Carrick Ryan

Spare me the flag worship...

Carrick Ryan — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 06:19:01 GMT

Today is "national flag day"... apparently. Which is a good time to remind everyone that no soldier ever died for a flag.

Our soldiers fought for the defence of our way of life, freedom from subjugation, the liberation of others, and plenty of causes that sit between national interest and geopolitical real politik. But none fought for a flag.

Our nation is incredible. We have inherited the rarest of sacred gifts from the generations that preceded us; stable, accountable, and trusted institutions. None of this exists within a flag.

Our country could collapse into tyranny, or find itself conquered by external forces, and that flag would look the same.

If our flag was changed tomorrow, everything that adds value to our country remains impervious to these superficial alterations.

Our flag exists as a symbol of our country, but does not represent its values, its achievements, nor its heroes, any more than it represents our deficiencies, our crimes, or our villains.

It tells people that we are Australian, but says nothing about who Australians are.

So why do our politicians performatively revere a piece of fabric on this day?

Essentially, this is sanctimonious virtue signalling. An attempt to visibly demonstrate patriotism through unapologetic idolatry.

I have sympathy for the immigrants who feel the need to cloak themselves in the flag as evidence of an allegiance they presume others might doubt, but I have deep suspicion of those who advertise their patriotism as though it is an act of brave defiance.

What is it about this flag are you celebrating? What is it you want those around you to see in it? What value does it add to you?

I appreciate the utility of waving the flag in a crowded olympic stadium, or to identify ourselves abroad... but why here? Why demonstrate your Australianness to other Australians who never questioned it?

I don't worship our flag. I hold a sincere reverence for my country because I understand that an arbitrary pattern of colours, stars, and stripes is irrelevant to its value.

Every nation on earth has a flag. There are but a handful of nations in history that have even briefly experienced the institutional stability, transparency, and accountability that far too many of us fail to appreciate.

So spare me your flag waving... tell me how much you love our democracy and what you are doing to protect it.

To secure peace, is to prepare for war...

Carrick Ryan — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 07:44:55 GMT

With rumours continuing to circulate about the possibility of a future Russian attack on NATO, the obvious question I am continually asked is: why would Russia, while struggling to advance in Ukraine, deliberately pick a fight with the most powerful military alliance in the world?

It's a completely reasonable question, and the answer is counter-intuitive, but the reason Putin wants to pick a fight with NATO is actually BECAUSE he is struggling so badly in Ukraine.

Firstly, Putin has repeatedly made it clear that he does not believe that the "decadent West" has the stomach for war, and as a result he believes that NATO's Article 5 is a bit of a paper tiger.

Putin may calculate that a sufficiently limited action, perhaps a drone or missile strike, an attack on military infrastructure, or perhaps even a small territorial incursion in somewhere like the Baltics or northern Europe, could test Article 5 without triggering a unified military response.

There is already substantial doubt over whether the USA would adhere to its mutual defence obligations, and there remains further questions as to whether the UK, France, or Germany, would take on Russia, without the USA, if their own territory wasn't immediately threatened.

This was, according to US reporting, the objective of CIA Director John Ratcliffe's mysterious visit to Moscow last week; to ensure the Kremlin believed that Article 5 remained active and that the US would respond.

It could also explain why a German outlet last week published "leaked" documents outlining the immediate NATO response to any Russian incursion. A report no doubt intended to assure Putin that an overwhelming military response was already approved and ready to go.

There would also be significant domestic advantages for Putin.

For years, the Kremlin has portrayed the Ukraine war as fundamentally a war between Russia and NATO. An actual confrontation with a NATO state would allow Putin to argue that this claim had finally been vindicated: Russia was no longer conducting a “special military operation”, but defending itself against the Western alliance.

It could also provide additional justification for political repression at home and, importantly, help prepare the Russian population for another major mobilisation; a move that is needed to sustain the flailing offensives against Ukraine, but would otherwise be extremely unpopular.

A third objective could be to simply intimidate Europe into reducing its support for Ukraine.

A carefully calibrated Russian attack against infrastructure connected to the Ukrainian war effort could send a message to European governments and populations: continued support for Ukraine risks bringing the war directly onto your territory.

An attack against a factory, logistics hub or other facility involved in supplying Ukraine therefore strikes me as the most plausible escalation scenario (if an attack were to happen).

It's worth pointing out that the boundary between war and peace is already considerably blurrier than many people realise. European governments have attributed numerous acts of sabotage, attempted sabotage, cyberattacks, arson and covert disruption across Europe to networks linked to Russian intelligence.

Russia has already demonstrated a willingness to conduct hostile operations inside NATO countries while deliberately keeping those operations below the threshold that would provoke an overt military response.

Within this context it's clearer to understand why what we are witnessing is posturing from NATO intended to make it abundantly clear to Putin that any further escalation will be met with will a genuine, immediate and costly response.

The open question that will determine how this ends is... does Putin believe them?

Putin's Brain

Carrick Ryan — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:07:31 GMT

As intelligence agencies warn that Putin is planning to escalate his war with some form of attack on Europe, his spiritual advisor took to social media to post this.

Alexandr Dugin is a man so closely associated with the belief systems and values of Vladimir Putin that he became colloquially known as "Putin's brain".

Dugin has spent his life warning of the evils of liberalism and democracy, and insisted that only Russia could save humanity through the advancement of Christian Russian Orthodox values. In 1997, he wrote a now infamous book titled "The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia".

The book provides the blueprint for how Russia could fight "the battle for the world rule of Russians". It laid out in detail how Russia needed to use information warfare, economic power, and military force, to establish a new Eurasian Empire.

It's been used a textbook in schools, indoctrinating a generation of Russians into a belief that the Russians had a God given right to rule the world from the "third Rome" (Moscow), and that notions like democracy and civil liberties were a uniquely Western invention that were bordering on satanic.

It called for Georgia, most of the Baltic States, Finland, and Central Asia to be annexed into this new empire though force, while Belarus and Moldova are expected to voluntarily join after a decades long propaganda onslaught.

He was adamant that an independent Ukraine could not exist if Russia was truly going to become a superpower, arguing that "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics".

Western Europe, meanwhile, would become a collection of weakened vassal states, subordinate to Russia's will, and argued that to achieve this Russia could help fund and organise a collection of right wing political parties to infiltrate and erode liberal democracy from within. To achieve this, Dugin suggested finding ways to weaken the NATO alliance, culminating in the removal of US military presence in Europe.

But perhaps most disturbing is Dugin's vivid advice on how Russia could subdue the greatest impediment to Russian ambitions, the great defender of the liberal values Dugin despised... the USA.

He argued that Russia should use special services to "...introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics'."

The book was written in 1997.

Vladimir Putin became Russian President in 2000.

