STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Post-China: Thinking Beyond Beijing
The collapse of communist China had become irrefutable as 2025 came to an end.
STRATEGIC PHILOSOPHY
EARLY WARNING | The Imperial Drumbeat Quickens
Imperial conquest is returning to the world in a new form, just as we have digested the earlier ages of imperial conquests. Our world is the result of the absorption of smaller states over millennia, even most states which emerged from colonialism in the latter half of the 20th Century.
ECONOMICS & BUSINESS
ESSENTIAL READING | An Apple a Day Didn’t Work Out Well
Apple is perhaps the single most important US tech company successfully supplying its commercial products to the world. This book presents a devastating picture of its foray into China and reveals the failure of the US Government to be a part of the considerations Apple took into account.
RESOURCES
Strategic Resources: Rare Earths in Australia
Modern war would chew through a lot of rare earth elements.
GOVERNANCE & ELECTIONS
China is Now in Suspended Animation
An almost universal desire to avoid change — particularly unpleasant change — helps the Communist Party of China portray an image of business-as-usual…when it’s not.
SECURITY, UNREST & WAR
CURRENT ESTIMATE | How the US Prepares to Defeat the PRC in the Caribbean
It is not a question of if the US was now prepared to bring its conflict with Venezuela to a head; it was, by mid-October 2025, merely a matter of when and to what degree the matter would be brought to resolution.
RESOURCES
US-Australia Rare Earths Accord Disheartens the CCP
US President Donald Trump on October 20, 2025, acted to disrupt the Fourth Plenum of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China by announcing a US way around the CCP’s ace negotiating position: the control of the export of rare earths and critical minerals to the US and the West.
PERSONNEL
Key Transitions and Defense and Intelligence Appointments - 10/2025
SECURITY, UNREST & WAR
Collapse: How China Transforms
The mainland China of the past 76 years is coming to an end. What will be the new China?
STRATEGIC PHILOSOPHY
EARLY WARNING | Can Happiness Defeat Anger? And Why it Matters
Is happiness or contentment, in military parlance, merely an expression of morale? To what degree is it achievable through doctrine, policies, and the shape of society?
SECURITY, UNREST & WAR
STRATEGIC TRAJECTORIES | Nepal Emerges as a Pivotal Point in PRC Insurrection Process
Opposition inside the PRC noted not only the Nepal example, but also the protests which recently toppled the governments of Syria and Bangladesh. Beijing will note the Nepali example as a threat to the PRC’s internal security situation in occupied Tibet, which Beijing has been at pains to contain.
STRATEGIC PHILOSOPHY
EARLY WARNING | Pursuing the Wisdom of Endless Questioning
Cynicism and apathy — often products of older age — can be as dangerous as the smugness and ignorance of youth in shaping national policy.