Long-simmering economic and political tensions between the U.S. and China have continued to spill over into the technology sector, where the two superpowers have made this ever-more vital industry the site of a new Cold War. The acrimony looks poised to only get worse moving forward, potentially leading to a tech decoupling, and 5G is at the heart of it. Some third parties have sought to find a way to navigate this divide and the dilemma is particularly acute for the Gulf states. As they seek to balance their relationships with both Washington and Beijing, several have chosen to stake out their own territory by building an Open Radio Access Network (RAN). This initiative could be a potential solution to the current conundrum that would give states 5G sovereignty in an era of great power competition, with a digital twist.
happening. has he, in effect, emboldened iran? i think, jim, the president s problem going to the u.n. is that he appears weak in response to these actions by the iranians over the last six months. in the hard bitten world of middle east politics, with both the sunni arabs and the iranians, the president doesn t appear to be standing up to the challenge. now he s got a little bit of time. he may want to use this week to see what kind of support he has out there. i think it s very little, frankly, with the europeans, the russians and chinese, but he has to do something because iran, jim, is posing a major threat to the free flow of oil and gas in the middle east. for 45 years the united states, working with israel, working with the arab states, has tried to keep the gulf open. iran is trying to shut it down, show that it can shut it down. there has to be a stronger response, whether it s covert, cyber or a military, in my judgment from the president. but then what happens next? let
going all the way back to the 1973 war in the middle east. the united states has always kept the gulf open. we don t appear to be doing that now. that s not in our national interest. and your sense of the message here to the iranians, and you have president of iran coming here. you ll be covering the general assembly this coming week. how do they process what is happening here. perhaps the u.s. is goaded into doing something and it did nothing. yeah. and the iranian prime minister is tweeting to that effect this morning. they feel like they kind of put one over on the president here. but trump is operating on two tracks with iran. on one side, he wants to meet toughness with toughness. you can tell in his remarks there that he is sensitive to the appearance he s not being tough and he wants to project what he s doing actually is tough. and at the same time, he wants to negotiate. he was hoping to be able to sit
our enemies don t fear us and our allies don t trust us. when you send out words you re not willing to back up, it causes confusion. if you re prepared to make grand statements and not back them up, we re not with you. if we re not with you, who is going to defend keeping the gulf open? is it the chinese, the russians and not the united states? that would be bode not well for the united states and contribute to a tremendous dislocation of the economic situation locally. neil: but that takes forever, right? to the extend that we have an economy still dependent on oil, yes, puts us in the middle of that. the fact that we re no longer dependent on saudi oil doesn t mean we re at risk if that flow of oil is disrupted throughout the world economy. we would be very much at risk in the sense that we wouldn t have many people buying our products
world s oil and gas coming out of the middle east to the big asian economies and to europe. that s a u.s. interest to keep these open. and i do think the president will have support from south korea, from japan, from some of the suuni arab countries, to do this. and interestingly enough, we ve been down this road before 30 years ago president reagan in responding to these piratical attacks by the iranians organized a coalition, kept the gulf open. president trump is in the right here. and he s the leader of the west and leader of the international community. he can do this. the he doesn t need to go it alone. i think it s a major opportunity for him. the president s obviously been inflam torch, even incendiary, effectively saying he was going to wipe them off the map. a.m. bass dog, what is the biggest risk in this situation? well, the biggest risk,