The Rules of Retaliaton
Israel, Iran, and the End of Strategic Ambiguity 1. Act One: The Unwritten Rulebook For decades, the Middle East has operated under a brutal yet oddly stable formula: provoke, deny, retaliate, and contain. Israel hit targets in Syria. Iran armed proxies in Gaza. The game had rules, unwritten but understood. Strategic ambiguity kept the fire burning, but not too […]
Elegantly Undone: How Democracies Collapse in Silence
“The velvet autocrat doesn’t break laws. He writes new ones.” Democracy, as it turns out, does not need to be shot in the street. It can be chloroformed quietly in its sleep – no blood, no outrage, just the soft hum of constitutional procedure. Today’s autocrat doesn’t wear medals or epaulettes. He wears a party […]
Can the West Still Learn?
The West believed it had history figured out. But the Global South stopped waiting—and started building. Mahbubani doesn’t want apologies. He wants adaptation. A briefing from inside the machinery, when the engine starts to fail.
Nigeria: The Giant That Talks While Others Move
A clear-eyed briefing on Nigeria’s enduring ambition, growing economy, and shrinking strategic relevance—seen through the lens of diplomatic reality.
Is it a New World, or is it just a New Angle?
When we last looked around in January, the second inauguration of Donald Trump already seemed like a significant geopolitical tremor.
The Hidden Costs of Green Technologies
The energy transition is no longer a future vision but a widely accepted necessity. Electric vehicles, wind power, solar panels – the instruments of transformation are already in place. Yet even as the direction is clear, the path forward remains complex. In his book The Rare Metals War, Guillaume Pitron offers a sober and precise look
Ten Years Later: Rise of the Robots Revisited
Ten years after Rise of the Robots, we revisit Martin Ford’s bold predictions about automation, AI, and the end of work. What came true, what didn’t — and why the slow collapse of the middle class might be more dangerous than the sudden disruption he feared. Spoiler: the future didn’t explode. It just stopped knocking.
DiplomacyBites – because diplomacy often bites.
I’ve spent decades in the foreign service. Sat through the briefings. Attended the summits. Listened to the speeches. Written some of them. Watched governments pretend, collapse, reinvent themselves, and repeat the cycle—always with a slogan in hand and a blind spot in mind.
I was never the type to blog. I didn’t post much. Kept opinions to myself. You learn to do that in diplomacy. It’s safer. And let’s be honest—most of the time, it didn’t seem worth the effort. The world didn’t need another opinion.
But then came a shift. Not a revelation. More like a final nudge.
I’m a father of four. My youngest daughter was born late in life—a joyful afterthought, a gentle interruption to a career on autopilot. And suddenly, the silence started to feel like a luxury I couldn’t afford.