Slow Read
Geopolitics
Power, statecraft and the long view.
8 new picks worth reading, every week.
Get new Geopolitics picks by email, once a week. Subscribe →
You have read everything here.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Palantir and the Illusion of Sovereignty (annotated text)
Original title: Palantir et l’illusion de la souveraineté (texte commenté)
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/07/03/palantir-et-lillusion-de-la-souverainete-texte-commente/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> An annotated read of Palantir’s own sovereignty manifesto that unpacks how its language of protecting European data sovereignty actually describes a three-layer strategy for capturing the value once a government becomes dependent on the platform. Useful for any reader assessing vendor lock-in risk in enterprise software, not just European policymakers.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Money has become a weapon again, so the euro must be armed
Original title: La monnaie est redevenue une arme, il faut armer l’euro
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/08/04/la-monnaie-est-redevenue-une-arme-il-faut-armer-leuro/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> An interview with the MEP driving the European Parliament’s monetary-sovereignty push, laying out the euro’s declining reserve share against the dollar, around 20 per cent versus 57 per cent, the threat dollar-backed stablecoins pose to payment rails, and a three-part path toward a sovereign euro asset. Advocacy from a sitting politician rather than neutral analysis, but the numbers are real and the payments-rail argument is the sharpest part.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
After the Ceuta crisis, Europe must learn to secure its digital borders
Original title: Après la crise de Ceuta, l’Europe doit apprendre à sécuriser ses frontières numériques
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/08/04/apres-la-crise-de-ceuta-leurope-doit-apprendre-a-securiser-ses-frontieres-numeriques/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> Names the July 2026 Ceuta border crisis, 50,000 to 60,000 people converging on the enclave, as what the author calls an algorithmic hybrid attack: a coordinated disinformation push across Facebook, TikTok and WhatsApp that misread a court ruling and pulled people toward the border. Written by the former EU Commissioner who built the Digital Services Act tools he is now arguing should be used.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Why China’s AI Bubble Is Also Industrial Policy
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.chinatalk.media/p/why-chinas-ai-bubble-is-also-industrial&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> Argues China’s AI investment boom looks like a bubble mainly because government guidance funds cascade through actors with mismatched time horizons, cadre-rotation-driven local officials and VC funds under redemption pressure, not because of investor mania. Backs this with the state’s roughly 82 per cent share of 2024 venture capital and more than 80,000 AI company dissolutions in two years, drawing an explicit parallel to China’s earlier EV and solar overcapacity cycles.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Chartbook 469: The Risk of Unwind
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-469-the-risk-of-unwind&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> Uses New York Fed research to show the Treasury basis trade reached 830 billion US dollars in September 2025, nearly double its Covid-era peak and about 3.5 per cent of privately held Treasuries, while hedge-fund repo and prime-brokerage borrowing rose 154 per cent and 83 per cent respectively since 2022. A chart-driven explanation of a specific, underappreciated vulnerability in Treasury market plumbing.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
The Anti-Amazon
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-anti-amazon/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> Compares Costco’s cost structure with Amazon’s, Costco’s overheads run around 10 per cent of sales against delivery costs eating close to 40 per cent of Amazon’s non-cloud sales, to argue Costco’s simpler logistics model is the more efficient one, then extends the comparison to New York’s proposed public grocery stores.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
From Hide and Bide to Loud and Proud
An excerpt from a forthcoming Oxford University Press study tracing how Xi Jinping personally recentralised Chinese foreign-policy-making, chairing eleven Party coordination bodies against two each for Hu and Jiang, a structural shift from professional foreign-ministry management to direct Party-Central control dating back to the 1990s. Drawn from the authors’ own book, so read it knowing they have a direct stake in its argument.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
The Broken Nuclear Umbrella
Argues that US extended nuclear deterrence has become theatre now that allies rationally doubt Washington would risk American cities for a distant partner, and makes the deliberately uncomfortable case that facilitating allied proliferation, South Korea specifically, is the lesser evil to pretending the umbrella still holds. Exactly the kind of argument a committed non-proliferation hawk would have to engage with directly rather than dismiss.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
The Strange Defeat of Nuclear Deterrence
Cross-cases Ukraine, the Iran-Israel exchange and the 2025 India-Pakistan clash to argue that deterrence by punishment has failed in practice, and proposes deterrence by denial, investment in missile and drone defence over nuclear signalling, as the mechanism that should replace it. Disagrees directly with the piece above: this one wants to fix deterrence from within the alliance system, the other wants to abandon it and let allies go nuclear. Worth reading together.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
The Middle East Power Paradox
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/middle-east-power-paradox-dana-stroul&source=gmail&ust=1788049320613000&sa=E> Uses operational data from the Iran campaign, more than 10,000 air sorties, over 130,000 targets, roughly 85 per cent of Iranian missile and drone production destroyed, to argue that tactical military dominance did not translate into the strategic outcome Washington wanted in the Middle East. A useful corrective to reading military metrics as a proxy for strategic success.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Drowning in Debt
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/brazil-debt/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> Reframes Brazil’s wage share once interest payments are stripped out, headline wage share rose from 46.2 to 48.1 per cent of GDP, but net of interest it fell from 44.1 to 42.2 per cent, to show how consumer credit expansion has quietly transferred wage gains to creditors. Debt-service-to-income ratios of 25 to 27 per cent, well above the 5 to 15 per cent typical of G7 economies, make this directly relevant to anyone tracking household credit risk in emerging markets.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Orbital Enclosure