He's had 26years to put this plan into place.

The Story of the Eurasian Belt

Carrick Ryan — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 01:56:03 GMT

I saw this map shared online that ostensibly shows all cities with a population over 100,000 in the year 1700. I say "ostensibly" because I can already identify a couple of cities that are missing, but they all exist across this Eurasian belt, with the possible exception of Mexico City (effectively a Spanish colonial city by that stage).

But the story this map shows is somewhat misunderstood, and in the modern era of culture wars, misused. I have seen some comments that use this map as evidence of the civilisational superiority of the Eurasian people, or at the very least, a demonstration of how advanced they were compared to the rest of humanity. This is almost true.. but misses the cause.

What the map actually reveals is the significant geographical advantage the Eurasian people had in being able to establish the agriculture necessary to support large population centres before the rest of humanity.

Firstly, these regions have naturally occurring crops that are high yield, high calorie, easy to grow and harvest, and easy to store and transport. In fact, most historians agree that the development of wheat and barley agriculture probably occurred by accident, it was that easy.

This was then made amplified by the existence of several animals that were biologically more predisposed to domestication than other animals (cows, sheep, pigs, etc.). The American civilisations had some examples, but a Llama wasn't going to till a field, and a crop that grew well in Peru probably won't grow as well in Texas.

But what is most immediately apparent about this map is the manner in which these large cities appear across a band on a similar latitude. Which means that many of the crops and techniques refined in one region could be easily transferable to another.

Wheat and barley, first domesticated in Southwest Asia, travelled west into Europe and eastward through Central Asia and eventually into China. Chinese millets travelled in the opposite direction. Later, grapes, walnuts, peas, cucumbers, alfalfa, apples and many other crops moved through the networks we loosely call the Silk Roads. Archaeological and genetic evidence now documents these movements surprisingly well.

The same happened with animals and agricultural technology. Horses, cattle, sheep and goats spread far beyond their original ranges, along with ploughing, irrigation techniques, wheeled transport and methods of managing livestock. Silk Road exchange networks demonstrably moved domesticated plants and animals across Eurasia long before 1700.

So a farmer in England in 1700 wasn't using some agricultural system independently invented in England. Nor was a farmer in northern China using a purely Chinese package. Over millennia, societies had been borrowing useful biological and technological inventions from one another.

Imagine there are twenty civilisations experimenting independently with agriculture. If they are isolated, each society benefits mostly from its own discoveries. But if they are connected, an innovation discovered anywhere can eventually become available everywhere.

That creates something resembling a continental-scale research-and-development network. In many ways, the civilisations along this Eurasian belt were the first beneficiaries of globalism.

If we compare this to the civilisations of Australia at this time, while there is very strong evidence that Indigenous Australians intensively managed landscapes and food resources, the difficulty of their task can be explained by the fact that despite the extraordinary native biodiversity across the Australian continent, only Macadamia Nuts are commercially cultivated today, and they aren't exactly a crop upon which a civilisation can be built.

Even modern improved Macadamia varieties generally don't produce commercially worthwhile crops until roughly three years after planting, while slower varieties can take five to six years. Orchards also face significant disease and pest problems, require careful pruning and orchard management, and are suited particularly to warm, relatively high-rainfall coastal regions rather than Australia's enormous interior.

So it wasn't that Indigenous Australians weren't inclined to build large cities, they simply did not have access to the crops, beasts of burden, or shared technologies, that allowed it to develop elsewhere.

The reason this map is so important to interpret goes beyond understanding our past, it's crucial to understanding our present. When a society has excess food, it allows for specialisation of skills and entire lives committed to learning and education. This leads to exponential acceleration in development, especially as education becomes intergenerational.

Expecting broad societal equality across the planet within half a century of decolonisation is implausible, and insisting otherwise leans into racist arguments of inherent inequality. Equality of outcome will eventually come, but we should be patient enough to recognise that it may not occur within our lifetime.

The next question you might be inclined to ask is why did Europe pull away, technologically, from the rest of Eurasia from the 1700's on. That's another fascinating story... but for another post.

Join the dots...

Carrick Ryan — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 09:31:24 GMT

This is a wildly speculative observation, I want to be very clear about that... but it's one I feel compelled to at least point out.

Just as Trump's war on Iran looked set to send global oil prices soaring, President Xi did something surprising. He cut Chinese imports of crude oil, cut the country's refinery production by 16%, and then sharply restricted exports of petrol, diesel, and other refined fuels. He also drew heavily on China's vast oil reserves and found ways to dramatically slash its domestic demand for oil.

It meant that at the exact moment that an oil price surge would have been politically catastrophic for Trump, President Xi managed to single-handedly reduce effective global demand for internationally traded crude by roughly 5%.

Most commentators noted that this was, obviously, beneficial for China's consumers as well... but it was one hell of a lifeline for Trump, who continues to race against a looming deadline of depleting global oil reserves that are still preventing the market from devolving into a global depression.

Within that context, it's worth noting that Trump's decision this week to scale back US war games in South Korea is not just a gift to the North Koreans, Beijing has protested their occurrence for most of the last 50 years in which they've been held.

Equally, while the decision to remove the only US Carrier Fleet in the Pacific is no doubt fuelled by operational necessity, it could also be perceived by its allies as a tactical disengagement from the region; an unmistakeable signal to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea that they are on their own... the USA has other things on their mind.

As I indicated at the top, correlation isn't causation, there are plausible alternative explanations for everything... but it also doesn't require too much conspiratorial imagination to join some other dots here.

In plain sight

Carrick Ryan — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:13:35 GMT

Long before the modern nation of Israel was established, anti-semitic tropes propagated the idea that Jews nefariously manipulated the domestic politics of nations around the world. They were built upon grievances of jealousy and thinly veiled hatred, manifested through disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Even today, not withstanding the significant influence of the pro-Israeli lobby within the political systems of western democracies, I still see the extent of this influence greatly exaggerated, often skirting dangerously close to the same tropes that routinely led to violence throughout history.

It's for these reasons that I spend a lot of my time pushing back against these narratives when I see them, much to the fury of the more extreme voices within the pro-Palestiniam camp who denounce any recognition of anti-semitism as mitigation of genocide.

Not for the first time, however, Benjamin Netanyahu represents one of the most difficult impediments to combating anti-semitism by not just exploiting, but shamelessly weaponising the sincere apprehensions of the broader public while simultaneously leaning into the very worst stereotypes that underwrite the tropes that commentators like myself spend their energy extinguishing.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with Netanyahu's Jewishness, but everything to do with his personal contempt for liberal values, and the democratic west in general.

There is an important principle in international diplomacy known as the norm of non-partisanship. It rests on the concept that any democratically elected government represents the will of its people and therefore should be afforded the same respect regardless of which political party they belong to or which domestic policies they pursue.

