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.