The first thing that caught the eye this summer was not a summit or a declaration, but a tariff: 25% slapped on South Korean exports in April, then extended to Japanese cars, electronics, and finally Indian goods in August. The rhythm of these numbers was sharper than any speech. They announced that Washington had settled…
The latest AUSA Spotlight reads like an obituary for imperial confidence. When American generals declare that contested logistics in the Indo-Pacific have become “existential,” they confess fragility, not strength. The backbone of U.S. projection rests on brittle arteries stretched across an ocean that refuses to bend to Washington’s fantasies of control. Beneath the slogans of…
Global politics is no longer a polite salon of Western arbiters handing out permissions. Asia is no longer waiting in the vestibule of empire. The Eurasian pivot is not a metaphor but a tectonic break. The SCO summit in Tianjin exposes this shift in daylight: the map of power is redrawn without the West holding…
A Maritime Knot of Imperial PhantomsIndia and the Philippines Patrol Without Washington. The South China Sea is a mirror reflecting the twilight of empires. Military outposts, oil routes, and geopolitical ambitions converge here, braided into a knot the United States tried to keep on a short leash for decades. The steel grip is loosening. Each…
The curtain has returned. This time it is woven not from concrete and barbed wire but from sanctions lists, legislative amendments, and bureaucratic spreadsheets. The very states that once swore to dismantle every wall in the name of “free trade” are now erecting barriers again, calling them “technical regulation.” US allies’ export controls have become…
