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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Thailand is a “geopolitical swing state". I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from of all places Goldman Sachs, goldmansachs.com, the article is titled: The rise of geopolitical swing states. Quoting some excerpts here and I urge those who are watching this, really interesting article, a lot of information in there. Quoting directly: "The great powers are not the only players that matter in today's great power competition. Geopolitical swing states are taking on new prominence." Now first of all the notion of a "swing state", this is very much kind of an American, like almost a slang term, I wouldn't say slang but American euphemism. A swing state especially when you are talking about elections in the United States, because of the way our electoral college works you can end up with these situations where 1, 2 maybe a few states are very key to winning an election especially for President in the United States as a result of the fact that these states, for example Florida in the 2000 election was a swing state. It was considered a “swing state” insofar as it ended up really deciding the election even though it was one state. So you can see this phenomenon, I believe in the 2004 election, Ohio for example was sort of the swing state. The person that garnered that took everything. The election in 2016, the so-called inside straight as they called it back in America, President Trump was able to secure states like Wisconsin, I can't remember if Michigan was one of them thereby gaining the Presidency. So it is this notion that sort of a single state can have sort of an outsized effect on the overall outcome of things, that's the way I look at it. 

So quoting here again, I'm going to start over: "The great powers are not the only players that matter in today's great power competition. Geopolitical swing states are taking on new prominence, and their importance will lead to new forms of international cooperation."  Quoting further: "But the most interesting new frontier of international cooperation is technology, where capability alliances will become more important. There's a critical gap in democratic cooperation on technology issues on everything from standard-setting to investment, in part because of protectionism and also because the US has a difficult time determining which countries to include and exclude." Quoting further: "The rise of geopolitical swing states may balance the great powers and help stabilize the global order. Their interest-based decision-making could be a source of consistency in uncertain times. Or their new found prominence may increase global instability by putting more actors and variables in play. But even if today's world is not yet multi-polar, a rising group of countries recognize that they can determine the course of world events." Quoting further: "The great powers should take note. So should multinational businesses, which increasingly find themselves in the geopolitical crosshairs. These companies are struggling to parse macro trends, searching for investment sources and destinations to deliver the most effective returns on their capital, and, looking for ways to build more resilience into their supply chains. 

So when reading this, I immediately was thinking about Americans doing business here in Thailand via the US-Thai Treaty of Amity. For those who are unaware, the terms of the US-Thai Treaty of Amity grant Americans what is called national treatment in Thailand to do business in much the same way that Thai businesses can do business. This is very different than the way that which many other foreign companies, foreign nationals let's do business in Thailand pursuant to the provisions of the Foreign Business Act. And while Thailand is not specifically mentioned in this article, I think to my mind Thailand has always in my opinion been a "geopolitical swing state". It kind of operated that way when you go back to the old Colonial period; it kind of operated that way when you go back to the Cold War period in many ways albeit Thailand was very much at the forefront and acted as a bulwark against communism which was a great thing for Western civilization of that there is no doubt. But even now today where we are starting to see the rise of Asia geo-economically, Thailand in my opinion is going to play a critical role moving forward in sort of the geography of business if you will. Yeah obviously for the geographic position but also for Thailand's unique position of being able to balance various interests and various concerns when dealing with the rest of the world. Thailand is very, very unique in that way and I find Thailand to be very much a case study in a mid-size if you will country dealing with the rest of the world and I think it is an example for many other jurisdictions around the world, especially in the global South on how to deal with this ever changing geo-economic situation that we find ourselves in.