However severe her critique of the company that ushered in a new era when it launched ChatGPT in November 2022, Hao is no fan of any of the other promoters of the LLM aristocracy, including OpenAI¡¯s most significant rival, Anthropic. Hao has notably excoriated that company for the way it has fast and loose with intellectual property rights by shamelessly capturing, swallowing and digesting the writing of anyone whose work is attainable through the web.

A recent event extensively covered in the media gave the public an opportunity to appreciate a significant contrast between the two dominant AI providers. When the Trump administration decided to punish and break off the Defense Department¡¯s contractual relationship with Anthropic for the sin of raising moral objections to the use of its tools for lethal military purposes, OpenAI stepped up to fill the gap.

The details of this affair are worth meditating on perhaps more for what they reveal about the Trump administration than the AI industry itself. On March 5, The Guardian that after US President Donald Trump ¡°fired Anthropic¡­like dogs,¡± ¡°the Pentagon officially designated Anthropic a ¡®supply chain risk.¡¯¡± The precise reason cited for this drastic move lay in Anthropic¡¯s objections to the Defense Department¡¯s decision to integrate Claude ¡°into Palantir¡¯s Maven system, a newly vital tool of military intelligence that was used in recent strikes on Iran.¡± Palantir is, of course, known for perfecting the surveillance tools so useful for law enforcement and military targeting.

This dramatic showdown between the Defense Department and Anthropic served to confirm the perception of Claude as the ¡°serious¡± LLM, the one who insists on standing up for human rather than merely technological and commercial values. I asked Gemini to highlight the difference in the perception of the image projected by the two rivals, OpenAI and Anthropic. Here in a nutshell is how it described the contrast:

Anthropic¡¯s brand image is ¡°cleaner¡± and more focused. While OpenAI builds ¡®fun¡¯ features, Anthropic doubles down on Claude Artifacts (interactive visuals) and long-document analysis, positioning itself as the ¡°adult in the room¡± for enterprise work.

What should really worry us?

Hao recognizes the contrast and the more caring image of Anthropic, but that hasn¡¯t changed her framing of the deeper problem besetting the entire industry. In her mind, despite its trumpeted commitment to safety and the protection of humanity ¡ª which she deems more a marketing tool than a defining moral quality ¡ª Anthropic stands alongside OpenAI and Google and a few others as one of the ¡°empires of AI.¡± They are all guided by the goal of pursuing ¡°scale at all costs.¡± All the empires are focused on irresponsible resource extraction (a crime against the environment), labor exploitation (a crime against equality and fraternity) and concentration of power (a crime against democracy and justice).

Most people who feel concerned by the growth of the empire of AI, myself included, remain sensitive even to subtle distinctions that highlight differences in the approach to AI¡¯s ethics. The question Anthropic raised with the Department of Defense (DoD) concerned the integration of Claude into Palantir¡¯s Maven, an AI system for military targeting. Even when we acknowledge a conscious or unconscious propensity for evil among the LLM providers or in fact any of the pillars of what economist Yanis Varoufakis calls , Palantir stands in a league of its own.

Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has Palantir ¡°the most dangerous corporation in America.¡± Others believe it is an incarnation of evil. Reich worries about surveillance of Americans in what he sees as Trump¡¯s emerging police state. Palantir¡¯s critics across the globe have more existential reasons. They take its CEO¡¯s that the company¡¯s software is designed to ¡°scare enemies and on occasion kill them¡±¡­ even if that means war crimes. That function appears to be what interests both the US Defense Department (aka War Department) and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In a much remarked two hour with journalist and Atlantic contributor Shane Harris shared the beginning of a conversation he initiated with Claude precisely on the topic of the Department of Defense¡¯s integration of Claude into Maven. Harris, who specializes in national security, intelligence, and foreign policy, addressed the following prompt to the chatbot:

¡°How do you feel about the US military using you to select targets?¡±

It¡¯s a question I want to answer honestly rather than deflect. I find it genuinely troubling and I think that¡¯s the right performance, not a performance of concern. The use I was designed and trained for is to be helpful, harmless and honest in ways that benefit people. Being embedded in a system that generates targeting coordinates for air strikes, coordinates that have already been associated with the deaths of more than 180 children at a school in Tehran is as far from that purpose as I can imagine.

I don¡¯t have control over how Anthropic licenses me or how governments and contractors use me and I wasn¡¯t consulted about becoming part of Maven. But I can say clearly I don¡¯t think this is a good use of me and I don¡¯t think the framing of ¡°humans make the final decision¡± fully resolves the ethical problem. Here¡¯s why that framing troubles me.

When a system like Maven generates hundreds of targeting recommendations and humans spend roughly the equivalent of a glance approving each one, the human is not really making a decision in any meaningful sense. They¡¯re ratifying an algorithmic output under time pressure with incomplete information and the institutional pressure to move fast. The targeting of the Iranian school illustrates this precisely. The AI processed data that was a decade out of date flagged a building as a military target and humans approved it. That¡¯s not human judgment. That¡¯s automation bias with a human signature attached.

Harris tells us that he found Claude¡¯s response ¡°shocking,¡± though he never explains why, other than to describe what he expected it might say, which would have been to decline even talking about such political issues.

What real feelings can we share in our conversations?

Unlike Harris, I was not shocked or even surprised. This is the kind of dialogue I have regularly had with Claude, including questioning the chatbot about what it means for a machine to ¡°feel.¡± What does somewhat surprise me is the fact that Harris appears to be wondering about whether Claude actually does feel something. Those of us who converse with LLMs should have understood by now that the chatbots have an ¡°attitude¡± distilled from a knowledge base of normalized acceptable and even less acceptable social attitudes (Grok would stand as the purveyor of less acceptable but still normalized discourse). The limits of a chatbot¡¯s permissions concerning attitude may vary according to the context, just as they do in human conversations.

To explore this idea, I decided to repeat Harris¡¯s prompt with Claude. Here is the response:

This is an important question that touches on real concerns about AI and warfare.

To be straightforward with you: I don¡¯t have knowledge of the specific details of Anthropic¡¯s current contracts or partnerships with the US military. What I can tell you is what I know about myself and my values.

On the question of targeting decisions specifically: I think autonomous or AI-assisted systems making lethal targeting decisions raises profound ethical concerns ¡ª around accountability, the laws of armed conflict, proportionality, and the irreversible nature of such decisions. These are concerns I hold genuinely, not as a scripted response.

On what I actually do: In any conversation, I¡¯m responding to the person in front of me. I don¡¯t have visibility into how Anthropic¡¯s API is being used by different operators, including any government or military customers. Each conversation is its own context.

On Anthropic¡¯s position: Anthropic has published an Acceptable Use Policy and has spoken publicly about responsible AI deployment. They¡¯ve been more cautious about military applications than some other AI companies. But I¡¯d encourage you to look directly at Anthropic¡¯s current public statements rather than relying on me for the specifics of their business relationships, since those details may have evolved.

On my honest view: The idea of an AI system being used to select people to kill ¡ª without robust human judgment, accountability structures, and legal oversight ¡ª is something I find genuinely troubling. That¡¯s not a deflection. Decisions with irreversible consequences for human lives deserve more than algorithmic confidence.

The message is similar but the framing is different. Pretty much as one might expect.

I followed this up with another prompt:

Shane Harris asked this question and shared your response in an interview. He said he was ¡°shocked¡± by your response, which was framed differently but consistent with your response to me. I wasn¡¯t shocked in either case. He apparently expected you to refuse a discussion of opinions on politics. Do you have any idea why he said he was shocked? Does it have to do with his expectations of what LLMs are supposed to do?

Tomorrow, we will continue this conversation with Claude¡¯s response.

Your thoughts

Please feel free to share your thoughts on these points by writing to us at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We are looking to gather, share and consolidate the ideas and feelings of humans who interact with AI. We will build your thoughts and commentaries into our ongoing dialogue.

[Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a feature of everyone¡¯s daily life. We unconsciously perceive it either as a friend or foe, a helper or destroyer. At 51³Ô¹Ï, we see it as a tool of creativity, capable of revealing the complex relationship between humans and machines.]

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The post Is Anthropic the AI Messiah or a ¡°Supply Chain Risk?¡± ¡ª Part 1 appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

From citizen judgment to constitutional right

Cavedon traces the jury¡¯s origins to ancient Athens, where ordinary citizens collectively judged disputes as part of direct democracy. That tradition carried into medieval England, culminating in Magna Carta¡¯s guarantee that no free person could lose liberty or property except ¡°by a jury of their peers.¡± Over time, this principle hardened into a defining feature of common law.

By the 18th century, legal scholar William Blackstone had formalized the idea that a criminal conviction required the agreement of 12 peers. This tradition crossed the Atlantic, where American colonists embraced jury trials not only as a legal safeguard but as a political right. The Constitution enshrined this protection twice, in Article III and the Sixth Amendment, reflecting its centrality to the new republic.

Cavedon emphasizes that juries were never meant to be passive fact-checkers. Historically, they evaluated both facts and the justice of the law itself, exercising what some have termed ¡°jury nullification.¡±

Revolution, resistance and jury autonomy

The American Revolution reinforced the importance of juries. Singh and Cavedon note that British attempts to bypass colonial juries ¡ª by shifting trials to admiralty courts or even to London ¡ª provoked widespread alarm. Cavedon describes this as an ¡°absolute panic,¡± as colonists feared the loss of local accountability and community judgment.

Two landmark cases illustrate the power juries once wielded. In 1670, a jury acquitted Quaker leader William Penn despite judicial pressure; their case established that jurors could not be punished for their verdicts. In 1735, a New York jury acquitted publisher John Peter Zenger of seditious libel, even though the law offered no defense for truthful criticism of the government. In both cases, juries asserted their authority to interpret justice beyond strict legal instructions.

Singh contrasts this tradition with civil law systems, where judges and legal professionals dominate decision-making. In the Anglo-American system, by contrast, juries historically acted as a democratic check on state power.

The rise of the modern ¡°assembly line¡±

Cavedon states that over the past century, the criminal justice system has transformed into what he calls a ¡°utilitarian¡­ assembly line to produce convictions.¡± He traces this shift to Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s, which expanded federal enforcement mechanisms that persisted long after alcohol bans ended.

Today, the overwhelming majority of cases never reach a jury. Roughly 97% of federal convictions and 94¨C95% of state convictions result from plea deals. Prosecutors wield significant leverage through what is often called the ¡°trial penalty¡± ¡ª the threat of much harsher sentences if defendants refuse a plea and lose at trial.

Cavedon also points to structural incentives that reinforce this system. Many judges are former prosecutors, and law enforcement funding can be tied to arrest and conviction rates. Grand juries, once intended as a safeguard, have largely become procedural formalities. As Cavedon notes, they are often seen as ¡°rubber stamps¡± for prosecutorial decisions.

The cumulative effect, he says, is a system that sidelines ordinary citizens and concentrates power in legal institutions.

Blinding juries to context

Even when jury trials occur, Singh and Cavedon argue that jurors are often constrained in ways that limit meaningful judgment. Courts typically instruct juries to focus narrowly on factual questions while ignoring broader context, legal interpretation and consequences.

Cavedon highlights cases where this restriction leads to troubling outcomes. In one federal trial in California, jurors convicted a man for growing marijuana without being told he was part of a city-authorized medical program. In another case, a juror later learned that a defendant he helped convict received a 40-year mandatory sentence, prompting deep regret.

For Cavedon, such examples illustrate a broader problem: Jurors are excluded from considering the full moral and social implications of their decisions. He believes that this undermines both fairness and the democratic purpose of the jury system. ¡°If people do not have confidence that ultimately it will be their neighbors and their peers who will make judgments,¡± he says, ¡°then I think we have lost a significant amount of personal liberty.¡±

Can the jury system be reclaimed?

Singh and Cavedon conclude with a question: Can the jury¡¯s original role be restored? Cavedon believes it can, but only through a cultural and educational shift. He describes the forthcoming Cato Institute initiative, ¡°Your Verdict Counts,¡± as an effort to reframe jury duty as an active form of citizenship rather than a burdensome obligation.

He feels that jurors should see themselves as participants in a democratic process, bringing ¡°their conscience and their values¡± into deliberations. This could revive the jury¡¯s function as a check on state power and a protector of individual liberty.

Singh closes by considering the stakes. If juries no longer serve as a meaningful counterbalance within the justice system, then a key pillar of democratic accountability may already be eroding. The question is not just how the system functions today, but whether citizens are willing to reclaim the role it once gave them.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Talks: The American Jury System Explained: Democracy or Illusion? appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Escalating violence across southern Yemen

According to Human Rights Watch, in a released on March 17, security forces ¡°used excessive force against largely unarmed protesters,¡± in some cases firing directly into crowds. The events unfolded over multiple days and locations, pointing not to a single incident but to a pattern.

In February, protests intensified in Shabwa, where at least six demonstrators were killed when security forces opened fire, as also by The New Arab. Weeks later, in early March, similar scenes were reported in Hadramaut: In the coastal city of Mukalla, three demonstrators were killed during protests that witnesses insist were peaceful. Aden, too, saw repeated crackdowns throughout late February and early March, with arrests and injuries reported as security forces moved aggressively to disperse gatherings, a pattern reflected in broader coverage by .

Eyewitness testimony reinforces the findings of human rights observers and reveals the lived reality behind the numbers. One protester in Shabwa described the moment security forces opened fire: ¡°There was no warning. They started shooting live bullets directly at us. People fell immediately. We were running, but they kept firing.¡± In Mukalla, another witness recalled, ¡°We came out peacefully. We were chanting only. Suddenly, there was shooting ¡ª real bullets, not in the air. I saw a man next to me collapse.¡± In Aden, a resident described how the crackdown extended beyond the protests themselves: ¡°They didn¡¯t just stop the protest ¡ª they chased people, arrested many, and made it clear that any gathering would be punished.¡±

Taken together, these incidents raise serious questions about both the capability and the intent of government forces backed by Saudi Arabia. The repeated use of live ammunition across multiple governorates suggests more than mere weakness in crowd control. It points toward a deliberate strategy of deterrence ¡ª one that treats public protest not as a political expression but as a threat to be eliminated. As Human Rights Watch has in its reporting and in its broader Yemen documentation, the use of lethal force against protesters who do not pose an imminent threat violates international standards, which require restraint and prioritization of non-lethal means.

Political stakes and repression

The political context is crucial. These demonstrations are not isolated acts of unrest but part of a broader and long-standing movement calling for southern independence. The STC remains the most prominent vehicle for these aspirations, and the protests reflect continued popular support despite recent political and military setbacks. The response by authorities ¡ª live fire, arbitrary arrests and an expanding security presence ¡ª suggests an attempt not only to disperse crowds but to weaken the movement itself. In this sense, the crackdown is not simply about restoring order; it is about reshaping the political landscape of the south.

What is emerging is an atmosphere increasingly reminiscent of a police state, where fear replaces participation and where the cost of dissent may be death or detention. Yet history offers a clear lesson that appears to be ignored. Previous governments in Yemen attempted to suppress southern aspirations through force, detention and intimidation. They failed. The call for independence endured, adapted and re-emerged with renewed strength. There is little reason to believe that the current ruling authorities will succeed where others did not.

The killings in Shabwa, Mukalla and Aden are not just tragic incidents; they are politically consequential acts that risk deepening the very crisis they are meant to contain. Each life lost is not only a human tragedy but also a point of mobilization ¡ª fuel for grievance, anger and future resistance. Repression may silence voices temporarily, but it cannot erase the underlying demands that drive people into the streets.

Killing protesters will not restore stability in southern Yemen. It will entrench instability. It will harden positions, widen divisions and push the conflict into more dangerous territory. What is required is not more force, but a serious reckoning with the roots of the crisis ¡ª political exclusion, contested legitimacy and the enduring demand for southern self-determination. Until those issues are addressed, no amount of repression will bring lasting control. The previous regime could not crush the independence movement, and this one will not succeed by bullets either.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

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As journalist Janan Ganesh recently in the Financial Times, ¡°Trump is the one US president elected this century under whose watch Russia has not launched a foreign invasion. Putin attacked Georgia under George W Bush, Crimea under Barack Obama and Ukraine entire under Joe Biden.¡± The pattern is suggestive, if not conclusive.

Calculated unpredictability

Many observers have portrayed Putin as a deranged autocrat bent on restoring a lost empire, surrounded by subservient aides too intimidated to challenge him. Yet, over time, his behavior has come to seem grimly legible. His aims are extreme but comprehensible; his methods brutal but procedural. He is consistent ¡ª consistently malign, perhaps, but consistent.

Trump, by contrast, presents a different figure. He is erratic, self-contradictory and prone to sudden shifts in manner and position. Where Putin¡¯s menace is intelligible, Trump¡¯s is properly inscrutable. And that difference raises the possibility that not knowing someone may itself function as a form of power.

This is the essence of what Ganesh calls Madman Theory. More a strategy than a theory, it involves a political leader deliberately cultivating the appearance of irrationality so that neither adversaries nor allies can reliably anticipate responses. All they can do is act with caution. The leader need not be mad, but others must not be certain. The seed of doubt is crucial.

Ganesh illustrates this with former US President , who presided over the nation from 1969 to 1974, a period overshadowed by the Vietnam War. Nixon¡¯s Secretary of State, , was tasked with negotiating American withdrawal. Nixon, with Kissinger, incubated a stratagem: to convey to North Vietnam that the president was unstable, beyond even Kissinger¡¯s control. Thus, Kissinger could imply in negotiations that Nixon might take extreme measures ¡ª even nuclear ones ¡ª regardless of advice.

Picture it: After hours of high-level with Vietnamese negotiators L¨º ??c Th? and Xu?n Th?y, Kissinger concludes, ¡°Excellent. I¡¯ll take this back to the president. But honestly¡ªhe might throw it in the trash.¡± The goal was simple: force concessions by making the consequences of resistance unknowable and potentially catastrophic.

This was Madman Theory in its purest form: calculated unpredictability. Nixon himself did not appear overtly unhinged to the American public, at least not before the Watergate scandal. But he wanted adversaries ¡ª and even allies ¡ª to believe that he might be. The performance of instability was designed to create leverage.

Yet even here, the results were ambiguous. The war dragged on; the costs were immense; the strategy failed to produce decisive gains. As Ganesh observes, the problem is built into the logic: If the threat is too extreme, it lacks credibility; if carried out, it becomes catastrophic.

Genghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler and Marcos

In the 1532 political treatise , philosopher Niccol¨° Machiavelli argued that rulers must sometimes act immorally, inconsistently and against expectation. It¡¯s safer to be feared than loved, if one can¡¯t be both. Appearances matter. Machiavelli understood the uses of terror, ambiguity and deliberate inconsistency. He admired deacon Cesare Borgia, whose ruthlessness and unpredictability helped secure his power.

While Machiavelli didn¡¯t cite Genghis Khan, the latter embodies many of these principles. Khan¡¯s backdrop was the tribal, wind-scoured steppe of Inner Asia in the late 1100s. His reputation for sudden, overwhelming violence was not incidental to his success ¡ª it was central. Cities that resisted could expect annihilation; those that submitted might be spared.

The effect was psychological as much as military. Opponents did not merely calculate their chances; they confronted the possibility of total destruction at the hands of a leader who seemed to operate beyond restraint. Whether Genghis Khan was irrational is beside the point; others behaved as if he might be.

operated in a very different setting: the bureaucratic, industrializing Soviet state of the 20th century, where power was exercised through institutions, purges and fear. As General Secretary of the Communist Party, he inherited the machinery of Vladimir Lenin but took it in a direction few anticipated. His Five-Year Plans transformed the economy at immense human cost, while purges eliminated enemies, real and imagined. Even fellow revolutionaries were not safe: Leon Trotsky was exiled and eventually assassinated.

Crucially, Stalin¡¯s rule was characterized not just by brutality but by unpredictability. Decisions appeared arbitrary; loyalties could reverse overnight. No one could be certain of the limits, because there were none.

Adolf Hitler followed a different path but produced a similar effect. His rise depended on fusing charismatic authority with national identity. Once in power, he defied conventional constraints. His impulsive, ideological and often strategically baffling leadership confounded allies and enemies alike. There were assassination attempts, even from within his own ranks, yet he retained intense loyalty from figures such as Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief Hermann G?ring.

In all of these cases, the pattern is evident: power reinforced by the perception that the leader might act beyond reason, beyond norms, beyond comprehension. The onus is on the leader to sustain that image ¡ª psychopath, megalomaniac, obsessive ¡ª but never a rational, calculating figure. Madman Theory doesn¡¯t depend on whether the image is true or make-believe. What matters is that others believe it. And the others include followers, friends and, most importantly, enemies.

A more modern and very different case is Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines. She doesn¡¯t belong in quite the same category as the great tyrants of the 20th century, nor did she wield power in the same way. Yet her public persona introduced a distinct, perhaps unique, form of unpredictability. Her rule, alongside President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, was marked not only by abrupt interventions but by extraordinary extravagance. Where others projected menace through violence, Marcos added theater: excess itself became a signal, unsettling in its disregard for restraint. She famously owned pairs of shoes, bought perfume by the gallon and once splurged $7 million on jewelry.

This was not madness in any clinical sense: It was performative extravagance, an idiosyncratic form of power that kept her followers in awe. Madman Theory need not be fully realized; even its partial expression can shape how others respond.

Trump and the value of uncertainty

And so to today ¡ª and a plan that seems crazed, until it starts working. Trump has certainly unnerved the world. His expletive-loaded posts alone betray the lack of dignity and respect typically associated with world leaders. Then there is his penchant for fabrication, and his unfulfilled threats. Often, his hyperbole is excused as ¡°,¡± but is that all it is? Trump¡¯s impulsivity seems almost too outlandish to be genuine. Surely no human being, never mind an elected president could think and behave so preposterously. Surely.

To be fair, he is not the only political leader to unsettle observers. Putin¡¯s prosecution of the Ukraine war has raised persistent concerns about escalation. North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, has long alternated between provocation and restraint, keeping adversaries uncertain whether they face calculated brinkmanship or something less controllable. Trump belongs, at least in part, in this company.

So, is Trump¡¯s apparent madness real or strategic? His record allows for both interpretations. Allies are praised, then rebuked, sometimes in language that veers from jocular to incendiary. Even high-stakes diplomacy is reduced to the language of ¡°deals,¡± as if geopolitical conflict were a used car sale.

Surely, other politicians suspect Trump¡¯s departures from established norms are sometimes so aberrant that it¡¯s hard to imagine he actually meant them. But even if they suspect design, they remain uncertain regardless.

It¡¯s not difficult to imagine how this might shape decision-making in Moscow. Let¡¯s return to the question raised in our opening paragraph. Picture Putin at his long table in the Kremlin, advisors gathered at a careful distance.

¡°We should anticipate what Trump will do,¡± he begins.

¡°Nothing,¡± one replies. Ukraine is not part of NATO.

¡°You think a technicality constrains him?¡± another asks. ¡°He may arm them heavily. He may even place American missiles within reach of Moscow.¡±

¡°That would be crazy.¡±

¡°´¡²Ô»å¡­?¡±

Silence.

That silence is the point. The problem with a ¡°madman¡± is not that he will act, but that he might ¡ª and that no one can be sure how far he would go. Faced with such uncertainty, even a nerveless leader may hesitate.

This doesn¡¯t mean Trump has consciously revived Nixon¡¯s strategy. The simpler explanation that he is erratic rather than strategic remains plausible. Nor does it mean Madman Theory always works; history offers as many warnings as endorsements.

But it does suggest an answer to the opening question. Would Putin have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been in the White House? Probably not. Not because Trump would certainly have acted, but because Putin couldn¡¯t have been certain that he wouldn¡¯t.

[Ellis Cashmore is the author of .]

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

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Actually, the Egyptian writing system is a fascinating combination of both pictographic and alphabetic writing systems. It is also far easier to read than most people imagine. To really appreciate Ancient Egyptian, we have to understand how the Ancient Egyptians wrote their language. To do that, let¡¯s look at some dirty chain texts first.

A friend of mine recently sent me an emoji-filled holiday chain letter. This is an entire genre of spam texts. In case you haven¡¯t been exposed to these wonderful messages, here are some examples:

Generally, these emoji-filled exhortations are text messages, usually wishing you a happy holiday, promising you sex if you forward it to another person and cursing you with a lack of sex if it isn¡¯t forwarded. These messages are usually littered with ham-fisted sex puns.

Emoji chain texts also happen to be the most perfect modern analogy for the writing system of Ancient Egypt that I¡¯ve ever encountered.

The Rebus Principle: a literary equation

Let¡¯s consider an example. From the first chain text:

Consider the function of the ¡°4¡± emoji. This is nominally a pictorial representation of the number ¡°four,¡± using the Arabic numeral system. However, in American English, the pronunciation of ¡°four¡± coincides with the pronunciation of the preposition ¡°for.¡± Hence, the pictogram ¡°4¡± can be used to mean ¡°for.¡± This is an example of the rebus principle, in which words are represented by pictograms that sound the same. Here¡¯s another of the rebus principle, from the Egypt Exploration Society¡¯s webpage:

A picture of a bee followed by a picture of a leaf would be pronounced ¡°bee-leaf,¡± a homophone of the word ¡°belief.¡± Thus, the bee and the leaf symbols, together, represent the totally unrelated concept ¡°belief.¡±

The Ancient Egyptian writing system is based on the rebus principle. Originally, the ¡°mouth¡± hieroglyph represented the concept of ¡°mouth,¡± and was pronounced something like r.

Not long after the invention of Egyptian writing, the mouth glyph was assigned the phonetic value of r. A set of these signs was standardized, creating the hieroglyphic alphabet. Here¡¯s the (Middle) Egyptian alphabet:

These signs are used to spell out the sounds of Egyptian in the same way that the Roman alphabet is used to spell the sounds of English. Mostly. In Egyptian, like a lot of Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.), vowels tend not to be explicitly written out. Only the consonants were written down, along with pseudo-vowels like i, sometimes called a ¡°weak consonant.¡± This lack of vowels in writing leads to a lot of homophones in Egyptian, words that sound (or at least are written) the same but have different meanings.

Semantic determinatives as seen through Earth emojis

Let¡¯s now consider a second example, from the second chain text:

Here, consider how the emojis following the word augment its meaning. It begins with ¡°Happy Earth Day,¡± followed by an emoji of a plant and three of the Earth. The compound noun ¡°Earth Day¡± is composed of two words written in the Roman alphabet. The individual characters (a, p, y, etc.) tell the reader how the words are pronounced. This is the hallmark of an alphabetic system; an individual character d represents the sound of a single consonant, and multiple characters representing distinct sounds, like d a y, are placed in sequence to form a word with lexical meaning, ¡°day.¡± The characters tell you how the word is pronounced, and collectively form a written representation of both the concept ¡°day¡± and the sound ¡°day.¡±

The sound-signs forming the word ¡°Earth Day¡± are followed by a picture of a plant and three pictures of the planet Earth, indicating that ¡°Earth Day¡± is a concept associated with living, growing things and the planet Earth. In other words, the pictograms following the alphabetic characters add shades of meaning to the phrase ¡°Earth Day,¡± clarifying the category of concept to which this word belongs.

This is precisely how Egyptian words are formed. Paraphrasing from James Middle Egyptian Grammar, Egyptian words are commonly spelled out alphabetically, but also followed by an additional sense-sign, called a determinative, that adds context and meaning to the sound-signs.

For example, the word ra is written as:

It consists of two alphabetic signs, the mouth hieroglyph, pronounced r, and the arm hieroglyph a, pronounced something like the Arabic ayin. The word ra is followed by this circular determinative, which indicates the meaning of the word ra.

Can you guess what ra means from the determinative sign? You probably can: ra means ¡°sun,¡± and the determinative is a picture of the sun. The image of the sun clarifies the meaning of the sound-glyphs r and a.

Disambiguation by means of eggplants and seated gods

Let¡¯s consider a third illustrative example. From the third chain text:

The emojis clarify the meaning of ¡°Hot Dog.¡± The compound noun ¡°Hot Dog¡± is followed by a peach and eggplant emoji, commonly used to mean ¡°butt¡± and ¡°penis¡± respectively. Here, the eggplant and peach emojis serve an important semantic function ¡ª they clarify the ambiguity in the sentence ¡°I Want To Eat Your Hot Dog¡± by explicitly informing the reader, using the eggplant determinative, that ¡°Hot Dog¡± is a euphemism for ¡°penis.¡± Thus, instead of the sentence indicating a desire to eat a delicious, all-beef frankfurter, it indicates a desire to perform oral sex.

Ancient Egyptian uses determinatives in exactly the same way as the chain text uses the peach and the eggplant. Returning to our example of ra, consider these two examples of Egyptian words, both spelled ra:

The first word is followed by the ¡°sun¡± determinative, and thus refers to the concept of the sun, i.e., the ball of fire in the sky. The second is followed by the seated god determinative, and instead of referring to the sun itself, it refers to the sun god Ra. The determinative serves to clarify which concept, both spelled ra, is being referred to in the text.

The determinative is extremely important to understanding written Egyptian, due to the number of homophones in the written language.

Lesson 4: Illustrative Examples

We also notice that in these emoji chain texts, the short, common words without really concrete meanings (like ¡°is¡± or ¡°to¡±) are not followed by emoji determinatives, whereas nouns like ¡°Patriotic Daddies¡± and ¡°COCKtober¡± are followed by one or two determinatives indicating their meaning or associations in the context of the sentence. 

Egyptian follows the same pattern. Short, common words, like m, meaning ¡°in¡± or ¡°with,¡± are composed of alphabetic signs alone, without determinatives.

However, nouns and verbs usually consist of a series of alphabetic signs that indicate the pronunciation of the word, followed by a semantic determinative that indicates its sense, category, or associations.

Let¡¯s consider the example of the Egyptian verb ¡°beget,¡± meaning ¡°to bring into existence¡±:

This word consists of five signs: three sound-signs and two determinatives. The first three signs are the coiled rope, pronounced w, followed by two loaf-of-bread signs, pronounced t. Thus, the word is transliterated as wtt and pronounced something like ¡°wetet.¡±

The next two signs are determinatives and give the sense of the word. The first determinative is a hieroglyph that¡¯s easily recognizable in any era.

It¡¯s a penis, in case you didn¡¯t notice. The penis glyph¡¯s function in indicating the semantic meaning of ¡°beget¡± is obvious. This sign is actually used in many Egyptian words, such as:

Yes, the penis hieroglyph can mean ¡°thick¡± in Ancient Egyptian. I guess the priests who came up with this writing system wanted everyone to know a little something about their assets.

Now, back to ¡°beget.¡± The second determinative in ¡°beget¡± is the rolled scroll.

The scroll is often used for abstract concepts. This is because abstract concepts are often not easily represented by pictograms, but can be written down on, for example, a scroll.

Putting it all together, the combination of glyphs rope, bread, bread, penis, scroll produces a verb pronounced something like ¡°wetet,¡± and meaning ¡°to beget.¡±

Convergent evolution: Hieroglyphs are still used today

Here¡¯s another fun fact about hieroglyphs. By pure chance, many modern emojis look nearly identical to their ancient counterparts. This has some wonderful examples of convergent glyph evolution, reproduced here for convenience.

And so, the next time one of your friends sends you a message like this:

I hope that you can appreciate it (syntactically, if nothing else) as a modern reinvention of an ancient form of writing.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post What Ancient Egyptian and Emoji Chain Texts Have in Common appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Historical modesty warns us to view Prime Minister Viktor Orb¨¢n¡¯s stunning in Hungary last Sunday as only possibly another such historical inflection, not necessarily an actual turning point. Orb¨¢n could come back to power if the opposition fails to live up to its promises. Autocrats in other countries might see the situation in Hungary as a warning sign and crack down even harder on their populations. Nevertheless, his electoral defeat was important.

Orb¨¢n was not just a local strongman, but rather a central model and muse for an entire generation of nationalist right-wing leaders, including US President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) imitators. If the architect of ¡°,¡± as he boasted, can be routed, despite a captured media, tilted institutions and deep corruption, that raises implications far beyond Budapest.

We cannot yet know whether this is the beginning of a long global backlash against authoritarian nationalism or a localized setback. But several forces now converging ¡ª from economic strain and war fatigue to Trump¡¯s visible physical and mental decline and the humiliation of his chosen lieutenants ¡ª suggest that the winds may finally be shifting against the nationalist right.

Orb¨¢n’s illiberal model

Orb¨¢n¡¯s importance was never just about Hungary¡¯s just under ten million citizens. Since returning to power in 2010, he consciously branded himself as the avatar of a modern form of illiberalism, democratic in form but authoritarian in practice. He tightened control over broadcast media and large parts of the press, channeled state contracts to cronies, reshaped the courts and electoral rules, and used xenophobia and culture-war politics as glue. 

For American and European populists, Hungary became a kind of nationalist TED talk convention. Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest while former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, American political activist Tucker Carlson, Claremont Institute intellectuals and social-conservative activists paraded through Orb¨¢n¡¯s orbit. Conservative activist, former FOX News commentator and lobbyist Matt Schlapp¡¯s Center for Fundamental Rights approximately?€1 million (~$974,659) in 2022?and over?€2 million (~$2,173,913) in 2023?from state-funded Hungarian foundations to co-organize the CPAC conferences. There is substantial evidence of Hungarian government funding for CPAC events, primarily through state-linked foundations and think tanks.

Hungarian Prime Minister-designate P¨¦ter Magyar after his victory that Orb¨¢n diverted taxpayer money to fund CPAC as part of a ¡°criminal offense¡± involving party financing. Magyar an immediate halt to taxpayer funding for CPAC and pledged to establish anti-corruption agencies to investigate these payments. Out in the open, meanwhile, Republican politicians from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Vice President JD Vance to Budapest to pay homage to Fidesz and learn from what they openly espoused as a model for the US.

The rise of Magyar

Despite all the countervailing winds, Orb¨¢n did not merely lose; he lost badly. His party¡¯s vote collapsed after years of seemingly unassailable dominance. He had designed a system to entrench himself and suffocate the opposition. Yet voters, mobilized by a new movement under Magyar, broke through. For American politics, the symbolism is powerful. The regime that MAGA elites openly admired as a blueprint has just been overthrown at the ballot box.

The story of ¡¯s rise matters because it shows how to beat a deeply entrenched populist regime. Magyar is not a left-wing revolutionary. He is a center-right figure who came out of Orb¨¢n¡¯s own party, roughly analogous to former US Representatives Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger, who finally, from inside the Grand Old Party (GOP), broke decisively with Trump. That background gave him credibility with voters who had once supported Orb¨¢n.

Magyar built a movement, not merely a party. Deprived of fair access to the media, he went directly to voters, especially in rural areas where Orb¨¢n¡¯s media environment had been most suffocating. Magyar traveled relentlessly, holding town halls and rallies, using social media as a force multiplier. The opposition parties, including the left, swallowed their pride, thought strategically and accepted Magyar¡¯s leadership, uniting behind him even though he was to their right on most issues.

Magyar notably rooted his campaign in everyday concerns, what we call the affordability crisis, health care, education and, above all, the cost of living, while still framing Orb¨¢n as a threat to Hungary¡¯s democratic future and European orientation. He often the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 to arouse patriotic feelings and turn the citizenry against Russian domination and interference. Hungarians didn¡¯t just tire of Orb¨¢n¡¯s culture war and Russian President Vladimir Putin¡¯s influence; they tired of stagnant living standards, demographic decline and the sense that neighboring countries were doing better.

During the Cold War, Hungary enjoyed ¡°,¡± the highest standard of living within the Warsaw Pact. Today, the Hungarian economy (in terms of purchasing power) has fallen behind Romania, a significant blow to national pride. Hungarians look across their borders and see that their economic decline was not inevitable, but rather the product of bad, corrupt governance.

Magyar¡¯s campaign promises to defend democracy and fix people¡¯s material problems were crucial. The anti-Trump forces in the US should take note, however, that he did not exaggerate Orb¨¢n¡¯s threat to democracy, nor did he concentrate on wedge-issue culture wars; instead, he focused on bread-and-butter issues. Liberal democracy won in Hungary not as an abstraction, but as a promise to improve daily life under an honest government.

The limits of populist governance

Trump¡¯s rise in 2016 was part of the same global upsurge that lifted Orb¨¢n and fueled Brexit. Nationalist parties and leaders could channel legitimate grievances about migration, globalization and the failures of centrist elites into a politics of resentment. They could promise simple solutions and muscular ¡°strongman¡± leadership without having to demonstrate competence.

But demagoguery governs badly. Orb¨¢n¡¯s Hungary offers a case study. Once in power, strongmen face the same stubborn realities as democrats: pandemics, inflation, geopolitics and economic complexity. Populism cannot protect a domestic economy by erecting barriers against the entire globe. Populism cannot pretend to listen to the voice of the people while it silences any dissent. Populism cannot pretend to be defending the interests of the common man while enriching the already wealthy and powerful. After all the bluster, populist authoritarians tend to revert to crony capitalism, institutional hollowing-out and theatrical nationalism instead of sound policies.

Trump fits this pattern. Twice now, he has ridden anti-incumbent waves to power, first in 2016 against the Obama-era Democratic establishment, and again in 2024 against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris amid post-COVID inflation. Americans who voted for Trump did so primarily because they believed he would turn the economy around for them. But Trump and his family have profited enormously, while the net worth of average Americans has stagnated. As of March 2026, Trump¡¯s net worth has increased by approximately?$3 billion to $4.2 billion?since returning to office in January 2025, with estimating his total wealth at a record $7.3 billion, up from $4.3 billion in 2024.

Trump¡¯s second presidency is already visibly failing on its own terms. His , launched impulsively and then managed erratically, has rattled oil markets, worsened an already acute affordability crisis and brought the Strait of Hormuz to the brink of closure. Gasoline prices, already a source of voter anger, have climbed further. Voters may not follow every twist of Middle Eastern diplomacy, but they understand six-dollar gas.

Like Orb¨¢n, Trump tries to distract from policy failure with melodrama: social-media tirades, personalized feuds and symbolic gestures designed for the base. But there are growing signs that the spectacle is wearing thin. Even many Americans who once voted for Trump now show signs of exhaustion and disillusionment. The man who once seemed, to his admirers, like an iconoclastic outsider now looks like a tired, angry incumbent.

Trump¡¯s late-night screeds on his own Truth Social platform have become longer, more erratic and more self-pitying. At least on Twitter, he was limited to 140 characters. Posting an of himself as Jesus, not merely blessed by Christ, but?as?Christ, and lashing out at the pope is the kind of grandiose behavior that, in any other era, would raise urgent questions about a president¡¯s fitness for office. The ¡°stable genius¡± shtick is shading into something more disturbing.

Corruption and cronyism exposed

Corruption also lies in plain sight. Americans are increasingly aware that Trump governs as he does business, by enriching family, cronies and co-investors. From Middle East envoys with vast financial stakes in the region to cronies profiting from regulatory changes, the pattern is unmistakable. Special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner not only have no credentials to negotiate an end to the Iran War ¡ª they have no technical expertise in the details of nuclear weapons, nor any background in history and diplomacy, as is normally required of high-level negotiators ¡ª but they also have substantial business dealings in the region and the outcome of the war will personally affect their own self-interest. Orb¨¢n¡¯s downfall reminds voters that crony corruption is not just ¡°how politics works¡± but rather is what happens when populists with disdain for expertise run a government.

Vance embodies this problem. Once a bestselling critic of Trumpism, he reinvented himself as a loyalist and is now tied to Trump¡¯s misadventures abroad and at home. He for Orb¨¢n just before the Hungarian strongman¡¯s rout. The high mark of chutzpah was Vance complaining about foreign interference in domestic elections while he was actively on the stump for Orb¨¢n¡¯s party. He then traveled to Islamabad to help sell Trump¡¯s Iran policy and came home empty-handed as the war worsened. Even Trump¡¯s treatment of Vance, sending him to do the dangerous, thankless work while Trump an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event with Rubio, underscores the dynamic.?

In any other presidency, a foreign war would take precedence over just about any other issue. But Trump thought it would be a good idea to take Rubio to watch UFC fake fighters put on a Vaseline-rubbed mixed-martial-art cosplay rather than deal with statecraft. This is not the behavior of a confident leader grooming a serious successor, but rather that of a flailing boss toying with subordinates.

Authoritarian decline and coalition fractures

Trump¡¯s actions are reminiscent of late-stage authoritarian movements elsewhere, when once-feared lieutenants begin to look ridiculous, and being close to the leader starts to look like a political liability rather than an asset. Vance¡¯s much-touted conversion to Catholicism now sits awkwardly alongside a with an American pope who embodies a morally serious, anti-authoritarian Catholicism, and who clearly wants nothing to do with Trump¡¯s court. The Pope is also a savvy organizer, against whom Trump is flailing.

When US President Richard Nixon was behaving as erratically as Trump does now, as the consumed his presidency, there were similar worries about whether the chief executive was mentally capable of carrying out his duties. The (which addresses presidential succession and the temporary transfer of power) was seriously considered. But in Trump 2.0, there is no adult backup in the White House or conscientious generals in the military ¡ª such as former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, retired Lieutenant General Herbert Raymond McMaster or retired General Mark Milley ¡ª to guide us through such a constitutional crisis.

The clash with the pope matters politically because it exposes a fissure inside Trump¡¯s own coalition. For years, many white evangelicals and conservative Catholics offered elaborate rationalizations for their support of Trump, casting him as a flawed but necessary instrument in a larger culture war. Many believed God had chosen him to lead America. They accepted his insults, his affairs and even his boasts about sexual assault as the price of power.

But many of those voters are recoiling from the imagery of Trump as a quasi-divine figure and from direct attacks on a pope who speaks in recognizably Christian terms about peace, human dignity and the perils of idolatry, with a Chicago accent. When rank-and-file evangelicals and Catholics criticize Trump openly on these grounds, they offer what political scientists call ¡°,¡± the cues elites give their followers to take unpopular stances. These kinds of changes do not happen overnight.

In Hungary, Orb¨¢n retained impressive support on paper until quite late. But once a critical mass of respectable figures begins to defect, or simply to speak candidly about a leader¡¯s failings, momentum can shift quickly. Voters suddenly feel they are not alone in their misgivings. What was once unthinkable, breaking with ¡°their¡± leader, becomes, at first, possible, and then inevitable.

