In the days of ‘happy globalisation’, both public and private clients were accustomed to developing their strategies by drawing conclusions from the past to inform the present and the future. The world was ‘predictable’.
That no longer works, because the new geopolitical and geo-economic landscape and the accelerated digitalisation of the economy, particularly through artificial intelligence, are leading to rapid changes. This creates great uncertainty because it conveys a sense of loss of control.
In particular, we have observed the significant impact of the geopolitical upheavals that have been taking place since 2022. The war in Ukraine, the global repercussions of sanctions against Russia, the consolidation of the BRICS nations and the shift of the global centre of gravity to the “ValeriePieris Circle” in Asia, “corridor wars”, the competition for rare earths, the energy transition… not to mention the numerous flashpoints in the Middle East.
We have noticed that we are receiving an increasing number of enquiries regarding these geopolitical and geo-economic upheavals. The Brennus Institute Paris-Vienna is dedicated to addressing these issues.
Recent publications
- Why and how the Trump administration is threatened with implosion following the disaster of the Iran War
Brennus Letter N° 8, April 13th 2026 (available in English and French): Donald Trump had gone to war, alongside the Israelis, to bring about regime change in Tehran. In fact, it is Iran, through its military victory, that is causing the U.S. administration to collapse For several weeks now, we have been analyzing for you the military defeat inflicted by Iran on the United States. The (precarious) ceasefire announced by Donald Trump late on the night of April 8, 2026—which he claimed was based on the peace terms formulated by Iran—appears to have been the hidden side, the flip side, of the threats he was publicly making. - The new war in Iran: why and how the publication of the Epstein files made it inevitable (Part Two)
Brennus Letter N° 7, March 15th 2026 (available in English and French): What is unfolding before our eyes is of historic significance. The United States will lose its claim to hegemony over the world just a few decades after the end of the USSR. There is a considerable discrepancy between what the official Western media report about the war in Iran and what is happening on the ground. As we at the Brennus Institute seek to illustrate, the United States and the West face far more than a military defeat. It is the destruction of the instrument most valuable to American power: control over the Middle East. - Iran’s new war – a desperate attempt to achieve a “Great Reset”? (Part One)
Brennus Letter N° 6, March 8th 2026 (available in English and French): The United States ultimately exercised its hegemony over the world for only a generation after the end of the USSR. The collapse of the American empire is unfolding before our eyes. The US military is incapable of defeating the Iranian military. Worse, it could suffer an even more humiliating defeat than in Vietnam. But, as I have been trying to explain for the past week, what threatens the United States and the West is much more than a military defeat: it is the destruction of the most precious asset of American power: control of the Middle East. The abandonment of the Gulf countries, treated as collateral damage in the war with Iran, jeopardises Western financial domination – or what remains of it. - Orechnik missile – Russia’s new deterrent has a pre-nuclear component
Brennus Letter N° 5, February 5th 2026 (available in English, French, Russian): The most important thing to understand is that the Russians were the first to abolish strategic depth, and they were many years ahead of their American adversaries in doing so. They are capable of reaching any NATO target in a matter of minutes. This is essential to understand because NATO’s eastward expansion abolished the distance from Western strike capability that the Soviets had always sought, wishing to neutralise central Europe; and which Gorbachev had been under the illusion of achieving when he was given the false promise that NATO would not expand east of Germany. Since then, the Americans have continued to push their pawns towards Russia’s borders. The development of hypersonic technology was one of Russia’s responses to the West’s aggressive expansion. Look at the impact of the Kinjal in Ukraine in March 2022 (to such an extent that the Ukrainians, genuinely frightened by the Russian strikes, asked to negotiate). And now the Orechnik. For the moment, both strikes have only targeted Ukrainian territory. But the message has clearly been received loud and clear in Washington and at the Pentagon: the Russians have a weapon that has no equivalent on the American side. - Venezuela – the risky strategy of « Make America FIRST again »
