The Decision Advantage

In this episode of the Essential Geopolitics podcast series from RANE, the conversation turns to Iran's cyber warfare strategies. Emily Donahue asks Senior Global Analyst, Matthew Bey how Iran's cyber attack strategy has evolved in recent years. In recent months, Iran targeted Israel’s water and sewage facilities. Israel retaliated with its own attack on a major Iranian port. What does the move to...

In this episode of the Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks to Asia Pacific Analyst, Evan Rees. It has been a busy few weeks on the Korean Peninsula. After weeks North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un keeping a low profile, there's been several tactical and strategic maneuverings from that regime toward South Korea, and by extension, the US. Evan Rees discusses what is g...

In this Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks with Senior European analyst, Adriano Bosoni. Most of the data coming from Europe suggests that the continent’s economic outlook is quite negative. Bosoni answers questions including: What are the continent’s main challenges in the coming months? Is Europe’s reaction to the COVID-19 crisis different from what the governments and...

In this episode of the Pen and Sword podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks to William Craig Reed about an event that happened twenty years ago, after the Cold War had ended, and a few months before the US and Russia sent the first crew to the international space station. The event was the explosion that sent the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk to the bottom of the Barents Sea. William Craig Reed...

In this episode of the Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks with Sim Tack, Senior Global analyst. The topic: The US has announced talks with Russia on the New START nuclear arms control treaty in Vienna on June 22. Russia had long been asking for talks to extend the treaty but the US had refused to do so --- unless a new treaty included China. What's changed? Sim Tack writ...

In this Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks with RANE's Director, Global Energy and Middle East, Greg Priddy about the Saudi currency peg. As Priddy writes in his RANE Worldview article on the topic, "The current collapse in crude prices is again fueling questions over the durability of the hard U.S. dollar currency peg used by Saudi Arabia. Despite the economic shock of...

In this episode of the Pen and Sword podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks with author and journalist Sierra Crane Murdoch about her book Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country. It's a wide ranging conversation about a Native American woman's search for justice. It is the story of Lissa Yellow Bird, who took on her tribe, the courts and her family to uncover...

In this episode of the Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speak with global security analyst, Ben West about the impact of COVID-19 and the economic crisis on social protests about racial injustice. Protests were not prompted solely by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Factors intensifying the unrest in 2020 include years of building frustration over police violence aga...

In this Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Global Security Analyst, Thomas Abi-Hanna, discusses what's has happened in the 20 years since Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon. Points include: Why was Israel in Lebanon in the first place? What factors caused Israel to withdraw after 18 years? The geopolitical implications of the invasion and withdrawal for Israel, Lebanon and elsewhere? If y...

Protests have started again in Hong Kong, after China made a big move. In this Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Asia Pacific Analyst Evan Rees speaks with Emily Donahue about why protests in Hong Kong have reignited and why the will not burn out any time soon. A hint: It's all about Taiwan. Subscribers to RANE Worldview can read decades of analysis of the Hong Kong / China relationship and...

In this Pen and Sword podcast from Stratfor, a RANE company, Emily Donahue interviews Anthony DePalma, Author of "The Cubans: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times." With rare access, DePalma discovers and shares stories from people whose lives have been defined by a U.S. embargo and a failed revolution. For 60 years, Cuba's presence on the world stage has been limited to the role of a pawn in the...

In this Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks with Greg Priddy. Priddy, who directs coverage of global energy and the Middle East, says the road ahead for oil producers looks long and hard. From Saudi Arabia to Russia and the U.S., the oil markets are looking at a sustained downturn, not unlike that of the mid-1980's. Subscribers to RANE Worldview can read all of our covera...

In this episode of RANE's Essential Geopolitics podcast, host Emily Donahue speaks with Ben West about his work surveying how the global return to work is going. West says that If the shut down process in March and April seemed chaotic and disorganized, the reopening process will be even more jumbled.  That's because not only is there no global plan in place but inside individual countries - inclu...

In this episode of the Pen and Sword podcast from RANE, Rodger Baker speaks with the inaugural president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations David Firestein. A decorated career U.S. diplomat from 1992–2010, Mr. Firestein specialized primarily in China and U.S.-China relations. Topics covered range from the COVID19 to latest trade tariffs to the U.S. presidential el...

The geopolitics of energy and how access to energy and uses of energy play into a changing world order are the topics of Dr. Michael Webber's new book, "Power Trip: The Story of Energy" from Basic Books. Webber argues the stakes are high, given that Earth is in the midst of a major climate transition even as developing countries seek better access to reliable sources of energy. Will the future be...

In this episode of Essential Geopolitics from RANE, Emily Hawthorne discusses how the six Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman are approaching the battle against COVID-19. As with the rest of the world, Hawthorne advises, the virus will impact economies, industries and societies. The real question is how to prevent any unrest arising fr...

In this episode of the RANE Insight podcast series, host Emily Donahue speaks to Bill Edwards Associate Principle of Protective Design & Security Services Thornton Tomasetti. s the third quarter approaches, a large portion of the workforce may be back. But what would that actually mean?. Edwards says there must be changes to the workplace to ensure workers, clients and visitors will be safe as COV...

In this episode of the RANE Insight podcast series, host Emily Donahue speaks to Bill Edwards Associate Principle of Protective Design & Security Services Thornton Tomasetti. As the third quarter approaches, a large portion of the workforce may be back. But what would that actually mean? Edwards says there must be changes to the workplace to ensure workers, clients and visitors will be safe as COV...

In this Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, the conversation is about impending resumption of work on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. You may recall it was interrupted last year when US sanctions forced the company providing pipe laying vessels to bow out of the project. RANE analyst, Sim Tack says it looks like the U.S. won't be able to stop it. Subscribe to RANE World...

In this episode of the RANE Essential Geopolitics podcast, host Fred Burton speaks to senior global analyst, Matthew Bey. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, a shellshocked global economy and tangled supply chains, it might seem U.S. - China Trade tensions would be on the decrease. Not so. New  U.S. export controls against China aimed at limit Beijing's overall access to U.S. technology will come at the cos...

In this episode of the RANE Essential Geopolitics podcast, host Fred Burton speaks to senior global analyst, Matthew Bey. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, a shellshocked global economy and tangled supply chains, it might seem U.S. - China Trade tensions would be on the decrease. Not so. New  U.S. export controls against China aimed at limit Beijing's overall access to U.S. technology will come at the cos...

In 2007, then-Secretary General of Liaoning Province, Li Keqiang (kuh-chung), told the United States Ambassador that China's gross domestic product (GDP) numbers were "man-made" and that they were for "reference only." Now, as China's second-in-command after General Secretary Xi Jinping, and as Xi's handpicked coordinator of China's COVID-19 response, Li is in charge of informing the world of Chin...

In this episode of the RANE Insight Series, some common sense advice on working safely while working remotely. Many companies have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by reducing or banning corporate travel and by asking some or all of their employees to work from home. While having employees work from home will help reduce transmission of the virus in the workplace, it also brings with it some add...

In this podcast, RANE Founder David Lawrence sits down with Dr. Isaac Weisfuse to discuss his perspectives on the current pandemic and the lessons learned from his experiences working in New York on its 2006 pandemic preparedness plan. This happened as an aggressive strain of the flu was making its way across Asia and the Middle East. Dr. Weisfuse, is a medical epidemiologist with over 25 years of...

In this episode of the RANE Essential Geopolitics Podcast, Fred Burton speaks with RANE's Senior European Analyst, Adriano Bosoni. Bosoni says that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely delayed free trade agreement negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom. This, combined with logistical and political obstacles, has made it unlikely that the two sides will reach a comprehensive t...