WAC Houston

Fear of AI is everywhere — but according to Leon Coe, founder of Amplify Intelligence and president of the Houston AI Club, the only way that fear becomes reality is by doing nothing about it. In this episode of The Greater Loop, host Maryanne Maldonado sits down with "the Houston AI guy" to unpack what AI actually is, why compute is becoming the new oil, and how Houston — with its energy, medicine, and shipping muscle — could quietly become the applied AI capital of the world. Plus: who should write the rules for AI, the biggest AI myths still floating around, and why Leon's boldest predictions for 2026 came true months ahead of schedule.
 

What makes a foreign policy decision great? And what turns one into a historic catastrophe?
Jim Lindsay, Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations, surveyed hundreds of historians from the world's largest professional association devoted to US foreign policy, and asked them to rank the 10 best and 10 worst decisions in American history, spanning from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 all the way to 2020.
The results are fascinating, sobering, and uncomfortably relevant right now.
The best decision? The Marshall Plan, the post-WWII commitment that rebuilt Western Europe, pushed back Soviet expansion, and solidified democracy across the continent. The worst? The US invasion of Iran, a war launched on pretenses, followed by a bloody occupation that squandered blood and treasure for little strategic gain.
But the list doesn't stop there. The refusal to admit Jewish refugees before World War II. The Vietnam War doubling down. The Senate's rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. And the lessons embedded in each one that echo loudly in the decisions being made right now.
Hosted by Maryanne Maldonado | The Greater Loop: A podcast of the World Affairs Council of Houston
Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
Topics covered:
The #1 best US foreign policy decision — and why historians agreed overwhelmingly
The #1 worst — and what it reveals about military overreach
Why foreign policy failures come from doing too much AND too little
The Jewish refugee crisis as a foreign policy failure of inaction
Vietnam: how LBJ doubled down on a war he didn't believe in
The Marshall Plan's secret — George Kennan's two words: "Avoid trivia"
America's isolationist era and what it cost the world
What history tells us about global leadership vs. turning inward
How to find CFR's full ranking of 120 decisions at CFR.org
 
Check the upcoming program with James Lindsay
https://wachouston.org/event/james_lindsay/

Two powerful earthquakes. More than 50,000 people unaccounted for. A death toll still climbing. And a government blocking aid deliveries to maintain control.
Venezuela was already one of the most fragile states in the Western Hemisphere. Now it's facing a catastrophe that is exposing and deepening every crack in its political and economic foundation.
Maryanne Maldonado sits down with Henry Ziemer, Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to break down what's really happening on the ground in Venezuela, and what it means for the country's political future, its oil sector, its $240 billion debt restructuring, and the surprisingly transformed relationship between Washington and Caracas.
Because here's what's jarring: US Marines are now operating at La Carlota Air Base in downtown Caracas. The same country that burned aid trucks at its border in 2019 is now receiving American military assistance relatively freely. That's not a small shift. That's a geopolitical earthquake on top of a geological one.
Hosted by Maryanne Maldonado | The Greater Loop: A podcast of the World Affairs Council of Houston
Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
Topics covered:
Scale of the disaster: 2,000+ dead, 50,000 unaccounted for
Why Venezuela's hollowed-out state made the earthquake so much deadlier
The Chavista inner circle blocking aid — and what that means politically
Two possible outcomes: regime entrenchment or democratic pressure
US Marines in Caracas: how Washington-Venezuela relations transformed
Venezuela's oil sector: how damaged, and what it means for energy markets
The $240 billion debt restructuring, the largest sovereign debt in history
Latin America's pro-US coalition and the Shield of the Americas test
What Venezuela looks like in the years ahead

Iran's national team can't spend the night in the United States. A referee arrived with a valid visa and was turned back at the border. FIFA promised free movement for all teams. Trump didn't care.
Welcome to the 2026 World Cup, the most geopolitically charged sporting event in modern history.
Maryanne Maldonado sits down with Dr. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute Middle East Institute and one of the leading voices on the intersection of sports, politics, and global affairs, to break down what's really happening beneath the surface of this tournament. From sportswashing and FIFA's Faustian bargain with Trump, to what Houston's diversity means in a World Cup era of ICE fears and diaspora communities, to the jaw-dropping scenario of the US potentially playing Iran on July 3rd, this episode connects the beautiful game to the ugliest geopolitical tensions of our time.
And when the final whistle blows? The legacy might not be the politics. It might be a generation of American kids who fell in love with soccer.
Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
Topics covered:
Iran's team commuting from Tijuana — is this a FIFA breach?
How Trump outmaneuvered FIFA's free movement guarantee
What sportswashing actually means — and why this World Cup inverts it
Gianni Infantino's strategy with Trump — and why it failed
Houston as a host city: diversity, ICE concerns & diaspora communities
The 2028 LA Olympics — what the IOC is watching right now
Could the US play Iran on July 3rd? What that would mean
America 250 celebrations in the middle of the tournament
The lasting legacy: politics or grassroots soccer growth?

