Our research starts from a simple statement: don’t misread the moment.
Recent US actions, whether in Venezuela, Iran, Greenland or Cuba, can look like a reassertion of dominance. But we think they are better understood as the behaviour of a superpower operating under constraint, not as a restoration of full control.
That distinction matters because it changes how we interpret the current phase of geopolitics. The post–Cold War unipolar order is eroding. The US remains the world’s most powerful state, but power is becoming more diffuse; the cost of sustaining global hegemony - financially, politically and militarily - is rising and other countries are proving more willing and able to assert themselves. What is emerging is not a clean replacement order, but a more uneven, negotiated and contested system.
Two forces are central to this. The first is nuclear constraint. In a world of nuclear-armed major powers, direct confrontation carries existential risks. That doesn’t remove rivalry but makes it less overt: competition is pushed into grey zones, with cyber conflict, sanctions, proxy conflicts, industrial policy and technological competition becoming the order of the day.
The second is the rise of influential middle powers. Countries that are not superpowers are shaping outcomes in their own regions and across key diplomatic forums. They have more room to manoeuvre than in the past and many are less willing to align automatically with Washington or any other major power. That makes the global system more transactional and less predictable, with less deference to a single organising centre.
Markets are already responding. As US security guarantees appear less automatic, Europe is rearming and defence-linked equities have outperformed broader European markets since 2022.
In cybersecurity, rising digital conflict and persistent state-backed disruption have supported long-run demand for cyber capabilities.
And in strategic technology, especially semiconductors, US-China rivalry is increasingly expressed through export controls, subsidies and state-backed capital.
For allocators, the rise of multipolarity is not background noise – it is feeding through into portfolio construction and asset prices.
Next transformation:
From commodity abundance to bottlenecks
Energy and critical materials are becoming strategic bottlenecks, not neutral inputs.