It is a concept that has been openly betrayed by the Trump administration, which immediately raises concerns about the true allegiances of this new cabal of illiberal kleptocrats. Yet while European leaders bite their tongue through Trump's repeated slanders and unhinged insults, the political machinery of Washington and Tel Aviv have fearlessly used their weight to destabilise the discourse in the nations once assumed to be "allies".

Whatever your view of Britain's immigration policies, it is a matter for the people of Britain, and not one for the Prime Minister of Israel to attempt to influence. Unfortunately, this is not a rare moment or diplomatic gaffe from Netanyahu, but yet another concerning example of a political Machiavellian attempting to inflame existing culture war divisions in foreign countries in order to benefit his personal political agenda.

Earlier this year, he effectively accused Anthony Albanese of causing the Bondi Terrorist attacks in a tirade that was not just baseless, but shamelessly intended to further stir a volatile moment for Australian society. Before then, he actively sought to undermine President Obama throughout his pursuit of the original Iran Nuclear deal, speaking before US Congress against the President's wishes.

He also accused French President Macron of propagating anti-semitism through his recognition of a Palestinian state and allowed Israel's Ambassador to the UN to make several provocative statements regarding the recent influx of refugees in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

This is the real nefarious Israeli influence that must be condemned, not conspiratorial nonsense of blackmail and bribery in the shadows, but of open interference on the front pages of the world's media. These are the actions that will only serve to further isolate Israel from the West and push it further away from the international order that protected it for decades.

Holding the line...

Carrick Ryan — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:05:39 GMT

The longer this unorthodox war drags on through it's unconvincing ceasefires, final deadlines, and megaphone negotiations... the threat to Iraq grows.

This is a nation with a national identity almost entirely invented by colonial manifestations, then held together by a brutal authoritarian regime, before being torn apart by the US invasion in 2003.

Compared to Trump's current foray, Bush's illegal war feels like a carefully planned strategic masterpiece, but it still rested on the Western delusion that the Iraqi people would somehow maintain an allegiance to the political institutions that constituted the secular Iraqi state. Yet within months of US occupation, the sectarian schism began its inevitable rupture.

Roughly 60% of Iraq's population are Shia, while Saddam Hussein and the majority of his elite inner circle were Sunni. The erasure of Hussein's power structure saw swift retribution for years of repression, and with Saudi and Iranian influence, the tension quickly escalated to horrific and bloody sectarian violence.

It took almost a decade, but the ultimate result was ISIS, who found fertile ground for support within the grievances of Iraq's sunni minority. With the army of jihadists over running the Iraqi army in Mosul and conducting barbaric mass executions of Shias. It was really the Iranian backed paramilitaries that prevented Baghdad from becoming a humiliating massacre.

While the US army returned to work with the Iraqi Army and the Kurds to push ISIS back into the desert, the Shia militias gained credibility and public support in a similar way that Hezbollah did in Lebanon with their repulsion of the IDF... and in much the same way, established themselves as a permanent heavily armed problem for the civilian government.

The current Prime Minister of Iraq, Ali Falih al-Zaidi, who came to power in May, has pursued an ambitious goal of politcal independence from both Iran and the USA. This has meant attempting to disarm the Iranian backed paramilitary groups while still maintaining a working relationship with both Tehran and Washington.

Zaidi is pursuing investment from the USA while staging a huge anti-corruption crackdown, which has meant cutting off a significant source of illicit funds, as well as power, for the Iranian IRGC. This is unfolding as Iraq continues to rely on Iranian natural gas for as much as 43% of its energy supply.

Trump's war has made threading this needle increasingly difficult, especially as water shortages and pollution issues loom as a genuinely existential threat to an impoverished country still scarred both physically and emotionally from decades of war.

It's noteworthy that 7 of the 18 U.S. service-member deaths so far in this war have occurred in Iraq, with Washington reporting more than 600 attempted attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq during just the first two months of the war.

The Iranian paramilitary presence in Iraq is substantial, Reuters estimates the hard-line Islamic Resistance in Iraq grouping alone comprises roughly 10 factions and around 50,000 fighters, with drones, missiles and other heavy weapons.

Zaidi’s government has set 30 September 2026 as the deadline for the Iranian backed paramilitary groups to hand over their weapons or come under state control. This is the same date that the US led anti-ISIS mission is scheduled to end, ostensibly heralding a new era of strategic independence for the country.

But with both the USA and Iran still effectively in a state war, it's difficult to see either side surrendering their presence in Iraq without fight... making it more and more likely that Baghdad will once again become a battlefield.

How do you deal with a media pack that has it in for you?

Carrick Ryan — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 19:56:37 GMT

As Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard had to deal with media scrutiny in a way no previous Prime Minister had. Her childlessness and domestic life were treated as evidence regarding her fitness to lead. One newspaper commentator advised her to get a stylist and warned that voters might reject her because of her hair or clothing.

But it's worth taking a look at how she dealt with one particular story that News Corp was persistent in pushing.

In 2012, The Australian newspaper began re-reporting on a 1995 scandal concerning a period when Gillard, who was previously a lawyer, provided legal assistance to the Australian Workers’ Union.

The scandal itself is not really relevant to this story, but it is worth pointing out that the Australian was forced to retract and apologise for demonstrably false claims made in their story, and no evidence of any wrongdoing by Gillard has ever surfaced.

If I'm honest, I don't really remember the specific allegations against Gillard all that well. My father was in his final days around this time, and my mind was understandably elsewhere, but looking back, the most significant piece of exculpatory evidence is how Gillard dealt with it.

On 23 August 2012, Gillard held a scheduled media press conference in which she undertook to stand and answer every single question about the story until the media were satisfied that no unanswered questions remained. The News Corp journalist who wrote the story was in the room and was allowed to lead the questioning.

Gillard fronted that media pack for 73 minutes and did not leave until every single journalist had exhausted their line of questioning. She wanted to put the matter to bed.

Remarkably, three months later, the Australian wrote another article on the same allegations after new information was found. So Gillard once again held a press conference and answered every single question the media pack could come up with. This one lasted 50 minutes.

As a former police officer, I recognise this as the behaviour of a person who believes the truth is on their side, and someone who is prepared to answer as many questions as possible to prove it.

This was the Prime Minister of Australia forced to confront consistently defamatory reporting from a media outlet that had openly campaigned against her and her political party. She didn't ban them, or refuse to answer their questions... she invited them into the ring and asked them to take their best shot... to say whatever they had to say to her face.

How do you deal with a media pack that has it in for you? Julia Gillard just answered their questions... because that's what a Prime Minister does.

