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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.

China has penetrated Taiwan's military. Does that make US intelligence sharing dangerous?

China has penetrated Taiwan's military. Does that make US intelligence sharing dangerous?

Taiwan charged 64 people with espionage in 2024, most of them military personnel. As Washington deepens intelligence cooperation with Taipei, every secret shared risks reaching Beijing. The question is whether the deterrent value exceeds the counterintelligence cost.

China's phantom fleet: Why chasing shadows in Latin America weakens Pacific deterrence

China's phantom fleet: Why chasing shadows in Latin America weakens Pacific deterrence

Beijing's Western Hemisphere presence consists of hospital ships and container ports, not warships. Yet American strategic culture struggles to ignore it, risking the very deterrence it claims to protect.

Why India cannot stop China's slow conquest of the Himalayas

Why India cannot stop China's slow conquest of the Himalayas

India fields the world's fourth-largest military but watches helplessly as Chinese roads, railways, and villages advance across disputed territory. The answer lies not in firepower but in legal constraints, nuclear shadows, and the patient accumulation of concrete facts.

Why Pacific deterrence is failing from both ends at once

Why Pacific deterrence is failing from both ends at once

The assumption that US allies' political will and military capacity operate as separate variables—one of which might fail first—is wrong. They are degrading together in a feedback loop that may hollow out deterrence before anyone notices.

Australia's alliance dilemma: What happens when the US builds alternatives to Australian bases

Australia's alliance dilemma: What happens when the US builds alternatives to Australian bases

The United States is quietly constructing military and intelligence alternatives across the Indo-Pacific that could bypass Australian political constraints in a crisis. Australia risks remaining a target while losing influence over the decisions that make it one.

Why Australia cannot stay neutral in a US-China war

Why Australia cannot stay neutral in a US-China war

Australia hosts US military facilities so critical to American warfighting that Beijing would likely strike them in any serious conflict. The infrastructure that makes Australia valuable to Washington also makes it a target—and unlike the United States, Australia cannot absorb the consequences.

How China could neutralise US bases in Australia without firing a shot

How China could neutralise US bases in Australia without firing a shot

Beijing's strategists have studied the facilities that enable American power projection from Australian soil. Their doctrine suggests disruption, sabotage, and psychological pressure may achieve more than missiles ever could—without triggering the war China wants to avoid.

Trump's Greenland push forces Europe to confront what it cannot afford

Trump's Greenland push forces Europe to confront what it cannot afford

The American president's territorial ambitions have become an accidental stress test for European strategic autonomy. The results expose a €1.8 trillion investment gap, fiscal rules that prevent defense spending, and political systems unable to sustain the commitments that independence requires.

Why Taiwan's missile defense will fail in the first hours of a Chinese attack

Why Taiwan's missile defense will fail in the first hours of a Chinese attack

Taiwan has spent billions on Patriot batteries and indigenous interceptors. But the brutal arithmetic of saturation warfare means its layered defenses will likely collapse within hours of a serious Chinese strike—not from technological failure, but from the physics of fighting an adversary with...

Why Gulf states are urging America not to strike Iran

Why Gulf states are urging America not to strike Iran

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and their neighbours have spent decades under an American security umbrella. Now they are begging Washington to keep that umbrella closed—fearing they would pay the price for any attack on Tehran.

China's ground stations are the real threat to Western military satellites

China's ground stations are the real threat to Western military satellites

While defense planners focus on Chinese missiles and anti-satellite weapons, Beijing has been building something more insidious: a global network of ground infrastructure across the Global South that can track, jam, and exploit Western military communications—without ever firing a shot.

China's Antelope Reef signals a strategic shift from deterrence to denial in the South China Sea

China's Antelope Reef signals a strategic shift from deterrence to denial in the South China Sea

Beijing's latest artificial island is not another territorial marker. It is a weapons platform designed to make American operations in the western Pacific prohibitively costly—a shift from threatening retaliation to eliminating options.