East Asia

US-Taiwan-F-16- Lockheed-Martin

Politics Limits Arms Deliveries To Taiwan

On March 28, 2025 a rollout ceremony took place at Lockheed Martin’s F-16 production facility in Greenville, South Carolina. Two F16V block 70 jets were ready for final testing, and the ceremony marked the formal handover to Taiwan. The Greenville ceremony was attended by Taiwan’s Defense Minister and by Taiwan’s […]

China-economy-overproduction-AI-race

China’s AI Ambitions Widen A Dangerous Economic Gap

China’s economy is pulling in two directions at once, and July’s data makes the split harder to ignore. On one side, household spending is barely growing and the property sector remains locked in a multi-year collapse. On the other, factories are running hotter than ever, with high-tech manufacturing surging at […]

Europe-AI-US-China-Lagarde

The Leverage Nobody Has Ever Held: Lagarde’s Warning About Europe’s AI Dependency

Christine Lagarde doesn’t typically frame central bank speeches around geopolitical vulnerability, but her address in Vienna this week did exactly that. The European Central Bank president argued that Europe’s growing reliance on American and Chinese artificial intelligence isn’t just a competitiveness gap – it’s a strategic exposure that could hand […]

Five Reflections On The 25th Anniversary Of 9/11

It was a defining moment in the modern era that radically changed the course of history. The largest terrorist attack in modern history occurred a quarter-century ago when Al Qaeda operatives hijacked several planes and then crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Everyone remembers where they […]

China-Ukraine-drone-manufacturing

Why Won’t China Cut Ukraine Off From Drone-Related Sales?

Indefinitely perpetuating the Ukrainian Conflict through these means indefinitely delays the full implementation of the US’ planned “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia”, can lead to Russia selling its natural resource wealth to China at bargain-basement prices, and maintains China’s “active neutrality”. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) referenced the EU’s summertime […]

UN-resolution-map-projection

Slanted Cartography: The Politics Of Mapping

There is much in the nature of a map. The very drawing of a line signifies an assertion, an acceptance, or even a repudiation of power. Borders are delineated for reasons of interest and understanding. I chart, therefore it is. Areas of territorial dispute are reconciled by the cartographer’s handy […]

China-Africa-duty-free-trade

Duty-Free China-Africa Trade

On 17 February 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a sweeping measure: from 1 May 2026, China would lift import tariffs on goods from the 53 African Union (AU) member states that maintain diplomatic relations with Beijing. The policy-covering goods worth more than $116 billion, roughly Africa’s 2024 exports to […]