Global Risk Profile by Tamuz Itai

Machine-speed warfare has arrived — and most military and political systems are still built for human-speed interpretation. In this episode, we explore how drone saturation, cheap precision strike, AI-assisted targeting, and electronic warfare are creating the conditions for escalation not through intent, but through misinterpretation. From Gaza and southern Lebanon to Ukraine and the U.S.–Mexico...

For decades, Western business elites argued that China’s economic miracle was not mysterious. They believed Beijing followed the Singapore model under Lee Kuan Yew: disciplined leadership, high savings, competent technocrats, and long-term planning. But as China enters its first true stress test in 40 years—falling foreign investment, real-estate unraveling, exploding debt, demographic decline, an...

Kazakhstan is Central Asia's quiet chokepoint of geopolitics — the place where Russia’s insecurity meets China’s ambitions, and where the United States is suddenly trying to build new supply chains and strategic corridors. This episode examines Kazakhstan from the inside out: its history of famine and nuclear trauma, its cautious balancing between Moscow and Beijing, its growing Western-educated e...

This week on Global Risk Profile, we explore how the Gaza war began with Hamas’s overreach, may be ending with Israel’s. A strike on Hamas leaders in Doha may have crossed a line, turning allies into critics and pushing Washington to force a deal. Then we take a look at more examples from recent history. From Macron’s failed snap election, to Brexit, to South Korea’s martial law miscalculation, to...

When Donald Trump stood at the United Nations General Assembly podium and asked, “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” the world heard provocation. But the question itself deserves a serious answer. In this episode, Part 2 of a series, we explore the UN's actual role in today’s fractured multipolar world. We ask: * Which of its functions are indispensable — and which are symbolic, hollow, o...

When Donald Trump stood at the United Nations General Assembly podium and asked, “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” the world heard provocation. But the question itself deserves a serious answer. In this episode, Part 1 of a 2-part series, we trace the UN’s story — from the ashes of two world wars to the Cold War stalemate, the unipolar “lost decade,” the War on Terror, and today’s fract...

When the West is most distracted, does China seize the moment? From the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis to Nine Eleven, from the Iraq War to pandemics, from Crimea to the Gaza war — again and again, Beijing’s biggest foreign policy and domestic policy moves seem to land when Western attention is elsewhere. In this episode of Global Risk Profile, we: * Lay out the facts — a 30-year timeline of Western...

The Pacific may look like a map of tiny islands, but in strategy, the ocean is the story. These island nations command vast exclusive economic zones and sit on critical stepping stones across half the globe. For decades, U.S. dominance rested on Hawaiʻi, Guam, and Okinawa. Now Beijing is quietly trying to build anchors of its own — through loans, ports, security pacts, and soft phrases like “win-w...

The story of terror groups from the Middle East is often explained as religious — but the real story is far deeper. In this episode of Global Risk Profile, we uncover how the Soviet Union and its allies helped design the playbook of modern terror groups: training, propaganda, disinformation, and the very tactics later adopted by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. We trace how this playbook — built o...

India is a rising power with global ambitions—but where does it stand in today’s fractured world? In this episode, we look at India’s strategy of "strategic autonomy"—its effort to balance ties with the United States, Russia, China, Israel, Iran and others - all at once. From Washington’s new tariffs and threats of sanctions, to Moscow’s oil lifeline, Beijing’s mega-dam on the Brahmaputra, and the...

A hot mic at Beijing’s military parade caught Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in a startling exchange about using transplants to extend human life — even joking about living to 150. But what sounded like a dystopian movie script has a darker echo in real-world investigations and tribunals. For nearly two decades, independent reports, congressional testimonies, and European resolutions have raised ur...

At first glance, the Gaza war looks like a military campaign between Israel and Hamas. But beneath the headlines lies another story: how Israeli domestic politics — coalition pressures, judicial reform battles, ultra-Orthodox exemptions, and leadership struggles — have shaped the war’s trajectory from the beginning. In this episode of Global Risk Profile, we explore: * Why Israel went through five...

From Blagoveshchensk’s new Chinese road signs to the Power of Siberia pipelines, the story of Eastern Russia is about more than geography. It’s about resources, strategy, and the uneasy partnership between Moscow and Beijing. In this episode of Global Risk Profile, we dig into: • Why Eastern Russia is one of the richest prize zones on the planet — oil, gas, palladium, timber, fisheries. • How the...