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Michael Soren

The Deterrent That Became a Target

The Deterrent That Became a Target

China's missile arsenal can now threaten every American base in the Western Pacific. The forces meant to prevent war may instead invite the opening salvo of one. Washington faces choices it has spent decades avoiding.

What Breaks First as the Sahel's Security Collapse Spreads to Coastal West Africa?

What Breaks First as the Sahel's Security Collapse Spreads to Coastal West Africa?

The crisis spreading from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger will not arrive at the coast as an invasion. It will come as school absences, shifting market inventories, and the quiet death of institutional legitimacy. Understanding the sequence reveals which interventions might still work—and which...

When the Clocks Stop: The Hidden Fragility of Global Timing Infrastructure

When the Clocks Stop: The Hidden Fragility of Global Timing Infrastructure

The Wires Beneath the Waves: How Submarine Cables Became the Pacific's Contested Terrain

The Wires Beneath the Waves: How Submarine Cables Became the Pacific's Contested Terrain

Taiwan experiences seven to eight cable breaks annually, most linked to China. The pattern reveals how submarine cables have transformed from neutral infrastructure into strategic terrain where great powers contest the physical substrate of the digital world.

The War Nobody Watches: Why Sudan's Genocide Remains Invisible to Western Powers

The War Nobody Watches: Why Sudan's Genocide Remains Invisible to Western Powers

Sudan controls critical Red Sea access and Africa's third-largest gold reserves. Its civil war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. The US has declared genocide. Yet Western powers treat it as background noise—a structural failure with strategic consequences.

The Fragile Thread: Australia's Pacific Communications in a Taiwan Crisis

The Fragile Thread: Australia's Pacific Communications in a Taiwan Crisis

Ninety-seven percent of Pacific data flows through cables China could sever in hours. Australia's island partnerships depend on infrastructure designed for peacetime efficiency, not wartime resilience. The window to build redundancy is closing faster than procurement timelines assume.

Germany's Eastern Promise: Strategic Shift or Expensive Theater?

Germany's Eastern Promise: Strategic Shift or Expensive Theater?

Berlin has pledged its first permanent foreign military deployment since 1945—a 5,000-strong brigade in Lithuania by 2027. The commitment is real. Whether Germany can fulfill it remains the central question for NATO's eastern flank.

The Sovereignty Loophole: Why NATO Cannot Stop Russia's Shadow Fleet

The Sovereignty Loophole: Why NATO Cannot Stop Russia's Shadow Fleet

Over 600 Russian-linked vessels conduct espionage operations in European waters while NATO watches helplessly. The problem is not military capability but legal architecture—a gap between eighteenth-century maritime law and twenty-first-century hybrid warfare that the world's most powerful...

The Signals That Drowned Themselves

The Signals That Drowned Themselves

When Templates Trump Threats: Australia's Security Blind Spot

When Templates Trump Threats: Australia's Security Blind Spot

The Bondi Beach attack exposed a structural flaw in Australia's counter-terrorism architecture. When threat reality contradicts institutional templates, the system optimizes for legibility over security—with consequences that extend far beyond a single incident.

The Address That Wouldn't Die

The Address That Wouldn't Die

The Architecture of Borrowed Trust

The Architecture of Borrowed Trust