Authoritarianism obscured by corruption

Carrick Ryan — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 20:29:10 GMT

Once again, a Trump scandal has been lost in the news cycle that really should be getting far more attention. If we are being honest, any reasonably objective assessment of what has just occurred requires an acceptance of one of two equally disturbing conclusions;

1) The President of the USA is prepared to abuse the powers of his office to persecute innocent people to preserve his grip on power...

or

2) The President of the USA is clinically insane.

There is still so much we don't know about the reflective pool scandal, and compared to the other startling examples of flagrant corruption emanating daily from this administration, this is small potatoes. But this is way more unsettling than people seem to realise.

In short, the Washington Reflecting Pool had been plagued by water leakage issues and regular algal blooms for decades. In April, Trump surprised everyone by announcing that his experience building swimming pools in hotels meant he could get the job done cheaply, stating “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools", and promised he could fix the pool for $1.5 million.

Trump ended up unilaterally awarding two no bid contracts worth $14.7 million, one of whom was to a Trump donor named John J. Cafaro, a man who previously pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and, in an earlier case, conspiring to bribe a Democratic congressman (pictured bottom left... I mean... look at him...).

Within days of the installation of the new "American Flag Blue” coating in the pool, algae began forming and the paint began peeling and floating to the surface. It was clearly a botched job carried out by a Trump crony at a cost that far exceeded initial estimates.

But incredibly, that's not actually the real scandal here. It's what happened next.

Faced with the evidence of his corrupt business deal literally floating to the surface, Trump immediately declared, unequivocally and without a shred of evidence, that vandals had been responsible for the damage to the pool, not his business partner, and that a criminal investigation had been launched.

Plain clothed Federal Officers were sent to patrol the pool, with multiple videos appearing online of people being detained for merely touching the water, despite clearly not posing any threat.

One was a 67 year old former Olympian named David Hearn, arrested in his cycle gear because he was seen touching a piece of debris that had floated to the surface.

The US Attorney for Washington DC is a lady named Jeanie Pirro, a former Fox News TV Host chosen by Trump specifically due to her unwavering and vocal loyalty to him. Trump picked her so he would have complete control of the Washington DC Justice Department office. The office that would be the most likely to be investigating him, and the office that could be used to investigate his political enemies.

On 2 July, Pirro’s office charged Hearn with felony destruction of property. The offence carried a maximum possible sentence of ten years in prison. Pirro publicly claimed that Hearn had “forcefully and violently” pulled up the liner and that prosecutors possessed “tremendous evidence.” This was, of course, all performative, a desperate attempt to validate Trump's baseless claims.

Faced with no reasonable prospect of prosecution, this week, Pirro’s office finally submitted a 20-page motion to the court asking a Federal judge to drop the charges, while officially conceding that the damage to the pool was entirely due to the flawed installation by Trump's hand picked "contractors".

In response to these charges being dropped, Trump lashed out at Pirro on social media, declaring “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro." While he did concede that there “may have been some contractor difficulty”, he still doubled down on his claim that “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”

This, once again brings us to a similar question that we must confront over Trump's persistent election denialism. Is he malevolent or genuinly delusional? Which is more terrifying for a US President to be?

If Trump is fully aware that Hearn was not responsible for any act of vandalism, and he merely presented as a convenient scape goat to distract from his own impropriety, then it should disturb every American that Trump was, and likely remains, prepared to see an innocent man imprisoned so as to conceal his own misconduct.

If this is what he was prepared to do to avoid scrutiny over a dodgy paint job, what would he do to anyone who poses a genuine threat to his political power? What would he do to conceal his own criminality?

Alternatively, if Trump genuinely believes in his own reality, despite what those in his own administration are telling him, regardless of what the evidence shows, and in defiance of all rational logic... then the US President is clearly mad, and no one in the White House is capable of remedying his insanity.

Jeanine Pirro was prepared to promote Trump's 2020 election fraud lie, yet even she was unable to bend sufficiently for Trump's vindictive demands for indictments or delusions of victim hood. Just like former Attorney-General Pam Bondi, she will likely now pay a price for her disobedience.

We can only imagine how many of Trump's illegal, improper, or immoral orders are being carried out with far less resistance.

The acting Attorney-General, Todd Blanche, a man who is also Trump's personal lawyer, was formally nominated to be the substantive Attorney-General after appeasing the President's demands to indict former FBI Chief James Comey. He is due to be confirmed by the Senate on 4 August... I'm incredibly concerned for how the Justice Department will be weaponised even further if this nomination is confirmed.

What do you do with a problem like Malcolm?

Carrick Ryan — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 11:28:09 GMT

Malcolm Roberts is the Australian manifestation of the same schism currently confronting the MAGA movement.

While a large part of the supporting base moving towards right wing populism are genuinely reasonable people disillusioned by the political establishment, or merely supportive of its immigration policies, there is also a significant cohort that are adherents of intolerably bizarre conspiracy theories, alternative realities, and objectively insane political objectives.

While it's difficult to identify how large this cohort is, they are almost certainly the movement's most motivated supporters. In the post covid online world, it's increasingly obvious that they are, at the very least, electorally consequential; especially in the USA where motivating voters to turn up is half the battle.

The MAGA movement has survived this uneasy partnership, through Qanon, January 6th, and Epstein File cover ups, because Donald Trump has sustained his improbable unconditional devotion from all within his church. He has been a glue that has, up until recently, united his disciples behind a common messiah.

It is clear that even within the USA, that glue is beginning to lose its grip, with several previously high profile MAGA faithful denouncing Trump for his inability to appease both the fringes and those closer to the mainstream.

Pauline Hanson has emulated many elements of Trumpism; performative hostility towards the media while representing herself as the persecuted outsider. But she is no Trump. Her name holds far more stigma with none of the implausible invincibility.

While she is undoubtedly admired by many in Australia, even her most fervent supporters wouldn't claim "charisma" among her top attributes. She has all of Trump's academic frailties, but without his carefully cultivated business brand that has sold the myth of success to the American people for 40 years.

The future viability of One Nation may be heavily determined by two crucial questions; will the newly won over "centre right" supporters accept these embarrassing outsiders in their ranks?

And if not, will Hanson abandon the outcasts, sovereign citizens, and conspiracists that kept her party alive in the pursuit of the political centre?

With mandatory voting, it's often the least politically engaged that decide elections in Australia. For Hanson, this can be a strength, as populist policies find the best resonance when given less thought. But equally, men like Malcolm might provide sufficient headlines to make the One Nation brand unsellable to the moderate voters they need for genuine electoral success.

The apologist's paradox.

Carrick Ryan — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:37:04 GMT

One of the more curious aspects of how the Chinese Communist Party is perceived outside of China is that, all else being equal, this regime would be admired by the far right and abhorred by the far left. Yet, the opposite positions are reflexively entrenched as a result of our domestic dogmatic culture wars.

