolarity and multipolar order. They’re very much in the eye of the beholder, and those views differ markedly. I think we need to move beyond multipolarity.

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Dominic: [00:12:14] You’ve started to talk about threats to the system, and that’s particularly important. One of the aims of the International Risk Podcast is to encourage policy advisers and business leaders to recognise that threats to business and society don’t just come from obvious sources like crime or terrorism.

Dominic: [00:12:30] They come from many different areas. One of those is extreme poverty. Around ten percent of the world’s population — roughly 840 million people — are now living in extreme poverty.

Dominic: [00:12:46] Progress in reducing that poverty has stalled since the early 2020s, following the pandemic and subsequent economic shocks. How do you see extreme poverty feeding into governance and the geopolitical environment?

Bobo Lo: [00:13:08] There is an unfortunate tendency among Western policymakers to think of grinding poverty as a “third world problem” — something that isn’t our concern.

Bobo Lo: [00:13:21] But it is our problem, because one of the drivers of heightened migration — legal or illegal — is grinding poverty and conflict in much of the developing world.

Bobo Lo: [00:13:30] The developed West has a vested interest in taking global poverty seriously, because it has a direct impact on our own societies.

Bobo Lo: [00:13:51] I would argue that developing-world poverty has done more to undermine Western political and social order than the rise of China or even Russia’s disruptive activities.

Bobo Lo: [00:14:00] If you look at countries like the UK, one of the biggest political issues today is migration.

Bobo Lo: [00:14:15] People migrate because they are desperate. They are running from something.

Bobo Lo: [00:14:20] We need to look at global poverty in a much broader way, because it has a direct existential impact on our own societies.

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Dominic: [00:14:40] Another issue we’re seeing in our societies is declining confidence in the rule of law, in governments, and in elected politicians.

Dominic: [00:14:50] Some of this is driven by deliberate disinformation campaigns from countries like China, Iran, and Russia. But we can’t simply blame others.

Dominic: [00:15:00] We are also responsible for flaws in our own democratic institutions.

Dominic: [00:15:07] Organisations like Freedom House have shown that democratic decline is increasingly linked to flawed elections, armed conflict, and declining legitimacy.

Dominic: [00:15:25] Global democracy scores have stagnated or fallen since the early 2000s in countries many of us partner with — including Turkey, Brazil, India, and the United States. How much does that concern you?

Bobo Lo: [00:15:45] Very much.

Bobo Lo: [00:15:45] If I had to identify one major cause of the unraveling of the rules-based international order, it’s that we do not practise what we preach.

Bobo Lo: [00:16:00] We have allowed democracy, the rule of law, and our core values to unravel in our own societies.

Bobo Lo: [00:16:22] It’s hardly surprising that other countries don’t take us seriously when we preach democracy, separation of powers, and the rule of law, when we are so poor at preserving these in our own societies.

Bobo Lo: [00:16:30] China and Russia, in many respects, seek to harm Western interests — I’m not going to sugar-coat that.

Bobo Lo: [00:16:45] But in many cases they are pushing through an open door. They didn’t create the problems of the rules-based international order; they exploited its weaknesses and shortcomings.

Bobo Lo: [00:17:00] For China under Xi Jinping, Donald Trump has been the gift that keeps giving.

Bobo Lo: [00:17:09] Here is a US president who regards himself as unbound by international rules and norms — “I make the rules.”

Bobo Lo: [00:17:29] That allows China to present itself as a defender of international order without even criticising the United States.

Bobo Lo: [00:17:30] What a gift.

Bobo Lo: [00:17:30] In the same way, Putin has used the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq as the gift that keeps giving.

Bobo Lo: [00:18:00] Many in the global South see Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as morally equivalent to what the United States did in Iraq.

Bobo Lo: [00:18:28] Whether we in the West agree with that or not is beside the point. Much of the world doesn’t care.

Bobo Lo: [00:18:28] This is how we shoot ourselves in the foot — by failing to preserve our own democratic norms and institutions, we undermine our credibility globally.

Bobo Lo: [00:18:28] At least the Chinese and Russians, many argue, are not hypocritical about it.

