Here they come again … The European Commission’s ProtectEU strategy aims, among other goals, to develop a “technology roadmap” that would enable lawful access to encrypted communications. Superficially, this promises a careful balance: strong encryption preserved, yet decryptable when legally warranted. But beneath the…
In contemporary information warfare, a suite of sophisticated techniques has emerged, designed to manipulate public perception, erode trust in institutions, and destabilize democratic processes. These methods, often employed by various political actors and regimes, leverage both traditional propaganda and modern…
In response to escalating global trade tensions and the consequential redirection of goods into the European Union (EU) market, the European Commission has launched a comprehensive import surveillance tool. This initiative aims to monitor and mitigate the adverse effects of…
The document presented is a memorandum dated April 12, 2001, from Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, addressed to President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. The memo introduces and attaches a critical reflection by Lin…
Reports indicate that the Ukrainian drones involved in the strike on Russian strategic bombers were controlled using ArduPilot over 4G/LTE communications. This suggests the use of cellular networks as a medium for long-range UAV control, leveraging the MAVLink protocol — a lightweight, widely adopted…
Few private infrastructure projects raise as many sovereignty questions as Starlink. A single company operating thousands of satellites capable of providing connectivity anywhere on Earth — war zones, disaster areas, territories where governments control internet access — is not just…
Startup strategies are easy to announce and difficult to evaluate. The real question with any EU competitiveness initiative is whether it addresses the structural reasons European startups leave — regulatory fragmentation, underdeveloped capital markets, and risk-averse institutional culture — or…
A joint investigation by Danwatch and Der Spiegel has uncovered a stunning breach of Russian military secrecy: highly sensitive documents detailing the infrastructure of Russia’s nuclear weapons facilities were publicly accessible online for months. Over two million procurement documents—retrieved from a Russian government database using…
What is End-to-End Encryption (E2EE)? End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) is a communication system designed to ensure that messages are readable only by the communicating parties. The fundamental principle is that the key used for encryption and decryption is known only to the endpoints,…
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) stands at the epicenter of a complex geopolitical triangle involving the United States and China. As the world’s leading chipmaker, TSMC’s operations are deeply intertwined with both nations: it supplies advanced semiconductors to Chinese tech…
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA) is a comprehensive legislative package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22, 2025. Encompassing over 1,000 pages, the bill aims to extend and modify various tax provisions, implement significant spending…
Scott Bessent recently suggested that a bank-issued stablecoin could generate up to $2 trillion in demand for U.S. Treasuries. To understand this claim, it’s necessary to unpack both the mechanics of stablecoins and the strategic thinking behind their potential expansion.…
Why has JPMorgan Chase opened a Center for Geopolitics? Because in 2025, geopolitical risk is not a background noise — it’s the main storyline. Jamie Dimon doesn’t mince words: “Our greatest risk is geopolitical risk.” From trade wars to global rearmament,…
The Chagos agreement is where decolonisation meets strategic geography. For decades, the legal claim — that the archipelago was unlawfully separated from Mauritius in 1965 — coexisted with the military reality that Diego Garcia hosts one of the most important…
Montréal, 12 May 2025 – The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) today voted that the Russian Federation failed to uphold its obligations under international air law in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. This represents the…
Carlo M. Cipolla, an Italian economic historian, introduced a compelling framework in his essay “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” to categorise human behaviour based on the impact of one’s actions on oneself and others. This framework is often visualised…
NSA Declassifies Historical Documents on the UKUSA Agreement and Five Eyes Alliance The National Security Agency (NSA) has declassified and released a collection of historical documents detailing the origins and evolution of the UKUSA Agreement, the foundational treaty underpinning the…
When a political leader or head of state normalizes borderline behaviours—those that challenge or circumvent ethical, legal, or institutional norms—there is a significant risk of long-lasting and profound effects on future generations. The legitimization of such behaviours by individuals in…
On May 2, 2025, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) imposed a €530 million fine on TikTok for breaching the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The DPC fined TikTok after concluding that the company violated the General Data Protection…
