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Spotlight on the Libyan conflict: explaining the unexplainable

After 13 years of fighting, the Western hemisphere’s longest-running active conflict remains its most bizarre standoff. And yet, almost everything makes perfect sense. French and American interests supported the rise of a former CIA-asset-turned-warlord, Khalifa Haftar, who battled on the Libyan streets alongside Wagner militias and Emirati Mirage jets against a UN-recognised government backed by […]

Spotlight: How ‘yellow rain’ misinformation blew back on us

In an exclusive interview recorded in 2021, Jim Coyne, a Vietnam veteran who later became a freelance journalist for Soldier of Fortune (SOF) magazine, explained how he had been duped into believing that the infamous “yellow rain” of the 1980s was a real biochemical weapon, but also how his experience may have been purposefully hijacked […]

Spotlight: What the great neo-medievalisation will look like

In the conduct of states, as in the conduct of individuals, appearances constantly shift while the fundamentals always remain unchanged. One of our recurring Blind Spot themes has been the neo-medievalisation of the world. Originally associated with Hedley Bull since the late 70s, the trend described the globalised world as analogous to high-medieval Europe. In […]

Spotlight on the pre-positioning revolution coming to finance

TLDR: Cbankers’ enthusiastic embrace of prepositioning points to growing acceptance of former BoE governor Lord Mervyn King’s ‘Pawnbroker For All Seasons” model. But some worry it might have grave consequences for free markets. There’s a quiet revolution happening at the heart of central banking, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. On the surface, the inconspicuous […]

Could Trump use forgotten Chinese debt to salvage the global economy?

As the United States confronts an impending government shutdown amid an unwelcome outbreak of bond vigilantism, an unexpected remedy to global financial implosion might just lie in a murky corner of long forgotten financial history. Dormant for decades, the Blind Spot understands the overlooked issue of defaulted Chinese imperial debt is quietly turning heads on […]

Europe’s wind sector is in a ‘severe crisis’ (POLITICO)

By Victor Jack, Abby Wallace · Aug 18, 2023 BRUSSELS — The U.K. and EU are likely to miss their 2030 wind energy installation targets as the sector runs into increasing difficulties, putting Europe’s green transition at risk. Surging inflation, supply chain bottlenecks, hold-ups in getting permits, problems with government-backed subsidy schemes and mounting competition […]

The biggest aerial safety blind spot facing our skies may be UAP

The Blind Spot’s Dario Garcia-Giner probes just how big a deal UAPs are for the safety of our skies and what authorities across the world are doing to track the phenomena. An exhaustive months-long investigation reveals the risk is on the way to being treated more seriously by civil and military aviation institutions — a robust about-turn after decades of pretending it didn’t exist.

European financiers fret over US debt ceiling “collateral damage” (POLITICO)

By Ben Munster · May 26, 2023 Panic in Europe? Over a U.S. debt default? Surely not … well, maybe. Just a little. OK, quite a lot, to judge by an awkward exchange at the International Capital Markets Association’s annual bash in Paris on Thursday. “My question,” AXA Investment Management fixed-income chief Hans Stoter told […]