Just over 18 months ago, we launched Bismarck Brief. I and the whole team at Bismarck Analysis have been overwhelmed by the attention, interest, and positive feedback from our subscribers, which has exceeded all expectations! I warmly thank you for your continuing vote of confidence in our work. As we near our second anniversary and 100th Brief, it is an opportunity to reflect on the big picture illustrated by some of our key Briefs in the last year, and then inform you on some recent news and updates.
Bismarck Brief is here for the long term. Every Wednesday at 2pm GMT sharp, our paid subscribers receive an in-depth report on an influential individual, institution, or industry in their inbox. Every Brief can also be listened to with a hand-curated and high-quality audio read-aloud. Every Brief equips readers with navigation-grade intelligence on the state of the world and the live players and functional institutions that shape the global strategic landscape. This kind of understanding is a prerequisite to affecting the future of global civilization, whether through investment, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, policy, or activism. The Brief is a key source of understanding for any strategic player.
As a result, Bismarck Brief’s scope is truly global:
You can use The Geographical Bismarck Brief to search and browse Briefs by location, using Google Maps, rather than by publication date in our archive. You can bookmark the link here for easy access. While our scope is and will remain global, however, we focus on a few key areas at a time.
What We Investigated This Year
As promised in our last letter from November 2022, we have continued to focus on China, new technology, and the personal empires of influential individuals. By geographical area of focus, Asia was by far our main concern, with nearly half of all Briefs covering either China or the rest of Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Thailand, and Singapore. Naturally, the United States is a close second. Despite an absolute decline in institutional and industrial functionality, the U.S. remains the world’s main superpower by a considerable margin, and U.S. live players and institutions will continue to have an outsized impact on the rest of the world.
The last year has seen us publish some of our most important Briefs in these topics so far. We have investigated the growth of China’s nuclear industry, which promises to make China the largest producer of nuclear power in the coming years, surpassing even the U.S. nuclear industry. Should China revise its nuclear expansion up further, it would stand a chance of creating unprecedented energy abundance and, for the first time in centuries, even surpassing Western civilization. We also looked at the founders and companies behind TikTok and the best-selling DJI consumer drone. These Chinese startups were inspired by U.S. entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, but have ended up defeating U.S. companies in software and consumer hardware. They now find themselves opposed by the U.S. government.
To understand China domestically, we covered the growing power of China’s elite universities, which are the center of a large-scale reform by Xi Jinping to make China a more technocratic society. To understand China’s foreign policy, we investigated the shape and scale of China’s defense industry, which surprisingly lags behind China’s civilian industrial economy, and shows China is not preparing for a lengthy war of attrition. We covered China’s agricultural base, rare earth metals industry, and relations with Southeast Asia. We concluded a special two-part investigation into Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping’s power base and succession problem.
New technologies continue to change both our daily lives and the global balance of power, by empowering live players who reshape our world. The progress in artificial intelligence through large language models (LLMs), led by companies like OpenAI and Google, has taken the world by storm in recent months. That is why we covered the few companies that design and manufacture the computer chips upon which this AI progress depends, like Nvidia, Samsung, and Taiwan’s TSMC. We have also looked at the state of organ transplantation and its impact on longevity, brain-computer interfaces, and fusion power, which promises to produce abundant and safe clean energy.
We have also expanded our focus to new kinds of powerful institutions and elites:
Hollywood carries a certain mystique, and of all the major industries in the U.S., entertainment is perhaps the most closed to outsiders. But it is not completely closed, and the prestige it carries can be effectively arbitraged by live players to succeed in new fields. That is why we looked at Gavin de Becker and Associates, perhaps the most prestigious private security firm in the world, which originated in Los Angeles but has since expanded beyond it. We also looked at Ari Emanuel and how he turned his talent agency into a global conglomerate with ties across Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Washington, and abroad.
The news media is always a powerful class of institution in any country. But while the press effectively covers other industries and institutions, it is understandably less likely to cover itself. That’s why we deeply investigated the people, structure, and futures of The New York Times and CNN, arguably the two most influential properties in U.S. online news and television, respectively. While the Times continues to be a live player under the leadership of the Sulzberger family, CNN is a dead player.
