Oliver is a co-founder and editor of The Geopolitical Desk. He writes our flagship weekly newsletter, drawing on years of fieldwork in the Middle East and North Africa. His approach blends local insight with clear, evidence-driven reporting.
From Starmer’s mounting pressure in London to Libya’s structural energy trap, Bangladesh’s landmark vote, and the cultural geopolitics of the Super Bowl stage, we examine the fault lines shaping today’s global order.
This week’s edition looks at US–Iran tensions drifting toward accidental escalation, Saudi Arabia’s hard stop in Yemen, and a Gulf rivalry that risks hardening into bloc politics.
At Davos, Mark Carney called time on the “pleasant fiction” of a rules-based order. This week’s edition looks at Europe’s fading influence on the world stage and Libya’s stalled energy transition.
This was one of those weeks where everything seemed to happen at once: protests in Iran, a potential leadership vacuum in Libya, the emergence of local fault lines in Syria, and a quiet regional contest taking shape.
From Washington’s unilateralism to Libya’s competing futures and the Gulf’s search for coherence, this edition examines how global norms are fraying and why 2026 is already shaping up to be a volatile year.
This week, we’re stepping back from the news cycle to reflect on the stories that shaped global politics in 2025: what they reveal about power, money and how the global system is really working, and what that means heading into 2026.
This week’s edition looks at Moscow’s strategic red lines in energy and defence, Libya’s shifting political landscape ahead of 2026, and why now is the best moment to lock in a year of premium GPD reporting at a fraction of the price.
This week’s stories show how quickly — or how slowly — geopolitical realities can turn, and how much those timelines depend on the interests that prevail and the ability of key actors to reassure external partners.
North Africa is reaching a boiling point as youth-led frustration spreads from Morocco to Tunis and Tripoli. Meanwhile, Washington’s latest push in Lebanon leans on maximalist assumptions that risk deepening regional instability. Here's what you need to know.
This week’s stories all circle back to a simple question: what holds an economy or a political system together when the underlying assumptions start to crack?
This week's newsletter focuses on a single issue that is reshaping the Gulf’s political economy (and, increasingly, its geopolitical relevance): the race for AI leadership between the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
