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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 Dictator's Dilemma: Why Xi's Taiwan Problem Has No Good Solutions

The Dictator's Dilemma: Why Xi's Taiwan Problem Has No Good Solutions

The 2027 'invasion window' misunderstands China's Taiwan calculus. Xi Jinping's political survival does not require taking the island—it requires ensuring no one can challenge him for not taking it. The system he built to guarantee his power may guarantee escalation instead.

The Hierarchy of the Ungrievable: Why Sudan Burns Alone

The Hierarchy of the Ungrievable: Why Sudan Burns Alone

With over 150,000 dead and famine gripping multiple states, Sudan's civil war has become the world's largest humanitarian crisis. The West's near-total absence reveals not hypocrisy but something more structural: a new hierarchy of geopolitical concern that operates according to rules rarely...

The 2027 Question: What Breaks First Over Taiwan

The 2027 Question: What Breaks First Over Taiwan

China's military readiness deadline approaches as American deterrence, semiconductor supply chains, and allied resolve in Tokyo and Seoul each show stress fractures. The question is not whether the system holds—but which component fails first, and whether the failure propagates before anyone...

Trump's Nigeria Strike: Precision Without Purpose

Trump's Nigeria Strike: Precision Without Purpose

The Christmas Day Tomahawk strikes against ISIS in Nigeria demonstrated American reach but not American strategy. As ISWAP grows stronger and the Sahel slips toward Russia, tactical excellence continues to substitute for strategic coherence in U.S. counterterrorism.

Germany's Conscription Questionnaire Reveals Europe's Mobilization Illusion

Germany's Conscription Questionnaire Reveals Europe's Mobilization Illusion

Berlin's new selective service law asks young men to fill out forms while NATO's eastern flank faces a 2028-2030 threat window. The gap between bureaucratic gesture and military capability exposes Europe's defense architecture as dependent on American protection it may not receive.

The 2027 Prophecy: How a Date Became a Destiny

The 2027 Prophecy: How a Date Became a Destiny

U.S. intelligence warned that China would be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. The assessment has since escaped its origins, becoming a self-reinforcing timeline that shapes military budgets, alliance postures, and crisis dynamics across the Pacific—regardless of whether Xi Jinping has decided...

The Ledger and the Loophole

Economic Statecraft

The Ledger and the Loophole

Iran now openly offers missiles for cryptocurrency. North Korea funds its weapons program with stolen Bitcoin. As sanctioned states build parallel financial systems, the West faces an uncomfortable question: what happens when economic coercion loses its teeth?

The Shells That Count: What Ukraine Reveals About Western Defense Procurement

The Shells That Count: What Ukraine Reveals About Western Defense Procurement

Ukraine fires 6,000 artillery rounds daily while Western production struggles to keep pace. The conflict has not proven that mass defeats precision—it has exposed a procurement philosophy built for wars that may never come while neglecting wars that might.

The Defibrillator Problem: Why American Counterterrorism Keeps Failing in the Sahel

The Defibrillator Problem: Why American Counterterrorism Keeps Failing in the Sahel

The United States spent half a billion dollars training Sahelian security forces. Terrorism surged 2,000 percent. The correlation reveals a structural flaw in counterterrorism strategy that no amount of precision targeting can fix.

The Commitment Trap

The Commitment Trap

Australia's $368 billion submarine program locks it into US alliance dependency while China remains its largest trading partner. Trump 2.0's economic loyalty tests are eliminating the space for strategic hedging.

The Precision Mirage: What Happens When GPS-Guided Weapons Meet Systematic Jamming

The Precision Mirage: What Happens When GPS-Guided Weapons Meet Systematic Jamming

Western militaries built three decades of doctrine around satellite-guided precision. Russia and China built their counter-strategies around denying it. The weapons still work—but the advantage they promised is eroding faster than the modernization meant to restore it.

The Sahel's Sovereignty Ritual: Why the Junta Alliance Fights Wars It Cannot Win

The Sahel's Sovereignty Ritual: Why the Junta Alliance Fights Wars It Cannot Win

Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have launched joint military operations against jihadists with a force one-twentieth the size counterinsurgency requires. The offensive is not a strategy for victory—it is a performance of sovereignty that the three military governments cannot afford to abandon,...