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Great Powers

Strategic analysis of US-China-Russia competition, multipolarity, and the dynamics of great power rivalry that shape the international order.

The Amber of American Strategy: What the 2025 NDAA Reveals About American Strategy

The Amber of American Strategy: What the 2025 NDAA Reveals About American Strategy

The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act was shaped by Biden but will be implemented by Trump. Its $895 billion framework reveals what American strategic culture has decided to preserve regardless of who holds power—and what remains dangerously unresolved.

The Architecture of Exclusion: How Travel Bans Are Reshaping Global Mobility

The Architecture of Exclusion: How Travel Bans Are Reshaping Global Mobility

The United States has imposed its most expansive travel restrictions since 1952, affecting 19 countries with potential expansion to 32. The diplomatic and economic consequences extend far beyond counterterrorism—they are reordering who moves, where, and under what conditions.

The Spy Who Couldn't Disappear: HUMINT in the Digital Age

The Spy Who Couldn't Disappear: HUMINT in the Digital Age

Human intelligence tradecraft has survived every technological revolution from the telegraph to the satellite. The smartphone may be different. In a world where everyone leaves a digital trail from birth, the ancient art of espionage faces its most fundamental transformation.

The Shadow War Everyone Fights, Nobody Declares

The Shadow War Everyone Fights, Nobody Declares

Nuclear weapons made great power war unthinkable but not great power competition impossible. Grey zone warfare—cyber attacks, economic coercion, information operations—has become the default grammar of rivalry between states that cannot afford to fight directly.

The Geometry of Hedging: What India and Pakistan Reveal About International Order

The Geometry of Hedging: What India and Pakistan Reveal About International Order

India and Pakistan maintain simultaneous relationships with the United States, China, and Russia without facing meaningful consequences. Their success reveals not diplomatic cleverness but a structural transformation in how international order actually works—one where commitment is costly and...

The Fence That Feeds the Fire

The Fence That Feeds the Fire

Donald Trump has inherited the most ambitious technology containment regime since the Cold War and vowed to make it stronger. The controls are working—just not in the ways Washington intended. As export restrictions multiply, they are reshaping the US-China competition in ways that may...

The Arsenal Paradox

The Arsenal Paradox

The next global conflict will be decided not by battlefield technology but by industrial architecture—the ability to produce weapons at scale while economies continue functioning. The United States is losing this race before the shooting starts.

The Pipeline and the Sword

Energy & Climate

The Pipeline and the Sword

Russia's weaponisation of energy exports has transformed NATO's strategic calculus more profoundly than any military build-up since 1991. The alliance now faces a contest where molecules matter as much as missiles—and where Europe's thirty-year bet on interdependence has become its most...

The Reef That Decides Everything

The Reef That Decides Everything

The rusting hull of the Sierra Madre sits on Second Thomas Shoal, a Philippine Navy vessel deliberately grounded in 1999 to stake a territorial claim. A handful of marines live aboard, resupplied by small boats that must run a gauntlet of Chinese Coast Guard water cannons.

The Sanction That Couldn't Bite

Economic Statecraft

The Sanction That Couldn't Bite

Russia was supposed to collapse by now. When Western nations imposed what officials called "unprecedented" economic sanctions in February 2022, the predictions were stark: GDP would crater 15%, the ruble would become rubble, Putin's war machine would grind to a halt within months.

The Countdown That Isn't

The Countdown That Isn't

Taiwan exists in a state of permanent almost. Almost a country. Almost at war. Almost reunified. For seventy-five years, the island has occupied a liminal space that international law cannot classify and strategic planners cannot resolve.