A New Cold War, Rise of China and Global Chaos: How AI Will Rewrite Geopolitics | Gregory Smith
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Gregory Smith, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation focusing on AI and geopolitics, discusses a framework for understanding how AGI or ASI could reshape the global order. The conversation centers on a recent RAND paper that maps eight scenarios across two axes: whether one actor or multiple actors achieve AGI first, and whether AGI empowers the US or its adversaries. Smith argues that AGI's geopolitical impact has been largely unexplored despite being potentially as transformative as nuclear weapons or electricity. The argument rests on a straightforward premise: since geopolitics is the sum of multiple national domains—military, economic, technological, political—and AGI would transform each of those domains, the technology must reshape the global order fundamentally.
The conversation moves through what distinguishes each scenario and which are most likely. Smith emphasizes that whether AGI behaves more like nuclear weapons (expensive, controllable, concentrated among a few states) or the internet (cheap, proliferating, easy to distribute) determines which future emerges. He identifies the Cold War II scenario as plausible—a bipolar competition between the US and China both possessing AGI—but notes that cost curves, reasoning models, and model distillation could make AGI cheap enough to undermine this outcome. He also addresses a crucial disanalogy: while the Cold War's nuclear standoff held because both sides understood mutual annihilation, AGI's risks are far more abstract, potentially lowering the psychological barriers to development and deployment. On major war, Smith argues it would likely be a deliberate choice rather than accident, since mutual AGI possession would not itself be a casus belli. Among the eight scenarios examined, Smith identifies three as most probable—Cold War II, the Authoritarian Advantage, and the Wild Frontier—and notes that all three present unfavorable outcomes for the US.
Smith argues that AGI/ASI will be as geopolitically transformative as nuclear weapons or electricity, and that its impact on the global order—largely under-explored—can be mapped along two axes (single vs. multiple AGI developers, and whether AGI empowers the US or its adversaries), yielding eight scenarios most of which are bad for the US.
- Geopolitics is the summation of multiple national domains, so if AGI transforms each domain it must reshape the geopolitical order
- Whether AGI behaves like nuclear weapons (controllable, few holders) or the internet (cheap, proliferating) determines which scenario emerges
- Major war from AGI is more likely to be a deliberate decision than an accident, since once both sides possess it, having it is not itself a casus belli
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Mutually assured destruction in the Cold War held not because both sides were content with it but because neither side could technologically escape it, and both continually tried to escape it (first-strike theories, the missile race) until they realized they could not out-race each other.
“no one ... neither side really liked being subject to mutually assured destruction. It was ... a significant disadvantage to be in a mutual”
AGI is a general-purpose technology—'AI plus anything' (health, electronics, policy, military)—which creates strong incentives to deploy it very widely, making it far harder to control like nuclear weapons because it is fundamentally easy-to-proliferate software with large potential profits.
“AGI is a general purpose technology in that it can be like AI plus something else like add any domain AI plus health AI plus you know AI plus electronics”
Destabilization risk concentrates in scenarios where one side getting to AGI first creates a decisive advantage (a fast takeoff), making the rival's progress itself a threat—this is where AGI sparking destabilizing relationships and potential armed conflict comes into focus.
“one side of their getting there is actually a threat to the other one because ... maybe you take off ... and all of a sudden you have a decisive advantage from being getting there first. And that's where AGI sparking destabilizing relationships comes into more focus”
The Cold War II scenario rests on a technical assumption that AGI development remains very expensive, so that large firms and capital-rich states (with talent and educational capability) have an advantage; if AGI development turns out to be cheap—via leveling cost curves, reasoning models that run longer rather than train longer, or distilling cheaper models from a frontier model's outputs—then fast-followers could proliferate the technology and undermine the bipolar scenario.
“building AGI is still ... expensive and therefore large firms and countries have an advantage ... if that's not true if AGI development turns out to be cheap”
Major war between great powers will most likely be a deliberate decision made for relatively extreme reasons rather than an accident; AGI—especially in the cyber domain—could be stability-deteriorating on a case-by-case basis, but barring something like a misread radar (as nearly happened with nuclear war), large-scale war won't simply be accidental.
“major war will probably be a decision rather than an accident”
Whether AGI produces a Cold War II depends on whether it resembles nuclear weapons—expensive, easily controlled, held by only a few states—or the internet—cheap and built to proliferate widely.
“it basically hinges on whether AGI will be more like nuclear weapons as a technology that only a few of the most powerful states have ... or if it's going to be like the internet that is very cheap and everyone has it”
Geopolitics is essentially the summing-up of multiple nationally relevant domains, so if AGI changes all those domains, the geopolitical order could change dramatically—reinforcing current trends, reversing them, or producing entirely new configurations of power.
“geopolitics is like the summing up of multiple you know nationally relevant domains and if all those domains are changing well the geopolitical order is going could change quite a bit”
Reasoning models are an innovation in which a model 'thinks' more—engaging an extended chain of thought and spending more compute at inference time before producing an output—rather than simply producing a single output, which shifts cost from expensive training toward longer runtime.
