Power Has a New Address
By: E. A. Randolph-Koranteng (Rev)
Author of The Book (Tomorrow Happened Yesterday…on Amazon .com)
Most people believe geopolitics is controlled by the obvious actors:
· Presidents making decisions
· Generals commanding forces
· Missiles threatening destruction
Sometimes that’s true. Headlines are made by explosions and speeches.
But increasingly, the real gatekeepers are different. They are:
· Actuaries running risk models in London
· Underwriters pricing probability in reinsurance markets
· Insurance committees deciding what risks are acceptable
They don’t fire weapons. They price probability.
And when the numbers don’t work—when the models say the risk exceeds the return—global trade simply stops. No drama. No confrontation. Just a decision that the math no longer justifies movement.
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The Deeper Truth
If you want to understand modern geopolitics, you must abandon the old framework. The world is no longer controlled only by governments. It’s not even primarily controlled by them in many domains.
It’s controlled by systems.
· Insurance systems that determine what moves and what doesn’t
· Energy systems that create dependencies no army can override
· Financial systems that allocate capital based on risk, not loyalty
· Reinsurance systems that operate outside any single government’s control
Missiles create headlines.
Risk models decide what actually moves.
The Strait of Hormuz wasn’t closed by a navy. It was closed by a spreadsheet. And until you understand that, you don’t understand how the twenty-first century actually works.
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The question isn’t whether Iran can block the strait. The question is whether London’s insurers will let anyone sail through it.
The Spreadsheet Geopolitics: Why African Banks Must Rethink Risk
As banking consultants, we often advise our clients to watch the central bank, follow the fiscal budget, and monitor the political headlines. But if we look at the world through the old framework, we miss the real action.
There is a deeper truth to how the 21st century operates that every financial institution in Africa—and specifically here in Ghana—needs to internalize.
We are no longer living in a world controlled only by governments. We are living in a world controlled by systems.
· Insurance systems that determine what trade moves and what gets stranded.
· Energy systems that create dependencies no army or police force can override.
· Financial systems that allocate capital based on cold risk calculations, not political loyalty.
· Reinsurance systems that operate from London and Bermuda, outside the reach of any single sovereign.
Missiles and coup announcements create the headlines. But the risk models decide what actually moves—whether that is a container ship, a foreign direct investment, or the value of the Cedi.
The recent volatility we see in global supply chains isn’t always caused by visible wars. Consider the Strait of Hormuz. It wasn’t a navy that closed it; it was a spreadsheet in a London insurance office that repriced the risk of sailing through it.
What does this mean for Ghanaian banks?
1. Look Beyond the Sovereign: Your biggest risks may not be your non-performing loan book or the Bank of Ghana’s policy rate. They are the “invisible” global systems. A reinsurance decision in Europe to pull coverage from a specific trade route, or a shift in energy commodities risk, can strangle our import/export economy faster than any legislative change.
2. Model the “Unseen”: When stress-testing your trade finance portfolio, the question isn’t just “Is the borrower creditworthy?” The question is: “Will London’s insurers let their ships sail? Will the global payment systems clear their transactions?”
3. Local Knowledge is Your Advantage: While global systems are faceless, you are local. You understand the Ghanaian market. Your role is to bridge the gap between the cold, hard global spreadsheet and the resilient local reality. Help your clients navigate not just the local regulatory environment, but the global systemic environment.
The Strait of Hormuz wasn’t closed by a gunboat. It was closed by a risk premium. Until we understand that as banking consultants, we don’t understand how money actually moves in the twenty-first century.
Let’s advise our banks to look at the spreadsheets. That’s where the future of trade and finance in Ghana is being written.
I am inspired by;
1 Chronicles 12:32 (NIV)
“…from the tribe of Issachar, men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”
The world is changing, and we need people who don’t just watch the news, but who understand.
