In July 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan conducted one of the more extraordinary acts of political self-preservation in modern history. With tanks on the streets of Ankara and fighter jets breaking the sound barrier over his capital, he held up a phone to a FaceTime camera and addressed the Turkish
I. Hungary: The System Holds Hungary goes to the polls on 12 April in what is being described, with customary European self-importance, as a democratic turning point. It is nothing of the sort. It is a contest between a system that intends to survive and an opposition that has,
The regular quarterly outlook was not published at the start of the year. The pace and density of developments in Q1 made a standard forward-looking brief inadequate. This Special Edition addresses the structural shifts already underway across five key theatres. I. Latin America: The Dollar Cage The rightward shift
Ukraine–Russia: The Winter Signature The Call: The war's active phase ends by February 2026. Major bombing of cities and infrastructure concludes, replaced by sporadic violence along a frozen line of control. Russia secures all of Donbas. Probability: 75%. The Rationale: The war persists not because Ukraine can
Venezuela: The Strike Window Bottom Line Up Top Targeted assassination of Nicolás Maduro (Hezbollah/Hamas-style strike): 25% probability in the November-January window. Limited kinetic incident in the Guyana-Essequibo region: 35% probability. Full-scale invasion remains unlikely at 15%. The Stakes Venezuela claims the Essequibo region—two-thirds
The Flashpoint Javier Milei secures a surprise second mandate, defying polls that predicted a Peronist comeback. With inflation at 180% and net reserves deep in negative territory, voters chose radical rupture over managed decay. The victory, amplified by Trump’s overt endorsement, transforms Argentina into a live-fire experiment in