History | Foreign Affairs | Geopolitics
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King Simeon II of Bulgaria is the last surviving Axis leader of WWII.
I recently visited him in Sofia to discuss his dynasty, his remarkable life, and the rise and fall of empires.
The lesson of a long life, and of ruling a small country, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha suggests, is that minor states are perennially at the mercy of greater powers, writes @carsonjbecker on.wsj.com/4ve9iKs
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Your weekend read, from the new issue of Arena Magazine. The best thing I have ever read on why Palantir is doing so well with AI -- and how the frontier labs are paying attention and reacting.
By @lefttailguy @ByrneHobart
arenamag.com/articles/forwar…
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Databricks founder @istoica05 is among the most prolific academic-entrepreneurs of the 21st century.
I spoke with the renowned computer scientist and Berkeley professor for Issue 009 of @arenamag.
“The best open-source models are now coming from China, because, ironically, they are more open than the US."
@istoica05 cofounded Databricks, valued at $190 billion, and Anyscale. He’s also a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Berkeley, where his lab produced Apache Spark, one of the most influential pieces of data infrastructure ever created. In Arena 009,
@carsonjbecker talks with Stoica about the closing of American AI research, the accidental origins of Spark, and the future of academic computer science.
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Announcing Arena 009: Hello, World.
This issue is dedicated to one of humanity’s most transcendent creations: software.
Shipping to subscribers now.
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I had a fascinating conversation with @derekchollet, who runs JPMorgan’s Center for Geopolitics. We discuss energy, China, and the Iran war, among other topics.
Read it @arenamag.
@derekchollet says that at JPMorganChase, geopolitics is everyone's second or third job: senior people track it on top of the work they were hired to do. So the bank created a Center for Geopolitics and staffed it with former senior policymakers. Chollet — a Pentagon, State Department, and White House veteran — runs it.
Read @carsonjbecker 's latest Principals interview on our site.
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I reviewed Treasured Island, Michael Gross’s new book about St. Barth.
An outpost of France in the Antilles, the tiny island is, at certain times of the year, one of the wealthiest places on earth.
@HarperCollins @dcexaminer
MAGAZINE: ‘Treasured Island’ is a definitive look at the elite island of St. Barth trib.al/8QqfWHp
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“With $40 billion on the line, Kalshi’s investors will either own the infrastructure of a revolutionary new asset class or a betting exchange of contested legality, a binary outcome in its own right.”
Via @carsonjbecker (with insights on SCOTUS from me) washingtonexaminer.com/premi…
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When we published our longform piece on Saronic last month for Arena Issue 008: At Sea, one of the big outstanding questions was... where would the company build its "greenfield" shipyard?
Today: the answer. South Texas. Check out our piece to learn more about Saronic ⬇️
Today, we're proud to announce the future home of Port Alpha: Brownsville, Texas.
Our next-generation shipyard moves from vision to reality through a planned investment of more than $3 billion to establish one of the world's most advanced shipyards, built for software-defined shipbuilding and autonomous maritime systems.
Port Alpha is expected to generate more than $160 billion in regional economic impact for Cameron County and $264.5 billion for the State of Texas, while creating up to 10,000 direct jobs — which makes it one of the largest economic development projects in modern Texas history.
More than a shipyard, Port Alpha represents a new model for American shipbuilding — combining advanced manufacturing, software-defined production, and autonomy at unprecedented scale. We're proud to continue building in Texas.
Learn more: medium.com/saronic-technolog…
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A fascinating new piece on Liz Truss and the Tories by @StevenEdginton. Well worth a read.
“The thing about Steven is”, said Liz Truss, turning to me at a DC cocktail party, “is that his legs should be tied together, his body weighted with stones, and thrown into the Potomac”.
Truss's death wish came after I challenged her abysmal record in government. Truss gave me the interview to promote her book lamenting ‘the woke’. Her enemies were clear: “CINOs (conservatives in name only)”, “trans activism”, “leftist hegemony”, and excessively high immigration.
The only trouble? Since 2021, Truss, in her various ministerial roles, has supported all of these things.
I therefore warn: Beware Tories bearing gifts.
stevenedginton.com/p/the-day…
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Self recommending.
In the first weeks of the war with Iran, the US burned through years of Tomahawk production and other crucial stockpiles. @anduriltech chairman @traestephens talks to @carsonjbecker for @arenamag on the lessons of modern war, the China challenge, and rebuilding America's arsenal.
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"The Pentagon announced they're doing an LCCM buy from Anduril; our Barracuda-500 class. We will produce 7,000 barracudas in 2027. Deliveries on Tomahawks and Patriots are both less than 1,000 a year, so we will make ten times more Barracuda-500s than Patriots or Tomahawks."
In the first weeks of the war with Iran, the US burned through years of Tomahawk production and other crucial stockpiles. @anduriltech chairman @traestephens talks to @carsonjbecker for @arenamag on the lessons of modern war, the China challenge, and rebuilding America's arsenal.
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INTERVIEW IS LIVE
@arenamag 🤝 @traestephens
In the first weeks of the war with Iran, the US burned through years of Tomahawk production and other crucial stockpiles. @anduriltech chairman @traestephens talks to @carsonjbecker for @arenamag on the lessons of modern war, the China challenge, and rebuilding America's arsenal.
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I reviewed @brendanpsimms new history of the Great Powers, among the most valuable contributions to the genre in recent memory.
My review for the @dcexaminer:
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Legacy systems are failing, argues Patri Friedman. Neither the welfare state, democracy, nor traditional currency are sustainable forever.
The answer is competitive governance: entrepreneurial legal and regulatory systems, like charter cities, built in parallel to existing national ones.
Read @patrissimo's views on Seasteading, special jurisdictions, and the weaknesses of legacy institutions from issue 008 of @arenamag:
"Sovereignty is a direction. It's not a destination."
For Arena 008: At Sea, @carsonjbecker sits down with @patrissimo, founder of the @Seasteading Institute and the world's first charter-city venture fund @PronomosVC to talk tax havens, competitive governance, and the limits of the nation state. Read it at @arenamag
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For @arenamag I interviewed Norman Augustine, one of the most prominent figures in U.S. aerospace history.
Now 90 years old, he had a major hand in the Patriot missile, the Abrams tank, and the merger which created the Lockheed Martin Corporation.
"The Last Supper" was the 1993 dinner at the Pentagon where the DoD told defense CEOs the industry was consolidating and they had to figure out who would survive.
The term was named by Norman Augustine on his way out the door. He was the man who later merged (and led) Lockheed Martin.
Read @carsonjbecker's interview with him in the latest installment of Principals (link below):
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The Maxim gun of the 21st century
With the rise in nationalist populism and a rapidly expanding defense tech ecosystem, it is probably safe to assume that every country with a defense budget over ~$20B will domestically produce cheap group 2/3 one-way attack drones.
The tech and production are relatively commoditized and non-exquisite with very little IP moat, so it’s an easy domestic win. Export markets will be limited given that anyone that CAN build them themselves WILL.
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Regime-jester-maxxing.
#HIGNFY starts with a 'non-binary' telling a trans activist who publicly wished Kemi Badenoch was dead that he's her hero, 40 seconds is spent on the main story of the week (and it's entirely about Reform), & JK Rowling, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Trump & Elon Musk are all mocked
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