Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – Thinking About Deterrence (February 12, 2024)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA, and Daniel Ortwerth, CFA | PDF In his book Leviathan, published in 1651, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbs argued that human society in the state of nature would be marked by conflict and mistrust, as each person would be free to attack his or her neighbor to acquire needed resources. According… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – Introducing the U.S. Space Force (January 29, 2024)
by Daniel Ortwerth, CFA | PDF On December 20, 2019, something extremely rare happened in the United States Armed Forces: An entirely new branch of service was born. For context, the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were born by acts of the Continental Congress in 1775. The Coast Guard came into being by act of… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – What If Russia Wins in Ukraine? (January 16, 2024)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF For the last two years, we’ve written a great deal about the evolving China-led geopolitical bloc and Beijing’s allies within it, including top partner Russia and other like-minded nations such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. We believe the geopolitical challenge to the United States and its allies… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – The 2024 Geopolitical Outlook (December 11, 2023)
by Bill O’Grady & Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF (This is the final BWGR of 2023; the next report will be published on January 15, 2024.) As is our custom, in mid-December, we publish our geopolitical outlook for the upcoming year. This report is less a series of predictions as it is a list of… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – The Archetypes of American Foreign Policy: A Reprise (November 13, 2023)
Bill O’Grady | PDF A critical issue in 2024 will be the U.S. presidential elections. America is going through a particularly partisan period where passing legislation is difficult and policy shifts between administrations are widening. Foreign policy isn’t exempt from these changes. In preparation for next year’s election, we wanted to update one of our… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – Investment Implications of the Israel-Hamas Conflict (October 30, 2023)
Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF For investors, geopolitical risks today center on the Great Power competition involving countries like the United States, China, and Russia. Nevertheless, terrorism by non-state actors can still be destabilizing, as shown by the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip. The… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – What Shall We Call the New Era? (October 16, 2023)
Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF Whether you’re a policymaker, an investor, a small business owner, or simply a student of world history and international affairs, it’s useful to have meaningful labels for various epochs. Ideally, such a label is widely accepted and captures some essential aspect of the era you’re thinking about, making it easier… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – The Oil Weapon Returns (October 2, 2023)
Bill O’Grady | PDF Oil is arguably the most critical commodity. Although food is perhaps more essential to life, most food production today is dependent on fossil fuels. Daniel Yergin’s epic history of oil, The Prize,[1] examines who had oil, who needed oil, and what they did to secure it. Due to oil’s importance, there… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – Goodbye Prigozhin (September 18, 2023)
Bill O’Grady | PDF On August 23, an executive jet carrying seven passengers and three crew members crashed near Moscow on a flight to St. Petersburg. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company, was reportedly one of the passengers. Prigozhin was having an eventful summer. He had led an… Read More »