Politics

None of It Worked

When the coronavirus pandemic first began to surge, I posited a thought on one of the podcast episodes in those early days. How could the American system possibly confront a pandemic? At the time, China was nearing 10,000 confirmed...

Watching A Crisis Unfold in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s security forces confronted protesters over the weekend, raising alarms of more instability in the Asian island nation. The country is facing a cascade of crises. What began as an economic crisis has now devolved into a political...

Backgrounder to The China-Taiwan Threat

China flew a record-breaking number of military flights into Taiwanese airspace to open the month of October. The unprecedented 150 flights included bombers, anti-submarine planes, and a clear intent to threaten Taiwan with force from China. Taiwan responded by...

Evergrande, Our Upside-Down World, and the Shape of Things to Come

Readers who give even the most minimal levels of attention to financial news and headlines recognize the name Evergrande from the last week's headlines. (Not to be confused with Ever Given, the massive boat that blocked the Suez Canal...

You Should Know About the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)

Crises are beginning to accumulate in Ethiopia. It is only a matter of time before one explodes in a significant regional and perhaps global catastrophe. While prior posts have looked at the country's growing threat of civil war, a...

Middle East Water Crisis

When most people think of the Middle East, they imagine sand dunes and rolling deserts. While that is true of a nation like Saudi Arabia, it is not an accurate image for the broader Middle East. The great rivers...

Nightmare Scenario

"Between election day and January 20, 2021, Trump’s last day in office, COVID19, killed another 160,000 Americans. Trump said almost nothing about the virus in those ten long weeks. The country would surpass 300,000 new cases and 4,000 deaths...

A Crowd of Emergencies in Myanmar

The emergencies in Myanmar are piling up and pushing the country toward devastating ends. The 2021 coup took shape as the pandemic was surging across the globe. Half a year later, the effects of these two crises are compounding...

Ethiopia Disintegrating – Background and Explainer

From the Tigray Crisis to the current spread of regional ethnic violence throughout Ethiopia, this backgrounder and explainer on the crisis in Ethiopia explains what is happening and how we got here. Violence is spreading in Ethiopia, increasing concerns...

Water Protests in Iran, And the Shape of Things to Come

In my 2019 book How the World Ends, I laid out three central crises: food, water, and population, that would serve as the foundation for a convergence of crises and chaos over the next half-century. The repercussions of these crises...

Latest News

The Truth About Open Christian Debate

Our social media age enjoys finely crafted “gotcha” moments. You have likely seen them in your algorithm-guided feeds. An...