I am late to this tragic and depressing news. In 1982 the editor kindly let me take home their actual paper archives for 1914-18 for my undergraduate thesis research (returned safely!) www.rte.ie/news/regiona...

Attending a conference at the National University of Ireland building on Merrion Square in Dublin was a long reunion of sorts for me. In the Spring of 1979 I sat my matriculation exams there, and started at NUI Maynooth that Autumn.

Great to catch up with folks in Ireland researching Ukraine today. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ireland, Larysa Gerasko kicked things off by laying out the stakes. @GeraskoLarysa

“The pious fraud has been the treatment of choice for most European leaders.. : don’t confront the madness, go along with it and try to bend it back towards sanity” Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez is the one European leader who understands the folly of persisting with the pious fraud”

Price of our dependence on fossil fuels is becoming clear yet again www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

The new free substack by Marlene Laruelle is worth checking out. laruelle.substack.com?r=382u1&utm_...

There is a case for geopolitics hastening clean energy (not climate catastrophe). Price spikes & chaos from war in fossil-fuel producing regions helps make it.

Great write up of the tremendous work by my colleague @cashman.bsky.social showing the absurdly huge cost that Europeans are paying for hitching their wagon to US LNG instead of going all-in on renewables.

Shpend Kursani & Eiki Berg are holding their Tartu Summer School on Secessionism on Cyprus this year. Applications now open. skytte.ut.ee/en/news/unit...

Just got my copy of Richard Sakwa's new book on the Russo-Ukrainian War, which I read in manuscript form. Its well worth reading (its impressively detailed) but there's lots to argue about. www.rienner.com/title/The_Ru...

Good news! www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

I told Politifact that Senator Murphy saying missile strikes alone never bring regime change was TRUE. www.politifact.com/factchecks/2...

My op ed on the 4th anniversary of Russia's invasion. canadiandimension.com/articles/vie...

My Guardian op-ed on the Paris Declaration & what it does not mean. News have moved on fast but still holds, I think. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... @carnegieeurope.bsky.social @carnegieendowment.org @zois.bsky.social @nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social

“Layered onto this economic unraveling is a deeper failure of governance, including an environmental and infrastructural crisis that threatens the very habitability of the Iranian plateau.”

Tooze is particularly good in this episode and gets it exactly right: not oil, not geopolitics but fascist cosplay hyperreality linking violent spectacles from Caracas to Minneapolis. @onesandtooze.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Sobering analysis of transatlantic woes by @sophiabesch.bsky.social and @jyshapiro.bsky.social and some sage advice re alternatives. But, do European status-quo elites have the courage to face, let alone abandon, an abusive relationship?

The best of the Venezuela columns so far because it sees the fascism, kleptocracy & end times dystopian background of the moment. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Can folks please stop using the phrase "19th century imperial thinking" like its all soo old. Studied the 20th century? Remember the US invasions of Panama, Iraq? The ongoing US support for the manifestly imperial policies of Israel today? How our culture thinks about the planet & outer space?

"... and Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere" (nervous smile). Well, well, if that isn't my old friend Environmental Determinism rearing its ugly head once again, preceded by a mysterious Word Salad, and covered in a soupçon of Hemispheric Sauce? The more you debunk it, the more it fights back.

Wow, geopolitical trolling by the US Department of State is now a thing. 😩

“If we have the right to be aggressive in our own backyard,” said Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution, “why can’t they?” But, arguable, Trump is *following* Putin’s lead: “they do it so why don’t we” New transgressive behavior taker not maker. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/w...

What I’ve told reporters asking for my reaction to Venezuela.

Seizing territory is a fascist passion. Trump’s desire will end NATO. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Well that was very last century. Oil, our oil (under their soil for some reason), is the elixir of future prosperity.

“We’re going to make sure that country is run properly” Imperialist cliche bingo

We are presented with the cheapest of melodramas in the most cliched hyperbolic terms by the shallowest of people.

Wild swings between Venezuela and Washington DC by Trump. Near abroad & inner abroad intimately connected in his head. “We’ve superseded the Monroe Doctrines..”

And 1) it's no good news for the world. Haushofer being who he was. 2) countries traditionally free from major geopolitical anxiety must start to worry

Excellent piece by Julian Borger. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Do you want your geopolitical flexes with or without moralism? Our premium attention economy plan offers basic pyrotechnics and standard Epstein distraction plus convenient domestic law extraterritoriality. It offers exciting hemispheric boss energy that others will admire. Risks apply.

Mamdani’s inauguration, and all its speakers, is a real tonic.

MTV was a big deal when I first arrived in the US, and we’d gather to watch in the graduate dorm lounge. I remember the premiere of U2’s New Years Day video well. But this with Rik Mayall has got to be one of my favorite videos. 👇🏼 youtu.be/tK-vUY6erQU?...

"It’s useless to call for civil debate as “politics in the right way”; politics has moved beyond words. Where there are words at all, they are but a way to express a meme, a vibe, an aesthetic."

Lots of rich ideas about the affective structures that animate Anglo-American politics here. Deserves to be widely read. @ajsecor.bsky.social @benandersongeog.bsky.social www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/777472...

Materialist re-write: “The {reunification} BOILING of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable” {because of our emissions} www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

In case you missed it, a recording of our Nov 10 event with Laura Field on her book Furious Minds is now available on our YouTube channel. Check it out! @lkatfield.bsky.social @libankerdc.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5h...

Short new book on Trump's rhetorical skill at mobilizing dark passions, drawing upon classical political theory: Anger, Fear, Domination by William Galston (Yale UP)

Nighttime at the 40 Foot.

The “joys of dehumanization.” Helpful conversation on the jokey sadism of this awful White House.

In the magical kingdom of MAGA World there’s a Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace. ✌️ www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Ireland’s green fields signify a country locked in a high emission way of life. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

I will be speaking on “Fascist Passions: MAGA & Washington DC” at Trinity College Dublin next week. Unfortunately the length of the talk keeps growing…

Fair play to the women artists refusing to allow their music to be the soundtrack to fascist right stripping videos. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...

Fascist passion. Definition: pleasurable infliction of violence against fantasmatic ‘enemies.’ Illustration: 👇🏼

Carl Schmitt admirers, Heritage and officials in the Trump administration. No doubt that Trump thinks politics as friend/enemy. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

“It is important to support the negotiation process ... and crucial to support the principles on which Europe stands – that borders cannot be changed by force; that war criminals must not escape justice; & that the aggressor must pay fully for the war he started.” www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

A work of service to public discourse on an issue that has scarred this island for a hundred years. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Abuser-in-chief. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/u...