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/orbital-enclosure/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> Documents specific FCC and FAA waivers, including SpaceX operating at nine times its authorised power limit, alongside BlackRock and Vanguard’s 7 to 9 per cent equity stakes, to explain the regulatory and financial plumbing behind SpaceX’s roughly 65 per cent share of active low-Earth-orbit satellites and 82 to 84 per cent of global launches.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Europe is sleepwalking toward the new Chinese shock
Original title: L’Europe marche comme un somnambule vers le nouveau choc chinois
frame <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/06/29/leurope-marche-comme-un-somnambule-vers-le-nouveau-choc-chinois/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> New trade data, China’s surplus with Germany up 31 per cent year on year, with Austria up 50.8 per cent, with Portugal up 45.6 per cent, underpins the argument that Europe is sleepwalking into a second China shock, this time in advanced manufacturing rather than low-cost goods. The think tank interviewee favours industrial protection, so read the policy prescription knowing where he sits, but the trade data stands on its own.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Trumpian State Capitalism
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/trumpian-state-capitalism/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> Tracks the scale of Trump-era equity stakes and Development Finance Corporation lending in critical minerals, 25 billion US dollars since July 2025 and a lending cap tripled to 205 billion US dollars, against a global backdrop of state-owned enterprises now controlling 54 trillion US dollars in assets, up from 13 trillion in 2000. Uses the Syrah Resources graphite case to show tariffs alone do nothing without proven domestic processing capacity.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
The Kratsios Doctrine and the New American Scientific Power
Original title: La doctrine Kratsios et la nouvelle puissance scientifique américaine
has a stake <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/07/24/la-doctrine-kratsios-et-la-nouvelle-puissance-scientifique-americaine/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> A close reading of a real 123-page US policy document, Science: A New Golden Age, submitted in July 2026, that reframes 200 billion US dollars a year in federal research spending as sovereignty infrastructure rather than open science. Written by someone who runs a European deep-tech investment fund and ends by arguing Europe should recruit the researchers this doctrine displaces.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Why AI is Themis rather than Prometheus
Original title: Pourquoi l’IA c’est Thémis plutôt que Prométhée
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/07/28/pourquoi-lia-cest-themis-plutot-que-promethee/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> A direct, four-days-later rebuttal to the piece below: argues for a much smaller, 5 to 7 billion euro a year optionality strategy in AI infrastructure rather than an all-in bet, framing AI’s significance as distributive and institutional rather than a frontier race to be won outright. Pair the two together for a genuine, well-argued disagreement on the same costed question, which is rarer than it should be.
-
★★★★☆ Added 29/08/2026
Operation Prometheus: France Can Win the AI Race. What Would It Cost?
Original title: Opération Prométhée : la France peut gagner la course à l’IA. Quel en serait le prix ?
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/07/08/operation-promethee-la-france-peut-gagner-la-course-a-lia-quel-en-serait-le-prix/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> A costed proposal, roughly 678 billion euros over three years, 12 gigawatts of compute, around 1,700 researchers, for a French sovereign frontier AI lab, with a specific governance model attached. Written by authors who favour the programme they are proposing, but the figures are dense enough, and the rebuttal above sharp enough, that the pair reads as a real debate rather than settled advocacy.
-
★★★☆☆ Added 29/08/2026
Global grassroots AI groups challenge Big Tech’s narrative
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://restofworld.org/2026/global-ai-salons-grassroots-silicon-valley/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> Field reporting from community-led AI discussion groups, AI Salon and AI Collective, in Nairobi, Lagos, Bengaluru and San Francisco, including a named scholar’s warning that these groups risk reproducing the same elite-access gaps in AI literacy they claim to be closing. A useful corrective to covering AI adoption purely through Silicon Valley or Beijing.
-
★★★☆☆ Added 29/08/2026
Can the Union become a power without European capitalism?
Original title: L’Union peut-elle devenir une puissance sans capitalisme européen ?
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/08/25/lunion-peut-elle-devenir-une-puissance-sans-capitalisme-europeen/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> Applies French régulation theory to argue the European Union has monetary and regulatory tools but no genuinely transnational European capitalism behind them to wield those tools as power. A structural, long-horizon argument rather than a reaction to this month’s news, though it stays conceptual rather than offering new data.
-
★★★☆☆ Added 29/08/2026
The Eight Scenarios for the War in Ukraine (full text of the Sberbank note)
Original title: Les huit scénarios de la guerre en Ukraine (texte intégral de la note Sberbank)
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/08/27/les-huit-scenarios-de-la-guerre-en-ukraine-texte-integral-de-la-note-sberbank/&source=gmail&ust=1788049320614000&sa=E> Le Grand Continent publishes what it presents as a leaked internal Sberbank note from April 2026 setting out eight probability-weighted scenarios for how the war in Ukraine could resolve. The publisher is upfront that it could not authenticate the document with Sberbank itself, so treat this as an unverified leak rather than a confirmed primary source, interesting exactly because of what it would mean if genuine.
You have read everything on this page.
180 picks · page 5 of 5
How we rate
How the stars work
★★★★★ Original reporting or data, explains a mechanism, argues fairly.
★★★★ Excellent, one soft spot: a frame, narrow scope, or an interview.
★★★ Solid, if the subject already interests you.
Rated on the piece, never its politics. A frame tag, in italics, names the position a piece argues from so you can weigh it before you read.