The bureaucracies of the U.S. federal government are some of the most powerful institutions in history. They are also quite opaque and, to many, seemingly boring. Yet their internal cultures, policies, and decisions ultimately affect the lives of hundreds of millions and set the agenda for foreign bureaucracies that govern billions. That is why we investigated the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its relationship to a new financial sector, cryptocurrency. We also looked at the Federal Reserve and its impact on the recent banking crisis, as well as how U.S.-led financial regulators are wrestling with the Vatican.
Some other highlights include: our first Brief on India, focusing on the startup and venture capital sector; our first Brief on Latin America, looking at the empire of Mexico’s Carlos Slim, at one point the wealthiest man in the world; our Brief on Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum; and a big-picture examination of the strategy of Singapore’s government, which is on a trajectory to make its city-state the most affluent society in the world.
If you are not already a paid subscriber, I warmly invite you to subscribe to Bismarck Brief today and join us on this ongoing investigation into the global power landscape:
News and Updates
If you are on Twitter, I highly recommend you follow the official account for Bismarck Analysis here, in order to see more graphics, details, and commentary regarding every Bismarck Brief. I also highly recommend that you follow some of our excellent and expert analysts here at Bismarck. Every Brief we issue is a team effort, with final review by myself. All of our analysts are both capable generalists and specialists in multiple areas:
Ben Landau-Taylor focuses on U.S. institutions and the history of industry. You can follow him here.
Marko Jukic focuses on economic and demographic geography, especially through maps and infographics. Follow here.
Rian Whitton focuses on automation, energy, and manufacturing supply chains. Follow here.
Andrew Sabisky focuses on banking, military technology, and government procurement. Follow here.
If you don’t already, you can follow me here. Twitter is an excellent way to follow and discuss our work in more detail and with a more speculative and informal stance. We always look forward to hearing your feedback, questions, and commentary.
I also warmly invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel here. There you can listen to some of our publicly-available Briefs, as well as my other writing and speaking appearances. Recently, the video for “Why Civilization Is Older Than We Thought” has gone viral. There will be more to come.
We have also made some new Briefs available to free subscribers, namely: “The PLA Has Transformed Itself To Take Taiwan” and “Macron’s Struggle to Lead France.” We make select Briefs freely available in the public interest and, of course, we are happy for our free subscribers to see what we work on and consider subscribing. As France enters the AI race and fear of China’s intentions for Taiwan grows, we feel these Briefs should be more widely read.
Free subscribers can also read our Briefs on the implications of the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX here, on the legacy of George Soros’ philanthropic empire here, and on China’s growing space industry here.
For our paid subscribers, I am pleased to inform you that we have made it easier than ever to share Bismarck Brief with others. As of now, we have enabled both gift subscriptions and referrals:
With gift subscriptions, you may privately give up to three friends, family members, or colleagues a one-month paid subscription to Bismarck Brief, at no cost to you or them. All paid subscribers should receive an email with a link and instructions on how to do so in the coming weeks.
With referrals, you can receive the gift of a compensated subscription from us, if you refer enough new paid subscribers. The first gift activates after three referrals, which will give you one month of compensated subscription. Please note that referral activity will be publicly visible on the leaderboard here.
We hope these features will allow you to help key decision-makers stay informed. As always, if you wish to share a specific Brief with a friend, colleague, or key decision-maker, just email contact@bismarckanalysis.com and we will send you a PDF to share.
If you are not already a paid subscriber, I warmly invite you to subscribe to Bismarck Brief today and join us on this ongoing investigation into the global power landscape:
Going forward, you can expect us to continue to focus on developments in China and Asia in general, as well as investigate the most powerful institutions, both public and private, in the United States. You can also expect more Briefs on the state of artificial intelligence technology and its regulation by governments, updates on the state of European industry, more looks at large emerging economies like Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria, and much more.
As many of you have reminded me, there is no publication with the depth, width, and rapid pace of Bismarck Brief. No individual, institution, or industry is off-limits. We strive to help you build a live player’s generalist understanding of the global strategic landscape, whether that means understanding the energy mix of China, the relationships between Hollywood talent agents, or anything in between.
Once again, I thank you kindly for your continued support, and I wish a happy summer to you all!
Sincerely,
Samo Burja
Founder and President of Bismarck Analysis