Research & News
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The Ideology of IS (April 27, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady The March edition of Atlantic Magazine published an article about Islamic State (IS) that examined its theology and ideology. This article along with a paper from the Brookings Institute on the ideology of IS form the basis of our report this week. In this report, we will examine the intellectual foundations of IS, showing… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The AIIB (April 20, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady China has founded an infrastructure bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), to compete with the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The U.S. has opposed the creation of this bank but, despite administration opposition, 57 nations have joined it, including 14 members of the G-20. A chorus of… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The Ideology of IS (April 13, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady On April 2, the P5+1[1] negotiating team and Iran announced a framework to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. The framework is a “roadmap” to establishing a final agreement in June. Negotiations on this issue have been underway for years; this framework could be a major step toward delaying Iran’s entry into the… Read More »
Keller Quarterly (April 2015)
Letter to Investors We lead off this quarterly letter where we ended our previous one, with the same quotation by Ben Graham, the father of securities analysis. He wrote in his wonderful book, The Intelligent Investor, “Indeed, the investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.” What a… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The New World Order: Part IV (April 6, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady In this final installment of our four-part series on The New World Order, we will examine how, in light of winning the Cold War, policymakers have been unable to settle on a set of key priorities and offer what we see as “glimpses” of a new policy emerging. In a sense, the… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The New World Order: Part III (March 30, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady In this third installment of our four-part series on The New World Order, we will examine how policymakers coped with the new superpower role. First, we will examine how policymakers attempted to resolve the tensions created between the desires of its domestic constituencies and foreign superpower obligations. There are going to be… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The New World Order: Part II (March 23, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady This report is the second installment of our four-part series on The New World Order. This week we will focus on two themes. First, we will examine the global public goods the superpower provides, and second, we will analyze how the U.S. has provided those goods. The global hegemon will often face… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The New World Order: Part I (March 16, 2015)
by Bill O’Grady As our regular readers know, we have been focusing for several years on the issue of the uncertainty surrounding America’s superpower role. It has been our position that the U.S. has lacked a coherent foreign policy since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s. Although we cannot definitely say that a… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Good luck, Jonathan. Good luck, Nigeria. (March 9, 2015)
by Kaisa Stucke, CFA Nigeria will hold its presidential election on March 28, following a six-week postponement due to heavy fighting in the northern region of the country. The election promises to be a close one between the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, and a former military leader, Muhammadu Buhari. Jonathan represents the Christian, southern region of Nigeria,… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Yemen: A Land with a Rich Past and a Poor Present (March 2, 2015)
by Kaisa Stucke, CFA The country of Yemen is slowly dissolving in the midst of an ongoing civil war. The Houthi movement has aggressively secured territories in the north, including taking over the capital city of Sana, while al-Qaeda has widened its activities in the south. At the end of January, Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur… Read More »