The Call by the Global Intelligence Desk

For 75 years, NATO's central mission has been deterrence: convincing adversaries that the cost of conflict outweighs any possible gain. Next week, as Alliance leaders gather in Ankara to reinforce that commitment, they face a new question. Can deterrence survive the age of artificial intelligence? Shield AI – a fast-growing defense startup - was founded on the simple proposition that the grea...

China spent decades tightening its vice grip on the industrial ecosystems crucial to an era of electrification, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing. The allies of the West are scrambling to respond, but they face a challenge: building alternatives to China's rare earth dominance requires crossing what is known as the "Valley of Death," the gap between a promising opp...

China mines, refines, and manufactures most of the world's rare earths, and the magnets inside electric vehicles, fighter jets, wind turbines, and AI data centers. That gives it enormous leverage. After a fragile U.S.-China truce, tensions have eased, but the deal expires in November, and Beijing is already squeezing Japan. Our guest, Dr. Gracelin Baskaran - a frequent witness before Congress...

The Federal Open Market Committee, the rate-setting body at our central bank, recently convened with Kevin Warsh as the new Chairman. He takes the helm as U.S. inflation is running between 3-to-4% and Washington is running annual deficits just shy of $2 trillion. Abroad, the Fed has become something akin to the world’s lender of last resort, offering emergency dollar liquidity to foreign central b...

“Since 2000, the number of sanctioned individuals and entities worldwide has increased tenfold. Tariffs and trade barriers have quintupled globally…more than 90 percent of advanced economies now screen foreign investment in sensitive sectors, up from less than one-third a decade ago.” The author of those lines in Foreign Affairs, sanctions expert Daleep Singh, today issues a warning with implicati...

The Rule of Law shapes where companies invest, how they manage risk, whether contracts are enforced, intellectual property is protected, and whether a business can execute long-term business planning. On June 11, our Coalition for the Rule of Law will release the 6th Edition of its Global Rule of Law Dashboard, which scores 149 countries across five conditions that shape commercial confidence. Amo...

In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced his forces captured Russian positions using only ground robots and drones. No infantry. No losses. Kyiv’s success, however, disguises the role of human capital behind the machinery deployed in these attacks, and countless others. The next military advantage may belong not to the country with the flashiest drone, but to the country that be...

The world is aging. For our lifetimes, that has meant low interest rates, as limited demand, high savings and a flexible global workforce created favorable conditions for easy money. Our guest today, Manoj Pradhan, founder of Talking Heads Macro, argues that over time, aging will result in something completely different: higher wages for a shrinking workforce, more retirement benefits, more public...

The rivalry between Washington and Beijing has entered a less predictable phase. Tariffs are no longer simply bargaining tools but structural features of the relationship. Export controls and investment restrictions are accelerating a technological split. China’s industrial overcapacity is forcing governments and companies alike into tough choices over supply chains, market access and national sec...

Washington and Beijing are engaged in a far-reaching rivalry, spanning trade, capital, development finance, and supply chains—ultimately shaping the global economy. For countries and companies alike, the task is increasingly to navigate between these two centers of gravity. As global tensions threaten growth, however, our attention turns to the upcoming U.S.-China summit and whether Presidents Tru...

The U.S. Treasury has announced that it will release what it describes as the “financial equivalent,” of a military campaign on Iran, threatening to cut off any bank, company, or country that continues doing business with the U.S. adversary. Warning letters have already landed on the desks of financial institutions across three continents.   The move is an example of ‘economic warfare,’ in which t...

A new age of cybersecurity threats has arrived. Two weeks ago, the world learned about an unprecedented new AI capability that will change the cyber landscape. Anthropic developed Mythos, a powerful corporate security tool specially designed for coding and enterprise defense. But mindful of possible misuse, the tool was released under code named "Project Glasswing" to a handful of truste...

Talks in Islamabad have collapsed. A U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports is now underway. The Strait of Hormuz, through which passes roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne energy, remains effectively closed, triggering what some have called the largest oil supply disruption in history. Hanging in the balance are the world’s economic growth prospects. Can diplomacy find an answer? Ambassador...

Immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. and its allies froze roughly $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves. The move shocked the world, signaling that assets – dollar assets – can be seized, setting a frightening precedent for anyone worried about falling out of line with Washington. Joining Jay Sapsford in a special in-person episode live from the U.S. Chamber building...

Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, Administrator of the Panama Canal Authority, the man responsible for a waterway offering many shippers an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, joins Jay Sapsford to discuss global trade, energy, and strategic infrastructure. The Panama Canal already carries 5% of the world's maritime trade and 40% of all U.S. container traffic. Now, the short-cut between the Pacific...

The Trump-Xi summit was supposed to take place in the days ahead. It's been delayed -- and sidelined -- by the war in Iran war, which has blocked the Strait of Hormuz, rattled oil markets, raised the risks of inflation and forced a reassessment of a slew of assumptions about the state of play between powers great, medium and small. The under-appreciated player in this global contest is China,...

A few weeks into the War with Iran, it is clear the conflict will hit more than the market for crude. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has significant implications for the price – and availability – of petroleum intensive products affecting agriculture, logistics, manufacturing, defense and a slew of other core industries.     Scott Lincicome, Vice President of General Economics at the Cato In...

Jim Bridenstine, Managing Partner of the Artemis Group, former NASA Administrator, former U.S. Representative (R-OK), and a leading voice in American space policy, joins our guest host for this episode, Neil Bradley, the U.S. Chamber’s Executive Vice President, Chief Policy Officer and Head of Strategic Advocacy, to discuss the new space rce. As early as April, the U.S. will launch Artemis II, its...

Suzanne Maloney, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and one of Washington’s leading experts on Iran joins host Jay Sapsford for a conversation on Iran, escalation risk, and regional business implications  The death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has thrown Iran into its most consequential leadership crisis since 1979, with succession questions now emerging under...

Four years in, another round of U.S.-brokered talks have reached no breakthrough. Russia continues to make incremental gains in the east, Ukraine’s energy grid can meet only 60 percent of demand, and Trump is pressing Kyiv for concessions ahead of a June deadline. Ukraine, however, has emerged as a leading innovator in drone and digital warfare, while Russia is increasingly reliant on what Kendall...

Mark Esper, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and now a Managing Partner at Red Cell Partners, joins us to examine the implications, risks and opportunities amid the expanding defense spending commitments across the world. The war in Ukraine has reshuffled the deck. The conflict underscores a shift in battlefield logistics, driving an unprecedented pairing of technology with kinetic capabilities ac...

The U.S. incursion into Venezuela, and the deposition of President Maduro while leaving his government in place, sets a new model for a U.S. grappling with hostile governments. It leaves in place an existing governance structure and avoids the chaos of Iraq after the U.S. invasion.    Now, many wonder whether Venezuela is a template, a model that might be applied to other hotspots such as Iran, an...

The dollar has been volatile and weak, falling by double digits over the past year. Equities are strong, rising to valuations that some see as unsustainable. Prices of key metals and materials – gold, copper - are gyrating amid shortages, while yawning deficits are driving sovereign debt, both in the U.S. and abroad, to levels unseen since World War Two. All of which begs us to ask: Are global mar...

What will be the U.S. role in the next global paradigm?  We invited Robert O’Brien, former National Security Advisor during Trump’s first term, to help us define U.S. success amid a landscape that is shifting, often because of changes emanating from Washington. We delve into the National Security Strategy, the administration’s vision for alliances and trade, and how it sees the global interests of...

For years, policy planners have operated on a green assumption: oil demand would eventually de-couple from economic growth. Electric vehicles, cheaper batteries, solar, wind -- all would combine to reduce demand and put us on a long glide path away from crude. Some even put a date on it: 2030 as the moment oil demand would “peak.” So, is the ‘Peak Oil’ thesis still a thing?  Robert McNally, Presid...