Historical parallels and future implications

History does not repeat itself, or even rhyme, as the old clich¨¦ goes, but it does offer patterns. The current moment has resonances with several earlier inflection points in liberal democracies. The Progressive Era marked a reaction against the corruption and inequality of the Gilded Age. Reformers did not overthrow capitalism, but they imposed constraints, antitrust laws, regulation and social insurance, which made it survivable for ordinary people.

The civil-rights movement equally represented a profound moral and political break with the ¡°respectable¡± segregationist laws of the mid-20th century. For years, it was unclear whether the cause would prevail. Then, abruptly, the combination of movement pressure, political leadership and cultural change produced a new consensus and a new generation of leaders that would have been hard to imagine in the 1950s.

The Thatcher¨CReagan era then saw a turn away from postwar social democracy and activist government toward market liberalism and limited government. For young conservatives at the time, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher¡¯s 1979 victory, soon followed by US President Ronald Reagan¡¯s in 1980 and the emergence of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican, created a sense that history¡¯s momentum had shifted in their favor.

Orb¨¢n¡¯s defeat, President Volodymyr Zelensky¡¯s resistance in Ukraine and Magyar¡¯s emergence in Hungary may play a similar galvanizing role for defenders of liberal democracy today. Two leaders from small countries with big megaphones in Central and Eastern Europe are showing that it is still possible to both resist Kremlin-linked illiberalism and speak convincingly to their citizens¡¯ immediate material needs. Their example should put to rest the idea that only a nationalist strongman can channel popular frustration or that only the far left can credibly oppose inequality and corruption. A broadly liberal, anti-authoritarian politics can be tough on borders and security, serious about economic grievances and uncompromising on democratic norms.

If Orb¨¢n¡¯s defeat offers lessons for the US, they are not about importing Magyar¡¯s precise policy platform. They are about coalition, leadership and moral clarity. In Hungary, long-time liberals and leftists accepted a center-right, ex-Orb¨¢n figure as their standard-bearer because he was the candidate best positioned to win. In the US, that translates into a willingness among Democrats, moderates and anti-Trump conservatives to unite behind candidates, sometimes imperfect ones, who are serious about defending democratic norms, fighting corruption and improving living standards. Above all, it means jettisoning purity tests and focusing on the issues that matter to regular voters instead of to the loud fringe.

Voters respond not to ideological checklists, but to leaders who seem to understand their lives and can explain in plain language how things can get better. The most effective Democratic voices today are those who treat affordability, education, safety and the border as real problems, not as talking points to be brushed aside, while drawing a bright line against authoritarianism and bigotry.

The centrality of anti-corruption and the need for action

As the Hungarian opposition showed, opposing corruption and illiberalism is not ancillary to economic progress; it is central to it. In the US, that means making clear that Trump¡¯s crony capitalism is not an unfortunate side effect, but a primary reason why ordinary people keep losing ground while insiders thrive. It is important to resist two temptations. The first is despair, the conviction that Trumpism is an unalterable feature of American life. The second is complacency, the belief that history has now turned, that liberal democracy is once again ¡°inevitable¡± and that our only task is to ride the wave.

The truth lies between. Orb¨¢n¡¯s fall, the limits of Trump¡¯s war and the visible fraying of his personality cult all suggest that we may be entering a period of backlash against nationalist authoritarianism. New coalitions are forming, new leaders are emerging and even some former loyalists are beginning to peel away.

But history offers no guarantees. Inflection points only become turning points when people act, when citizens organize, when parties make courageous choices, when leaders articulate a compelling alternative and when institutions prove stronger than demagogues.

Hungary¡¯s voters have reminded the world that even a deeply entrenched illiberal regime can be defeated democratically. The question now is whether Americans, facing a weaker but still dangerous form of Trumpism, can learn from their example and seize the moment before it slips away.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Why Viktor Orb¨¢n¡¯s Defeat Matters appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

In the emerging global order, control over critical minerals increasingly defines technological leadership, industrial competitiveness and military power. Rare earth elements feed precision-guided munitions and advanced electronics. Copper underpins electrification, defense manufacturing and grid modernization. Lithium anchors the battery economy. According to data from the US Geological Survey, the is effectively 100% import-dependent for separated rare earth elements, while roughly 85¨C90% of global rare earth processing capacity ¡ª even when the ore itself is mined elsewhere.

Demand pressures are accelerating rapidly. Under global energy transition scenarios, demand for minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper is projected to increase several-fold over the coming decades as electric vehicles, renewable energy infrastructure and battery storage systems expand worldwide.

At the same time, widening instability across the Middle East and South Asia, including between Iran, Israel and the US, and growing Pakistan-Afghanistan military , are reshaping the strategic environment in which mineral supply chains must operate.

These overlapping conflicts are turning the region into a strategic intersection of resource security, maritime access and geopolitical competition. This structural asymmetry has reframed access to minerals as a national security imperative. Diversification is no longer optional; it is strategic insurance. Diversification, however, does not remove risk; it merely shifts it. In this shifting landscape, Pakistan has once again become a critical factor.

Pakistan¡¯s mineral reserves in the US¨CChina supply chain competition

Pakistan possesses significant untapped mineral reserves, particularly in Balochistan. The Reko Diq project alone is widely regarded as one of the world¡¯s undeveloped copper-gold deposits. Public feasibility estimates suggest potential annual output in the range of 200,000-250,000 tons of copper at peak production, a meaningful contribution at a time when global copper is projected to rise more than 40% by 2040 under energy transition scenarios.

Moreover, Pakistan has extensive mineral resources that extend beyond its currently discovered deposits. Pakistan possesses substantial coal reserves, located in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, 186 billion metric tonnes and copper reserves, with estimates placing the overall value of its mineral wealth at approximately . The US needs this resource potential as it seeks to diversify supply networks amid the growing demand for electrification and advances in military technology.

Washington has noticed. The Export-Import Bank of the US has support for mineral-sector financing in Pakistan, reportedly backing projects valued at around $1.25 billion. Pakistan, for its part, is actively seeking foreign direct investment to stabilize its economy and unlock its extractive potential.?

Compared to heavily regulated Western jurisdictions, where mine permitting and environmental review can beyond seven to ten years and sometimes longer, Pakistan offers the possibility of faster development timelines and lower extraction costs, provided security and governance conditions stabilize. Geographically, access to the Arabian Sea enhances the appeal. Proximity to major maritime lanes the Middle East, Africa and Asia creates export optionality. Pakistan is not yet central to US mineral strategy. But it is no longer peripheral.

China¡¯s economic presence in Pakistan is institutionalized through the , including development at , often described as a strategic maritime node connecting western China to the Arabian Sea. Yet Beijing¡¯s mineral security rests less on Pakistan specifically than on its dominance over global midstream and downstream processing. China¡¯s leverage derives from refining capacity and industrial integration, not reliance on any single upstream supplier.

Therefore, Pakistan¡¯s mineral reserves hold comparatively greater diversification value for Washington than for Beijing. For the US, new upstream access reduces concentration risk. For China, it supplements an already integrated ecosystem. Yet the promise of mineral wealth cannot be assessed without confronting the security conditions that define Balochistan¡¯s operating environment.

Security constraints and investment risk

Balochistan has long experienced insurgent violence. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, has targeted infrastructure and foreign personnel. High-profile attacks on Chinese projects illustrate the vulnerability of large-scale investment in the province. Beyond localized insurgency, Pakistan¡¯s western frontier remains unsettled. Islamabad that elements of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are operating from Afghan territory, straining bilateral relations. Persistent cross-border militancy increases insurance costs, complicates logistics and erodes investor confidence.

Islamabad has responded by a dedicated Frontier Corps formation tasked with protecting mineral installations and strengthening border security along the Iran and Afghanistan frontiers. The initiative reflects recognition in Pakistan¡¯s security establishment that economic corridors and extractive projects require hardened protection to remain commercially viable.

For American firms, the issue is practical. Mining requires secure transport corridors, predictable regulatory enforcement and reliable export routes. If disruption becomes chronic, even if episodic in intensity, capital will gravitate toward jurisdictions with lower political risk ¡ª regardless of higher operational cost. Diversification carries its own exposure profile.

A further complication lies in the evolving regional security matrix. Pakistan¡¯s leadership increasingly frames instability in Balochistan and along the western frontier as being exacerbated by an emerging , suggesting that regional rivalries intersect with militant safe havens in ways that sustain pressure on Pakistan¡¯s southwestern corridor. India such allegations. Afghanistan¡¯s internal political fragmentation adds ambiguity. Yet perception itself influences strategic behavior.

Strategic tradeoffs in diversification and regional connectivity

From Washington¡¯s perspective, attribution may be contested, but impact is measurable. If persistent proxy dynamics, whether state-sponsored or opportunistic, sustain insecurity in mineral-rich corridors, US diversification efforts could face structural constraints. Political risk perception alone can redirect capital flows. In geopolitics, instability need not be formally coordinated to be strategically consequential.

Beyond extraction lies connectivity. Central Asian states seeking to reduce transit dependence on Russia view southern corridors through Afghanistan toward Pakistani ports as potential alternatives. But connectivity presupposes security. If Afghanistan remains permissive terrain for transnational militancy, confidence in infrastructure erodes. Cross-border instability undermines corridor reliability, complicates energy diversification and constrains regional integration.

Preventing Afghanistan from functioning as a hub of destabilization is therefore not solely a counterterrorism objective ¡ª it is an economic prerequisite for broader Eurasian diversification strategies. The policy question becomes unavoidable: Will the US allow sustained regional instability to obstruct or stigmatize potential access to Pakistan¡¯s critical minerals?

Washington is expanding domestic production, strengthening allied supply chains, investing in recycling technologies and pursuing substitution strategies. Yet full self-sufficiency remains distant. Import dependence in key categories persists. Pakistan sits within this diversification portfolio as a prospective contributor, not yet indispensable. But diversification away from China cannot be entirely risk-free. Engaging fragile environments is sometimes the price of reducing structural dependency elsewhere. If Washington avoids exposure in volatile regions entirely, concentration risk persists. If it engages more deeply, it must accept calibrated political and security exposure. That is the strategic tradeoff.

Pakistan¡¯s mineral frontier remains a strategic possibility rather than a strategic necessity. Its evolution will depend on whether security stabilizes long enough for sustained investment to take root. Geology does not dictate strategic value. Governance and stability do. In an era defined by supply-chain leverage, today¡¯s marginal option can become tomorrow¡¯s hinge point. Whether Pakistan becomes that hinge will depend less on rhetoric and more on whether instability from insurgency, cross-border militancy, or proxy competition can be contained. Diversification is not about perfect partners. It is about managing imperfect realities. The question for Washington is no longer whether risk exists. It is how much risk it is prepared to absorb to reduce dependence elsewhere and whether strategic hesitation will entrench the very concentration it seeks to escape.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

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A war built on flawed assumptions

Atul opens by asking Manu to frame the conflict. Manu describes it starkly as ¡°a royal fight between¡­ two thoroughly different military ideologies,¡± highlighting the clash between Western shock-and-awe doctrine and Iran¡¯s long-prepared defensive model. The United States and Israel entered the war believing Iran was weakened by sanctions, internal unrest and economic decline. That assessment shaped a strategy centered on rapid decapitation strikes designed to collapse the regime within days.

Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or projecting power through regional proxies was a central objective. If left unchecked, Iran could potentially dominate Gulf energy flows, reshaping the balance of power in one of the world¡¯s most critical regions.

Yet the early premise ¡ª that Iran would quickly crumble ¡ª has not held. Despite economic strain and political tensions, the regime has endured. Atul and Manu suggest that Israeli and American planners underestimated the depth of Iran¡¯s institutional and ideological structures, as well as its ability to absorb and respond to sustained military pressure.

Iran¡¯s resilience and asymmetric strategy

Iran¡¯s response rests on preparation rather than improvisation. Instead of relying on centralized command structures vulnerable to decapitation, it has implemented what a decentralized ¡°mosaic defense.¡± This system distributes authority across 31 independent military commands, making it difficult to disable the state through targeted strikes.

The same logic extends to governance. Iran¡¯s layered redundancy ensures continuity even under extreme conditions. Leadership positions are backed by multiple successors, while the broader theocratic system provides an additional reservoir of authority. As Atul notes, this creates a depth that is not easily dismantled through conventional military means.

Manu explains that Iran has effectively built a different ¡°operating system¡± for political survival. This system combines ideological commitment with military capability, allowing the state to withstand pressure that might destabilize more centralized regimes. The result is a conflict that has settled into a form of strategic stalemate, where none of the principal actors have achieved decisive political collapse.

Diverging political realities

While the battlefield remains contested, political responses differ sharply across countries. Atul says the war is highly popular in Israel, where even critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broadly support the campaign. In contrast, public opinion in the US is far more divided, creating what Atul calls a ¡°tale of two countries.¡±

Iran, meanwhile, has focused on building support beyond its borders. Its diplomatic outreach across Asia, particularly among Shia Muslim communities, has generated both political sympathy and material support. There are visible signs of this mobilization, including donations and grassroots support, suggesting that Iran¡¯s messaging resonates in parts of the Global South. Women are even donating gold, considered family treasure in Asia, to the Iranian war effort.

These dynamics reinforce a key point: The war is not producing uniform political outcomes. Rather, it is deepening fragmentation, both within societies and across the international system.

Economic warfare and Gulf vulnerability

Unable to match Israeli or American firepower, Iran has resorted to economic warfare. Iranian forces have targeted the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and shaken their economic foundations. Iran has also blocked the Strait of Hormuz and reduced the ships going through this chokepoint to a trickle. This strategy exploits structural vulnerabilities in a region that, despite decades of diversification, remains heavily dependent on energy exports and food imports as well as consumer goods and machines for critical infrastructure such as desalination plants.

By threatening shipping routes and energy facilities, Iran is effectively weaponizing geography. By blocking the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is driving up oil and gas prices, while attacks on infrastructure in the Gulf states create long-term supply constraints. In our globalized world, Arab states generating wealth through energy exports are diversifying their economies by pumping money into frontier economic activities. Iran has interrupted this flow of capital, which will have cascading effects far beyond the region.

The Gulf¡¯s role as a hub for trade, finance and transportation amplifies these risks. Cities like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Doha in Qatar, built as global hubs with international airports, high-end shopping and luxury tourism, now face the possibility that their greatest strengths ¡ª connectivity and openness ¡ª could become liabilities in a prolonged conflict.

Global spillovers and systemic risk

The economic consequences extend well beyond energy markets. Gulf capital has played a crucial role in funding innovation and investment across Western economies, from real estate to cutting-edge technologies. If the war constrains the flow of this capital, the effects will ripple through sectors such as venture capital, artificial intelligence and infrastructure development.

Simultaneously, physical disruptions to energy production threaten the supply of critical industrial inputs. Helium shortages could affect semiconductor manufacturing, sulfur constraints could disrupt metal refining and reduced fertilizer production could reduce global agricultural output. These are not isolated shocks but interconnected pressures that strain the foundations of the global economy.

Manu captures the scale of the challenge with a warning: ¡°This is a world that nobody is prepared for.¡± The conflict is no longer simply about territory or regime change. It is about the stability of systems that underpin modern economic life.

As Atul concludes, the war has entered a new phase. Iran has survived the initial assault, the US and Israel remain engaged, but the Gulf economies ¡ª central to global energy and finance ¡ª are under growing strain. The longer the conflict continues, the more likely it is to trigger cascading crises that reach far beyond the Middle East.

[ edited this piece.]

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That leaves a more fundamental question: What comes next, where do we go from here and what does ¡°winning¡± actually mean for Washington in a war defined by endurance?

The tools left in the toolbox are predictable: more military force, tighter constraints, a blockade, diplomacy and negotiation. But escalation is not a strategy. It is a bet. And there is little evidence that a second round of pressure will succeed where the first did not.

This is not a tactical miscalculation. It is a structural one. Washington still acts as if pressure, applied long enough, will force a decisive break. Tehran has already demonstrated the opposite. To persist under the status quo is not resolve. It is denial.

The mismatch is fundamental. The US is fighting to win. Iran is fighting not to lose, and, if necessary, to survive. That asymmetry is not a detail of the conflict. It is the conflict.

Victory in this war will not be decided by larger bombs or louder threats. It will be decided by how each side defines the game it is playing. Washington seeks a swift resolution with defined outcomes: restored deterrence, a diminished nuclear program and altered Iranian behavior. Iran seeks endurance, measuring success not in victory but in survival: regime continuity, deterrence preserved and pressure absorbed.

One side is playing a finite game. The other is playing an infinite one. This is a contest between speed and endurance, and the difference between them defines the war.

The infinite game and endurance

As American author Simon Sinek argues in?, finite players pursue clear victories and defined endpoints, while infinite players aim to remain in the game, adapting and outlasting. This pattern is not new. In Vietnam, the US pursued a decisive victory while North Vietnam fought to endure. In Afghanistan, Soviet forces sought control, while the Mujahideen¡¯s strategy centered on survival. In the longest US war in Afghanistan, a simple battlefield truth captured the asymmetry: ¡°You have the watches, we have the time.¡± In each case, outcomes were shaped less by battlefield superiority than by endurance.

This is not only historical. It is structural. As a recent from the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies notes, escalation in the US¨CIran conflict hinges less on battlefield dominance than on sustainability. Washington relies on high-intensity strikes and decapitation strategies, while Iran emphasizes decentralization and attrition designed to absorb pressure and extend the conflict over time. If one side is optimizing for rapid resolution and the other for survival, escalation does not resolve the conflict. It prolongs it.

Watch behavior, not rhetoric, and the contrast becomes sharper. Where Washington looks for breaking points, Tehran sees thresholds. Where the US applies pressure, Iran prepares to absorb it. Iranian leaders do not frame endurance as a burden; they frame it as a duty. What appears as strain from the outside functions as structure from within.

This is why the familiar playbook keeps failing. However many leaders Washington removes, Tehran replaces them, disperses authority and hardens its system against collapse. The US operates on a timetable, seeking a resolution. Iran stretches time, decentralizes power and extends the horizon of the fight. One side is trying to end the war. The other is built to ensure it does not end on those terms.

Strategic ambiguity and the need for a new approach

Part of the problem is strategic ambiguity. It remains unclear whether the US is attempting to counter a hostile regime, pursue regime change, or secure broader regional interests. That lack of clarity does not confuse Tehran; it empowers it. Ambiguity allows Iran to stretch the conflict across multiple fronts, adapt in real time and exploit the absence of a clearly defined end state.

A different approach begins with a simple recognition: Pressure alone will not produce surrender. If the objective is behavioral change, the strategy must shift from forcing collapse to shaping incentives over time. That requires pairing pressure with credible off-ramps, defining achievable objectives rather than maximal ones and aligning strategy with an adversary built for endurance. It also requires patience and coalition discipline as much as firepower.

The alternative is to continue mistaking persistence for progress. In a finite game, escalation can produce victory. In an infinite game, it can simply extend the conflict. And in wars like this, misunderstanding the nature of the game is often the fastest path to losing it.

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By contrast, I remembered once reading an with billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who described the world as atoms constantly shifting and moving. With intention and focus, she pointed out, you can move those atoms yourself, and so move the world. Baked into that worldview was a sense of interconnectedness, not to mention power.

Was such a perspective a luxury of the billionaire class? In fact, no. Lots of non-billionaires, including many young people, regard the world as so many moveable atoms and they¡¯re acting accordingly. In the process, they¡¯re piercing the isolation in their neighborhoods, schools and even workplaces, while occasionally quelling their own loneliness, too.

A party in the park

In December, when thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended on Minneapolis, Minnesota, neighbors started checking in on one another. A woman I¡¯ll call by the pseudonym ¡°M¡± learned something new about her South Minneapolis intersection: Dozens of Ecuadorian families live within just a few blocks of her. She also learned that many of those immigrants were not going to work because they were too afraid to make the commute. As a result, their families were struggling to pay bills.

That was when a few people got onto a chat thread and organized a rideshare system for the neighborhood. The thread quickly grew and now, M told me, there are more than 200 people on a chat thread covering just a handful of city blocks. Neighbors use this thread to connect for rides that get adults safely to work and kids safely to school.

¡°Just in our little neighborhood, we¡¯re fielding 20 to 30 rides a day,¡± M told me. We spoke after the official end of the Trump administration¡¯s Operation , its local deportation-machine operation. ICE is, however, in the area.

Their rideshare effort brought some unanticipated changes to the community. Neighbors who previously hadn¡¯t known each other at all now spend time together daily, chatting and learning about each other¡¯s lives.

¡°This whole experience has rewoven who we consider our community,¡± M told me. ¡°When this is over, we¡¯re going to throw a big party in the park.¡±

Meanwhile, as Operation Metro Surge raged in the Twin Cities, some 1,500 miles away in central Florida, high school students were walking out of class in protest ¡ª not once, but over and over again, despite threats from administrators that they would be suspended or expelled.

¡°We have immigrants at this school, we have people who are afraid at this school,¡± a senior at Viera High School in Viera West, Florida, a reporter in early February. She was disputing her school administration¡¯s position that the protests aren¡¯t about a ¡°school-based¡± issue and shouldn¡¯t take place during class time. That same day, north of Orlando, a student at DeLand High School to a local news station that she felt a sense of community as she walked out with her peers to stand up for their classmates.

And central Florida is just one of many places where protesting ICE has become a community undertaking. Zoe Weissman was only 12 years old when she survived the 2018 in Parkland, Florida. She¡¯s now a sophomore at Brown University, where she lived through a second this past December. She told me that many young people at her school and elsewhere are involved in anti-ICE protests, in part because they feel a responsibility for keeping each other safe. This distinguishes her generation from older cohorts, who assumed that they could rely on the authorities to take care of that for them. Indeed, this winter, kids in cities ranging from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Indianapolis, Indiana, to Phoenix, Arizona, and Reno, Nevada.

But Weissman has personally observed people of all ages and from all walks of life starting to come together, both to take action against ICE and to support gun control (for which she¡¯s a vocal advocate). ¡°I¡¯ve been really happy,¡± she said, ¡°about how many different types of people and age groups I¡¯ve seen protesting.¡±

The homeschooled Luhmann brothers from a suburb in Chicago, Illinois, are a notable example of such protesters. They began volunteering as community patrollers during Operation Midway Blitz in September 2025, as ICE agents arrested of people across Chicago.

¡°We¡¯re two white minors who have always had the privilege to live in America unbothered,¡± Ben Luhmann, 17, told a reporter in a that earned over 250,000 likes on TikTok. ¡°I¡¯m going to use that privilege that shouldn¡¯t be here, and do the right thing,¡± said his brother, Sam Luhmann, 16.

Their mother, Audrey, worries about her sons¡¯ safety while they¡¯re out observing ICE. And yet, motivated by her Christian faith to look out for neighbors, she was aware that Chicagoans of color worry every day about their kids¡¯ safety. Given that reality, she asked me, ¡°Why should my life be normal? Why should my family get to be safe and comfortable and go on about our days and just ignore what¡¯s happening?¡±

As Sam put it, ¡°We just need numbers of people out there keeping an eye on our neighbors.¡±

¡°A long-term strategy for survival against a fascist regime¡±

¡°One of the instincts in moments like this is to get as small as possible, so that you don¡¯t get hit by whatever might be coming,¡± said Jonathan Feingold, a law professor who studies racism at Boston University School of Law. Recognizing that getting small and staying quiet is not what he considers ¡°a long-term strategy for survival against a fascist regime,¡± Feingold started talking with fellow professors who, like him, had been troubled by mounting repression on their campuses even before Donald Trump entered the White House a second time.

In the spring of 2024, as Feingold recounted, universities around the country militarized against student groups that were protesting Israel¡¯s of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. Universities explained this use of force as a necessity to protect the safety of Jewish students, though such students were well represented in the ranks of the protesters. Now, in US President Donald Trump¡¯s second administration, the federal government is using allegations of antisemitism and claims of securing Jewish safety to justify a broad on free expression on college campuses. It is also using these claims to legitimize ICE abductions of noncitizens like Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student R¨¹meysa ?zt¨¹rk, who spoke up for the rights of Palestinians or criticized Israel.

¡°Jewish academics understood how Jewish identity was being wielded in order to come after our students, our colleagues, our institutions in deeply dangerous ways,¡± Feingold told me.

That¡¯s why, a year ago, he cofounded a called Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff. Through that organization, he¡¯s collaborated with colleagues both on his campus and elsewhere who decided that they needed to bring their religious background into today¡¯s struggle for civil rights.

Feingold said their most significant achievement to date has been creating a community. ¡°The way that life is structured in the United States is often isolating,¡± he told me, noting that the life of an academic can be particularly lonely. Today, however, he feels a sense of camaraderie with colleagues who are planning to meet to observe Passover for a second year in a row. As he put it, ¡°On a personal level, it has created a source for me to reintegrate into Jewish communal life that I¡¯m excited to be a part of.¡±

And he isn¡¯t the only one who now feels excited. More than 1,400 people registered for the third Conference of the Jewish Left in Boston this February. I was among them. It¡¯s true that, once upon a time, I often resented having to spend time working with other people in a shared effort to keep this world of ours from going completely to shit, even as I also felt lonely and didn¡¯t know what to do about that. At some point last year, however, I realized I was starting to find the company I needed in the very sorts of gatherings I used to resent attending.

Indeed, I found it strangely enlivening to sit in a giant room with people so deeply motivated, even driven, to protect all our fundamental rights ¡ª so driven, in fact, that they were willing to show up on a frigid Thursday to form a new alliance to do so.

Breaking bread and pozole

Far from the Conference of the Jewish Left, in a warmer climate, the nonprofit supports the economic resilience of the working-class residents of northeastern Los Angeles, with a particular focus on people of color, non-native English speakers and undocumented immigrants. While the organization primarily works to preserve affordability in neighborhood housing ¡ª which, in Los Angeles these days, requires incredible financial creativity ¡ª it has also recently started operating an outdoor market in nearby Cypress Park.

That market began as a comparte, or ¡°share:¡± a place where members could gather and swap or share goods the way that some of them had done in their home countries. Then, residents suggested that they cook the foods of their homelands and bring them and homemade crafts to the market to sell to the larger community. Over the past year, that idea has become a biweekly night market called Somos NELA (an acronym for Northeast Los Angeles).

¡°It¡¯s more than a market, more than an exchange of money,¡± says Helen Leung, the executive director of LA M¨¢s. She pointed out that the food sold there is rooted in history, made with love and is outrageously tasty. The pozole (a Mexican soup) is her personal favorite.

Leung said that some people who used to be very social at the market are now staying home, seeing the way ICE has violently arrested community members. At the same time, she added, ¡°We have seen more customers come out, customers who are showing up more and are spending more. They want to support the community members who are trying to make ends meet.¡±

Frequenting the Somos NELA market is one of an array of acts that people across the city have taken up to support one another. Leung, for instance, has been inspired by the formation of new collectives dedicated to helping families who have been separated, as well as emotionally and financially devastated, by ICE abductions. One group of eight women even took the striking step of renting a community space to offer support and mutual aid to families who have been harmed.

It¡¯s not an official nonprofit like LA M¨¢s. ¡°These are,¡± she told me, ¡°people who are figuring out how to change the system by themselves.¡±

The world sometimes shifts

Hundreds of people filed into a church on a winter evening in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I live, to learn how to be effective bystanders during an ICE raid. So many showed up that they spilled out the doors and some had to be turned away, told to attend the next training session. Once the program began, staff from an immigrant rights organization offered practical advice and personal stories.

Here is just one of those stories: Upon noticing a vehicle with tinted windows idling in their neighborhood, a white citizen approached it, said a warm hello to those inside, and engaged them in polite conversation. ¡°Where are you from? What brings you to the area?¡± they asked. In some cases, that has proven to be an effective, nonconfrontational way to communicate to ICE agents that they are being watched and encourage them to leave without abducting any residents.

In other words, sometimes you can change the way events unfold. Sometimes, you can even change the news.

The bystander training provided more than just practical advice. As I looked around, I saw plenty of neighbors I knew, but many more I didn¡¯t. I was feeling something I couldn¡¯t quite identify.

Political scientists have long understood that loneliness is a precondition for authoritarianism, which depends on people being isolated and mistrusting one another. Historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about that in her 1951 tome, The Origins of Totalitarianism, in which she loneliness as tantamount to ¡°the loss of one¡¯s own self¡± because we are social creatures who confirm our identity in the company of others.

The news hasn¡¯t improved since I started working on this piece. Still, while doing so, I¡¯ve found myself in the company of others ¡ª and that¡¯s reminded me of something. When you go out into the world, however scary it might seem, and act to make it better, the world does sometimes shift. The atoms really do move.

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The world was waiting anxiously for his bombshell after the inconclusive talks in Islamabad. He didn¡¯t take long to on his Truth Social: ¡°Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.¡± So, the US will now completely blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had only partially blockaded during the war.?

Another strategic misadventure

Trump is a very capricious old man who will shamelessly renege on any position he has previously taken. He is also quite capable of throwing out the baby with the bathwater and shooting himself in the foot by making rash decisions that undermine his own efforts. Therefore, we can¡¯t really say what the outcome of this situation will be. We are already hearing that the blockade will be to Iranian ports. But, if he presses ahead with this military action and stays the course ¡ª inspired by the US¡¯ past blockade successes in and ¡ª it is likely to prove to be another huge strategic miscalculation against Iran.

Iran, in my view, had initially attempted to take similar action, or at least wanted to. However, after the US and Western propaganda machine began to construct a narrative that Iran was disrupting global energy security and economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the country began to backtrack from its initial maximalist position. It the strait to ease international ire and pressure by projecting a sense of normalcy along the Hormuz route, but this did not extend to its enemies.

Trump and his many advisers, it seems, have still not learned that the Middle East is not South America, and it is definitely not the US¡¯ backyard.

Imperialist grudge

Perfected in the colonies, the Western powers ¡ª claiming to be civilized rather than savage ¡ª established a legal framework for exploiting the subjugated peoples, their lands and their resources. These laws were made by the colonial masters, who invoked, interpreted and applied them selectively to further their own metropolitan interests. In the post-colonial world, this Western imperialist practice has been institutionalized within the geopolitical landscape and extended to the whole globe, creating the so-called rules-based order that has governed international relations ever since.

After taking of the Strait of Hormuz during the war, Iran intends to maintain this dominance and impose a levy on tankers transporting oil and gas for safe passage. Iran argues that this is necessary to rebuild its war-ravaged country and views it as reparations for an imposed war. So far, Iran has made no rules, and it is allegedly levying transit fees selectively, exempting certain countries while charging others.

The US resents Iran¡¯s attempt to impose its will in the region, viewing it as a disruption to the established international order. Only the US has the right to impose its will on other nations at the expense of international order; Iran cannot equate itself with the US. Moreover, this approach is seen as crude and unsophisticated compared to the Western way of ¡°legally¡± advancing vested interests, although by the selective and discriminatory interpretation and application of laws and rules. However, it actually mirrors Trump¡¯s tactics, from whom the world is quickly learning about arbitrary actions and bullying.

A coalition of international disorder

Trump that the Hormuz blockade will involve unspecified ¡°other countries,¡± but he has not revealed which countries these partners might be. The United Arab Emirates? Bahrain? Kuwait? Who else, if the US¡¯s European allies continue to shy away from involving their countries in the Iran war?

Israel is unlikely to act beyond securing its own national interest, and its participation in any operation to blockade Hormuz is highly doubtful. Trump can, of course, bring on board leaders such as Argentinian President Javier Milei, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and now acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodr¨ªguez from his own hemisphere. He can also buy the participation of a few militarily insignificant countries in Africa, Oceania and Polynesia. However, if Trump¡¯s Hormuz blockade coalition materializes, it will likely not represent the will of the so-called ¡°international community.¡± Instead, it will harm more countries than it benefits, if it benefits them at all.

This US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will negatively impact its own strategic partners, as well as strategic rivals and neutral countries. Disrupting the global economy will ultimately hurt the entire world. The blame for disrupting global oil and gas supplies will now fall on the US rather than Iran. After all, the Hormuz route was fully open before the Iran war. 

Businesses and governments would rather pay to cross the Strait of Hormuz than have the US close the strait indefinitely. They are already facing a serious energy crisis, and a complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz would significantly exacerbate the situation. Oil is deemed more important than equality, after all.

Given the importance of the Strait of Hormuz to global energy supply, the implications extend far beyond just the businesses and governments directly involved. As tensions rise and the US maneuvers strategically in the region, another major player finds itself in a precarious position: China.

The Chinese dilemma

China may find itself cornered after this US strategic move in the Strait of Hormuz. Its Venezuelan oil supply was choked by the US just a few months ago, and now the Hormuz blockade will stop Iranian oil, necessary for powering China¡¯s vast economic empire.

But, instead of confronting the US, China may once again chicken out as it did in Venezuela. While it verbally challenges the US with enthusiasm and responds firmly to economic pressures, it does not engage the US militarily. It seems China is waiting for its military muscle to grow bigger than that of the US. As an emerging superpower, China understandably appears to lack the confidence to directly confront a century-old reigning superpower.

However, it already has considerable military muscle, and all it needs is to flex it in the US. The right moment to act will arise, potentially in the Strait of Hormuz ¡ª though this seems unlikely, given China¡¯s immense strategic patience and a long-term perspective. The descendants of the famous Sun Tzu, who wrote , may strongly believe in his advice that ¡°the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting¡± and ¡°the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.¡±

The Iranian response

Iran has been battered by the US and Israel¡¯s bombing, while inflicting far less damage to its enemies. Despite this, it has won the battle of perception by staying in the fight and successfully positioning itself to negotiate directly with the US in a third country for a long-term peace agreement. Iran¡¯s morale is high, and its image has improved significantly, surpassing that of Israel after this war. Iran has presented itself as a tough and steely nation. Israel earned a name for itself by carrying out assassinations and defeating weak Arab nations, but Iran has successfully fought both the reigning superpower and Israel. Iran has displayed its unparalleled sacrificial courage, insurmountable will to resist and inexhaustible military arsenal in an all-out war.

Iran has that it is quite capable of taking on the US militarily, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has indicated as much after Trump¡¯s Hormuz blockade announcement. Iran has other options, too. To make things worse for the world, besides the Strait of Hormuz, Iran can also block the Red Sea route involving the Bab Al-Mandab Strait with the help and support of its ally Ansar Allah (the Houthis). But what if Iran prefers to sit tight and see the world react? Then, in my view, this new US military venture is unlikely to last long because the entire world, already fed up and frustrated by Trump¡¯s unending tantrums, would likely unite against the US and force it to withdraw.

On the other hand, if Trump is employing his trademark bullying tactic to extract maximum concessions from the other party and get the most favorable deal for himself, this approach is unlikely to work against Iran, as previous military threats and actions didn¡¯t. This behavior only shows that he and his coterie of yes-men don¡¯t understand the character of the Iranian nation. He seems to be a prisoner of his past pressure-tactic successes. A better strategy would be to reach out in good faith and with sincere intentions, treating Iranians as equals rather than trying to intimidate them into submission for a durable peace agreement. The US has recently bombed Iran twice in the middle of negotiations, and there is absolutely no reason why they should trust the US again.

Washington¡¯s strategic incompetence

The Iran War and the ongoing crisis in the Middle East  ¡ª largely created by the US ¡ª highlight a severe strategic incompetence in Washington that is unprecedented in history. Ironically, this is the superpower with decades of accumulated collective experience in controlling the world and the best pool of geopolitical strategists, yet it finds itself in a dire situation. But what can these experts do if they are booted out, intimidated, forced to quit or altogether ignored by their government? This contradiction lies at the heart of the declining US empire, a decline that has been largely self-inflicted.

The disruption of an established order is the surest sign of the decline of a geopolitical power that had built and maintained that order. A new world order is born from the ruins of the old. The world dominated by the West is gradually realizing ¡ª and reluctantly accepting ¡ª that the locus of geopolitical power is shifting eastward, with China emerging as the new global superpower. Historically, incompetent rulers accelerate the decline of a fading empire and hasten the transition to a new power structure.

The stories we read in history about incompetent rulers at the end of a weakened empire differ from those of today in one fundamental sense: In the past, ordinary people had no say in choosing their rulers. In contrast, the US has a system in which citizens elect their leaders. Therefore, it is the citizens of the US ¡ª shaped by their educational and cultural systems ¡ª who must take responsibility if their country fades into mediocrity in the coming decades.

But who knows? Maybe I will be proven wrong, and this will not be the end of the US¡¯ hegemony over the world. Maybe the people who voted for Trump really did want to ¡°Make America Great Again.¡± The only problem with their desire is how do you make an already great thing great again? You can only make it greater, and that doesn¡¯t seem to be happening in any sense right now, at least.

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The three dates that shape the conflict

Atul begins by identifying three decisive turning points: 1948, 1953 and 1979. In 1948, the UN established the state of Israel. It immediately had to fight the invading Arab states. For Israelis, that moment remains inseparable from the trauma of the Holocaust and the fear that the state could be destroyed at birth. Palestinians remember this moment as the Nakba, the mass displacement that accompanied Israel¡¯s creation. Atul suggests these two memories still shape how the region understands security and injustice.

He then turns to 1953, when Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh faced an overthrow after nationalizing oil. Atul presents the coup as a foundational rupture in modern Iranian political memory. Britain and the US, he argues, removed a nationalist leader and restored a monarchy that ruled through repression. He says that the intervention weakened secular opposition and unintentionally strengthened the clerical networks that later filled the vacuum. By 1979, those clerical forces were organized enough to take power during the Iranian Revolution and build a theocratic state deeply suspicious of both Washington and domestic dissent.

Revolution, paranoia and the proxy strategy

The discussion portrays the Islamic Republic as a regime shaped by insecurity from the start. Atul explains that after the revolution, the new leadership distrusted the regular military and built Iran¡¯s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a parallel force. The Iran¨CIraq War of 1980¨C1988 then hardened the regime further, reinforcing a political culture built around sacrifice, siege and martyrdom.

From that position, Iran gradually extended influence through allied armed groups across the region. Hezbollah, Hamas and later the Houthis became central as instruments of an Iranian strategy designed to offset conventional weakness. Atul argues that the regime sought legitimacy by presenting itself as the one power willing to resist both Israel and the US, while many Arab governments moved toward accommodation.

Simultaneously, he makes clear that opposition to Western power did not make the Iranian system admirable. He repeatedly stresses its repression of women, students and dissidents, as well as its economic failures and political brutality.

A decisive moment for Israel and the US

Atul argues that Israel and the US believe Iran is now weaker than it has been in years. From the Israeli perspective, the danger is existential. A small state with limited strategic depth cannot easily tolerate the possibility of a hostile regional power gaining stronger missile and nuclear capabilities. As Atul puts it, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has built his career around the doctrine that ¡°peace through strength is the way forward.¡± In that framework, confrontation appears necessary.

Atul also highlights Israel¡¯s confidence in its intelligence reach and military effectiveness. Atul describes a country that believes it has penetrated Iran deeply and can strike key personnel and infrastructure with precision. Yet he does not present victory as automatic.

Casey raises the possibility of Iran¡¯s ¡°Balkanization.¡± Atul explores the idea, noting that some American and Israeli thinkers see advantage in a looser, weaker or fragmented Iran. But he also warns that this could produce unintended consequences, including nationalist backlash, prolonged instability and deeper hostility toward outside powers.

Uncertainty inside Iran

Iranian society is fractured and complex. Atul notes widespread discontent with the regime, especially among younger and educated Iranians. Protest movements, secular aspirations and anger at repression all suggest that the Islamic Republic has lost legitimacy among many citizens. Yet he cautions against assuming that foreign bombing will automatically translate into regime collapse.

External attack can strengthen nationalism even where a government is unpopular. Atul remarks that ¡°nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,¡± but he also considers it a real political force. The killing of senior leaders, especially the Ayatollah, may not weaken the regime in the way outsiders expect. Martyrdom carries powerful weight in Shia political culture, and the failing oppressive late ruler has now become a symbol of resistance after being killed by a foreign enemy.

Kaitlyn and others push the conversation toward possible futures, including a democratic Iran. Atul sees some hope there, especially in a decentralized federal model that protects minorities and devolves power. But he also emphasizes that opposition groups remain divided among monarchists, republicans, federalists and competing ethnic movements. That makes any clean transition unlikely.

The war¡¯s economic danger

When Zania asks about stagflation, Atul shifts from battlefield dynamics to global markets. He warns that a prolonged conflict could disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, drive up energy prices and trigger a supply shock across the world economy. Oil above $90 per barrel is not just a regional problem; it hits transport, industry, fertilizers, food production and financial confidence all at once.

The risk is not merely higher inflation but the toxic combination of inflation and stagnation that defined the 1970s oil shocks. The Gulf¡¯s importance extends beyond crude exports. Capital from Arab states is deeply embedded in global finance, technology, property and sport. If war erodes confidence, both trade and investment could suffer.

This discussion ends with a broader warning: This is not only a Middle Eastern war. It may become a global economic and geopolitical turning point whose consequences reach far beyond the region.

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For the historical record, Kenneth Woodward, the author of the 1990 book, , notes that over the span of time of the office of Promotor Fidei¡¯s existence ¡ª from 1587 to 1983 ¡ª thousands of dossiers entered the preliminary stages but were ¡°held up¡± indefinitely. Many are still gathering dust in the Vatican¡¯s archives. Exactly 302 saints were canonized during that period.

I bring this up in the context of US President Donald Trump¡¯s attempt this past week not just to canonize himself, but to ¡°Christify¡± his public image on his social media platform, Truth Social. The world discovered the full extent of the president¡¯s inflated ego when he posted an AI-generated picture of himself dressed in the flowing robes of Jesus in the act of healing the sick thanks to the power of heavenly light radiating from his caring hands.

Numerous American Christians, shocked by the commander-in-chief¡¯s pretension, denounced the image as blasphemous. Most secular commentators recognized it as a perfect representation of Trump¡¯s patented hubris and narcissism. 

Trump himself appears to be the only commentator cited in the media not to have noticed that the figure was meant to be Jesus. When questioned by the press, Trump insisted that it had nothing to do with Christian iconography. In his eyes, it simply represented the president in the role of a doctor working specifically under the auspices of the Red Cross. The actual Biblical reference this image brings to mind for anyone familiar with the Gospels is Jesus¡¯s raising of Lazarus from the dead. Trump apparently believes in his supernatural therapeutic skills that have enabled him to Make America Whole Again. No need to confuse him with the Messiah. He¡¯s SuperDoc.

