INTRIGUE’S LATEST
The global affairs briefing you’ll actually look forward to reading.
Khamenei gone: six big questions from the US-Israel bombing of Iran
In the end, maybe the surprise came not in the attack, but the details, whether… The result? Israel’s opening strike alone wiped out a veritable LinkedIn of names: not just the supreme leader (Khamenei), but also his revolutionary guard boss (Pakpour), defence minister (Nasirzadeh), military chief of staff (Mousavi), and later Ahmadinejad (of “Israel is […]
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, four years on
As Ukrainians today mark their fourth year of defending against a Russian invasion — 11 years if you start the timer from Russia’s seizure of Crimea — peace looks no closer. Why? Putin continues to claim marginal gains at staggering cost: he’s now averaging ~44,000 casualties a month (and rising) in return for 50-100 sq […]
Mexico’s top kingpin is dead, unleashing wave of violence
Wild scenes erupted across Mexico yesterday (Sunday) after special forces killed the country’s most-wanted cartel boss, ‘El Mencho’. Who? After two US jail stints and deportations for trafficking in the 80s, El Mencho worked as a cop back in Mexico before joining the Milenio Cartel as a sicario (hitman), until something big happened: Mexico famously […]
Latest Articles
The US and Iran are back on the brink
The weekend is rolling around, which in recent times has meant one of two things: a) Sabrina Carpenter is about to unveil her latest brand collab, or b) the US is about to launch its latest daring military operation. As much as we’re keen to explore Sabrina’s Pringle-scented Redken hair mist and Dunkin’ x Prada […]
The fight tearing AI and defense apart
News recently broke that the Pentagon had used Anthropic’s Claude AI tool to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Cue the memes about Secretary Hegseth prompting AI with something like “hey Claude, go seize Maduro without US casualties, make no mistakes”. But this was all apparently news to Anthropic itself, which reportedly sought clarification. The AI firm […]
The massive supply chain shortage you didn’t know about
You’d think 2026 already had enough on, but no — someone has gone out and helpfully coined an entirely new genre of Armageddon: not nuclear, not biblical, but supply chain: So what’s driving this impending RAMageddon? Intrigue’s hard-core nerds will forgive us when we casually split chips into three families: First there are the compute […]
The geopolitics of the New Year
The Simpsons has a classic joke where Chief Wiggum scoffs at Chinatown’s claims that those February fireworks are for the new year. The joke isn’t about Chinese New Year, but rather the West’s blissful obliviousness to a festival marked by almost two billion people. So to ensure you can laugh even more smugly at that […]
Stay on top of your world
from inside your inbox.
Subscribe for free today and receive way much more insights.
Trusted by 160,000+ subscribers
No spam. No noise. Unsubscribe any time.
Geopolitics
Why world leaders think the world is “under destruction”
Gone are the days when big thinktank events like the Munich Security Conference (MSC) were the exclusive preserve of tweed-clad IR nerds arguing about great power theory. This is 2026, darn it: the MSC’s Wolfgang Ischinger kicked things off Friday rocking Macron’s trademark aviators, before unleashing a weekend of panels and speeches he branded “Under […]
More Articles
Three surprising election results
We got three electoral surprises Sunday, so let’s explore why each matters, starting in… Newish conservative PM Sanae Takaichi was always going to win, but she’s now got i) a standalone supermajority, after ii) Japan’s biggest single-party victory in post-war history. So… why does this matter? So… what next? Takaichi not only wants to continue […]
The geopolitics of the Winter Olympics
Italy’s Winter Olympics opening ceremony kicks off in just a few hours, meaning we’ll soon burn our evenings watching snowboarders called ‘Tanner’ and ‘Yui’ pull sick Frontside Double Cork 1080 Lien-to-Melon Reverts. But it also means that, as with any event bringing the world together, geopolitics is now in the air (doing a sick Frontside […]
The geopolitics of Epstein 2.0
Some 42 days after they were due, the US justice department finally shared the latest Epstein files on Friday, featuring three million pages, 180,000 images, and 2,000 videos. While it all pours more sordid pressure on familiar US figures (Trump, Clinton, Gates, Musk, Summers, Lutnick and beyond), it’s also reverberating around the world, starting in… […]