The headlines called it a diplomatic breakthrough. A leading China expert calls it something else.
Scott Kennedy, Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and one of America's foremost authorities on the Chinese economy, with 38 years of on-the-ground experience in China, joins Maryanne Maldonado to break down what actually happened at the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, and what was conspicuously left unsaid.
The two sides agreed to a framework of "constructive strategic stability." But Kennedy argues that framework is far more comfortable for Beijing than Washington. China used rare earth restrictions to force the US to retreat on tariffs and export controls, and in doing so, grabbed control of the dial that sets the temperature of the entire relationship. Now both sides hold it. And Taiwan, Iran, human rights, and Chinese industrial policy were all quietly sidelined in favor of soybeans, beef, and Boeing contracts.
What does this summit mean for Taiwan? For Iran? For the future of AI competition between the world's two superpowers? And when historians look back in five years, what will this moment actually represent?
 Hosted by Maryanne Maldonado | The Greater Loop — A podcast of the World Affairs Council of Houston
 Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
 Topics covered:
Was the Beijing summit a turning point or a tactical pause?
How China used rare earths to force US concessions
What "constructive strategic stability" actually means to Beijing
The G2 framework — and why China is quietly thrilled
Taiwan: why anxiety spiked after the summit
Iran, the Middle East & why Washington needed Beijing's help
AI safety dialogue — what was agreed and what it means
Trade deals: Boeings, beef, soybeans & energy purchases
The bigger framing shift that will define US-China relations for years

Washington has fired career diplomats, shuttered USAID, and pulled back from international engagement. Houston is doing the opposite.
In this episode, Maryanne Maldonado sits down with Ambassador Chase Untermeyer, veteran of the Reagan and Bush administrations, former US Ambassador to Qatar, and director of the Voice of America, and Nick Sawicki of the Houston Public Library Foundation to announce something that has never been done at any public library in the United States: a Diplomat in Residence program.
Ambassador Untermeyer, who grew up reading at the Houston Public Library, is now its inaugural Diplomat in Residence, bringing decades of firsthand foreign policy experience directly to one of the most diverse cities in America, free and open to everyone.
The conversation covers what diplomacy actually looks like at street level, why Houston's consular corps keeps growing while the federal government retreats, what Sharia law actually is (and why politicians who campaign against it can't define it), and why the library, not a think tank, not a university, might be exactly the right place for this conversation to happen.
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 Topics covered:
The first Diplomat in Residence program at any public library in the US
How Houston is filling the diplomatic vacuum Washington left behind
Ambassador Untermeyer's career: Reagan, Bush, Qatar, Voice of America
What Sharia law actually is, and why it's being misused politically
How the Houston Public Library connects 2.4 million visitors to global affairs
Diplomacy in closed rooms vs. diplomacy for everyday people
The lost US Information Agency libraries, and what replaced them
Houston's growing consular corps and international business community

Most people travel to see the world. WAC Houston members travel to understand it.
In this episode, Maryanne Maldonado sits down with travel expert Ilyas Hokkaci to preview two of the most geopolitically charged trips the World Affairs Council has ever offered: Uzbekistan, sitting at the center of a quiet new great power competition between Russia, China, and the West, and South Korea & Taiwan, two democracies living on the most volatile fault lines on earth.
In Uzbekistan, travelers will walk through the ancient cities of Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand, the heart of the Islamic Golden Age, and connect that history directly to today's new Silk Road rivalry. In South Korea and Taiwan, they'll stand at the DMZ, meet with North Korea intelligence specialists, and visit the semiconductor companies and democratic institutions that the world's superpowers are competing to control.
This isn't a tour. It's a lens.
 
 Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
 What's covered:
Why Uzbekistan is the gem of Central Asia — and a geopolitical battleground
The Silk Road as information highway, not just a trade route
Khiva, Bukhara & Samarkand, Islamic civilization made visible
The DMZ: what it actually feels like to stand there
Meeting North Korea intelligence specialists in Seoul
Taiwan's survival story. Why a small island matters to the whole world
South Korea & Taiwan as parallel democratic fault lines
How WAC Houston connects ancient history to today's headlines
2027 trips preview: Japan, Mongolia, the Baltics & more
Book your spot:
https://wachouston.org/events/category/travel/
— wachouston.org

