Dilemma of the Scriptwriters
Synopsis: Iran’s president spent some of his scarcest hours in New York with the analysts and journalists who draft Washington’s options, rather than with the officials who choose between them.
Theme archive
Musings on Leadership and Governance
Leadership, authority, democracy, institutional legitimacy, public decision-making, and the failures of rule.
The Man Who Brings The Future
I have spent twenty years watching a certain kind of man arrive in this part of the world, and I have never once managed to like him.
Coffee Port
Before it was ever a front line, Mokha was just an aroma.
What The Borrowing Buys
Reflections on Debt in Australia and Elsewhere
The Little Blue Book
And the fiction we nostalgically call the international order
Misreading Xi
An Alternative Argument for Australia's Public Inquiry into AUKUS to Consider
The Crown and the Machine
A man in his late seventies stands before the British Parliament wearing several centuries of borrowed authority — crown, ermine, a phalanx of guards whose uniforms date from wars nobody living can possibly remember —...
Certainty’s Standing Ovation
A thousand people rose to their feet in Sydney on 22 August 2026.
Two Priesthoods
My local pharmacy ran out of tablets by the second week.
Outside The Prayer Hall
When Feelings Arrive Before Words
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.
A Correction Before It Arrives
A curator in a regional art gallery is completing the wall text for a group show.
The Note That Almost Wasn't
A Personal Revelation Recently Discovered
When There Is No 'We'
The Fragmentation of the Public World
The Instrument and The Cage
What Language Does When No One is Watching
Radius of Trust
How a Threat With No Rivals Still Produces Enemies
Believing the Right Villain
Propaganda in a Comforting Voice
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The Hames Report
Long-form essays and reflections on the future of everything. Read and support on SubstackPatreon / Published daily