The US spends about a trillion dollars per year on defense, and more than half of that goes to contracting companies. The five biggest, like Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin, take a third of all contract dollars on their own. But why does the US rely so much on the military-industrial complex, and what impact does this have on geopolitics?
Read MoreWhy is Sri Lanka so important?
in Asia
Sri Lanka is one of those places that most people have heard of but know next to nothing about. But the country is a fascinating place with a bloody history, and it’s disproportionately important to geopolitics. So what makes Sri Lanka more important than you might expect?
Read MoreWhy is Corsica fighting for autonomy from France?
in Europe
Corsica may be part of France, but it wasn’t always that way, and now the island is on the verge of gaining autonomy. But how would autonomy even work for a place that’s so reliant on mainland France?
Read MoreWhy is Cameroon structurally broken?
in Africa
Cameroon is often described as a former French colony with a substantial English-speaking minority. But that’s not completely true. It was a German colony before being split between France and Britain. And while the Anglophone divide has produced real conflict, it is a misconception that the fight between English and French speakers is the source of the country's problems. In fact, Cameroon is a country full of misconceptions. So how are Cameroon’s geopolitical dynamics misunderstood?
Read MoreHow long can the US and Canada keep sharing the Great Lakes?
What if the Great Lakes had US and Canadian warships circling each other for control of the largest freshwater system on earth? There's no structural reason they shouldn't. What stops it is a series of agreements that have made these lakes arguably the most successful binational commons on the planet. But you probably don't know that those treaties are now under tremendous stress. So how do the Great Lakes fit into geopolitics, and how are their dynamics evolving?
Read MoreHow does Mongolia stay free between China and Russia?
in Asia
Mongolia is a genuine multiparty democracy wedged between two enormous authoritarian powers in the form of Russia and China. So how has Mongolia managed to stay free and independent?
Read MoreWhy is the Yellow Sea so important?
in Asia
The Yellow Sea is one of the most strategically sensitive bodies of water in the world. It's bordered by China, North Korea, and South Korea, and the United States gets pulled in by treaty. The Yellow Sea’s inner gulf, the Bohai, reaches to within about 150 kilometers of Beijing. So how exactly does the Yellow Sea shape geopolitics?
Read MoreWhy is Liberia so poor when so many ships carry its flag?
in Africa
More shipping tonnage sails under Liberia's flag than any other country's, but only a third of Liberians even have electricity. And when USAID was dismantled in 2025, no country on earth lost more as a share of its national income. For two centuries Liberia has rented itself out: its land, its labor, and even its flag. So why hasn’t this led to long-term prosperity?
Read MoreWhy has Javier Milei changed things for Argentina?
How did Javier Milei go from a TV news pundit to the president of Argentina? And what impact has he had on his country’s geopolitical dynamics?
Read MoreWhy do the US and China want control over Micronesia?
The Federated States of Micronesia, or FSM, has only about 700 square kilometers of land, but it governs an Exclusive Economic Zone of about 3m square kilometers. That's an ocean to land ratio of roughly 4000 to 1. For a country of less than 100,000 people, that's an awful lot of territory to control, and it doesn't go unnoticed by countries like the US and China. So how does FSM's unique geographical situation influence its geopolitical dynamics?
Read MoreWhy does Colombia’s geography dictate its dynamics?
Colombia may be a single country on paper, but in reality its geography makes it extremely difficult to govern as one. Notoriously, the country is full of militant groups, gangs, drugs, and a polarized political environment, and geography can explain why this is the case more than almost anything else. So how exactly does Colombia’s geography dictate its fate?
Read MoreWhy is Siberia Russia’s greatest strength and weakness?
Siberia makes up over three quarters of Russia’s territory but has only one quarter of its people, and its vast landscape serves as a massive treasury of resources, including oil, palladium, gold, diamonds, and timber. In fact, Siberia is in many ways the reason Russia is considered a great power. So how has Russia’s exploitation of Siberia shaped its geopolitical dynamics?
Read MoreWhy is Madagascar so unstable?
in Africa
Madagascar is not a place people know much about. I’d bet money that most people’s only exposure to it is those animated movies from the 2000s, its diverse wildlife, and the vanilla the country produces. But Madagascar faces severe political unrest and natural disasters that increasingly threaten its stability and are arguably far more interesting. So why should we be paying attention to Madagascar?
Read MoreWhy is tiny Luxembourg so important to Europe?
in Europe
Even if you’ve heard of Luxembourg, you probably don’t know much about it. It may be a tiny landlocked country, but today it has the highest GDP per capita in the world thanks to a financial sector that is both its greatest asset and its most critical vulnerability. It’s also hugely important in European politics. So how did Luxembourg become so disproportionately wealthy and influential, and how does this affect the country’s geopolitical dynamics?
Read MoreWho actually fights America’s wars?
I’ve never talked about this before, but I’m a big music guy, and there’s a song I really like by this artist from Appalachia called Fey Fili, and she has a song called War Dog whose lyrics basically explore how working class families just like mine join the military for healthcare or school and in pursuit of greater opportunity, and what those people trade for it.
Read MoreHow do Native Americans influence the US?
The US contains 575 federally recognized Native American tribes, and every one of them is a sovereign nation in a limited but very real sense. Federal law calls them domestic dependent nations. They govern themselves, they control natural resources and water on their lands, and they hold treaty rights that are still binding federal law today, which gives them a disproportionate impact on the US's geopolitical dynamics. So how do Native American tribes influence how the US navigates the world?
Read MoreWhy isn’t modern Egypt powerful like Ancient Egypt was?
in Middle East, Africa
Egypt has been a recognizable geopolitical entity for about 5000 years. You’d think from its geographical position and its history that it would be far more powerful than it is. But Egypt today faces constraints that have made stability very difficult to achieve. So why hasn’t modern Egypt been able to achieve the power Ancient Egypt once had?
Read MoreHow does South Africa’s history feed into its geopolitical dynamics?
in Africa
South Africa controls 83% of the world’s platinum, metals your phone and your car can’t work without. It sits on minerals valued at over 2.5 trillion USD, and yet it has the world’s worst inequality, unemployment over 30%, and until recently, it couldn’t even keep the lights on. None of this is bad luck. South Africa was built piece by piece over nearly 400 years. So how does South Africa’s history feed into its geopolitical dynamics today?
Read MoreWhy does the EU exist?
in Europe
The European Union is something we kind of take for granted today, but it hasn’t always existed. Before 1993, there was no EU. European countries had spent decades stitching together trade deals and shared institutions, but every country still had its own currency, and a giant tangle of geopolitical dynamics made European affairs incredibly complicated. So why did the EU actually come into being, and how do those reasons still affect geopolitics today?
Read MoreWhy are the tiny Cayman Islands a center for global finance?
in Caribbean
You’ve probably heard that the Cayman Islands are a tax haven for the rich, and there’s a strong chance you’ve never heard anything else about them. But the Cayman Islands are far more important to geopolitics than you’re probably aware because they are the tax-neutral legal plumbing for the global financial system, with funds reporting roughly 16 trillion USD in total assets under management. So what impact do the Cayman Islands really have on the world around us?
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