Force Without a Mission
When a power keeps its strength but loses moral purpose
Theme archive
Musings on China and the West
China, the West, strategic rivalry, civilisational contrast, and changing global influence.
Everything Except Their Names
The accusation arrives early in the Bishkek Declaration, and it arrives with full force: strikes on Iranian territory violated the UN Charter, damaged international law, and put regional peace and stability at risk.
The Collapse of the Story
There was a time when power didn’t need to explain itself.
Beyond the Imperial Monoculture
Why Humanity Needs More Than One Story
Eighty Years Since the Quiet
I was born in 1945, into a world that had just finished screaming and had gone, for a while, quiet.
Believing the Right Villain
Propaganda in a Comforting Voice
The Knowledge That Disqualifies
On the fate of those who cannot let go
The Architecture of Certainty
At the Strait of Hormuz this week, commercial vessels are still queuing for passage — more than a dozen a day, according to shipping trackers — even as strikes resume somewhere over Iran and a ceasefire that was...
The Forest Does Not Fall At Once
The woman who grills chicken over charcoal at the mouth of my soi has raised her prices twice since the second week of July.
A Cartography of Ghosts
Navigating the Regimes of Industrial Economism
When Leadership Confronts Reality
The Collapse of Consent
Sophisticated State Failure
How the West learned to Decay Without Falling
Most Hated Nation
Nation-state legitimacy and the exhaustion of political imagination
How We Learn to Love the Fire
Acceptance of War in a Fracturing World
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Long-form essays and reflections on the future of everything. Read and support on SubstackPatreon / Published daily