Trade, travel, and security: three key world leader trips of the week
Any travel nerd will tell you the best time to fly is right after the holidays: lower prices, quieter lounges, fewer tantrums. World leader entourages are more likely to serve the tantrums than suffer them, but several are still travelling right now so let’s look at three: China’s year of the fire horse involves a […]
ECONOMICS
Why the IMF might be done and dusted… or not
It was a week ago that International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Kristalina Georgieva kicked off the Fund’s DC ‘spring meetings’ with an ominous note — “trade policy uncertainty is off the charts”. You could feel it in the DC air, with Intrigue sources confirming delegations from every corner of the globe were scrambling for meetings with […]
More Articles
The central bank war for independence
US stocks and the US dollar plunged again on Monday after the president colourfully called on Jerome Powell, the Fed Chair, to cut rates. Anyway, while this monetary soap opera plays out on the world stage, it’s reignited a debate that everyone thought was resolved decades ago: the notion that central banks must be independent from politics. Why? The […]
A moron premium in the US?
We’ve been writing about bonds before they were the flavour of the week. And events now dictate that we revisit bonds again. Who are we to argue with events, dear Intriguer? Typically if US stocks tank, spooked investors will shift their cash over into bonds — the ultimate safe-haven. Why? When you buy bonds (loan the US government money), […]
Did Trump just blink?
Just after our last edition hit your inbox, Donald Trump decided to: Of course, markets breathed a semi-sigh of relief. But… did Trump blink? Here are the three main arguments you need to know: Treasury Secretary Bessent argues this was all part of Trump’s successful strategy, with 75 countries now reportedly lining up to negotiate […]
Trump and Xi play chicken
We’ve already explored Trump’s tariffs, but it’s worth a quick recap of his rationale before we tour today’s wild ripple effects: And while he’s now slapped tariffs on everyone (otherwise he says China just reroutes via third countries), the big kahuna tariffs are now really on China. Building on earlier tariff rounds during Trump 1.0 and Biden… The […]
Technology
The fight tearing AI and defense apart
News recently broke that the Pentagon had used Anthropic’s Claude AI tool to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Cue the memes about Secretary Hegseth prompting AI with something like “hey Claude, go seize Maduro without US casualties, make no mistakes”. But this was all apparently news to Anthropic itself, which reportedly sought clarification. The AI firm […]
More Articles
The massive supply chain shortage you didn’t know about
You’d think 2026 already had enough on, but no — someone has gone out and helpfully coined an entirely new genre of Armageddon: not nuclear, not biblical, but supply chain: So what’s driving this impending RAMageddon? Intrigue’s hard-core nerds will forgive us when we casually split chips into three families: First there are the compute […]
Should all countries launch their own LLMs?
While you might know beautiful Chile for its copper, its wines, its pisco-fight with Peru, or its ridiculously long and skinny profile like it’s spooning Argentina (nena, wake up), there’s now a new reason: Chile just launched Latin America’s own large language model. Creatively named LatAm-GPT, the idea is to “develop capabilities in the region […]
Behold… Pax Silica!
For those who didn’t blow a decade learning Latin so you can use the Vatican’s famous Latin-language ATMs, pax means peace and silica is the mineral throughout the Earth’s crust, like sand — refine it enough and you get the foundation of modern tech: silicon. The State Department just launched Pax Silica as a US-led […]
Why this streaming mega-merger is everyone’s business
Just days after Netflix announced its $83B offer for Hollywood’s legendary Warner Bros studio, rival Paramount has now entered the fray with its own hostile $108B bid. And we haven’t seen a better love triangle since Edward and Jacob battled it out for Bella’s heart in the Twilight saga. But the world is now watching […]
