Subjects Archives: Strategy

Whether you love him, hate him or never heard of him, Mamdani has not yet won the general election or been sworn in as mayor.

Rashid Khalidi, the renowned Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, says he is withdrawing from teaching his fall course after the school has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement in a major new deal with President Trump, who accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Big tech companies continue to spend massive amounts of money building ever more powerful generative AI (artificial intelligence) systems and ever-larger data centers to run them, all the while losing billions of dollars with no likely pathway to profitability. 

The phrase “juntos somos más fuertes,” meaning “together we are stronger,” encapsulates the message of the Peoples Power Assembly’s car caravan held on July 12. 

Noticeably absent from U.S. news coverage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s waffling over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is any mention of the child sex predator’s apparent ties to Israeli intelligence.

This post provides context to today’s news (July 31st 2025) of Donald Trump’s ‘25% tariff plus penalty’ announcement on India. For a background of Indian ruling class’ response to trade pressure from the Trump administration, see What Explain’s India’s Response to Trump.

Fox News’ America Reports hosted Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to discuss the Trump administration’s proposal to repeal the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding, which affirmed that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and which has served as the legal foundation for regulating emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Facing mounting pressure from Europe, Iran moved to reinforce its nuclear position with backing from Russia and China, just days before talks resumed in Istanbul.

Brazil’s collaboration with China has been flourishing. President Lula traveled to Beijing in May for his third bilateral meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping, since returning to the presidency in 2023, declaring that “our relationship with China will be indestructible.”

In January 2024 Taiwan’s current President Lai Ching-te won the election against two other candidates. (Taiwan has no run off elections.)

The Canadian branch of B’nai B’rith has accused author, activist, and political candidate Yves Engler of genocide denial.

France’s nuclear weapons stockpile has remained stable over the past decade and contains approximately 290 warheads for delivery by ballistic missile submarines and aircraft.

In the wake of Frantz Fanon’s 100th birthday, Sam Chian offers a close reading of The Wretched of the Earth, arguing that Fanon’s primary intervention lies in his class analysis of colonial societies. He examines his critique of the national bourgeoisie and the urban working class, and his insistence on the revolutionary potential of the rural peasantry and radical intellectuals. Chian suggest that for Fanon, the social composition of the anti-colonial struggle decisively shapes the post-colonial order, and that the socialist path he outlines remains structurally constrained but politically urgent.

Jeremy Corbyn’s strength lies in his ability to inspire a movement, but translating this into a viable party requires overcoming the same hegemonic forces that destroyed his Labour leadership.

U.S.-led sanctions have functioned as ‘silent killers’ in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela.

Though still weighed down by debt and austerity, developing countries are beginning to chart alternative paths as a new mood takes hold in the Global South.

For Baran, the key to liberating the former colonies from the stranglehold of rapacious monopolies is not a reordering of international relations, not a campaign for a level international playing field, not alternative market institutions, nor a coalition of dissenters from the status quo, but a radical change in the social and economic structure of the oppressed country.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (born August 27, 1770—died November 14, 1831) was an important German philosopher. He is known as one of the main thinkers in German idealism and a key person in modern Western philosophy.

I am always amazed how little western governments are aware of their own (lack of) capabilities as well as of the nature and capabilities of their ‘enemies’.

Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Western imperialism’s key military alliance, describe recently announced increases in European arms spending as a collective effort to “safeguard our freedom and democracy”.