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.

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.

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Israel says it has weakened Hamas, pushed back Hezbollah, and left the Iranian regime more exposed than at any point in 47 years. So why does it feel like the country is losing ground everywhere else?

Jonathan Conricus, the former IDF International Spokesperson and now Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, joins Suzanne Kianpour and Jim Stenman on Global Power Shifts.

He makes the Israeli case directly. Iran's ring of fire is no longer what it was. Hezbollah is on the back foot. Hamas is degraded but still standing. The regime in Tehran is the weakest it has been in decades. None of the enemies, in his view, have been finished off.

Suzanne and Jim push on what the case leaves out. Has Israel won the military rounds while losing a generation across the West? What does the Gulf actually think now that Iranian missiles, Houthi drones, and shipping disruption have become a regional cost rather than an Israeli one? Why are young Jews in London and New York genuinely afraid for their physical safety? And how does any of this end with Iran, where Suzanne's own family is on the receiving end of a regime under more pressure than at any point since 1979?

Conricus also concedes something many Israeli officials will not say in public: reckless rhetoric from parts of the Israeli political class is making the country's job abroad much harder.

The conversation moves across Gaza, Lebanon, the Gulf, Europe, the United States, and the future of the Iranian regime. Serious, sometimes uncomfortable, and aimed at an audience that wants more than headlines.

Sixteen years of Viktor Orbán ended at the ballot box. Ambassador Tibor Nagy, a Hungarian-born former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and acting Under Secretary of State for Management, returns to Global Power Shifts to explain how it happened and what comes next.

Jim Stenman and Nagy work through the real story behind Péter Magyar's win: the stench of cronyism that voters could no longer stomach, a leaked Orbán–Putin phone call that landed badly in a country with Russia in its DNA, and a two-track Hungary where regime friends got world-class healthcare while ordinary citizens waited in line.

They also cover what Magyar's two-thirds majority means in practice, why Brussels is likely to move fast on 22 billion euros in frozen funds, how the Kremlin loses its most reliable voice inside the EU, what happens to China's battery plants and imported Asian workforce, and why JD Vance showing up to campaign for Orbán may have hurt more than it helped.

The conversation closes on the Horn of Africa: the Trump administration's reported exploration of lifting Eritrea sanctions, the strategic case for deepening ties with Somaliland, and the risks of an Ethiopian election held without Tigray at the table.

A clear-eyed look at how long authoritarian runs actually end, and what the signal from Budapest means for capitals from Washington to Addis Ababa.

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Mauritius tends to get filed under "luxury travel destination." That framing misses almost everything that matters about it right now.The Indian Ocean is becoming one of the most contested strategic spaces on the planet. Chinese naval assets, French military presence, the US base at Diego Garcia, Indian positioning, and the fallout from the Iran war are all converging in waters that run through some of the world's most critical trade corridors. Mauritius sits in the middle of it.Ameenah Gurib-Fakim was Mauritius's first female president, a scientist and academic who came to power without going through traditional party politics. She joined Jim Stenman and Suzanne Kianpour on April 1 to talk about what Mauritius actually represents at this moment: a small state with serious strategic weight, caught between great powers and trying to use that position deliberately.The conversation covers the long-running dispute over the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia, including the ICJ ruling, the unresolved deal with Britain, and what it means that Iran attempted to strike the base with two ballistic missiles on 20 March, in an unsuccessful attack confirmed by the UK's Ministry of Defence. Since that interview, the United States, Israel, and Iran have agreed to a two-week ceasefire, effective early Wednesday, April 8, making this conversation a sharp record of where things stood at the edge of that shift. It gets into Africa's debt burden, the $1.3 trillion that keeps the continent borrowing at 15% while the West borrows at 2%, and why that matters more than most Africa coverage admits. Gurib-Fakim is direct about what the African Continental Free Trade Agreement could unlock, where the real development pockets are, and why Africa still does not have a media voice that speaks from its own vantage point.She also pushes back on the information disorder problem in a way that goes beyond the usual hand-wringing: who controls the algorithm, whose agenda it serves, and what it would actually take to build something credible enough to compete.A sharper conversation about the Indian Ocean, African agency, and the real stakes of a world in which data, minerals, and maritime access are becoming the currencies of power.

Seth Moulton led a platoon into Baghdad, fought in Najaf, and commanded Marines trained to recover downed pilots. He now sits on the House Armed Services Committee. When two American jets went down over Iran, he said what most in Washington wouldn't: Iran is winning this war.

In a conversation with Suzanne Kianpour and Jim Stenman, Moulton makes the case that tactical success in the air is concealing a strategic collapse on the ground, that Trump's Truth Social posts are doing real damage to Gulf alliances, and that tearing up the nuclear deal set in motion everything that has happened since. He also explains why the biggest beneficiary of this conflict may not be Iran at all -- it may be Xi Jinping.

When Rouzy Vafaie tried to cross the border into Armenia during the war with the United States, he was looking for a way out. Instead, he was intercepted by the IRGC.

In this episode of Global Power Shifts, Suzanne Kianpour speaks with Rouzy about the reality of his detention, the beatings, the threats, and the unexpected reason he was finally let go. It turns out his release came with a price. He was expected to carry out a “service to the motherland” by spying for the regime while living abroad.

This is a first-hand account of the physical reality of escaping Iran and the psychological pressure that follows a person long after they have crossed the border.

What happens when the guardrails of Middle East diplomacy finally snap?

In this episode, we are joined by Jon Finer, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor and host of the Vox Media podcast ⁠The Long Game⁠. Finer joins Global Power Shifts to break down the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal and the regional chaos that followed.

Having sat at the table during the original JCPOA negotiations, Finer offers a candid look at the fallout of the Trump-era withdrawal and the hard lessons learned since.We dig into the "fantasy" of clean regime change, the danger of entering conflicts without a clear exit, and why military escalation rarely goes to plan.

From the stability of the Gulf to the volatile energy markets and the shifting balance of power from the Levant to the Horn of Africa, Finer explains why the old rules of engagement no longer apply.

Sir Bill Browder joins Global Power Shifts to discuss what his experience inside the Kremlin teaches us about the current state of global instability. Once the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia, Browder has undergone a profound transformation. Following the death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in a Moscow prison, he abandoned his career in finance to become a leading human rights activist and a persistent critic of Vladimir Putin.

A central part of this episode focuses on the Magnitsky Act. This landmark legislation, which Browder pioneered, fundamentally changed international diplomacy by allowing governments to freeze the assets and ban the visas of specific individuals responsible for corruption or human rights abuses. Rather than sanctioning entire nations, this "follow the money" approach targets the personal wealth of autocrats and their enablers.

The conversation explores how Putin consolidated power through chaos, why Russia benefits from the current war in Iran, and what Ukraine’s drone expertise means for the future of the Gulf. Browder also shares his perspective on Donald Trump’s posture toward Russia, the breaking point of international law, and the precarious balance between global business and human rights.

Topics include: Putin’s Russia, Sergei Magnitsky, the Magnitsky Act, human rights activism, Ukraine, Iran, the Gulf, sanctions, corruption, Trump, NATO, and global power shifts.

In this emergency episode of Global Power Shifts, Jim Stenman and Suzanne Kianpour speak with award-winning journalist Tracey Holmes about the extraordinary story of Iran’s women’s football team at the Women’s Asian Cup. After refusing to sing the national anthem, several players were granted asylum in Australia, while others chose to return home amid fears for their families.

We discuss how the situation unfolded, the intense pressure from Iranian officials, why Donald Trump inserted himself into the story, and what this moment reveals about the collision of sport, state power, and human rights.