The Atlantic Council’s “The Future is Here”

A few months ago, the Atlantic Council’s Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative – where I have a non-resident senior fellow since 2015 – interviewed me as part of a series of post-COVID perspectives from the roster of fellows.

Last week, a portion of that interview appeared in the council’s weekly newsletter as part of a discussion on the “bubbles,” “pods,” and “quaranteams” appearing in international relations as well as domestic life:

In a recent interview with the Atlantic Council’s Foresight, Strategy, and Risks initiative, where he is a nonresident senior fellow, Greg Lindsay wondered what other “new zones of influence” beyond those between states will emerge as a result of the pandemic.

“Networks of cities [are] forming and cooperating,” and powerful individuals and organizations are “offering policy advice and resources” to governments, noted Lindsay, the director of applied research at NewCities and a partner at FutureMap. Citing the Canadian government’s deal with Amazon to distribute medical equipment, he observes that “we are seeing national supply chains that are increasingly becoming orthogonal when it comes to nation states.” 

The bottom line: In this more fluid era, the United States and its allies will have new opportunities to work together and increase their influence in the world. One major challenge, however, is that the United States is still struggling to contain the virus while many of its partners have for now made more progress in doing so.