Geopolitical Alpha

Chapter 1We're Not in Kansas Anymore

The world is undergoing paradigm shifts on multiple fronts: political, geopolitical, generational, and technological. What these changes are and their implications for the future are beyond the scope of this book. Instead, I present a framework that has helped me make sense of the world over the past decade. I hope it will prove helpful to navigate the paradigm shifts to come.

I use the term “framework” because it is less deterministic than a theory and not as prescriptive as a method. It is messy, full of contradictions, and much more art than science. It fits with forecasting geopolitics and politics because forecasting is similarly messy. There is nothing parsimonious about the constraint framework I present.

In the past 25 years, geopolitics and politics have switched from being tailwinds to the global economy and markets to being headwinds. For many in business and finance, it feels like a rug has been pulled out from under them. I know the feeling; I saw it happen to my family firsthand when I was eight years old.

Cut off from the Yellow Brick Road

In 1986, my 36-year-old dad joined General Export (Genex), the crème de la crème of Yugoslavia's corporate world. For my dad, it was the equivalent of landing a job at IBM in the 1950s-era United States.

Dad had made it. His life – and by extension my life – was going to be pure kajmak.¹ Step one: a four-year stint in the London office (“so you and your sister can learn English”). Steps ...