Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, warned this week that the conflict between Israel and Hamas marked "another step toward international war." "In my opinion, the probability of transitioning from a manageable conflict to a more uncontrollable world hot war involving major powers has increased from 35% to about 50% in the past two years," the billionaire wrote on social media on Thursday.
Dalio enjoys studying history and has written several books about the major problems facing today's global economy and how they have been solved (or made worse) historically, including "Principles for Coping with a Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail" and "Principles for Coping with Big Debt Crises."
Now, Dalio says he believes both the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be "brutal" until the end. Worse, he fears the conflict will not end "unless one side clearly defeats the other" or the world's superpowers push for peace.
"These types of brutal conflicts are more likely to spread than to subside," he said. "I hope that new awareness of developments will encourage restraint at this critical moment of near collapse."
Dalio has repeatedly warned that tensions are brewing between the world's superpowers and within certain countries, arguing that geopolitical instability will become the norm this decade.