Bobo Lo: [00:18:28] That is deeply damning.

Dominic: [00:18:29] Yes, it certainly is. I’m sitting here, head in hand, feeling a little bit sad about what we, as a collective West, as you said, have done to ourselves.

Dominic: [00:18:30] You’ve written extensively about Russia and China and their evolving partnership, which has developed over the last seventy years. A previous guest on the International Risk Podcast referred to China looking down at Russia as their “poor little partner”.

Dominic: [00:18:50] I wonder how you see this cooperation between these powers evolving, the challenge they present to the current global order, and how we should understand their partnership.

Bobo Lo: [00:19:03] I see the relationship between China and Russia as a partnership of strategic convenience.

Bobo Lo: [00:19:11] It suits both sides to have this relationship — a strong, resilient, flexible partnership. But let’s be under no illusions: China and Russia have fundamentally different views of the world.

Bobo Lo: [00:19:30] When Western commentators and politicians suggest China and Russia are of like mind, they are fundamentally wrong.

Bobo Lo: [00:19:37] China certainly wishes to challenge US global primacy, but I don’t believe China wants to overturn the international system.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:00] China wants to revise — “reform” — the international system so that it is more in tune with Chinese interests and undermines US dominance. But it does not want to tear the system down.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:03] Russia has a very different worldview.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:10] Russia does not see itself as a primary beneficiary of the existing international system, unlike China.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:18] Russia also recognises that its global heft is far less than that of the United States and China.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:30] Russia’s comparative advantage lies in a world that is messy, disorderly, and anarchic, where it can operate at the margins and act as a tactical opportunist.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:36] The messier the world, the more opportunities there are for Russia.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:40] China’s future, by contrast, lies in a relatively stable international context in which it can work within the system and gradually increase its influence at the expense of others, particularly the United States.

Bobo Lo: [00:20:56] China operates from within the existing international system, whereas Russia seeks to burn it down. That is the fundamental difference.

Bobo Lo: [00:21:00] They can certainly work together, and both sides have a vested interest in keeping the other onside, but their worldviews are very different.

Dominic: [00:21:18] I wonder what that means when we look at current issues on the table.

Dominic: [00:21:30] We have a plan developed by US diplomat Witkoff and the Russian state for peace in Ukraine, which was developed without Ukraine’s involvement.

Dominic: [00:21:32] European diplomats and Ukraine have been scrambling to catch up to these discussions.

Dominic: [00:21:55] Recent comments from Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, have suggested some flexibility and a more pragmatic approach.

Dominic: [00:22:00] But given what you’ve just said about Russia’s position and China’s potential support, how should we understand real-world conflicts like Ukraine, especially for listeners in Europe who experience sabotage, attacks, and espionage on a daily basis?

Bobo Lo: [00:22:16] Take Ukraine. China does not want Putin to lose.

Bobo Lo: [00:22:29] At the same time, Putin puts China in a very awkward position.

Bobo Lo: [00:22:34] On the one hand, China promotes itself as a guardian of international order, a country that believes in sovereignty, stability, and international rules.

Bobo Lo: [00:23:00] On the other hand, China recognises that its only true strategic partner is Russia, with whom it shares a 4,200-kilometre border.

Bobo Lo: [00:23:24] China does not need Russian support, but it needs Russia not to be a disruptor of Chinese interests.

Bobo Lo: [00:23:30] If China wants freedom of action in Northeast Asia, Central Asia, or the Arctic, it needs Russia to play along — not necessarily to cooperate, but not to obstruct.

Bobo Lo: [00:23:51] Ukraine has put that balance in jeopardy.

Bobo Lo: [00:24:00] China doesn’t want Russia to lose, but it also doesn’t want Russia to win too decisively.

Bobo Lo: [00:24:19] If Russia were to secure a crushing victory, Putin would not be satisfied. He would continue pushing, expanding into Europe, becoming more disruptive globally, and potentially less cooperative with China.

Bobo Lo: [00:24:30] That puts China in a dilemma.

Bobo Lo: [00:24:41] From Beijing’s perspective, the ideal outcome is some form of settlement, possibly along the lines of the twenty-eight-point plan, as amended by Europeans.