China no longer pretends to be a communist utopia. Its workers are amongst the most exploited on earth while boasting the second-largest concentration of billionaires in the world. It's GINI coefficient, which measures economic inequality, is higher than South Korea, Japan, Australia, and all of Europe.

It is a police state with an extensive surveillance network that prioritises national security and law and order above civil liberties, while executing more prisoners than any nation on earth.

It is socially conservative, there is no same sex marriage, nor any legal protection from discrimination, and homosexuality was only removed from the official government list of mental illnesses in 2001.

It promotes "traditional" gender roles for women, there are no women in the 24 member Politburo that rule the country, only 13 serve in the 203 member Central Committe, and only 3 of China's 31 Provincial Governers are women.

It has one of the world's most restrictive immigration systems. Patriotism is taught in schools and mandated throughout movies, TV, and even music. There is no version of history taught in school in which the crimes of China's government or military are exposed.

In fact the CCP's new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress should be celebrated by the "monoculture" proponents by the way it mandates a shared Chinese national identity and seeks to erase minority customs and tradition... though it is worth adding that the 55 ethnic minorities of China aren't immigrants... they were colonised... and there is no talk of decolonisation in Beijing, only promises to reclaim lost imperial colonies through a revived era of military expansion.

In many ways, the CCP regime is the exact brand of nationalist authoritarianism that those on the far fight want to emulate. But with ideological battle lines drawn up decades ago, we are left with the irrational state of affairs where progressives routinely defend a fascist dictatorship purely because conservatives hate them.

Who do we want to be?

Carrick Ryan — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:12:46 GMT

The recent geopolitical divorce between the USA and Europe has spawned a new genre of online discourse through which the virtues and failures of each society are discussed with new found competitiveness.

Much of it is rather meaningless, especially when forced to compare the infrastructure of medieval cities against urban sprawl established in the era of the automobile. History alone reduces the utility of many comparisons, with the decimation of the Second World War and the consequences of imposed communism inescapably lingering within the scope of a human lifetime.

But there is some genuine value in assessing certain key metrics across the two continents, as they do provide insights into the long-term implications of the nuances within economic systems.

This should be done not to denigrate one society, but to educate ourselves on the human outcomes of policy, regulations, and corporate culture. What can we, as Australians, learn from these two competing experiments?

Crucially, both sides of the Atlantic have, historically, valued the sanctity of democracy, and while this shared inclination can be fairly called into question under the Trump era, it is too soon to assess the long-term impacts of his reign.

Instead, the variable that is worth scrutinising is the dichotomy of the structural economic policies pursued; liberal market economy vs social market economy. Neither is absolute, nor consistently applied throughout their various political units, but the pattern is consistent enough to be measurable.

Speaking in broad generalities, the United States has long embraced relatively lower taxes, lighter regulation in many sectors, and a relatively small welfare state.

Much of Western Europe, meanwhile, adopted social democracy, combining capitalist markets with higher taxes, stronger labour protections, more generous public services, and broader social safety nets.

Interestingly, the ideological commitment to their paths emerged from the need to confront the same threat; communism. In the post-war era, with Europe in ruins and an expanding Soviet Empire funding socialist movements across the West, two different responses were adopted.

The US government reproached all elements of marxism with an almost dogmatic zeal, and any attempts of major expansions of public ownership, organised labour, or universal welfare (including healthcare) were politically untenable if they were too easily associated with the godless scourge of Marxism.

European governments, in the post-war era, were substantially weaker than their American counterparts, with many nations effectively rebuilding their political systems from scratch and with their economic infrastructure in ruins.

Within this context, providing full employment, public housing, universal healthcare, pensions and stronger workers’ rights, were pursued under the premise that people who felt secure and included were less likely to vote communist or embrace revolution.

It would be remiss not to point out that these policies were implemented while US dollars rebuilt most of Europe under the Marshall Plan, and the capacity to fund a welfare state is made infinitely more feasible when your borders are defended by US soliders on your soil.

Analysing the nuances of policies and models would be worthy of a dissertation, as would any good faith assessment of the outcomes, but they are worth our attention.

The USA's GDP per capita, even when adjusted for purchasing power parity, is still between 25% and 40% higher than most of Europe; but a person's quality of life is not best measured by how much they produce.

Europeans live longer, have universal healthcare, better workers protections, and enjoy significantly more legally protected leisure time. But as their populations decline, the sustainability of these systems are facing serious existential questions.

The USA has a substantially higher average wealth than most of Europe, but a lower median wealth, highlighting an inequality that represents different things to different people. To some, the inequality is an inescapable consequence of allowing successful people to succeed. To others, it is a symptom of entrenched inequality of opportunity.

There are far greater minds than mine that can conduct these enquiries, and I do sincerely believe that there are virtues from both systems that should be recognised, and if appropriate, borrowed for our own use.

Neither system is perfect, and both are maligned and celebrated from within. But we would do well to look upon any data that reveals itself so as to answer a fundamental question that should underwrite our own domestic political discourse; what kind of society do we want to become? Which of these two civilisations offer lessons to emulate, and which offer warnings of what we must avoid?

The truth is behind the headlines.

Carrick Ryan — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:34:08 GMT

Some of One Nation Senator Malcolm Robert's more bizarre conspiracy beliefs are finally attracting attention from the electorate, but it's important to understand that he isn't an embarrassing by-product of this brand of populism, it is a central pillar of the movement.

Roberts has long spruked insane delusions about chem trails, 15 minute cities, and has praised Alex Jones as a "beacon of hope around the world". He has been muttering his proclamations for years but was far easier to ignore when his party was confined to the fringes of political afterthought and weren't being elevated to the mainstream by a billionaire who, herself, has leant into multiple Covid, Climate Change, and "Great Reset" conspiracy theories.

Hanson, meanwhile, has questioned whether the Port Arthur Massacre was a false flag attack, while openly celebrating a US President who continues to push demonstrable lies about election fraud.

Populism, by its nature, rests upon the notion that all of the complex problems that society is compelled to address actually have very simple solutions.

To hold this world view, it necessitates a deep mistrust of expertise, of institutions, and of science, and anyone else that dares explain why the "simple solution" has already been dismissed from calculations.

These are the natural adversaries of anyone intoxicated by overconfidence as a result of the Dunning Kruger Effect; a phenomenon by which those with the least amount of knowledge on a complex topic are so deficient in knowledge that they do not understand how much they don't know.

Within that context, the visible impatience from those who spent decades studying the minute nuances of a topic can be indiscernible from arrogance, or potentially even intentional obfuscation.

But there is also a key reason why these conspiracy theories are not immediately disqualifying for a lot of the party's core supporters.