In only four eventful and momentous years, numerous major geopolitical events have shocked global oil markets and redefined how oil is, and may be, traded around the world in the years to come. Those events and the leaders still shaping them have contributed to often staggering and unpredictable swings in global oil prices. In the longer term, even if prices stabilize again, what may prove to be the most important ramification of this era may be not just the differing ways oil moves around the world, but which nations may or may not buy/sell oil with each other. Little more than a year after COVID massively disrupted global oil demand & prices, Putin’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 rocked global oil markets once again. Within about a year, markets regained their balance, as Europeans looked to reduce their excessive dependence on Russian oil & gas – and with his growing ‘shadow fleet’, Putin re-prioritized where and how his crude would be delivered. The stunning and unexpected capture of Maduro this January may have had a relatively short-term impact on global oil prices. But it set the stage for possibly dramatic political and economic changes in Venezuela, in terms of who is in power and which major companies and countries may be involved in the years to come. Most recently, the US-Israeli War on Iran, which started less than two months ago, has already had profound impacts not only on global oil prices, but on the economies of Saudi Arabia & the Gulf States and beyond. The war also launched an ever-changing and ongoing conflict to determine control and access to the vital artery that supplies 20% of the world’s oil – the Strait of Hormuz. Whether it might result in more Russian pipelines to China, more American energy companies being willing to work in Venezuela, or Gulf States looking for long-term alternatives to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, global oil markets, trading partners, and routes for delivery may never be the same. Featured Speaker: Wafik Beydoun With over 40 years of international experience in the energy sector, Wafik Beydoun has lived and worked across more than 40 countries, leading major projects and partnerships while navigating diverse cultural and operational environments. A former senior executive at TotalEnergies, including leadership positions with ADNOC and the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, he brings deep insight into how culture influences strategy, leadership, and collaboration on the global stage. He also played a significant role in professional societies and global industry events (like OTC and SEG), serving on the OTC Board of Directors for nearly a decade, including as Chair in 2018–2019. Today, Wafik teaches and advises on cultural intelligence, helping professionals and students decode cultural dynamics through his course Navigating Cultural Dynamics in a Complex Global Environment. Wafik holds a PhD in Geophysics and a Master’s in Earth Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master’s in Science & Technology from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, France. He is a member of SEG, SPE, EAGE, AAPG, AGU, and Sigma Xi, with over 100 publications and communications to his credit.

Every time a president walks into a room, hundreds of decisions have already been made — the route, the handshakes, the camera angles, and the escape plan. And sometimes, despite all the planning, things go sideways.
Jean Becker spent nearly 25 years as Chief of Staff to President George H.W. Bush — running his post-presidential office, managing his state funeral, and living inside the machinery of American power longer than most people can imagine. She's also the editor of Don't Tell the President, a collection of 96 behind-the-scenes essays from advance teams spanning LBJ to Obama — covering everything from fall-down funny road stories to the moments that made history: 9/11, Reagan's assassination attempt, Sandy Hook, and a secret Thanksgiving trip to Iraq that even Bush 41 didn't know about until it was over.
In this episode, Maryanne Maldonado sits down with Jean to talk about what presidential advance actually means, what really went wrong at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and what George H.W. Bush was actually like behind closed doors — the man whose moral character, she says, was simply in his DNA.
This is the side of American power you don't read about in official records.
Hosted by Maryanne Maldonado | The Greater Loop — A podcast of the World Affairs Council of Houston
Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
Topics covered:
What presidential advance actually is — and how it works
The White House Correspondents' Dinner security breach — what went wrong
Running Bush 41's post-presidency for 25 years
The secret Thanksgiving trip to Iraq — and why Barbara Bush couldn't know
What Obama looked like before facing the Sandy Hook families
The moral character of George H.W. Bush — discipline or DNA?
What life looks like for a president after leaving office
Don't Tell the President — the book behind the stories
https://wachouston.org/event/1082-wine-wisdom-confessions-behind-presidential-visits/

Most people travel to see the world. WAC Houston members travel to understand it.
In this episode, Maryanne Maldonado sits down with Ilyas Hokkaci, WAC Houston's travel program lead, to talk about what intentional travel really looks like — from the just-completed cherry blossom season trip through Kyoto and Tokyo, to the upcoming October journey through Morocco that has members already booking their seats.
Morocco isn't just a destination. It's a crossroads — where North Africa, Europe, and the Arab world collide across 1,000+ years of layered history. From the Atlantic coast of Casablanca and Rabat, through the Atlas Mountains, into the Sahara desert, and on to the ancient souks of Marrakesh — this 10-day trip moves through civilizations, not just cities.
And thanks to WAC Houston's decades-long relationships with local partners, travelers get access that no individual traveler — or standard tour company — can replicate. Private palace lunches. Overnight desert camps. Conversations with people who actually live the history you came to see.
If you've been on the fence about Morocco, this episode will get you off it.
Hosted by Maryanne Maldonado | The Greater Loop — A podcast of the World Affairs Council of Houston
Subscribe for global affairs content that connects the world to your world.
What's covered:
Highlights from WAC Houston's Japan trip — Kyoto to Tokyo
What makes Morocco a once-in-a-lifetime destination
The Atlas Mountains, Sahara desert, Kasbahs & Marrakesh itinerary
Why Morocco is one of the most stable, welcoming countries in the region
Exclusive access: private lunches, desert glamping & local homes
How to secure your spot on the October trip
Ready to go? 
 
Morrocco:
https://wachouston.org/event/morocco-from-sahara-to-the-sea/All trips:https://wachouston.org/events/category/travel/