On 23 July 2026, the EU adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia as part of its efforts in the war it is waging against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Measures in the package include a price cap on Russian oil of $44 per barrel, permission for member states to sell confiscated oil, and a visa ban for Russian combatants. This brings the cumulative total of sanctioned individuals and entities to a record 3,100. The EU, however, finds itself in a quagmire, with me

A Foreign War That Feels Domestic For nearly three years, the conflict in Gaza has dominated American media outlets. Local governments have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire, while New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested if he travels to New York to address the United Nations. Divisions have emerged within Congress over funding for Israel, and some political candidates have made a point of refusing to a

The winds of change are now sweeping across Iceland. The island has finally come to terms with the volatile nature of current geopolitics as dictated by Trump’s vulgar realpolitik, Putin’s aggressive historical-political revisionism and China’s growing forays into the international arena. In response, the Icelandic Samfylkingin government is now planning to restart EU accession talks, which have been suspended since 2013. The process was abandoned in 2013 due to a standst

CPAC UK ran this past July 16 – a disconcerting day for many, including myself. Having worked on a start-up magazine for some time with a media veteran – and resultantly used to a diverse but nevertheless objective array of politicians’, professors’, and authors’ viewpoints – I had been surprised to learn of my partner’s contacts attending CPAC, whom he swore weren’t all right-wing loons, and even more shocked to learn he knew people speaking on the main stage, too. I was a

My first impression of Panama City’s Casco Viejo was one of distortion. It was only possible to catch fragmented glimpses of its whitewashed walls through reflections cast out by skyscrapers lining the waterfront. Panama City’s old town seemed awkward and incongruous, positioned in the shadow of five-hundred-foot-tall buildings. Its pristine streets lay relatively abandoned, disconnected from the chaotic metropolis barely one kilometre away. This sense of dislocation and frag

On July 14th 2026, under the scorching Parisian sun, French military troops marched down the historical Champs Elysées. Unusually, this year the military parade was opened by the thirty five countries making up the Coalition of the Willing, flying over and marching down the avenue in front of their respective leaders. What followed was one the biggest parades ever witnessed on Bastille Day, with 6.700 troops, 98 aircrafts, 31 helicopters and 315 vehicles mobilised, simultaneo

Ninety miles separates Key West from Havana; across this strait, these two nations could not be more different. On one side, a superpower that throws away 40% of its food. On the other, a country that has spent thirty years perfecting how to grow food on scraps. Not the Cuba of cable news blackouts and empty shelves, but rather the Cuba that has been here before and knows exactly what to do about it. Three decades on, this same reflex is being asked to ignite again, for a dif

It seems an energy crisis is once again being manufactured, not only by war but by deliberate policy. The Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for a fifth of the world’s traded oil, is shut once again. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level since 1983. Russia, the world’s second-largest diesel exporter, has banned all diesel exports. And Europe heads into the winter with the lowest gas reserves in 15 years, while paradoxically purchasing record volumes of gas f

One of Donald Trump’s many pledges to the American electorate was to end United States involvement in what he coined ‘forever wars’. And yet, weeks past have seen further strikes on Iran by the US – a response to attacks on vessels in the Straits of Hormuz, despite a 60 day interim agreement between the two countries being signed in June. Does this conflict reflect the waning geo-political power of America, rather than the tyranny of the regime in Iran? The relationship betwe

The NATO Ankara Summit, which took place over 7-8 July, returned the future of Europe again to the forefront of discussion. When considering the possibility of a reduced US presence in NATO, one trend that has arisen is a turn towards ‘minilateralism.’ Indeed, Galip Dalay of Chatham House wrote that “minilateral models point toward the architecture of a post-American European security order.” Minilateralism consists of small coalitions of states which possess shared threat pe

The Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) so-called 2024 Presidential Campaign "autopsy" analyses the decisions and actions that led to Kamala Harris's defeat. It is far from a serious analysis of what went wrong in 2024, and who was truly responsible for that defeat. The report discloses five key points demonstrating the disconnect between the Democratic leadership and the political reality they faced. The first consists of blaming then-President Joe Biden (2021-2025) for no

“FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY”, a marking found on the M18AI Claymore, a Vietnam era mine, reads the shirt of team USA star catcher Cal Raleigh. Robert O’Neil, the Seal Team leader who claims to have killed Osama Bin Laden, was called in to give a motivational speech. This was the United States at the 2026 World Baseball Classic – a sporting event recast as a military operation. Team USA was now exporting the same hard power at the WBC that had led to the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro

Shortly after October 7, New York Governor Kathy Hochul visited Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. On her trip the Governor stated, “The community feels, in Israel and in New York, that my going during these times will be the most significant symbol of their importance to us than anything else we could do.” However, the Governor’s office maintains no jurisdiction over foreign policy. New York State is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, with approximately one in fiv

Global security alliances have enjoyed a resurgence in relevance as regions the world over come under ever-increasing geopolitical strain. In the shadow of this global uncertainty, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) will convene its 2026 summit in Türkiye on 7-8 July 2026. Originally confined to the Euro-Atlantic domain, catering to traditional security, the alliance’s footprint has assumed a global dimension. India, though outside its formal structure, remains a p

‘The only thing stopping Trump from monetising Greenland is that you can’t put it on a mug. Yet’ Donald Trump has never been a man who does things quietly, or particularly logically. Chaos is the policy. Disruption is the strategy. By the time he had set his sights on Greenland, most of the world had long stopped being surprised by what came out of his mouth; and yet, for the 56,000 people who live there, this particular fixation landed differently. At some point in 2019, Nuu

Artificial intelligence has ushered in a new age of geopolitics. The unveiling of Anthropic's Mythos AI model in April may one day be remembered as a historic turning point. But this is not a technology story. It is a geopolitical one. How the technology is being distributed, and how Washington has responded to its unveiling, tells us a great deal about the world that is emerging. New geopolitical lines are being drawn, and Mythos may prove to be the ink. What is it exactly?

“Oh no, we shouldn’t talk about politics. It’s not worth getting involved”. That is the reply of an Ama (Granny) to a question about the “Nine-in-One” local elections taking place in November later this year. You can understand where Ama is coming from – she has lived through a prolonged “White Terror” period of martial law, where talking politics could cost one their life. For the young people in the modern, democratic Taiwan, the opposite is now true. “If we allow the KMT

Donald Trump did not engineer the decline of American soft power, though he would probably trademark it if he could. Instead, he is one of its clearest consequences and biggest brands. Long before he entered the White House, faith in the American model was already eroding at home and abroad. Trump emerged from this decline and has spent his presidency accelerating it. After failing to secure a Nobel Peace Prize last year, Trump petulantly wrote to Norwegian Prime Minister Jon

Boards of Canada, a Scottish electronic music duo, are soon to release their first LP in 13 years. ‘Inferno’, will be available through Warp Records and conventional streaming from the 29th of May. The duo released their first full length LP, ‘Music Has the Right to Children’, in 1997, an album which has since been described by Simon Reynolds as ‘the greatest psychedelic album of the ‘90s’. ‘Music Has the Right to Children’ represented a crystallisation of what is now recogn

It feels like only a short while ago that everyone watched Kamala Harris attempt what many saw as an impossible balancing act: to defend an increasingly unpopular president while somehow preparing to inherit the party. Now, JD Vance may be realising his vice presidency comes with the same trap; the parallels have become difficult to ignore as we approach 2028. Both Harris and Vance have served under unpopular presidents. Both are expected to publicly defend every administrati