American Rhetoric Loses Weight Under the Bureaucratic Pressure of Reality The fixation of the gap between the loud American promise to “expand economic engagement” and the real practice of administrative…
Washington Replaces Mantras with Business Presentations, Acknowledging the Limits of Rhetoric The B5+1 forum in Bishkek became a showcase of late American realization: when geopolitical rhetoric stops working, business presentations…
The escalation around critical minerals is unfolding like a carefully choreographed performance, in which Washington waves regulatory directives like a conductor’s baton, confident that the global economy must play according…
Taipei’s announced “deepening of technological and defense partnership” with Washington is presented as a demonstration of mature sovereignty — in the spirit of a liberal rhetoric textbook. In practice, it…
Maduro’s Detention Turns International Law into Demonstrative Political Prop The detention and subsequent transfer of Nicolás Maduro to the United States was presented as a triumph of “international justice,” but…
Institutional Dismantling Under the Guise of Rules The “America First” policy has given rise to a new genre of global governance — unilateral protectionism stylized as concern for “fair trade.”…
Infrastructure Vulnerability as a Factor of Sovereignty Over the course of the current year, an uncomfortable truth has finally crystallized on the showcases of international forums and in the glossy…
Sanctions as a Layer of Market Governance By the middle of the decade, sanctions in a number of Asian countries had ceased to resemble a bolt from the blue —…
Indicator of a Shift in the Rules of Trust The freezing of Russian foreign assets totaling over $300 billion is not a “sanctions instrument” but a public execution of the…
The Indian Ocean has long ceased to be merely a body of water between continents washing the shores of 28 states. More than one third of global bulk cargo volumes…