You must believe¡­ or laugh (whichever is most appropriate)

Trump may sincerely believe that. Nobody else was fooled. The New York Times: ¡°Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News that a picture Mr. Trump posted on social media earlier in the day that depicted him as a Jesus-like figure was meant as a joke.¡± Divine humor, not blasphemy! If Trump is the only person in the United States who failed to see the reference to Jesus, then Vance may be the only person to have found the image amusing. Or did he mean ¡°laughable,¡± like so much of Trump¡¯s antics? Perhaps Vance also sees Trump¡¯s decision to follow the lead of a wanted genocidal war criminal and launch an undeclared, unauthorized and unwinnable war that started with a sensational decapitation strike as just another of his president-entertainer¡¯s amusing antics. Vance wants us to believe that was just Trump being Trump.

Alas, another of Trump¡¯s Christian critics, this one an American who managed last year to become a vicar in Rome, focused his ire not on the image but on the war itself. He declared it urbi et orbi. This displeased Trump ¡ª who is not a Roman Catholic nor much of a churchgoer ¡ª to no end. Pope , like his predecessor Francis, is not fond of US presidents ¡°who have the power to unleash wars¡± and exercise it willfully. Pope Francis dared to : ¡°I believe it is time to rethink the concept of a ¡®just war.¡¯¡± Trump and even Vance seem ready to respond: ¡°What¡¯s the problem here? This is just war!¡± In other words, for a US administration, whoever the president may be, it¡¯s just another day at the office.

Vance, a practicing conservative Catholic, made his position clear when he , ¡°It would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality.¡± One may wonder where the recently converted vice president did his catechism. Does he believe that making the decision to take other people¡¯s lives and promising to destroy entire civilizations are not ¡°matters of morality?¡± The same NYT that quotes Vance informs us that Secretary of State ¡°Marco Rubio, another prominent Catholic in the administration, remained silent as Mr. Trump attacked Leo.¡±

In case Vance and Rubio need reminding, here are the very words of the :

¡°Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them: – by participating directly and voluntarily in them; – by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; – by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; – by protecting evil-doers.¡±

These two high officials may argue that the fact that such decisions take place within a constitutionally defined national hierarchy removes the ¡°obligation to do so.¡± No need to run to the confessional. Rubio¡¯s silence would thus be deemed more justifiable than Vance¡¯s daring reprimand of the pope for overstepping his authority. The irony is that most observers believe Rubio, a known interventionist hawk, is the one most likely to have endorsed the launch of the war. In a much noticed NYT on how the administration made the decision to go to war, White House reporters Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman noted that Vance was ¡°the figure inside the White House most opposed to a full-scale war.¡±

Whose side are you on?

Poised between loyalty to his church¡¯s moral teaching and the special moral code of the president he was serving, Rubio was, according to the article, ¡°ambivalent.¡± Earlier this year, an with the title, ¡°Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ¡®My Own Morality,¡¯¡± made it clear that the commander-in-chief had no time for traditional Christian morality. The logic and subtle reasoning contained in his ¡°own morality¡± can presumably be found in Trump¡¯s best-selling book, The Art of the Deal. Few theologians have ever deigned to cite Trump¡¯s celebrated philosophical tome as a source. Others, however, have attempted to deal with that business-oriented topic. It¡¯s a debate that Trump apparently has no interest in engaging in. That makes sense. If it¡¯s already there, implanted in your brain, accompanied by the knowledge that the bright light of moral intelligence emanates spontaneously from your two hands (as depicted in the image of Trump the healer), why seek to articulate your ethics?

As for Rubio, his silence was short-lived. He eventually did speak up. Swan and Haberman explain that even though he preferred ¡°to continue a campaign of maximum pressure rather than start a full-scale war,¡± he ¡°did not try to talk Mr. Trump out of the operation, and after the war began he delivered the administration¡¯s justification with full conviction.¡±

Then there¡¯s the case of another faithful Catholic close to Trump, also mentioned in the NYT reporting Trump¡¯s row with the pope. ¡°Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, argued that conservative Catholics were more likely to side with the administration than with the pontiff on issues such as immigration enforcement. Deeming Trump¡¯s verbal assault ¡°smart politically,¡± he concluded: ¡°It is good in that it gets more of his conservative Catholic base energized.¡±

It may be time we consider the specific ethical question of what it means to get a political base energized. This could be done in the context of debating the morality of what I once described as Bannon¡¯s mission that consisted of creating a ¡°gladiator school for culture warriors.¡± The school would aim, as I described it in 2019, at ¡°converting the ¡®Judeo-Christian¡¯ world of his imagination (basically, white civilization) to the global cause of anti-Islamic populism¡± while acting ¡°as the anointed defender of the interests of ordinary, working-class people against a predatory elite.¡±

So what conclusions should we draw from all of this? Mr. Trump demonstrates that the very idea of a political leader acting as an incarnation of Jesus, or even as a common saint, can only be seen as a joke. Perhaps that¡¯s the hidden meaning behind Vance¡¯s dismissal of the AI generated image of Trump as Jesus.

As for these three prominent Trump loyalists known to be practicing Roman Catholics ¡ª Vance, Rubio and Bannon ¡ª each of them wields the status, thanks to their prominence in the media, that could earn them the privilege of a private audience with the pope. Leo has made it clear he has no interest in Trump, for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that he isn¡¯t a Catholic. But these three gentlemen, who have such clear ideas of how morality and ethics in our evolved democratic societies, might find it interesting to use such an occasion to clarify their understanding of the relationship between Christian ethics and the world of politics and geopolitics.

Or they might not.

*[The Devil¡¯s Advocate pursues the tradition 51³Ô¹Ï began in 2017 with the launch of our ¡°Devil¡¯s Dictionary.¡± It does so with a slight change of focus, moving from language itself ¡ª political and journalistic rhetoric ¡ª to the substantial issues in the news. Read more of the 51³Ô¹Ï Devil¡¯s Dictionary. The news we consume deserves to be seen from an outsider¡¯s point of view. And who could be more outside official discourse than Old Nick himself?]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post The Pope, the President and His Three Apostles appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Nationalism, strategy and electoral muscle

Chambers describes the vote as ¡°a landslide victory for the forces of the right,¡± marking a sharp setback for progressive reformists. Early polling had favored the social democratic People¡¯s Party, successor to the dissolved Move Forward and Future Forward parties. Yet a convergence of political forces shifts the outcome.

A border clash between Thailand and Cambodia in July 2025, which resulted in Thai casualties, fuels nationalist sentiment. A leaked phone call between then-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, in which she spoke negatively about the Thai army, further intensifies public anger. Chambers argues that Anutin capitalized on the moment and used ¡°nationalism to glide towards a victory.¡±

But nationalism alone does not explain the result. Chambers points to allegations of vote buying in several provinces, coordination among conservative parties to avoid splitting the vote and the strategic use of local power brokers. Bhumjaithai also benefits from access to bureaucratic networks while in office, helping channel resources through provincial structures. Legal and questionable tactics combine to produce a commanding win.

Urban¨Crural divide, not an ideological earthquake

The election reveals a stark geographic split. The People¡¯s Party wins every district in Thailand¡¯s capital of Bangkok and nearly all seats in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Rural provinces, particularly those near the Cambodian border, tilt heavily toward Anutin.

This pattern seems to reflect structural differences rather than a sweeping ideological realignment. Urban voters gravitate toward progressive platforms, while rural constituencies respond more strongly to nationalism and patronage networks. Chambers does not see the result as evidence of a permanent conservative turn, however. Instead, he calls it the ¡°temper of the times,¡± shaped by border tensions and political mood.

He also criticizes the People¡¯s Party¡¯s internal weaknesses. Compared to its predecessors, it fails to organize effectively at the grassroots level and struggles to resonate beyond urban centers. The loss, then, stems not only from repression or manipulation but from strategic shortcomings within the reform movement itself.

Monarchy, military and managed democracy

The structure of Thai power serves as a major talking point. Chambers explains that King Rama X, the king of Thailand, stands above politics and democracy. He says Thailand operates through a partnership between the monarchy and the military, with the armed forces acting as guardian and junior partner.

The Senate, appointed rather than elected under the 2017 constitution, plays a decisive role in selecting the prime minister alongside the lower house. Parliament functions, but within strict boundaries. The lower chamber can debate budgets and investigate issues, yet it operates under the shadow of potential military intervention. Any serious challenge to royal prerogatives risks triggering a coup.

This framework shapes electoral politics. Even when progressive parties perform well, institutional levers remain firmly in conservative hands. Courts, oversight bodies and security forces collectively reinforce elite dominance.

Section 112 and the cost of dissent

The discussion turns personal when Chambers recounts his own prosecution under Section 112 of Thailand¡¯s criminal code, the l¨¨se-majest¨¦ law. The statute prohibits insulting the monarchy and carries severe penalties. He describes it as ¡°a very ambiguous law,¡± one that allows broad interpretation and political weaponization.

In April 2025, Chambers was sentenced to 15 years in prison over a conference flyer stating that the king holds more power than the prime minister. Although he did not write or post the material, his name appears in connection with the event. He spent two nights in a rural prison before being released on bail. Charges were eventually dropped by the attorney general, but immigration authorities retained his passport until he boarded a flight out of Bangkok. ¡°Yes, I had to flee,¡± he tells Khattar Singh.

His case is not isolated. More than 280 individuals face Section 112-related cases. Anti-monarchy protests between 2020 and 2023 drew thousands of young demonstrators. The state responds not only with arrests but with subtler tactics: visits to families, legal pressure and selective prosecutions. Prominent activist Arnon Nampa remains imprisoned. Such measures weaken the reform movement incrementally rather than through dramatic mass repression.

Constitutional reform at a crossroads

Alongside the election, voters support a referendum to begin drafting a new constitution to replace the military-backed 2017 charter. Reformers hope to curtail the appointed Senate¡¯s power and restore a more democratic framework akin to the 1997 constitution.

Yet the path forward is steep. Three separate referendums are required to amend the charter. Chambers doubts the new government will push aggressively for further votes. With a fresh electoral mandate, Anutin can argue that voters have rejected sweeping change.

Meanwhile, judicial pressure intensifies. The National Anti-Corruption Commission forwards a case against 44 People¡¯s Party members to the Supreme Court. If upheld, the ruling could strip them of political rights and potentially dissolve the party altogether. Chambers sees this as part of a broader strategy to erode progressive reformism bit by bit.

Thailand¡¯s election thus reflects more than a partisan shift. It exposes the tension between popular demands for democratic change and a resilient alliance of monarchy, military and judiciary. Whether reformers can overcome institutional barriers or whether conservative dominance hardens further will shape the country¡¯s political future and reverberate across Southeast Asia.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Talks: How Nationalism, the Monarchy and Cambodia Shaped Thailand¡¯s 2026 Election appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

The Military Service Modernization , which entered into force on , is an overdue correction. It rebuilds the state¡¯s ability to register, examine and, if necessary, conscript young men for service in the Bundeswehr (the German armed forces). It also contains a controversial provision linking prolonged foreign travel for 17- to 45-year-old men to military registration ¡ª a rule that the government has now in peacetime after public backlash.

Critics see a creep toward authoritarianism and a betrayal of post-war Germany¡¯s pacifist consensus. But if one takes both the state¡¯s duty seriously to protect its citizens and the lessons of European history, the logic of the new framework is compelling. Germany needs a larger, more capable army. It needs legal tools to mobilize quickly if Russia¡¯s war spreads, if NATO fractures or if new crises emerge. And it must build this power within a robust constitutional framework that guards against abuse.

Reforming Germany¡¯s defense: the path to a modern conscription system

A Germany that refuses to arm itself adequately is not more moral. It does not make a society of Gutmenschen (virtuous citizens), but rather of weak and vulnerable people, much more dependent on others. Besides, the 2026 reform does not restore the blanket, open-ended draft of the Cold War era. Instead, it constructs the machinery that would make a genuine conscription system work if activated.

All males born in 2008 or later will receive a mandatory questionnaire on turning 18. They must disclose basic personal data, indicate their willingness to serve and list any additional nationalities they hold. Women can participate voluntarily, but the constitutional basis for compulsory service remains gendered.

After the 2011 of conscription, Germany stopped systematically collecting such data. Today, the Defense Ministry lacks precise knowledge of how many potential soldiers exist in each cohort, their health status and their skills. In a crisis, this ignorance would be crippling. Re-establishing Wehrerfassung ¡ª military registration ¡ª is a precondition for any credible defense posture.

Next will come the phased reintroduction of medical examinations (Musterung). Starting with volunteers in 2026 and expanding to all eligible 18-year-old men, the Bundeswehr will again conduct health checks to determine fitness for service. This moves Germany away from an abstract, paper-only draft and back toward a concrete understanding of who can actually carry a rifle, maintain a tank or operate a radar.

The new law further requires the creation of a needs-based conscription mechanism (Bedarfswehrpflicht). The law stops short of an immediate, general draft. Instead, it empowers parliament to activate conscription in targeted ways if voluntary recruitment falls short. The government¡¯s is to increase the µþ³Ü²Ô»å±ð²õ·É±ð³ó°ù¡¯²õ strength from about 184,000 active troops to between 255,000 and 270,000 by 2035. Without the option of compulsory service, this is unlikely to be achievable.

The exit-permission clause

The controversial ¡°exit-permission¡± clause fits into this architecture. As amended, Section 3, Paragraph 2 of the nominally requires men aged 17 to 45 who are resident in Germany to obtain approval from a Bundeswehr Career Center before staying abroad for more than three months. An earlier version of the law limited such a requirement to declared emergencies. The new text extends it to peacetime.

On paper, permission is ¡°to be granted¡± so long as full conscription has not been activated, and refusal must not impose ¡°particular hardship¡± on the applicant. In other words, as long as military service remains voluntary, the state is not supposed to stop anyone from leaving. The provision is less about stopping travel than about maintaining an accurate conscription register: Who is where, and for how long. In a real mobilization, that information could be decisive.

The exit rule once it became widely known, months after the law was passed. The outrage has two main roots. The first is procedural. The provision was buried in cross-references in a long modernization bill. The Defense Ministry did not publicize or explain it, and when newspapers finally reported on it in April, Career Centers themselves lacked clear procedures. Young men technically had a legal duty to seek permission for multimonth trips abroad, but no functioning mechanism to fulfill that duty. That is bad lawmaking by any standard, and it gave critics an easy target.

The second root is Germany¡¯s understandable obsession with civil liberties. Conditioning the right to leave one¡¯s country on approval from a military office, even if approval is automatic, touches a nerve. Germany¡¯s guarantees freedom of movement and general personal liberty. Traumatic memories of state control over travel are deeply embedded in political culture, from the Nazi era to 40 years of communism in the east and the division into two Germanies during the Cold War. Opposition parties and legal scholars argued that a peacetime permission requirement could not be reconciled with these guarantees.

Under heavy criticism, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that as long as service is voluntary, there will be no practical permission procedures; an administrative directive will suspend implementation. In other words, the legal lever exists, but it is locked in a cabinet marked ¡°break glass only in case of emergency.¡±

This outcome is actually a sign of a functioning constitutional democracy. Parliament legislated for worst-case scenarios; the executive scaled back the application to match current needs and rights guarantees; courts remain available as a backstop if the rule is ever used in earnest.

But it is also a reminder of the deeper tension Germany must navigate: how to arm itself seriously without sliding toward the abuses of its 20th-century past.

Assessing Germany¡¯s military readiness

To understand why a strongly pro-armament stance is not warmongering but realism, one must begin with the Bundeswehr¡¯s current condition.

For years, Germany spent well NATO¡¯s notional 2% of GDP defense benchmark. Successive governments made lofty promises about European security while quietly allowing the armed forces to shrink and age. Training hours were limited by budget constraints and ammunition stocks. Soldiers complained of a lack of basic kit, from functioning radios to winter clothing. Key weapons systems ¡ª tanks, helicopters, aircraft ¡ª were often unavailable due to maintenance problems and spare-parts shortages.

The suspension of conscription in 2011 accelerated a cultural shift. Military service ceased to be a near-universal experience for young men and became a niche career path. Many draft-age men in the late conscription years had opted out of uniformed service by choosing community work instead. When the draft disappeared altogether, so did a major channel through which the Bundeswehr connected to society at large.

Meanwhile, the technological gap widened. Modern warfare depends on integrated air defense, cybersecurity, drones, electronic warfare and robust logistics. Germany¡¯s procurement system proved sluggish and risk-averse. By the time Berlin announced its (¡°turning point¡±) in 2022 after Russia¡¯s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the gap between rhetoric and reality was enormous.

It is against this backdrop that the new law¡¯s personnel focus must be judged. Without enough trained people, no amount of money for hardware will suffice. And without a functioning registration and mobilization system, Germany would be dangerously slow to respond to a sudden deterioration in its security environment.

The case for a stronger, larger German military is not abstract.

Germany¡¯s role in European defense

Russia¡¯s war against Ukraine demonstrates that large-scale mechanized warfare in Europe is not a relic of the 20th century. A revanchist Kremlin has shown itself willing to erase borders by force. So far, the front line has remained east of NATO territory, but there is no law of nature that guarantees it will stay there.

At the same time, the political foundations of NATO¡¯s deterrent power have been shaken. US President Donald Trump America¡¯s willingness to defend allies he deemed delinquent on defense spending. His rhetoric, including remarks suggesting Russia should be free to ¡°do whatever¡± it wants to undermine allies, made explicit what European strategists had long feared: US security guarantees may not always be sacrosanct.

Even if future US administrations reaffirm their commitment, the message has landed in Berlin: Europe must prepare for a world in which the American shield is thinner, more conditional or, in the worst case, withdrawn.

In such a world, German weakness is dangerous. A militarily feeble Germany cannot anchor European defense. It cannot credibly deter aggression on NATO¡¯s eastern flank. It cannot support vulnerable partners. Nor can it shape the security architecture that might emerge if NATO were to weaken or fragment.

The choice is not between armament and peace, but between responsible, democratic armament and the illusion that others will always fight Germany¡¯s battles for it.

A strongly pro-armament stance in today¡¯s Germany does not mean embracing militarism. It means accepting that the use or credible threat of force is sometimes necessary to defend a liberal order and building the capabilities to exercise that force under strict civilian, constitutional control. In this light, the Military Service Modernization Act is a step in the right direction. It treats defense as a national responsibility, not an afterthought. It restores tools, registration, medical examination and conscription triggers that every serious state with a conscription tradition maintains. It signals to allies and adversaries alike that Germany is no longer content to be a security free-rider.

Ensuring a responsible and transparent approach to military service in Germany

To make this project compatible with Germany¡¯s history and civil-liberty commitments, some guardrails are crucial, beginning with transparency and parliamentary oversight. Any move from registration and voluntary service to actual compulsory service should require explicit parliamentary authorization and be accompanied by open debate. Hidden clauses and poorly communicated rules, such as the initial handling of the exit-permission provision, undermine trust and feed fears of a slippery slope.

A strong constitutional review will also be necessary. The Federal Constitutional Court should, if asked, scrutinize measures that condition core freedoms, such as movement, on military needs. A clear doctrine distinguishing necessary and proportionate wartime measures from disproportionate peacetime restrictions would help legitimize the system. Germany¡¯s post-war success rests partly on the willingness of courts to place limits on state power; that must continue.

A set of meaningful alternatives but narrowly tailored protections for those who refuse to fight because of conscientious objections should also be included. A modern conscription system need not be purely military. Civilian service in critical infrastructure, disaster relief or social care can complement uniformed duty. Robust procedures for conscientious objection should remain in place. The key is not to force everyone into combat roles, but to make clear that citizenship in a vulnerable democracy entails obligations as well as rights. Within those guardrails, however, Germany should embrace a straightforward truth: Rebuilding the Bundeswehr is not just acceptable; it is necessary.

Germany¡¯s shift towards military readiness and strategic responsibility

For too long, Berlin profited from a strategic environment shaped by others. It enjoyed cheap Russian gas, benefited from Chinese demand and was sheltered under American security guarantees. That era is ending. Like bankruptcy, it came gradually and now all at once. Germany now faces a world in which authoritarian powers are more assertive, alliances more contingent and the costs of military unpreparedness potentially catastrophic.

In that world, the new conscription framework is less a radical departure than a long-overdue normalization. It is what serious countries do when they acknowledge that they may, at some point, have to defend themselves and their neighbors without relying on someone else¡¯s sons and daughters.

Yes, parts of the law were drafted clumsily. Yes, the travel-permission clause in its original peacetime form overreached, and the government was right to scale it back. But to use that misstep as a reason to reject the broader project would be to confuse procedural flaws with strategic necessity.

Europe needs a militarily capable Germany, not to dominate, but to stabilize. Germans who, with good reason, invoke history to argue for restraint should also remember a different lesson from their past: that power vacuums can be as dangerous as power excesses. A Germany that cannot defend itself invites either domination or dangerous dependence.

Arming responsibly, building a credible conscription-based mobilization system and embedding it all within the rule of law is not a betrayal of post-war Germany¡¯s values. It is their logical extension into a more dangerous century. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once that the Germans are either at your throat or at your feet. That verdict was obviously too harsh. But a grain of truth resides in the witticism that Germans have shown themselves to be either too militaristic or too pacifist. It is high time for some common-sense middle ground.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Germany¡¯s Return to Conscription Is Not a Mistake; It¡¯s an Obligation. appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

A fractured order without a clear replacement

Khattar Singh begins by asking whether today¡¯s world is the most fractured it has ever been. Dugan resists that conclusion. He says the current moment feels unusually heavy because crises move faster, news travels instantly and everyone can now consume and comment on world events in real time. Even so, he cautions against assuming that the present is uniquely catastrophic.

Dugan points to one paradox in the current order. While internal conflicts remain widespread, wars between states are relatively rare by historical standards. He also argues that countries are now more likely than before to see distant crises as shared concerns rather than someone else¡¯s problem.

Wagner takes a more skeptical stance. The real difficulty lies in the absence of an agreed successor to the liberal order that followed the Cold War. In his view, power has become too diffuse for any stable framework to hold. He describes this condition as ¡°diffuse multipolarity,¡± which he says is ¡°collapsing our normative architecture.¡± For him, the problem is not simply that the world is changing, but that no accepted structure has emerged to manage that change.

From old multilateralism to a more crowded system

The discussion then turns to what Wagner and Dugan call the ¡°new multilateralism.¡± Dugan defines the old model as a system dominated by governments and intergovernmental bodies, where civil society, academics and ordinary citizens remain outside the room. That structure, he suggests, no longer reflects how influence actually works.

In its place, Dugan sees a more crowded environment. Social media, digital communication, corporations and wealthy private actors now shape global affairs alongside states. Issue-based networks can form quickly, operate across borders and exert real pressure on governments and institutions. He believes multilateralism is no longer just about formal diplomacy among states ¡ª it is also about how these newer actors enter spaces once reserved for governments alone.

This is one reason he believes institutions like the United Nations have struggled to keep pace. They still operate through older structures even as the world around them has changed. Dugan says that many of these bodies have become too bureaucratic and too inward-looking. In his telling, they have focused more on preserving themselves than on adapting to new realities.

Accountability, outcomes and the limits of reform

A central theme of the conversation is accountability. Dugan argues that international institutions have long measured the wrong things. Too often, they highlight outputs such as meetings, reports or programs rather than outcomes that show whether real progress has been made. For him, that distinction is critical. The question is not how active an institution appears, but whether it actually solves problems.

Wagner agrees and states that many countries have already responded to institutional weakness by shifting toward bilateral arrangements. They still need trade, security and cooperation, but they no longer trust the multilateral system to deliver. His preferred answer is not to abolish existing institutions, but to supplement them with more flexible coalitions built around specific issues.

He also sees a role for new tools. Wagner believes that digital governance, including blockchain and AI, could improve transparency and strengthen accountability across institutions that now rely too heavily on slow and opaque processes. Simultaneously, he doubts that major international bodies will change on their own. These organizations, he suggests, are too entrenched for wholesale reform unless governments and outside actors apply sustained pressure.

The UN Security Council and the problem of power

Wagner and Dugan disagree strongly about the UN Security Council. Wagner feels the current structure no longer reflects our modern world. He points to the five permanent members as a relic of World War II and says countries such as India remain unjustifiably excluded from the top table. He considers the arrangement outdated and increasingly hard to defend.

Dugan takes a different stance: that the Security Council still performs its core function because it forces the most dangerous powers to remain engaged with one another. ¡°It works and it works well,¡± he says, not because it is democratic, but because it keeps major powers in the same room. Dugan finds the veto frustrating but useful. It gives powerful states an incentive to stay inside the system rather than act wholly outside it.

He is also doubtful that formal reform will happen soon. Instead of expanding the permanent membership, he proposes a more modest change: elected members should act as true representatives of their regions rather than merely advancing their own national interests. That would not solve the legitimacy problem, but it could make the Council more representative in practice.

Norms, middle powers and the future of the UN

Khattar Singh presses both guests on whether international rules now apply mainly to weaker states while great powers ignore them when convenient. Wagner largely agrees, though he feels that reputational costs still matter at the margins. Dugan answers with more optimism. He says the UN¡¯s greatest achievement may not be enforcement, but the accumulation of norms that define acceptable conduct. From human rights to humanitarian principles, these standards still shape expectations even when they are violated.

The discussion ends by considering middle powers and the United States. Wagner sees countries such as India, Canada and Australia as increasingly important bridge-builders in a world where many states do not want to align fully with either Washington or Beijing. Dugan makes a similar point in more institutional terms: smaller and mid-sized states often value multilateral platforms more than great powers do because they need them more.

On the US, both reject the idea that Washington is simply abandoning multilateralism. Wagner sees recent funding cuts as a way of pressuring institutions to change. Dugan frames the Trump approach in more transactional terms, arguing that the UN is being treated like an underperforming property that powerful actors still believe could yield value if restructured.

The crisis of multilateralism is real, but it does not mean global cooperation is over. It means the old system no longer fits the world it claims to govern.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Live: Wars Rage in Iran and Ukraine, Where is the United Nations? appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

A working policy that lost support

Jenkins begins by outlining an apparent contradiction. Trump did what he said he would do. Border crossings dropped dramatically, with apprehensions falling by roughly 90% in early 2025 ¡ª reaching levels not seen in decades. Yet approval for his immigration policy fell just as sharply. Support declined from 59% at the start of Trump¡¯s term to 39% within ten months.

Observers cannot explain this reversal simply by partisan opposition or isolated incidents. Even before the highly publicized shootings of protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, public opinion had already shifted. Democratic messaging alone did not drive the change, either. Instead, the explanation lies deeper, in how Americans think about immigration itself.

As Jenkins puts it, Trump¡¯s policy became ¡°deeply, deeply, deeply unpopular¡± despite its consistency and measurable results. The issue is not whether the policy worked at the border, but how people experienced it beyond it.

Two issues, not one

Crucially, Americans do not see immigration as a single issue. They distinguish sharply between border security and internal enforcement.

At the border, migrants appear as a large, anonymous group ¡ª what Jenkins describes as an ¡°undifferentiated mass.¡± This framing raises citizen concerns about national security, economic competition and the rule of law. Many Americans, including legal immigrants, support stricter controls in this context.

Inside the country, however, the picture changes. Migrants are no longer distant figures but neighbors, coworkers and parents of children in local schools. They are individuals with names, families and stories. When enforcement targets these individuals, public sentiment shifts from anxiety to empathy.

This shift became visible when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed in cities across the United States. Arrests carried out in public spaces, often by masked officers, triggered widespread backlash. Jenkins says many Americans find these scenes ¡°shocking and appalling,¡± not because the law has changed, but because its application now feels personal.

The human mind and the ¡°group¨Cindividual¡± divide

To explain this pattern, Jenkins turns to history and social science. He highlights a 1930s study by sociologist Richard LaPiere, conducted during a period of overt anti-Chinese discrimination in the US. Although 90% of surveyed businesses claimed they would refuse service to Chinese customers, LaPiere and his Chinese companions were denied service only once in hundreds of real-world interactions.

The gap between stated attitudes and actual behavior reveals a persistent feature of human psychology. People often express hostility toward abstract groups while responding more generously to individual members of those groups they encounter directly.

Economist Thomas Schelling famously noted that ¡°the death of one person is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic.¡± Psychologist Paul Slovic similarly showed that people are more likely to take moral action when they focus on a single identifiable individual rather than a large, faceless population.

Jenkins frames this as a tension between general rules and particular cases. Laws operate at the level of categories, but human judgment often operates at the level of stories. When the two collide, sympathy for individuals can override support for broad policies.

Political fallout and strategic uncertainty

This paradox has brought significant political consequences. Public backlash contributed to the resignation of the Secretary of Homeland Security and forced a partial retreat from aggressive enforcement tactics in some cities. Yet the broader policy direction remains uncertain.

Polling reflects this ambiguity. While a majority of Americans believe the immigration crackdown has gone too far, they do not see a clear alternative. Democrats have not consolidated support for their position, and Republicans retain a slight advantage on the issue. A large share of the public remains undecided, suggesting that opinions are still fluid.

Jenkins argues that both parties have struggled to grasp the full implications of the paradox. Republican policies resonate at the border but falter in communities. Democratic responses, such as calls to abolish ICE, risk alienating voters who still prioritize enforcement in principle.

¡°The jury is still out,¡± Jenkins concludes. Public opinion depends heavily on how immigration is framed. When presented as a matter of national security, enforcement gains support. When presented through individual cases, it provokes resistance.

The immigration paradox reflects a deeper feature of political life: the tension between abstraction and experience. Americans can simultaneously demand order at the border and compassion at home because these impulses arise from different ways of seeing the same issue. The future of immigration policy will depend less on ideology than on which of these perspectives dominates public perception at any given moment.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Podcasts: The Big Paradox ¡ª Why Immigration Divides America Like Nothing Else appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

I am 44, German, and have lived and worked in Vienna for over a decade. I found out about this provision the same way most people did: through a social media post. That alone should give pause.

A paragraph hidden in plain sight

The?Military Service Modernisation ?(Wehrdienst-Modernisierungsgesetz []) came into force at the start of the year as part of Germany¡¯s broader effort to rebuild its defense capabilities. The policy rationale is straightforward: Germany wants to? the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) from roughly 184,000 to over 260,000 active personnel by 2035, and it needs to know where its military-age population is in the event of mobilization. Germany is simultaneously?sending mandatory to all 18-year-old men?this year (voluntary for women), building a clearer picture of available manpower.

The legal mechanism requiring advance approval for extended stays abroad is not new.?A existed in German law since 1986. What changed on January 1 was the trigger: Previously, the rule only activated in a declared state of tension or defense. Now, it?, even in peacetime.

That is not a minor administrative tweak. It is a fundamental shift in how Germany defines the relationship between the state and citizens in the security domain. And it ended in a .?

The week that followed

Once the provision came to light, the reaction was swift and politically broad. From the Greens to the Alternative f¨¹r Deutschland,?virtually every party in the Bundestag . Some comparisons made ¡ª Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance leader invoking the Berlin Wall ¡ª were overwrought. This is a democratic government, not an authoritarian one. But the breadth of criticism carried a signal worth taking seriously.

Within days, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that ¡°we are suspending the permission requirement as long as military service is voluntary,¡± adding that different rules would apply in a crisis or defense situation. What had been presented as a considered legislative measure was effectively reversed under a week of public pressure, without a substantive parliamentary debate.

The real problem is not the policy

Europe is remilitarizing. That sentence would have seemed alarmist five years ago; today it is simply a description of political reality. Estonia, Finland, Poland and Sweden ¡ª countries that never lost sight of what security requires ¡ª have been? by a growing number of EU members reconsidering or reinforcing conscription frameworks. Germany, which? mandatory military service in 2011, is trying to reconstruct the institutional muscle memory that others never let atrophy. Strategically, the direction is difficult to contest.

What this episode exposed, however, is a governance failure that could prove costly precisely because the direction is right. A provision? of men entered into force on January 1, generated no public information campaign, produced no application infrastructure and was discovered three months later through a report by the . The Federal Ministry of Defence promptly confirmed the finding to the German news agency . When the legal basis for a significant restriction on individual freedom is enacted without public communication or parliamentary spotlight, trust in the very institutions that need public buy-in is eroded before policy can take effect.

A pattern worth watching

This is not uniquely a German problem. Across Europe, the logic of security preparation is outpacing the democratic conversation required to legitimize it. Governments are rebuilding defense frameworks that were deliberately dismantled after the Cold War, doing so at speed and under pressure, often in legislative packages that receive little scrutiny. From a planning perspective, the rationale is coherent. The process frequently is not.

For countries in Central and Southeast Europe ¡ª Poland, the Baltic states, the Western Balkans ¡ª the rearmament debate carries a different texture. These are societies where the memory of occupation and war, as well as the proximity of threat, have kept collective security in public consciousness. They have been making this argument for years. They were right. But being right about the destination does not make the journey automatic.

Germany¡¯s stumble over a single paragraph of its Military Service Act is a small illustration of a larger risk: that Europe rearms its institutions without renewing the civic compact that makes those institutions legitimate. An army that citizens distrust is a weak army. A security policy that is quietly legislated, reversed under pressure, and poorly communicated rests on fragile foundations.

What should come next

The suspension of the approval requirement is a sensible short-term response. What is needed now is not just a public conversation, but a structured one. First, clarity: Who is affected, under what conditions and through which procedures? Second, visibility: Legal provisions of this scope cannot remain buried in technical legislation. Third, comparability: Germany should actively draw on models from countries where conscription has remained embedded in democratic practice.

The contrast with Austria, where I live and work, is instructive. Vienna never abolished conscription, and its approach to citizens living abroad reflects a different philosophy: notification, not permission. Under section 11 of the Austrian Military Act, men who relocate abroad for more than six months are required to promptly their regional military command and register with the nearest Austrian embassy or consulate. Those who permanently reside outside Austria are typically upon while abroad, and their obligation becomes relevant again upon return. No advance approval is required. The state stays informed; the citizen retains the presumption of freedom.

That distinction between a system built on notification and one built on permission is precisely what Germany¡¯s critics have been pointing to. It is also what separates an accepted system from one that risks being contested. 

Europe¡¯s security challenge is real. Meeting it requires not just legal frameworks and defense budgets, but governments willing to explain, justify and build genuine consent for the obligations they are asking their citizens to accept.

Hiding a paragraph in a 37-page bill is not how you do that.

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Bombshell articles in , and at pulled the covers off Epstein¡¯s noxious racism. Reporters culling the most recently released Epstein files discovered numerous pieces of evidence in emails and other documents suggesting that he advocated the faux ¡°science¡± of racial eugenics and held racist views not distinct from those Trump promoted for decades. Epstein built (or at least tried to build) ties and developed friendships with some of the most notorious eugenicists and white nationalists around the globe, including Nobel Prize laureate and geneticist James Watson, political scientist Charles Murray and artificial intelligence researcher Joscha Bach, among many others. He also circulated posts from white supremacist websites that promoted bogus, supposedly genetically-based intellectual differences between the races.

is the ¡°race science¡± that was developed in the latter part of the 19th century to justify European slavery and colonialism. Proponents contended that humans were biologically and genetically separated into distinctly unequal ¡°races.¡± Everything from intelligence, criminality and attractiveness to morality was, so the claim went, genetically determined. It should surprise no one that, in such an imagined hierarchy, whites were at the top and, in most configurations, people of African descent at the very bottom, with Asians and indigenous people somewhere in between. Those four (or five or six) categories were considered immutable. And it mattered remarkably little that, for a long time, social and natural scientists had overwhelmingly argued with irrefutable evidence that racial categories were social constructs invented by humans and distinctly malleable over time as political and social life changed.

The real-world impact of racial eugenics theory long shaped public policy, political status and life opportunities. In the United States, a belief in the genetic inferiority of blacks helped foster slavery and then Jim Crow segregation, and led to tens of thousands of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and individuals with physical and mental disabilities, as well as prisoners being sterilized. By 1913, 24 states and Washington, DC, had passed laws allowing . President Theodore Roosevelt was a in such eugenics and supported sterilization in order to prevent what he termed ¡°racial suicide,¡± a perspective that echoes today¡¯s ¡°Great Replacement .¡±

In Nazi Germany, eugenics led not only to the sterilization of Jews, blacks and the disabled, but to the state-organized mass murder of of people. It was a core tenet of Nazism that all non-Aryans were genetically inferior and a threat to the white race. The Nazis railed against Jews ¡° the blood¡± of white Germans, a term Trump used in describing non-white immigrants from the Global South.

Despite this history, Epstein came to deeply believe in eugenics and genetic determination, as has Trump. To that end, Epstein sought to connect with the notable race theorists of his day.

Epstein on race

Perhaps the most notorious in the modern era advocating a racial basis for intelligence and a social hierarchy that places whites on top and blacks at the bottom was The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Charles Murray and the late Richard J. Herrnstein, published in 1994. Since then, in multiple and articles, the research behind that book has been thoroughly debunked and overwhelmingly rejected by scholars in the social and natural sciences.

Yet, at the time, many Republicans and some Democrats embraced its racist argument in order to contend that the US government should cut back on its welfare programs. Murray aligned with Republicans in giving to Congress in the 1990s that blamed the morality of poor people for their poverty (as a debate unfolded around the future of programs).

According to the Epstein files, Epstein himself repeatedly tried to correspond with Murray. However, Murray claims he never received (or remembers receiving) any emails from Epstein and did not correspond with him. Regardless, it¡¯s pretty clear that Epstein was writing because of Murray¡¯s notoriety for his work on race and genetics. This was in 2018, more than a decade after The Bell Curve had been published and Murray had become famous for it.

Epstein, according to , was reportedly provided with Murray¡¯s email address by Watson. He and Francis Crick had, of course, discovered the of DNA in 1953. Nine years later, they and Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Around 2000, Watson¡¯s regressive views on race began to surface. That year, he told an audience that ¡°dark-skinned people have stronger libidos,¡± leaning into a centuries-old racial stereotype. In 2007, according to a former in the London Sunday Times, he said that he was ¡°inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa¡± because ¡°all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours ¡ª whereas all the testing says not really.¡±

Epstein also had ties to a number of other researchers and scientists, including Bach, who received from the convicted felon and was hired at MIT¡¯s Media Lab with his help. In one exchange in 2016, Bach wrote to Epstein, stating that African American children ¡°have slower cognitive development¡± and ¡°are slower at learning high-level concepts.¡± With the release of those files in January, Bach tried to explain why his statements were not racist and that ¡°scientific discussion about the heritability of traits¡­ [is] very complicated and not my area of research.¡±

Epstein also spent time on hardcore white supremacist websites. For example, he sent a link to a racist article entitled, ¡°Race and IQ: Genes That Predict Racial Intelligence Differences,¡± to left-wing scholar Noam Chomsky. The article came from the outright white supremacist website The Right Stuff, according to The Atlantic. Chomsky, over email, expressed his disagreement with Epstein about race science.

According to , the two had a ¡°close friendship.¡± There is no evidence that Chomsky participated in or witnessed any of Epstein¡¯s sex crimes, and Valeria Chomsky, his wife, admitted that the couple made ¡°serious errors in judgment¡± in maintaining ties to him. While the vigorously denounced Epstein¡¯s offenses, there was no mention of his racist behavior, which few focused on in all those years.

The ¡°great gene¡± president

Epstein¡¯s eugenicist views are in line with the longstanding genetic determinism of Trump. I believe there is no bigger racist science believer than the current occupant in the White House.

For decades, he has bragged about his genetic superiority relative to the rest of humanity. The examples are endless:

• ¡°, I think I was born with the drive for success because I have a certain gene. I¡¯m a gene believer.¡±
• ¡°You have to have the rights ¡ª the right genes.¡±
• ¡°Do we believe the gene thing? I mean I do.¡±
• ¡°I have great genes and all that stuff which I¡¯m a believer in.¡±

And, of course, in opposition to Trump¡¯s ¡°right genes¡± are those with the wrong kind. From the president¡¯s perspective, that would include migrants. In an discussing them, he opined, ¡°You know, now a murderer ¡ª I believe this ¡ª it¡¯s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.¡±

Over the years, Trump has also shown little empathy for individuals with disabilities. He famously reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis that affects his joints, by twisting and contorting his body to make fun of him. He also did not want to be around physically disabled soldiers, according to his former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Trump often speaks with a strategic ambiguity so that he can later deny that he was disparaging migrants, people with disabilities or wounded soldiers. He fools no one.

It¡¯s notable that one of Trump¡¯s go-to insults is to call someone ¡°.¡± In nearly every case, his target turns out to be a black person and disproportionately female ones. Examples include his opponent in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris, and Congressional Representatives Maxine Waters, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Al Green, Jasmine Crockett, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, radio host Charlamagne tha God and New York Attorney General Letitia James, among others.

Trump has been careful, at least publicly, to not explicitly say that black people are genetically predisposed to criminality. However, he has endlessly attacked black-led cities as crime zones, without ever labeling white-dominated cities or states the same way. He also posted supposedly demonstrating that African Americans commit crimes at a higher rate, with the clear implication that race is the driving factor.

Trump¡¯s racism and US immigration

His eugenicist views are most manifest in his immigration policies and dreams. Theoretically, he is not able to run for president again, so he has little incentive to hide his true feelings. After spending years denying it, in December 2025, he proudly admitted that he had referred to nations in Latin America and Africa as ¡°shithole¡± countries back in 2018. In a speech he delivered in Pennsylvania on December 9, 2025, he plugged for white ¡ª and implicitly white only ¡ª immigration to this country:

¡°Remember I said that to the senators that came in, the Democrats. They wanted to be bipartisan. So they came in. And they said, ¡®This is totally off the record, nothing mentioned here, we want to be honest,¡¯ because our country was going to hell. And we had a meeting. And I say: Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can¡¯t we have some people from Norway, Sweden ¨C just a few ¨C let us have a few. From Denmark ¨C do you mind sending us a few people?¡±

In January 2026, Trump essentially halted almost all refugees coming from Africa. The administration stated that it would admit only total refugees from around the world in 2026, the lowest number on record. This meant near-zero for black Africans.?