Bobo Lo: [00:24:30] China could live with such an outcome, particularly because it would identify economic reconstruction opportunities in Ukraine after the war.

Dominic: [00:24:41] You mentioned economic opportunities, which is interesting.

Dominic: [00:24:56] You’ve described a perfect storm of threats: climate change, more frequent pandemics, stagnant global poverty, technological disruption, disinformation, and geopolitical confrontation.

Dominic: [00:25:18] At the same time, equity markets have performed strongly. The S&P 500 is up around seventy percent over the last three years.

Dominic: [00:25:30] Meanwhile, wealth concentration has intensified. Around 0.1 percent of the world’s population controls roughly 25 percent of global capital, and the richest one percent owns around 40 to 50 percent of global household wealth.

Dominic: [00:26:00] The last time we saw this level of concentration was in 1929, just before the Great Depression.

Dominic: [00:26:08] What can be done? What role can business leaders, civil society, and policymakers play in changing course?

Bobo Lo: [00:26:23] In my book, I advocate a new internationalism based on three broad principles: a larger view of self-interest, representativeness and inclusiveness, and flexibility.

Bobo Lo: [00:26:30] Let’s start with self-interest.

Bobo Lo: [00:26:48] We need to recognise that our self-interest is closely connected with that of others.

Bobo Lo: [00:27:00] Global poverty is not just a human tragedy; it has a direct destabilising political and economic impact on Western societies.

Bobo Lo: [00:27:14] If we ignore these issues, they will come back to harm us.

Bobo Lo: [00:27:30] Climate change is a truly global threat. Pandemics are global.

Bobo Lo: [00:27:51] We tried to manage the pandemic in a narrow, national way. It didn’t work.

Bobo Lo: [00:28:00] If we want a sustainable global order, we have to work with others — not because it is virtuous, but because it is in our self-interest.

Bobo Lo: [00:28:15] The challenge is persuading policymakers to take a longer-term view and see the bigger picture.

Bobo Lo: [00:28:30] But nothing is inevitable.

Bobo Lo: [00:28:30] Few predicted the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, German reunification, or China’s rapid emergence from the Cultural Revolution.

Bobo Lo: [00:28:39] All these seemingly improbable events happened, and they happened because people identified a direct self-interest in making them happen.

Bobo Lo: [00:28:47] I can see a situation where, for example, climate change becomes so existential, pandemics become so direct in their impact — with our memory refreshed after COVID — and geopolitical confrontation has consequences that directly destabilise our own societies.

Bobo Lo: [00:29:00] That realisation — that what we once thought of as a far-off threat, vague or questionable — gives way to, “My God, it’s happening right here and now.”

Bobo Lo: [00:29:10] At that stage, people begin to develop a kind of existential angst. I think the younger generation understands this more clearly, because they see threats like climate change much more vividly than their supposed elders.

Dominic: [00:29:39] That’s very interesting, Dr Lo. I’m not going to ask you for a prediction, because I think that would be unfair. Increasingly, I tell my clients that prediction isn’t how we work — we use scenarios and assess the likelihood of different outcomes.

Dominic: [00:29:55] With that in mind, when you look to the next two to five years, what scenarios are you most often thinking about?

Bobo Lo: [00:30:00] One interesting scenario involves the United States under Donald Trump.

Bobo Lo: [00:30:04] The global mood — certainly in most countries — is quite pessimistic. Trump’s vision is seen as dystopian: a dog-eat-dog, law-of-the-jungle world.

Bobo Lo: [00:30:23] That may never change. But the fact that his presidency has produced so many unpleasant outcomes, so much angst and uncertainty, makes that vision fundamentally unattractive.

Bobo Lo: [00:30:30] In a strange way, it makes global cooperation and multilateralism more attractive — even desirable.

Bobo Lo: [00:30:44] It’s no longer just theoretical. People are seeing what happens when global order breaks down and the law of the strongman prevails.

Bobo Lo: [00:31:00] Most of the world does not want that.

Bobo Lo: [00:31:04] Sometimes it takes a Trump to put that reality into stark relief.

