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Do Sanctions Still Work? Russia, Iran and Sudan Say No
On February 1st, the G7's price cap on Russian crude oil quietly reset itself to $44.10 a barrel — down from $47.60, and a...
Bitter Harbour: The Fall of Mocha and the Remaking of the Red Sea Order
There is a particularly dark irony, at least from our perspective, in seeing the port of Mocha change hands again. This is the town...
Amnesty, States, and the Argument Both Sides Keep Missing
Every few months, somewhere in the world, a state expels or threatens to expel a category of foreign nationals, and the exchange that follows...
China and Taiwan’s “National Question”: The Battle Over Cross-Strait Unity
What is complicating the Taiwan issue is not just the shifting military balance or the increasing US-China competition, but the growing divergence in the...
The Predictable Earthquake: What Saxony Anhalt Tells Us About Europe
On Sunday 6 September 2026, voters in the eastern German state of Saxony Anhalt did something no electorate in the country had ever done....
The Credibility Gap: Russia’s Rational Test of NATO’s Eastern Flank
On 12 August, NATO's ambassadors met in Brussels to respond to a fortnight of Russian drones and missile debris crossing into Polish and Romanian...
The Asymmetry of Strategic Depth
After almost five years of attritional warfare, the war in Ukraine is entering a more dangerous phase. Russia has strong incentives to escalate. The...
Why Serbia’s River Threat to Kosovo Is Really About Ukraine
Vučić's threat to divert the Ibar River is not a Kosovo policy — it is manufactured leverage aimed at three audiences at once: Brussels,...
Japan’s Two-Track China Strategy Is a Model for US Allies
Japan's simultaneous pursuit of hard Taiwan deterrence and quiet parliamentary diplomacy with Beijing is not policy confusion — it is a deliberate, low-cost dual-track...
The Hidden Bill Behind Europe’s Defense Spending Boom
Europe's rearmament is being financed out of the welfare state, not economic growth, and different governments are settling that bill in different currencies: Germany...