In this episode, Ross Hill and Dr Treston Wheat examine the US operation against Nicolás Maduro and what it reveals about contemporary American strategy in the Western Hemisphere. The discussion focuses on how long-running strategic signals, including shifts in US national security doctrine, hemispheric security priorities, and the designation of narco-terrorism, shaped an intervention that stopped short of full regime change.
The episode explores why this operation aligns with the Trump administration’s preference for rapid, decisive action without occupation, drawing comparisons to historical precedents such as Panama in 1989. Ross and Treston assess the geopolitical drivers behind the move, particularly the desire to constrain Chinese and Russian influence and deny access to critical resources, rather than humanitarian or democratisation objectives.
Finally, the conversation turns to implications for business and markets. The episode unpacks the realities of Venezuelan oil production, infrastructure decay, and long-term investment risk, alongside the likelihood of continued US pressure through counter-narcotics operations. The key takeaway is strategic rather than tactical: corporate risk increasingly sits downstream of geopolitical bargaining, not domestic reform.
Music for this episode is by @barleysentient on Suno
In this special episode of Boardroom Statecraft, Ross Hill is joined by Insight Forward intern Sofia Bohan to discuss her research into modern disinformation and why it has become a core feature of geopolitical competition. The conversation explores how misinformation and disinformation campaigns evolve from online narratives into real-world political and security consequences, drawing on examples such as QAnon in the United States and state-led influence operations by Russia and Iran. Sofia outlines how social media dynamics, psychological vulnerability, and perceived credibility allow false narratives to spread rapidly, particularly during periods of uncertainty and crisis.
The episode then turns to the implications for corporations. Ross and Sofia examine how disinformation increasingly targets companies and executives, shaping consumer behaviour, investor sentiment, and physical security risk regardless of factual accuracy. They discuss how state and non-state actors exploit polarisation, influencer networks, and emerging technologies such as generative AI and deepfakes to erode trust and control narratives. The discussion concludes with why monitoring information environments is now a strategic necessity for businesses operating in a fragmented and contested geopolitical landscape.
You can read the full report at https://www.insightforward.co.uk/reports/
In this episode of Boardroom Statecraft, we examine how the traditional boundaries between peace and conflict have collapsed, pulling corporations into the centre of geopolitical competition. What was once the domain of states and intelligence services is now a contested battlespace where private companies are targeted, leveraged, or coerced through cyberattacks, sabotage, supply chain disruption, and information operations.
In this bonus edition of Boardroom Statecraft, Ross Hill is joined by Insight Forward intern Trevor Johnson to unpack why cobalt has become one of the most strategically contested minerals in the world and what that means for businesses. Drawing on Trevor’s research project, they explore how China’s dominance over cobalt mining and refining, centred on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is shaping geopolitical competition, supply chains, and corporate risk exposure from EVs and batteries to aerospace and defence.
Trevor’s full report on cobalt, the DRC and corporate risk is available via the Insight Forward website Latest Geopolitical Reports & Corporate Insights
In this episode of Boardroom Statecraft, Ross Hill and Dr Treston Wheat continue their series on the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Businesses in 2026 with Risk #9. They examine how the rapid rise and proliferation of autonomous weapons systems – especially cheap, adaptable drones – is reshaping modern warfare and opening up a new class of risks for companies, cities and critical infrastructure. Drawing on case studies from Ukraine, Russia, Armenia–Azerbaijan and India–Pakistan, they explore how battlefield innovation around “human machine platoons” and low-cost drones will eventually diffuse into the hands of non state actors, organised crime groups and terrorists. The conversation then turns to the constraints on corporate counter-drone activity, the lagging legal environment, and how emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles and AI-enabled cyber attacks could change both the threat landscape and the expectations placed on corporate security teams.Music for this episode is by @barelysentient on Suno.
In this episode of Boardroom Statecraft, we unpack Risk 8 in our Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Businesses in 2026: Revolutionary Violence in the new Gilded Age. We revisit our earlier report on this theme and explain how inequality, collapsing trust in institutions and rapid technological change are combining to lower social and moral barriers to violence, both online and offline.