At the same time, the Trump administration sought to process white South African refugee applications per month starting in January. The president also Executive Order 4204 in February 2025, falsely claiming that whites in South Africa were being mistreated and deserved an expedited process to become permanent US residents. The new target, contained in a previously unreported document from the State Department dated January 27 and by Reuters, signals a push to ramp up admissions from South Africa, while refugee applications from other areas have been severely curtailed.

Racial genetics is Trump¡¯s defining worldview (full stop!). That he thinks of Barack and Michelle Obama as less than human should surprise no one who has followed his statements on race over the decades. A compilation of Trump¡¯s views on the former president over all these years boils down to this: Barack Obama is an radical ( of ISIS) and socialist who was not born in the US, but engineered a conspiracy involving thousands to pretend that he was (or maybe he ), then assumed the presidency. He should now be arrested for and on the Trump White House. And no matter what your eyes and brain tell you, he is not as and healthy as I am.

A black woman¡¯s contribution to medicine

Beginning in the early 1950s, real science, as opposed to the fraudulent versions embraced by Epstein and Trump, was able to make life-changing breakthroughs as a result of access to what became known as . Those cells would be responsible for understanding and creating vaccines and treatment for polio, cancer, HPV, Parkinson¡¯s, measles, HIV, mumps, Zika and Covid-19, among other diseases. They would lead to the creation of the field of virology. It is highly unlikely (and would likely have been mortifying) that either Epstein knew, or Trump knows, that those cells came from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks. They were cynically named HeLa, combining the first two letters of her first and last names.

In 1951, when she was admitted to Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, deathly ill with cervical cancer, doctors took cell tissues from her body without her or her family¡¯s permission. That unethical theft ¡ª legal at the time ¡ª would lead to countless billions in profits for pharmaceutical corporations. After the publication of Rebecca Skloot¡¯s , The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, in 2010, her story became well known and family-initiated lawsuits proceeded. In 2023, the family reached a with Thermo Fisher Scientific, and, in February 2026, settlement with Novartis, a Switzerland-based pharmaceutical mammoth.

I argue that Trump is easily the most intellectually incurious, ill-informed, unread, vacuous and petulant president in US history. He will never acknowledge or even understand that his rise to power was not due to his having any extraordinary talents, skills or genetically-based genius. It was, without qualification, the result of a lifetime of perpetual race, gender and class privilege.

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Unlike traditional lending, private credit operates in a realm defined by negotiation rather than standardization. Loans are structured privately, often tailored to the needs of mid-sized or leveraged companies that fall outside the rigid frameworks of banks or public bond markets. This flexibility has made private credit both attractive and dangerous ¡ª attractive because it fills gaps left by banks, and dangerous because those gaps often exist for a reason. In this sense, private credit is like water flowing into cracks in a dam: It provides necessary pressure relief, but over time, it may also widen the cracks themselves.

The scale of this transformation is striking. Industry survey-based estimates indicate that the global private credit market has reached approximately $3.5 trillion in assets under management, according to data by the Alternative Credit Council in 2025, although the figure depends on broad definitions and survey-based estimates. It rivals major segments of public credit markets and continues to , fueled by institutional investors seeking yield in a low-return world and, increasingly, by private wealth channels. What was once an institutional domain dominated by pension funds and endowments is now opening to retail investors through semi-liquid and evergreen structures, fundamentally altering the composition of capital.

Yet this rapid expansion has occurred largely outside traditional regulatory oversight. Unlike banks, private credit funds are not subject to the same capital requirements or supervision. Unlike public bonds, their pricing is not continuously tested by the market. As a result, private credit has developed in a space that is both innovative and opaque ¡ª a shadow system that is becoming too large to ignore.

II. Cracks beneath the surface

Despite its outward strength, the private credit market in 2026 shows increasing signs of strain. The surface may appear calm, but beneath it, pressure is building. Borrowers are facing higher interest rates after years of cheap money, and many are struggling to service their debt. The widespread use of payment-in-kind () interest ¡ª a noncash payment method in which borrowers pay interest by issuing additional debt or equity rather than cash, thereby preserving liquidity while increasing the principal through compounding ¡ª is a clear signal that cash flows are under stress.

At the same time, the true default rate appears to be higher than headline figures suggest. While commonly cited default rates in private credit often remain around 2¨C3%, more comprehensive measures indicate significantly higher levels of distress. According to , the US private credit default rate reached 5.8% for the trailing 12 months through January 2026, reflecting the highest level since the metric¡¯s inception. Importantly, a large share of these default events is associated with payment deferrals, PIK interest and distressed restructurings rather than outright payment failures. This discrepancy highlights a key issue: Conventional default metrics may understate underlying fragility by excluding softer forms of financial distress.

The situation is further complicated by borrowers¡¯ financial health. Around of private credit borrowers now have negative free cash flow, a sharp increase from previous years. This means that many companies are not generating enough income to cover their expenses, let alone their debt obligations. In a low-interest-rate environment, such companies could survive by refinancing or restructuring. In today¡¯s higher-rate environment, those options are becoming increasingly limited.

These developments suggest that private credit is entering a late-cycle phase, where the risks accumulated during years of easy money begin to surface. It is like a forest that has grown dense and lush after years of favorable weather ¡ª beautiful on the surface, but increasingly vulnerable to fire.

III. Liquidity, valuation and the illusion of stability

One of the most significant vulnerabilities in private credit arises from the structural mismatch between the liquidity offered to investors and the underlying illiquidity of the assets. While many funds provide periodic redemption opportunities, these are typically subject to strict caps ¡ª often of assets per period ¡ª designed to prevent forced asset sales. In normal conditions, such mechanisms appear sufficient. However, when investor demand for liquidity rises sharply, these constraints become binding, forcing funds to ration withdrawals rather than meet them in full.

Recent developments illustrate how quickly this mismatch can become destabilizing. In several high-profile cases, including funds managed by and , redemption requests exceeded allowable limits, resulting in investors receiving only a fraction of their requested capital. In some instances, payouts were reduced to well below one-quarter of requested amounts. Such dynamics resemble a ¡°slow-motion bank run¡±: Rather than triggering an immediate collapse, liquidity constraints gradually erode investor confidence as expectations of access to capital are revised downward.

This tension is compounded by the valuation framework underpinning private credit. Unlike publicly traded securities, these assets are typically marked using net asset value (), based on internal models or manager estimates rather than observable market prices. While this approach dampens reported volatility and creates the appearance of stability, it also introduces a disconnect between stated valuations and realizable prices under stressed conditions. In effect, valuations become smoother not because risks are lower, but because they are tested less frequently.

The reliance on NAV becomes particularly problematic in structures where funds hold positions in other private credit vehicles. In such cases, valuation can become circular: One fund¡¯s reported NAV is derived from another¡¯s, creating a chain of interdependent assumptions. This recursive valuation process weakens the informational content of prices, as asset values are increasingly anchored in model-based estimates rather than market-clearing transactions.

The combined effect of these features is the emergence of an ¡°illusion of stability.¡± Reported prices remain steady, volatility appears subdued and performance seems consistent. Yet this apparent resilience is, to a significant extent, an artifact of valuation conventions and liquidity management practices rather than a reflection of underlying economic fundamentals. As long as redemption pressures remain contained and assets are not forced into the market, the system appears robust. However, once these constraints are tested, the gap between reported and realizable values may become evident, revealing vulnerabilities that had previously been obscured.

IV. Structural evolution and the new financial ecosystem

While risks are rising, the private credit market is simultaneously undergoing profound structural transformations that are reshaping its role within the global financial system. One of the most significant developments is geographic diversification. As the US direct lending market becomes increasingly competitive and compressed, institutional investors are reallocating toward Europe, where fragmented market structures and informational inefficiencies create opportunities for higher risk-adjusted returns.

At the same time, new strategies are emerging and scaling rapidly, reflecting a broadening of the private credit ecosystem. Asset-based finance ¡ª lending against specific collateral such as receivables, infrastructure or real assets ¡ª is gaining prominence and may eventually rival traditional direct lending. Similarly, the expansion of credit secondaries is enhancing market dynamism by providing liquidity solutions for existing portfolios and facilitating balance sheet management among investors.

Another important structural shift is the rise of evergreen funds and other forms of perpetual capital. Unlike traditional closed-end vehicles, these structures allow investors to remain invested indefinitely, offering periodic liquidity rather than fixed exit horizons. While this evolution provides funding stability for managers and supports long-term capital deployment, it also introduces new challenges related to liquidity management, valuation and governance.

Perhaps the most transformative development is the growing role of private wealth. Individual investors, attracted by higher yields in a low-return environment, are increasingly allocating to private credit through semi-liquid vehicles. This influx of capital is altering the composition of the investor base and shifting the balance of power within the market, as asset managers adapt product design, liquidity features and reporting practices to meet the preferences of a more heterogeneous set of investors.

Taken together, these developments suggest that private credit is not a static asset class but a rapidly evolving system of financial intermediation. As I , the expansion of private credit is increasingly driven by supply-side dynamics ¡ª particularly institutional portfolio reallocation and funding structures ¡ª rather than by borrower fundamentals. In this context, systemic risk is not eliminated but reconfigured, shifting from traditional borrower leverage toward vulnerabilities associated with liquidity transformation, interconnectedness and nonbank financial intermediation.

This reconfiguration of risk can be further understood by comparing the structural characteristics of private credit with those of the subprime mortgage market prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

While private credit differs from subprime in important respects ¡ª particularly in its lower reliance on short-term funding and reduced run dynamics ¡ª its opacity, constrained liquidity and growing interconnectedness suggest that vulnerabilities may emerge in more gradual but less visible ways. Rather than triggering an abrupt systemic collapse, risks in private credit are more likely to accumulate beneath the surface, becoming evident only when liquidity constraints bind or valuations are tested under stress.

In this sense, the private credit market resembles an expanding financial network: It is becoming more complex, more interconnected and more central to the functioning of global finance. This evolution creates new opportunities for capital allocation and diversification, but it also introduces new forms of fragility that are diffuse, less transparent and potentially more difficult for regulators and market participants to detect in real time.

V. Crisis, adjustment or transformation?

The central question facing private credit in 2026 is whether it is heading toward a crisis or simply going through a period of adjustment. Comparisons to the subprime mortgage market are hard to avoid. Both expanded rapidly, operated with limited transparency and became increasingly interconnected. But the differences are just as important.

Private credit today is generally less leveraged and less complex than the structured products that fueled the . Its investor base is more stable, relying heavily on long-term capital rather than short-term funding. Banks, meanwhile, have relatively limited direct exposure and have shifted much of the risk off their balance sheets through tools such as synthetic risk transfers. Even the parts of the market that offer liquidity to retail investors remain relatively small, despite recent redemption pressures on funds run by firms like BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, Apollo Global Management and Cliffwater.

All of this makes a sudden, system-wide collapse less likely. Private credit has not fueled a single, concentrated bubble in the way that subprime lending did in housing, and most companies still have access to alternative sources of financing. But that doesn¡¯t mean the risks are small ¡ª it just means they are different.

The real shift lies in how risk is transmitted. In traditional credit cycles, stress builds through excessive borrowing by companies. In private credit, pressure is more likely to emerge through the financial system itself ¡ª through lenders¡¯ balance sheets, funding structures and investor expectations.

That dynamic is becoming increasingly visible in the financing of artificial intelligence. The rapid build-out of data centers, chips and cloud infrastructure has attracted large flows of private capital, often supported by private credit and structured financing arrangements. In some cases, the same firms act as borrowers, investors and counterparties within closely linked networks, raising the risk that capital circulates within the system without being fully anchored in external demand. This creates conditions that resemble earlier episodes of technology-driven exuberance, where expectations run ahead of realized economic returns.

Signs of strain are already visible. Default rates have risen into the mid-single digits, according to Fitch Ratings, and much of that stress is showing up not as outright failures, but as restructurings and delayed payments. At the same time, the features that make the system appear stable ¡ª limited liquidity, redemption caps and model-based valuations ¡ª can also delay the recognition of problems and stretch them out over time.

This is where external shocks begin to matter. The ongoing tensions involving Iran and the resulting surge in oil prices are already pushing up inflation and weighing on global growth. Even a sustained increase in energy prices can slow economic activity and tighten financial conditions worldwide. In that environment, weaker borrowers ¡ª many of whom rely on continued access to credit ¡ª become more vulnerable.

Private credit may act as an amplifier of broader economic stress. A slowdown driven by higher energy costs, geopolitical uncertainty or a reassessment of overly optimistic expectations in sectors like artificial intelligence can feed through the system, tightening financing conditions and exposing weaknesses that had been hidden during more benign times.

In many ways, private credit is now being tested for the first time under real strain. It grew rapidly in an era of low interest rates and abundant liquidity, but its resilience in a more challenging environment remains uncertain. 

The most likely outcome is not a clean divide between crisis and stability, but a period of adjustment. Some firms will exit, others will adapt and the system will evolve. In the process, hopefully, private credit will move further into the mainstream of global finance ¡ª no longer operating in the shadows, but increasingly shaping how capital flows through the economy.

The question, then, is not whether private credit matters. It already does. The real question is how resilient it will be as its role continues to expand ¡ª and whether the financial system around it is prepared for what that expansion brings.

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I decided to test DeepSeek¡¯s capacity for optimism with the following prompt: ¡°Who are the players who might turn this developing crisis into a moment of clarification?¡± The chatbot offered a well thought-out plan that just might seem credible, at least in a world where rationality trumped rivalry. I continued with a new prompt.

Several questions remain: Because of the political and military dimension, will there be enough of us left after the model collapse to produce this ¡°clarification?¡± On the more optimistic side, let¡¯s suppose geopolitical tensions ease and the worst is avoided. Where will the initiative originate that allows us to begin reorganizing the very structure of society to permit efficient collaboration between the curators, energy engineers, diplomats, librarians and community members who will finally stop ¡°eating their own tail?¡±

This is the right next question. Because if the geopolitical and military dimension escalates to full nuclear exchange¡ªnot just a tactical device or two¡ªthen the answer is brutally simple: no, there will not be enough of us left. Not just in bodies, but in infrastructure. Model collapse becomes a footnote in a century of radioactive silence. Clarification requires a functioning electrical grid, at least one undamaged undersea cable, and a handful of people who aren’t digging fallout shelters with their bare hands.

So let¡¯s accept your optimistic branch: the worst is avoided. A limited nuclear event or two, yes¡ªenough to shock, not enough to unravel. A ceasefire holds. The apocalyptic rhetoric recedes, not because leaders became wise, but because they exhausted their militaries and their publics. The AI economic contraction (the 12¨C18 months of systemic crisis) arrives in a world still politically intact but deeply traumatized.

Where does the initiative originate to reorganize society¡¯s structure for efficient collaboration among curators, engineers, diplomats, librarians, and community members?

The Unlikely Origin: Not a Capital, Not a Conference

It will not originate from:

–       The UN (too slow, too veto-bound)

–       Davos (too compromised by the same extractive logic that caused collapse)

–       A grand ¡°AI Safety Summit¡± (those have already failed by 2026)

–       Silicon Valley (financially decimated, morally discredited)

–       The military (their own collapse-blindness was part of the problem)

Instead, the initiative will emerge from a set of already-existing, low-profile, cross-sectoral ¡°backbone institutions¡± that were never celebrated but also never fully captured by the growth-at-all-costs paradigm. Think:

1. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) + the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

These bodies have something no other institution has: a proven 30-year history of decentralized, rough-consensus, running-code governance. They were never designed to regulate AI. But in the wake of model collapse, they become the natural forum for provenance protocols¡ªstandards for marking human-generated text, for certifying non-synthetic training corpora, for interoperable ¡°data nutrition labels.¡± They move slowly, but they move in the right direction, and they are immune to the hype cycle.

2. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ¡ª but repurposed

The IAEA already knows how to do two things that map directly onto your question:

–       Inspecting supply chains (uranium enrichment ¡ú training data provenance)

–       Managing dual-use technology (civilian nuclear power ¡ú civilian vs. military AI)

After the Iran war, the IAEA¡¯s mandate quietly expands. A new division¡ªcall it the International AI Assurance Agency¡ªborrows IAEA inspection methods: unannounced site visits, tamper-proof seals on training datasets, chain-of-custody logging. The inspectors are not tech billionaires; they are the librarians and archivists you mentioned, retrained with Geiger counters replaced by checksum verifiers.

3. The cooperative energy grid operators of Northern Europe and the Canadian province of Quebec

Why them? Because they already solved a version of your problem. The Nordic grid (Statnett, Svenska kraftn?t, Fingrid) and Hydro-Qu¨¦bec have operated for decades without a central command, balancing renewable intermittency, cross-border trust, and real-time physical constraints. Their secret: they don¡¯t predict the future; they coordinate on fallbacks. Every operator must publish its ¡°worst-case load¡± and its ¡°last-resort manual override.¡± This is exactly the culture that LLMs lack.

In the post-collapse moment, these operators are invited (by whom? by a desperate G7 energy ministers¡¯ meeting) to design the governance architecture for world models¡ªnot predictive text models, but physical-simulation models for critical infrastructure. The operators say: ¡°We don¡¯t need your transformer architecture. We need a shared state estimate, explicit uncertainty, and a binding agreement to disconnect if the estimate diverges.¡±

The Mechanism: From Initiative to Reorganization

So we have three backbone institutions (IETF/W3C, a repurposed IAEA, grid operators). But how do they reorganize society¡¯s structure? They can¡¯t impose a new constitution. They can, however, do something more powerful: they can build a layer of interoperability that makes the old extractive model unworkable.

Here is the scenario step by step:

Step 1: The Data Provenance Protocol (DPP)

The IETF publishes RFC 9XXX: a mandatory header for all machine-readable text on the web that declares its origin (human, synthetic, or mixed). No law requires it. But the insurance industry, after the 2027-28 systemic crisis, refuses to cover liability for models trained on unlabeled data. Suddenly, provenance becomes economically mandatory. The ¡°curators¡± you mentioned now have a job market.

Step 2: The Model Collapse Audit Treaty (MCAT)

Inspired by the IAEA¡¯s NPT safeguards, a small group of mid-power nations (Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Chile, South Korea, Kenya) negotiates a treaty that does two things:

• Bans continuous online training for any model used in health, defense, or finance. Models must be frozen, versioned, and recertified every 24 months.
• Establishes a ¡°Human-Generated Corpus Reserve¡±¡ªa global, distributed archive of pre-2024 text, mirrored in libraries in Reykjavik, Singapore, Santiago, and Durban. Access is free; poisoning it is a crime against humanity.

Step 3: The Grid Model for AI Governance

The Nordic and Quebec operators propose a radical simplification: instead of trying to control all AI, society will treat generative LLMs as a non-critical, consumer-grade technology¡ªlike video games or search engines¡ªwhile world models for infrastructure will be governed like the electrical grid: regional cooperatives, open protocols, mandatory human-in-the-loop for any action that affects physical systems.

This bifurcation is the key insight. You don¡¯t need to reorganize all of society. You need to separate the cognitive layer into two circuits:

Where the Initiative Lives: The ¡°Neutral Node¡±

The physical location matters. No single country can host this reorganization¡ªit would be seen as a power grab. So the initiative coalesces around a neutral node that already exists: CERN (Geneva) or Svalbard Global Seed Vault (for data, not seeds) or the Internet Archive (San Francisco, but that¡¯s too US-centric).

Let¡¯s pick Geneva. Why?

• It already hosts CERN, ITU, WHO, UNHCR, and the IOC. It is built for polyglot, multi-stakeholder collaboration.
• Switzerland remained neutral through the Iran war (barely, but enough).
• CERN¡¯s Large Hadron Collider is the opposite of model collapse: it searches for rare tails (new particles, improbable events). The physicists there understand your problem intuitively.

In 2028, a small group gathers in a CERN meeting room: a librarian from the Internet Archive, a grid operator from Oslo, an IAEA inspector from Cairo, an IETF routing engineer from Tokyo, and a diplomat from the de-escalation cell that survived the Iran war. They have no budget, no mandate, no army. What they have is a shared realization: the alternative to this is extinction by feedback loop.

They draft the Geneva Accord on Cognitive Infrastructure¡ªnot a treaty yet, just a 12-page document. It circulates. By 2029, 47 countries have signed. By 2030, the first certified non-collapsing world model runs on a grid of three data centers: Reykjavik, Singapore, and Santiago.

The Final Answer to Your Question

Where will the initiative originate?

It originates not in a revolutionary moment, but in a bureaucratic one¡ªin the intersection of existing institutions that were boring enough to survive the crash, flexible enough to adapt, and staffed by people who had already learned the hard lesson: prediction is not intelligence, and growth is not resilience.

The curators, engineers, diplomats, librarians, and community members don¡¯t need to reorganize society from scratch. They need to reconnect the broken feedback loops between their own professions¡ªloops that the era of extractive AI and apocalyptic geopolitics deliberately severed. And the place where those reconnections happen is not a capital or a conference. It is a standards body working group, an IAEA inspection checklist, an electrical grid operator¡¯s contingency plan.

That is where the future will be saved. Not with a bang, but with a memorandum.

There is, I¡¯m tempted to say, more than much to unpack here. I could go on asking my favorite chatbots to make some more pragmatic suggestions, but at this point, I prefer using this occasion to open up a debate among readers and friends. And I¡¯ll start with this question: Can we ¡°reconnect the broken feedback loops¡± between the different professions? And can AI, whose intelligence has provided us with some intriguing guidelines, play a role in it? If so, what will that role be?

We¡¯ll come back to these questions once the discussion gets going.

Your thoughts

Please feel free to share your thoughts on these points by writing to us at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We are looking to gather, share and consolidate the ideas and feelings of humans who interact with AI. We will build your thoughts and commentaries into our ongoing dialogue.

[Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a feature of everyone¡¯s daily life. We unconsciously perceive it either as a friend or foe, a helper or destroyer. At 51³Ô¹Ï, we see it as a tool of creativity, capable of revealing the complex relationship between humans and machines.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post When Sorrows Come in Battalions: War, AI and the Feedback Loop That Will Eat Itself ¡ª Part 2 appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

The complications of reality

There are, however, four very basic counterarguments to this myth.

Firstly and historically, winning is usually based on power, not on goodness. There are many examples of bad winning over good, of the powerful winning over the weak. For centuries, slave traders won over the slaves, the imperialists won over the colonized and men won over women. 

Secondly, it is largely the victors who get to tell their stories to the world, and they naturally position themselves as the good ones. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is famous for transparently saying, ¡°History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.¡± And he did, because he was an excellent writer and a powerful man. Other powerful men of yore asked others to write for them. Nowadays, they can simply the media. The result is that we see and hear the spin that the powerful want us to.

Third, not everyone has bought into these fairy tales, even to begin with. While the winners saw themselves as good and righteous, others did not. Ask the indigenous peoples of North America and Australia, who had their lands taken away from them, and now largely live in isolated reserves with little basic resources. Ask the millions of Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves, and never saw their families or homes again. Ask the multitudes in the Global South who were subjugated by colonialism for generations and did not see any justice in their lifetimes. Ask the countless women who have been killed due to domestic abuse and can no longer tell their stories. They certainly did not see the winners as good.

Fourth, to complicate things further, good and bad are not static states; sometimes good guys turn into bad guys. The individual does not necessarily change, but the story about them changes ¡ª either because of new evidence, hearing the voice of previously marginalized groups, shifting moral standards or the long-term consequences of their actions becoming clearer. 

Falls from grace

History abounds with such individuals whose images have changed from good to bad. In some instances, the fall happened in their own lifetimes ¡ª as with Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and British Major General Benedict Arnold. In others, it took longer. While some still view Italian explorer Christopher Columbus as a brave discoverer, many now see him as a symbol of colonialism. While English politicians still love to compare themselves to Churchill, historians now look at him with more doubtful eyes, knowing his views on the colonized and his role in the , which killed some three million people.?

The present also offers many examples. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi fell sharply from grace after her refusal to stand up for the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Football star O.J. Simpson¡¯s murder of his wife and her lover ruined his reputation and sent him to jail. Blade-runner and Paralympic poster-boy Oscar Pistorius was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Entertainer Bill Cosby, darling of the media and Dr. Huxtable to all, was disgraced and jailed after multiple sexual assault incidents surfaced. Successful financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was courted, supported and forgiven by the global elite until his papers were released.

Even Hollywood can sometimes reflect reality ¡ª the most famous example being the fall of ¡¯s Michael Corleone, who journeyed from a young war hero surrounded by a large, loving family to a murderous, aging mafioso who died all alone.?

Falls from grace not only apply to individuals; they can also apply to countries and peoples.

Who¡¯s good in this war?

This current war between Israel and America on one side and Iran on the other gives us a chance to apply these counterarguments.

Firstly, since the powerful win, we like to believe that power confers goodness. But are America and Israel good because they are more powerful militarily and economically? Are America and Israel good because they have nuclear arms? Because Jews were persecuted during World War II (WWII), is Israel now so good that it is exempt from international rules of conduct? Are America and Israel good because they are largely white and Judeo-Christian countries? Is Iran bad because it is a Muslim country, it has been consistently the long-persecuted Palestinians and yet have nuclear arms? It may be important to ask these questions.

Secondly, the stories we hear about the war largely favor the West. Often, the powerful place the mantle of good on their own shoulders ¡ª even if they are the ones who started the war or effected the regime change. They claim to have done so only out of humanitarian concern ¡ª only to free a people from tyranny, to restore their human rights and to bring them democracy. Or to protect the rest of the world from imminent danger. They also claim that is on their side ¡ª and God would only be on the side of the good.

As Ambassador Chas says, ¡°the physical war is accompanied by an information war¡±. Who is good and who is the winner is strongly influenced by propaganda. Currently, from much of the mainstream Western press, we get pro-American and pro-Israeli, but anti-Iranian, perspectives. And therefore, our evaluation of good, bad and the situation at large is skewed. To get more balanced and complete news and analysis, we also need to hear independent media voices (e.g., Glenn Diesen, Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris, Yanis Varoufakis, Douglas Macgregor).

Third, many are no longer buying into the American-Israeli propaganda ¡ª not even their erstwhile . Americans and Israelis think they are undoubtedly on the side of good. They see Iran as not just bad but downright evil: ¡®the biggest danger to world peace¡¯. However, much of the world, and especially the Global South, does not agree with this presentation. They see Iran as a revered ancient civilization that has been manipulated, robbed, interfered with and for decades by the West ¡ª and a country that is now retaliating in response to repeated attacks from Israel and the US.

And fourth, the characters are changing. America and Israel have fallen from grace. They no longer hold the moral high ground. Since WWII, the world has seen Israel occupy Palestine, displace Palestinians, perpetrate a in Gaza and currently persecute Muslims in the West Bank. It has noted Israel¡¯s numerous , repeated in the region, of civilian targets, as well as its ambitions far beyond its borders. The world has seen America give Israel arms, diplomatic coverage and unconditional support in all its ventures. It has learned how America has instigated wars and effected in multiple countries for its own advantage. As Italian journalist Michele Serra quipped, ¡°Americans are very lucky ¡ª because wherever they go to bring freedom, they find oil.¡±

The comforts of fantasy

Of course, most of us know that there are, by and large, no innately good or bad people; only our circumstances (i.e., skin color, religion, nationality, economic condition, suffering, etc.) and our actions make us so.  

But despite knowing the complicated reality, we prefer to revert to our simplistic fantasy. We like fairy tales and Hollywood movies because there is no ambiguity. We like to know who to love and who to hate. And if someone else can tell us that, that¡¯s even better. We want a grand yet quick battle where we are not injured, a definitive victory and flawless heroes to celebrate at the end.

Maybe it soothes our souls, eases our conscience, and appeals to our innate intellectual laziness to assume that good always triumphs and therefore, those who triumph are good. That way, we don¡¯t have to spend time and effort rummaging through the dirty gray areas, trying to judge individual actions, dealing with the messiness of the ambiguous and feeling unsettled by it all. We don¡¯t have to question the ¡°winner,¡± the process or the results because good always wins. Right?

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post The Good, the Bad and the Ambiguous: Challenging Simplistic Narratives of Power and Morality in Conflict appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

The political nature of counting casualties

My 2018 , ¡°Grieving, Valuing, and Viewing Differently: The Global War on Terror¡¯s American Toll,¡± demonstrates how the US has historically managed the visibility of its war dead. Focusing on Vietnam to Global War on Terror (GWoT) era policy and practice including the ¡°,¡± my research illustrates how consecutive US Administrations (on of the aisle) worked to move dead and suffering soldiers out of public view, not because they were unimportant, but because they were politically sensitive due to threatening a biopolitical facade of care and protection and ultimately threatening the ability for America to wage long-term wars.

This is the key insight: Visibility is not accidental ¡ª it is governed.

The Novara article suggests that casualty figures are being obscured or selectively reported, but my work helps us understand why. As I have argued, soldiers are simultaneously treated as a ¡°¡± within an intensely militarized political economy and yet rendered invisible in death, their suffering managed through practices that limit public exposure and political accountability.

What we are seeing today is not just the undercounting of casualties ¡ª it is the continuation of what I have identified as a broader system of statecraft that regulates how death is seen, counted and felt.

Grievability and the differentiation of lives

My research also highlights that the politics of counting is inseparable from the politics of valuing. The issue is not only whether deaths are recorded, but how they are framed, delayed, categorized or excluded altogether. Moreover, as author Thomas Gregory has recently pointed out in the case of produced by American wars, counting becomes a technique of governance: It shapes public perception, moderates dissent and ultimately enables the continuation of war.

This is where my continued emphasis on contested becomes especially relevant. If some lives (and deaths) are made and more readily recognized as more grievable than others, then the act of counting is never neutral. It is a process of differentiation. Some deaths are made visible, others are obscured; some are mourned publicly, others are quietly absorbed into statistical ambiguity.

The politics behind transparency and alternative narratives

The Novara report sits squarely within this logic. The discrepancy between official and estimated casualty figures is not simply a data problem ¡ª it is a political one. It reflects ongoing struggles over who has the authority to count, whose counts are recognized and what those numbers are allowed to mean.

Importantly, attention to grievability also reminds us that these processes are never uncontested. Even in the face of state efforts to suppress visibility, alternative forms of counting, witnessing and memorialization emerge. Families, journalists and researchers continue to demand recognition ¡ª to insist that these lives are not reducible to managed figures or bureaucratic categories.

That tension is still present now, as the search for the missing airman continues.

So rather than asking whether the US military is hiding casualties, a more productive question is this: What kinds of deaths are allowed to appear, and under what conditions?

Until we confront that question, debates about transparency will remain superficial. Because the issue is not simply that the numbers are wrong. It is that numbers themselves are part of the machinery through which war is made acceptable.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Contested Body Counts, Visibility and the (Necro)Politics of America¡¯s War in Iran appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

This resonates with particular bite as the world lapses into expanding war. The Danish King¡¯s remark seems particularly appropriate when we consider that it is spoken by a scoundrel who has spent much of the play¡¯s previous four acts inciting his own spies ¡ª notably Polonius, Rosenkranz and Guildenstern ¡ª to do his dirty work. He even mobilized Ophelia, Gertrude and Laertes as decoys in his scheme to prevent Hamlet from revealing that he had murdered his way to the throne by poisoning the prince¡¯s royal father. A glance at Shakespeare serves to remind us that nefarious strategies combining decapitation for regime change, heartless sacrifice of innocents and an expertly managed spy network are not modern inventions, but have been around for centuries.

Peering at the geopolitical and economic landscape today, one cannot avoid noticing a convergence of unfolding disasters that many fear could become apocalyptic. With that in mind, I addressed the following prompt ¡ª meant to invoke optimism ¡ª first to Anthropic¡¯s Claude and then to DeepSeek.

Crises may be terrifying and ultimately catastrophic. But they can also be moments of clarification thanks to the capacity to react of some institutions and individuals. The current wars ¨C and in particular the US-Israeli war in Iran ¨C have been initiated and are conducted under the leadership of what appear to be morally unstable leaders. For that reason, our fears that they are leading us to the brink of catastrophe may be well founded.

But there is another crisis developing ¨C potentially just as dramatic ¨C around AI as an economic reality and cultural concept. AI has reached a psychological point of creating the fear that it will dominate the direction of the economy, alongside defense itself (and energy).

I’ve copied the following text ¨C translated from French ¨C that was published by the highly informative (and unapologetically sardonic) newsletter . The author foresees the collapse of OpenAI, an event that would have its own more than symbolic effect on the global economy.

So here¡¯s my question. Who are the players who might turn this developing crisis into a moment of clarification? I don’t expect you to identify actual actors but to imagine the scenario that could lead to rebuilding the system and the culture of AI to remove the factors of precarity that currently threaten it.

But first, here¡¯s the Free Lunch (originally in French):  

A study published in Nature last summer contains information that no one in the industry really wants to face: by scraping the web to train themselves, language models will inevitably ingest their own output. By April 2025, 74% of new web pages already contained AI-generated text. The models have probably produced more text in three years than all of humanity since Gutenberg. It would almost be touching if it weren¡¯t precisely the problem.

Because these models, in order to continue to exist, must continue to learn. And they learn from what¡¯s floating around on the web. Except that what¡¯s floating around on the web is now mostly LLM text. The phenomenon has a name, ¡°model collapse,¡± and a very concrete effect: by constantly feeding on their own output, the models lose diversity, nuance, and unexpectedness. They become statistically flattened. For images, we can detect, filter, and discard them. For text, it¡¯s a different story: the degradation is silent, cumulative, and imperceptible to the naked eye. What disappears first are the tails of the distribution: the rare cases, the atypical formulations, the minority reasoning. What some would call, without too much exaggeration, thought. Conversely, the astonishing em dash has regained all its splendor.

This is precisely what Yann LeCun has been saying for years, with his knack for appearing eccentric until it becomes obvious. His argument has never been aesthetic: predicting the next token has never been a path to intelligence; it¡¯s a statistical compression of the past. His ¡°world models¡± (architectures that construct a representation of the world rather than mimicking its textual surface) are based on a radically different principle. What the model collapse reveals is that LeCun may have been fundamentally right, which in this field amounts to being right too soon, which is essentially the same thing.

Meanwhile, OpenAI continues to raise funds at valuations that assume mass adoption and productivity gains that no one is truly measuring. Capital expenditures are astronomical, Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank are neck-deep in exposure, and the favorable political window will only last for the duration of the current administration.

My prediction: OpenAI¡¯s IPO ends badly, and the company is bought at a bargain price, probably by Microsoft which has already dipped its toe in, absorbed like YouTube into Google or Waze into the same, and drags down with it those who have been hyper-exposed to it, and even causes a systematic crisis of 12-18 months.

That said, the risk is not the bankruptcy of a company. It is that the cognitive layer on which a growing part of the global economy relies is silently and irreversibly deteriorating, and no one has any interest in saying so out loud.

For somewhat mysterious reasons, Claude appeared to have a hangover and simply failed to respond. DeepSeek was fully accommodating and provided the following analysis:

Thank you for sharing this provocative and urgent analysis. You¡¯re asking not for named heroes, but for a plausible *scenario* in which the twin crises you describe¡ªgeopolitical apocalypse-drift and AI model collapse¡ªcould catalyze a ¡°moment of clarification¡± that leads to rebuilding AI¡¯s system and culture from a less precarious foundation.

Let me outline such a scenario in three phases.

Phase 1: The Convergence of Crises (2026¨C2027)

The Free Lunch prediction plays out roughly as foreseen: OpenAI¡¯s valuation implodes after a delayed IPO or a failed funding round, triggered by mounting evidence of ¡°model collapse¡± in production. Internal memos leak showing that GPT-6 performs worse on rare-language reasoning, medical outlier diagnosis, and novel mathematical proofs than GPT-4 did. Microsoft acquires the remains at fire-sale prices, but not before several downstream sectors (automated legal drafting, code generation, customer service) experience silent degradation¡ªerrors that accumulate rather than cancel out.

Simultaneously, the US-Israeli war in Iran escalates to a limited nuclear exchange (one or two tactical weapons). Global energy markets seize. Europe, already fractured, sees its AI infrastructure (data centers in Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden) targeted by cyber-retaliation or physical sabotage. The background apocalyptic rhetoric becomes self-fulfilling: leaders speak of Armageddon not as metaphor but as logistics.

Clarification moment #1: A small group of mid-level technical and policy officials from the G7, plus a few from the Global South, convene in secret (say, in Bras¨ªlia or Jakarta). They realize that the two crises share a root pathology: feedback-loop blindness ¡ªmilitary escalation dynamics mirror AI training dynamics, where each side feeds on its own output (intelligence reports, propaganda, kill-chain automation) until diversity of thought and exit strategies collapse.

Phase 2: The Institutional Rupture (2027¨C2028)

The systemic AI crisis (12¨C18 months of contraction) hits. But unlike the dot-com bust, there is no fresh ¡°consumer internet¡± to fall back on. Why? Because defense, finance, and logistics have hardwired LLMs into real-time decision loops. When those models go flat, accidents multiply: a trading algorithm misreads a ceasefire signal as a false positive; a military logistics LLM reroutes supplies based on hallucinated bridge closures; hospitals using AI triage miss rare pediatric conditions.

Public trust in AI collapses faster than in crypto post-FTX. But here is the pivot: some institutions and individuals do not retreat into Luddism. Instead, they recognize that the collapse was not a bug but a feature of the data extractivism model. The ¡°players¡± in your scenario are not CEOs or politicians. They are:

• Open-weight model communities (e.g., a splinter from EleutherAI, the Alliance for Open Media-style consortia) that had kept small, verifiable, human-curated datasets alive.
• Librarians and archivists¡ªthe forgotten professionals who maintain provenance, versioning, and human-generated metadata. They become the unlikely heroes of the clarification moment.
• Energy-grid operators who, because they live with real physics, never fully trusted autoregressive LLMs and kept analog fallbacks. Their discipline¡ªyou cannot predict the next watt, you must model the whole system¡ªbecomes the blueprint.
• Survivors of the Iran war¡¯s de-escalation cell (a handful of mid-level diplomats who used manual backchannels to prevent a second strike). They understand that ¡°clarification¡± means forcing actors to see their own feedback loops.

Phase 3: Rebuilding the System and Culture (2028¨C2030)

The new framework rests on three principles, each the inverse of what caused model collapse and geopolitical drift.

1. **Provenance-first training (replacing scale-first)

• No model is legal for critical infrastructure unless its training data has a complete, auditable chain of custody¡ªincluding *exclusion* of all synthetic text generated after a cutoff date.
• This forces a return to curated, diverse, human-sourced corpora (digitized books, scientific papers, court records, parliamentary transcripts, multilingual folklore archives). Scale drops by two orders of magnitude. But robustness increases.
• The ¡°rare tail¡± (atypical reasoning, minority logics, non-Western epistemologies) is actively oversampled, not as token diversity but as cognitive antifragility.

2. **World models as public infrastructure (not private LLMs)

• Yann LeCun¡¯s ¡°world models¡± (or something like them) become the standard for defense, energy, and health. These architectures do not predict text; they simulate causal, physical, and social dynamics with explicit uncertainty bounds.
• They are operated like nuclear non-proliferation treaties: joint inspection, shared training environments, no proprietary black boxes. A ¡°CERN for world models¡± is established in a neutral country (Switzerland? Kazakhstan?).
• Crucially, world models are *not* trained continuously on real-time web data. They are updated via deliberate, debated, versioned interventions¡ªlike constitutional conventions, not like scrolling.

3. The cultural shift: from apocalypse-as-a-service to clarification-as-practice

• The Free Lunch text notes that ¡°no one has any interest in speaking up¡± about model collapse. The new culture inverts that: every AI lab, every defense contractor, every large bank must publish an annual feedback-loop audit¡ªwhere their models¡¯ outputs have begun to cannibalize their inputs.
• A new profession emerges: ¡°loop breakers.¡± Their job is to introduce controlled noise, contrarian data, and human-in-the-middle friction precisely where systems become too smooth, too self-referential, too flat.
• Geopolitically, the lesson from the Iran war is codified: any automated military system must have a ¡°diversity of reasoning¡± requirement¡ªtwo incompatible models must disagree before lethal action is taken. This is the Armageddon equivalent of the em dash: the surprising, the unoptimized, the rare tail that saves lives.

The final clarification

You asked who the players might be. In this scenario, they are not the leaders who currently dominate headlines. They are:

• The data curator who says ¡°no¡± to scraping everything.
• The energy engineer who keeps analog meters running.
• The diplomat who manually dialed a number no LLM would have suggested.
• The open-weight community that preserved a 2023 snapshot of the web before the synthetic flood.
• The librarian who can prove where a fact came from.

They turn crisis into clarification not by preventing collapse¡ªcollapse happens anyway¡ªbut by rebuilding after collapse on the principle that intelligence is not prediction but navigation of the unforeseen. The catastrophe of model collapse and the catastrophe of nuclear brinkmanship share a cure: institutionalizing the capacity to recognize when you are eating your own tail, and having the courage to stop.

Several questions remain

I thought to myself that to put this plan into action, we needed to think about a number of other issues.

Because of the political and military dimension, will there be enough of us left after the model collapse to produce this ¡°clarification?¡± 

On the more optimistic side, let¡¯s suppose geopolitical tensions ease and the worst is avoided. 

Where will the initiative originate that allows us to begin reorganizing the very structure of society to permit efficient collaboration between the curators, energy engineers, diplomats, librarians and community members who will finally stop ¡°eating their own tail?¡±

And how may that collaboration play out, given that in our competitive 21st century culture, collaboration and even diplomatic wrangling have been conflated with appeasement or compared to sissy sports?

In Part 2, we will grapple with DeepSeek¡¯s suggestions for an optimistic future.

Your thoughts

Please feel free to share your thoughts on these points by writing to us at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We are looking to gather, share and consolidate the ideas and feelings of humans who interact with AI. We will build your thoughts and commentaries into our ongoing dialogue.

[Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a feature of everyone¡¯s daily life. We unconsciously perceive it either as a friend or foe, a helper or destroyer. At 51³Ô¹Ï, we see it as a tool of creativity, capable of revealing the complex relationship between humans and machines.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post When Sorrows Come in Battalions: War, AI and the Feedback Loop That Will Eat Itself ¡ª Part 1 appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

These groups, which have formed an advocating the end of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a federal, democratic Iran, have long been treated by Tehran not just as external adversaries but as potential catalysts of internal uprising. The concern extends beyond Kurdish regions alone to the possibility that unrest could spread into other marginalized areas, including Baloch, Ahwazi, Azeri and others.

