Geopolitics

A Sentinel Brief is a time-stamped instrument, not an opinion column. It records how authority is moving while the line is still visible, before a temporary arrangement hardens into a normal one. The method is set out separately in How Sentinel Briefs Work. Seventeen of them, in two parts. The first nine read the early church as a sequence of authority crises and are arranged in the order the events happened. The remaining eight are contemporary and are arranged in the order they were filed, which is the only order a dated instrument should be read in. An eighteenth is published separately, and is linked at the foot of this page. ...

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Abstract This paper argues that the present geopolitical environment is best understood not as world-war onset, but as an elevated cascade-risk environment. The danger is not simply that multiple crises are occurring at once. The danger is that separate sovereignty-pressure fronts are beginning to share the same escalation plumbing: maritime insurance, sanctions compliance, port law, treaty access, energy flows, and alliance credibility. ...