We compare today’s environment with the original Gilded Age, explore how political and ideological grievances are converging on corporations and their leaders, and look at what this means for protests, online harassment campaigns and targeted attacks.
We close by focusing on the practical implications for corporate security and executive protection teams, and why they now need to integrate political and geopolitical analysis into their protective intelligence.
In this episode of Boardroom Statecraft, we explore Risk #7 in our Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Businesses in 2026: modern radical politics on the left and right. We look at how politics is being pulled toward the harder edges across the US, UK, Europe, Latin America, India, Israel and beyond, and how the Overton window has shifted so that once-fringe ideas now shape mainstream debate. We discuss the long-term failures of centrist, post-Cold War policymaking, the loss of trust in traditional parties, and how that vacuum has been filled by populist movements that offer emotive, simple answers but often produce volatile or incoherent policy.
We then connect this directly to corporate risk. We talk about policy whiplash (for example on trade, tax, immigration, and DEI), the way radical parties can influence policy even when they are not in power, and how ideological alignment is starting to affect alliances and market access. Finally, we flag how rising radical ideology increases the likelihood of political violence and societal instability – a theme we will pick up in the next episode on revolutionary violence.
Music is by @barelysentient on Suno.
In this episode, we explore one of the most overlooked yet consequential risks shaping the business landscape in 2026 — the erosion of social bonds and collapse of trust. What begins as a sociological trend now extends deep into corporate risk, driving political polarisation, workplace conflict, and consumer fragmentation.
We discuss how decades of atomisation, the decline of community life, and the rise of identity politics have transformed social cohesion into a strategic variable for business. From Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone to Edmund Burke’s “little platoons”, we trace how the weakening of shared institutions has reshaped both civic and corporate environments — and why brands and executives now find themselves pulled into cultural disputes that were once confined to the political sphere.
In this episode, Ross and Treston unpack the rising concern over bias in large language models and its implications for business, politics, and information ecosystems. As AI systems become embedded in corporate workflows and decision-making, the hosts explore how cultural, political, and commercial bias seeps into data and rules, shaping what people see, believe, and decide.
They discuss AI as a new arena of soft power competition between China and the West, how LLMs can reflect partisan or ideological leanings, and the emerging phenomenon of “LLM SEO” — manipulating models to amplify certain narratives.
In this episode, we examine Debt Overhang & Crowding Out — the fourth of the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Business in 2026.
We explore how decades of ultra-low interest rates created a global dependence on cheap credit. As rates normalise, the political and corporate debt burdens accumulated during that era are constraining growth, investment, and strategic freedom.
Key Themes
Signals to Monitor
In this episode, we continue our series on the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Businesses in 2026, turning to Risk #3 — Industrial Policy and Geoeconomics. We examine how governments are abandoning decades of free-market orthodoxy in favour of state-led industrial strategies designed to protect national interests, secure supply chains, and reassert economic sovereignty.
The discussion explores:
Key Takeaway
The liberal economic order is giving way to a Hamiltonian era of strategic capitalism. For corporations, success will depend not just on market performance but on political alignment, negotiation, and an ability to operate within government-defined priorities.
In this week's episode, we discuss how techno-nationalism is reshaping the global economy. Governments are moving to control data, AI, chips, and the critical minerals behind them. The result is tighter rules, fragmented supply chains, and companies needing a clearer foreign-policy lens.
This is part of our series covering our Top 10 Risks for Businesses in 2026: download the full report here Top 10 geopolitical risks for business 2026Music for this episode is by @barleysentient on Sora.
In this week's episode we discuss why great-power politics remains the defining backdrop for 2026, how a shift toward hard-edged transactionalism is reshaping alliances and regions, and what this means for corporate strategy, supply chains, and market access. We use history as a guide (the “long nineteenth century,” the Concert of Europe, Bismarck’s balance-of-power craft) to frame today’s risks and opportunities, and we explain why leader personalities and national political cultures now matter more for forecasting than abstract institutional models.
