Room to Maneuver
Why America needs more routes around maritime chokepoints, a larger merchant fleet, and expanded shipbuilding and repair capacity supported by allied expertise and sustained orders.
ReadNotes
Independent analysis of geopolitics, energy, technology, security, and policy
Lines of Supply
From the wartime Big Inch pipelines to Western Gateway, America needs more east-west energy connections, expanded refining capacity and dependable permitting to keep industrial work and fuel supply at home.
ReadBack to the Point
Anduril’s planned Arsenal-2 shipyard at Sparrows Point connects Maryland’s shipbuilding history to the need for more U.S. submarines, qualified manufacturers and skilled workers as China expands its naval power.
ReadThe Storms Went West
An unusually quiet Atlantic hurricane season and an active Pacific reveal how storm location shapes risks to ports, energy facilities, agriculture, disaster finance and military operations across the Americas.
ReadHow AI Is Cutting Years From Drug Discovery
AI-enabled drug programs are reaching clinical development years ahead of traditional benchmarks, while AI agents are beginning to search for new biology upstream. The experiments still run on physical time.
ReadSteady as Xi Goes
Xi Jinping last visited the White House in 2015, when Washington was encouraging civilian high-tech exports to China. He returns this week with rare earths, tariffs and artificial intelligence on the agenda, backed by an industrial system much larger than the one he represented then.
ReadShip Something
What Silicon Valley can teach the United Nations about improving the human condition.
ReadThe Grid Can Think Faster Than It Can Grow
Brookhaven’s GridFM 2.0 aims to let utilities test a billion grid configurations in 24 hours, but software speed cannot bypass multi-year transformer manufacturing backlogs.
ReadThe Fait Accompli
As Huawei faces a federal jury in Brooklyn, its post-sanctions hardware and aggressive AI roadmap show what the company did after Washington cut off access to American technology.
ReadThe Mobilization Clock
China’s revised National Defense Mobilization Law takes effect October 1. Six months later, the first spring window of 2027 opens.
ReadThe Drone Iran Gets to Keep
Iran's recovery of an Anduril Dive-LD shows why America's shift toward large fleets of attritable autonomous systems must account for the hardware adversaries will inevitably capture.
ReadPredicting the Hurricane Anyway
WeatherNext 3 shows how hourly satellite updates and AI forecasting can buy critical lead time, while Hurricane Otis shows why a better forecast is only the beginning.
ReadThe Other Strait
The Houthi advance toward Bab el-Mandeb threatens the Red Sea route carrying more Saudi oil as Hormuz disruption reshapes global energy flows.
ReadA Billion Fruit Flies
How computational models can narrow biological experiments before researchers turn to living animals, making science faster, more scalable, and humane.
ReadThe Gray-Market Advantage in Eastern Congo
Disorder has a commercial effect beyond the damage it causes locally.
ReadThe Cure Factory
AI can find promising science faster, but turning ideas into medicine still requires more compute, laboratories, clinical trials, and manufacturing.
ReadWho Controls Venezuela’s Oil Now
How U.S.-approved traders, Gulf Coast refiners, and Western investment are redirecting Venezuelan crude and oil-field control away from China.
ReadArctic Shipping Heats Up
How Arctic sea-ice retreat, Chinese cargo sailings, Russian infrastructure, and U.S. investment are reshaping the Northern Sea Route.
ReadChina Is Hiding Inside America's Data Center Fight
How China-linked influence operations exploit U.S. data-center disputes as physical power constraints slow the American AI buildout.
ReadThe Cartel Tax
How cartel extortion, cargo theft, and insecurity raise the cost of nearshoring, mining, and strategic investment across the Americas.
ReadEl Niño Is Already Squeezing the Panama Canal
How El Niño, lower reservoir inflows, transit limits, and competing chokepoint disruptions are increasing the risks of Panama Canal passage.
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