Mark Brolin

Mark Brolin is a geopolitical strategist and the author of 'Healing Broken Democracies: All You Need to Know About Populism'

Saturday

Mark Brolin

Denmark’s velvet trap has been exposed

Denmark is, by almost any measure, an extraordinary success. A nation of six million that has produced Novo Nordisk, Maersk, Vestas and Lego. Its GDP per capita is comfortably ahead of Sweden and Finland. Greater Copenhagen (including Swedish Lund and Malmö) is ranked among Europe's top innovation clusters. Danish film culture – Bier, Vinterberg, the Borgen phenomenon – has convinced the world that Denmark has solved democracy, one subtitled thriller at a time. Copenhagen airport is the undisputed transport hub of the Nordic region. Denmark remains among the very happiest societies on earth, according to the latest World Happiness Report.

Friday

Mark Brolin

There’s nothing equal about Russia’s relationship with India

From our UK edition

Vladimir Putin lands in Delhi, steps off the plane and instantly gets what he came for: the pictures. The handshake with Narendra Modi, the red carpet, the talk of a 'special and privileged strategic partnership'. For the Kremlin, this week’s summit in India is mainly a PR exercise: proof to Russians that their country is still received as a great power, while the West tries isolation. But don't be deceived if it appears that two equal giants are meeting. They are not. India, the land of the future, has surged to become the world’s fifth-largest economy and is on course to overtake Germany and Japan. Russia, the land of the past, now hovers at the fringes of the global top ten and is likely to also fall behind faster-growing economies such as South Korea and Australia.