Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is a strategic miscalculation with short-, medium-, and long-term geopolitical and economic ramifications, an unforeseen consequence of COVID-19 with previously unimaginable potential outcomes. Putin has failed to achieve his immediate goal of decapitating the government in Kyiv, notes Dee Smith, CEO of private intelligence agency Strategic Insight Group, and he’s set the stage for hyperinflation and global recession, adds Jacob Shapiro, Director of Geopolitical Analysis at Cognitive Investments. As Smith puts it, “The world as it existed is not coming back.” What we’re looking at, adds Shapiro, is something more like the decades before World War I rather than Cold War 2.0 or World War III. In a comprehensive and compelling discussion of what’s at stake in Eastern Europe, Smith and Shapiro assess Putin’s and the West’s options and their regional and global implications, the specter of nuclear war, the China question, and the future of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. Recorded on March 2, 2022.