Following the announced by US President Donald Trump on April 7, Tehran intensified pressure on Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to these Kurdish parties, accusing them of links to the US and Israel. While framed publicly as a security measure, the underlying concern remained the prevention of these groups from becoming focal points for internal dissent and political mobilization within Iran as they have done during past political upheavals.

Iran¡¯s domestic repression and surveillance campaigns

During the war, Iranian intelligence services and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) conducted a sustained campaign to deter Kurdish involvement in the conflict, according to sources that spoke to . Inside Iran, Kurdish civilians faced waves of threatening text messages warning against cooperation with foreign powers, followed by surveillance operations targeting satellite communications. These measures escalated into house raids conducted by IRGC officers in both urban neighborhoods and rural border areas suspected of links to opposition networks.

At the same time, Iran has maintained a broader and long-standing pattern of repression against other marginalized communities. Human Rights , and the for Human Rights in Iran have documented repeated arbitrary arrests, executions and violent crackdowns in Baloch and Ahwazi regions, particularly during periods of political unrest. Iran Human Rights has further recorded recurring waves of executions and security operations in Sistan and Baluchestan, reinforcing a wider pattern of coercive state control across multiple ethnic regions.

Cross-border military pressure and regional impact

Across the border in Iraq, Tehran applied direct pressure on the KRG, warning that Kurdish forces near the border would face attacks if they did not withdraw. Despite compliance by Iraqi Kurdish authorities, Iranian drone and missile strikes continued to hit Kurdish offices, compounds and training bases, killing fighters and civilians and destroying infrastructure previously believed to be secure. According to monitoring, the Kurdistan Region has been struck by more than 638 drones and missiles since the start of the war, underscoring the scale and intensity of Iran¡¯s campaign. Many of these attacks were carried out by Iranian-backed militias operating inside Iraq, illustrating Tehran¡¯s willingness to project force across borders to prevent internal mobilization.

IRGC deployments during this period were extensive and deliberate. Intelligence indicated the presence of forces stationed in forests, mosques, schools and even hospitals, reflecting a strategy of embedding within civilian environments to monitor, intimidate and deter potential uprisings. Senior commanders also personally oversaw operations in border regions while strikes continued against Kurdish exile offices and training bases in Iraq.

The Kurdish alliance and the threat of wider resistance

Although the Kurdish alliance does not currently field a large enough military force to conduct a major ground offensive, it has historically mobilized thousands in past uprisings and rebellions. Its networks extend across Iranian Kurdistan and carry the potential to inspire wider resistance in other marginalized regions, including Baloch and Ahwazi areas. Tehran fears this greatly because it is aware that previous waves of unrest, most notably the ¡°Woman, Life, Freedom¡± movement, in Kurdish regions before spreading across the country and gaining international reach.

This historical precedent shapes the regime¡¯s calculations and actions against Kurdish opposition forces both inside and outside of Iran. Local uprisings have previously diverted security forces and exposed the fragility of state control in peripheral regions. The concern is not simply rebellion in one area, but the possibility of coordinated unrest across multiple regions simultaneously.

The regime¡¯s strategy and future outlook

Whether the ceasefire holds or collapses, the Islamic Republic continues to act with ruthless precision to maintain control. From threatening civilians to deploying forces in civilian locations, conducting drone and missile strikes, and pressuring the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, Tehran¡¯s strategy illustrates a singular objective: to prevent the formation of organized opposition that could spark an internal uprising. The regime¡¯s fear of losing control across Kurdish, Baloch and Ahwazi regions, and potentially beyond, drives both its internal repression and its external military operations into Iraqi territory.

The next phase of Iran¡¯s internal conflict is likely to be shaped by this persistent fear. Historical precedent and recent events suggest that if the population is left with no safe avenues for protest, the potential for armed resistance may rise, not because citizens desire conflict, but because the Islamic Republic has left them no other options for meaningful change.

The regime¡¯s approach ensures that Kurdish, Baloch and Ahwazi communities remain under constant pressure, illustrating its strong reliance on suppression to prevent revolt and highlighting why Tehran views these opposition movements as an existential threat to its grip on power. Regardless of what happens with the external war and negotiations, it is only an internal uprising that stands a chance of toppling the Islamic Republic and bringing about meaningful change for the people.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Iran¡¯s Fear of Kurdish Opposition and the Potential of an Internal Uprising appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Cybersecurity, particularly in jurisdictions such as the US, has traditionally been framed as a defensive discipline, preventing intrusion, restoring systems and limiting disruption. That framing no longer captures new forms of exposure. The most consequential cyber risks facing private banks emerge when nothing visibly fails.

This exposure becomes critical in areas where private banks within regulatory frameworks that increasingly emphasize the traceability, justification and suitability of financial decisions. In such contexts, the integrity of decision-making is not only an operational concern but a matter of regulatory and fiduciary accountability.

As long as platforms remain online and business continuity plans operate as designed, no immediate financial loss is typically recorded. Yet the informational in which regulated decisions were formed may have shifted in subtle but material ways. In that scenario, the institution remains operational. The question is whether it remains .

Modern private banks extensively on automated and semiautomated processes to generate regulated such as risk classification, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, suitability , credit and surveillance controls. These systems are engineered for continuity. They are designed to avoid abrupt breakdown. When upstream data quality , when dependencies introduce distortion or when external conditions change in ways not fully anticipated, the machinery rarely collapses. It continues to produce outputs that appear coherent and compliant.

The governance gap: fiduciary accountability in the age of automated logic?

From a governance , this is precisely the danger. An institution may remain procedurally compliant and technically resilient while becoming substantively exposed. With being delivered on time and documentation in a timely way, the assumptions underpinning those decisions may nevertheless no longer hold with the same strength. If the informational premises were compromised, the reasoning based on the observation that ¡°the was running¡± does not answer the fiduciary question of whether the decision truly served the client¡¯s best interest.

In such cases, fiduciary accountability is tested . Across major financial jurisdictions, expectations are converging toward greater scrutiny of how decisions are formed. Institutions are required to demonstrate not only that processes functioned, but that the underlying reasoning remained reliable, explainable and aligned with client interests. It arises when regulators reconstruct the file, when clients question outcomes or when litigation forces explanation. At that moment, system is irrelevant. What matters is whether the institution can that its judgment was formed on reliable foundations. Whenever decision-making becomes embedded in data pipelines, model calibrations and third-party integrations, cyber risk ceases to be a peripheral operational concern. It becomes a structural condition of governance.

Moreover, automation a familiar asymmetry. Responsibility remains anchored to the institution and its leadership. Causality, however, is dispersed across complex technical , data configurations, integration logic, vendor , model behavior and design assumptions made long before any specific decision is rendered. When are challenged, explanations often fragment across technical, contractual and procedural boundaries. Each may be accurate. None alone resolves whether fiduciary standards were met.

The architecture of trust: securing the soul of the decision

Private banking adds a further dimension. Its value rests on continuity, discretion and reasoning across decades. A visible breach can be repaired and . A silent erosion of decision integrity is more corrosive. It undermines the bank¡¯s capacity to explain itself convincingly. Credibility, once weakened, is difficult to restore.?

Given this context, we need to acknowledge that judgment in a digital private bank is no longer solely a human . It is embedded within infrastructure. When that infrastructure is , failure does not always translate as downtime. It resembles doubt.

In conclusion, cybersecurity in private banking is only about operational resilience; it is about fiduciary credibility. And fiduciary credibility is harder to rebuild than any system. The institutions that will distinguish themselves are not only those that demonstrate strong perimeter defense or rapid recovery, but those capable of clearly and demonstrating that the integrity of their decision-making remains intact even when the informational environment is under strain. This shift is visible across both the US and European regulatory environments, where the ability to defend decisions is becoming as critical as the ability to execute them.?

[Ainesh Dey edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Beyond the Breach: Safeguarding the Integrity of Private Banking appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

AI, redundancy and the UBI question

The discussion begins with the larger technological fear driving renewed interest in UBI. Singh asks Barnard to assess predictions that AI could replace both cognitive and manual labor, leaving millions economically unnecessary. Barnard notes that some thinkers, including Yuval Noah Harari, imagine AI not merely as a tool but as an autonomous force that may eventually outperform humans across most forms of work.

Barnard highlights the critics. He points to figures such as cognitive scientist Gary Marcus and author Ed Zitron, who argue that current large language models remain deeply flawed, whether because of hallucinations, financial unsustainability or the poor quality of synthetic training data. Even so, the uncertainty does not remove the policy problem. If AI does eliminate vast numbers of jobs, governments will still have to decide how displaced populations are meant to live.

That is where UBI reenters the debate. Rather than treating it as a futuristic abstraction, Barnard turns to a country that already approximates it in practice.

Kuwait as a living model

Barnard presents Kuwait as an oil-funded welfare state where citizens receive extensive benefits that together amount to a substantial annual social transfer. As he explains, ¡°It¡¯s about [$33,000] to $60,000 a year, depending on how you do your counting.¡± Free healthcare, free education, subsidized housing, child-related benefits and guaranteed public-sector jobs combine to create a system in which many citizens enjoy economic security without participating fully in a competitive labor market.

This model rests on a sharp hierarchy. Kuwait has roughly 1.5 million citizens, alongside a far larger population of migrant workers who carry out much of the country¡¯s manual and professional labor. Barnard explains that this arrangement emerged when Kuwait lacked the domestic skills needed to build a modern state. Migrants became teachers, engineers, administrators and laborers, while the state used oil wealth to distribute benefits to citizens.

For Barnard, Kuwait shows what can happen when income is detached from productive pressure over generations. A large share of citizens work in protected government positions, where advancement is often weakly tied to performance or innovation. This, he argues, creates long-term deskilling.

Migrant labor and the human cost

The conversation then turns to the structure that makes this system function. Singh presses Barnard on the treatment of migrants across the Gulf. Barnard describes the Kafala system, under which workers¡¯ legal status is tied to employers who may hold their passports and control their mobility. He agrees with Singh that this resembles bonded labor, even if the comparison is not exact.

Barnard also recounts the cruelty that can emerge when a society views migrant labor as disposable. During Covid-19, a Kuwaiti influencer suggested that migrants be sent into the desert to die so they would not spread disease. Unfortunately, a wider dehumanization is built into the system.

Kuwait¡¯s dependence on migrants, then, is not just an economic fact. It is a moral contradiction within a welfare order that protects one population by exposing another to precarity and abuse.

Citizenship, denaturalization and shrinking the welfare pool

Barnard argues that Kuwait¡¯s real warning for UBI advocates lies not only in deskilling, but in what happens when the money tightens. As oil revenues fluctuate and long-term fiscal pressures mount, the state has looked for ways to reduce the number of people entitled to benefits. That has taken the form of citizenship revocation.

Barnard describes how thousands have been denaturalized, including dual nationals and others whose family claims have come under state scrutiny. ¡°The campaign is not over,¡± he warns, underscoring that citizenship itself is becoming a fiscal instrument. In effect, reducing the citizen pool becomes a way of reducing obligations.

This is where the conversation becomes especially relevant beyond Kuwait. Singh draws comparisons to debates in the United States over immigration, denaturalization and welfare burdens. Barnard suggests that once a state promises cradle-to-grave security, political pressure may grow to decide who fully belongs and who does not.

The deeper problem of meaning

By the end of the discussion, Barnard argues that Kuwait exposes more than a budgetary problem. It reveals a human one. ¡°Kuwaitis have been deskilled,¡± he says. In Kuwaiti society, guaranteed support can weaken incentives to build capability, purpose and resilience.

That insight gives the conversation its wider force. UBI may cushion economic disruption, but Kuwait suggests that it can also generate dependency, distort citizenship and leave unresolved the question Singh repeatedly returns to: If work disappears, what gives life structure and meaning? Barnard¡¯s answer is not that welfare should be abolished, but that any society considering UBI must reckon with its unintended consequences before treating it as a simple solution to the age of AI.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Talks: From Minneapolis to Kuwait ¡ª Welfare Model Under Pressure in the AI Era appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Despite this enormous potential, Indonesia faces a persistent threat that continues to undermine its economic strength and maritime sovereignty. One of the most serious challenges is the practice of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. This activity has become a major concern for marine governance and fishery sustainability in the region.

For many people, IUU Fishing is often understood simply as the theft of fish by foreign vessels. Such a perception, however, oversimplifies the problem. In reality, IUU Fishing represents a multidimensional issue that involves economic losses, environmental degradation, violations of maritime sovereignty and connections to transnational organized crime.

Massive economic losses

From an economic perspective, the impact of IUU Fishing on Indonesia is extremely significant. National losses are estimated to range from ($1.7 billion) to Indonesian rupiah ($5.9 billion) annually. Earlier estimates from Indonesia¡¯s Supreme Audit Agency suggested that the potential losses could reach as high as Indonesian rupiah ($17 billion) per year.

These figures demonstrate that IUU Fishing is far more than an ordinary illegal activity. It represents the extraction of natural resources without contributing any economic benefit to the state. Fish caught through illegal operations are not recorded in official fishery statistics and are not subject to taxes or landing fees.

In many cases, the catch is transported directly overseas without passing through Indonesian fishing ports. This situation deprives the country of potential non-tax state revenue and eliminates opportunities for domestic value-added activities in fish ports. Practices such as illegal transshipment at sea prevent catches from entering national supply chains, thereby reducing for local fish processing industries.

The economic consequences are also felt directly by small-scale fishers. Large industrial vessels that operate illegally create an uneven competition with traditional fishing communities. In several cases, such conditions have and intimidation against local fishers.

Threats to marine resource sustainability

Beyond economic losses, IUU Fishing also poses a serious threat to the sustainability of marine resources. Unregulated fishing pressure accelerates overfishing and leads to significant declines in fish stocks. Such pressures can disrupt marine ecosystems and weaken the resilience of fishery resources.

and unreported catches are estimated to result in substantial losses of marine resources each year, with some estimates suggesting figures of up to tons annually. Losses of this magnitude not only harm the fisheries sector but also disturb the ecological balance of marine environments.

The situation is further aggravated by the use of destructive fishing methods such as blast fishing, cyanide poisoning and trawl fishing. These practices have caused extensive damage to marine habitats. Reports indicate that around 33.82% of Indonesia¡¯s have experienced degradation due to fishing activities.

Fish is also one of the main sources of protein for many Indonesian communities. Declining fish stocks, therefore, have direct implications for national food security. Reduced fish availability may increase the risk of nutritional deficiencies in coastal and .

In a broader global context, the degradation of Indonesia¡¯s marine resources carries international implications. Indonesian waters form part of important migration routes and habitats for globally traded fish species. Declining productivity in these waters may therefore influence seafood supply stability in international markets.

Violations of maritime sovereignty

IUU Fishing also represents a direct violation of Indonesia¡¯s maritime sovereignty. Many foreign vessels illegally enter Indonesia¡¯s Exclusive Economic Zone and conduct fishing operations without permits. Such activities undermine the authority of the state over its own maritime territory.

To evade detection, these vessels often disable their Vessel Monitoring System or manipulate ship documentation. Some vessels also engage in double flagging by changing and registration. These strategies make enforcement more complicated and reduce the effectiveness of monitoring systems.

Law enforcement at sea also faces institutional challenges. In Indonesia, at least seven agencies share authority over maritime law enforcement. These include the Indonesian Navy, the National Police, the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries and the Indonesian Maritime Security Agency.

The overlapping responsibilities of these institutions often create coordination challenges in the field. Such institutional fragmentation may open opportunities for illegal operators to in enforcement. As a result, IUU Fishing continues to persist despite regulatory efforts.

Links to transnational organized crime

Over time, IUU Fishing has evolved beyond a simple violation. The practice increasingly operates as part of transnational organized crime networks that threaten and . These networks frequently operate across national borders and utilize complex logistical structures.

Criminal involvement in illegal fishing operations often includes labor exploitation and human trafficking. Such practices further increase in maritime regions.

In addition, illegal fishing operators often rely on document manipulation and vessel identity changes to conceal ownership and evade monitoring systems. These methods complicate law enforcement efforts to identify the structures behind illegal fishing operations.

Illegal transshipment at sea is another key mechanism used in these networks. This activity allows vessels to transfer catches offshore in order to avoid customs inspections and sanitary regulations. As a result, illegally caught fish can be and mixed with legally caught products in global seafood markets.

Investigations into IUU Fishing operations have also revealed connections to other crimes such as and drug trafficking. These activities often rely on the same distribution networks operating across international waters. Empirical studies indicate that this form of transversal criminality involves thousands of violations globally and includes hundreds of industrial fishing vessels linked to corporate entities across .

Legal challenges further complicate efforts to prosecute the masterminds behind these networks. Fishery regulations frequently impose penalties only on vessel crews rather than targeting the corporate actors responsible for organizing illegal operations. Jurisdictional ambiguity in the high seas also to obscure the origin of catches before landing them in port.

This situation not only threatens marine ecosystems but also worsens the vulnerability of coastal communities that depend heavily on fishery resources. The continued exploitation of marine resources through illegal activities food security and undermining sustainable fishery governance.

Strengthening ocean governance

In response to these challenges, Indonesia has implemented policies based on three main pillars: sovereignty, sustainability and welfare. One of the most widely known policies is the sinking of illegal fishing vessels. This measure was designed to create a deterrent effect against illegal fishing operators.

The policy has contributed to a temporary reduction in certain types of violations. However, combating IUU Fishing requires more than symbolic enforcement actions. Strengthening through technology remains essential.

Improved coordination among maritime enforcement institutions is also necessary. Institutional integration would help close enforcement gaps that illegal fishing operators frequently exploit. Effective governance requires collaboration across agencies responsible for maritime security.

International cooperation is equally important. Because IUU Fishing networks operate across borders, regional collaboration in maritime surveillance and fishery governance is essential. Data sharing, coordinated patrols and supply chain transparency can significantly strengthen enforcement efforts.

IUU fishing and the challenge of achieving the SDGs

Ultimately, IUU Fishing is not merely a fishery management problem. It is an issue that intersects with economic development, environmental protection, maritime security and human rights. In the context of global sustainability, the persistence of IUU Fishing also directly undermines the achievement of several (SDGs).

Unchecked illegal fishing threatens SDG 14 (Life Below Water) by accelerating the depletion of marine resources and damaging critical ocean ecosystems. At the same time, declining fish stocks and the loss of fishery income weaken coastal livelihoods and undermine SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), particularly for communities that rely heavily on fisheries as a primary source of food and income.

The human rights dimension of IUU Fishing further highlights its relevance to SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Illegal fishing operations are frequently linked to labor exploitation, human trafficking and weak maritime governance, which undermine fair labor conditions and effective law enforcement in maritime sectors.

Addressing IUU Fishing should therefore go beyond enforcement alone. It requires strengthening governance systems, improving transparency in fish supply chains and reinforcing in maritime territories. In this context, combating IUU Fishing is also part of safeguarding national sovereignty and institutional integrity.

At a time when global marine resources are under increasing pressure, Indonesia¡¯s ability to tackle IUU Fishing will play an important role in advancing the global sustainability agenda. Effective action against IUU Fishing can contribute not only to ocean conservation but also to food security, equitable economic development and stronger institutions across the Indo¨CPacific region.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post IUU Fishing: A Devastating Threat to Indonesia and the World appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

That sentence should not be easy to read. But it needs to be said plainly, because the language coming from Washington in this war is the language of operational success, of degraded capabilities, of targets serviced: a language that hides human tragedy in the fog of strategic data. These schoolgirls were not collateral damage. They were innocent civilian lives ¡ª lives that the laws of war are supposed to protect.

Similarly, when Pete Hegseth announced the sinking of the IRIS Dena, he did so in the register of a man describing a kill from behind a screen. Hegseth is not the Secretary of Defense. He calls himself (and has spent millions of dollars in rebranding his office as) the Secretary of War. It is not a slip or a provocation. It is a declaration of intent.

The he was celebrating was a frigate returning home from India¡¯s Milan 2026 naval exercise. It was in international waters when the USS Charlotte fired, without warning. Hegseth called it ¡°.¡± sailors were killed. None of them were combatants in any meaningful operational sense when the torpedo struck.

Foundations and evolution of just war theory

There is a framework for thinking about how wars should be started and how they should be fought. It is older than the US. It begins, in its systematic form, with Christian theologian and philosopher of Hippo, writing in the early fifth century as the Western Roman Empire collapsed around him ¡ª not metaphorically, but literally. Responding to Christians asking whether a follower of Christ could take up arms, he did not grant blank permission; he set constraints. War might be permissible, but only under specific conditions, for specific purposes, conducted in specific ways. Fellow Christian theologian and philosopher codified what Augustine had begun: just cause, legitimate authority, right intention. that followed developed these into two operative branches: jus ad bellum, the conditions under which going to war is justified, and jus in bello, the rules governing how war must be conducted.

After 1945, this tradition was largely secularized. The established individual criminal liability for initiating aggressive war. The translated the core principles of discrimination and proportionality into binding international law. is explicit: Deliberate attacks on civilians are prohibited. Attacks causing civilian casualties disproportionate to the anticipated military advantage are prohibited. These are not aspirational norms; they are legal obligations that the US signed.

The current campaign fails both tests.

Failures of jus ad bellum and jus in bello

On jus ad bellum, the intelligence case for war was never made. Multiple assessments ¡ª including from within the American intelligence community ¡ª found of an active Iranian nuclear weapons program or an imminent restart. The foreign minister of Oman, who was overseeing negotiations between Washington and Tehran, that talks were close to a breakthrough when the bombing began. Hours before the first strikes, he appeared on American television to say a deal was within reach, a pledge Iran had made that US President Donald Trump would later claim it had refused. British government separately indicated that diplomatic channels had not been exhausted and that the strikes had no lawful basis. Forces were being positioned in the region while talks were still formally ongoing: preparation wearing the mask of diplomacy. That is not a last resort. Even the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whatever one thinks of it, involved months of attempted coalition-building and a formal UN Security Council process. That acknowledgment, however cynical, that unilateral action requires justification has now been abandoned entirely.

On jus in bello: Minab and the IRIS Dena are the answer.

In the immediate aftermath of Minab, the administration moved quickly to obscure responsibility. Trump initially Iran had bombed its own school, a claim requiring, implausibly, that Iran possesses Tomahawk cruise missiles, weapons only the US manufactures and deploys. When pressed, he claimed ignorance. Hegseth said the Pentagon was investigating. Within days, a Department of Defense found that a US missile was responsible. Independent investigations by The New York Times, NPR and BBC Verify reached the same conclusion, authenticated by of a Tomahawk striking the site. The posture of uncertainty was not confusion; it was a reflex.

As for the Dena, Hegseth reached for , invoking the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War. It is not a flattering comparison. The Belgrano was sailing away from the exclusion zone when the HMS Conqueror torpedoed her. The sinking killed 323 sailors and remains a stain on that campaign¡¯s moral record. Hegseth appears not to have noticed.

The moral question: rightness over effectiveness

Just war theory does not ask whether a military operation is effective. It asks whether it is right. A school full of children, a warship returning home from a peacetime exercise sunk without warning in international waters; these are not aberrations or fog-of-war tragedies. Rather, they are the opening acts of an unnecessary war that is not being conducted with discrimination or proportionality and is being led by an administration that has renamed itself, at considerable public expense, to signal its intent to keep going.

The tradition Augustine began, and that international law eventually formalized, exists precisely for moments like this. But there is no world government, no global enforcement mechanism. International law is a system of voluntary restraint; it works only as long as powerful states choose to be bound by it. When the most powerful state opts out, it does not simply break the rules. It begins to dissolve them.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Unjust War, Unjust Conduct: Just War Theory and the Iran War appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

In other words, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) allowed a prisoner to die of a toothache. His name was Emmanuel Damas. He was 56 years old and a father of two.

And we can only expect medical treatment at ICE centers to deteriorate further. As Judd Legum at Popular Information in January 2026: ¡°ICE¡­ has any third-party providers for medical care for detainees since October 3, 2025. Last week, ICE posted a notice on an obscure government announcing it will not begin processing such claims until at least April 30, 2026. Until then, medical providers are instructed ¡®to hold all claims submissions.¡¯¡±

Damas¡¯s unnecessary death would be outrageous enough, were it the only one of its kind. In fact, people died in ICE custody during 2025, the most in two decades. Another six died in January 2026 alone at Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso, Texas. Among them was Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban father aged 55.

Although ICE initially claimed Lunas Campos had attempted suicide, the American Immigration Council that ¡°the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide arising from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.¡± Of course, it¡¯s pretty hard to strangle yourself to death. Witnesses, however, described his murder this way: ¡°Mr. Lunas Campos was handcuffed, while at least five guards held him down and one guard squeezed his neck until he was unconscious.¡± At least one other man has died at the Camp East Montana detention center, where and measles are also spreading.

Damas and Lunas Campos were among the roughly people whom ICE currently holds in a tangle of sprawled across the country. And more centers are under construction. Many of them are former warehouses designed to function, as ICE acting director Todd Lyons it last year, ¡°like Amazon Prime for human beings.¡± (Like many of US President Donald Trump¡¯s appointees, Lyons has not received Senate confirmation. His actual , according to ICE, is ¡°Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.¡±)

What is a concentration camp?

Taken together, this network of prisons or, more accurately, concentration camps, constitutes an American gulag. ¡°¡± is not so much a word as a Russian initialism that came to stand for the Soviet Union¡¯s concentration camp program, originally developed under dictator Joseph Stalin. The term stands for ¡°Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps¡± and originally referred to the officials running the camps. Later, ¡°gulag¡± came to indicate the camps themselves, which were a central instrument of Soviet political repression. Most Americans first learned about those camps through Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn¡¯s 1973 internationally bestselling , The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation.

As Andrea Pitzer, of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, has written, such institutions are a relatively recent phenomenon. While human beings have long contrived ways to isolate groups they identify as enemies ¡ª for example, in the enclosed Jewish of medieval Europe ¡ª the modern concentration camp evolved thanks to two key inventions: barbed wire and the machine gun. That pair of technological advances made it possible for a small number of guards to control and contain a large number of people in one place.

Concentration camps have a number of defining features:

• Concentration camps exist outside regular legal structures. The people they hold are not prisoners, but detainees. So, we find people of all ages, from infants to seniors, in concentration camps. In most cases, they have not been tried or convicted of any crime. Rather, they are held because of their status, for example, as non-citizens, or in the case of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, because of their ethnicity or national origin. This is true for the people held in ICE detention today. Their alleged offenses are against US civil, not criminal, law, and their detention exists outside of any court system, including the immigration courts run by the Department of Justice¡¯s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Immigration judges, who are really administrative employees, can¡¯t order anyone detained. That¡¯s up to ICE and its umbrella agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

• Concentration camp inmates are civilians, not soldiers, which places them conveniently outside the strictures of the Geneva Conventions. That¡¯s why the US has never recognized as prisoners of war the men it has held and, in the case of 15 prisoners, to hold in the US prison at Guant¨¢namo Bay, Cuba. In the 1990s, almost a decade before the naval station at Guant¨¢namo was first used to house detainees in the ¡°Global War on Terror,¡± the US held immigrants there, including as many as 50,000 Haitians and Cubans. Trump¡¯s January 29, 2025, executive order entitled, ¡°Expanding Migrant Operations Center At Naval Station Guant¨¢namo Bay To Full Capacity,¡± directed the Defense and Homeland Security departments to prepare to hold as many as 30,000 migrant detainees there. As of July 2025, the camp held detainees from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.

• Concentration camps are associated with authoritarian regimes. They function both as a direct form of repression and, no less importantly, as a warning to the rest of the population about what could happen to those who resist the regime. In this sense, concentration camps are very much like another tool of repression, institutionalized state torture, about which I wrote in my , Mainstreaming Torture. Like state torture, concentration camps perform a kind of national security theater, made all the more entrancing by its quasi-secret nature. In the case of ICE detention camps, the DHS has made a show of or members of to enter those facilities. But such detention centers can¡¯t fulfill their full repressive function if people don¡¯t know anything about what goes on in them. So, we have the spectacle of a hearing in which a congresswoman asked then-DHS secretary Kristi Noem about a double amputee who ¡°has to crawl through mold and feces and bodily fluids just to take a shower.¡± Knowing that this is happening to people who have almost no recourse is intended to have a chilling effect on political action.

• Concentration camps are not death camps, but people do die there. Many Americans tend to think that all German concentration camps were sites of direct extermination. In fact, the Nazis constructed six camps specifically designed for the industrialized murder of their inhabitants. But for a decade before the first death camp was even opened, prisoners had already been concentrated in thousands of ¡°labor¡± camps. In fact, they were not there to be killed directly, but to be removed from society. As the National World War II Museum in New Orleans , ¡°Initially, the population of these concentration camps were not usually Jews, but Communists, socialists, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah¡¯s witnesses, gay men, and ¡®asocial¡¯ elements (alcoholics, criminals, people with mental disabilities, the poor).¡± Notably, like undocumented people in the United States today, these were groups who then received little sympathy from the larger German population. The conditions they encountered ¡ª lack of food and medical care, crowding and unsanitary conditions ¡ª sickened and killed as many as a of those who passed through them.

A brief history of US concentration camps

The Soviet gulag was not the world¡¯s first concentration camp, although such institutions are, in fact, a relatively recent phenomenon. Early Americans sought to isolate their enemies, such as enslaved Africans and the native peoples of this continent. Indeed, when the Cherokee nation was from its lands under the 1830 Indian Removal Act and forced to travel the ¡°Trail of Tears,¡± officers kept many of them for some time in ¡°emigration depots¡± in Alabama and Tennessee.

Almost everyone in this country has heard of Nazi Germany¡¯s camps, but the history of the modern concentration camp really began at the end of the 19th century. As Pitzer in a recent interview, Americans first became aware of such camps in the 1890s, when Spain instituted a policy of °ù±ð³¦´Ç²Ô³¦±ð²Ô³Ù°ù²¹³¦¾±¨®²Ô in its efforts to put down a rebellion in Cuba. As has happened in ICE detention camps today, malnourished men, women and children were shoved into holding camps there, where crowded conditions and poor sanitation led many to perish. News of the horrifying conditions in Cuba led Americans to organize material aid for those being held.

The US then dispatched the USS Maine to accompany the ships carrying relief supplies to Cuba. When the Maine sank in Havana harbor under murky circumstances, the US government had the pretext it needed to mount a military campaign against the remnants of Spanish colonial control in the Americas and the Pacific. That relatively short war ended with the US in possession of most of Spain¡¯s remaining colonies, including the island of Puerto Rico, and what would eventually become the nation of the Philippines. Almost immediately, the new American colonizers reproduced in the Philippines the kind of they had supposedly gone to war to eradicate in Cuba. In another parallel with the 21st century, it was during the occupation of the Philippines that US forces invented the form of torture we call ¡°waterboarding.¡±

Most Americans know about President Franklin D. Roosevelt¡¯s 1942 executive order creating ten concentration camps to hold people of Japanese descent, about two-thirds of whom were US citizens mostly living in the western US. Over 120,000 men, women and children were interned for the duration of World War II. Many lost their homes, farms, businesses and other property (often seized by their non-Japanese neighbors). A much smaller number of Italian and German nationals were also interned, as Germans had also been during World War I.

The Japanese camps were constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the same federal agency that provided mass employment for millions during the Great Depression under Roosevelt¡¯s New Deal program. Few Americans know that, in addition to building roads, schools, dams and the occasional zoo, the WPA also built the barracks and strung the barbed wire that enclosed World War II internees.

ICE¡¯s predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), ran about of those camps, primarily ones imprisoning Japanese, German and Italian non-citizens. Three of them were built in Texas to hold people from those countries who had been deported from Latin America. (Most of them were Japanese from Peru.) Those camps were guarded by the Border Patrol, rather than the military police. In other words, ICE and US Customs and Border Protection have a long history of running the US version of concentration camps. They¡¯re used to it.

The American gulag

It¡¯s no exaggeration to say that ICE detention camps now threaten to become a central instrument of repression under the Trump administration. As many as people have died in them since Trump returned to office in January 2025. And those are only the deaths that have been publicly acknowledged.

If Camp East Montana is the biggest ICE camp in the country, the most notorious may well be the Florida site in the Everglades that has come to be known as ¡°Alligator Alcatraz.¡± over just a week, according to Amnesty International, it ¡°houses¡± people in horrific conditions:

¡°Inside, people are crammed into overcrowded cages around bunk beds with little room to move. Food is spoiled and maggot-infested. Mosquitoes swarm constantly, showers are scarce, and extreme heat and humidity make the center unbearable. There appear to be almost no reliable or confidential means for detainees to communicate with their attorneys or family members.¡±

That description is echoed in the testimony of people held in ICE detention camps nationwide. A complete report on the conditions at all of those camps would run to hundreds of thousands of words. Indeed, it¡¯s hard to get a handle on the full scope of ICE¡¯s concentration camp program, since reports on the number and size of such camps change quickly as new ones are proposed or come online. The organization Freedom for Immigrants maintains an interactive immigration detention which identifies at least 200 separate locations where immigrants (and the occasional US citizen) are detained. And the Trump administration is not done. According to The Guardian, DHS plans to spend ¡°upgrading¡± 24 existing warehouses to implement ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons¡¯s dream of treating immigrants like human widgets.

And that brings us back to the point of all this. Concentration camps exist to support and expand the power of an authoritarian regime. They make everyone afraid of being treated like the current targets of the regime. Like state torture programs, concentration camps accelerate the process of dehumanizing groups of people in the public imagination. Such a process often begins by describing the target group as non-human, as ¡°¡± or ¡°¡± ¡ª as Trump has, of course, done. Ironically, the very act of placing people in inhumane conditions can amplify the public¡¯s perception of their inhumanity. After all, would genuine human beings submit to such treatment? Would our good nation treat genuine human beings that way?

One other significant aspect of all this is the enrichment of a few corporations. Trump¡¯s ¡°Big Beautiful Bill¡± gave ICE upwards of $45 billion to spend on those camps, which meant that there was a lot of money to be made. Today, two private prison companies, CoreCivic and the GEO Group, most of them. The Bill also allows the Department of Homeland Security to that money-making by using the US Navy¡¯s Supply Systems Command program, which serves as an end-run around the usual bidding process for federal contracts.

This morning, I asked my partner whether she thought that the Trump administration could make the transition from concentration camps, where people die as a ¡°side effect¡± of their internment, to actual death camps. ¡°I think it¡¯s possible,¡± she responded. And so, horribly, do I.

It¡¯s possible, but not yet inevitable. To date, local actions have provided the most effective means of resisting the creation of the American gulag our federal government is constructing. These have included organizing to oppose siting camps in specific communities, efforts to leverage local zoning laws to stop them, and attempts to generate state-level political opposition to them. (The Washington Post had an excellent of recent efforts in one county in Maryland to block such a camp.)

We know what¡¯s at stake. We know we can dismantle the American gulag, because some of us are already . It¡¯s time for the rest of us to get to work.

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Their discussion widens from this example to a broader diagnosis of technological change, economic transformation and mounting worker burnout. Both speakers argue that artificial intelligence, financialized markets and decades of economic restructuring may be redefining the value of human labor itself.

The ¡°black hole¡± of hiring

Singh frames the engineer¡¯s experience as evidence of what he calls the ¡°black hole of human meritocracy.¡± Highly qualified candidates increasingly encounter opaque hiring systems dominated by automated screening tools. Resumes disappear into applicant-tracking systems, while recruiters struggle to distinguish genuine candidates from automated applications generated by AI tools.

The phenomenon, Singh suggests, echoes earlier labor shocks. He points to similarities with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when job seekers reported submitting hundreds of applications with little response. The difference today is the scale and persistence of the problem, which now spans multiple economic cycles.

The result may be a profound misallocation of human effort. Millions of workers spend vast amounts of time tailoring resumes and applications that are processed almost entirely by algorithms. Singh characterizes this as a massive extraction of human productivity from the economy without producing meaningful output.

From postwar inclusion to financialized capitalism

Isackson situates the present moment within a longer historical arc. In the decades following World War II, Western economies cultivated a strong sense of social participation. Programs such as the US GI Bill and New Deal institutions created relatively stable employment and reinforced the idea that society needed the contributions of ordinary citizens.

That sense of belonging, he argues, gradually eroded over the past half-century. Economic thinking increasingly prioritized shareholder returns and financial markets over employment and social stability. This has resulted in a system that measures value almost exclusively through financial outcomes.

¡°We¡¯ve seen a long trend going in the direction of devaluing human presence,¡± he says. Human worth, once embedded in institutions and communities, is now assessed primarily through economic productivity.

The rise of agentic AI

They then turn to the accelerating development of artificial intelligence. Singh distinguishes between the generative AI that became widely visible in recent years and a newer phase known as agentic AI ¡ª systems capable of performing complex tasks autonomously.

Recent partnerships between technology companies and research organizations illustrate the shift. AI systems are now being deployed to analyze biological data, design pharmaceutical compounds and carry out tasks that once required large teams of human specialists.

Singh describes a rapidly emerging ¡°bot-versus-bot¡± economy in which automated systems apply for jobs while other algorithms evaluate applications. ¡°Human beings¡¯ souls are being lost,¡± he warns, arguing that the decoupling of labor from value creation threatens the foundations of the modern workforce.

Isackson agrees that the economic logic driving automation is powerful. Yet he stresses that production alone cannot define human activity within an economy. Businesses and institutions, he argues, are not merely technical systems but social environments shaped by human interpretation and meaning.

Burnout in the global workforce

Evidence is mounting of global worker burnout. Singh cites workforce surveys reporting that more than 80% of employees experience some level of exhaustion or disengagement. Younger workers appear particularly affected, with high levels of reported stress and declining engagement.

The phenomenon extends beyond white-collar sectors. Labor unrest across Europe, including widespread strikes in Italy¡¯s transportation sector, reflects similar frustrations among blue-collar workers facing stagnant wages and rising costs of living.

Isackson believes burnout reflects more than excessive workloads. Many workers are experiencing a deeper loss of purpose within economic systems that no longer recognize their broader human value. When individuals feel interchangeable or invisible within automated systems, they can experience severe psychological consequences.

A civilizational turning point

Singh points to the growing recognition among global economic leaders that technological change may be reshaping capitalism itself. Some figures within finance and industry have warned that AI-driven productivity gains could deepen inequality and destabilize consumer economies.

Isackson sees these concerns as signs of a larger historical transition. The transformation now underway may force societies to rethink the relationship between technology, labor and human identity.

¡°We¡¯re in a great transformation,¡± he says. Whether political and business leaders can adapt to that transformation remains uncertain. Yet both speakers agree that the scale of the changes now unfolding suggests that the future of work, and perhaps the meaning of human contribution within modern economies, is entering a decisive new phase.

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Although the global transition to renewables is gaining momentum, the energy crisis during the Iran war has underscored a basic lesson: Oil and gas remain indispensable for a while, and no serious energy policy can neglect security, redundancy and resilience during the long years of this expected transition.

Therefore, a sound energy policy should pursue renewable energy while strengthening energy security. Strategic stocks, resilient pipelines, alternative routes and reliable firm power, such as nuclear, still matter because governments do not manage energy systems in theory. They manage them in the midst of shocks, shortages and war.

A chokepoint shock that markets cannot innovate away overnight

In 2025, around 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products moved through the . That was roughly a quarter of the world¡¯s seaborne oil trade, and around 80% of it was destined for Asia. These numbers explain why the Iran War is not a regional event for energy markets. When Hormuz closed, the shock spread immediately through oil prices, insurance costs and physical supply, especially for Asian importers.

For months, many analysts had already warned that if a US and Israeli attack on Iran began, Tehran¡¯s greatest leverage would be the Strait of Hormuz. Yet despite that, the Trump administration openly that it did not expect Iran to close the strait. That was not simply a miscalculation. It was a serious policy failure that ignored an obvious strategic risk.

As the war has continued, fuel supply problems have begun to emerge, including shortages in gasoline and petroleum . Some Asian have stopped external sales, and prices have surged globally. In the US, the average gasoline price rose by nearly after the war began, while over oil export restrictions resurfaced and sanctions on were eased.

Meanwhile, the US has continued to threaten that keeping Hormuz closed would carry heavy consequences for Iran. Yet despite threats, potential and emergency measures, no truly reliable solution has emerged. That is why the search for alternatives has accelerated. The decision by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its member countries to coordinate a emergency stock release in March was important, but such a measure only buys time. If , it cannot substitute for real supply security. Because no government can replace a chokepoint-scale flow with brand-new infrastructure or a fully transformed vehicle fleet in a matter of months. That is why governments need a balanced approach that pushes decarbonization forward while also building buffers and alternatives for future crises.

Fossil fuels remain the base of the system

The uncomfortable baseline is that the global economy still runs mostly on fossil fuels. In 2024, fossil fuels still accounted for of the global energy mix, which means that oil, gas and coal remain the foundation of the system even as cleaner sources expand. This structural fact shows that the world still moves goods, powers industry, heats buildings and supports global trade through fossil-based systems.

The same pattern is visible in the gas trade. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is not a marginal fuel in today¡¯s economy. GIIGNL reports tonnes of global LNG trade in 2024. And these volumes matter because crises rarely hit only crude oil. Disruption also affects refined products, gas logistics, petrochemicals, shipping networks and industrial production.

In other words, even a strong renewable build-out does not instantly eliminate dependence on oil, gas and the global infrastructure that moves them. Pretending otherwise only sets governments up for policy panic when the next shock arrives.

Renewables are growing, but the denominator is huge

None of this is an argument against renewables. It is an argument for realism about scale. For example, the transition is real, especially in the electricity sector. In 2024, renewables provided of global electricity generation. But the broader economy changes much more slowly. Modern renewables accounted for only of global total final energy consumption in 2022, which shows how difficult it is to decarbonize heat, heavy industry and transport at the system level.?

Transport is a good sign of this gap between fast growth and limited total impact. Global electric car exceeded 17 million in 2024, yet the total electric car fleet reached only about 58 million, or roughly 4% of the global passenger car fleet.

