The Era of the Superlosers

The Era of the Superlosers

From Thinking about... by Timothy Snyder

May 21, 2026 · 14 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the concept of 'superlosers' in the context of the United States and Russia losing wars that benefit China.

The United States and Russia are both losing wars. And they are losing wars that make no sense, in an uncanny folie à deux, to the benefit of China. This video, which I filmed after dozens of meetings and public discussions in Europe this month, supplies an explanatory concept: the superloser . A superloser is a leader of a great power, or (onetime) superpower, whose disastrous choices lead to a crash. He possesses a combination of skills that allow for a rise to personal power and the collapse of state power. In the video I spell out the five C’s of the superloser phenomenon: A conflict that is being lost, in the strong sense of a war: Iran for Trump, Ukraine for Putin. A concept of power that is betrayed, by the war and generally, such that it is not only defeat that is at hand, but the continuous undermining of structures. A corruption that makes national interests irrelevant; a shared example, one of many, is giving tax money to billionaires. Cooperation with the other superloser, which somehow makes matters worse both for the other superloser and for the world; Trump’s nonsensical war, for example, funds Putin’s criminal war of aggression by raising oil prices, but Putin is…

People in this episode

Host: Timothy Snyder

Topics covered

  • superlosers
  • war
  • power dynamics
  • corruption
  • international relations

Keywords

  • superloser
  • United States
  • Russia
  • China
  • war
  • corruption
  • Trump
  • Putin
  • international relations

Mentioned in this episode

Places: United States, Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine

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