By Robbin Laird When visiting Bahrain some years ago, I made a point of seeing the Portuguese fort. Standing inside those ancient walls, looking at the stonework — Arab foundations overlaid with Portuguese military engineering — I was struck by a simple but powerful thought: the strategic logic that drove…
When I worked on German reunification in the 1980s, one of the core concerns was not simply whether the two German states could be brought together institutionally, but whether the deep historical and cultural gap between East and West Germany could be bridged in any meaningful way. The question was…
By Robbin Laird This article is the convergence point of several analytical projects I have pursued in recent years: the breakdown of the post–Cold War order and the global war in Ukraine, the reconfiguration of power across key middle states such as Australia and Brazil in the shadow of China’s…
By Robbin Laird My 2026 framework Mastering Chaos begins from a premise that most leadership literature still refuses to accept: traditional crisis management is not merely inadequate. It is actively dangerous. It was designed for a world of isolated, slow-moving systems with slack built into every layer. That world no…
By Robbin Laird When Admiral Samuel Paparo told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Bitcoin is “a reality” and “a valuable computer science tool, as a power projection,” he did more than offer an off‑the‑cuff comment on a fashionable technology. He signaled that at least one major combatant commander now…
By Robbin Laird The Royal Australian Navy is crossing a dangerous bridge. On one side sits the fleet it has today: three Hobart‑class air warfare destroyers, a diminishing number of Anzac‑class frigates, and a support structure increasingly strained by the weight of strategic demand. On the other side sits the…
By Robbin Laird In every sector today, leaders are discovering the same uncomfortable truth: they can no longer plan their way through genuine chaos. The familiar script, stabilize the crisis, restore normal, move on, no longer fits a world where disruption is constant, tightly coupled, and accelerating. Mastering Chaos is…
By Robbin Laird The Royal Australian Navy is crossing a dangerous bridge. On one side sits the force it has today, three Hobart-class air warfare destroyers, a diminishing number of Anzac-class frigates, and a support structure increasingly strained by the weight of strategic demand. On the other side sits the…
