Geopolitics
International affairs, defense, intelligence, and regional conflicts
#5556: Ranking the World's 5 Worst Bus Rides
Five real long-haul bus routes ranked by misery — breakdowns, borders, and no toilets — with extra weight for arriving somewhere ordinary.
#5552: Why Ireland and Israel Feel Poorer Than Their GDP Says
Ireland ranks 2nd in the world by GDP per capita. Israel's prices rank 5th highest. Neither number tells you how wealthy life actually feels.
#5550: Why People Move: Ideology vs. Economics
A listener's grandfather moved to Israel knowing it might cost him. What does migration research say about people who move for ideology, not opport...
#5549: When Pro-Israel Advocacy Alienates the Persuadable
A pro-Israel insider's critique: cherry-picked examples, refusing to concede any fault, and fighting fire with fire may be losing the people you mo...
#5548: Hasbara: Explanation or Policy Problem?
Israel's Foreign Minister says embassy moves matter as much as the battlefield. A listener in Jerusalem says the problem isn't PR — it's policy.
#5531: Crayon Lines and Custom Posts: How Border Precision Creates Absurdity
A wax pencil drawn across a 1948 map became Jerusalem's binding border. Ghajar's line is precise but unmarked. What makes a border real?
#5530: Jerusalem's Pencil Line: 1948–1967
Two commanders drew a ceasefire line in wax pencil in 1948. It became a city's border for nineteen years.
#5527: Seven Ways to Measure a Country's Isolation
Netanyahu's quick UN trip sparks a bigger question: how do you actually measure a country's isolation? We build seven heuristics.
#5515: Who Owns What in Intelligence?
Armies built spy agencies first — half a century before Mossad. How military and civilian intelligence divide the work, and who enforces the line.
#5511: Military Intelligence: The Spy Agency Nobody Can Name
Unit 8200 supplies ~90% of Israel's intelligence — so why is Mossad the household name? Inside the military-civilian spy divide.
#5510: Six Churches, One Roof, 270 Years of Deadlock
Six churches share Jerusalem's holiest sites — and none can move a chair without the other five agreeing. Here's how that happened.
#5509: The Long Tail of Spy Stations
How far does the CIA's station map actually reach? A 1961 memo to JFK and the agency's own map archive tell two very different stories.
#5500: Eight Consulates That Answer to No One
Eight countries keep consulates in Jerusalem that bypass their own Tel Aviv embassies. The reason goes back four centuries.
#5499: Jerusalem's Russian Compound: 17 Acres, Three Churches
A 68-dunam walled district in central Jerusalem has been a pilgrimage campus, a prison, and a city hall. Here's how it became Russian.
#5498: Who Was a Superpower Before America?
The word "superpower" was invented in 1944. So how do you build a list of them stretching back to Akkad?
#5497: Mandelbaum Gate: Inside Jerusalem's Divided Crossing
For 19 years, one narrow seam connected two hostile halves of Jerusalem. Here's how the Mandelbaum Gate actually worked.
#5495: Musrara: Growing Up on Jerusalem's Pencil-Drawn Border
How a border drawn with wax pencils in 1948 split Musrara's homes in two — and shaped the neighborhood that raised the Israeli Black Panthers.
#5484: When Governments Own the Pipes: Telecom's Open-Access Model
Could the state own all telecom infrastructure while private companies compete on top? New Zealand and Stockholm already tried it.
#5483: One Network: Israel's Deregulation and the Case for State-Fiber
Israel's reforms cut mobile prices 60–80%. Now: what if the state owned the physical network and every carrier rented it?
#5469: Open Source's New Map: India, Croatia, Ethiopia
One in three new GitHub developers now comes from a country outside 2020's top ten. What that shift means for open source.