Hello from Washington,
In today’s Irregular column, I would like to offer a few observations from a week of conversations in Washington DC with diplomats, government officials, pollsters, trade lawyers, clients and — often as insightful — taxi drivers.
The week has left me with a familiar, slightly disorienting impression: for all the theatrics, little has materially changed since my last visit.
The world’s most political town has largely adjusted to Trump. People hedge and worry aloud about authoritarian creep, but in general the words “uncertain” and “unpredictable” appear less often in conversation than six months ago.
The United States is undoubtedly changing. But material changes — the look, the feel, the vibe — have largely occurred on the margins.
Migrants feel it most: more deportations, more anxiety, even among those here legally. Many green card holders are refraining from travelling abroad not because the rules have changed but because attitudes of border guards have. A few National Guard uniforms in DC catch the eye and one hears stories of them rounding up illegal migrants. Otherwise, and in contrast to impressions one might get from reading the news, daily life proceeds largely as it has every time I have visited. There is change, to be sure, but it’s not palpable.
Rather, the deeper shifts — consolidation of executive power, the slow re-wiring of the economic order — are subterranean, cumulative and slow-burning. They’re happening and certainly the subject of the chattering classes; they’re just not fully legible yet.
We’re evolving too. I’m pleased to introduce Christian Habla as our new CEO. Christian started life as a banking and finance lawyer at Australia’s top firm, advised through high-profile Royal Commissions, spent time with McKinsey, and most recently held senior crisis-management roles in the Australian government. For our GD Professional subscribers, you'll meet Christian at this week's monthly client roundtables.
Already, Christian has been on the road with clients, running strategy workshops that grapple not with hypotheticals but with borderline existential questions: how to prepare when the rules of international commerce are being rewritten in real time, and when state intervention is no longer the exception but the organising principle.
It has been striking to see how diverse the concerns are — across financial services, industrials, pharmaceuticals and professional services — yet how similar the underlying dilemma looks.
The volatility is one thing; the deeper problem is structural. The guardrails that once let firms take the rules of the global economy as a given are loosening. What replaces them is not yet settled. As one CEO put it to us recently, the core question now for business leaders is not to understand the barrage of micro policy changes but the enormous “tectonic shifts” that underlie them.
A practical note. September is the hinge in the international calendar: the northern summer ends, inboxes refill, strategy seasons open and world leaders descend on New York — my next destination — for the UN General Assembly. It’s both a busy and an important time.
To mark it, we’re offering 25% off a lifetime Geopolitical Dispatch subscription. I would encourage you to lock it in — not because you need more news (you don’t), but because you need less.
Geopolitical Dispatch strips the noise, gives you the signal, and frames what matters with the brevity of a media digest and the depth of an intelligence assessment. Not just to keep up to date with rapid policy shifts but to understand, as that CEO put it, the tectonic shifts that can easily go unnoticed.
Just as Washington has adapted to Trump, we would recommend you adapt your early-morning brief. It may just be the best deal coming out of DC.
Best wishes,
Damien Bruckard
Founder | Geopolitical Strategy
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