Chagos, Iran, and the Indian Ocean Power Game

Trump, the GERD, and the US-Ethiopia Balancing Act, with Cameron Hudson

Trump put the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam back on the table at the G7, sitting next to Egypt's President Sisi and framing the dispute around Cairo, even describing his bond with Sisi as a love affair. The US-Ethiopia relationship is warming at the same time, through a Boeing jet deal, financing for Ethiopia's new international airport, and US backing for Abiy against the Tigrayans. Cameron Hudson, formerly of the CIA, NSC and State Department and now at 54 Advisors and CSIS, joins Jim Stenman to work through whether Washington can be an honest broker on the Nile, why Ethiopia will not negotiate, and how Egypt is trying to isolate Addis. They close on the wider risks across the Horn, including Eritrea, Somaliland's tilt toward Israel, and Somalia's fragmentation. 🎧 Follow Global Power Shifts ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalPowerShifts [https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalPowerShifts] 🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1T2CsAK4983mRNmZPfApRy [https://open.spotify.com/show/1T2CsAK4983mRNmZPfApRy] 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/global-power-shifts/id1791326929 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/global-power-shifts/id1791326929] 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globalpowershifts [https://www.instagram.com/globalpowershifts]

Is Kazakhstan the Quiet Winner of an Iran Deal?

If Trump's framework with Iran lands, Tehran's enriched uranium has to go somewhere. Kazakhstan keeps coming up as the credible candidate, with an IAEA uranium bank already on its soil and nearly 40% of the world's uranium production. Around that question sits a wider shift. Kazakhstan and its Central Asian neighbours are quietly reducing their dependence on Russia, hedging between Moscow and Beijing, and pulling in Gulf and Western capital at scale. Jim Stenman sits down with Ambassador Daniel Rosenblum, former US Ambassador to Kazakhstan, on uranium, oil routes, Russian leverage and the regional repositioning the West has been slow to notice.

Andrew Lownie: Is Britain Lost? The Queen, Brexit and a Country Adrift

Is the UK lost as a country in 2026? Historian and royal biographer Andrew Lownie joins Jim Stenman and Suzanne Kianpour to take apart a Britain that has burned through six prime ministers in a decade, lost the Queen as its unbroken link to the past, and walked away from Europe with nothing put in its place. Lownie, author of Entitled, Traitor King and Stalin's Englishman, has spent his career prising open the British establishment's instinct to bury its own secrets — the cover-ups around Prince Andrew, the appointment of Peter Mandelson, the files that quietly stay closed. We start there, then widen out to the bigger question: has Britain become ungovernable, and does it need an honest new story about itself rather than empire nostalgia? We get into the collapse of the political centre and the Reform surge, why nearly 700,000 people left the UK in a single year — many of them young or wealthy, and many landing here in the Gulf — Poland's economy on track to overtake Britain's, whether the monarchy can survive as "the last unprotected institution," King Charles's soft-power masterclass in Washington, and where a self-described "very minor power" actually fits in a multipolar world. A serious conversation about national decline, identity and the architecture of British power — told through one of its sharpest observers. 🎧 Follow Global Power Shifts:▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalPowerS... [https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalPowerShifts]🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1T2CsAK... [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbHpoLUdUMUpjdzNLRWNIUTNOMjVBSWY5WkkwUXxBQ3Jtc0ttSFNWb0ctWXNZVnJ4V1NGUHNoclNxWm1qQzhDSXlEckk3dF9RbU01QXdlcGtiM1dLaTRKQWFUZUwtbkhab2VvRjFxLTBYRUFla2lBb0xnWkVGVzJaYWF0R0dqUnlkQzc1Mm0tOERNMTdXaW5ENHN1OA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fshow%2F1T2CsAK4983mRNmZPfApRy&v=-yzLmWbdNbo]🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbTRqZ2Z4N096aTZwS3h4eDhwa3NVTmNnbGhpUXxBQ3Jtc0tsT0dRbnFjcVRoSGlvdWVXeGhTMkM1WmNBOXpteDA5TGVfd3dYM3ZGNkV5YnpfYlBxdVRya2lOWGozZFlCVXBnbHctZjlsQmhHUGRzd2JGazhfNUhmTGhPRnZiNll6bVRhYUthTjhqdDBwZFpTWEFHQQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcasts.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fglobal-power-shifts%2Fid1791326929&v=-yzLmWbdNbo]📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globalpower... [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbEpqcWNjeW5nSEF0UXRlQ2oySlAxMlBfZndFd3xBQ3Jtc0tuenEySlBxWjNBX0Z5V181WG1zNHRDQ2tNMENtbVZLUzE1WURZY2dsVm95Qzd0V0RNV0FqdTVFQUxSM0szTk5xRGI5WGhPWFN0WjNIN1RFRzlRSGNqaHhZUXJUVVM2TzdRaEtJRDFDcWRHcFFyVDlnVQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fglobalpowershifts%2F&v=-yzLmWbdNbo]

Cameron Hudson: The next Strait of Hormuz? Inside the scramble for the Red Sea

Cameron Hudson has worked the Horn of Africa file from inside three branches of the U.S. government, as a CIA Africa analyst, NSC Director for African Affairs, and Chief of Staff to successive U.S. Special Envoys for Sudan. He now runs 54 Advisors, a political and investment risk firm focused on Africa, and is a non-resident senior associate at the CSIS Africa Program. He joins Jim Stenman to unpack the most consequential and least understood story in geopolitics right now: the scramble for influence over the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. The conversation covers the Trump administration's quiet move to normalise relations with Eritrea, the collapse of the Pretoria peace agreement and the risk of a new Tigray war, the contradictions inside U.S. policy toward Ethiopia, the rivalry between the UAE and Saudi Arabia playing out across African states, Israel's recognition of Somaliland, the strategic reordering triggered by the Iran war, and the absence of any coherent American strategy for one of the most contested regions on the planet. Hudson predicted the U.S.-Eritrea reset before it broke in the Wall Street Journal in April. His Foreign Policy essay, "Washington's One-Dimensional Chess in the Horn of Africa," lays out the risks of a decision being made without a clear strategy behind it. Essential listening for anyone trying to understand where U.S. foreign policy, Gulf competition and African statecraft are converging, and where the next conflict in the region is most likely to start. Recorded May 18, 2026.

Inside the UAE's OPEC Exit | Tareq Alotaiba on the Gulf After Iran

The UAE just left OPEC. Weeks of Iranian missiles and drones, around 2,800 strikes absorbed by the Emirates, and a quiet realisation in Abu Dhabi that the old playbook is finished. Tareq Alotaiba, a former UAE government official now at Harvard's Belfer Center and AGSIW in Washington, joins Jim Stenman and Suzanne Kianpour on Global Power Shifts to break down what the OPEC exit really means, why the Emirates feels let down by parts of the Arab world, and how the war has changed the country's posture toward Iran, Israel, and Washington. In this episode: → Why the UAE leaving OPEC was inevitable, war or no war → Anwar Gargash's verdict: appeasement of Iran has failed → The disappointment in Arab neighbours, and the ones who showed up → Why Tareq believes the IRGC, not Iran, is the real enemy → The Strait of Hormuz, Fujairah, and what comes next for trade → Israel, the Abraham Accords, and the UAE's balancing act through the Gaza war → The Muslim Brotherhood, Qatari funding, and Emirati students in Europe → Why the UAE will rebuild ties with Iran but never trust it again Tareq's recent piece for AGSIW predicted the OPEC announcement four days before it broke. This conversation is the wider story behind it. 🎙 Global Power Shifts is hosted by Jim Stenman and Suzanne Kianpour. Follow on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.