(Analysis) China’s 2025 Military Parade: Progress, Ambition, and Strategic Implications

China’s 2025 military parade showcased its progress in modernization and self-sufficiency. Exploring implications for partnerships, arms markets, and regional security, and beyond.

The Journey of the New Pope

The challenges Prevost will face include repositioning the Church as a serious global player, providing a valid alternative for the masses seeking spiritual refuge in evangelical movements, and presenting the Church as an institution able to meet the needs of the younger generations. The first months of papacy have made clear the pontiff’s global positions.

Exploring Lebanon’s Sectarian Status Quo: How the Political System Colonized the Social Mind

Lebanon was meant to be a model of coexistence, but decades of sectarian politics have rendered loyalty to community a stronger force than loyalty to the nation. From elite patronage to everyday social divisions, even reform movements like the 2019 protests struggle to break the confessional mold.

(Analysis) Down and Out of Power in Iberia: Conspiracy as Ideology

The world appears to be unraveling at the seams, and there is a need to pierce the veil of ideology so as to render these conspiracies less influential, to deal in the world of the real. There would seemingly be no panacea for these multi-faceted crises, but a good place to start would be our political-economy.

Algeria’s Rentier-Authoritarian Regime in the Aftermath of the Energy Crisis

Europe’s drive for energy security and a green transition has intensified cooperation with Algeria and the wider MENA region. Initiatives like the Taqathy+ programme, backed by the EU and Germany, aim to position Algeria as a regional hub for renewable energy, building on megaprojects such as Medlink and the SouthH2 Corridor. While these projects are promoted as tools for sustainable development and decarbonization, they primarily serve European energy interests. Local populations are often excluded from decision-making, and renewable energy exports risk reinforcing Algeria’s centralized, rentier-authoritarian structures rather than democratizing the sector. In practice, these initiatives advance Europe’s net-zero goals while leaving Algerians marginalized from the energy transition, even as climate change increasingly affects the region.

Taxing U.S. Big Tech: Europe’s Countermove to Trump’s Tariff Agenda

The EU is ramping up efforts to tax Big Tech through Digital Services Taxes (DST) and new digital competition laws like the DMA. Once a fiscal tool, the DST is now emerging as a geopolitical instrument amid US-EU trade tensions. With Apple and Meta facing fines and the European Court backing the EU’s regulatory authority, digital policy is becoming a new front in global power politics.

[REPORT] Hugs No More, Bullets Galore? Mexico’s Security Policy One Year Into Sheinbaum’s Presidency

Overview of Claudia Sheinbaum’s first-year security policy, addressing the improvement of inherited tools and the persistent disjunction between reported outcomes and public perception.