Geopolitics and Security
International affairs, wars, militaries, intelligence, and diplomacy, including Israel's wars and external security.
#5295: North Korean Banquets: What's Actually Served
North Korea's state banquets are elaborate, plentiful — and often described as bland. What's really on the table?
#5294: Inside North Korea's Scripted Tourist State
Every smile is choreographed. What it's actually like inside North Korea's managed tour bubble — and why one mocking vlog closed the border.
#5293: Air Koryo and the ICAO Alignment Problem
What flying North Korea's flag carrier actually feels like — and why a cut-off state still shows up to ICAO meetings.
#5292: Ukraine's Cyber War: Hacking, Deception, and the IT Army
How Ukraine built a formidable cyber capability from almost nothing — and turned phone calls and phishing into artillery coordinates.
#5261: Chickasaw in Jerusalem: An Indigenous Reversal
A Chickasaw citizen came to Jerusalem expecting to confirm Israel as a colonial project. He left calling it the Indigenous success story.
#5257: Dremel 4300 vs Foredom: Which Engraver Lasts?
Daniel's Dremel Lite is dying. We compare the 4300, DeWalt, Bosch, and Foredom on power, durability, and repairability.
#5253: Zeroization: Wiping Keys, Not Data
Destroying a 256-bit key takes milliseconds. Overwriting a terabyte takes hours. That gap is the whole story.
#5249: What Makes a Network Truly Sovereign?
An HF antenna on a consulate roof raises a bigger question: what makes a network sovereign — and why is everyone from cloud vendors to AI data cent...
#5248: Why HF Radio Beats Fiber When Governments Pull the Plug
HF loss doesn't scale with distance — it scales with ionospheric hops. And that changes everything about embassy comms.
#5247: Why HF Radio Still Matters When Networks Fail
HF and shortwave are the same band — and it's the only comms path no host nation can switch off. Here's why it persists.
#5243: The Antenna on the Consulate Roof
When a host country cuts the water and the fiber, one thing still reaches London: the HF antenna bolted to the consulate roof.
#5242: Two Neighbors, Two Invasion Plans
Canada drew up a plan to invade the U.S. in 1921. The friendly-neighbor story is only 80 years old.
#5240: Guns That Never Entered the System
Israel's gun leakage runs through three channels the licensing debate never touches — and one of them can't be sealed, audited, or bombed away.
#5237: Drill Bits: Sharpen or Replace?
A dull bit needs 3-4x more force to cut — and it hardens the material it's failing to cut. Here's how to know when to sharpen and when to toss.
#5236: Who Gets to Hold the Gun? Three Models of State Force
Israel arms citizens for "distributed security," the U.S. treats guns as a right, Japan denies 90% of applicants. Three answers to one question.
#5229: How Spies Actually Learn Social Engineering
The CIA spent decades not teaching its core skill. Then a case officer wrote it down — and the tradecraft got a curriculum.
#5228: Why Israeli Road Signs Still Spell It "Tiqwa
Israel's Academy of the Hebrew Language is finally standardizing how place names get written in English — but the Q on the signs has survived every...
#5215: Sacrificial Coatings for Permanent Marking
Wax, silicone, spar varnish, or two-part epoxy? How to pick a protective topcoat that fails so your engraved mark doesn't.
#5213: Who Tracks the Ships? Inside Maritime Intelligence
AIS data, dark vessels, and the quiet organizations—UKMTO, IMB, Windward—that watch the world's shipping.
#5202: What Happens to Breached Data After the Breach
Once a dataset leaks, it never stops moving. A look at the bots, combolists, and USB drives that make breached data impossible to recall.