'The best of prophets of the future is the past.'
-Lord Byron (1821)

About:

Samuel Jardine is a Geopolitics Consultant and Historian. He is the Head of Research at London Politica and is also a Research Consultant for the Royal United Services Institute's (RUSI) Defence, Industries and Society programme where he provides research and analysis for a variety of projects. He is also the Project Lead for the Open Lunar Foundation's Lunar Registry Project, and a Policy Specialist for the Lunar Policy Platform, a global non-profit which facilitates consensus within the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and supports the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) by creating dialogues with all stakeholders in the global space sector.

Sam is also a 2024 Foresight Fellow at the Foresight Institute within its "Space Technologies" programme where he researches governance, policy, and geopolitical risks for current and future space exploration and exploitation (and how to mitigate them) in the context of emerging strategic competition and great power rivalry. He is also a Research Associate for the Climate Change & (In)Security Project (CCIP); a collaboration by Oxford University and the British Army's think tank- The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research (CHACR), that seeks to enhance understanding of the insecurities created by climate change on national, human, and geopolitical security and advise how to mitigate or respond and communicating these insights to parliamentarians, policy-makers, and practitioners. The CCIP also provides the Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate and Security to help facilitate cross-party action on climate change's impact on security.

Samuel is also a Senior Advisor at Luminint, a geopolitical intelligence firm, and a Strategic Adviser to the GorStra Research Group, an organisation providing investigative journalism on global democratic backsliding. Further to this, he is a current Affiliate and Researcher, and 2023 Research Fellow for the Open Lunar Foundation where he works on space geopolitics, strategic competition, policy and governance as well as being a Research Affiliate with the Center for Space Governance. Sam is also a freelance contractor with Mabway where he provides geopolitical, policy, and human-terrain related expertise and support for the design, implementation and delivery of UK Armed Forces warighting and sub-threshold field exercises.

Samuel was formally the Project Manager for Lord Kerslake's independent cross-bench commission on UK Military Accommodation initiated at the request of Labour Shadow Defence Secretary, John Healey and supported by King's College London's Policy Institute. He was previously selected to be a RUSI Military Sciences "Rising Star" programme mentee. Sam has also been a Research Fellow for the Center for Space Governance, as well as a former Fellow of the Arctic Spring College Geopolitics program hosted by the Arctic Institute, The Ecologic Institute, and MiH-RCN. He founded and ran as Programme Director London Politica's Geopolitics on the Periphery programme; specialising in space, the Arctic, Antarctic, and the seabed.

Samuel holds an MA in Modern History from King's College London and a BA (Hons) in History from the Open University. He is a member of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP), the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), and the National Science Foundation-funded Arctic Migrations in Harmony Research Coordination Network (MiH-RCN).

His historic interest lies in the geopolitics of imperialism throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, particularly of contested borderlands, and their influence on international relations between Britain and other ‘great powers’, especially the Anglo-American and British-Chinese relationships.

His analytical speciality is the geopolitics, policy, and security of space, the Polar regions, seabed, "Global Britain", and the Indo-Pacific with a particular focus on great power competition, grand strategy, defence policy, climate conflict, and mineral politics. He is an advocate for the utility of Applied History within contemporary geopolitics and policy combined with the utilisation of an OSINT approach to analysis and intelligence.

Public Engagement:

Samuel was recently invited by the Innovation in Politics Institute to film a 1-hour talk for them for their "Expert Briefings" series covering geopolitics and consulting. Sam was also a delegate to the 67th UN Committe on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) where he represented the Open Lunar Foundation (a UN permanent observer) and made two statements to the plenary. Previously, Sam had been invited as an Expert participant to the UN's first ever UN Conference on Sustainable Lunar Activities to provide his insight and expertise to the proceedings.

Before this Sam was invited in his capacity as an Affiliate of the Open Lunar Foundation to Wilton Park's invitation-only Conference on Future Space Threats jointly hosted by the Ministry of Defence and Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. Previously Sam was invited as a contributor to a Royal Navy-hosted Roundtable discussing the emerging commercial and strategic opportunities and risks presented by a changing Arctic at HMS President attended by representatives from major shipping and logistics companies, port and local authorities, the Royal Navy, and key maritime associations. Here Sam provided input and advice from a geopolitical and political risk perspective to help shape future policy.

He previously gave a lecture alongside Dr Tim Clack (Director of the CCIP) for the Royal College of Defence Studies at Seaford House regarding climate change's impact on Arctic and Antarctic geopolitics. He also lectured on Arctic Geopolitics for the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre to Royal Navy and related personnel. He has been frequently interviewed and quoted for several media outlets, including Voice of America and was interviewed for TV by AL24's Melissa Nour Khemilet regarding the ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission and the geopolitics and issues arising from increasing space competition. Prior to that, Sam was interviewed on AL24 regarding the geopolitics and utilisation of "near-space" in the context of the China-US surveillance balloon incident. He also gave a talk at the Royal United Services Institute as part of the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War where he provided a lecture and Q&A session on The Geopolitics of Britain's Antarctic Empire 1942–1961 and its Falklands Legacy.

Sam was also interviewed by Voice Of America (VOA) to discuss the Arctic's increasing impact on global geopolitics, and particularly the UK's interests and actions in the region. Sam has also given interviews to policy journals such as "Dialouge", where he shared his expertise on space policy and security, and to podcasts such as "The Auxiliary Chamber" where as a special guest he was interviewed about the controversial history behind the Antarctic Treaty System and the role of Anglo-US-Argentine relations in its creation. He has also been invited to sit on the Board Of Reviewers for the Winter/Fall 2021 special edition of the Global Affairs Review Journal , in collaboration with the Arctic Youth Network. This edition was dedicated to academic papers relating to the Arctic's role in international affairs and cooperation.

Samuel has previously delivered several Applied History-centric tours to both academic and public audiences, and his geopolitical expertise has been sought out for several interviews, commentaries, and talks. The largest of which has been a series of public talks in 2019 and early 2020 to non-academic audiences on the wider history of Brexit and its implications.

He has a growing list of publications, talks, and media appearances.

Alongside tickets to his public talks, Sam offers tailored tuition and private history or geopolitics talks for individuals, groups and organizations, in person or online. Get in touch now to discuss a booking.