The Horn of Africa has long been described as one of the world’s most unstable regions. But instability, as we know, is rarely accidental. It is often the outcome of history, geography, and politics colliding over time.

From contested borders drawn at the end of colonial rule, to unresolved questions of statehood and sovereignty, the region has been shaped by incomplete state formation and recurring external intervention. Add to this competition over resources, ethnic fragmentation, and inter-state rivalries, and the Horn becomes not just a regional fault line, but a space of real geopolitical consequence.

Today, those dynamics are intersecting with a changing global order. Governments in the Horn are navigating a world that may no longer be defined by clear rules or stable hierarchies; one marked instead by transactional diplomacy, great-power competition, and strategic fragmentation. At the same time, shifts in US economic policy and aid under Trump are forcing African states to reassess assumptions about development, dependence, and autonomy.

To understand the geopolitics of the region, and how the Horn along with Africa at large is viewing the world, I reached out to Dr Hassan Khannenje, Director of the HORN International Institute for Strategic Studies in Nairobi. Dr. Khannenje argues that the Horn is increasingly emerging as a strategic theatre amid great power competition. His critique of US policy and the broader West is biting; and his perspective on Africa-China ties is one of a pragmatist. Fundamentally, Dr. Khannenje worries that in the emerging world disorder, a new scramble for Africa is likely to play out as global powers compete for maritime chokepoints and the minerals required for future technologies.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

We are entering a dangerous phase in global politics, one where speed, force, and unilateral action are beginning to matter more than law, legitimacy, or restraint. Great powers are increasingly willing to test the boundaries of sovereignty.

Just hours after we recorded this episode of The Great Power Show, the United States carried out a military operation in Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The operation sent a troubling signal of how power may be exercised in an emerging, more brutish international order. This is something that I intend to explore in future episodes.

In this episode, however, we step back and examine the deeper strategic context shaping American policy in the Western Hemisphere. To do that, I reached out to Dr. Evan Ellis, Latin America Research Professor and the General Douglas MacArthur Research Chair at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, and a former member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean.

We begin by looking at how the United States is re-prioritising the Western Hemisphere as a core strategic theatre. How are older ideas, such as the Monroe Doctrine, shaping contemporary American thinking? What does this have to do with strategic competition between the US and China? What are Chinese interests in Latin America and the Caribbean region? Are we entering a phase where great powers, including the US, are looking to secure their spheres of influence and perhaps will we see some sort of trade-offs between them in this context?

You can subscribe to Dr. Ellis’ substack here.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out.

We’re living through a moment of profound global churn.

Trust in politics is eroding. Nationalism is surging. Great powers are retreating from the idea that the world can grow together. Instead, they are embracing zero-sum competition, technological supremacy, and national power as the primary source of legitimacy.

In this episode of The Great Power Show, I’m joined by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, political theorist, public intellectual, and one of sharpest thinkers on democracy, liberalism, and the international order.

We take a step back from the headlines to ask some bigger questions: What happens to the global system when national supremacy becomes the reigning ideology? Are liberal democracy and individual freedom facing a deeper crisis, not just politically, but philosophically? And as technology reshapes power, identity, and governance, are we moving toward a world where the individual is increasingly subordinated to the state and collective ambition?

We also explore the limits of great power dominance, the shrinking space for middle powers, Russia’s role in the world, China’s vision of modernity, and why the real battle today may be over legitimacy, at home as much as abroad.

This is a wide-ranging conversation about power, identity, technology, and the future of global order.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out.