On May 2, 2025, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), the domestic intelligence agency, officially designated the entire political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a confirmed far-right extremist organization. This unprecedented classification follows a three-year investigation and a comprehensive 1,100-page…
Kenneth Rogoff’s latest book, Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead, published by Yale University Press in April 2025, offers a sweeping, incisive examination of the historic rise of…
Court of Justice of the European Union 30 April 2025 Case C-246/24 | Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt am Main (Export of cash to Russia) The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the EU’s restrictive measures—which prohibit the export of euro banknotes or…
The Court of Justice ruled that Malta’s 2020 investor citizenship scheme, which granted nationality in exchange for predetermined payments or investments without requiring a genuine link to Malta, violates EU law. While Member States retain competence over nationality matters, they…
Canada asserts that the Northwest Passage constitutes its internal waters, based on historical usage and the occupation by Indigenous peoples, particularly the Inuit. This claim is reinforced by the 1985 establishment of straight baselines around the Arctic Archipelago, effectively enclosing…
The question underlying this proposal is whether Germany needs a centralized security council at all, or whether its federal, departmental system simply needs better coordination. The coalition agreement answered in favour of centralization — but the comparative evidence from other…
In the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ousting in December 2024, both the European Union and the United Kingdom have introduced substantial modifications to their sanctions frameworks on Syria. These revisions are intended to foster the country’s reconstruction and political transition…
On April 23, 2025, the European Commission imposed the first fines under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) against Apple and Meta, marking a significant escalation in the EU’s enforcement of digital competition rules. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a landmark piece of…
Recent use: the SAFE initiative The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) has expressed opposition to the European Commission’s use of Article 122(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) as the legal basis for the…
In his article “Why Europe Must Avoid a Strategic Trap in a Post-American World”, Alexander Clarkson warns that the decline of US power could follow a similar path to the fall of the Roman Empire. He compares today’s tensions in US-European relations…
The paradox of a strong dollar: the dollar lies at the center of the international monetary system. This grants the United States what was already described in the 1960s as an “exorbitant privilege” (B. Eichengreen): the ability to issue debt in a…
In The Age of Forever Wars: Why Military Strategy No Longer Delivers Victory (Published on Foreign Affairs, April 14, 2025), Lawrence D. Freedman offers a sobering critique of contemporary military strategy, revealing its dangerous reliance on outdated assumptions about the nature…
Identifying who sells US Treasury bonds is a bit like reading a detective novel where the suspects all have plausible alibis. Official data lags, reporting is incomplete, and sovereign wealth funds operate through intermediaries. Yet the pattern of sales during…
Certainly, here is an overview of the growth of the U.S. national debt over the past 20 years, based on official data from the U.S. Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO): U.S. National Debt: 2005–2025 Year Total Federal Debt…
On July 12, 2023, the U.S. Congress introduced and advanced a bipartisan resolution—S.J. Res. 37—designed to prevent the President from unilaterally withdrawing the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO). According to the text of the resolution, the President may…
In his latest piece, Noah Smith sounds the alarm: the U.S. may be experiencing capital flight — something usually seen in fragile economies. Investors are dumping U.S. bonds, selling dollars, and moving their money abroad. This is not normal. Bond yields are rising, but the…
Technical regulations as strategic tools In this piece, I build upon Andrea Fracasso’s insight, where he observes that “Some are suggesting a review of green economy regulations in the EU because of their impact on production costs. While it is…
In today’s tech-driven economy, success is increasingly measured by a company’s ability to craft compelling narratives that attract high valuations and continuous venture capital funding, rather than traditional metrics like profitability or dividends. Many leading U.S. companies have operated at…
Bismuth is becoming increasingly important in the microelectronics sector, valued for its unique electrical, thermal, and environmental properties. What many don’t realize is that this metal is not typically mined on its own. Instead, it is recovered as a by-product of refining…
CEA Chairman Steve Miran Hudson Institute Event Remarks The speech offers a forceful and revisionist interpretation of the United States’ global role, centered on the claim that America has long shouldered the burden of maintaining both international security and the…
Economic warfare is not a post-Cold War invention. The instruments have changed — sanctions, export controls, asset freezes — but the underlying logic of using economic leverage for strategic ends has been a constant of US foreign policy since at…
