Analysis of global rivalries, statecraft, and historical parallels shaping today’s world order.
The Role of Blockchain in Supply Chain Management is reshaping global trade with unprecedented transparency—but visibility doesn’t always equal fairness.
Blockchain’s role in supply chain management becomes clear when products begin their journey. Digital ledgers promise clarity and traceability—but underneath lies a struggle over who controls what we see, and whether transparency equals accountability.
In medieval Europe, a crown conferred legitimacy. In the twentieth century, a suit and title sufficed. Today, authority might wear cat ears, wield a ring light, or speak through a pseudonym known only to Discord followers. The age of digital personas has scrambled the symbols of legitimacy, forcing us to ask: when an avatar speaks, who—or what—commands our trust?
Avatars of Authority: How Online Identities Recode Power Read More »
A decade ago, Apple’s market capitalization quietly surpassed the GDP of Denmark. Today, more than a dozen corporations command revenues larger than most national economies. Their decisions—on wages, logistics, and data flows—shape the daily lives of millions across borders. Yet these choices are not subject to democratic vote, only to shareholder approval. In this asymmetry lies a growing reality: multinationals function less as companies and more as shadow states.
Boardroom Borders: When Multinationals Become Shadow States Read More »
At first glance, the twenty-first century seems light-years from the medieval battlefield. Our wars are tracked by satellites, waged by drones, and broadcast in real time across the globe. Yet the political patterns beneath the technology feel startlingly familiar. Strip away the stealth jets and encrypted networks, and what remains is a logic of vassals, tribute, and proxy skirmishes that would be legible to a baron in the thirteenth century.
The Return of Empire: Why 21st-Century Wars Look Medieval Again Read More »
In many American cities, the absence of transit is as defining as its presence. Whole neighborhoods sit miles from reliable bus routes or rail lines, effectively cut off from jobs, schools, and health care. These “transit deserts” are not mere inconveniences; they are engines of inequality, silently scripting who has access to opportunity and who remains stranded.
Transit Deserts: Mapping the Hidden Inequities of Mobility Read More »
At dawn in the thirteenth century, townsfolk might wake to find the supply lines cut, the castle ringed with siege engines, and the sky thick with flaming arrows. The besieged did not always fall to conquest; more often they starved, their walls breached not by force but by attrition. Today, the walls are orbital, the arrows are lasers or jammers, and the castle in question is a satellite. The battlefield has shifted from earth and stone to low Earth orbit, but the logic of siege endures.
The Siege of Satellites: How Orbital Skirmishes Echo Medieval Warfare Read More »
In the first months of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, one striking fact was not about science at all: more than 80 percent of doses had been secured by fewer than a dozen wealthy nations. Meanwhile, health workers in parts of Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia waited months, sometimes years, for the same protection. This was not a mere logistical hiccup. It was a vivid reminder that syringes and stockpiles can be wielded as instruments of power just as surely as oil pipelines or aircraft carriers.
Sovereignty in Syringes: When Health Aid Becomes Political Weaponry Read More »
In a cramped London townhouse during the Blitz, the exiled leaders of Poland drafted communiqués to a homeland they could not reach. Across town, the Free French plotted sabotage with a sense of urgency that only distance could sharpen. Governments-in-exile, half-marginal and half-essential, occupied a paradoxical space in the 20th century: powerless on the ground yet potent in the realm of symbols, propaganda, and international legitimacy. Their presence reminds us that sovereignty does not always reside where soldiers march.
Empires in Exile: How Governments-in-Exile Shape Wars Without Borders Read More »
At the turn of the 20th century, the Balkans were derided as “the powder keg of Europe.” Great powers pressed their claims through proxy conflicts, alliances shifted with dizzying speed, and small states found themselves pawns in a larger imperial game. Today, in the fractured spaces of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and even the Pacific, that old pattern has returned. Fragmented states are once again laboratories for global ambition, where the maneuverings of giants are tested on the fragile sovereignty of the small.
The New Balkans: How Fragmented States Become Testing Grounds for Global Powers Read More »
For decades, the U.S. dollar has served as the backbone of global commerce — the unit of account for oil, trade, and debt. Yet in the shadow of intensifying sanctions regimes, a parallel architecture is emerging. From Moscow to Tehran to Beijing, nations sidelined from the dollar system are stitching together alternatives: bilateral currency swaps, crypto-based settlements, and state-backed digital coins. What was once fringe experimentation is hardening into shadow currencies — and with them, the outlines of new financial empires.
Shadow Currencies: How Sanctions Create New Financial Empires Read More »