“reasoning involves a model thinking a lot more, engaging a chain of thought, spending a lot more time thinking and going over its thoughts rather than just making one output”
In a world where AGI then ASI moves quickly and is very impactful, getting there first can confer a decisive advantage, which is why the single-vs-multiple-developer axis was central—though there are also possible worlds where being first is not actually a large advantage.
“in a world where AGI than ASI ... moves quickly and is very impactful, getting there first can be very important”
AGI's geopolitical impact has been largely under-discussed and under-explored relative to its impact on other domains, even though within the next decade it could be extremely consequential and transformational for the global order.
“how it might reshape geopolitics is largely ignored even though its impact would be absolutely transformational”
The current US-China trajectory points toward the Cold War II scenario because they are the only two countries with sufficient resources and technological development, are in increasing competition, and in the US the China-competition argument is already used to resist slowing down AI development.
“China both China and the US are by far the two countries ... with the most or enough resources ... and at the same time they are in an increasing competition”
If you create something as intelligent as or beyond humans, there will necessarily be a very significant impact from its mere existence, regardless of the large uncertainty about the specific technical details, alignment, capability, or speed of takeoff.
“this is more a statement about if you create something that intelligent there's going to be a pretty significant impact from its existence with a ton of uncertainty about what those impacts are”
Once both superpowers possess AGI and are deploying it across their economies and societies, AGI is unlikely to be a spark for war in itself, because you would not go to war merely because the other side has what you also have; major war would more likely arise from some other specific trigger, with AGI making any resulting war more unpleasant.
“once both sides have it, I don't think they necessarily go to war over the fact the other one has it. Maybe something else sparks it and AGI enabled war is quite unpleasant, but it's not in of itself a spark”
Fully automating warfare with robots and drones could change escalation dynamics: states might destroy each other's expensive hardware without human casualties, making de-escalation easy (both sides 'go home'), so an AI arms race would create risks but the trigger for actually employing the weapons would have to be something relatively specific rather than the mere loss of machines.
“you shoot down my robot, you shoot down my robot. We all go home at the end of the day ... no one died. It's very easy to step back in that respect”
The paper deliberately defines AGI at its most capable extent—as intelligent as a human across all economically valuable or intellectual tasks—and ASI as far outperforming humans in every field, while bracketing the robotics/physical-embodiment question by assuming those physical problems are solvable.
“AGI is something that is ... as capable as a human intellectually across all the intellectual tasks humans perform or some equivalent”
The eight scenarios are structured along two key axes derived from expert interviews: (1) whether one actor reaches AGI first or multiple do, and (2) whether AGI empowers the US or empowers its adversaries (with adversary empowerment implying relative US disempowerment)—yielding a 2x4 framework rather than eight ad hoc ideas.
“one was sort of like is there one person who gets to AGI or they're multiple”
Cold War II is a scenario in which both the US and China achieve AGI and are transformed by it but remain in rough parity and bilateral competition; AGI tends to equalize the relationship (eroding some prior US advantages), coordination between the two sides proves hard, and competition remains the dominant frame without AGI obliterating the coherence of geopolitical rivalry.
“cold war II is very much a scenario in which both the US and China achieve AGI are transformed by it but remain in sort of a competitive ... environment of rough parody to each other”
Among the eight scenarios, Cold War II, the Authoritarian Advantage, and the Wild Frontier appear to be the most likely, and all three are bad—or differently bad—for the US, with none being particularly positive.
“the ones that I saw as the most likely were scenarios that you called War II, the authoritarian advantage, and the third was the wild frontier”
A key disanalogy between AGI and Cold War nukes is that with nuclear weapons both sides clearly understood the threat of global annihilation, whereas AGI's risks are far more abstract and unimaginable, which could lower the psychological barrier for both countries to develop and even employ it against each other.
“in the cold war we very clearly knew what nuclear weapons would do ... whereas here ... the risk would be a lot more abstract and unimaginable. So there would be less of a barrier”
The paper deliberately avoids assigning probabilities or timelines to the scenarios because the high uncertainty makes such estimates unreliable, and because the goal is to align readers to the magnitude of potential impact—which is enormous whether AGI arrives in 10 or 50 years—rather than to its timing.
“what we're really trying to align people to is the size of the the size of the potential impact not when it's going to show up”
There are roughly a hundred analogies people reach for when describing AI under uncertainty (nuclear weapons, electricity, fire, the internet), reflecting how people grasp for analogies amid uncertainty.
“there are about a hundred analogies for AI because we people reach for analogies and uncertainty”
As an analyst, it is always better to avoid getting too specific with dated predictions, because while precise estimates can be valuable to policymakers, surfacing the space of possibilities is more robust under high uncertainty.
“as an analyst, it's always better to not get too specific in predictions with with dates”