Independent Thinking

This year's NATO summit brought together the leaders of all 32 member states in Ankara. President Donald Trump's return to the summit brought renewed controversy, with remarks on Greenland and Iran underscoring the geopolitical tensions that continue to test the unity and purpose of the transatlantic alliance. 
 
What happened in Ankara and what does it mean for NATO's future? If the Ukraine conflict winds down, w...

The United States marks its 250th birthday at a moment of intense division and international uncertainty. At home, President Donald Trump is aggressively remodelling America's governance around expanded White House power and burning through firewalls intended to prevent presidential overreach and self-enrichment. Internationally, his capricious mix of transactional diplomacy, coercive tariffs and naked hard power has left American ...

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves No.10 a decade since the Brexit referendum that began the UK's cycle of chaos, and Andy Burnham seems set to take over unopposed. Our experts discuss what the new regime will mean for Britain's future and its role in the world.

Will attempts to bring the UK closer to Europe without actually rejoining the EU continue? Will Burnham want to increase Britain's defence budget, or will his priorities...

Can Labour's prized plans to decarbonize power generation by 2050 withstand growing demands for extra defence spending – an acrimonious argument that has already claimed two senior defence ministers? Or pressure to preserve and extend welfare benefits from the party's left and the unions, many of whom see net zero as a job killer? Plus: China's colossal subsidization of green technology has created a surplus of cheap equipmen...

A tumultuous week for Britain's faltering rearmament plans sees Defence Secretary John Healey resign from Keir Starmer's cabinet, saying the prime minister and the Treasury lack the will to properly fund the defence of the nation.

Al Carns, the armed forces minister, also resigned saying the government's long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) was 'not built for the threat we face'.

The departures raise further questions over wh...

Would the world benefit from a new economic alliance to stop China and the US from undermining the global rules we all depend on – a new 'third pole'? 

That's the conclusion of a new Chatham House report published this week. How would an economic bloc like this work? Who could build it? And how would China and the US – even post-Trump – react to such a challenge to their power?

Laurel Rapp, director of our US...

The major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeast is not just a public health emergency in an already impoverished and violence-beset region. Armed rebellion, fragile government and a collapse in public trust are combining to make outbreaks more frequent – and fostering dangerous disinformation that makes the virus harder to fight.

How dangerous is the Ebola virus? Could it spread to the rest of the wor...

Almost exactly ten years since Britain's seismic vote to leave the EU, the debate reopens thanks to early skirmishes in the fight for leadership of the Labour Party and thus the prime ministership. Could a credible bid to rejoin make its way onto Britain's political agenda? Are the drastically changed economic and defence environments making the case for re-entry unanswerable? And under what terms would European leaders consider th...

President Donald Trump brings a band of senior US business executives seeking trade deals to China for what is possibly the biggest bilateral summit of 2026. But what does the US hope to achieve? More sales of Boeings, beef and soybeans; an off-ramp from the US-Israel war on Iran; a sense of world pre-eminence; or all three? Our experts discuss whether Taiwan will end up paying the price for Chinese help in ending the Iran war, and...

Is the initiative on the Ukraine war slipping out of Russian president Vladimir Putin's hands? And how has the US-Israel war on Iran affected Moscow?

The economic crisis is tightening, and Moscow and St Petersburg are increasingly subject to lengthy internet and mobile blackouts.

Fearing Ukrainian drone attacks, Russia has vastly scaled down its traditional celebration of military power – the Victory Day parade – while ...

King Charles III's state visit to the US won acclaim as the monarch charmed President Donald Trump. But can it really rescue US-UK relations from their current dire state? The 'special relationship' – a term first voiced by Chatham House before becoming widely popularized by Winston Churchill – now seems not so special.

Our experts discuss what Britain and Europe should do now t...

EU expansion, energy shocks, and uneasy alliances: will the conflict in the Gulf – and other crises – force a more unified European strategy?
 
This week's episode comes from the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece, where host Bronwen Maddox is joined by Grégoire Roos, director of our Europe, Russia and Eurasia programmes.
 
As the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran ripples through global marke...

From Hormuz to Hungary and the Vatican to the Federal Reserve, it has been an unusually contentious week for the White House, even by the standards of President Trump's second administration.

This week's podcast comes from the US, where our analysts assess the political and economic state of the US as it begins gearing up for the midterm elections.
 
From New York, Chatham House Director Bronwen Maddox and Director of ...

China prepared in advance for a US attack on Iran. But many of its Asian neighbours have been hit hard because their economies were heavily reliant on energy imports from the Gulf. 
 
In the short-term, the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered rationing, and shortages of diesel, gas and fertiliser. Does that set a negative precedent for other choke points across the world? 
 
In the...

An earlier than usual episode of the Independent Thinking podcast, ahead of the Easter break.

In a one-on-one conversation, Chatham House Director Bronwen Maddox discusses energy with Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, who has been advising governments and writing on energy, water and the environment for decades.

They examine how energy policies of different governments over decades ...

One month on from the start of the US and Israeli war on Iran, governments worldwide are trying to assess the scale of its long-term impact on the global economy and political system.

Much will depend on how long the conflict continues, and how long Iran blocks fuel exports and other cargo vessels from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The White House and Iran have ...

The US-Israel war on Iran is straining Trump's alliances, at home and abroad.

Three weeks into exactly the kind of war of choice that he spent years decrying, US President Donald Trump is not getting the amount of international support that he seeks for his campaign of air strikes on Iran.

There is also reluctance among NATO and other allies to be drawn into the political and economic turmoil caused by the US-Israeli campaign, and ...

The US military's AI provider Anthropic is feuding with the Pentagon after the company tried to impose 'red lines' over the use of its artificial intelligence products for lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of Americans.
 
President Trump accused the US firm of being 'radical left' and designated it a 'supply chain risk' – usually reserved for Chinese or Russian firms who could compromise US security...

What does President Trump hope to achieve in Iran – a quick show of force, or long-term regime change? 

The US and Israel's long-threatened air strikes on Iran have materialized, and the Middle East is facing widespread disruption and a mounting death toll as the war spills across borders.

In this episode of Chatham House's international affairs podcast, our expert panel analyses the Trump administration's many stated mo...