In 1971, a small team inside Royal Dutch Shell began rehearsing for a crisis that had not yet happened. Led by Pierre Wack, they weren’t trying to forecast an imminent oil embargo, and never claimed they could. What they did was harder. They walked Shell’s executives through how the… Read More
In March, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, whose firm manages US$14 trillion, wrote to investors that the world is reorganising around self-reliance. Rebuilding the global economy will cost more than governments and banks can fund alone. Fink has form. In 2020 he… Read More
In March 2026, the Australian Prime Minister flew to Brunei to beg for fertiliser. He was there because a dozen insurers in London and Oslo closed a strait that carries a fifth of the world’s oil. I can’t recall a single meaningful conversation about it. Nine months… Read More
When the warlord Ismail seized the Persian throne in 1501, he faced a problem common to usurpers: how to hold a conquered land against a more powerful neighbour. His solution was original. Sunni subjects were given an ultimatum: embrace a new faith, take to the road, or die. Within… Read More
I first met Lokman Slim in an Italian restaurant in downtown Beirut. As a young diplomat, I had rehearsed the etiquette in my head. Lokman was a Shia Muslim. No wine. No pork. He was late. A thick-set man ambled through the door as I waited… Read More
“Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” Tennyson – Ulysses On 20 January 2026, the Prime Minister of Canada told the World Economic Forum that the rules-based international order is dead. Mark Carney did not hedge, or suggest… Read More
The Edelman Controversy: A Crisis of Trust The crisis of climate leadership isn’t confined to geopolitics. It’s also about trust—and right now, that trust is on the line in Belém. Last week, I spoke to Valori, an Italian… Read More
Best Case, Still Broken Tuvalu is not a template for success – it is a warning about institutional failure. A system that requires a custom treaty to relocate a single island community has no hope of managing planetary-scale migration. And if this carefully choreographed arrangement… Read More
Australia is on the cusp of becoming the world’s most influential middle power. Not in a generation. Not in a decade. In the next 18 months. For the first time in our history, Australia controls all the variables: the resources everyone needs, the climate leadership platform, and… Read More
Nature on the Balance Sheet The parliamentary arithmetic of the new Senate all but guarantees stronger environmental action. Labor is on track to win 28 seats – up from 24 last term – allowing it to bypass independents and negotiate directly with the Greens. Corporate strategies premised on gradual policy implementation… Read More