Polling data has consistently shown that One Nation's support is strongest among people without a university degree, particularly when combined with older age and living in regional or rural Australia. These are, in many ways, those that have benefited the least from globalisation and those that suffered the most from growing economic inequality.

Conspiracy theories offer an explanation for their loss of status and wealth that appeals to our natural instinct to blame misfortune on the malicious acts of others. It is cathartic to attribute grievance to the immorality of a nefarious "elite" rather than our own failure to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

Indulging in alternate realities also allows adherents to make themselves experts of their own making without confronting the rather tedious obstacle of academic study. Malcolm Roberts believes himself to be aware of many things that "so-called-experts" aren't. By dismissing the established consensus as a lie, he has made himself the authority on the "truth".

This appeals viscerally to a demographic who have felt maligned, under valued, and belittled by a handful of self-righteous intellectuals that often become the most recognised voices of progressive ideology. A noisy minority, no matter their mandate, make for irresistible Sky News sound bites.

For many of these Australians, the indifference to norms, the impoliteness, and even impropriety, is part of the attraction. They believe they have found someone who is finally telling them that their mediocrity is the consequence of nebulous oppression that they are on the cusp of redressing. It's as though a paternal figure finally reassured them that it's not their fault.

That they seek salvation in a political machine funded and operated by a billionaire who has extracted more wealth from this country than anyone in history is... frustrating... but also testament to a sincere resentment within our community we should urgently seek to address.

A warning shot?

Carrick Ryan — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:02:15 GMT

Elbridge Colby, the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, just posted a thread on X which I think is incredibly revealing, and worth reading in full.

Colby is incredibly influential within the Trump administration, effectively the Pentagon’s chief strategist and principal adviser on defence and foreign policy. He is also the man in charge of reviewing AUKUS.

I’ll share his full post below and then add my thoughts. (DoW = Department of War, DIB = Defence Industrial Base)

...

“There is a great deal of hubbub about a collective “middle powers”strategy these days.

At DoW, we are not concerned that this is a serious possibility. Rather, we are more concerned that a few allies and partners will think it is and waste valuable time, money, and political capital on a distraction.

From our point of view, a collective middle powers strategy is based on a faulty understanding of international relations. We are flexible realists. So, we view the international scene through the prism of interest, geography, economics, military power, etc. “Middle powers” don’t have a coherent basis for alignment.

It also isn’t borne out by reality, in our experience. We see an upsurge in desire for engagement with the United States, not a reduction. Under President Trump’s leadership, countries not only see the value of American engagement, they can no longer take it for granted. We unquestionably see an incredibly strong and continuing demand signal for U.S. military presence and engagement around the world.

Take our defense industry and arms sales. There is a lot of commentary that, due to alleged frustrations with the United States, the American defense industrial base will lose out on the market for weaponry. But this is neither feasible nor accurate.

The simple fact of the matter is that no alternative country or countries can compete with the U.S. defense industrial base, either in quantity or quality. The United States, as the President says, makes the best equipment, and we make it at a scale that no plausible competitor can match. If anything, access to the American DIB is a privilege, not a right.

At the same time, American companies are at the forefront of advanced technology. There is no credible free world alternative to American tech and its implications for defense.

This is not to say allies and partners should give up spending more or investing in their own DIB. To the contrary. More spending will help us all, and especially our allies’ own security. And we welcome allies’ investment in their own DIBs, but in ways that are collaborative with America’s rather than trying in vain to replicate or supplant it.”

...

To start with, Colby is correct in recognising the superiority of the USA’s defence manufacturing capability. It has spent so much on its arms manufacturing over the past few decades that no other nation on earth has its capabilities or expertise.

Not withstanding the rapidly evolving nature of drone warfare, there are still many capabilities that the USA can produce that no other can.

However... this line really jumped out at me:

“ “Middle powers” don’t have a coherent basis for alignment.”

This is the fundamental aspect of our relationship with the USA that Colby and other “America First” foreign policy ideologues don’t grasp. The middle powers of the Western World didn’t align with the USA because of their military supremacy, but because of shared values.

As Carney intimated in his Davos speech, we have always known that the rules of the Rules Based Order were not applied equally to all, but there was, at least, a shared commitment to the rules. The USA under Trump has openly celebrated its indifference to the global order they helped establish, and rested the legitimacy of their actions upon the fact that no one could stop them.

This is where the distinction between fear and respect is an incredible important one to understand.

It will be a costly process to disentangle our military from the USA, but it is necessitated but a rapid collapse in trust. This is now an urgent matter of strategic autonomy.

For a nation like Australia, Colby articulates the delicate paradox confronting our government. To achieve security in a multi-polar world, Australia’s military must attain advanced technology with capabilities that exceed those within our region. The USA, through AUKUS, has provided us with that pathway.

Yet, politically and ideologically, our nations are drifting apart.

This feels like a shot across the bow from Colby to any Middle Power attempting to leave what feels like a toxic relationship, reminding us that we are not yet strong enough to defend ourselves alone, while warning us not to try and do it alone.

It demonstrates why the West must walk away from Washington without breaking eye contact... and without the emotional release of declaring our departure.

Peace could be catastrophic for Israel.

Carrick Ryan — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:44:28 GMT

Peace could be catastrophic for Israel.

Not because Israel wants war, but because peace on Trump's terms will almost certainly be a strategic calamity for Israel as a nation.

There are plenty of losers from Trump and Netanyahu's unilateral and ill-considered attempt at regime change; every one of the USA's allies are now strategically weaker thanks to a conflict they had no role in initiating. Their access to a crucial shipping lane from which many still depend for their economic survival, is now under the control of a hostile adversary, while a fundamentalist Islamic regime is now arguably more likely than ever to commit to a nuclear weapons program.

But for Netanyahu, this is irrefutably a trap of his own making. A consequence of hubris and mistaken belief in the omnipotence of his military. A crime for which his nation must now confront genuine existential peril.

While an actual ceasefire agreement feels difficult to envision right now, it's clear that any deal based upon the current power dynamics would, at the very least, result in Iran being unshackled by the sanctions that have crippled its economy for decades.

This will, undoubtedly, afford some minor relief to the Iranian people who have long been punished for the deeds of their own oppressors. But it also means that a fundamentalist regime openly committed to Israel's annihilation will have access to far greater resources than ever before, while simultaneously threatening a weapon upon the Strait of Hormuz that will caution anyone from restraining their ambitions.

As it stands, Iran is already a regional power, but it could emerge from this war as a regional hegemon.

The implications for Israel are not merely strategic, they are now fundamentally vulnerable. Syria and Iraq will both fall under significant Iranian influence, allowing Iran to rebuild its land bridge across the "Shia Crescent" to its proxies in Lebanon.