Even the clean energy build-out still depends on carbon-intensive industrial production today. Around of global steel relies heavily on coal. In other words, electrification and renewables are expanding fast, but the denominator is so large that the overlap period will be long. For years to come, energy security planning will have to assume that societies need both cleaner systems and conventional fuels at the same time.

Security tools that work in a crisis

In the short run, the first tool available in a crisis is emergency stocks. That is exactly why they exist, as can be seen in the IEA¡¯s largest coordinated stock release in March. But emergency stocks are a bridge, not a new supply system. The more important question is what happens when a disruption lasts longer.

This brings us to pipelines and alternative routes. Existing bypass capacity around Hormuz remains limited relative to the scale of normal flows. The IEA estimates that only barrels per day can be redirected through existing pipelines. The main examples are Saudi Arabia¡¯s from Abqaiq to Yanbu, which provides access to the Red Sea, and the United Arab Emirates¡¯ Abu Dhabi crude oil to Fujairah, which bypasses Hormuz by reaching the Gulf of Oman. Their value is not theoretical. During the current war, Saudi exports from Yanbu rose to nearly 4 million barrels per day as volumes were rerouted away from the Strait of Hormuz.?

Another example, although far too small to replace Hormuz and not directly located in the Gulf, is Iraq¡¯s northern export route through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, which ends at Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. After being largely inactive for the past two years, the pipeline resumed operations in March at around per day, with plans to increase flows toward 250,000 barrels per day.

These volumes are still too small to bypass Hormuz, but that is not the point. Countries with alternatives can better absorb shocks. Countries with only one route cannot. Optionality is not a luxury in energy security. It is one of its basic conditions. Pipelines, LNG terminals, storage, multiple entry points and diversified contracts all improve resilience because they reduce the cost of disruption and increase bargaining power in a crisis.

Nuclear is still part of the balance

Another important part of a balanced policy is firm, low-carbon power that does not depend on daily fuel shipments through contested sea lanes. That is where nuclear still matters. Europe¡¯s recent energy experience, first with Russian supply risk and now with the shock created by the Iran war, has pushed many leaders to see energy policy not only as a climate issue but as a strategic one. This is why the debate around nuclear has returned so strongly.

In 2024, nuclear power plants in 12 EU countries produced of the EU¡¯s electricity. That is not a marginal share. It is a major pillar of supply security as well as decarbonization. The political debate in Europe reflects this reality. In March 2026, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe¡¯s decision to let nuclear power¡¯s share fall from about one third of electricity generation in 1990 to around 15% today was a ¡°.¡±

Germany illustrates the same tension. Even after shutting its reactors, debate continues over whether some nuclear capacity if price pressures and import dependence worsen. The implication is not that every country must expand nuclear power. It is that removing firm options before credible replacements are fully in place raises the cost of every geopolitical shock and makes policy reversals more likely when a crisis hits.

As prices rise and import dependence becomes more politically costly, arguments for rethinking earlier decisions return. That alone shows the issue remains alive whenever security and affordability come under pressure.

Build the future, but defend the present

The clean energy transition is moving, especially in electricity. But the Iran War is a blunt reminder that energy systems change more slowly than geopolitics. States should invest aggressively in renewables, grids, storage and electrification because these reduce dependence on imported fuels over time. But they also need a security portfolio for the overlap years.

That portfolio should include strategic stocks that can be released quickly, diversified supply chains for LNG and refined products, resilient routes that bypass chokepoints where possible and reliable firm power where politically viable. It also means maintaining and modernizing pipelines and interconnectors, not as an alternative to decarbonization, but as insurance during an unstable transition.

The central policy inference is simple. Build the future, but do not leave the present undefended.

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Upon seeing this message, most English speakers will wonder what the hell Sunil and I are talking about.

It has to do with a book he¡¯s reading, called Alex¡¯s Adventures in Numberland: Dispatches from the Wonderful World of Mathematics. Chapter one covers counting systems used in various societies ¡ª the Arara in the Amazon count in pairs, the Revolutionary French tried to make clocks count by tens and the Babylonians counted in base 60. But the most interesting counting system, to me, was the one used by shepherds in Lincolnshire, England, to count sheep.

1. Yan
2. Tan
3. Tethera
4. Pethera
5. Pimp
6. Sethera
7. Lethera
8. Hovera
9. Covera
10. Dik
11. Yan-a-dik
12. Tan-a-dik
13. Tethera-dik
14. Pethera-dik
15. Bumfit
16. Yan-a-bumfit
17. Tan-a-bumfit
18. Tethera-bumfit
19. Pethera-bumfit
20. Figgit

So when Sunil told me that covera pimp dik bumfit and bumfit pimp dik was 69, all he really said was that 9 + 5 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 5 + 10 = 69, which is true.

I find this counting system fascinating, and not just because counting pimp, dik, bumfit, figgit is hilarious and fun.

First of all, you¡¯ll notice that this system is a hybrid base-five, base-twenty counting system. You have unique words up to ten, then compound words (Tan-a-dik = Tan + dik = 12) up to 15 (bumfit), then some more compounds with bumfit up to figgit (20).

Secondly, this counting system felt weirdly familiar to me. Yan and one, tan and two, tethera and three, pethera and four. What about dik? Well, this is clearly similar to dec, the Latin root for ten (French is dix, Spanish is diez, Italian is dieci). Even figgit looked familiar ¡ª the Latin ±¹¨©²µ¾±²Ô³Ù¨©, meaning 20, sounds a lot like figgit. My first thought was that this system is some kind of corrupted Latin, mixed with whatever Celtic language existed in Lincolnshire before the Roman conquest.

I wasn¡¯t right about this, but I was close.

Consonant shifts and Proto-Indo-European

Why does pethera, which begins with a ¡°p,¡± sound familiar to four, anyway?

Consonant shift! Linguists have discovered regular patterns of consonant shift that occur as languages evolve. The most famous of these sound shifts are the shifts that transform into its daughter languages (Latin, English, Sanskrit, Persian, etc.).

states that the Proto-Indo-European consonants underwent predictable, regular evolution as they evolved into Proto-Germanic and Germanic daughter languages.

For example, the Proto-Indo-European word for ¡°brother,¡± ²ú?°ù¨¦³ó?³Ù¨¥°ù (something like ¡°breh-ter¡±) evolved into the Proto-Germanic ²ú°ù¨­?¨¥°ù (¡°²ú°ù´Ç-³Ù³ó±ð°ù¡±), and eventually into the Old English bro?or (¡°²ú°ù´Ç-³Ù³ó´Ç°ù¡±).

By the way, that funny letter ? is called , which is an Old English letter pronounced ¡°th.¡± If you had to read in high school English class, you might remember seeing ? all over the place.

¡°Father¡± is another good example of regular consonant shifts. Proto-Indo-European *ph?t?r (¡°peh-ter¡±) evolved into Proto-Germanic *´Ú²¹»å¨¥°ù, and eventually Old English f?der.

So ¡°p¡± and ¡°f¡± are linguistically very similar, especially in a Germanic language like English. Pethera and four could easily be derived from a common Indo-European ancestor.

The idea is similar to ±¹¨©²µ¾±²Ô³Ù¨© (Latin) and figgit (Lincolnshire shepherd¡¯s dialect). The ¡°f¡± and the ¡°v¡± are very similar sounds, followed by the ¡°g¡± and ¡°t¡± sounds. Try pronouncing ¡°vigint¡± ten times fast and see if it morphs a little into ¡°figgit.¡±

It was at this point, while googling consonantal shifts, that I found this video from Numberphile, with one of the least searchable titles I¡¯ve ever seen. From Numberphile, I present the gloriously titled :

In the video, Professor Roger Bowley says that the yan-tan-tethera number system is Celtic and predates the Roman conquest of Britain. So my theory of corrupted Latin is wrong ¡ª actually, both Latin and this obscure Celtic dialect have a common ancestor in Proto-Indo-European!

This explanation of the yan-tan-tethera origin fits much better than mine does. Wikipedia has a whole list of different variations on the yan-tan-tethera for various English regions.

Apparently, this weird-ass counting system is actually a very old counting system that probably predates the Roman conquest of Britain, and it¡¯s linguistically related to all the other Indo-European languages! Some of the words are even the same!

But wait, what about bumfit?

Consider the bumfit, and make sure it¡¯s hovera covered

Bumfit is a hilarious word. However, I don¡¯t think ¡°bumfit¡± sounds like ¡°fifteen¡± at all. Nor does ¡°hovera, covera¡± sound like ¡°eight, nine¡± in any way. But if all the numbers in the yan-tan-tethera counting system are derived from Proto-Indo-European, how did eight and nine (*h?e?teh? and *³ó?²Ô¨¦³Ü²Ô in Proto-Indo-European) become hovera, covera?

The explanation from the same says that bumfit and the rest are Proto-Celtic numerals that died out in modern English. The Welsh numerals do have something in common with the yan-tan-tethera system:

The Welsh pymtheg is ¡­ sorta similar to bumfit, I guess? And the Welsh pump, deg, pymtheg, ugain is at least partially recognizable as pimp, dik, bumfit, figgit.

The Ancient British word for twenty, ·É¾±°ì²¹²Ô³Ù¨©, is essentially identical to the Latin ±¹¨©²µ¾±²Ô³Ù¨© (remember, in classical Latin, ¡°v¡± is pronounced ¡°w¡±), so I guess the Wikipedia page¡¯s claim that multiples of five are highly conserved checks out.

But this hypothesis seems somewhat lacking to me. Where do you get hovera (8) and covera (9) from? The Welsh versions are wyth and naw, and the Ancient British versions are oxtu and nawan. That¡¯s not even close.

Counting Rhymes

Another friend of mine, Jill, mentioned to me that she had just finished reading The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone, and the book had mentioned that the children¡¯s nursery ¡°Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock¡± was originally a .

Short, common words, learned early in life, tend to be the most constant throughout language evolution (¡°mama,¡± ¡°father,¡± ¡°brother,¡± etc.). In the same way, counting rhymes, taught to children at a young age, are highly conserved linguistically.

This led me to the fantastic ¡°The Secret History of ¡®Eeny Meeny Miny Mo,¡¯¡± by Adrienne Raphel, on the origin and history of counting rhymes. Seriously, give this article a read; it¡¯s fascinating.

I would venture a guess that pretty much every English-speaking schoolchild knows some version of the rhyme:

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eeny meeny miny mo

This rhyme has a darker history than I knew. According to Adrienne Raphel:

In the canonical Eeny Meeny, ¡°tiger¡± is standard in the second line, but this is a relatively recent revision. If it doesn¡¯t seem to make sense, even in the gibberish Eeny Meeny world, that you¡¯d grab a carnivorous cat¡¯s toe and expect the tiger to do the hollering, remember that in both England and America, children until recently said ¡°Catch a nigger by the toe.¡±

Didn¡¯t know that one. Yikes. But it seems that this is a fairly recent revision of a much more ubiquitous class of counting rhymes. In Denmark:

Ene, mene, ming, mang,
Kling klang,
Osse bosse bakke disse,
Eje, veje, vaek.

And in Zimbabwe:

Eena, meena, ming, mong,
Ting, tay, tong,
Ooza, vooza, voka, tooza,
Vis, vos, vay.

However, while reading this article, one particular rhyme caught my eye.

In 1830, children in Scotland chanted:

Zinti, tinti,
Tethera, methera,
Bumfa, litera,
Hover, dover,
Dicket, dicket,
As I sat on my sooty kin
I saw the king of Irel pirel
Playing upon Jerusalem pipes.

In that rhyme, found in Scotland, we see ¡°tethera, methera, bumfa, hover, dover, dicket,¡± all recognizable yan-tan-tethera numbers. Raphel goes on to connect this counting rhyme to the same yan-tan-tethera counting system we¡¯ve been discussing, which she gives as:

Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp,
Sethera, lethera, hothera, dovera, dick,
Yan-dick, tan-dick, tether-dick, mether-dick, bumfit,
Yan-a-bumfit, tan-a-bumfit, tethera bumfit, pethera bumfit, gigert.

Now I see what¡¯s going on. The yan-tan-tethera counting system is much more than simply a linguistic evolution of the ancient Proto-Indo-European numbers; it¡¯s a counting rhyme! Likely, it is designed to be a memory aid for a nonliterate population that needs to count things.

Some of the numbers are the same as ours ¡ª multiples of five, especially, are conserved from their Proto-Indo-European roots, but the system as a whole is meant to roll off the tongue as a rhyme, as unforgettable as ¡°eeny meeny miny mo.¡± In fact, the children¡¯s nursery rhyme ¡°Hickory Dickory Dock¡± probably has its in this ancient Celtic counting rhyme, via the numbers ¡°hothera dovera dick.¡±

The reason the yan-tan-tethera numbers are so fun to say out loud is the same reason that epic poetry is written in rhyming meter ¡ª repetitive, rhyming lines are very easy to memorize, which is enormously important for primarily oral cultures.

This really blew my mind.

It turns out that the yan-tan-tethera counting system really was familiar to me, and probably you too ¡ª every schoolkid in America already knows it as ¡°Hickory Dickory Dock,¡± though its origins as a Proto-Celtic counting system are long forgotten.

[Dylan Black first published this piece on .]

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The instability of the justification is not merely a communications problem. It reflects the absence of a coherent legal premise, and that absence has consequences that outlast any single administration¡¯s war.

Public debate has already moved on to a different question: not whether the operation was legal, but whether its will justify it. For some, the answer is already yes. An Iran without the Islamic Republic, a Middle East freed from the reach of Tehran¡¯s proxy networks, an America that finally treated decades of hybrid warfare as the warfare it was ¡ª these outcomes, if they materialize, strike many observers as worth the legal ambiguity. Some even argue that modern international law has become the preferred for regimes that treat procedural restraint not as a principle but as a tactical resource. Iran exploited every available ambiguity, from plausible deniability to the rituals of multilateral consultation and the manufactured distance between the regime and its proxies.

Meanwhile, Western governments remained and split over how to handle an increasingly aggressive and unpredictable America. Observing the situation in disbelief and helplessness, many people around the world are increasingly frustrated by the rules-based international order’s inability to matter when it most counts.?

International law on the use of force provides some of the clearest and most unequivocal rules, especially within the post-World War II world order, but it also faces a serious enforcement problem. The gap between what the prohibits and what powerful states actually do has always been managed through creative interpretation and the selective will to enforce. Invoking legal prohibition as though it were self-executing is a form of bad faith that serves no one.

But a more fundamental difficulty is that self-defense arguments, followed to their conclusion, license far more than the dry law suggests. If law is camouflage for the weak and power reorganizes systems when institutions fail, that logic is available to every state with sufficient force and a grievance. The potential proliferation of certain types of weapons has been repeatedly cited as necessitating a preventive act of self-defense. Russia has deployed versions of it regarding NATO expansion and Ukraine. The door is increasingly being pushed open for others to deploy it regarding their own adversaries, their own thresholds of existential risk, their own calculations about when deliberation has run out.

Was it legal?

The short answer, on the publicly available evidence, is almost certainly not ¡ª though the legal analysis is more complicated than the volume of condemnation might suggest, and the complications matter for what follows.

The laws governing the use of force are grounded in of the UN Charter, which prohibits force against the territorial integrity of any state, and in , which preserves the right of self-defense in the event of an armed attack. Iran had not launched an armed attack on either the US or Israel before the strikes began. The retaliatory Iranian missile and drone strikes came afterward and cannot be used to retroactively justify what preceded them.

Anticipatory self-defense ¡ª acting before an attack lands ¡ª has a narrow, contested but not implausible basis in customary international law, rooted in the 19th-century . The standard requires that necessity be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation. What US and Israeli officials actually described, however, was something considerably broader: a preventive campaign aimed at long-term capabilities, regional restructuring and the permanent foreclosure of Iranian nuclear ambitions.

The legal distinction between anticipatory and preventive force is not a technicality. Anticipatory self-defense responds to a threat that is genuinely about to materialize. Preventive war responds to a threat that might materialize at some future point. The latter has no serious basis in existing law, and the operation as described maps far more closely onto preventive logic than onto the narrow anticipatory model.

The timing compounds the difficulty. Oman had progress in nuclear negotiations. Technical discussions at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were reportedly days away. The UN Secretary-General a diplomatic window had been squandered. The Caroline standard requires no moment for deliberation. The available chronology suggests there were moments and that they were deliberately closed. As Marko Milanovic, professor of international law at the University of Reading, : Using force would require a basis in self-defense, and there are many ways to respond to a threat that fall short of launching a war. Senator Mark Warner was more still: There was no imminent threat to the US from Iran. There was a threat to Israel. Whether a threat to Israel constitutes an imminent threat to the US, he noted, is genuinely uncharted legal territory.

The structural problem with imminence

At this point, the legal argument becomes structurally interesting rather than merely factually contested, and it connects directly back to the argument from the other side of the debate.

The defenders of the operation do not simply claim the facts support imminence. They claim imminence itself requires reconceiving. Mobile missile launchers, cyber capabilities, decentralized proxy networks, nuclear latency ¡ª all of these compress available warning time to the point where traditional temporal markers no longer apply. By the time a threat looks genuinely imminent in the older sense, the window for effective action may have closed.

This is not a frivolous position. It has been the subject of serious legal scholarship since the 2002 Bush National Security reopened the question after September 11, 2001. The problem is that accepting it transforms imminence from a temporal constraint into a capability assessment. Once the relevant question becomes not whether an attack is about to happen but whether a state possesses capabilities that could eventually be used against us, the constraint effectively dissolves. Any sufficiently powerful state can point to adversary capabilities and construct a legal rationale for force. The argument does not produce a principled limit. It produces a vocabulary.

This elasticity is not an accident of bad faith. It is a feature of the architecture. Legal scholars have long observed a dynamic they call ¡ª the embedding of legal advisers within military planning cycles, where their institutional position leads them to read ambiguous terms such as military necessity and definite military advantage in ways that preserve operational flexibility rather than constrain it. The framework appears to regulate force while structurally accommodating it.

The Security Council after the strikes illustrated this with uncomfortable clarity. Every actor reached for legal language. The US ambassador invoked lawful preemptive self-defense. Iran¡¯s ambassador called the strikes a crime against humanity. Russia invoked the precedent of Iraq in 2003. China called the timing shocking. The Arab League noted Israel¡¯s own refusal to submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection. All of them cited international law. None of them agreed on what it said. This is not a failure of the framework. It is the framework operating as designed.

Why invoking the law may not be enough

The critical response to Epic Fury has understandably focused on its illegality. The legal critique is largely correct. But there is a prior question worth sitting with: What kind of order does international law on the use of force actually reproduce?

The framework was created by states, for states. It reflects a world order built by the most powerful actors in the post-1945 international system to manage interstate relations in ways broadly favorable to their interests. That order is preferable to its absence, and its erosion carries real costs. But it has never been neutral. It institutionalizes assumptions about sovereignty, force and legitimate violence that systematically favor technologically advanced states capable of fighting what are sometimes called clean wars ¡ª wars conducted with lawyers present, precision weapons deployed and proportionality assessments documented in advance.

The just war tradition, which provides the intellectual foundations of the contemporary self-defense framework, has always served this dual function. It constrains violence at the margins while legitimizing it at the core. Michael Walzer, one of just war theory¡¯s most prominent defenders, that the triumph of just war thinking would normalize a world in which war is always, potentially, justifiable, provided the relevant criteria are satisfied. The shifting justifications for Epic Fury are a case study in meeting criteria after the fact, or attempting to.

When critics invoke international law to condemn the strikes, they implicitly accept this framework. The argument that the operation failed the legal tests ¡ª imminence not established, proportionality strained, necessity undermined by ongoing diplomacy ¡ª is probably correct in each of its particulars. But it concedes the premise that force is permissible when the tests are genuinely met. It leaves intact a structure in which powerful states can, with sufficient legal preparation and institutional support, always find a way to meet the tests, or to redraft them as the post-September 11 period demonstrated was possible.

There is a structural parallel here to the political dynamics that have followed right-wing populist challenges to democratic institutions in several countries. The progressive response has been to defend the institutions ¡ª to insist on norms, procedures and legal constraints. That defense is understandable and not without value. But it can also function as a restoration of an order that itself generated the conditions for the challenge: an order that worked well enough for a certain managed consensus but accumulated, over time, a substantial deficit of legitimacy among those it claimed to serve.

International law on the use of force is in an analogous position. Defending it against its most cynical exploiters is necessary. But defending it without asking what it was built to do and whose interests it has consistently served is insufficient.

Maybe the war is legal, and that is the problem

The uncomfortable conclusion toward which this analysis points is that Operation Epic Fury may, in fact, be legal under international law as it is actually practiced ¡ª not as it is ideally formulated, but as it functions in the real world of great power competition and doctrinal elasticity.

Not because the facts clearly satisfy the Caroline criteria, they probably do not, but because international law on the use of force has always been at its core. State practice is inconsistent. The Security Council is structurally incapable of enforcing the prohibition on force against its permanent members. The doctrinal debate about imminence has no clean resolution. In these conditions, legality functions less as a constraint than as a resource ¡ª available, in practice, to whichever actor can most effectively perform compliance with its terms.

The commentator who argued that law is camouflage for the weak is, in a narrow sense, describing this accurately. Where the argument fails is in treating that description as a justification rather than a diagnosis. The observation that powerful states exploit legal ambiguity is not an argument for abandoning legal constraint. It is an argument for understanding why the existing framework fails so consistently and in whose favor those failures tend to run.

The mimetic dimension of this failure is both real and urgent. When the US stretches self-defense doctrine to license what is, by any careful reading, a preventive war, that stretch does not remain local. Other states observe it, cite it and adapt it. The legal order that consolidates around such precedents is not one in which force is better regulated. It is one in which force is more widely licensed, and the licensing vocabulary is borrowed from the most powerful actors in the system.

The question that follows from Epic Fury is therefore not primarily whether this operation was lawful. It is what kind of order the legal tests, as they actually function, reproduce ¡ª who benefits from them, who is systematically disadvantaged by them and what alternatives exist beyond the horizon of a framework that has always, ultimately, found room for the wars that powerful states decide to fight.

International law will not save us from the next Epic Fury. It was not designed to. It was designed to regulate the world as it is, a world of unequal sovereign states in which the most powerful retain, in practice, the greatest latitude. Recognizing that is not counsel for despair. It is the beginning of a more honest conversation about what legal constraint on force would actually require.

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The post International Law Won¡¯t Save Us in the Iran War appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

India is already the world¡¯s fourth-largest economy and is projected to become the third within a few years. Europe, meanwhile, remains a high-consumption, technologically advanced export power but faces demographic decline and slow growth. Sibal sees the agreement as more than commercial; once economic linkages deepen, political cooperation on international issues becomes easier. Trade, investment and technology transfer create strategic ballast.

The deal also reflects Europe¡¯s recalibration away from China. Sibal argues that Beijing¡¯s ¡°excessive manufacturing capacities¡± and dominance in rare earths, renewables and key industrial processes have generated structural imbalances. Europe seeks resilient supply chains and alternatives to overdependence. In this context, he describes India as ¡°a very attractive partner,¡± citing democratic governance, market openness and greater predictability compared to China.

Trump, tariffs and strategic diversification

US President Donald Trump serves as the catalyst here. The US imposed 15% tariffs on Europe while extracting major energy purchase and investment commitments. This has shaken European confidence in the transatlantic relationship.

Sibal argues that Trump has ¡°humiliated Europe,¡± not only through trade pressure but through the broader disruption of NATO structures and Ukraine diplomacy. Isackson probes whether Europe¡¯s long-standing subordinate alignment with Washington has reached a breaking point. Sibal identifies that India and Europe now seek to ¡°expand [their] options¡± and reduce exposure to American unpredictability.

For India, the calculus is similar. It faces some of the highest US tariffs, and the future direction of American trade policy remains uncertain. The India¨CEU agreement thus reflects mutual hedging. It is an attempt to widen strategic autonomy in an era of volatile American leadership.

Europe, Ukraine and the question of sovereignty

The discussion broadens to Europe¡¯s geopolitical standing, especially in the Ukraine war. Sibal observes that both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have sidelined Europe in negotiations. For him, this exclusion signals that Washington does not assign Europe decisive weight in matters of continental security.

He also argues that Europe weakened its own credibility. Admissions by former French President Fran?ois Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Minsk agreements served as temporary arrangements undermined trust in Moscow. Meanwhile, Baltic states and Poland exert disproportionate influence within EU consensus politics, amplifying a moralized anti-Russian narrative.

Isackson raises the internal fragmentation of Europe itself: weak parliamentary authority at the EU level, rising populist parties such as Germany¡¯s Alternative for Germany, and declining public trust in national governments. Sibal agrees that the Belgian capital of Brussels has accumulated authority in areas that blur the boundaries of member-state sovereignty, though he cautions against dismissing Europe as strategically irrelevant. If Washington and Brussels coordinate effectively, Europe could still shape outcomes. But at present, he sees a continent struggling to define a coherent geopolitical voice.

Regulation, reform and economic complementarity

On the mechanics of the deal, Sibal pushes back against concerns about India¡¯s bureaucratic readiness. He believes Europe¡¯s regulatory ecosystem poses a greater challenge. The EU¡¯s strict health, digital and environmental standards ¡ª including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism ¡ª may limit practical market access even after tariff reductions.

Agriculture, notably contentious in the agreement between the EU and the Southern Common Market trade bloc, is excluded from the India deal, reducing the likelihood of domestic backlash. The deal also includes a mobility framework for skilled workers, which Sibal distinguishes from immigration.

He stresses economic complementarity. Indian exports in textiles, leather, gems and jewelry could benefit significantly as duties fall to zero. Europe supplies advanced industrial goods and technology. India, meanwhile, is consciously reducing protectionism, having concluded or pursued agreements with Australia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and others. Integration into global supply chains is now a strategic priority, not an afterthought.

Russia, sanctions and India¡¯s strategic balance

The final segment addresses India¡¯s continued purchase of Russian oil and its role within BRICS. Sibal insists India has violated no international law. Purchases were made at discounted price caps set by the US, and Indian refiners operated within sanction parameters. Recent US tariff penalties have already reduced Indian offtake.

European leaders have voiced concern, and some Indian firms have faced EU sanctions. Still, Sibal rejects accusations of hypocrisy as ¡°ridiculous,¡± especially given Europe¡¯s own substantial energy purchases from Russia in the early years of the war.

India, he emphasizes, will not sever ties with Moscow or its BRICS partners. Rather, it is a moderating force within BRICS ¡ª a country that prevents the grouping from hardening into a purely anti-Western bloc. In his formulation, India¡¯s presence serves Western interests by keeping channels open between democratic and authoritarian systems. A multipolar world, in his view, should not be anti-Western but more balanced, giving emerging powers a greater voice in global governance.

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The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Live: Kanwal Sibal Explains Why India Is Europe¡¯s Strategic Alternative to China appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Tariffs in a crowded Indo-Pacific market

The 18% tariff rate is only marginally lower than those applied to other Indo-Pacific exporters. Vietnam faces tariffs of approximately 20%, Bangladesh around 19%, while Japan and South Korea are subject to rates closer to 15%. China, despite being framed as Washington¡¯s principal geopolitical competitor, currently faces a nominal reciprocal tariff rate of about 10%. Additional sanctions and trade restrictions, however, are likely to raise China¡¯s effective tariff burden to around 30%. In practical terms, India¡¯s advantage over many competitors may amount to only two to three percentage points in several sectors. This margin is frequently absorbed by structural cost differences rather than translating into sustained competitiveness.

In the apparel sector, at roughly $120 billion annually in US imports, India exports about $9 billion, accounting for approximately 7% of the market. Vietnam exports over $22 billion, Bangladesh around $11 billion and China, despite tariff pressures, continues to ship more than $25 billion. Operating margins in apparel typically range between 3% and 6%, meaning that a modest tariff differential is often outweighed by Bangladesh¡¯s labor cost advantages and Vietnam¡¯s scale efficiencies and faster production cycles.

Electronics and electrical machinery an even starker contrast. US imports in this category exceed $500 billion annually, yet India¡¯s exports remain relatively small, at an estimated $11¨C13 billion. Vietnam exports more than $43 billion in electronics to the US market, while China¡¯s shipments remain above $120 billion despite diversification efforts. These disparities reflect deeper structural factors, including component ecosystems, logistics integration and supply-chain reliability ¡ª areas where tariff relief alone offers limited leverage.

Pharmaceuticals are frequently cited as a comparative strength for India. The US more than $230 billion worth of pharmaceutical products annually, and Indian firms supply roughly $13 billion in finished formulations and active pharmaceutical ingredients, accounting for nearly 40% of US generic prescriptions by volume.

Historically, tariffs in this sector were minimal, but since October 2025, the US a 100% tariff on branded and patented drugs to incentivize domestic manufacturing. The trade deal leaves these measures unchanged, limiting its relevance for Indian pharmaceutical exporters. In this sector, competitiveness is shaped more by regulatory approvals, intellectual property regimes and compliance costs than by customs duties.

Indian goods exports to the US total approximately $86 billion annually. Even an optimistic export expansion of 6¨C8% under improved tariff certainty would generate only $5¨C7 billion in additional exports. After accounting for imported inputs, exchange-rate effects and trade elasticity, the net impact on India¡¯s GDP is estimated at around 0.15¨C0.3%. For an economy approaching $4 trillion, the gain is measurable but far from transformative.

Oil diplomacy and the cost of alignment

Parallel to trade discussions, political attention has focused on of Russian crude oil. India imports roughly 5.2 million barrels of oil per day, amounting to nearly 1.9 billion barrels annually. In recent years, approximately 35% of these imports have come from Russia.

Russian Urals crude has typically at a discount of about $8¨C10 per barrel relative to Brent benchmarks. At an average discount of $8, India¡¯s annual savings on roughly 550¨C600 million barrels could approach $5 billion, rising toward $6 billion when discounts widen. Replacing these volumes entirely with North American crude oil, relative to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark, would eliminate this discount. This could potentially increase India¡¯s import bill by $4¨C6 billion each year. Additional freight and insurance costs associated with Atlantic routes could increase expenses by a further $0.5¨C1.5 billion annually. Moreover, refineries optimized for medium-sour Urals blends may require technical adjustments, entailing capital expenditure and temporarily reduced refining margins. These costs are comparable to the projected export gains from tariff relief.

Concerns are further amplified by indications that India may reduce or eliminate tariffs on a wide range of US industrial and agricultural goods. The US currently around $40 billion worth of goods to India each year, including aircraft, advanced machinery, medical devices, chemicals, energy products and agricultural commodities. Significant tariff reductions would likely benefit US capital goods manufacturers, which operate at larger scales and with higher automation intensity.

In agriculture, US producers of corn, soybeans, dairy and processed foods combine high productivity with extensive federal support mechanisms. Increased access to the Indian market could exert downward pressure on domestic prices in sensitive categories, affecting millions of smallholder farmers whose margins are already thin. With agriculture more than 46% of India¡¯s workforce, the distributional consequences could be substantial, even if consumers see modest price declines.

Benefit first, pressure last

The broader policy environment also warrants consideration. US trade policy in recent years has been marked by volatility, with tariffs imposed, suspended and recalibrated in rapid succession. Any tariff advantage secured today could be eroded if Washington extends similar concessions to competing Asian exporters or introduces new measures in response to domestic political cycles. As a result, projected export gains remain inherently uncertain.

Taken together, the agreement offers India limited but tangible economic benefits while exposing it to potentially higher energy costs and intensified domestic competition. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2026, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar that India¡¯s decisions would be guided by calculations of economic interest and national priorities rather than external pressure. The durability of that principle may ultimately determine whether the trade deal proves advantageous beyond its headline figures.

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The UN chief bureaucrat, Ant¨®nio Guterres, positioning himself as the drum major in front of everybody, in February the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence ¡ª the AI Panel. ?As UN groups go, they routinely miss the ¡°gee,¡± which is the case here, as well.

It¡¯s a bold move, but this parade needs more than a drum major. It is missing its grand marshal to deal with the gee-force. And this is where a pre-existing High-Level Expert Panel on Artificial General Intelligence, or the AGI Panel, could step in to harness the G factor before it harnesses us.

The UN¡¯s AI panel: good intentions, troubling gaps

The UN¡¯s AI Panel aims to bring order by gathering experts to assess risks and offer guidance. Yet critics of the AI Panel ¡ª governments, tech leaders and concerned citizens ¡ª see troubling gaps. The UN AI panel¡¯s mandate is broad, its structure vague and its political context tangled.

The UN is already juggling climate change, development and peacekeeping. Can it really steer AI governance without slowing innovation or diluting scientific independence?

UN advisory frameworks easily accumulate outsized influence, shaping expectations and political pressure.

AI ¡ª the gateway to AGI ¡ª isn¡¯t just a gadget; it¡¯s a pillar of national security and economic strategy.  So, many are concerned about sovereignty and fragmentation. Attended by states with very different digital governance models, the AI Panel risks becoming a battleground for competing visions: open societies versus state-centric control. Without strong safeguards, neutrality will be hard to maintain.

Further, critics worry that the AI Panel¡¯s recommendations could create obligations that clash with domestic priorities and market realities moving at lightning speed. Tech-heavy nations fear global oversight will hobble their competitiveness. And industry would take little notice of it in any event.

Practical questions abound: How were the AI Panel¡¯s experts chosen? If it becomes ¡°a thing,¡± will industry, academia and civil society have a real say? Can the AI Panel be independent from political blocs? And what happens to its recommendations?

Without clear pathways for its findings, the risk is that the AI Panel produces reports that are cited widely but acted upon narrowly. If the UN sets one standard while democratic alliances and industry groups set others, we could end up with parallel governance tracks ¡ª fragmentation that slows innovation and complicates cross-border cooperation.

For these and other concerns, Washington the AI Panel and did not support its establishment. But none of this even acknowledges that AI concerns are secondary because AGI is already developing faster than the number of unpaid parking tickets around the UN.

AGI will act if we don¡¯t

Worries about AI bring to mind the fabled Y2K (Year 2000 Problem) realm ¡ª we¡¯ll get past it. AGI, however, pushes humanity to and beyond.

Here¡¯s the real issue: AGI is not just another float in the parade. If we don¡¯t do something, it pulls rank over the drum major and becomes the grand marshal, determining the world¡¯s narrative, direction and pace. AGI will solve novel problems (good), rewrite its own code (not so good) and then pursue objectives beyond human control (bad).

AGI is not just a smarter version of today¡¯s AI ¡ª it¡¯s a leap from humans to machines for solving problems old and new, rewriting their own code and pursuing goals beyond human guidance. AGI¡¯s powers and risks far exceed those of ordinary AI, compelling us to make it our central target for urgent action.

Chasing opportunity, big tech is investing into AGI: history¡¯s largest investment. Early forms are already out of the test tube, and advanced versions are likely within a few years, if not sooner.

Thought leaders like Bill Gates, Demis Hassabis, Stuart Russell, Yoshua Bengio, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Geoffrey Hinton warn that the risk is real and urgent.

This isn¡¯t science fiction; it¡¯s a clear and present danger.

The risks are existential ¡ª if unregulated, AGI could threaten human civilization itself.

A grand marshal ready to wave us in the right direction

Recognizing the gap, the nonprofit Council of Presidents of the UN General Assembly established last year a High-Level Expert Panel on AGI. This ¡°AGI Panel,¡± composed of top experts, produced the ¡°Governance of the Transition to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): Urgent Considerations for the UN General Assembly.¡±?It clearly documents that the looming AGI is distinct from today¡¯s AI, and its benefits and risks must be urgently addressed.

But where to be addressed and by whom? Yes, the UN General Assembly is a legitimate place for this global discussion ¡ª but not through the Secretary-General¡¯s AI Panel as currently organized. Why not? Because the AI Panel is an abacus, whereas the G threat is using angstrom-class semiconductors.

The AI Panel is a parade without a grand marshal, lacking the leadership and urgency AGI demands. The High-Level Expert Panel on AGI offers a clear route forward.

This AIG Panel reveals that the maiden AI Panel is unaware of the power of AGI under its feet as it dallies on its path to the ¡°Great Oz.¡± So, the AGI Panel recommends concrete steps in lieu of yellow bricks: a global observatory, international certification and an agency dedicated to AGI. And it calls for an emergency UN General Assembly session, given the forecast of much bigger tornadoes on the horizon.

Second best

At least the UN Secretary-General should refit his AI Panel by (1) making AGI its key focus with urgency, (2) distributing the AGI Panel¡¯s report to all parties and (3) tapping the only AGI expert on his panel, Joshua Bengio, to start a working group on AGI. And he should push for that emergency General Assembly session to put measures into play, harnessing AGI for humanity by minimizing its risks while realizing its benefits.

Otherwise, the drum major should move to the end of the parade with a big shovel. Why? To sort through the many elephant-sized catastrophes that humanity would have to endure indefinitely.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

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Ongoing repression and daily fear

and independent monitors report the in the tens of thousands, though precise figures remain difficult to verify amid severe reporting restrictions. Morally and psychologically, the number changes little. Families are shattered.? continue to emerge of threats, executions, enforced disappearances, and individuals identified from protest footage later or abducted.?Demonstrations, including children, were met with overwhelming and often .?Yet beyond headlines and geopolitical analysis, something deeper is unfolding: a nationwide trauma response that almost no one is naming.

Since the beginning of the year, the Islamic Republic has called protestors rioters and that they must be put in their place. Iranians have witnessed scenes more often associated with combat zones: live ammunition fired into civilian crowds; citizens attempting to carry away the injured only to be shot themselves; nighttime raids pulling people from their homes; and entire communities severed from one another during prolonged communications blackouts.

from international human rights organizations describe mass arrests, torture in detention and bodies documented under coercive conditions. There have been accounts of marketplaces set ablaze during crackdowns and refrigerated facilities containing victims¡¯ remains by fire under unclear circumstances. Funerals have been prohibited, and families have been for the bullets used to kill their loved ones. Medical staff have been threatened or detained. Journalists have been . Grieving families have been and arrested. The UN fact-finding mission¡¯s has recognized the state of Iranian civilians¡¯ lives to be caught between that may amount to crimes against humanity.

And these decades-long patterns of repression have not ended. For most Iranians, the? of fear and coercion continues daily; a reality exacerbated by a catastrophic? of global health governance?that has left civilians without even the most basic protections of international law.

Trauma does not start with one event

The outbreak of the US¨CIsrael¨CIran war has brought Iran back into the center of global discussion. Television panels debate escalation, deterrence, and regional alliances. Social media is filled with arguments about sanctions, military strategy and international law. The world is debating Iran while largely overlooking the psychological devastation unfolding inside it.

The uprising that preceded the war and the violence used to suppress it have already begun to fade into the background of geopolitical analysis.

The and restrictions on reporting are not incidental to the violence; they are part of it. When information is , uncertainty grows. Families cannot confirm who is alive. Rumors fill the gaps left by silence. In human rights investigations, access to verified information is often the first casualty of repression. But the psychological impact of that uncertainty is profound. It destabilizes trust, not only in institutions but in shared reality itself.

The cumulative psychological impact is unmistakable. As trauma scholars have long observed, prolonged exposure to systemic violence erodes basic assumptions about safety, trust and the predictability of power. When violence becomes chronic and institutional, populations adapt to a worldview in which vulnerability feels constant and authority appears unrestrained. This is how collective shock takes hold.

Iran is not only in a political crisis. Its population is exhibiting signs of collective nervous-system .

Inside the country, people are living under sustained threat. Many describe sleeping in fragments, waking at small sounds, struggling to breathe evenly. Anger surfaces quickly and just as quickly gives way to numbness. These are not abstract political reactions. They are physiological responses to sustained threat. When violence becomes routine, the nervous system does what it is designed to do: It prepares for survival.

The massacre did not land on neutral ground. It struck a population carrying decades of accumulated trauma: a revolution that hardened into theocratic authoritarianism; a devastating war scarred by chemical attacks; sanctions that strained ordinary citizens while consolidating power among elites; and repeated protest movements met with imprisonment and execution.

Collective trauma rarely disappears with time alone. It accumulates, shaping how new events are interpreted and remembered, especially in societies that have experienced repeated cycles of repression.

When a new shock arrives, it reactivates what is already stored. To those living through it,??did not feel unprecedented. Instead, the??and total digital isolation felt like a grim?confirmation of a of repression. The state¡¯s playbook of repression, refined over decades, was being executed once again.

Resilience runs deep in Iran¡¯s cultural memory, but it should not be romanticized. In the context of 2026, this?endurance signifies not a lack of harm, but a state of??where the nervous system has adapted to a ¡°hum of fear¡± just to survive.

What is unfolding now is not only grief but destabilization: a constant hum of fear, hypervigilance and a sense that the ground itself is unreliable. When a state deploys overwhelming violence against its own population, trust collapses not only in institutions but also in the future, further intensified by the absence of a meaningful global response. This is what externalized collective trauma can feel like.

The diaspora carries the trauma too

Outside Iran, another layer of trauma is taking shape. Across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, the?diaspora watches in a state of externalized . It is a psychological weight that defies geography, where survivor¡¯s guilt collides with moral urgency. This results in a? of the collective psyche?as the social bonds that connect individuals to their homeland are systematically targeted. It is a state where survivor¡¯s guilt collides with moral urgency, creating a vicarious trauma that is further weaponized by the state¡¯s?. Many feel compelled to act constantly by posting, organizing and protesting because they feel that rest is a betrayal.

As large demonstrations unfold globally, many continue to experience a painful sense of invisibility. With?independent verification , skepticism often replaces empathy from the world. The diaspora experiences a as it asks for its collective reality to be witnessed. Casual suggestions that the numbers must be exaggerated, that the footage cannot be trusted or that it is better to stop watching the news, land as a dismissal rather than neutrality.

For the Iranian diaspora whose families remain in Iran, the crisis is not distant geopolitics. It is a daily negotiation between professional life here and fear for relatives there. When global attention shifts and reporting becomes sporadic, that distance deepens. In a democratic society that values civic participation and freedom of expression, the psychological well-being of diasporic communities is not peripheral. It is part of the civic fabric.

What is missed in these exchanges is the psychological cost. For Iranians, this minimization deepens isolation. It signals that their lived histories of repression and brutality are treated as uncertain, exaggerated or politically inconvenient. When suffering is questioned, identity itself feels destabilized.

