Robert Amsterdam Speech at Spear’s 500 Live

Robert Amsterdam delivered the keynote speech at the Spear’s 500 Live conference event held at the Savoy in London on May 23, 2024.

The following excerpt of the write-up was first published by Spears. Scroll down for a video of the speech.

In a keynote speech entitled Geopolitics in 2024: What the West gets wrong, delivered the day after prime minister Rishi Sunak announced a UK general election on 4 July, Amsterdam said the West has ‘lost its mojo, its magic’ and urged it to open its eyes to its waning influence and faltering capitalism for the sake of its next generation’s future.

Western governments were ‘fragmenting the world’s economy through sanctions’, and relying on ‘fear and loathing’ in a bid to maintain its position, Amsterdam argued, however the current focus on military solutions and economic sanctions is unsustainable and counterproductive.

‘All we can do is sanction. All we can do is punish. All we can do is demonstrate how unworthy our soft power really is,’ he said. ‘We need to begin the role of inspiring not only our young people but ourselves in our corporations to think with a far longer horizon to the future.’