Brennus Letter N° 4, January 13th 2026 (available in English, French, Russian): Issue No. 4 of Brennus Letter is appearing a little later than planned due to the crisis in Venezuela and the additional global geopolitical tensions, particularly in Iran. We felt it necessary to include these developments in our analysis as they confirm the general analysis we are currently working on. After a year in office, Donald Trump must acknowledge the profound decline of the United States. He believed that Russia would be only too happy to seize the opportunity for his mediation, but he is now faced with the reality that Russia has no need for the United States to negotiate peace in Ukraine. Donald Trump thought he could impose his will on China by raising customs duties, but Beijing has won the ‘customs war’. Worse still, China is winning the industrial competition. The United States cannot accept this. But what can it do? Donald Trump triggered the crisis in Venezuela, probably sooner than expected, because he wants to save American preponderance in the world. He believes in it. He is sincere on this point. In fact, in Donald Trump’s mind, the G in MAGA should be replaced by an F: ‘Make America FIRST Again’. - Why the end of the war in Ukraine will intensify the “cold civil war” in the United States
Brennus Letter No. 3, December 5th 2026 (available in English, French, Russian): We were in the process of writing this third issue of the Brennus Letter when the news broke: A new scandal has rocked the EU. The federal police in Bruges, Belgium, took three people into custody on Thursday after raiding the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the College of Europe in Bruges, reports Le Monde. The accused, including Federica Mogherini, former head of diplomacy for the European Unionand current rector of the College, will soon be brought before the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bruges for potential offences of ‘fraud in the awarding of public contracts, corruption, conflict of interest and breach of professional secrecy’, according to a statement from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The senior Italian official announced her resignation shortly afterwards. Investigators suspect favouritism and unfair competition on the part of the EEAS when it awarded this private foundation a training programme for young European diplomats, called the ‘EU Diplomatic Academy’, which was launched in 2021-2022. The nine-month programme is designed to train future EU foreign and security policy executives. The project was rolled out under the leadership of Spain’s Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat following Federica Mogherini, who held the post from 2014 to 2019. - Friedrich Merz, figurehead of the new German militarism
Brennus Letter No. 2, November 4th 2025 (available in English, French, Russian): The German Chancellor’s ‘national globalism’ is extremely dangerous for France and Europe The German coalition government, made up of conservatives and social democrats, continues to lose ground in the polls. In a weekly survey conducted by the Insa polling institute, the coalition parties were polling at only 39% of voting intentions at the end of October – in the event of early parliamentary elections. This is a disastrous result for two parties that were able to form a government because, at the beginning of 2025, they had won the general election and together held more than half of the seats in the Bundestag. - Bye-Bye Mackinder: Donald Trump and the crisis of American power
Brennus Letter No. 1 – October 4th 2025 (available in English, French, Russian): A series of clashes are taking place along what could be called the ‘Mackinder line’. We recall that at the beginning of the 20th century, British geopolitician Mackinder believed that maritime powers should prevent, at all costs, the expansion of a Eurasian continental power – in fact, Russia. Contentons-nous de constater que la diagonale des BRICS, dont nous parlions un peu plus haut, a pour conséquence, non seulement, la fin de l’encerclement de l’Eurasie par les puissances anglo-saxonnes mais, potentiellement, la marginalisation du monde anglo-saxon, rejeté aux marges des deux côtés de l’axe des BRICS, au nord-ouest (Amérique du Nord-Grande-Bretagne) et au sud-est (Australie). - New publication: Decolonise Europe!
Edouard Husson, originally from France, and Ulrike Reisner, originally from Austria, take a unique look at Germany after the 2025 federal elections in this book. They trace the political division of Germany, whose roots go back a long way. The authors outline Germany’s foreign and economic policy and highlight examples of mistakes made in recent decades. The apparent geopolitical discouragement that German policy has long been accused of in Europe is critically assessed in the evaluation of Euro-Atlantic alliance policy since the end of the Cold War. The authors attempt to show that the special relationship between the United States and Germany has become a major obstacle to Europe’s reorientation in the new multipolar world order. - New book: One hundred days that changed the world
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, we have seen Euro-Atlantic unilateralism challenged by the rest of the world. The conflict in Gaza has further accentuated this trend. Some say that a new Cold War has begun. Others fear an uncontrollable escalation between ‘the West’ and ‘the Global South’. If you want to understand what is happening, come aboard with us. The ‘Hundred Days That Changed the World’ recounts the weeks leading up to the American elections, which were among the most dramatic in contemporary history.