The US presidential race is over, except a series of largely frivolous lawsuits by Donald Trump (the worst sport in American political history) means that it is not quite. The Senate race is over, except that two run-offs for seats in Georgia on January 5 means that overall control of the chamber is still (just […]
As George Orwell so sagely put it, “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle”. Sadly, this is a battle most political risk analysts are in danger of losing. For, in obsessing about the unicorn of a united, pro-American, anti-Chinese EU, foreign policy thinkers risk wholly neglecting an actually functioning […]
It is mid-September, under two months until the presidential election, and it’s finally time to start taking the polls seriously. And, at present, despite some slippage, you would rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump. The RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling has Biden up 51% to 43% nationally, and (more importantly) 49% to 45% in the […]
Introduction: The snake charm of rhetoric In political risk analysis, it is important to always keep in mind the fact that words matter less than the concrete realities of power. During the days of George W. Bush’s endless malapropisms, I had to gently remind my European colleagues that foreign policy was not run as a […]
“Geography is the most fundamental factor in foreign policy because it is the most permanent.” -Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of the Peace, 1944 A forgotten genius One of the great glories of my job as a political risk analyst is to bring great intellectual treasures that have lain submerged for far too long to […]
“The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.” –The Dalai Lama From the Dalai Lama to my grandmother The Dalai Lama is right. At […]
As John Stuart Mill put it: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.” We know in detail that the Chinese Communist Party wilfully withheld evidence about the scope, extent, and ease of human to human transmission of the coronavirus. If the Chinese government were a person, it would […]
In terms of my political risk career, betting against Europe rising to superpower status—as many left-leaning commentators blithely predicated in the early 2000s—has, to put it mildly, not hurt me any. This is not due to some hateful, xenophobic prejudice against Europe; I have lived in the place for two-thirds of my adult life, and […]
“What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest — health, integrity, purity (if you like) — is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.” – Albert Camus, The Plague Introduction: The miracle Of course Camus […]
Banishing Mao Following the madness of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, China’s new Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping—the most important person of the late 20th century who most Westerners know absolutely nothing about—heroically managed, against the odds, to stabilise Communist Party rule, pulling the country back from the precipice of anarchy. Realising things simply could not go on […]
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” –Archilochus, Greek poet, 7th century BC Introduction: The present importance of hedgehogs The above quotation, popularised by Isaiah Berlin in his famous essay on Tolstoy, is a great common-sense way to divide both people and ways of thinking. Most of us (including political […]
Introduction: Too much information A while back, I was talking with an archaeologist friend about our very different professions. For an excavator of the past a basic intellectual skill is extrapolation, of guessing in an educated way as to how past civilisations lived based on the tiniest shards of evidence. Conversely, for a political risk […]
All through the excruciating, endless Brexit debate, I have been struck by the myopia of the analysis. Like the biggest bore at the party, the Brexit commentariat focus on the interminable minutia of the argument: the Irish backstop, the size of the divorce bill, John Bercow’s windy orations. All of this entirely misses the Brexit […]
With the support of the Atlas Network, CapX is publishing a new series of essays on the theme of Illiberalism in Europe, looking at the different threats to liberal economies and societies across the continent, from populism to protectionism and corruption. “They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.” – Talleyrand on the Bourbon elite Introduction: The end […]
The losing gambler syndrome The losing gambler syndrome, better known in economic circles as the sunk costs fallacy, is a fact of human nature that casino magnates well understand. When someone losses big at the tables, invariably they have an overwhelming urge to invest ever more resources to make good on their catastrophic losses. Dad […]
The basic problem with today’s world isn’t the fires, it’s the lack of firemen. The problems faced by the West —dealing with a rising China, containing a dangerous but declining Russia, thwarting Iran’s over-grand Mideast ambitions, safeguarding global prosperity—are not historically that out of the ordinary. Instead, the increase in today’s political risk is the […]
He remains not an easy man to love, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. In his own highly class-conscious Victorian era, even Salisbury’s contemporary admirers found him haughty, imperious, and arrogant beyond belief. Perpetually aware of his distinguished lineage—he was a direct descendent of Lord Burghley, the able chief minister of Elizabeth I–Salisbury […]
