And this is just the tip of the iceberg of recent crimes against humanity in Sudan. news.un.org/en/story/202...

If Maduro is overthrown, what stops regime loyalists from teaming up with cartels to seize control over chunks of Venezuela? And what would prevent a very violent civil war between various armed groups for control of the drug routes? No new government could assert control over the entire country.

It's telling that this is a third-tier story for BBC and doesn't even show up on the main NY Times website. May we live in interesting times.

Since it's that time of the year (when NHL fans have hope for their team based on its preseason performance), I decided to run some correlations between performance in the preseason and the ensuing season. The correlation is 0.08. A perfect correlation is | 1 |. For the graphically inclined:

Important lesson for ruling party elites who believe there's nothing to fear as long as they remain loyal to those in power. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/w...

Since Putin is basically acting as if we're still in the 19th century in terms of foreign affairs, it's strange that he doesn't apply a 19th century logic to his current war. Back then, if you wanted to achieve maximalist goals, you needed to occupy the enemy capital.

Nominal GDP (in trillion $): Sweden: 0.62 Norway: 0.50 Denmark: 0.45 Finland: 0.30 Iceland: 0.04 Total Nordic: 1.91 Russia: 2.08

Might as well have promised to attack Estonia instead of Ukraine next time.

A lot of Russian actions in the past 3.5 years have been pretty predictable, but if you told me that Russia would suffer ~200k fatalities (about 10 times higher than in the Afghan War) and there would be no publish backlash, there's no chance I'd believe you.

Am I the only one curious how du Plessis, an Afrikaner MMA fighter, has the same last name as the famous French foreign minister, Cardinal Richelieu?

Curious if anyone researched how the widespread adoption of first the television and then social media has allowed authoritarian governments to maintain domestic legitimacy through a more effective form of propaganda than what came before. The internet itself was generally too hard to control.

It's interesting how so many of the anti-migrant rioters (in this case, in the UK) have took part in the same crimes they're willing to riot over when committed by migrants. They share a profile with Islamist terrorists in Europe, who tend to have a criminal record. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Given that the Russian-sponsored far right candidate in France is currently polling at 50% (in a second round match up), I can't imagine how much resources Russia will use to get its candidate into power in 2027. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/e...

BRICS Brazil summit declaration condemns Ukraine’s attacks of Russian infrastructure in Bryansk, Voronezh and Kursk regions. No word of Russian attacks of Ukraine, of course. As if it is Russia that is a victim of Ukrainian aggressive war of expansion

After a lengthy intervention in the Syrian civil war, Russia has now seen three of its allies/key military partners (Armenia, Syria, Iran) get attacked in the past 3 years and provided serious assistance to none of them.

Let's hope Putin doesn't do anything rash, like shooting missiles at Ukrainian cities, kidnap thousands of Ukrainian children, or try to conquer Ukrainian territory. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Even in countries that recently came back from the brink of dictatorship (Poland and South Korea), the parties that enabled the path toward authoritarianism lost at most 10-20% of their previous support. This is in contrast to many communist parties going extinct after the Soviet collapse.

Any professor that bases academic misconduct reports entirely on an an AI detection tool should themselves be written up for academic misconduct. The false positive rate for these tools is huge. Not to mention that basic decency requires a more thorough investigation. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/s...

What a depressing story from every angle. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/w...

Horrifying stories coming out of Sudan, Congo, and Syria, but each barely made the news cycle. Given the current priorities of the international community (to the extent it still exists), the likelihood anything will be done is near zero. If anything, things will get worse before they get better.

It was obvious from very early in the Kursk operation that the attack was a political move with 0 military merit. It's quite likely that this move strongly contributed to Ukrainian defeats in far more strategically important territory. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/w...

Is this the country Western investors want access to? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/w...

What happens when the cartels retaliate? This war will be much harder to retreat from than wars fought thousands of miles away. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The left map shows the parts of Germany with the highest percentage of Syrian refugees. The right map shows public support for the anti-migrant AfD. Something to keep in mind when reading stories that posit a direct link between refugee numbers and support for the far-right.

The DeepSeek news about the cost-effectiveness of technology reminds me of the old joke about NASA:

Not even one whole day into the new year.

Pet peeve: people blaming capitalism for things that preexisted capitalism. You think inequality, poor social mobility, discrimination, etc. didn't exist under feudalism or manoralism? When these issues exist throughout space and time, it seems the problem is much deeper than the economic system.

Sounds like an "I'm sorry you're upset" apology. www.bbc.com/news/article...

It's tempting to trust (and share) stats that reinforce one's preexisting beliefs. But that's precisely when you should dig into and find the original source. And if there is no original source, heavily discount information from whoever "cited" it. There should be a social cost for misinformation.

A Russian leader spouting anti-Semitic rhetoric is about as surprising as an American health insurance company refusing to cover a needed medical procedure. www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrain...

Curious how someone in jail since 2020 could commit espionage. Russia isn't even trying anymore. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I would heavily discount reports of any agreements between Russia and Syrian rebels. Until the rebels consolidate control over their country, they have a huge incentive to avoid picking unnecessary fights.

Russian response to America's withdrawal from Afghanistan 3 years ago. www.rferl.org/a/afghanista...

Can't think of many successful armed rebellions (not military coups) this side of the millennium (Libya is close, but foreign powers played a huge role). And now there are two (Afghanistan and Syria).

Syrian army command tells officers that Assad's rule has ended, officer says - www.reuters.com/world/middle...

It doesn't look like Syria's regular forces are willing to die for Assad. The real question is what happens when all that's left for the rebels to take are the areas dominated by Alawites and Kurds. Will there be some kind of a compromise or a major bloodbath?

Suggests the end could be nearer for the Assad regime than anyone could have imagined a month ago. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/w...

Live by the foreign sword, die by the foreign sword. Assad had over a decade to consolidate support. Instead, he continued to rely on Russia and Hezbollah, both of whom are quite busy elsewhere.

Russia is starting to construct more concrete plans to prevent pro-EU forces in Moldova from gaining a majority in the 2025 legislative elections. One strategy is already emerging: Moscow is weaponizing Chișinău's dependence on a Transnistrian power plant for its electricity...

The implication of Russia's nuclear weapons being put on full combat alert for the first 2-3 weeks of the invasion is that Putin was expecting a much more devastating Western response. Instead, all he got was moderate sanctions and the delivery of limited types of arms. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Almost 80,000 named Russian soldiers fighting Ukraine war are confirmed dead, according to latest update from joint BBC Russian/Mediazona project that tracks obituaries and other public sources. They estimate identifying about half the actual number. en.zona.media/article/2022...

This is how Russia's economy remains intact despite the ostensibly severe Western sanctions. In the end, the side that wins (between countries with a similar amount of power) is the one with more willpower. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Yet another data point of Russia's invasion of Ukraine making Russia substantially less safe. All this for land that Russia already had significant influence over due to the success of its political proxies. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Interesting piece on the Russian elite expecting imminent American collapse. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/o...

To sustain their offensive in Ukraine, Russian officials are resorting to increasingly aggressive tactics, including manipulation and coercion, to pressure people into signing army contracts. https://buff.ly/3ADgYzI

Here's a list of all Western incumbents who faced an election for their top political position since July 2023 (parties that were in power for <2 years are excluded). Out of 11 incumbents, only 1 (Luxembourg's) saw its vote share increase. Note that the parties spanned the political spectrum.