Latest posts

EU-climate-damage-budget

Climate Damage Becomes Europe’s Next Fiscal Emergency

For years, European governments have treated flood plains, wildfire seasons and storm damage as unfortunate but exceptional line items – costly, disruptive, but ultimately one-off events to be absorbed and forgotten. That framing is now breaking down. As this summer’s wildfires tore through southwestern Europe and reconstruction from Spain’s catastrophic […]

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 […]

US-primary-elections

The Progressive Upset Streak: What’s Actually Driving It

Primary night after primary night, a pattern keeps repeating in Democratic contests around the country: candidates running well to the left of the party establishment, often with a fraction of their opponents’ campaign budgets, keep winning. Pundits have spent months debating why. The explanations on offer range from genuine ideological […]

France-Macron-Europe-nuclear-umbrella

Nuclear Umbrella At The Gates Of The Northern Fleet

Europe is looking for insurance. After 2022, American guarantees no longer look ironclad, and northern capitals began searching for a substitute closer to home. On 2 March 2026, at the Île Longue submarine base, Emmanuel Macron announced the most significant shift in French nuclear doctrine in three decades. For the […]

Australia-AUKU-US-UK-submarines

Skidding Pacts: An AUKUS Delusion Update

In the unpardonable ecosystem of graft, favours and corruption that is defence contracting, defence conferencing and all matters tanking over the thinking – in short, the world of defence – the convenient delusion will always have truck over the inconvenient empirical. Phantoms are elevated and celebrated; bogeymen are treasured by […]

Ukraine-US-envoys-Rusia-war

The Ukraine Negotiations And Ukraine’s Future

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner wound up their visit to Kiev on September 6 after visiting Moscow the day prior. In both capitals, the US special diplomatic duo met with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky respectively. Both offered solutions that the Russians seemed to like, and the Ukrainians did not. […]