But perhaps most poignantly, Netanyahu has chosen a posture of such unapologetic hostility towards the West that he has cut his country off from the international support network that made it strong.

The moral duty many felt to protect this tiny nation was not owed to any historical, let alone religious, rights to the land. For most, it was their righteous claim to being an island of secular democracy amongst a sea of authoritarian tyrants and religious extremists. The fundamentalist ministers that keep Netanyahu in power have recklessly surrendered that distinction.

Trump's priority, and the priority of the Republicans that protect him, is ending this war as soon as possible, on terms that at least leave space for proclamations of victory, however hollow they may be. Within this context, the interests of Netanyahu, or even Israel more broadly, will be likely be a bargaining chip Trump will be happy to gamble with.

The uncomfortable reality for Israel is that even if Netanyahu was to vacate his position following elections later this year, the security nightmare he has created will still exist in the same form for whoever takes over.

They will, however, have the opportunity to reset their relationship with the international community, establish a meaningful pathway to rescue the Palestinian people from indefinite statelessness, and recognise the legitimacy of international law.

The alternative is a darker path defined by isolation, unwinnable wars, and institutionalised siege mentality... reliant on the capricious impulses of a rapidly declining President.

Few would doubt the capabilities of the Israeli state to wage war, but it must somehow build a future in an uncomfortable peace.

Stuck in the escalation trap

Carrick Ryan — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 22:31:25 GMT

Remember how mad MAGA was when Charlie Kirk was murdered? Remember how many conservative Americans were ready to fight a full blown civil war due to the actions of a single deranged gunman? Do you remember how volatile the country felt? How dangerously high emotions were during his funeral?

Yesterday, Iran buried Ayatollah ali khamenei. It has been estimated that as many as 15 million Iranians attended public mourning vigils this week. I don't think enough Americans fully appreciate what this feels like on the streets of Tehran.

I do not mourn for this man for a single moment, but millions do. While this regime is despised by most Iranians, it still has fanatical supporters who believe themselves to be fighting for the survival of their civilisation; an identity that is often indivisible from their dogmatic religious convictions. This group believe themselves to be the only true representation of their country, the defenders of morality from depravity, and the needed heavy hand to confront the enemy within...

...and if that sounds familiar, you're starting to understand why this is still so dangerous.

The Iranians that are now in power were raised within a totalitarian state which weaved within every aspect of life the notion of America as the Great Satan. Trump just spent the last three months leaning heavily into character... and now he expects the most radicalised regime supporters that remain in power to negotiate a deal with him? The man who murdered their revered spiritual leader midway through the last negotiations.

It's remarkable to acknowledge, but Trump seems to be genuinely scared the Iranians are going to kill him. In fairness, it might be the first time a US President has been vulnerable in years.

Think about it... if the Iranians actually did assassinate Trump, what is JD Vance going to do? It's not as though the USA can claim any kind of moral outrage for actions that reflect their own.

While millions of Iranians want peace, millions are filled with fury, rage, and religious conviction demanding retribution against a wounded "evil empire" that is now begging for a truce.

They want blood. They may just settle for one man's; perhaps even just his public humiliation. But this is not a group in an emotional state conducive to compromise.

This is why it still feels as though the next step is, unavoidably, escalation.

Everything has changed

Carrick Ryan — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:52:23 GMT

On 16 March 2022, less than a month after Putin ordered his tanks over the Ukrainian border, a defiant yet visibly exhausted Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a gathering of NATO leaders.

His speech spoke of the heroic resistance that had already shattered the predictions of military analysts around the world. But even then, many felt as though the Ukrainian President was on borrowed time.

Russian soldiers were already within Kyiv's outer suburbs; their eventual retreat revealing irrefutable evidence of civilian massacres that offer a haunting glimpse into what we cannot see within the large parts of the country that remain subjugated.

Within that context, Zelensky presented as a leader with admirable bravery, reiterating the same pleas for air defence capabilities that would echo throughout the war.

But perhaps most poignantly, the speech included what felt like a heart breaking concession:

“It is clear that Ukraine is not a member of Nato; we understand this. For years we heard about the apparently open door, but have already also heard that we will not enter there, and these are truths and must be acknowledged.”

Four years is a lifetime in war.

This week, Zelensky attended his fifth NATO summit. His optimism hasn't dimmed, but his posture is incomparable.

The Zelensky that stood before NATO in 2022 stood as the embodiment of resistance, resilience, and resolve. The Zelensky that stands before them today reveals conviction, confidence, and capability. He is no longer a man who believes Ukraine can survive, he is a man who believes Ukraine can win.

He is no longer the desperate foreigner banging at the castle walls begging for help, he now knows that the castle walls would crumble without him.

He held that tone when he asked of NATO leaders: “I have a question for you. Do you really believe it? Do you really believe it would be right to leave outside Nato, a country and a people with this level of defensive capability?”

“If we already have these capabilities, if Ukrainians already know how to fight like this, then it does make sense for these capabilities to become a part of the alliance’s collective defence that would make all of us stronger,”

"A strong Ukraine together with them in NATO, alongside other NATO countries, means security for everyone on the European continent."

His tone is justified.

Compelled by existential necessity, Ukraine has become one of the world's leading innovators in drone warfare and, increasingly, drone defence.
It is fighting the only sustained, large-scale drone campaign in history, forcing it to develop technologies and tactics that few other countries even know exist.

The USA has effectively acknowledged that it cannot defend energy infrastructure in the Gulf States from Iran's Shahed drones. It is estimated around 4,400 of them were fired during the 37 days of the war, with around 90% reportedly stopped from reaching their target by US made air defence systems.

In that same time period, Russia fired more than 10,000 towards Ukraine, a substantially larger territory to defend, and the Ukrainians are reporting the same success rate.

Yet while the USA is struggling to replenish its stock of Patriot Missile interceptors, with each shot costing more than $4 million, Ukraine is sustaining its defence for months now with domestically made interceptor drones that cost less than $5,000 each.

Drones have changed warfare forever, and only two nations on earth actually know how to fight a modern drone war; Ukraine and Russia. Right now, Ukraine, with a lot of help from European manufacturing, is winning that drone war.

Zelensky knows that NATO has no idea how to defend itself from Russia. Every experienced NATO soldier just became a rookie at a terrifying new form of war in which, according to Russian military bloggers, Russian solider have a life expectancy of 35 minutes when entering the vast drone kill zone.

For years Ukraine has pursued a security guarantee from NATO. Ukraine is now NATO's security guarantee. If Kyiv falls, the Baltics are next. Zelensky knows this... NATO needs to understand this.

If there is one thing western security analysts should acknowledge, including myself, it's that we have repeatedly under estimated Zelensky. But more than anything, we have under estimated the Ukrainian people.