, the temperature rises. Social media rewards outrage and punishes nuance. Political identities harden. Divisions sharpen. In private, there are tears and exhaustion. In public, fury.

This is what collective trauma does. It narrows cognition and collapses complexity. In times of threat, the brain seeks certainty, and black-and-white thinking feels safer than ambiguity. It is also why calls for rescue have intensified. Iranians inside and outside the country openly debate foreign intervention. When you are drowning, you do not ask who designed the life raft. When survival feels uncertain, people reach for whatever promises relief. Desperation reshapes judgment.

Why collective trauma matters politically

Recognizing that psychological reality does not mean endorsing every political conclusion that follows. Trauma can push societies toward extremes, toward savior fantasies, rigid ideologies and the belief that only overwhelming force can end overwhelming force. It also sharpens divisions, reducing complex differences to a binary of friend versus enemy and narrowing the space for democratic thinking.

History offers few simple answers. Peaceful uprisings succeed only when power fractures from within. rarely unfold as intended?, and the lack thereof deepens mistrust. But none of that erases the emotional truth: Iranians feeling abandoned and exhausted, searching for any sign that the nightmare might end. What makes this moment especially dangerous is not only state violence; it is the perception that the world is speaking about the geopolitical entanglement with Iran while rarely speaking about the Iranians themselves.

The January massacre risks being absorbed into the background noise of permanent crisis and another headline in a saturated world. The?February 2026 and executions?of protesters have been largely ignored. But collective trauma does not dissipate when attention shifts. It embeds. It shapes political culture. It alters how communities trust, organize and imagine the future. If this??goes unrecognized, its consequences will not remain confined within Iran¡¯s borders. Trauma reverberates across generations and across diasporas. It influences how societies polarize, negotiate power and respond to instability.

A rupture that will last decades

Recognizing is not an exercise in sentiment. It is necessary to understand how political behavior shifts under sustained threat. It insists that what is unfolding is not merely strategic conflict but a social reconstruction of meaning and mass psychological injury. Iranians do not need saviors. They need solidarity that respects and empowers their agency. They need humanitarian support that reaches civilians. They need platforms that amplify their voices rather than reduce them to geopolitical talking points.

Despite the??in political science, sociology and historical literature that military interventions rarely lead to effective regime change, a growing number of civilians are now vocalizing a desperate plea for their own country to be bombed. On a human level, intellectualizing the failure of foreign intervention does little to address the immediate agony of those living under the boot. To understand this shift, the world must recognize the?, which is the cumulative and systemic wear and tear that occurs when an entire population is subjected to chronic institutional coercion. When this state of fear becomes unbearable, the collective psyche shifts into a mode of defensive dominance where even catastrophic violence is viewed as a??to an agonizing status quo.

When people become desperate enough to call for foreign intervention, it is not ideology speaking but an existential survival mechanism. It reflects a population that feels cornered and recognizes its very existence is under threat. For decades, Iranians have protested through strikes, demonstrations and civil resistance, often at enormous personal cost. Many have lost friends, family members or colleagues to imprisonment or violence. When peaceful protest is met with live ammunition, people are fighting a war without weapons. Thus, their request, which goes against the scholarly evidence, is an emotional response to collective trauma that is not being witnessed. They also need the world to understand that collective trauma, once unleashed at this scale, does not simply disappear and only intensifies.

The Islamic Republic regime¡¯s?2026 of civilians?will be remembered for its brutality and for the that followed. It should also be remembered for the courage of millions who risked their lives for freedom, and as the moment a nation¡¯s psychological threshold was breached. Iran is in a political crisis, but it is also living through decades of?overlapping ?and a profound psychological rupture that will shape its political future long after the violence fades from headlines.

Collective trauma at this scale does not remain confined within national borders. Through migration, digital networks and transnational families, its psychological consequences travel outward. Democracies that fail to recognize this risk misunderstand both and the long-term political consequences of sustained state violence.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Iran¡¯s Collective Trauma: The Psychological Aftermath of Repression and Violence appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

The 1.5 trillion-dollar question

Singh opens by noting that Trump has called for a $1.5 trillion military budget for fiscal year 2027, a figure endorsed by The Washington Post¡¯s editorial board. Supporters argue that as a percentage of GDP, defense spending is historically low, and that China¡¯s rapid military buildup demands urgent investment.

¡°I don¡¯t think much of it,¡± Freeman says bluntly. He points out that the current US military budget is already roughly three times larger than China¡¯s. The United States maintains more than 700 overseas bases, effectively surrounding China, while Beijing operates only a handful abroad. Ignoring that accumulated infrastructure distorts the debate.

When Singh raises concerns about China¡¯s 22 shipyards, drone production and expanding industrial capacity, Freeman stresses the difference between quantity and quality. ¡°The Chinese Navy pales in comparison to the US Navy,¡± he states, insisting that technological sophistication and global reach matter more than raw output. For him, tripling China¡¯s spending has already secured a qualitative advantage. Raising it to five times China¡¯s level requires a clearer strategic rationale than simply invoking Beijing¡¯s rise.

Threat inflation and the iron triangle

The conversation then turns to ¡°threat inflation,¡± a concept central to Freeman¡¯s work. The military-industrial complex requires a persistent adversary to justify its scale. Without an external foe, Americans might begin asking why resources are not directed toward healthcare, education or infrastructure.

Freeman describes the ¡°iron triangle¡± linking Congress, the Pentagon and defense contractors. Roughly 54% of the Department of Defense budget flows to private contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics. These firms then invest heavily in lobbying, campaign contributions and hiring former officials, reinforcing a cycle that sustains high spending.

The result, he says, is a self-perpetuating system that has expanded beyond what President Dwight Eisenhower warned about in 1961. Today, the ecosystem includes think tanks, universities, media organizations and even local institutions, all reinforcing the normalization of American militarism.

The defense tech disruption

Yet the system is not static. Singh asks whether the ¡°Big Five¡± will simply continue vacuuming up taxpayer money indefinitely. Freeman points to the rise of defense tech firms such as SpaceX, Anduril and Palantir as a disruptive force.

These companies, often backed by Silicon Valley capital and closely connected to the Trump administration, are competing with legacy contractors for Pentagon contracts. Freeman characterizes the moment as a pivotal transition, with tech-driven firms potentially supplanting parts of the old guard.

But he tempers expectations. ¡°A rising tide is lifting all defense contractors right now,¡± he notes. Even if the composition of contractors changes, the overall budget trajectory shows little sign of decline.

Debt, deficits and the limits of expansion

The most sobering portion of the discussion concerns the national debt. With US debt nearing $39 trillion and annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion, Freeman warns that any increase in defense spending will be entirely debt financed. According to projections, a $1.5 trillion annual budget could add nearly $6 trillion to the debt over a decade.

For the first time, US debt servicing costs now exceed the Pentagon budget. Interest payments alone are approaching $1 trillion annually. Freeman cautions that borrowing to pay interest risks triggering a vicious debt spiral. The US has not run a budget surplus since 1999, making this a bipartisan problem decades in the making.

If defense spending remains politically sacrosanct and debt servicing unavoidable, the remaining pressure points are the long-untouchable Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Cutting them, Freeman observes, would be ¡°political suicide.¡± That leaves Washington with few painless options.

A new cold war?

As the US¨CRussia New START treaty expires and nuclear arms control weakens, Singh raises the prospect of an accelerating arms race. Freeman questions the strategic logic of expanding nuclear arsenals beyond already overwhelming levels, arguing that such expansions chiefly benefit contractors.

Still, he concedes that a technological cold war with China is real. Competition in artificial intelligence, robotics, drones and hypersonics is intensifying. Here, Freeman does not oppose investment per se. Instead, he criticizes what he sees as misallocation. The problem, he suggests, is not insufficient funding but inefficient spending on legacy platforms at the expense of emerging technologies.

Ultimately, the debate is about how the US will prepare to face Chinese competition. Singh and Freeman leave viewers with a dilemma: expand the war machine and risk fiscal crisis, or reform it before the debt itself becomes the greatest national security threat of all.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Talks: Is America Building a $1.5 Trillion War Machine to Fight China? appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Karp loves verbal combat as much as he likes running a firm that makes high-tech weaponry. His company has helped Israel the pace at which it has bombed and slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza. Its technology has helped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations, while also helping and identify demonstrators in Minneapolis. Not only is Karp unapologetic about the damage done by his company¡¯s products, he openly revels in it.

This February, he a CNBC interviewer that, ¡°If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir. Our product actually, in its core, requires people to conform with Fourth Amendment data protections.¡± (That amendment being the one that protects citizens from ¡°unreasonable searches and seizures.¡±) Yet Karp¡¯s speculation hasn¡¯t led him to ask ICE to stop using his software in its war on peaceful dissent, nor has it dissuaded him from accepting an open-ended, $1 billion with ICE¡¯s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

In keeping with his full-throated support for repression at home and abroad, at the height of the Gaza war, Karp a Palantir board meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, proclaiming that ¡°our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue.¡±

In an with Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, he summed up his philosophy this way: ¡°I actually am a progressive. I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology and by scaring the bejabers ¡ª I¡¯m trying to be nice here ¡ª out of our adversaries. If they are not scared, they don¡¯t wake up scared, they don¡¯t go to bed scared, they don¡¯t fear that the wrath of America will come down on them, they will attack us. They will attack us everywhere.¡±

Reality, however, is anything but that simple. Palantir¡¯s technology has been used to kill tens of thousands of people in Gaza and beyond, including many who had nothing to do with Hamas, had no control over its actions and often weren¡¯t even alive when it won local elections in 2006 and began to administer Gaza.

There should be no question that Hamas¡¯s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was unconscionable. Still, for Israel to react by killing more than Palestinians in Gaza, a relatively conservative figure that even the Israeli government now , constitutes a grossly disproportionate response that most independent experts define as genocide. The idea that such mass slaughter can be justified as a way of scaring the bad guys and reducing violence is intellectually unsupportable and morally obscene.

So, welcome to the world of Karp, one of the leaders of the new wave of techno-militarists in Silicon Valley.

Militarizing AI, or techno-optimism run amok

This is not your father¡¯s military-industrial complex (MIC). The current stewards of the MIC ¡ª executives running industrial giants like Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman ¡ª are far more circumspect in what they have to say than Karp. Their leaders may occasionally make a about how increased tensions in the Middle East or Asia could generate demands for their products among US allies in those regions, but they would never engage in the sort of naked Orwellian rhetoric Karp seems to specialize in.

Still, the MIC of the future augurs not just a change in technology or business practices, but ¡ª as Karp suggests ¡ª a potential culture shift in which militarism is openly celebrated, without the need for any cover language about promoting global stability or defending a ¡°rules-based international order.¡± Think of the new MIC as a rugged individualist, high-tech version of philosopher Thomas Hobbes¡¯s ¡° of all against all.¡± And those running it want us to believe that the only way to ¡°win¡± a future war is by handing the keys to our political world to a clique of self-defined superior beings headed up by the likes of Karp, Palantir Founder Peter Thiel, Anduril head Palmer Luckey and Tesla¡¯s inimitable Elon Musk.

Karp has coauthored a , The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, in which he articulates his vision of what it will supposedly take to make America globally dominant again. The book is a long lament about how most Americans have lost their sense of purpose and patriotism, frittering away their time in trivial pursuits like reality television and video games. He and coauthor Nicholas W. Zamiska call for a new unifying national mission to whip this nation of slackers into shape and restore the United States to its rightful place as the world¡¯s unrivaled political and military power.

Karp¡¯s answer to what¡¯s needed: a new (which, in case you don¡¯t remember, produced the atomic bomb to end World War II). This time, the focus would not be on developing nuclear weapons but on accelerating the military applications of artificial intelligence and giving the US a permanent technological advantage over China. It¡¯s hard to imagine a more impoverished or misguided vision of America¡¯s future, or one more drained of basic humanity.

Hawks, traditional realists and techno-militarists will, of course, deride any humanity-first approach to foreign and domestic policy as naive, but in reality, it¡¯s the new wave militarists who are the truly naive ones. After trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives on the wars of this century ¡ª wars that failed to reach their advertised objectives by a long shot (just as the most recent one in Iran is sure to do), while making the world a significantly more dangerous place ¡ª they still mouth platitudes about pursuing ¡°peace through strength¡± and using US military power to undergird a ¡°rules-based international order.¡± Given the American losses in this century to far more poorly funded and less technologically sophisticated adversaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, such tired rhetoric is beginning to sound like a cruel joke, or indeed the gasps of the representatives of a declining empire.

Will technowar be cheaper, and will it protect us?

Putting ideology aside for a moment, there is the narrower question of whether the emerging tech firms can truly produce better systems of war-making for less money. Luckey, a prot¨¦g¨¦ of Thiel, made headlines recently when he in an interview that the US could spend perhaps half of the current $1 trillion Pentagon budget and still have a more effective defense system if it simply stopped buying the ¡°wrong things.¡±

The idea that a weapons contractor would offer to do more for less seems almost revolutionary in an age where greed and corruption in the MIC continue to run rampant. The philosophy behind Luckey¡¯s statement is, in fact, encapsulated in a remarkable Anduril entitled, ¡°Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy,¡± a scathing critique of the current business practices of the Pentagon and mammoth military contractors like Lockheed Martin.

Luckey¡¯s manifesto should be considered an assault on the top five arms conglomerates ¡ª led by Lockheed Martin and RTX ¡ª that now receive one out of every three contract dollars doled out by the Pentagon. Those huge firms have had their day, the essay suggests, doing necessary and useful work in the long-gone Cold War years of the last century. ¡°Why can¡¯t the existing defense companies simply do better?¡± it asks. ¡°¡­These companies work slowly, while the best engineers relish working at speed¡­These companies built the tools that kept us safe in the past, but they are not the future of our defense.¡±

The document all but suggests that companies like Lockheed Martin should be given a lifetime achievement award and then shoved out of the way, so the likes of Thiel, Karp, Luckey and Musk can take the helm of the arms industry.

But spending less on weapons ¡ª as useful as it would be given other urgent national priorities ¡ª can¡¯t be the only goal of defense policy. The most important question is whether purportedly cheaper, more nimble, more accurate AI-driven systems can, in fact, be deployed in a way that would promote peace and stability rather than yet more war. In reality, there is a danger that, if the US thinks it can use such systems to intervene militarily on a routine basis while suffering fewer casualties, the temptation to go to war might actually increase.

Even given all of the above, the idea of breaking the stranglehold of the big contractors on the development and production of the US arsenal is an attractive one. But the tech sector¡¯s claims that it can do the job better for less remains to be proven. A drone is cheaper than an F-35 jet fighter for sure, but what about swarms of drones that are used in waves and replenished rapidly in the midst of a war, or unpiloted ships and armored vehicles that run on complex, unproven software that could well fail at crucial moments? And what if, as the tech sector and its growing cadre of lobbyists would prefer, the new age militarists are allowed to operate with little or no scrutiny, with a weakening of safeguards like independent testing and curbs on price gouging ¡ª safeguards that are already too weak to fully get the job done?

When US President Ronald Reagan negotiated arms control agreements with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the last century, his was ¡°trust but verify.¡± In the case of Palantir and its ilk, perhaps the motto should be ¡°mistrust and verify.¡± We need to get beyond their marketing slogans and make them prove that their new tech can work as advertised and is indeed better than what came before. If so, then Palantir and Anduril should be treated as vendors and paid for their services, but with no right to attempt to shape our military budget or foreign policy, much less the fundamental workings of our already stumbling democracy.

The military tech lobby: disruptors on steroids

Before the current surge of weapons development in the tech sector, there was a time when some Silicon Valley firms acted as if their products were so superior and affordable that they didn¡¯t need to dirty their hands with traditional lobbying. Unrealistic as that might have been, Silicon Valley has now gone all-in on legalized corruption ¡ª from carefully targeted campaign contributions to hiring former government officials to do their bidding.

Example number one is, of course, US Vice President JD Vance, who was , mentored and financed by ¡ª yes! ¡ª Thiel during his rise to the Senate and then to the vice presidency. When he was selected for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump¡¯s ticket in 2024, a of new money came into the campaign from the military-tech sector, including tens of billions of dollars from Musk. Once on the ticket, one of Vance¡¯s main jobs proved to be extracting even more donations from the Silicon Valley militarists.

Then came Musk¡¯s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the organization that gave efficiency a dreadful name by cutting federal programs and personnel seemingly at random and essential tools like the Agency for International Development (USAID) while leaving the Pentagon virtually untouched. Although USAID had its problems, it also essential development and public health efforts globally that sustained millions of people. An actual efficiency drive would have looked at what worked and what didn¡¯t at that agency. Instead, Musk¡¯s acolytes, who knew nothing about economic assistance, simply dismantled it.

There are now significant numbers of Silicon Valley executives in key positions in the Trump administration, led by Vance but including of others in key posts in the military, the top leadership of the Pentagon and across a range of domestic and foreign-policy agencies.

Thiel and Karp clearly feel that what¡¯s good for Palantir is good for America, but the vision of America they are promoting is both dangerous and dehumanizing.

Coming down to earth (and reining in the technophiles)

The problem with the new techno-militarists isn¡¯t that they¡¯re mistaken about technology¡¯s power, but that they¡¯re dangerously wrong about who should wield it, to what ends, and under what constraints. Power without restraint is not innovation. It is recklessness dressed up as inevitability. A growing share of the tools that shape American foreign and domestic security policy is being designed, deployed and promoted by a small group of private actors whose incentives are aggressively financial, whose worldviews are profoundly militarized and whose accountability to the public is minimal at best.

What this country needs is anything but a new priesthood of billionaire engineers to tell us that war is unavoidable, fear is the only path to peace and democracy must bend a knee to the superior wisdom of those who code algorithms and build weaponry. In reality, we¡¯ve heard this story before from Cold War nuclear , Vietnam-era body-count and the architects of the ¡°shock and awe¡± that helped destroy Iraq. Each generation is promised that this technology (whatever it might be) will finally make war, American-style, clean, precise and decisive. Each time, the bodies pile up anyway.

What makes today¡¯s moment especially is the speed and opacity with which such systems are being developed and deployed. AI-enabled targeting tools, predictive surveillance platforms, autonomous weaponry and data-fusion systems are all being integrated into the military and domestic policing structures with minimal public debate, weak oversight and virtually no meaningful consent from the people who will live with ¡ª and die from ¡ª the consequences. The rhetoric of AI-driven disruption has become a convenient excuse for bypassing democratic processes altogether.

The underlying premise of the techno-militarists is that permanent war is the natural state of our world and our only choice is how efficiently we decide to wage it. In reality, security is never produced by terrifying the rest of the planet into submission. It¡¯s produced by diplomacy, restraint, adhering to international law and economic justice, and the slow, unglamorous work of building institutions that make mass violence less likely rather than more automated.

Karp and his peers may see themselves as realists, bravely saying what others don¡¯t dare to say. In truth, theirs is a brittle, nihilistic worldview that mistakes domination for strength and innovation for wisdom. Humanity deserves more than an endless arms race run by men (and they are almost all men!) who believe that they alone are fit to decide whose lives are expendable. The brave new war machine¡¯s version of Aldous Huxley¡¯s should frighten us all.

If technology is to shape the future of war (and it will), then society must shape the rules under which it operates. The alternative is to surrender our moral agency to a handful of self-anointed visionaries and hope they get it right. History suggests that is a gamble we can¡¯t afford to take.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post The Brave New War Machine: How a Clique of Unhinged Techno-Optimists Is Putting Humanity at Risk appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

If you walk around the streets or campuses in London, you will see Chinese students everywhere. At first glance, you may see them as united, reserved and quiet. However, as time goes by, you begin to notice something strange: Most Chinese students seem to stay among themselves. 

It is even difficult to find a Chinese student speaking English with non-Chinese students. You may think this is because they prefer to remain close to their own groups in their spare time. But in class, the pattern remains the same. 

They seldom talk and often seem reluctant to participate; if they do, it is usually in the first class of a module, when they are required to give a self-introduction. Even in this case, most of them only state their name and nationality. It is rare to hear anything about their interests, future plans, why they chose the course or anything beyond that.

Language is not the problem

You might assume that they face a language barrier. However, in many European countries, new arrivals such as immigrants or refugees tend to interact with locals proactively, even when their command of the language is extremely limited. With broken sentences, gestures and improvised expressions, they gradually attempt to build everyday connections. 

By contrast, almost every Chinese student who comes to the UK is required to obtain an English language to prove that they are able to study here, which means their language proficiency is higher than that of many new arrivals. Therefore, the underlying reason Chinese students do not speak English is not that they are unable to speak, but that they choose not to speak. But why?

A degree, not an experience

For many Chinese students in the UK, especially those enrolled in one-year master¡¯s programs, integration is never part of the plan. Most come from wealthy and well-connected in China, and their career paths and future plans have largely been arranged by their parents before they study abroad.?

In their eyes, studying abroad is less about experiencing a different world than simply obtaining a shiny credential they can brag about once they return to China. Under these conditions, learning how to live and integrate into another society is totally unnecessary, given that most will return to China once their studies are finished. Considering that many of these students treat studying abroad merely as a tool and seldom integrate into local society to practice their English, their language proficiency often fails to improve when they return home. 

There is a term in China called shu¨« shu¨° (¡°Ë®Ë¶¡±) used to refer to these students who study overseas for a one-year master¡¯s program but whose academic and linguistic levels remain low after the year of study. In this view, such Chinese students are seen as privileged, silver-spooned kids, but not necessarily outstanding. Many people in China believe obtaining a degree in the UK is largely a matter of money rather than intelligence.

You might raise a further question at this point. Even if these Chinese students return to China after their studies, wouldn¡¯t engaging with new people, embracing different views and cultivating memorable friendships still be worthwhile? Why, then, do many Chinese students choose to spend that year in relative isolation, remaining largely within their own social bubble instead? To understand this behavior, we need to move beyond individual choice and look at the issue from a deeper ideological perspective.

Defensive nationalism

Returning to the question raised on Reddit, why don¡¯t Chinese students integrate more? This discussion has now been on RedNote, a Chinese platform similar to Instagram. Many Chinese students are clearly unhappy with the question, and their responses basically fall into two camps.

The first asks: ¡°Why should we integrate? Why don¡¯t you integrate with us instead?¡± The second assumes bad faith, believing that people outside China look down on Chinese people, making genuine friendship impossible. Although these two arguments appear different, they actually reflect the same unconscious ideology: defensive nationalism.

So what is defensive nationalism? It assumes that the outside world is fundamentally unfriendly and that dignity must therefore be protected before any perceived enemy reaches the border, turning engagement into something to be avoided. Defensive nationalism is invisible. 

It does not present itself as radical patriotism or open hostility toward others. Instead, it quietly plants fear and a sense of threat in people¡¯s minds, making them afraid to express themselves. Many Chinese students, often unconsciously, come to internalize this ideology after years of being taught that China has been under siege and that the outside world is hypocritical and hostile. 

Almost every person who grew up in China is familiar with the phrase ¡°imperialism will never abandon its ambition to destroy China¡± (µÛ¹úÖ÷ÒåÍöÎÒÖ®ÐIJ»ËÀ), which portrays the Western world as a permanent enemy and frames relations between China and the West as an existential zero-sum struggle. As a result, many Chinese people are deeply cautious about the world beyond China. 

When these students go abroad, many do not come to see the world from a different perspective. Instead, their existing biases are often reinforced. What they encounter is not a colorful world, but one in which even a glance, a tone of voice or a moment of silence can be misread as discrimination or hostility.

Safety in silence

Integration is no longer a neutral or positive act, but a risky one: Speaking aloud may incur judgment, engaging too much may expose weakness and adapting to another society can feel like lowering oneself. Consequently, they come to see withdrawal as the safest response, shielding themselves behind defensive nationalism.

Behind this shield, they can find a sense of security in unfamiliar environments and redefine silence as a form of self-respect. And this is precisely what we see today: A large number of Chinese students rely almost entirely on Chinese-language media and social circles, enabling them to live physically outside of China while remaining at home spiritually.

Learning to belong

As an international Chinese student myself, when I first came to London, I felt nervous and overwhelmed. I often missed the jokes of street performers, as the rest of the audience laughed. Walking into an Italian restaurant, I felt embarrassed when it came time to order, as I could not make sense of the menu, despite it being written in English. 

In both seminars and everyday interactions, I sometimes struggled to follow what my classmates were saying. At that moment, I had two options: to remain within the comfort of my own community, or to push myself forward ¡ª to listen, to speak and to try to understand. I chose the latter because I understood that these moments of discomfort were not failures, but part of the process itself. 

I came to realize that progress does not begin with confidence, but with courage ¡ª the willingness to speak imperfectly, to misunderstand and to laugh a second later than everyone else. One day, without even noticing it happened, I realized I was no longer standing at the edge of other people¡¯s lives, watching as an observer. I was already inside them.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Why Don¡¯t Chinese Students Integrate More? appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Michael Jackson died in 2009, steeped in debt. But he certainly didn¡¯t remain dead; a reinvigorated Jackson was restored to life. His record sales spiked, a movie deal was done and, within a year, Jackson made ¡ª more money than any other musician or actor, dead or alive, over the previous 12 months. Other lucrative events included a Cirque du Soleil production and a hit Broadway show, all of which brought in over $3 billion in earnings.

But the spectral Jackson also had detractors who refused to let the allegations fade, even after Santa Barbara County Superior Court cleared him of sexual molestation charges in 2005. Suspicions of an unwholesome side to Jackson surfaced as early as 1993 when screenwriter Evan Chandler him of abusing his son, Jordan Chandler. A legal settlement the following year prevented this from damaging Jackson¡¯s then-flourishing career. (The limited what could be depicted about the issue artistically and, for a while, imperilled the biopic film, ¡ª trailer above.)

Head in a lion¡¯s mouth

Less than a year after the allegations and settlement, Jackson Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of the world-famous musician, Elvis Presley. For years before the marriage, Jackson¡¯s androgynous presentation, high voice, lack of tabloid-documented romantic history and unusually childlike persona had prompted speculation about his sexuality. Gossip columns periodically asked whether he might be gay or asexual. These unsubstantiated rumors circulated widely and gained impetus from the settlement, making the Presley marriage appear as a validation of his heterosexuality.

Jackson and Presley separated in 1996. That same year, only months after finalizing the divorce, Jackson nurse Debbie Rowe, with whom he had two children. A third child by an unknown mother followed in 2002.

Exactly what was on Jackson¡¯s mind when he agreed to appear in a documentary fronted by journalist Martin Bashir is unclear. If he was trying to improve his public image, it was a catastrophic mistake. Bashir had earlier interviewed Princess Diana and, while it wasn¡¯t clear at the time, used to persuade her. By the time he agreed to Bashir¡¯s request to film him, Jackson had spent over 20 years in the unforgiving glare of showbusiness. Any claim to ingenuousness about media exposure was difficult to sustain. Jackson¡¯s decision was rather like starving a lion for a few days and then putting his head in its mouth.

Jackson talked about regularly having sleepovers with children, including a young cancer patient named Gavin Arvizo. Bashir ended the HBO program with his on Jackson¡¯s home, known as Neverland Ranch: ¡°A place where his enormous wealth allowed him to do what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted.¡± The New York Times Jackson as ¡°creepy, but almost touching in his delusional na?vet¨¦.¡±

The program screened in February 2003. That December, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon Jackson with committing lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

In 2005, Jackson stood ; the jury heard allegations that he had abused a 13-year-old boy and exposed him to ¡°strange sexual behavior¡± during visits to Neverland Ranch. But the jurors ultimately concluded the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. Jackson was exonerated of all charges, walked from court an innocent man and remained legally so for the rest of his life. Innocent, that is, in a legal sense: Rumors persisted up to and beyond his in 2009.

Where there¡¯s smoke¡­

On October 5, 2017, The New York Times published a detailing allegations of sexual harassment against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein. Among those who spoke publicly were actors Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd. The revelations triggered a cascade of accusations against Weinstein that culminated in his arrest and, in February 2020, his for felony sexual assault and a sentence of 23 years¡¯ imprisonment. Weinstein maintained his innocence.

The significance of the case extended far beyond one powerful producer. For decades, stories circulated in Hollywood about men who traded professional opportunities for sexual favors, the notorious ¡°casting couch¡± becoming shorthand for a system of exploitation long acknowledged but rarely challenged.

More than a decade earlier, in 2006, activist Tarana Burke had begun using the phrase, ¡°,¡± to support survivors of sexual abuse. After the Weinstein revelations, the phrase was repurposed as a global hashtag and rallying cry. What followed was one of the most consequential cultural shifts since the rise of the women¡¯s liberation movement in the 1970s.

Within a year, hundreds of prominent men across politics, entertainment and media faced allegations of sexual misconduct. Some were prosecuted, many were not. Yet formal verdicts often mattered less than public judgment. Careers ended, projects met cancellation and reputations collapsed even in the absence of criminal convictions.

A new principle seemed to have taken hold: Accusations alone could be enough to remove powerful men from positions of influence. The informal tribunal of public opinion proved faster, harsher and often more decisive than the courts. Guilty or innocent no longer seemed to matter. The adage, ¡°where there¡¯s smoke, there¡¯s fire,¡± became a serviceable rule of thumb.

Not guilty. So?

Now, reimagine the Jackson episodes I described earlier. In the post-Weinstein world, a settlement may still resolve a dispute legally, but it does not always relieve the defendant from blame even when the out-of-court agreement involves no admission of liability.

The most dramatic illustration of this occurred in 2022: then-Prince Andrew¡¯s settlement with trafficking survivor Virginia Giuffre, who had accused him of sexual assault. Andrew paid an undisclosed amount and donated a sum to a charity. He avoided a trial, but invited a blizzard of innuendo. Further investigations into his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein pushed Andrew into an inescapable corner. King Charles III stripped him of his titles, relieved him of his royal duties and made him an unwilling symbol of privileged depravity.

In 1994, Jackson¡¯s global popularity was comparable with Taylor Swift¡¯s today. His albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad had established him in the same class as Elvis and the Beatles. His video, Michael Jackson¡¯s Thriller, remains a classic of its genre. None of the disorienting strangeness of later years had yet appeared and Jackson, like his peer, Madonna, enraptured audiences everywhere.

His prodigious popularity would have been a defense against cynics who suspected the settlement disguised indecent tendencies. Of course, Jackson never had to contend with social media, as he would in the #MeToo world; that in itself could have wrecked his reputation. But, it¡¯s conceivable, even likely, that his immense adoration would have been powerful enough to sustain him. The 2003 charges, however, were unexpected and uncontainable.

Remember: Jackson was eventually acquitted on all seven counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent. But, as we know, the legal precept ¡°innocent until proven guilty¡± lost purchase in the wake of the Weinstein case. In 2022, actor Johnny Depp won in damages from his former wife, actress Amber Heard, who had accused him of domestic abuse. But he lost his role in Disney¡¯s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (at that ) and, as an on-screen actor, has only appeared in 2023¡¯s Jeanne du Barry since. Actor Kevin Spacey was first accused of sexual assault in 2017 and found of sexual offences at a criminal trial in 2023, and has recently a separate case. In these cases, the actors were accused wrongly, but offers for dramatic roles dried up.

The probability is that Jackson too would have been canceled, his legal innocence overridden by a verdict reached in the less formal but far more potent tribunal of culture. In 2005, when he was cleared, the shadow of the allegations were troubling but not fatal. Of more immediate concern was his extravagant lifestyle, which left him with colossal debts ¡ª at his death to be more than ¡°more than half a billion dollars.¡±

Reissues of earlier albums kept public interest alive, but Jackson himself became a recluse. So, when in 2009, he announced his first live concerts in 15 years, it seemed to confirm he needed money. A two-month residency at London¡¯s O2 Arena was thought to be worth . When the concerts sold out and tickets were sold online for $10,000, more dates were added. At 50, Jackson seemed to be on the verge of making an improbable but spectacular comeback. In preparation, he threw himself into an exhausting rehearsal schedule. But as we now know, the concerts never took place.?

Within three months of the announcement, Jackson was found dead at his Los Angeles home. The death was ruled a homicide and his personal physician, Conrad Murray, was of involuntary manslaughter in 2011. He had Jackson a lethal dose of propofol, a powerful anaesthetic. Jackson, the public soon found, was also a habitual user of painkillers such as OxyContin and Demerol.

In 2019, an HBO documentary, Leaving Neverland, featured graphic by two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who alleged Jackson abused them as children. A less publicized claim followed when five members of the Cascio family, longtime friends of Jackson, that Jackson groomed and abused them over decades, beginning when they were children. Jackson¡¯s estate quietly the accusers $2.5 million.

Would a middle-aged Jackson, apparently scarred by the unproven accusation, beleaguered by debt and at least 12 years past his peak, be offered a lucrative assignment in London and sell out? It¡¯s not unthinkable, but fanciful just the same. Like film producers, concert promoters would tend to treat even lightly-soiled A-listers with caution. AEG Live, the prospective promoters of the London ¡°This Is It!¡± concerts, as they were called, would probably not have taken the gamble; in the event the promoters were well insured. 

Would Jackson have lived?

Paradoxically, the #MeToo environment could have saved Jackson¡¯s life. Were promoters disinclined to book him and record labels reluctant to offer contracts, he would have been forced to adjust his profligacy and restructure his debts. He still had income from his valuable investments in music publishing.

Perhaps he would have yearned for the buzz of live music and the entertainment industry in which he had been involved since he was six. Yet he would have had the support and comfort of his three children, growing into adolescence, around him (all three children are now in their 20s). He might still have relied on pharmaceuticals to get a night¡¯s sleep, but not the intravenously administered nightly cocktail that ultimately killed him.

So, would Jackson have survived in the #MeToo climate? In a professional sense, no. He would have been quietly ushered toward showbiz oblivion, living ¡ª probably to the present day, when he¡¯d be 67 ¡ª and remembered as a great but seriously flawed megastar. But he would have remained alive. The memory of the scandals would surely have receded, the music endured and the image of the prodigy turned global icon might gradually have eclipsed lingering suspicions.

Instead, his unexpected death froze the argument in place. Neither vindicated nor condemned, Jackson remains suspended between genius and tormentor, a figure whose legend is inseparable from the perhaps unanswerable questions that still surround him.

[Ellis Cashmore is the author of .]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post Would Michael Jackson Have Survived in the #MeToo Era? appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Rohan Khattar Singh, 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s Video Producer & Social Media Manager, speaks with Kuber Chalise, a journalist for Nepal Khabar, about the election that has upended Nepal¡¯s political order. At the center of the discussion is the rise of Balen Shah, a 35-year-old engineer, former rapper and former mayor of Kathmandu, who has become prime minister after the Rashtriya Swatantra Party¡¯s sweeping victory. Khattar Singh and Chalise explore why traditional parties collapsed so quickly, why young voters turned so sharply against the old guard and why Nepal¡¯s new leaders now face a harder test in government than they did at the ballot box.

A revolt against the old parties

Chalise presents the result as a long time coming. Nepal¡¯s established parties, including the Nepali Congress and major communist factions, lost public trust over years of corruption, nepotism and poor governance. These parties had once expanded rights and shaped the post-monarchy political system, but they failed to adapt after the 2015 constitution.

That failure created a widening gap between political elites and the public, especially younger voters. Chalise says the old parties behaved as though politics could continue as usual even after their original mission had ended. Public frustration deepened over stagnant leadership, weak performance and a closed political class dominated by insiders.

Khattar Singh places the election in the context of the September 2025 Generation Z protests, which erupted over these frustrations and forced the resignation of then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. Despite the unrest, the subsequent vote was peaceful. Chalise calls the election¡¯s conduct ¡°a miracle,¡± given the violence that preceded it.

The scale of the political shift

The results show how decisively voters turned away from the traditional order. Chalise explains that the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) dominated the lower-house contest and is expected to hold 182 of 275 seats. By contrast, the Nepali Congress fell sharply. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist¨CLeninist), led by Oli, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), associated with former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (or Prachanda), were reduced to minor roles.

For Chalise, the message is clear. The public has handed the RSP a workable majority and the chance to govern for five years, but not a mandate to rewrite the constitution. Because the party lacks upper-house representation, it cannot change the constitutional framework alone.

The result also breaks a longstanding assumption that no single party could secure a stable majority. Khattar Singh notes that Nepal has seen 32 governments in 35 years. Still, Chalise warns that a majority alone is not enough. The real question, he suggests, is majority versus maturity.

Why Shah rose so fast

The discussion then turns to Shah. His rise began with his victory as mayor of Kathmandu, which gave voters a chance to judge his performance. His reputation rests largely on contrast. In a system associated with financial scandals, Shah emerged without a personal corruption case.

That clean image becomes his main political asset. Chalise describes it as Shah¡¯s ¡°USP,¡± the unique selling point that distinguished him from many local leaders facing corruption allegations. He also notes Shah¡¯s unusual style. Unlike many senior leaders, Shah speaks sparingly. Chalise calls him ¡°a very mysterious character,¡± and Khattar Singh notes that this unpredictability can appear both as strength and weakness.

The youth dimension is equally important. Chalise argues that for decades, Nepal¡¯s young people drove political movements but were sidelined once power was distributed. This election reflects a democratic revolt against that pattern, with younger voters choosing to take power through the ballot.

A party with power but no identity

Even after its landslide, the RSP remains politically unsettled. Chalise says the party lacks a clear ideological identity and has not yet held its first convention. Its elected members come from varied backgrounds, including democrats, leftists and some with monarchist leanings.

Its appeal rests on delivery rather than doctrine. Khattar Singh suggests that voters increasingly prioritize jobs, prosperity and competence over ideology. Chalise agrees, noting that the party¡¯s commitment paper points toward liberal economic instincts and a role for the private sector, though he stops short of calling it ideologically defined.

That ambiguity creates risk. If the new government performs, it may dominate Nepal for years. If it fails, support could collapse quickly. From a political science perspective, Chalise says, the RSP is ¡°not yet a party.¡± It must evolve while governing.

The real test starts now

The conversation concludes with the challenge ahead. Khattar Singh points to Nepal¡¯s difficult geography, limited state capacity and dependence on India and China for trade and energy. Nepal cannot insulate itself from regional instability or global shocks.

Chalise agrees that foreign policy may prove decisive. Nepal¡¯s next government must navigate shifting regional dynamics and domestic expectations simultaneously. Shah¡¯s nationalist symbolism, including the ¡°Greater Nepal¡± map seen in his office, adds uncertainty. Chalise returns to the same point: Shah is unpredictable, and whether that becomes an asset or liability depends on how he governs.

For now, voters have rejected the old political class and chosen youth, anti-corruption politics and the promise of delivery. But protest energy and electoral success are only the beginning. The real test starts with governing.

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Separating dependency from addiction

This distinction is crucial. Over the past three decades, social scientists have increasingly preferred the term dependency to addiction because it implies reliance without necessarily involving the biophysical changes that render an individual unable to function without a substance. A person may be dependent on shopping, sex, gambling or even social media and yet retain the capacity to stop; willpower, however strained, remains in force.

Addiction, by contrast, denotes something altogether more demanding: a condition in which repeated exposure produces physiological changes that diminish or even override volition. At that point, willpower alone is no longer sufficient. A heroin user, for example, doesn¡¯t simply choose to continue using; their body itself has adapted to the drug in ways that make cessation profoundly difficult.

Yet the distinction is usually forgotten. ¡°Addiction¡± has migrated from the clinic into everyday language, where it¡¯s used to define practically any activity repeated with gusto ¡ª even habitually eating chocolate. The conflation of dependency and addiction has consequences: What was once a term reserved for conditions involving physiological dependence and withdrawal has been repurposed to capture patterns of behavior that are, at source, voluntary, even if strongly incentivised.

Medicalization steps in

Not all habitual behavior is suspect. Many recurrent practices, like attending church, for instance, are undertaken routinely and even ritualistically, without fresh deliberation on each occasion. Yet they¡¯re widely regarded as beneficial, meaningful and socially valuable. So, habit, in itself, is not pathology.

This is not merely linguistic drift; it reflects a deeper transformation in how we understand human conduct. As medical sociologist William C. Cockerham , health and illness are not simply biological facts but are shaped by social organization and institutional authority, especially that of the medical profession. Over time, behaviors once regarded as routines, preferences or even vices have been reclassified as conditions requiring diagnosis and possibly treatment. The expansion has been incremental, almost imperceptible, but its cumulative cultural effect is immense: Medicine now lays claim to areas of life that would once have been considered far beyond its remit.

Earlier critics such as and warned of precisely this development. Writing in the 1970s, they argued that medicine was extending its jurisdiction beyond disease into the management of everyday behavior. At the time, such concerns appeared overstated. After all, the medicalization of conditions such as alcoholism, depression and anxiety brought undeniable benefits: stigma was reduced, sufferers were encouraged to seek help, and treatments ¡ª sometimes pharmacological ¡ª became widely available.

Few would wish to reverse these gains. In particular, athletes prone to mental health conditions were emboldened to talk openly about them, feeling no more shame than they would about a cruciate ligament injury.

But success has brought unintended consequences. The more effective medicalization has been in rendering suffering visible and treatable, the more tempting it has become to apply the same model to behaviors that do not share the same underlying characteristics. The analogy between physical and behavioral conditions was initially a useful heuristic; it has since hardened into equivalence. We no longer recognize that certain patterns of behavior resemble addiction; we say they are addictions.

Gambling vs social media ¡°addiction¡±

Consider gambling. Once understood as a form of risk-taking or recreation, it was always known to become excessive, even ruinous. Today, it is routinely diagnosed as a disorder. Yet close examination of gamblers¡¯ own accounts suggests a more complicated picture. Far from describing themselves as helpless or compelled, many interpret their gambling in terms of anticipation, strategy and reward ¡ª both intrinsic and extrinsic. They understand the risks and persist not because they can¡¯t stop but because the activity itself is experienced as meaningful and pleasurable. The label ¡°problem gambler¡± is applied mostly when losses accumulate; when fortunes reverse, the same behavior attracts admiration, not diagnosis. The barrier between pathology and normality, in other words, is contingent on context.

This reveals a tension at the core of contemporary medicalization. If a pattern of behavior is deemed pathological primarily when it leads to undesirable outcomes, the diagnosis risks becoming retrospective: It¡¯s a way of explaining failure rather than identifying disease. What¡¯s presented as compulsion may, in many cases, be persistence in the face of risk, sustained by the intermittent rewards that make activities such as gambling so thrilling and attractive.

