STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Post-China: Thinking Beyond Beijing
The collapse of communist China had become irrefutable as 2025 came to an end.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
STRATEGIC TRAJECTORIES | A Storm at the World’s Trade Hub: the Bab el-Mandeb
Some regional states can claim Washington’s attention, which makes the US’s possible moves over Somaliland recognition more delicate. Control over this East-West sea route hub is so critical to trade and strategic dominance that Trump may seize what leverage he wants and leave the details for later.
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.
HISTORY
Red Sea History is Today’s Framework
Sovereignty, Strategy, and the Red Sea: Ethiopia’s 1875-1876 War and the Return of Global Competition in North-East Africa.
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.
HISTORY
Officers, Fit to Command? The Hammerstein-Equord Quadrant, while not novel, still works
The German general, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (1878-1943), is known to posterity as the Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, the armed forces of Germany’s Weimar Republic (1918-33).
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Türkiye as the Mid-East Spoiler
Türkiye will attempt over the coming months to trigger breakdowns in the Israel-Gaza peace accords, finalized and signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on October 13, 2025, without either of the combatant parties — Israel and Hamas — participating.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Japan Re-Emerges After 80 Years
Japan, with the fifth largest economy in the world, has begun its return to the world strategic stage after eight decades of penance, apology, and subordination to the US following Japan’s World War II defeat by the Allies.
STRATEGIC PHILOSOPHY
Surrealpolitik: Just How Effective Was the “Realpolitik” Movement?
The supposed cool, detached professionalism meant to underly “realpolitik” may have created a pseudo-realpolitik society which is just as removed from empirical analysis and pragmatic decision-making as any ego- or ideologically-based policymaking.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
STRATEGIC TRAJECTORIES | Iran Faces a New World: Will it, Can it, Take the Mighty Leap?
Iran has now lost its rationale for its war against Israel/US. But are Iran’s ruling clerics ready to seize the opportunity to transform their strategic posture, even when it means possibly saving the clerical administration? If not, then they risk overthrow or collapse to an ever-greater degree.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
The Limits of Long-Range Planning
Plans of attack rarely survive the first shot. Flexibility, guided by strategic principles, is key.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Australia’s Strategic Decline: Is it Terminal?
Australia’s strategic decline has been underway for years, and is worsening. What now?