top of page

Claude x Carney - coalition planning tool for a ruptured world order

  • Writer: Osinto HQ
    Osinto HQ
  • 7 hours ago
  • 4 min read

Mark Carney’s speech in Davos last month set out the geopolitical vision driving his administration’s approach to foreign policy:

“…a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality where geopolitics – where the large, main power – is submitted to no limits, no constraints.”

Carney's proposed solution for middle powers like Canada is a “variable geometry” approach to international relations, seeking to work with “different coalitions for different issues, based on common values and interests.” The speech is worth watching (or reading) in full.


A prototype geopolitical planning tool

Inspired by the Canadian Prime Minister's pragmatism we set about prototyping a tool that could be used to help plan and assess the relative strength of different issues-based coalitions.


Navigating today’s febrile geopolitical environment is a challenge, so we thought it would be interesting to see how some of the latest Large Language model (LLM) offerings could be utilised to rapidly prototype a proof-of-concept software application using Anthropic's Claude.


Step I: Planning and context

We first fed Claude the full text of Carney’s January speech through the Chat interface. After some conversational back and forth we explained that we wanted to create a tool to help middle powers explore and evaluate different coalition options.


We suggested a few key issues on which such a tool could initially focus including rare earth minerals, defence and semiconductor supply. We suggested a slider where, on a given issue, a nation state could choose between partners on the basis of Pragmatism vs Values alignment.



A user should then be able to select prospective coalition partners on a per-issue basis and see how the relative strength of their coalition might compare to other groupings. We provided some exemplar data sources and metrics to use and after a few iterations had a comprehensive requirements specification with which we were happy.


Geopolitical Coalition Planner - Requirements Specification


Summary

A strategic planning tool enabling nation states to model issue-based coalitions (using the variable geometry approach) to form alliances for different challenges based on shared interests, values and capabilities.


Core Concept

Enable geopolitical strategists to:

  • Identify optimal coalition partners for specific issues

  • Assess collective influence against adversaries / competitors

  • Model trade-offs between


System Architecture

Four 'Core Modules':

  1. Country Profile Database - comprehensive, regularly updated profiles

  2. Issue Domain Framework - pre-configured issue categories with customisable parameters

  3. Influence Calculation Engine - multi-dimensional influence scoring per issue

  4. Coalition Building Interface - an interactive front-end


Data Sources & Integration

A range of primary data sources are specified, including:


The underlying Country Profile database should of course be regularly updated and consider a range of factors. Some examples of different constituent indicators are listed.


Economic Indicators

  • GDP (nominal and PPP)

  • GDP growth rate

  • Trade volume and patterns

  • Foreign direct investment (inbound/outbound)

  • Currency reserves

  • Sovereign debt levels

  • Major trading partners and dependencies


Resource Endowments

  • Critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, rare earths, etc.)

  • Energy resources (oil, gas, uranium, renewable potential)

  • Agricultural capacity and food security

  • Water resources

  • Strategic resource dependencies


Testing Claude Cowork

Anthropic recently released a new way to work with Claude called Cowork. Leveraging some of the same AI agent features as Claude Code, the company's agentic coding tool, allowing users to "take on complex, multi-step tasks and execute them on your behalf."


We're in no way affiliated with Anthropic nor have we been paid to endorse any of their products.


Cowork is only available at present to users of the Claude MacOS desktop app. Having run some experiments prototyping software via the chat interface, the ability to provide the LLM with access to specific folders to work on documents significantly streamlines the process of co-creation with the tool.



Prototyping with Claude: Results

Versions 0.1 - 0.4

The first version didn't work at all and simply displayed a blank screen. After some debugging, rethinking and showing the model (via screenshots) where things weren't working quite as anticipated, we had a working prototype up and running.


After several hours of development here's where we got to with Version 4 of our Geopolitical Coalition Planner:


Home Screen

Using the dropdown in the top-right corner a user selects the country whose perspective they wish to analyse, then an Issue Domain is selected on the left-hand side. A coalition around the issue can then be built by clicking on countries in the 'Recommended' sidebar or on the map:



Data Sources

The prototype uses illustrative sample data, a production deployment would ingest data from a series of sources such as those listed below, with automated refresh cycles determined by the data type and source:



Influence Rankings

Each country is given an 'Influence Score' pertaining to their calculated influence for the selected issue, and a 'Values' score, indicating the extent to which the country's governance and political values align with the selected lead country.



Coalition Scenario Comparison

When a prospective coalition has been selected the Coalition Scenario Comparison screen generates three optimised scenarios based on the selected Lead Country and Issue Domain. Below the comparison cards a summary of the active coalition is also shown:



Export Coalition Visualisation

Lastly there's an option to export a coalition 'Card' (as a PNG) or to copy it to your device clipboard, visualising a given coalition and associated data for easy reuse in presentations and reports:



If you're interested in learning more about our prototype Geopolitical Coalition Planning Tool, or working with us on development of this (or another) project - please contact us here or drop an email to hello@osinto.com.


We'll shortly be deploying a version to the web for anyone interested to experiment with.




Comments

Commenting on this post isn't available anymore. Contact the site owner for more info.
bottom of page