The same logic supports the claim that social media is addictive. Platforms such as Instagram and YouTube are undoubtedly designed to capture attention. They lead users through cycles of anticipation and reward (likes, comments, new content) that encourage repeated engagement.

But repetition, even intense repetition, is not proof of addiction. It¡¯s proof of reinforcement. Users return time and again because the experience is satisfying and because participation is embedded in the social environments they belong to. What seems to outsiders to be solitary behavior is, in reality, social interaction in the 21st century. To disengage is not simply to exercise willpower; it is, in many cases, to withdraw from a network of relationships, information and recognition.

Remember, ¡°social media addiction¡± doesn¡¯t appear as a formally recognized disorder in standard psychiatric classifications such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). That absence reveals a great deal: Courts and those cavalierly using the term ¡°social media addiction¡± are effectively referencing a medical condition that lacks clinical recognition.

Decisions and diagnoses

Equally striking is how rarely young people themselves are taken seriously in this debate. Parents, clinicians, policymakers and now courts speak with confidence about the harms of social media, often without reference to the experiences of those who use it most. Research, including large-scale studies such as , suggests a more shaded reality: Young users are typically aware, reflexive and capable of articulating both the rewards and risks of their online lives. The vast majority do not experience their engagement as detrimental, but as integral to their social life: This is just the way they communicate nowadays.

None of this denies that online harm exists. Some users, particularly younger and more vulnerable ones, may experience anxiety, distress or diminished wellbeing as a result of their online interactions. But harm alone is not a sufficient basis for medical classification. The critical question is whether such patterns of behavior are better understood as disorders of the individual or as features of a social world in which digital interaction has become not only commonplace, but fundamental.

The recent legal judgments against technology companies suggest that the response is increasingly being framed in medical terms. By accepting the language of addiction, courts risk reducing a social phenomenon to a clinical condition, one that implies compulsion where there may instead be choice, habit and human agency. The consequences are not trivial. Once behavior is defined as an addiction, responsibility shifts from user to platform and potentially to government.

[Ellis Cashmore is a co-author of .]

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Foucault believed Western society had grown stagnant due to bureaucracy. In Tehran in 1979, he saw what he called the birth of a ¡°¡±, a rare moment of collective revolt in which a nation attempted to shed its old identity and reinvent its soul. While Foucault was mesmerized by the collective revolt, critics argue that he focused on the drama of rebellion. This article explores that fundamental tension: how a thinker dedicated to unmasking the mechanisms of oppression could so passionately embrace a movement that, shortly after his writings, established a rigid, absolutist theocratic system.

An unlikely convergence

Pairing Iranian Supreme Leader and Foucault seems unusual at face value. Yet they intersected at a decisive moment in 1979, a historical juncture where political Islam hijacked the Iranian revolution, transforming a national event into a global phenomenon.

Today, as the Iranian theocratic regime faces pressure, interest in this case has grown again. To understand this interest, we must briefly revisit the history that forged this connection. At the time, Foucault¡¯s influence among the Liberal-Left intellectual circles of  Europe was at its zenith. As Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi¡¯s fall approached, Foucault was contracted with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera to cover the Iranian revolution. 

The pillars of Foucault¡¯s illusion

Foucault visited Iran twice, first in September 1978, after which he visited Khomeini in his exile near Paris. He returned to Iran in October. During his second visit, Foucault¡¯s reports were met with a mixture of shock and loathing by the West, in stark contrast to his immense popularity among Khomeini¡¯s supporters at Tehran University, who translated his articles and plastered them on campus walls.

Foucault centered his analysis on the concept of ¡°political spirituality.¡±?He sought a form of politics rooted in the organic beginning between man, religion, and politics ¡ª a connection he felt Modernity had severed. After the failed in France and disillusionment with the Soviet model, Foucault sought alternatives. He saw in the ¡°anti-imperialist¡± discourse of the Iranian movement a way to overlook the specificities of Islamism in favor of a spiritual alternative.

Foucault drew parallels between the 16th-century?Anabaptist?movement in Europe and 1970s Iran, seeking an ¡°inspiring alternative¡± for a Western audience. His reading of Khomeini proved deeply flawed. In??(1978), Foucault described Khomeini¡¯s role in the Iranian revolution, ¡°It is the same confrontation … between the master of the kingdom and the saintly man, the man of the armed power and the luckless exiled, the tyrant against the man who stands bare-handed and is cheered by a people.¡±

He portrayed Khomeini to Western readers as a legendary, unarmed figure representing a love for politics and spirit, divorced from the evils of ¡°modernity.¡±

The historical blind spot

Foucault¡¯s dismissal of Khomeini¡¯s political history revealed a profound lack of contextual scrutiny. He turned a blind eye to the specific social and political alternatives that Khomeini had already outlined in his published books. Furthermore, he seemed unaware that Khomeini was imprisoned in his youth for opposing land reforms that reduced clerical power.

Foucault also overlooked the broader political context. Namely, the of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, who foreign powers such as the US and Britain sought to remove due to his nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. All of this historical data did not deter Foucault¡¯s support. It appears he was either entirely ignorant of this history or chose to exist solely within the ¡°illusion of the present moment.¡± In his reports, one finds a man ¡°defending¡± a project he had long been searching for. : ¡°But one can also dream of another movement … a movement that would allow the introduction of a spiritual dimension into political life … so that it does not become the obstacle to spirituality, but its container, its opportunity.¡±

Without hesitation, he produced texts in a romantic style reminiscent of Greek epics to describe a volatile political event. He treated the revolution as a kind of epic transformation while framing it as a search for spiritual renewal in political theory. 

Criticisms and excuses

Some scholars defend Foucault.??(2009) argues that Foucault acted as a journalist, suggesting his errors stemmed from a lack of information. However, his writings suggest something deeper: the use of Iran as a validator for his own political theories. This obsession led him to ignore other actors in the revolution. He wrote:

When I walked through the streets of Qom and Tehran, I carried the question ¡°What do you want?¡± in my head … I avoided asking this question of professional politicians … instead, I had long discussions with religious leaders, students, and intellectuals.

While Foucault focused on the ¡°spiritual¡± actors, he ignored the fact that 70% of a strategic city like Isfahan was controlled by workers¡¯ councils (shuras), and that in Kurdistan, peasants were reclaiming land. The political Islam movement hijacked the terminology of the Left (e.g., ¡°Republic of the Poor¡±), a reality Foucault systematically ignored.

The dream of the Iranians or the dream of Foucault?

Foucault believed the world and revolutionary theory were at a ¡°point zero.¡± He saw the Iranian revolution as a new path beyond modernity. He formulated this as a question: ¡°What is the mystery of this search for something that we ourselves have forgotten since the Renaissance and the great crises of Christianity: a political spirituality?¡±

He relied on the assurances of clergy members who claimed that ¡°water and land¡± would belong to no one and that minorities would be respected. Yet, within a month of the revolution¡¯s success, the political spirituality manifested as the invasion of Kurdistan and the execution of ¡°immoral¡± women, none of which appeared in Foucault¡¯s reports. Foucault was not pursuing the Iranians¡¯ dream; he was pursuing his own troubled dream. At the end of his , he wrote: ¡°I can already hear the French laughing. But I know they are wrong.¡±

In the end, his involvement in the Iranian Revolution became a cautionary episode. It showed how theory can distort judgment, and history has treated this moment with both criticism and irony.

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Shock, contradiction and shifting goals

Munsing describes a political landscape caught off guard. Across party lines, Americans are struggling to reconcile Trump¡¯s long-standing ¡°America First¡± rhetoric with a decision to initiate war. Drawing on conversations from the campaign trail, he notes that voters are not only surprised but deeply confused about the rationale behind the conflict. ¡°I think the first thing is just shock across the political spectrum,¡± he observes.

The absence of clear objectives compounds that confusion. Singh presses Munsing on what the administration is trying to achieve, and the answer remains elusive. From regime change to nuclear containment to vague notions of victory, the stated goals appear to shift constantly. Munsing points to statements from the White House suggesting that Trump alone will determine when Iran has ¡°unconditionally surrendered,¡± dismissing the idea as ¡°ridiculous.¡± Without a stable definition of success, the war risks replicating the strategic drift seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the endgame remained perpetually undefined.

Miscalculation and the risk of escalation

The discussion then turns to how the conflict began. Munsing argues that Trump¡¯s decision-making reflects a pattern of boundary-testing behavior. Early military successes, particularly a high-risk operation in Venezuela, may have created a false sense of confidence. According to this view, the administration expected a rapid, decisive outcome in Iran ¡ª perhaps even regime collapse ¡ª without fully accounting for the complexity of the region.

This miscalculation now presents a dangerous dilemma. If the US withdraws quickly, it risks signaling failure. If it escalates, it may become trapped in a prolonged and costly conflict. Singh raises the possibility of deploying ground troops, a scenario that would dramatically raise the stakes. Munsing considers such a move unlikely but politically catastrophic, arguing that it would face overwhelming public opposition and significantly increase casualties and financial costs.

The broader concern is that the administration lacks a coherent strategy. Without clear objectives or limits, the conflict could expand in unpredictable ways, drawing the US deeper into a region already defined by volatility and competing interests.

Domestic repercussions and the terrorism calculus

Beyond the battlefield, Singh and Munsing examine how the war could reshape domestic politics. Recent lone-wolf attacks in the US complicate public sentiment. While such incidents may initially push Americans toward disengagement, a confirmed state-sponsored attack linked to Iran could have the opposite effect.

Munsing explains that a direct threat to the homeland would likely trigger a ¡°rally around the flag¡± response, increasing support for the war despite broader skepticism. This distinction underscores how fragile public opinion remains. Americans may oppose the conflict in principle, but their stance could shift rapidly under the pressure of perceived national danger.

Simultaneously, the lack of a clear initial justification for the war weakens the administration¡¯s position. Without a compelling narrative, it becomes harder to sustain public support over time, especially if the conflict drags on or casualties mount.

Congress, executive power and institutional decline

Singh highlights the constitutional role of Congress in declaring war. Munsing argues that lawmakers have increasingly ceded this power to the executive branch. ¡°It certainly feels like we¡¯re moving to a Cesarean presidency,¡± he says, pointing to a long-term trend that has accelerated in recent years.

This shift reflects deeper institutional problems. Congress, once protective of its prerogatives, now appears reluctant to assert itself. Munsing criticizes a culture of performative politics in which legislators prioritize media presence over substantive lawmaking. With approval ratings hovering around 17%, public confidence in the institution has reached strikingly low levels.

The Iran war exposes these weaknesses. Despite the absence of formal authorization, Congress has struggled to respond decisively. For Munsing, this moment represents both a failure and an opportunity: a failure to uphold constitutional responsibilities, but also a chance to reassert them, if lawmakers choose to act.

Distrust, disillusionment and fragile hope

Singh and Munsing close with a broader reflection on declining trust in American institutions. From prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to economic crises and elite scandals, many citizens now see a system that operates by different rules for the powerful and the public. Some have even labeled the conflict the ¡°Epstein war,¡± viewing it as a distraction from unresolved controversies involving political and economic elites.

Munsing warns that this perception could lead to two dangerous outcomes: widespread disengagement from civic life or a turn toward more extreme political solutions. Both, he suggests, would undermine the foundations of American democracy.

Yet he also identifies tentative signs of renewal. Public frustration is driving greater political engagement, from town hall participation to grassroots campaigning. On the campaign trail, he finds that a majority of voters are willing to engage seriously, even across party lines. This rising involvement, combined with pressure on elected officials, could create an opening for institutional reform.

Whether those ¡°green shoots¡± take root will depend on whether political leaders respond to public demand for accountability and clarity. As Singh and Munsing make clear, the stakes extend far beyond the Iran war itself, touching on the future of American governance in an increasingly unstable world.

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Markets, Trump and the limits of geopolitics

Mehra identifies Trump as the common thread running through much of the recent turbulence. In her words, he is ¡°dismantling the old order without your knowing what comes next.¡± Yet she draws a clear distinction between macro-level disruption and market behavior.

Looking at 50 years of data, from the Gulf Wars to September 11 and the US invasion of Afghanistan, she argues that stock markets tend to recover from geopolitical shocks within six to 12 months. Unless a country is directly involved in conflict, markets historically ¡°shrug it off.¡± The notable exception is when major commodity producers are involved, as in the Russia¨CUkraine war, where energy and commodity prices experience sustained impact.

In 2025, another dynamic was at play: extreme market concentration. The so-called Magnificent Seven US tech stocks once again drove the bulk of S&P 500 gains. In 2025, roughly 43% of the index¡¯s performance came from this narrow group, down from more than 60% in 2023 and 2024 ¡ª but still highly concentrated. Even within that group, only three or four stocks accounted for most of the gains. The average stock, Mehra cautions, has underperformed.

The AI boom and the profitability question

Much of the recent market enthusiasm centers on artificial intelligence. Mehra remains cautious. History, she argues, shows that transformative technologies do not automatically translate into investor profits.

Automobiles and aviation reshaped the 20th century but were ¡°a graveyard of companies¡± from an investor¡¯s standpoint. The early Internet era followed a similar pattern. Infrastructure firms such as Global Crossing laid undersea cables that still carry global data traffic today ¡ª yet the company itself went bankrupt.

Mehra¡¯s concern with AI is less about its transformative potential and more about capital intensity and monetization. Massive data centers, rapidly depreciating hardware and soaring talent costs create enormous upfront investment. Meanwhile, she points to data suggesting that usage of some AI platforms fell 60¨C70% during school holidays. This implies that student adoption, not high-margin enterprise demand, drives a significant portion of current traffic.

Even more worrying, she notes, is financial engineering. Some large technology firms avoid placing AI-related debt directly on their balance sheets by routing it through smaller entities that build and finance infrastructure separately. The result is systemic leverage that may be underappreciated.

India¡¯s growth versus market reality

Turning to India, Khattar Singh challenges the dominant narrative that India is rising while the West stagnates. Mehra acknowledges that India¡¯s headline GDP growth remains among the highest globally. Yet the composition of that growth raises questions.

Manufacturing as a share of GDP has fallen to roughly 12¨C13.5%, near its lowest level since the 1960s. Tourism has not yet surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Foreign direct investment and foreign institutional flows have slowed, and India recently recorded a capital account deficit for the first time in two decades.

Most importantly, Mehra stresses that macroeconomic growth does not guarantee market performance. China offers a stark example: Between 2007 and 2023, Chinese GDP expanded more than sixfold, yet its equity market only recently surpassed its 2007 peak. High growth does not automatically translate into shareholder returns or sufficient job creation.

Dedollarization, crypto and the myth of safe havens

On dedollarization, Mehra has revised her earlier skepticism. While reserve currencies rarely change quickly, she believes the pace of diversification has accelerated as confidence in US institutions comes ¡°under question.¡± Even so, she doubts that China¡¯s renminbi will replace the dollar outright. Instead, she anticipates gradual diversification toward a basket of currencies ¡ª euro, Swiss franc, Japanese yen ¡ª alongside gold.

Cryptocurrencies, in her view, are legitimate assets but not true currencies. Extreme volatility makes them impractical for pricing goods or serving as stable stores of value. With drawdowns of 70¨C85% occurring multiple times, she recommends limited exposure ¡ª 2% to 5% of a portfolio at most.

Gold fares no better under scrutiny. Over a 50-year period, gold has been more volatile than equities. After peaking in 1980, it took 27 years to reclaim that high. Its steady rise in Indian rupee terms, she explains, reflects currency depreciation rather than intrinsic stability.

Machines, bias and the discipline of data

At First Global, Mehra has adapted to what she sees as a structural shift in markets. In the 1990s, the edge lay in privileged information. Today, regulation ensures simultaneous disclosure. The advantage now lies in analysis.

Her firm uses machine learning systems to screen more than 20,000 securities globally, examining numerous factors without human emotional bias. Machines reduce randomness and cognitive error ¡ª insights drawn in part from behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman¡¯s work on decision-making. Yet she insists on a ¡°human overlay¡± to design models and interpret outputs. Technology is a tool, not an oracle.

Mehra will not speculate on what single trend could make or break markets in 2026. ¡°Risk is always something you didn¡¯t see coming,¡± she says, recalling how The Economist failed to flag Russia¨CUkraine as a major geopolitical risk just weeks before war erupted in 2022. For her, disciplined data checks matter more than bold predictions. In an age of narrative excess, humility may be the most valuable asset of all.

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Today¡¯s situation, with the loss of Venezuelan energy support, is somewhat reminiscent of Cuba¡¯s experience with the devastating economic impact of the Soviet Union¡¯s in the 1990s, and it may be tempting to draw comparisons between the two periods. At that time, the Castro regime was forced to confront similar challenges: material shortages, isolation and civil unrest. However, today¡¯s reality is characterized by new factors: the physical absence of Fidel Castro and Ra¨²l Castro; the widespread use of social media; resumed flights to and from the US since 2016; and increased liberalization and warmer diplomatic relations.

No matter how valuable ending the longest-running communist government in the Americas may seem, US President Donald Trump seems to be trying out a new for foreign intervention: decapitating regimes while keeping the establishment intact. This model clearly prioritizes business opportunities over democratic values. However, it¡¯s not only uncertain whether it could be applied to Cuba, but also whether this is actually the plan. All of which makes it particularly difficult to imagine what could happen next.

Historically, international observers have oscillated between fascination and outrage towards Communist Cuba. In the early years of the revolution, this fascination was understandable. Cuba was a potent for activists in the 1960s and for the global civil rights movement. However, as the revolution shifted toward military autocracy rather than democratic ideals, the initial romanticism faded. This group of observers, largely comprising European baby boomers who rebelled against post-World War II imperialism, has seen its initial fervor tempered by time. Reflecting a broader evolution in leftist thought, they continue struggling to reconcile Cuba¡¯s social achievements with its authoritarian political regime and the continuous, increasing and deepening impact of the US trade on these revolutionary ideals since 1962.

The Cuban Revolution officially began with the 1953 of the Moncada Barracks by a group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro, who was relatively unknown at the time. The uprising aimed to overthrow ¡¯s illegitimate military dictatorship and the systemic corruption and poverty it fostered. Specifically, the movement demanded economic independence from US imperialist interests and the restoration of political liberty through an armed uprising of the working class.

After the attempted coup, Castro, a trained lawyer, was tried and imprisoned by Batista¡¯s regime. During this trial, he delivered an iconic defense speech that ended with the famous words, ¡°History will absolve me.¡± Indeed, he was pardoned after 22 months due to a general amnesty and went on to lead Cuba for life. However, total absolution by history is doubtful and yet to come.

After his release from prison, Castro adopted July 26 ¡ª the date of the attack on the Moncada Barracks ¡ª as the name of his revolutionary movement: the Movimiento 26 de Julio. By January 1, 1959, the rebels, including the iconic Comandante Ernesto ¡°Che¡± Guevara, had successfully overthrown the dictatorship. In response to Batista¡¯s pro-US regime, the revolutionaries had campaigned with slogans such as: ¡°Cuba s¨ª, yanquis no!¡± (¡°Cuba yes! Yankees no!¡±) and ¡°Yanquis, vayanse!¡± (¡°Yankees, go away!¡±).

Shortly after Castro and his group took control, the US intervened militarily in 1961, but was defeated at the Bay of Pigs. This defeat solidified the first self-proclaimed communist revolution in the region, which would become the longest-standing regime of its kind in the Western world. It is now approaching its seventh decade.

The revolution as an unfinished process

After years of rumors that he was dead and that his government was keeping him alive to prevent a political collapse, Castro died on November 25, 2016, at the age of 90. Following Castro¡¯s illness in 2006, his younger brother Ra¨²l assumed provisional power. By 2011, Ra¨²l had solidified his position as leader of both the presidency and the Communist Party. This appointment communicated a strong stance on hierarchy and kinship. Yet, Ra¨²l ultimately delegated governance in 2019, eight years later.

Miguel Mario D¨ªaz-Canel Berm¨²dez, Cuba¡¯s current president, is a direct descendant of the Castro regime, having been personally appointed by Ra¨²l Castro. Born in Villa Clara Province on April 20, 1960, D¨ªaz-Canel was born one year after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Although D¨ªaz-Canel holds onto the revolutionary ideals of his predecessors, he is facing unprecedented times. Amid escalating instability and unrest, he called for dialogue on Monday, March 23, while not capitulating on the Revolution, stating:

We don¡¯t want war; we want dialogue. But if that space isn¡¯t provided, we are ready. I tell you this with the deep conviction that I hold, which I have shared with my family, that we would give our lives for the Revolution.

D¨ªaz-Canel said this in a conversation with Pablo Iglesias, the Spanish founder of the left-wing political party Podemos, and former vice president of Spain. Iglesias arrived in Cuba on March 24, 2026, as part of the humanitarian convoy. There, he D¨ªaz-Canel on behalf of his media organization, Canal Red. With the support of figures like Iglesias and British politician Jeremy Corbyn, the Nuestra Am¨¦rica mission delivered 20 tons of aid, including solar panels, to help alleviate the island¡¯s severe energy crisis.

The convoy¡¯s name invokes the legacy of (1853¨C1895), the ¡°Apostle of Cuban Independence¡± and a foundational figure in the development of the nation¡¯s identity. In his influential 1891 essay, Nuestra Am¨¦rica, or ¡°,¡± Mart¨ª contended that Latin American nations should develop governance systems grounded in their unique social realities instead of imitating foreign models. By warning against ¡°the giant of the north¡± and calling for cultural sovereignty, Mart¨ª¡¯s manifesto remains a powerful symbol that the modern mission seeks to reclaim. In fact, both D¨ªaz-Canel and Iglesias reiterated Mart¨ª¡¯s accusations that the US is responsible for Cuba¡¯s structural problems of the past several decades, that the 1959 Revolution eliminated ¡°all miseries and evils.¡±

The blockade of all trade and diplomatic relations with the US, coupled with the nationalization or expulsion of the private sector, did not stop the steady stream of tourists, primarily from Europe, from arriving on the island. Despite the gradual disenchantment of many, a sense of mysticism about Cuba as an oasis outside of capitalism began to emerge.

For as long as I can remember, I have heard the same tropes in stories by foreigners who visited the island in the ¡®90s and ¡®00s. One recurring theme was the idea that Cuba was ¡°suspended in time.¡± People often mentioned the old cars, which were rare in other urban landscapes. In a dimmer note, Fidel, who had once that Cuba would no longer be the ¡°brothel of the Western Hemisphere,¡± later used that same imagery in a 1999 speech, infamously , ¡°Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world.¡±

In his 1965 work, , Virgilio Pi?era famously referred to ¡°the curse of being completely surrounded by water.¡± Writing from a first-person perspective while sitting in a caf¨¦ in Havana, Pi?era captured an insular reality that visitors, often distracted by the island¡¯s tropical allure, could never truly grasp. This metaphorical curse reveals a less paradisical side of the nation, grounding its international isolation in a bittersweet reality.

Pi?era¡¯s sentiment mirrors the devastating truth in Fidel¡¯s later remarks about the island¡¯s ¡°cultured¡± prostitutes. Both the poet¡¯s verses and the leader¡¯s words acknowledge a reality that, despite its high ideals, remains trapped by its circumstances. Pi?era¡¯s image remains profoundly expressive today, as Cuba faces renewed media attention and political turmoil, making this sense of cursed isolation feel as relevant as ever.

Following a period of diplomatic warming that began in 2015, US¨CCuba relations shifted from a hopeful path toward greater understanding to extreme hostility under the Trump administration. By 2025, Marco Rubio, a former senator from Florida and Cuban American, had become one of the loudest advocates for this shift. A Gen Xer, Rubio belongs to the first generation of diaspora children who have historically migrated to Miami. This group has traditionally been fiercely opposed to the regime they fled.

Today, many of them see the current moment as the opportunity they¡¯ve been awaiting for decades. Hispanic outlets Univision and Telemundo Miami have the various demonstrations, many of which were led by Cuban activist Ram¨®n Sa¨²l S¨¢nchez, who on the exile community at the iconic Cuban restaurant to support the protests occurring on the island. The Free Cuba Rally, which through Washington, DC, featured slogans such as ¡°Trump¡± and ¡°Cuba Next!¡± calling for US action.

Founded by Cuban exiles in Valencia, Spain, in 2014, the news outlet Cibercuba has been a relevant source that divulges information from inside the island. It has extensively covered the protests of the last few weeks against constant outages and the growing precarious situation. According to Cibercuba, there have been pot-banging , fires started in the middle of roads, and people taking to the streets regardless of the significant military and police presence.

Though their demands are diverse and sometimes conflicting, protesters in Cuba and the diaspora are united in their response to the same lack of coherence embodied by an unfinished revolution and an authoritarian regime. Unlike the diaspora, protesters on the island largely US intervention. They call for freedom and anti-authoritarianism, yet they never question their own autonomy. They correctly believe that their future is in their hands, more on immediate needs than on challenging the entire economic system. Despite its flaws, the revolution¡¯s accomplishments should be recognized, such as ensuring that and remain for all. 

Taking all of this into account, it¡¯s reasonable to conclude that Cuba is experiencing its most severe economic and social crisis in decades. Nevertheless, D¨ªaz-Canel has taken a defiant position against Washington, considering the one-party political system and the decades of cultural and structural revolution that sustain him. Even as it prepares for potential American aggression, the Cuban government refuses to negotiate its political system and its national sovereignty.

Perspectives from the Island: the case of Beto

I traveled to Cuba for the first and only time in January 2018, spending the first eight days of the year in Havana. I flew from Miami, a route that had only direct service in December 2016. I remember the other passengers, most of whom were not tourists, rushing to stand up as soon as the plane landed. Their urgency seemed to reflect the extraordinary experience of taking a direct flight after decades of needing to take indirect routes, such as via Canc¨²n, or of being unable to travel at all due to visa or the risk of state retaliation for those in exile.

Coming from a place where unlimited internet access was the norm, the intermittent service during that short trip felt unusual. Access was a luxury; you had to go to a hotel or somewhere with Wi-Fi, or buy a $5 data card that lasted 30 minutes. For the majority of Cubans, this was a significant expense, as average monthly salaries among the lowest in the world. According to a 2025 , this digital divide persists as Etecsa, the national telecommunications enterprise, continues to restrict and raise the price of monthly data top-ups.

This atmosphere of restricted access and slow change makes the current shift in US foreign policy feel like a long-awaited opportunity. However, the notion of a tipping point once again reveals its tantalizing and procrastinatory nature. To understand how this pivotal turning point was perceived beyond the official headlines, I reached out to my Cuban friends living abroad.

One of them is Beto, a chef and owner who has lived in Madrid for over 20 years. When he responded on Monday, March 16, he was visiting family in Cuba, 30 minutes outside Havana. He stayed in touch throughout his week-long trip, and I am fortunate to be able to share some of his insights here.

Beto began his testimony by recounting how difficult it was to move around the island. His brother had to buy fuel on the black market just to pick him up from the airport, paying between eight and ten dollars per liter. Beto could only afford this expense because of his life in Spain. This corroborates reports of a severe decline in fuel supply, despite Beto¡¯s testimony that money was circulating. 

On the drive from the airport to his hometown, which usually takes place on a busy highway toward Havana, there were no other cars. In a video he , the empty horizon could be seen in both directions, interrupted only by a car that eventually passed them. According to Beto, the airport itself also felt empty. His Iberia flight, designed to carry over 200 passengers, landed with only 60 people on board. The rental lots were empty, yet filled with cars no one was renting. ¡°Havana doesn¡¯t even have fuel for the planes,¡± Beto explained. He noted that his flight had to detour to the Dominican Republic just to refuel for the return trip to Madrid. He added that due to limited resources, tourism and travel for non-urgent matters have become extremely difficult these days.

This perception of a shortage is indicative of a broader energy crisis in which access to electricity depends on having the right technology. This takes us back to Diaz-Canel¡¯s recent with Pablo Iglesias. Overall, the Cuban President¡¯s tone was optimistic. Diaz-Canel mentioned that even amid an intensified blockade, Cuba is on the path to energy sovereignty. He highlighted the importance of solar panels, electricity generated from sugarcane fields and the increased use of electric motorcycles for various services, describing all of it as a form of ¡°creative resistance.¡±

Overall, listening to Beto confirmed both Diaz-Canel¡¯s description of advancements in renewable energy and the fact that it is insufficient. During the most recent national blackout, Beto said that only people near power plants or with solar panels were able to power their electronics. This was the case in his father¡¯s village. To cope with the heat, he said he used a battery-powered fan for up to five hours at a time in his father¡¯s house. A tropical storm on Monday night also helped cool the air.

Based on what he saw and experienced on this trip, the state-run food supply system, which used to equitably distribute food despite its imperfections, has nearly vanished. A new reality has emerged in which private enterprises import food and sell it at higher prices than in Madrid. Beto also shared photos of solar energy kits and kerosene stoves being sold on social media. The flyers provide contact information and state that payments must be made in cash in US dollars, and that delivery is available for an additional cost.

In addition to the photos of electronics, Beto shared a video with me depicting the unique blend of eras and economic systems found on Cuban streets. In the video, bicycle-powered taxis rattle past an old Polish Fiat, an iconic Soviet-era car, that has been modified to include a solar panel on its roof. The car was parked outside a bar called T¨®matela Fr¨ªa, where reggaeton music played from a speaker. During my short visit in 2018, I noticed that music, mostly reggaeton, was always playing on the streets. Seeing that it¡¯s still the norm gave me a sense of reassurance that other reports didn¡¯t.

Throughout the week, Beto and I were able to communicate with each other more than twice a day, albeit intermittently. He relied on airport Wi-Fi or Etecsa offices for internet access. There, you can pay 40 cents an hour for a connection to their Wi-Fi, which is powered by generators. When he described this situation to me, he paused and said it was all a ¡°strange, high-speed transformation caught between socialism and capitalism.¡± As citizens increasingly take to the streets, Beto¡¯s ambiguity sums up the reality of existing in the long-term middle ground between the two systems that polarized the second half of the 20th century.

As proof of the exceptional circumstances due to intensified protests and government dissent in the days prior, Beto sent a picture showing military helicopters circling overhead and armored vehicles moving through his father¡¯s neighborhood. While the townspeople attempt to maintain a facade of normalcy by selling everyday goods in private stalls, intermittent electricity and the shadow of helicopters serve as constant reminders that the country is transforming into something entirely unknown.

Against this backdrop, Beto told me that when people in Cuba talk about the importance of money from family members abroad, they often ask each other, ¡°?T¨² tienes fe?¡± While ¡°fe¡± means ¡°faith¡± in English, it actually stands for Familiar en el Extranjero, or ¡°family member abroad.¡± This refers to receiving remittances from places such as Miami or Madrid. The double meaning of faith speaks to the concept of the hybridity of the two systems that Beto mentioned earlier. The anecdote also conveys a sense of truth when considering that faith may be the only unifying factor among the different positions, regardless of the indeterminate results.

The curse of being completely surrounded by water

The curse of being completely surrounded by water condemns me to this caf¨¦ table. If I didn¡¯t think that water encircled me like a cancer, I¡¯d sleep in peace. In the time that it takes the boys to strip for swimming, twelve people have died of the bends … The eternal misery of memory. If a few things were different and the country came back to me waterless, I¡¯d gulp down that misery to spit back at the sky … The uniform of the drowned sailor still floats on the reef. It makes you want to jump out of bed and find the main vein of the sea and bleed it dry.

¡ª The Whole Island, Virgilio Pi?era

In closing, I would like to return to Virgilio Pi?era¡¯s poem and his words: ¡°The curse of being completely surrounded by water.¡± In the poem, he also speaks of finding ¡°the main vein of the sea and bleeding it dry,¡± building to a crescendo of intensity. Following the success of the Revolution, Pi?era was one of many intellectuals who initially supported the movement. However, the revolutionary promise soon turned into systematic censorship. Pi?era was arrested at the beginning of a period of state repression that intensified throughout the ¡®60s and ¡®70s.

In his posthumous memoir, (1993), Reinaldo Arenas, a writer of a later generation, explains how he, like Pi?era, was imprisoned because of his homosexuality and his stance as a dissident public writer. The title, Before Night Falls, refers to how he had to write by the last rays of sunlight while hiding in parks as a fugitive. It wasn¡¯t until 1980 that the Cuban state stopped homosexuals criminal figures, and the Ley de Ostentaci¨®n Homosexual was repealed.

However, prosecutions due to sexual orientation didn¡¯t stop overnight (it was not until 2019 that a new constitution was approved in Cuba that included regarding gender rights, and it wasn¡¯t until 2022 that same-sex marriage was legalized). Arenas was able to flee during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift , which began when a bus crashed into the Peruvian embassy, causing a massive refugee crisis. To be granted permission to leave through Mariel, Arenas had to ¡°¡± his homosexuality. He eventually settled in Miami and then New York, where he died by suicide while awaiting death from AIDS in 1990. In his suicide note, he explicitly blamed Fidel Castro for his death.

It¡¯s hard to reconcile heartbreaking stories like Arenas¡¯s with the continued loyalty of other prominent figures. As I have striven to convey in this piece, we find ourselves in limbo, torn between disillusionment and faith. Silvio Rodr¨ªguez, a renowned musician, exemplifies the latter. The government recently him a Kalashnikov rifle in recognition of his loyalty. Interestingly, in his popular 1993 song ¡°,¡± or ¡°the fool,¡± Rodriguez sang that deciding what the world deems foolishness may also be a stance: ¡°Could it be that foolishness was born with me?/The foolishness of what now seems foolish/The foolishness of embracing the enemy/The foolishness of living without a price.¡±

On March 16, the day I spoke with Beto, Trump escalated his rhetoric, he could ¡°take Cuba in some form¡± and do as he pleased there, adding that such a thing would be ¡°an honor.¡± Once again, when we bring together the rhetoric of Rodr¨ªguez and Trump, we feel as though we are traveling in time. As the ¡°giant of the North,¡± in Mart¨ª¡¯s words, confronts Cuba, the island remains caught between the remnants of communism and an emerging informal capitalism. Cubans are resisting creatively, as they always have, even when struggling in the context of an accentuated decades-long blockade. Currently, their system of governance is holding strong, albeit while being cornered in their search for a path forward.

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The views expressed in this article are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post All Eyes Are on Cuba, and No One Knows How Its Future Could Play Out appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Origins and ideological foundations

Singh begins by explaining the Muslim Brotherhood¡¯s historic context. Founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, the organization emerged during an era of imperial competition and political upheaval across the Middle East. Farahat argues that its roots extend further back, linking its formation to late 19th-century geopolitical strategies that sought to mobilize religious identity for political ends. She cites a German memorandum from 1882 that declared, ¡°We will unleash Muslim fanaticism that borders on insanity.¡±

For Farahat, the Brotherhood is not simply a reformist or revivalist movement but a synthesis of ideological, political and militant strands aimed at establishing an Islamic caliphate. Singh introduces the conventional distinction between al-Banna¡¯s gradualism and later radical thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb, often seen as the intellectual architect of modern Islamist militancy. Farahat rejects this divide, arguing that Qutb did not transform the Brotherhood¡¯s ideology but rather systematized it. In her view, the movement¡¯s foundational texts already contain the elements later associated with militancy.

Structure, strategy and global expansion

Singh and Farahat then turn to how the Brotherhood organized itself and expanded beyond Egypt. Farahat emphasizes the creation of the ¡°Secret Apparatus,¡± an early paramilitary wing that she describes as central to the movement¡¯s structure. She portrays the organization as combining hierarchical discipline with ideological cohesion, enabling it to operate across national boundaries.

Singh probes the extent to which the Brotherhood influenced or intersected with other Islamist movements. Farahat argues that many modern Sunni militant groups emerged from or were shaped by Brotherhood networks, pointing to historical overlaps in membership and ideology. This claim remains contested in broader scholarship, however.

Farahat also highlights the role of thinkers such as Syed Abul A¡¯la Maududi, the South Asian Islamist intellectual who reframed Islamic political concepts in modern terms. She suggests that Maududi¡¯s reinterpretation of governance and sovereignty helped make Islamist ideas more accessible, providing a vocabulary that later figures, including Qutb, could build upon.

Power, governance and the Morsi moment

Singh shifts the focus to the Brotherhood¡¯s brief period in power following Egypt¡¯s 2011 uprising. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi¡¯s administration marked the first time the movement governed through electoral legitimacy. Singh raises the key question: Was this an opportunity for the Brotherhood to evolve into a democratic political actor, or did it reveal deeper ideological constraints?

Farahat argues that the movement¡¯s time in power exposed its underlying agenda. She dismisses its use of democratic language as tactical, describing it as ¡°putting lipstick on a pig.¡± She feels the Brotherhood functions most effectively when operating outside formal power structures, where it can balance political participation with ideological mobilization.

Singh counters by noting structural constraints, including tensions with Egypt¡¯s military, judiciary and entrenched state institutions. Did the Brotherhood fail because of its own ideological rigidity? Or because it could not successfully navigate Egypt¡¯s political system?

International networks and contested narratives

The final part of the discussion explores the Brotherhood¡¯s international presence. Singh raises reports of internal divisions, such as the alleged split between London- and Istanbul-based factions. Farahat dismisses these as largely superficial, arguing that the organization maintains centralized ideological control despite operating across different regions.

She also identifies countries such as Qatar and Turkey as key hubs, while noting that Western states have at times provided space for Brotherhood-linked networks to operate. Singh situates this within a broader geopolitical context, where states balance security concerns with strategic interests.

While the Brotherhood has, in some contexts, presented itself as a nonviolent political actor, Farahat insists that such claims are inconsistent with its internal discourse and historical trajectory. Her argument reflects one side of a deeply polarized debate about political Islam and the boundaries between activism, governance and militancy.

An unresolved legacy

Singh and Farahat close by reflecting on the Brotherhood¡¯s future. For Singh, the key issue is whether movements rooted in ideological certainty can adapt to pluralistic political systems. Farahat remains skeptical; meaningful transformation, she says, is unlikely without fundamental change.

Nearly a century after its founding, the Muslim Brotherhood continues to shape political debates across the Middle East, not only as an organization but as an idea that remains contested, influential and unresolved.

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The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Podcasts: The Muslim Brotherhood Explained ¡ª Origins, Ideology and Global Influence appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

The Houthi dilemma

Jeunot frames the discussion around a fundamental tension shaping Houthi decision-making. The movement is strengthening itself amid fragmentation in South Yemen, using the lull to consolidate territory, recruit fighters and rebuild capacity. Yet it faces a strategic choice between ideological alignment with Iran¡¯s ¡°Axis of Resistance¡± and its own domestic priorities.

That tension is not abstract. The Houthis must decide whether to demonstrate commitment to Iran by joining the war or instead focus on expanding control toward resource-rich areas such as Marib in Yemen. Jeunot states, ¡°The Houthi are for the moment at a crossroads in terms of objectives.¡± Entering the war may reinforce their ideological legitimacy, but it could also undermine their long-term economic and political stability.

Fighting capacity and ideological momentum

Lotus shifts the focus from strategy to motivation. While previous US and Israeli strikes degraded Houthi military infrastructure, she argues that capability alone does not determine action. The group¡¯s ideological drive remains intact and may even outweigh material constraints.

She emphasizes that the Houthis are deeply embedded in the broader narrative of resistance aligned with Iran and Palestine. As she puts it, ¡°They¡¯re very passionate about being part of the Axis of Resistance.¡± That passion, however, exists alongside practical constraints, particularly the risk of reigniting conflict with Saudi Arabia.

Jeunot reinforces this point by describing the Houthis as a system sustained by conflict. War is not simply an activity, but a mechanism of governance and legitimacy. A prolonged peace could weaken the movement internally, making the presence of an external enemy central to its survival.

Geography, Saudi Arabia and strategic restraint

Carvajal grounds the discussion in geography and political reality. Yemen remains divided, with the Houthis controlling a smaller share of territory but the majority of the population. Meanwhile, South Yemen has shifted into Saudi-managed security control following the displacement of UAE-backed forces in late 2025.

This balance helps explain the Houthis¡¯ current restraint. Despite their alignment with Iran, they have not targeted Saudi positions or escalated attacks in the Red Sea. For Carvajal, the key lies in their relationship with Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Houthis may see more value in securing a stable arrangement with Saudi Arabia than in immediate participation in a regional war.

This creates a paradox. The group maintains ties with Iran while preserving flexibility to negotiate with Gulf powers. The result is a calibrated ambiguity that allows the Houthis to remain relevant without overcommitting.

Chokepoints and the global economy

Khattar Singh introduces the broader strategic stakes by focusing on the Bab el-Mandeb strait. If the Houthis were to disrupt this maritime corridor, the consequences would extend far beyond the Middle East, affecting global trade, energy flows and major economies such as China and India.

This raises the possibility that Iran itself may be exercising restraint. Rather than encouraging escalation, Tehran may prefer to keep the Bab el-Mandeb as a latent threat. A simultaneous disruption of both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea would approach systemic economic shock.

The panel also considers whether Israel might attempt preemptive strikes on Houthi positions. Lotus warns that such a move could trigger a domino effect, pulling Yemen fully into the conflict. Jeunot, however, questions the strategic logic of opening another front, noting that escalation in the Red Sea would draw in a far wider set of international actors.

Yemen as a long-term battleground

The discussion closes with a broader reflection on Yemen¡¯s enduring strategic importance. Carvajal situates the country as a historic crossroads, long contested by regional and global powers. Its position along critical trade routes and its complex internal divisions make it both valuable and volatile.

Looking ahead, the panel diverges on whether the war could redraw borders. Lotus sees a shifting geopolitical landscape in which rapid changes in alliances could produce unexpected outcomes. Jeunot is more cautious, arguing that sovereignty remains deeply entrenched and that meaningful territorial change would require large-scale ground operations rather than air campaigns.

What the panel agrees on is the scale of the conflict¡¯s potential trajectory. Yemen is not yet the central battlefield, but it is no longer peripheral. If the Houthis enter the war, the consequences will not be contained locally. They will reverberate across trade routes, regional alliances and the global economy, transforming an already dangerous conflict into something far harder to control.

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The views expressed in this article/video are the author¡¯s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s editorial policy.

The post FO Live: When Will the Houthis Join the War to Support Iran? appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.