Bobo Lo: [00:31:09] If we think back to 1945, after the Second World War, countries came together despite huge political, ideological, and economic differences because they had to rebuild the world.

Bobo Lo: [00:31:30] There was a joint endeavour that benefited everyone. Cooperation became essential.

Bobo Lo: [00:31:38] We’re not there yet, but the longer this “Trump-plus” period continues, the more people will recognise that some level of cooperation is not just desirable, but existentially vital.

Dominic: [00:31:54] Thanks very much for explaining that. I’ll take the opportunity to remind listeners that if they prefer to watch the podcast, they can find the International Risk Podcast on YouTube.

Dominic: [00:32:00] Please search for the International Risk Podcast on YouTube and subscribe so you receive all of our videos in your feed.

Dominic: [00:32:03] Dr Lo, it would be remiss of me not to ask — you were Deputy Head of the Australian mission in Russia. Can you share one lesson or surprise from what must have been a fascinating posting?

Bobo Lo: [00:32:22] I was there during Yeltsin’s second presidency, from 1995 to 1999.

Bobo Lo: [00:32:30] At the time, democracy and liberal values were, to some extent, taken for granted in Russia. There was a sense that Russia was gradually becoming “one of us”.

Bobo Lo: [00:32:55] The transition was messy and flawed, but many assumed it would eventually succeed.

Bobo Lo: [00:33:00] The key lesson is never to take anything for granted.

Bobo Lo: [00:33:05] We often think in historically deterministic ways — that certain outcomes are inevitable.

Bobo Lo: [00:33:30] That kind of complacent, linear thinking is dangerous.

Bobo Lo: [00:33:38] We should take nothing for granted.

Bobo Lo: [00:33:38] When people say Russia is destined to be an autocracy forever, or that China is destined to remain a Maoist-Leninist system, I think that’s nonsense.

Bobo Lo: [00:33:59] There is no historical force driving everyone in a single direction.

Bobo Lo: [00:34:05] We are the masters of our fate. We have agency, and it’s time we acted on it.

Dominic: [00:34:10] Fantastic. In the final minute, Dr Lo, we ask all our guests this question. When you look around the world, what international risks concern you the most?

Bobo Lo: [00:34:10] The biggest international risk I see is climate change.

Bobo Lo: [00:34:16] It’s a global risk whose effects are already with us in the here and now.

Bobo Lo: [00:34:30] Politicians are complacent about it because they struggle to conceptualise it. It’s not as discrete or tangible as armed conflict.

Bobo Lo: [00:34:37] Its solutions are long-term and require decades of global cooperation, so it gets put in the “too hard” basket.

Bobo Lo: [00:34:57] The disconnect between the gravity of the threat and political willingness to act deeply disturbs me.

Bobo Lo: [00:35:00] We saw this again at COP30 in Brazil — another failed jamboree.

Bobo Lo: [00:35:20] Leaders talked up green credentials, but delivered very little tangible action. It was largely a case of kicking the can down the road.

Dominic: [00:35:32] I worry about the next COP as well. While I have faith in both Turkey and Australia, I’m not sure now is the time to experiment with leadership when results have been so poor for several years.

Dominic: [00:35:32] Thank you very much for coming on the International Risk Podcast, Dr Lo. It’s been a pleasure.

Dominic: [00:36:00] That was a great conversation with Dr Bobo Lo, whose work on global governance and great power politics helps us understand the challenges shaping the international system today.

Dominic: [00:36:05] His latest book, The Disorderly Society: Rethinking Global Governance in an Age of Anarchy, explores many of the themes discussed in this episode. We’ll include a link to the book in the show notes.

Dominic: [00:36:19] Today’s episode was produced and coordinated by Katerina Mazzucchelli, with social media and video content produced by Stephen Penny.

Dominic: I’m Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening, and we’ll speak again soon.

[00:36:19] Thanks for joining us on The International Risk Podcast. This episode was sponsored by Conducttr, the crisis exercise platform that turns crisis plans into lived experiences with tailored scenarios, decision logs, and realistic social media and news feeds. Conducttr helps organisations learn from their mistakes in simulation, not during a real crisis.

[00:36:41] Visit the Conducttr website to learn more about their services and products.