For the complete analysis and practical implications by sector, see the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for 2026 report: https://www.insightforward.co.uk/top-10-geopolitical-risks-for-business-2026/
Why do so many modern leaders look skilled at the sound bite but weak at getting things done? In this episode, we discuss the decline in political effectiveness and how it fuels today’s populism. We trace how the attention economy reshaped the skill set for office, why vision and institutional mastery have thinned out, and what that means for policy volatility and corporate risk. From C-SPAN sound bites to primary-system incentives, LBJ’s dealmaking, Nixon–Kissinger centralisation, and the Thatcher/Blair era, we contrast past statecraft with today’s programme-management politics. We close with Plato’s Republic, the philosopher-king ideal, and practical implications for executives.
This week we carry on the conversation about the online aftermath of the Charlie Kirk killing and what it signals for corporate risk. We explore “mimetic nihilism” and ****posting as threat vectors, the rise of crowd-sourced doxxing lists, the new wave of firings over celebratory posts, and how companies are being squeezed from both ends—consumer expectations below and state power above. In the second half they examine shifting political norms in the US, where legal boundaries sit, and what real indicators of democratic backsliding would look like.
In this episode of Boardroom Statecraft, we examine the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in the United States and its wider implications.
We discuss Kirk’s role in shaping the conservative youth movement, the suspect’s uncertain motives, and why the killing fits into a troubling pattern of targeted violence against political figures and business leaders worldwide. The conversation connects today’s climate of polarization to historic periods of political violence in the U.S., Europe, and beyond, drawing parallels to the late 1960s and 1970s.
Key themes include:
The episode concludes with a forward-looking assessment of how businesses and governments should prepare for escalating political violence and the spread of targeted attacks.
What would Machiavelli do? This week we use the realist tradition—Machiavelli, Thucydides, Bismarck, Metternich, Kissinger—to frame how boards should operate in a multipolar world. We are back to an anarchic system where states (and companies) pursue self-interest. For corporates, that means recognising you are a geopolitical actor, building a grand strategy with market-specific variants, and being willing to make hard choices—negotiate, comply, contest, or exit—depending on the jurisdiction. The episode unpacks security dilemmas, the costs of one-size-fits-all policies, and examples such as adapting to export controls and divergent tech regulations. It closes with three takeaways for leaders: accept anarchy and human fallibility; map power as it is, not as you wish it to be; and run the company as a political actor with a full toolkit, not a single playbook.
Music is by @BarelySentinet on Sora.
In this episode, we unpack the Trump administration’s confrontation with the US Federal Reserve—what politicising an independent central bank means for inflation control, debt servicing, market stability and global spillovers. We connect the dots to the dollar’s reserve-currency role and BRICS “multipolar” rhetoric, then pivot to the widening transatlantic rift on technology governance, as Washington pushes back on EU/UK content regimes. We close with practical guardrails for corporate AI use amid model bias and rising “automation bias.”
This week we make the case for strategic intelligence as a core business function, not a “nice to have”. explaining why much vendor “geopolitics” is operational rather than truly strategic, and how to shift from incident tracking to impact analysis with second- and third-order effects.
The conversation covers communicating for decision-makers (clear executive summaries, tailored outputs), and why good intelligence reduces uncertainty rather than declaring “permacrisis”. Methods include scenario development, indicators, and Bayesian updating, framed by Sherman Kent’s definition of strategic intelligence.
We close with three actions for leaders: put geopolitics in the boardroom, build cross-functional risk forums, and develop or partner for deep analytic capability.
This week we discuss - the decision to deploy federal forces in Washington, DC, the Home Rule context, and the wider trend toward militarised policing. They separate perception from crime data, explain why visible presence can calm fear without fixing root causes, and note that sustained police capacity is what reduces crime over time.
The conversation then turns to corporate risk: arbitrary policy swings, politicised data, and a transactional model of government and business deals in semiconductors and critical minerals.
The takeaway for leaders is clear: firms are political actors, sector context matters, and you need strategic intelligence to judge exposure and act early.