Unapologetically authentic space for unapologetic reflections on Zimbabwean and Global politics, social justice, and the human condition: blending sharp critique with creative thought to challenge power and inspire change.
Zimbabwe is amending its constitution. Parliament has confirmed it and governing party ZANU-PF has the numbers to make it happen. The public hearings on this issue lasted less than a week across a country of 15 million people, which works out to roughly one hour of democracy per province if you are being generous with the arithmetic. We are doing this since the amendment is …
Zimbabwe has always had a gift for doing things no one thought to put in the rulebook. We invented the “constitutional coup” before anyone else thought the phrase made grammatical sense. In November 2017 the military rolled tanks to the national broadcaster, a general read a statement off a sheet of paper and, Robert Mugabe was gone by morning. Nobody called it what it was …
Why Did Trump Fire Pam Bondi And Throw Caroline Leavitt Under The Bus? There is a pattern in how Donald Trump manages people, and it has nothing to do with performance. It has everything to do with polls. On March 31, standing in the Oval Office, Trump complained to reporters that he was receiving “93% bad publicity.” Rather than consider that the publicity might reflect …
Issue #51: The Strait Is The Global Food Chain One-fifth of globally traded oil moved1 through the Strait of Hormuz every day. Twenty-two percent of global LNG. Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility which is the source of roughly 20 percent of global LNG exports was struck by Iranian drones and shut down production at the start of the 2026 Iran War. Marine insurance premiums are still …
Arms control doesn’t just mean treaties. It means inspections. Verification. Satellites watching missile silos. Inspectors counting warheads. Communication channels between adversaries so that a radar malfunction doesn’t get interpreted as an incoming strike. The 1983 Soviet satellite false alarm nearly ended the world. A Soviet officer named Stanislav Petrov chose not to report what his instruments showed as an incoming American first strike, and he …
In May 2025 — approx ten months ago — India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states, engaged in four days of open conflict involving cross-border drone and missile attacks. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists described it as “nuclear brinkmanship.” Two countries with a combined nuclear arsenal of roughly 300 warheads exchanged live fire for four days and the world did not end. The crisis de-escalated. …
NATO states have less than 5 percent of the air defence capabilities necessary to protect central and eastern Europe from large-scale attack. That figure comes from the Financial Times, sourced from European officials. Less than 5 percent. The alliance exists and their flags fly. The summits happen. The communiqués are issued. The spending pledges are made. And yet the actual physical infrastructure required to defend …
Russia tested the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile in October 2025. The missile is nicknamed “Flying Chernobyl” because it emits radioactive exhaust from its unshielded reactor. It can fly for 15 hours non-stop and cover 14,000 kilometres. Putin says its true range could be unlimited. A nuclear-powered missile with potentially unlimited range that leaves a trail of radioactive contamination wherever it flies. This is a real …
France’s President Macron announced France’s first warhead stockpile increase in over three decades. He also announced a new doctrine allowing French nuclear aircraft to deploy to eight European partner nations. This happened in direct response to what Macron described as US unreliability. Let that sequence sit: the US became unreliable enough as an ally that France, a country that hasn’t added nuclear warheads in thirty …
Germany has, on paper, an army of three divisions. In practice, according to a research fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, even with three months’ warning Germany would struggle to field beyond five battalions outside its own borders. Five battalions. Against an adversary that has been on a war footing for four years, that deploys 8,000 kamikaze drones per day in Ukraine, and that has …
In November 2025, the European Council on Foreign Relations surveyed Europeans about their view of the United States. Only 16 percent still considered the United States an ally. That’s down from 22 percent eight months earlier. Twenty percent now consider the United States a rival or adversary. In Germany, France, and Spain, that number approaches 30 percent. NATO was built on the premise that Europe …
Zealous Thierry 