We're going backwards

Carrick Ryan — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 07:01:20 GMT

This chart is hidden within the latest UBS Global Wealth Report and I think it's incredibly revealing.

It shows how both the average wealth and median wealth for multiple countries have faired against inflation over the past five years, and while there are countless variables in play, I believe this tells a story about asset wealth.

The majority of the world has seen demonstrable rises in average wealth, a figure that is far more easily distorted by an increase in wealth consolidated within an ultra-wealthy minority. This is because the wealthier someone is, the greater portion of their wealth that usually exists in properties or shares.

The median wealth, meanwhile, provides a more accurate representation of how the middle class is fairing, and the story is the same across the planet. Perhaps most prominently, that story tells us that most of those living across Australia, Europe, and the USA, are going backwards.

Japan is the outlier (as is the UAE and Cyprus, however, their significant foreign born population makes them less useful to study).

The obvious variable here is property prices. Following a huge property bubble in Japan, median house prices have effectively flat lined for the past 30 years, as did the stock market, with the Nikkei only surpassing its 1989 high in 2024.

This is unimaginable for most of the Western World, with property prices and stock markets both witnessing a close to 100% return over the past decade alone.

So what about China?

After their massive property bubble burst in 2021, house prices are still around 20% below their peak. This was a genuine economic calamity for millions of Chinese who had leveraged their entire savings on investment properties they were convinced would fund their retirement.

It is now estimated that China has over 80 million vacant homes, inducing a remarkable period of 0% inflation as a generation of Chinese nervously hold on to their savings rather than spend it. The result is a narrowing of the wealth gap, but with the CPI occasionally even dropping into the negative, it also demonstrates broad wealth stagnation.

A mature policy debate needs to look well beyond these headline figures before using them to advance the arguments we already believe in. We can see, factually, we are on the wrong path. We have a vanishing window to change course.

Immigration is absolutely a factor, with both Japan and China experiencing rapid population decline. But the immediate impact on home prices already seen in Australia as a result of small changes to asset tax discounts suggest that there are other levers to pull before we recklessly cut our economy off from the skilled workforce it needs to grow.

same,same, but...

Carrick Ryan — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:20:40 GMT

It's a story we might feel we recognise... angry crowds fill the streets demanding the expulsion of undocumented immigrants. The noise is intended to intimidate, and with multiple instances of horrific mob violence against foreigners being reported every week, the intimidation is effective enough to force many who had first arrived decades ago to "return" to a country they no longer see as home.

But this isn't Europe, the UK, the USA, or Australia... this is South Africa; and this anti-immigration movement is being led almost entirely by black Africans. The subject of their contempt... other black Africans.

The official estimates suggest there are around 3 million immigrants in South Africa, however, some suggest the real figure is more than twice that. Overwhelmingly, they have come from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Malawi.

By its most fundamental definitions, these populations are not different races. However, Africa has an extraordinary diversity of ethnicities, languages, and cultures, making it difficult to disentangle the roles of xenophobia, ethnic prejudice, economic competition and legitimate policy concerns in South Africa's immigration debate.

The grievances sound familiar. South Africa is the most unequal country on Earth by income inequality, more than 60% of those under 24 are unemployed, and approximately 58 South Africans are murdered every day. It's within this intolerable context that populist politicians have found fertile ground for discontent, with immigrant workers now blamed for crime and stealing local jobs.

But perhaps most unsettling is the manner in which the country's ruling political elite, who have overseen one of the most gratuitous examples of corrupt plunder and state capture over the past 30 years, has done little to stem the rising tension.

The ANC has held power since 1994, and the men who control Mandela's legacy have shamelessly enriched themselves as basic infrastructure begins to crumble. But public resentment at the declining living standards is growing, forcing the ANC to form a coalition to maintain a parliamentary majority for the first time.

Immigrants provide those in power with an irresistible beacon to deflect the resentment that should be theirs to absorb. They offer a simple solution to the intractable institutional problems their corruption and incompetence has caused.

This is where the common thread connects these movements across the continents of the world... the prejudices are real, but not the reason for the anger. The grievances are real, but are being exploited by those who have the greatest culpability for that grievance.

This is perhaps the cruellest irony of every single anti-immigration movement across the world. The problems aren't being imagined... the solutions are.

Absolute power, corrupts absolutely

Carrick Ryan — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 06:29:01 GMT

When we talk about the pernicious implications of authoritarian governments, our natural instinct is to think of the intimidation, harrassment, and persecution of critics, the deployment of state sanctioned violence upon their own people, and their corrosive impact on democratic institutions.

But when you listen to those that have endured through these far too common historical chapters, you'll often hear most about something far more suffocating than the political repression... the corruption.

Even the most ideological regimes on earth are unable to avoid this trap because any political system which establishes power without accountability will eventually see that power exploited, abused, and monetised.

It is not only tolerated by the leadership, but actively promoted, because it ensures the most powerful people in the country have a personal interest in maintaining the status quo. It's a way of forming trust in the knowledge of a shared fate if the man who controls everything loses that control.

It is the reason economic decline almost always follows in the shadows of democratic decline. International investors start to recognise the risks, the corporate establishment can pay to ensure their monopolies are preserved, the need for businesses to innovate, or improve efficiency, or care about their customers, become imperatives overcome through other means.

The illusion of democracy remains on paper, even North Korea has elections. But when a single political party becomes so powerful that it can change the rules to rig the system, the party takes over the state. Every appointment within government is determined by loyalty more than competency, complicity more than effectiveness, and obedience more than merit.

It is insidious, it is a cancer that mestacises through the bones of a country, weakening every limb, eating itself from the inside...

In most instances, the corruption becomes more powerful than any political or religious ideology that once validated the need for the consolidation of power. The state becomes defined by corruption, it becomes the point of the state.

Look at the fury of Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, even Iran. These were uprisings fuelled almost exclusively by public frustration over corruption. Those that live within state capture are often prepared to risk their lives in the pursuit of the reinstatement of the rule of law; this precious concept that we foolishly believe is the natural order of a state... but it is not.

The rule of law is an ideological conviction that must be subscribed to with absolutism. The rules need to apply to everyone in the same way, regardless of your political or financial power. The rules are either breakable or their not.

The only defence we have is broad bipartisan intolerance for it. The moment we ignore the impropriety of those we ideologically align with is the moment we accept it indefinitely.

$1,430,390,415...

That's how much Trump made last year, just from Crypto. No one really knows who paid him. No one really knows what they got in return. But we know that no one invests without expecting a return.

Of all the pejoratives that will come to define the MAGA movement, this will be the word that historians record most prominently: corrupt... staggeringly, shamelessly, and relentlessly corrupt.